Melissa Lantsman
Thornhill, Ontario · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the secretary of state confirmed what many Canadians already feared. A foreign government is funding and directing attacks on synagogues, businesses and the U.S. Consulate, and now the murder of a Toronto police officer. This government has known for years; they did nothing.”
“Mr. Speaker, one thing is clear, which is that the families of those police officers deserve better answers than that. The Liberals are in government. They have been there for 11 years. They are not bystanders in any of this. They let terrorists flood our country. They built a catch-and-release bail system.”
“I think this bill deserves to be debated and the House should give it that. Instead, the Liberals have rammed it through with what is called the programming motion to sweep this away right before they take their summer break. Let us go back to the member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong .”
“That has never been done in this place except with Bill C-9 , the last bill the government passed through the House. My colleague mentioned that she had never seen that happen in her 15 years in this place, which is longer than I have been here.”
“In a previous life, she sat on this side of the House as the Conservative shadow minister for civil liberties. She participated in nearly every civil liberties debate in this chamber. Every single time, she told Canadians the truth, which was that the government could not be trusted with privacy.”
“Let me say this to anybody watching at home at this late hour: The Liberals' argument in this debate is completely disingenuous, and they know it. I appreciate the police chief of York Regional Police. We have an enormously good relationship, a great one. I have also met with the commissioner of the OPP and with the Toronto police chief.”
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“I hope that this legislation passes, that the Liberals take it seriously, that it is studied in committee and that the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman is successful in his pursuit of human rights, dignity and the rule of law, as he has always been in this place.”
“It would say, “Canada will not be neutral between those who are jailed and the jailer.” It would say something that matters deeply to Iranian Canadians who marched for Mahsa Amini and those who marched in the hundreds of thousands, even in the last week, against the genocidal mullahs; to the Ukrainian Canadians watching their homeland defend itself; to the Hong Kong democracy advocates; to the Tibetans; to the Uyghurs and to anyone who came here because Canada represented freedom: “We will not allow the dictators you escaped to intimidate you here in Canada.” That is something everyone here should agree on.”
“They run through the phone of a dissident who fled Tehran, through the inbox of a Hong Kong activist and through the heart of a Ukrainian family who believed that Canada meant safety and now wonder whether the regime they escaped followed them here. If we do not draw that line, we teach dictators that Canada could be a welcoming home. This legislation would draw that line clearly. It would say, “Canada will name, shame and sanction you, and will shut the door on your money and your friends.”
“I know this is not foundational to families, because money does not heal the unimaginable and permanent loss they experience, but it would serve a purpose and it would tell the world that we stand up for our people. Russian sovereign assets frozen in Canada should support Ukraine's fight for survival. When foreign governments intimidate people on Canadian soil, it is not only a violation of rights. It becomes a test of our own, of whether we still believe in moral consequences or have grown too distracted and too divided to draw that very important line. The Cold War had a clarity that many in our era have forgotten. It drew a line clearly between fear and freedom. Today, those lines are less visible, but they are just as real.”
“We would revoke broadcasting licences for state-controlled propaganda outlets run by regimes committing atrocities. A regime committing a genocide does not deserve a megaphone on Canadian airwaves. We should support the creation of an international anti-corruption court, because before tyrants become war criminals, they are corrupt officials. We know this through every point in history. They steal; then they repress, and then they wage war. If we confront corruption on the front end, we reduce the atrocities that often follow. I want to spend a few moments on why this matters and to whom it matters. The tragedy of flight PS752 still weighs heavily on many families in this country. They have waited years for justice and compensation. Frozen regime assets exist, and they should serve the victims, not sit idle.”
“This bill would ensure that when regimes engage in transnational repression on Canadian soil, there are swift, automatic consequences: We would freeze their assets, ban their travel, name them publicly and make it unmistakably clear that Canada will not be their hunting ground and that Canadians who ran away from them will not be hunted. We would also close the loophole that allows intimidated family members of sanctioned officials to live in luxury while their relatives jail protesters and siphon money from abroad. There would be no more parking illicit assets here while citizens back home suffer, or regime activists working out in the local fitness club or eating steaks at Toronto's fanciest restaurant, which we have also seen.”
“(1835) As an MP, and I am not the only one in the House, I have often taken a call from someone in a car, far away from their house, with a blurred-out background, whispering because they are terrified that the regime they ran away from is following them right here in Canada. If authoritarian states can reach into our cities and hunt their critics, we no longer have full control over the spaces that we claim are our own. Canada should be a sanctuary for freedom, not a playground for these foreign tyrants, but that is exactly what is happening here.”
“This bill would also formally define and sanction transnational repression, because what once required secret police crossing borders now requires only a phone, a consulate and a proxy organization operating quietly in our communities. We know it is happening. Let us be honest about what that means. Authoritarian regimes in Beijing, Tehran, Moscow and beyond are intimidating, surveilling, harassing and threatening people right here in Canada. Dissidents receive midnight calls. Activists are told that their families back home will suffer. Students are followed. Journalists are pressured. This is not an abstract theory. It is happening in Toronto, in Vancouver, in Calgary, in Montreal and right across the country.”
“It does this because silence protects dictators, while scrutiny, the very thing we are responsible for here, protects those who are oppressed. Here is a short breakdown for everybody who is interested as to how this modernization would look. This would require an annual public report on Canada's human rights sanctions and on prisoners of conscience worldwide, including Canadians unjustly detained abroad. There is far more that could be done on that front, but this is a start. In fact, there have been a number of pieces of legislation introduced to the House to look at that issue specifically that have been rejected wholeheartedly by the government. We have to say this out loud: Sunlight does save lives. It saved the life of Vladimir Kara-Murza. It did for the two Michaels, and it can do that again.”
“Canada acted with moral clarity, but today's threats have evolved and so too must the country's response. Long before I got elected to the House, I had the privilege of working alongside colleagues who understood this deeply, including the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman , who has spent more than a decade pushing Canada to take corruption, human rights and foreign intimidation seriously. When he is in the room, I know I am in the right room, and his commitment extends well beyond the House and his time here in it. This legislation builds on that foundation. It strengthens, modernizes and sharpens our sanctions regime so it is not symbolic, it is not slow and it is not selective. In other words, it makes it clear, predictable and enforceable.”
“It is the pattern this legislation is designed to confront. Nearly a decade ago, Canada made a decision that defined who we are. My colleague in this place from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman , alongside Senator Andreychuk and many other principled advocates close to this place, brought Canada's Sergei Magnitsky Law into force. It was named after a man who exposed corruption and paid for it with his life. Sergei Magnitsky was tortured to death for telling the truth. His murder was meant to silence others, and instead it gave democracy their most powerful non-military weapon against modern authoritarians: targeted sanctions that strike kleptocrats, despots and dictators where it hurts more, which is their money and, most importantly, their mobility.”
“Mr. Speaker, on the anniversary of Russia's brutal invasion in Ukraine, we are reminded of something that should never be controversial in the House: Unchecked tyranny anywhere threatens freedom everywhere. We have seen it in Kyiv. We have seen it in Tehran, and increasingly, we see it reaching into our own communities here at home. Tyranny does not start with tanks. It starts with corruption, with kleptocrats stealing from their own people and with judges who do not serve justice but instead serve the dictators who put them there. It starts with silencing women and girls, jailing dissidents and crushing journalists. Then, when no one stops it, it metastasizes. It becomes the brutality of war. This is the pattern we saw in Moscow, and that is the pattern we are seeing in Tehran and we have seen in Tehran over the last 47 years.”
“Mr. Speaker, here they go again, calling anybody who questions anything about them names. In just 10 years, the cost of health care for asylum seekers has skyrocketed from $60 million to over $1 billion. That is a 1,500% increase. They cannot run away from that. Legitimate refugees deserve protection. That is not the issue here. Failed asylum claimants should not be receiving premium coverage while six million Canadians cannot find a family doctor and are waiting 12 hours in an emergency room. I will ask again, will the Liberals restore order and fairness to the system?”
“Mr. Speaker, we need to restore order and fairness in Canada's immigration system. Conservatives have a clear proposal to end the two-tiered health care system, where failed asylum claimants get access to premium health care while Canadians who have paid into the system wait in overcrowded emergency rooms. There is no reasonable justification to oppose fairness for Canadian taxpayers. Why are the Liberals voting to protect a system that puts failed claimants ahead of Canadians?”
“Mr. Speaker, I will make it very simple for everybody watching at home. It was 19 times that the committee asked for the piece of legislation to be studied. I want to make one thing clear on what Conservatives are doing in this place. We are going to work with the government to bring forward the very pieces of legislation that we have been advocating for, for almost 10 years, in the House. We are not going to stand in the way of that, but we are the official opposition, and we are going to oppose the very dangerous laws that Liberals put forward in the House. Most of all we are going to expose what the government is not telling people, and that it is, frankly, standing on its high horse and exaggerating 10 years of a crisis that it has created. It is now trying to come in with a cape and solve it.”
“Mr. Speaker, Bill C-14 is going through committee. In fact, it was 19 times that the committee asked for Bill C-14 to be studied. It has been clear in terms of what we have brought forward to the House. While Bill C-14, I think, is a step in the right direction for the victims of crime, and for the criminals who should be in jail, it certainly does not go far enough. We are not going to stand in the way of the bill, but we are going to make sure Canadians know there is one party fighting for criminal justice reform, and one government continuously obstructing it.”
“Mr. Speaker, the definition of hypocrisy and shame is standing up in this place after 10 years of passing soft-on-crime legislation, creating the crime crisis that we have in Canada, the crime crisis that puts victims at the centre of it. That is the definition of shame and hypocrisy, along with the Liberals' standing in the way every single time we have brought forward legislation or a solution in the House, contorting themselves into a pretzel, thinking they are going to be the ones who solve the very problems they spent 10 years in the chamber adding to.”
“There would be no refugee status, no extension and no special treatment; this motion would end deliberate leniency. At its core, this debate is about fairness for law-abiding Canadians, who deserve to feel safe; fairness for real refugees, who follow the rules; fairness for immigrants, who work hard and respect the law; and most of all, fairness, for once, for the victims of these crimes. Nobody ever talks about that in this place. It is time to end the extortion crisis. It is time to end this mess that the government has created. We have had the same ministers in the same chairs voting for the same policies over the last 10 years, and the end starts right here, right now, by supporting this motion.”
“He received no jail time and no permanent criminal record, because the real sentence might interfere with his path to citizenship. In another case, a man on a visitor's permit sexually assaulted an 18-year-old in Calgary. He received a discharge because the conviction would have “devastating immigration consequences”. Let us be clear that one does not earn the right to be in Canada by breaking the law. Being here as a visitor, as a permanent resident or as a citizen is a privilege, and everybody in this place knows that. If someone commits a serious crime, they forfeit that privilege, period. There is nobody out there who is going to contend with that, and we are not going to take lessons from the Liberals on fearmongering on immigration, when it is about criminals committing crimes in this country they are visiting.”
“Second, the motion would end the abuse of the refugee and immigration systems, whereby criminal gangs file for bogus refugee claims to stay in Canada longer and keep committing crimes. A veteran frontline police officer put it very plainly, saying that criminals know that they can come to Canada, commit crimes, get bail and claim refugee status. It is not even up for contention, he says. Conservatives believe that the refugee system should protect people fleeing violence, but it should not import it. Finally, the motion would confront one of the most corrosive failures of all: a two-tier justice system. Today, two people can commit the same crime and receive different sentences, simply because one is a citizen and one is not. In one real case, a 30-year-old groomed a 15-year-old online and intended to sexually exploit her.”
“We have been sounding those alarm bells for years in the House, on doorsteps and in packed rooms at stop-the-crime town halls that have been happening right across the country. Ordinary Canadians come to those crime town halls demanding change that they just have not gotten from the Liberals. What has been missing is action, and while the Liberals delay and deflect, Conservatives are not going to do that. That is why we are going to use our opposition day motion to raise the alarm bells and to finally put forward reforms that need to be placed on the floor of the House of Commons in this motion and in the lives of everyday Canadians. This motion today would first repeal the catch-and-release laws, Bill C-5 and Bill C-75 , so repeat offenders would stay in jail and transnational gangs would stop before they even get started here.”
“If anybody were to look back on it, they would know that the reason we have had a rise in crime in this country is the Liberals' weak-on-justice crime policy. (1640) All of that comes after years of pleas from victims, from grieving families, from frontline police officers and from Canadians begging for real criminal justice reform. The question is unavoidable: Is this government on the side of law-abiding Canadians, or is it on the side of extortionists? I ask because nobody can explain why the Liberals keep defending a system that protects criminals and continually fails the public. In a crisis like this, there are two responsibilities, and the government knows this well. One is to sound the alarm bells, and the second is to act decisively.”
“They have also broken an immigration system that used to be the very envy of the world with weak screening on the way in and no accountability once the system is abused. What is worse, they have actively blocked reforms that Canadians are demanding. We brought forward motions for catch-and-release on Liberal bail, and the Liberals voted them down. My colleague from Edmonton Gateway , the co-deputy leader of this party, introduced legislation that would introduce mandatory sentences for extortion, and the Liberals killed it. My colleague from Calgary Nose Hill proposed amendments to Bill C-12 to close extortion loopholes, and they rejected that too. No matter how many times the Liberals stand up in the House and say that those things are not true, the record is clear: They are true.”
“However, from the other side of the aisle, all we hear is laughing, flailing arms and trying to defend what is indefensible. They know that when they go back to the communities, they hear about this first-hand. In fact, it is the reason so many of their colleagues from the York region did not return to the House. At almost every door one goes to there, as they can ask their former colleagues, crime is brought up as the number one issue, and it is not just extortion. It is violent home invasion and gun crime in suburbs where gun crime did not exist before. Still, from the other side, all day long we have heard mistruths, misinformation, flailing arms and claims of obstruction when they are in the way of their own legislation.”
“It is hard to disagree, because our laws no longer protect the people they are supposed to protect. Where is the federal government? The answer is nowhere. The Liberals have watched this unfold and pretended the crisis did not exist until they blamed everyone else for the chaos that they themselves created. They oversaw the chaos, responded with slow, cosmetic half measures, and in their own words, obstructed their own legislation in this place, not just in this session of Parliament but for the 10 years leading up to it. For nearly 10 years, the Liberals have weakened our justice system with bills such as Bill C-5 and Bill C-75 . I just heard my hon. colleague before this mislead the House on what is in Bill C-5. In it are laws that let repeat violent offenders walk free on bail and terrorize communities.”
“Let us be clear about what extortion looks like. It is bullets through windows of small businesses, gunfire outside family homes in the middle of the night, bystanders caught in the crosshairs and families living in fear, wondering if they are next. In Brampton, gunshots were fired outside a family's home while they slept. A video was sent to them along with the act, demanding $500,000. This is not petty crime, and it is not first-time offenders; it is organized crime, transnational gangs and hardened repeat violent offenders turning quiet neighbourhoods, cul-de-sacs and suburbs into what feels like a war zone for the families that live there. The Mayor of Surrey has called it a national emergency. The Premier of British Columbia, who I will remind members is not a Conservative, has called it ludicrous.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on a motion addressing an issue that is deeply affecting communities across the country, which is extortion. We are debating extortion today in the House for one simple reason: It is a crisis. In just a decade, extortion has increased by 330% nationwide, and in British Columbia alone, it is up more than 500%. These are not abstract statistics; they represent families, small businesses and entire communities living under the threat of a system that has failed to protect them. Let me set the scene for one second. Surrey, B.C., is the eleventh-largest city in Canada. Let us call it a mid-sized city. In January alone, 31 days, there were 36 reported cases of extortion. That is more than one act of criminal extortion every single day in a mid-sized Canadian city. This is why it is a crisis.”
“Mr. Speaker, the minister can pretend everything is fine, but she is clearly not listening to anything anybody says in the House. Maybe she will listen to Miriam from Toronto, who is 26 years old. She works 12-hour shifts as a nurse. She told CTV News, “Saving for a home [is] completely out of reach right now.” She said that she is barely making ends meet, even after going to school, getting a good-paying job and doing everything she was told to do. Is the minister really saying to young people who have done everything right that they should just lower their standards and accept a future of just getting by?”
“Mr. Speaker, everywhere we look, life is getting harder for young people after a decade of the government. Finding a place to live is harder because home prices, rents and mortgages have doubled. Getting a job is harder because youth unemployment is still double the national average. Even buying groceries is harder, because food inflation is up 100% under the Prime Minister 's watch. After paying for the basics, there is barely anything left, and often nothing at all. How can anybody on the other side of the House stand behind a record that has completely failed an entire generation of Canadians?”
“Madam Speaker, I would like to just put on the record that the government has been anything but clear regarding its plans on building a pipeline in this country or on getting a pipeline to tidewater. In fact, it is the House who has given the—”
“Madam Speaker, I appreciate that the member might not realize that we are speaking to Bill C-10 , but I will never apologize for demanding accountability from the government, from the House, from the officers of Parliament and from the bureaucracy, which have promised things in this country and have failed to deliver on outcomes. That is not something that Conservatives will ever apologize for.”
“Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. colleague for all the work he has done on this file and so many others. I have to agree with him. Reconciliation in this country cannot be achieved by expanding Ottawa's footprint and Ottawa's bureaucracy. That is an important point that resonates right across the country because the government has failed so miserably. Reconciliation is achieved when commitments are honoured and outcomes are delivered. In order for those outcomes to be delivered, there has to be some accountability when they are not delivered. Somebody's head needs to roll, and I say that as politely as possible, but there have to be consequences for when things are not honoured and people do not do their jobs.”
“Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my remarks, it was eight years ago that many of the nations asked that this be housed under the Auditor General. The reason for that is that the Auditor General has the capacity within the office to make recommendations, to find where departments have been coming up short and to provide an avenue to fix that. Just because it has not been done, it does not mean that we should give the job to another officer of Parliament, which would be created here in order to not do that job.”
“Departments that fail to act repeatedly should face consequences from the House. That is what accountability looks like. That is what we want to see. Conservatives believe in a strong, durable, honourable relationship with indigenous nations, and we believe that modern treaties must be more than signed documents. Here is where we differ and here is what we want, and I will just list them quickly. We want to require departments to act on Auditor General recommendations. We want to mandate public, measurable implementation plans for each treaty. We want to empower indigenous governments as equal partners and not as observers of Ottawa's bureaucracy, and we want to ensure that ministers face consequences. That is the only real way to solve this.”
“Instead, the Liberals chose the most expensive option, a separate agent of Parliament with its own bureaucracy and its own budget. The real test now is not how many offices exist in Ottawa, but whether the federal government keeps its promises at all. A commissioner cannot build housing, negotiate a treaty or force a department to meet deadlines it has already blown. Only ministerial responsibility can do that. We have said this time and time again, but only clear performance measures co-developed by treaty partners can do that. It is a real consequence and a failure to suggest that anything else would work. If a treaty obligation is missed, the responsible minister should stand in this chamber and answer for it. We have not seen that. Senior officials who ignore commitments should not be promoted.”
“Meanwhile, the government has built an entire ecosystem of internal bodies: the modern treaty implementation office, the deputy ministers' oversight committee, the modern treaty management environment and so on. Despite all of these federal initiatives, treaty partners still spend their time chasing the most basic compliance from Ottawa. If those structures have not fixed the problem, why should anybody in this place believe that a brand new structure, a brand new office, a brand new title or a brand new bureaucracy would suddenly succeed? Many indigenous partners originally asked that a treaty commissioner be housed under the Auditor General, an institution that is already built for this kind of work, has already opined on this kind of work and has already given recommendations on the shortcomings of this work.”
“This is the backdrop for Bill C-10 , the piece of legislation we are discussing today. We are being told that the solution to Canada's poor implementation record is a new commissioner's office, but the oversight mechanisms already exist. The Auditor General has repeatedly examined treaty implementation. Those reports identified concrete failures, named specific departments and recommended very clear actions going forward, yet many of the same issues remain today. People watching this would ask why that is. It is because nothing happens when a department fails to implement a treaty obligation. No one is held accountable. No one loses their job. No one stands in the House to explain why the commitment was ignored.”
“Between 2006 and 2015, five modern treaties of self-government agreements were concluded that advanced real economic and governance authority for indigenous communities. (1205) Since then, under the Liberal government, the landscape looks very different. There have been countless new offices, frameworks, strategies and action plans, yet not one modern treaty has been finalized, which brings us to this conversation and why we are having it. The paper has piled very high in Ottawa and places close to Ottawa, while progress on the ground has stalled. If members have heard any of my colleagues speak about this, both in this debate and to wider issues generally, they would have heard that there is a whole bunch of rhetoric, but there are not many outcomes to match the words spoken. I ask why this matters.”
“For years, there has been one message from indigenous governments, and it has been a consistent message, that Canada signs agreements but too often fails to implement them, which is, frankly, not a surprise to anyone who has been around for any of these conversations here in the House or over the last number of decades in this country. The Senate recommended, in 2008, that Ottawa create an oversight body to ensure that treaties are actually carried out. Treaty partners have repeated that call many, many times since. If we rewind to the years when Conservatives were in government, we proved that modern treaties could be signed and implemented when Ottawa stayed focused on outcomes, not simply on bureaucracy and paperwork.”
“They emerged because historic treaties, however imperfectly honoured, did not resolve the indigenous title in large parts of this country. That legal gap remained until the Supreme Court's landmark 1973 decision that forced Ottawa to abandon denial and engage in nation-to-nation negotiation. From that decision came the first modern treaty, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement in 1975, and 26 similar agreements since. These treaties define land ownership, resource rights, compensation and self-government. They are continually protected and legally binding.”
“That is very clear from all of the advocacy that we have heard and the strength of the advocacy from those nations. What Bill C-10 would do, as it is drafted, would be to replace responsibility with what I think is more paperwork, which would not do what the bill says it is supposed to do. It tries to solve a performance problem by expanding bureaucracy that has already failed. Its latest iteration is a knee-jerk instinct measure, and it would measure its success by the number of reports published, instead of what I think is lacking in this place so often, which is the quality of the results delivered. Let us go back for a moment to explain where modern treaties came from and what they were meant to fix.”
“Because modern treaties govern things such as land ownership, natural resources, financial compensation and more, these are things that we are now talking about more than ever as we see whether the Liberal government is truly going to approve the building of a pipeline to the Pacific, open new mines, get LNG resources to international markets and build the Canada strong that we have heard so much about. I want to be absolutely clear from the outset that Conservatives recognize the real and long-standing frustration amongst indigenous treaty partners. We support those treaty rights, reconciliation, self-government and, of course, self-determination. We understand why many indigenous governments want stronger mechanisms to hold Ottawa to its word.”
“Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in consideration of Bill C-10 , legislation that would create a new officer of Parliament to oversee how the federal government implements modern treaties. At its core, I think it is important to note that this bill proposes yet another office and another bureaucracy to monitor the very departments that already struggle to live up to the agreements Canada has signed with indigenous nations. While the intention, I think, is to strengthen accountability, the question before us is whether Bill C-10 would actually deliver on that accountability, or if it would simply create the appearance of doing so.”
“Mr. Speaker, my colleague knows that I am talking about a grocery plan, but it does not actually lower the price of groceries. It is a $10 coupon on a $300 grocery bill, and that is insulting. The rebate will not lower a single price. Of course, this comes after the Liberals put forward a budget, which this plan was not even in. Meanwhile, they keep hiking the fuel taxes and the packaging taxes, driving food costs higher, and blaming everyone else for their decade of failure. Why will the Liberals not lower prices? If they will not do that, why will they not take the taxes off of food?”
“Mr. Speaker, three years ago, the finance minister promised to stabilize food prices, and he did so, but at record highs. Canada now has the worst food inflation in the G7. It is twice as high as when the Prime Minister took office and twice as high as that of the U.S. Now the minister is offering another temporary rebate that will not lower the price of a single item, while admitting that his so-called historic summit, when he got CEOs to come to Ottawa, was a failure. The Liberals voted against our common-sense motion yesterday to lower food costs. Why will the Liberals not just take the taxes off of food?”
“Until then, we will not be silent, we will not look away and we will never stop fighting for a free Iran and for a strong Canada, free of the IRGC agents that they let into our communities.”
“Mr. Speaker, the voice of freedom is rising as the brave warriors roar like lions and shine like the sun, determined to reclaim their country and topple the murderous regime in Iran. Sometimes that voice is loud, as it was when 150,000 people filled the streets of Toronto demanding justice, accountability and human rights in the birthplace of modern civilization. Sometimes it is quieter, whispered in the candlelight vigils or carried in the silent prayers of those fearing for their loved ones at home. We face a choice: We can answer the call for action or let it fall on deaf ears. The government has chosen inaction. I urge those fighting for freedom and democracy to keep going, everywhere around the world. The day will come when the regime falls and the Iranian people will be free to live in their homeland.”
“Mr. Speaker, I do not think the minister grasps the irony of today. In 2023, that same finance minister promised that he would bring price stability to Canadians. He summoned the grocery CEOs to Ottawa, promised competition and affordability, and then delivered two more years of whatever that was. Now in Canada, we have the highest food inflation in the G7 and over two million people are lined up at a food bank every single month. The groundhog saw his shadow today. Will the finance minister finally see his, or will Canadians get the same Trudeau policies that we have had for 10 years?”
“Mr. Speaker, today is Groundhog Day and, right on cue, the government is back with the same recycled ideas on grocery prices. The Liberals promised a grocery rebate years ago, and food bank lines got longer. They spent years talking about affordability, and prices kept climbing. The Liberals promised action, but after all of that bluster, groceries will cost a family of four more than $1,000 extra this year compared to last. Now they are back at it again offering the same inflationary plan, $10 a week off a $300 grocery bill, and that is not even for everybody. Why are Canadians supposed to believe the Liberals this time?”
“on Wednesday, February 4, 2026, Bill C-19 shall be deemed reported from committee without amendment and deemed concurred in at report stage on division, the third reading stage shall be taken up on Wednesday, February 4, 2026, and at the conclusion of the time provided for Government Orders on Wednesday, February 4, 2026, Bill C-19 shall be deemed read a third time and passed on division.”