Michael Guglielmin
Vaughan—Woodbridge, Ontario · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, we cannot make this up. The Prime Minister says affordability is the best it has been in a decade. Then ministers in the House rise and take credit for programs they implemented to address all the damage they caused. Their promised surveillance pricing legislation to lower grocery costs will not even take effect before 2028.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said that affordability is the best it has been in a decade, but full-time workers are living in RVs and trailers because they cannot afford a home. Families are spending over 120% of their income on rent and food alone. People are even skipping surgeries and other major life events just to survive.”
“Mr. Speaker, in 1952, a courageous 21-year-old woman left her small town in Treviso, Italy, with her father by her side. They boarded a train bound for Genoa. From there, alone, she stepped onto a ship and began that now famous journey across the Atlantic, arriving at Pier 21 in Halifax.”
“Around her table, with a simple tablecloth, good food, candlelight and loved ones gathered close, she showed us what truly mattered. This Italian Heritage Month, I honour all Italian-Canadian nonni , especially my Nonna Olga, whose courage, integrity and love continue to guide us.”
“Mr. Speaker, under the Liberal Prime Minister , Canada is the only G20 country to fall into a recession. Now the Liberals want Canadians arguing over labels: technical recession, marginal recession, full recession. Even the Prime Minister himself admitted a technical recession and a recession are the same thing.”
“Canadians have worked hard, played by the rules and done everything asked of them. They should not be falling further behind because the government cannot control its spending. Canadians need a serious plan to restore growth, protect paycheques and bring hope back to the Canadian economy.”
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“Mr. Speaker, my colleague laid out some very common-sense principles. Inputs increase pricing, and if we control the inputs, we can give people relief. More importantly, he spent a part of his speech talking about principle and why in the House we must adhere to our principles. I was wondering if the member could take this opportunity to elaborate on that.”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his avid defence of religious freedom in this chamber, at committee and across this entire country. I was listening to the arguments from the Liberals and they seem to not take religious freedom seriously. They chalk it up to a fundraising scheme. I was wondering if my hon. colleague could lay out exactly why a defence of religious freedom is so important, because it seems that the Liberals do not understand why it is fundamental to our country.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister 's rhetoric is completely disconnected from reality. He said that Canada would be the best economy in the G7, yet he has delivered the worst, as 100,000 jobs are gone in two months. Here is Canada's G7 record. Canada has the only shrinking economy, the highest food inflation, the highest household debt and the second-highest unemployment. He continues to point to global pressures, but every other G7 country is facing the exact same problems. Their economies are growing and ours is shrinking. This is a domestic failure made in Canada by the Liberal government. When will they reverse their economic policies that are failing Canadians?”
“The fourth is ensuring digital sovereignty so that defence-relevant data systems and intellectual property remain under Canadian control. A defence industrial strategy requires more than incremental administrative reform. It requires a broader national effort to strengthen what is in Canada's control: strategic resources, Arctic infrastructure, procurement speed, sovereign industrial capacity, innovative deployment, digital sovereignty and operational readiness.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives would like to put forward a supplementary report. Canada's defence industrial capacity must be understood as part of the broader national strategy of sovereignty and resilience. As Canada enters a more uncertain geopolitical era, economic strength, energy, security, technological capability and military readiness are increasingly inseparable. Stated plainly, we view defence industrial renewal as inseparable from our linked national objectives. The first of these is restoring strategic self-reliance in energy and critical resources. The second is rebuilding military capability through faster and more agile procurement. The third is asserting Arctic sovereignty through dual-use northern infrastructure.”
“They are cycling through the system repeatedly, generating arrest after arrest, hearing after hearing and breach after breach. When this legislation was announced, it was informed by direct consultation with police chiefs, police associations, mayors, victim advocates and families of people killed by repeat offenders who should have never been free in the first place, but under Liberal bail law they were. I urge every member to support this bill at second reading.”
“The charter protects the rights of law-abiding Canadians and victims too, not just those who are charged with harming them. I challenge my Liberal colleagues to remember this position. The Bloc members have also raised concerns that more detention would strain prison capacity. We agree that we must modernize our justice system, but it is important to understand that the data do not support the worry over prison capacity. As my colleague from Oxford rightly pointed out, this issue is about repeat offenders. In Kelowna, 15 individuals committed 1,500 crimes in a single year. In Vancouver, 40 people, in one year, were arrested 6,000 times. The chronic high-volume offenders this bill targets are not filling prisons and leaving.”
“The Liberals do not touch surety eligibility or passport surrender. Our Conservative approach would address both. The differences are clear. The Liberals still default to release, and the Conservatives start from a principle that public safety must be the key consideration of the justice system. The Liberals have suggested that Bill C-242 would raise constitutional concerns. It would not. In the Crown v. Lloyd decision, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that mandatory minimum penalties need to be narrow and targeted. The measures introduced in the jail not bail act are targeted and proportionate measures directed at a defined category of repeat violent offenders who are before the courts under serious charges. I am very confident it would be charter-compliant. I would also observe that charter compliance cuts both ways.”
“For example, it would bar anyone convicted of an indictable offence from serving as a guarantor. It is difficult to believe that this needs to be legislated at all, but right now in this country, someone who is an organized crime member can legally vouch for another person in bail proceedings. That would end under our bill. The bill would also require non-resident accused persons to surrender their passports. The difference between the Liberal bill and the one before us today is that what the Liberals propose and what we are proposing is a matter of effective execution and practicality. Liberal bail reform would keep the principle of restraint. Our Conservative bill would repeal it. The Liberals want to encourage courts to consider an accused person's history. The jail not bail act would make that consideration mandatory.”
“The bill would create a major offence category covering some of the most serious crimes we see in communities like Vaughan: firearm offences, sexual offences, kidnapping, human trafficking, home invasions, robbery, extortion and arson. For anyone charged with one of these offences, the bill would establish a presumption of detention. For repeat violent offenders, the bill would heighten the risk standards. Today, courts ask whether there is a substantial likelihood that an offender would reoffend. This bill would change that to “reasonable foreseeability”, meaning whether a reasonable person looking at an accused's full criminal history, record of breaching orders and pattern of how they have moved through the system would conclude that their risk of reoffending is real. Bill C-242 would also close gaps in our system.”
“Of course, the fundamental problem with Liberal bail is that the principle of restraint would still remain. It would be modified at the edges, but it would still there, telling the courts to default towards release. The culture of prioritizing release is perpetual in our justice system, and the Liberal bail bill, Bill C-14 , would do nothing to address this. Bill C-242 , the jail not bail act, starts from a different premise entirely. It would remove the principle of restraint and replace it with a clear direction that public and community safety is the primary consideration for the justice system. It would change what judges would be asked to weigh first when someone stands before them: public safety over early release.”
“The deterrent effect of the justice system was weakened at both ends, at the point of bail and again at the point of sentencing. The Liberals have since introduced Bill C-14 and have framed it as bail reform. I want to be fair. It is better than what exists today. Conservatives worked on that committee to strengthen the bill wherever we could. We secured tighter surety rules, provisions for repeat violent offenders who re-offend on release and annual reporting requirements. (1145) However, when we pushed for public safety to become the primary governing principle, moved to eliminate house arrest for major crimes and sought mandatory consecutive sentences for repeat human traffickers, the Liberals voted against every one of those amendments.”
“That principle directs judges and justices of the peace to release the accused at the earliest opportunity under the least restrictive conditions. My colleague from Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations , a former Crown attorney, explained precisely what that means in practice, which is that it does not matter how serious the charge, how long the criminal record or how many times the accused has already breached a bail order, the law tells the court that it has to let them go. Then in 2022, Bill C-5 repealed mandatory minimum sentences for serious firearms and violent crimes, as well as extended the availability of conditional sentences, house arrest, for offences that most Canadians would expect to end in imprisonment.”
“A gun was seized after a commercial break-in at a Vaughan business. Another investigation linked one suspect to nine separate break and enters across Vaughan and Markham. This is what daily life has become in my riding. When I look at the reality and at what our bill system has been doing, that connection is not hard to find. Since the Liberals took office in 2015, violent crime in Canada is up by 55%, firearm offences are up 130%, extortion is up 330%, sexual assaults are up 76% and homicides are up 29%. These are Statistics Canada figures. They reflect a decade of policy choices that constantly prioritize the rights of the accused over the safety of the community. In 2019, Bill C-75 , the Liberals inserted what is called the “Principle of restraint” to the Criminal Code.”
“The stats highlight the numbers; however, there is a reality that members of the House need to realize. The reality is that, just last week, in the early hours of March 17, armed suspects forced their way into a home on Carrville Woods Circle in Vaughan. The homeowner, to protect his family, discharged a legally owned firearm. Two suspects are still at large. The family at home did nothing wrong. They had no choice, and they had no warning. Some weeks before that, a man was shot dead outside a business at Weston Road and Rowntree Dairy Road in the middle of the afternoon. In February, a Thornhill residence was struck by gunfire. On another evening, shots were fired at a home on Allison Ann Way. In the early hours of a cold January morning, a man was shot near Martin Grove Road.”
“Woodbridge was chosen because the people who live there know this problem first-hand. They do not live in the abstract where politicians debate theories of justice. They live in the real world, the here and now, and they live with the consequences of the broken bail system and constant Liberal inaction. I want to start in Vaughan because I feel similar to what the member for Kelowna is feeling. Vaughan feels like ground zero to many in our community for the issue of crime in this country. Now, according to York Regional Police, in the latest full-year report on crime statistics for 2024, my community recorded 16,407 criminal offences, the highest of any municipality in York region. We recorded 749 break and enters, 1,996 assaults, 274 reported sexual violations and 167 robberies. All of this was in a single year.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-242 , the jail not bail act, at second reading. It was put forward by my friend and colleague, the hon. member for Oxford , and I am proud to have seconded the legislation. I just listened to the Liberal government's narrative of our perspective on crime, and it is an alternative universe. This bill, the jail not bail act, was announced in Woodbridge last September, in my riding, where the Leader of the Opposition , the hon. member from Oxford and I, along with other colleagues, were joined by the families of victims. The members of these families were crying in our arms. They had felt the pain of a failed Liberal bail system and the constant consequences of inaction. The location of this announcement was not a coincidence.”
“Mr. Speaker, this is the third housing agency and the fourth government bureaucracy that has been created. At some point, we are just wondering where the fresh ideas are. Where are the new ideas? Instead, the Liberals are recycling old policy and old plans that would do nothing but add money to the debt. Right now, the PBO has said their plan would create only 26,000 homes over a five-year period. We know what to do. Get government out of the way. Let us get the industry building.”
“Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with the member that the government needs to not add more layers of bureaucracy. It does not need to spend more money on another Crown corporation that would do absolutely nothing to solve the problem. The provinces and municipalities know what needs to be done. They need to be able to facilitate a reduction in development charges and levies. The federal government should partner with them by creating targets and transfers, so that governments at the municipal level and the provincial level can get rid of these barriers and let developers build and get shovels in the ground, so we can create the housing supply that we need in this country.”
“Mr. Speaker, the fact is that the Liberal government has been in power for 10 years now. That member himself has been here for the last 15 years, or is it 20 years at this point? Either way, we have the same problem facing this country that we have had over the last 10 years. We have house prices that have doubled. We have stakeholders and industry stakeholders who are yelling at the top of their lungs what the solutions are, which I laid out. They are to cut government taxes, facilitate the reduction or removal of DCs and of levies, and get rid of the HST on home purchases. Just work with us. Steal our ideas. Take them. Implement them. Let us solve this crisis together.”
“That is the social contract in this country: People want to own their homes. Government can partner with municipalities to make these things happen. It can partner with the provincial governments and work together to remove some of the costs impeding the growth of this sector. It is long past due that we have a change in direction. What we do not need is more recycled policy. We do not need to see the same approach over and over again. We certainly do not need more government bureaucracy and more government spending. Housing must be restored for an entire generation of Canadians that feels left out.”
“What we need to do is contrast this bill, which reorganizes authority, expands spending, lacks measurable targets and does not confront structural barriers, with what the Liberal government needs to do. It needs to adopt our plan and target structural reform. We see this time and time again when we are talking about various areas of policy in this country. We have structural issues facing our country, such as regulatory hurdles and the tax framework, all these things that need to be revamped significantly to get the economy moving. We have the workers. We have the materials, and we have the capital. We need a government that is willing to work with us to remove these barriers. Canadians deserve measurable targets, lower costs and real supply growth, and they deserve a path to ownership.”
“This would save families $65,000, approximately, on a purchase. We would also end capital gains on reinvestment in new housing to spur the economy. If we look at the bigger picture, housing starts are less than half of what is needed to restore affordability. From 2022 to 2031, it is predicted we will see the fewest homes built per person since 1972. This is a crisis that is built layer by layer, with rising taxes, rising fees, rising delays and rising uncertainty. All of this creates conditions in which development will not foster and will not spur, and developers will not build. Everyone is feeling this and everyone is paying: young Canadians, families and retirees.”
“Instead, it centralizes more authority in Ottawa and expands the federal footprint, adding yet another layer of government. The problem we are facing here is simple. It is the cost of building: the development charges, the industrial carbon tax that is impacting material costs, the endless regulatory layering, the approval delays and the lack of clarity. Builders want less government in the way, not more. What has the government's response been? It is that they have a bureaucracy that will solve that problem, which seems to be a common theme with the Liberal government. What would we do? The Conservative approach would be tied directly to results. We would tie infrastructure funding to 15% annual increases in homebuilding. We would cut development charges by 50%, and we would cut the GST on all new homes under $1.3 million.”
“An economist at the Ivey Business School, Mike Moffatt, has said there are no key indicators in place. He has never seen this before. There is no clarity on price points or on what the target should be. The PBO said that only 26,000 units will be built over five years. That is 26,000 units in a country that needs hundreds of thousands of homes per year. What does Bill C-20 not do? It does not cut development charges or assist municipalities with cutting development charges. It does not reduce approval timelines. It does not tie infrastructure to housing results. It does not cut the GST for all buyers on new homes. It certainly does not eliminate the capital gains tax on reinvestment or remove a single study requirement, or remove or reduce a single municipal fee.”
“Delays equal higher borrowing costs for developers, and higher borrowing costs equal higher prices. New home sales are down roughly 90% since 2021, and as I mentioned earlier, construction jobs are at risk. That is the backdrop in which we are discussing Bill C-20 . Bill C-20 does not address any of these issues I laid out. What it would do is create a new Crown corporation that would have sweeping powers to acquire land, invest in housing ventures and provide loans and financial assistance. The government plans to spend $13 billion over five years: $11.5 billion for Build Canada Homes and $1.5 billion for Canada Lands Company. That is the third housing agency and fourth federal bureaucracy. (1815) The central problem with this plan, as the minister himself admitted, is that there are no actual top-line targets.”
“Kevin Lee from the Canadian Home Builders' Association says that the biggest barriers to our housing development are development charges, permitting delays and insufficient processes. Let us look at the municipal fees. They have completely skyrocketed. They are up $27,500 on average since 2022. The average is now $82,600. Some cities cite as much as $200,000 per home. I have heard from people in the industry, as I am sure many others have, that we are now looking at approximately 33% of the list price of a home in government development fees, taxes, levies and red tape. Approval timelines are another hurdle preventing builders from building. It is nearly one year for a permit, on average. Thirty-plus studies are being required in some municipalities.”
“The Building Industry and Land Development Association, or BILD, just the other week said that there are only 269 homes that have been sold in the GTA. That is down 36% year over year, and 80% below our 10-year average. Typical January sales in 2026, for example, are 1,300 sales or more. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, CMHC, has said that housing starts are down 15% in January, and it sees construction declining through 2028. It argues that 2026 might be the weakest year in decades. Builders are hesitant to build due to the rising uncertainty in the market and the rising uncertainty with government policy. Let us take a look at what some of the building associations are saying.”
“Eighty-eight per cent of renters say that they feel they will never own a home. It is just a dream somewhere far off in the distance. Half of millennials and two-thirds of gen Zs are delaying starting a family. Youth unemployment has reached record levels at 14.7%, and a generation has been locked out of work and housing. However, this crisis is not just specific to the young. Slower growth, weaker retirement security, the cost of living and the cost of housing affect everyone. They put pressure on a construction industry that employs hundreds of thousands of people all across Canada. There is a dream in Canada of home ownership, and it is more than a dream. For many people, it is a rite of passage. For many people, it signifies the transition from childhood to adulthood, and that dream is eroding.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise on behalf of the residents of Vaughan—Woodbridge and Canadians all across this country, the young, the old and everyone in between, who do not need to be told that there is a housing crisis. They can see the fact that there is a housing crisis clear as day. They see it in the listing prices. They see it in the rent that is consuming half their paycheques. There are young adults living in their parents' basements, unable to leave those homes. Families, young people, are seeing this in delayed family plans. After a decade of having the Liberals in government, housing prices have doubled in this country and home ownership is increasingly out of reach. For young people in Canada, they are the first generation less likely than their parents to own a home.”
“Mr. Speaker, the member for Newmarket—Aurora spoke a moment ago about how we can collaborate together and strengthen legislation, as demonstrated by these amendments. I was wondering if the member could take a moment to speak to the importance of the scrutiny of bills that sound rather innocuous, like a budget implementation act, but are some 600 pages long. Perhaps the member could elaborate on why it is important that the opposition scrutinize legislation that is this expansive.”
“We are calling for full annual transparency to Parliament and the immediate removal of foreign nationals convicted of serious crimes. Canada is a compassionate country, but it must first be fair to its own citizens.”
“Mr. Speaker, fraudulent and rejected asylum claims are straining a health care system that millions of Canadians cannot fully access. The interim federal health program's costs have more than quadrupled in four years, from $211 million to $896 million, and they are projected to reach $1.5 billion by 2029. At committee, we learned that providers are billing taxpayers up to five times the provincial rate for services to rejected claimants. Meanwhile, some six million Canadians lack a family doctor, yet failed claimants have supplementary benefits including vision care, benefits that many Canadians must pay for out of pocket. This is neither fair nor sustainable. Conservatives are calling for limiting benefits for rejected claimants to emergency and life-saving care only.”
“Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, I find it very perplexing that at a time when we are under an unprecedented attack on our auto industry from the American President through tariffing one of our key sectors, the plan for our auto strategy encompasses within it this idea that we are going to subsidize vehicles that are mostly made in the United States. It absolutely makes no sense. What does that say to the hard-working men and women in our auto sector who have been laid off and face increasing uncertainty. We have 5,000 jobs that have been lost and many more are on the chopping block. When will the Liberals take our plan to get the GST off all cars?”
“Mr. Speaker, it is very important that we support our oil and gas sector in this country. We know that because our country is currently under threat from an American trade war, and our number one resource and number one driver of the economy is our natural resources. We have among the strictest environmental regulations in the entire world, and we make some of the cleanest products here in Canada. This is something we should be proud of. This is something we should stand up for and promote. We should be focused not only on exporting oil and gas to the world but on building cars here in Canada, protecting auto jobs here in Canada and creating the business environment and regulatory environment for businesses to manufacture products and export them to the world.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is great news that a small portion of the EVs that are actually sold have parts that are manufactured in Canada. However, does the member know what would further increase the parts made in Canada? It is if the Liberal government would take our plan and remove the GST from new car purchases. That would signal to the industry and to consumers that we are serious about getting the industry moving. It would increase sales, and even more parts would be manufactured at facilities like the great manufacturer of auto parts in my riding. Hopefully, the Liberals will collaborate with us and remove the taxes on vehicles.”
“How do we explain this to the 1,200 former employees in Ingersoll who are now seeing more than half of their lump-sum severance taken away in tax? Under section 153 of the Income Tax Act, the minister has the regulatory authority to reduce withholding rates so that workers can access more of this money. We hope the government will support us in our approach to build here, so we can—”
“At the same time, the American President has said he wants to attack one of the industries that really represents the identity of what it means to be Canadian. We have already lost 5,000 jobs in this sector. What I cannot understand is why we are rewarding the Americans for this. It makes no sense. My colleague, the shadow minister for industry , asked the Minister of Industry this exact question at committee and she had no answer. We know that less than 5% of the vehicles built in Canada will qualify for this program. That means the majority of the $2.3 billion will flow to foreign manufacturers. What kind of message does this send to workers? What kind of message does this send to the auto workers in Brampton who are supposed to build the Jeep Compass?”
“The centrepiece for the government's auto strategy is this new five-year, $2.3-billion EV affordability program, offering $5,000 in rebates for vehicles under $50,000 for which Canada has a free trade agreement. The difficulty for me on this is that the vast majority of EVs sold in Canada are not actually built in Canada. We currently assemble one fully electric vehicle that qualifies under the new rules, the Dodge Charger EV in Windsor. Meanwhile, the long list of eligible vehicles for this initiative are from foreign countries. This is where I question if this strategy was actually fully thought-out, because Canadian taxpayers will be subsidizing electric vehicles that are made in the United States while the U.S. is threatening our auto industry and displacing our workers.”
“It is nice that it has listened to the Conservatives and removed this policy. That said, I am worried it is trying to back-door it through an excessive regulatory framework and I certainly have questions around it. For instance, 80% to 90% of the vehicles we manufacture are exported, and 90% to 92% of those exports are directly targeted at the U.S. What will the costs associated with these regulatory measures be? How will that hamper or bolster competitiveness? Are the Americans adopting this standard, because as we know, we have a lot of cross-border interactions in the supply chain. Certainly, we cannot have one without the other.”
“That attack does not just threaten jobs and GDP; it is an attack on what it means to be Canadian. It is an attack on the hard-working person who straps on their boots every day. These attacks, although vicious, have provided us with an opportunity, because as a mature country, Canada must begin to think for itself. It is no secret that for decades at this point, we have outsourced our economy and security to the United States. While we cannot control what it does, we can certainly fix what we do here at home. Earlier this month, the government unveiled its new auto strategy, within which it finally repealed the EV mandate, which we welcome and have been arguing for. Of course, that target was always unrealistic. We heard that time and again from industry leaders and experts.”
“These tariffs, as I have said many times in the House during debates on the auto sector and at committee, are certainly the catalyst in the industry, but they do not explain the decades' worth of decline in this sector. (1625) It is very understandable why Canadians find tariffs not only intellectually reprehensible but morally repugnant, because many of us, if not all of us, looked at the U.S. not only as an economic partner but as a cultural partnership. Many of us have family connections in the United States. It is almost as if a family member has stabbed us in the back. The ties between the U.S. and Canada run deep. We have also heard the U.S. President take aim at our auto sector, saying that he wants to relocate the Canadian auto industry back to the United States.”
“We now have some 320,000 different federal regulations, with over 105,000 regulations on the manufacturing sector alone. At the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, we heard over and over again from people in the automotive sector when we had our emergency study that some of the major barriers to the prosperity of the industry are the regulatory environment and some of the tax framework issues that are preventing capital from being spent on capital projects in this country and driving capital outflows to places like the U.S. and Mexico. This is where we start to see the divergence between capital outflow and FDI into Canada. All of this was long before the unjustified tariffs that have been put in place by U.S. President Trump.”
“I remember when I first started in the steel business, I was at a conference and someone asked a major auto parts supply manufacturer why their company no longer invested in Canada. The response was that other countries roll out the red carpet, but Canada seems to want to roll out the red tape. It is no surprise that over the past 10 years we have witnessed a sharp decline in the number of automobiles manufactured in our country. It is an almost 50% decline, from 2.3 million vehicles to roughly 1.2 million vehicles. Some of this obviously has to do with the natural process of globalization, but most of it has been the result of some major structural issues facing our economy. These issues have led to a negative business environment so astounding it is actually approaching the point of miracle.”
“These people represent the best of what it means to be Canadian. These people do not work for fortune or for fame. They strap on their boots every single day to go to work to ensure that their children have a better life than they did. They work to ensure our country is better off than it was before. These are the very people who represent the ideals of Canadian identity. It is unfortunate that we often think just about the numbers and the statistics, the GDP and the job numbers. The numbers represent these people, and they truly represent what it means to be Canadian: that work, that discipline, that ethic. Unfortunately, our auto industry and the industry associated with it has been in decline for many years. I witnessed this first-hand in my time working in this industry.”
“From Windsor to Oshawa, from Brampton to Sainte-Thérèse, there are generations of skilled workers who have worked in the auto industry. We have tradespeople, engineers and plant workers. These people have been the heartbeat of Canada's great automotive sector, one of the greatest automotive sectors in the history of the world. Our automotive industry really does represent the best of Canadian innovation and manufacturing prowess. It is home to some 600,000 indirect and direct jobs, and it has a GDP of $16 billion. Before coming to Parliament, I spent my career in the steel industry, in the steel service centre business, which is nestled right in the automotive supply chain. I have had the opportunity to work with many great people, those who work on the factory floors and those in the offices that support these workers.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise on behalf of the great people in the great riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge. This is my first opportunity to rise in the House of Commons following the tragic and devastating news coming out of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. Like many people in the House, I have to say that as a father it is hard to even imagine the pain and the suffering that these families are going through. As we all know, there are no words we could say that would truly offer comfort. However, I would like to say the people of Vaughan—Woodbridge are thinking of these families. Our love is with them. We stand with them, and our prayers will be with them. It is an honour to rise today to speak about the auto industry. Canada has been building automobiles for over a century.”
“Young Canadians deserve policies that increase housing supplies. When will the Liberals collaborate with us and remove barriers to construction so we can restore the dream of home ownership for young people in this country again?”
“Mr. Speaker, Canada's housing market is sending alarming signals. New home sales in the GTA have fallen to their lowest point in 45 years, putting up to a hundred thousand jobs at risk. Across major markets, sales are down sharply, while builders report layoffs and are having growing concern about their ability to stay afloat. At the same time, home ownership among Canadians 30 years old to 34 years old has fallen significantly over the past decade, and new housing supply is failing to keep pace with population growth. Nearly nine in 10 Canadians now express concerns about housing affordability, and many young people are considering leaving their communities because home ownership feels out of reach. Without action, an entire generation now risks being locked out of home ownership in their own communities.”
“Mr. Speaker, last week, a man in Woodbridge was gunned down in broad daylight. This week, a home in Vaughan was targeted for a shooting for the fourth time in five months. Now the York Regional Police chief has said that police service will not participate in the federal Liberal government's gun grab, because it does not address the underlying sources of gun crime. Most provinces and territories have opted out. Dozens of police services have now refused to participate. With little support from the police and provinces, will the Liberal government finally end this ideologically driven scheme and focus on stopping illegal guns and repeat violent offenders?”