Jacob Mantle
York—Durham, Ontario · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, I am rising to follow up on a question I asked the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food about the troubling implications for family farms and the ability to pass family farms on to the next generation.”
“He wanted to pass his farm on to a nephew but could not do so because of the dramatic tax implications. The problem will only compound in the future because right now the average Canadian farmer is in their mid-fifties, and fewer than one in 12 has a successor under the age of 40. This is data from Statistics Canada.”
“Mr. Speaker, I look forward to hearing what the government proposes in the fall. In the last minute I have, I would like to comment on the Speaker's ruling from yesterday. I appreciated the Speaker's ruling but I was deeply disappointed by it.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to present a petition on behalf of residents in my riding of York—Durham, particularly those from the town of Georgina and the community of Keswick on the south shore of Lake Simcoe, with respect to a new invasive species called water soldier.”
“The response at the time was an acknowledgement of the problem and a commitment to speak with the Minister of Finance and to come back to the House to inform us.”
“Therefore, residents in my riding are calling on the government to list or otherwise identify water soldier as an invasive aquatic plant under relevant federal law; to nominate a single federal department or agency to take responsibility for the federal government's response to water soldier; and then, to allocate sufficient financial and…”
The complete record
Every one of 466 lines we hold for Jacob Mantle, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 4 of 10.
“Mr. Speaker, the question was about business investment. I will try again. C.D. Howe says that investment per worker has declined 25% since the Liberals took office. Weak investment yesterday and today means lower wages and lower productivity tomorrow. Two years ago, the Bank of Canada said we had to break glass on this issue. A year later, C.D. Howe said it was a four-alarm emergency, but here we still are. We have offered a positive solution: Let us remove the industrial carbon tax, which is a clear drag on business investment. Please, I ask for an actual answer this time.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised the best economy in the G7, and he is delivering precisely the opposite: the highest household debt, the highest food inflation and an economy literally shrinking under the weight of his policies. What is particularly concerning is the decline in foreign and domestic investment. C.D. Howe called it “Canada's investment crisis”. Adjusted for growth and labour inflation, Canada's investment, all business investment, has declined. We have offered a positive solution: Let us remove the industrial carbon tax. Will they do it?”
“Mr. Speaker, I know the parliamentary secretary has been working on this very closely on the justice committee. However, we heard the Minister of Identity and Culture say that the Bible and certain books of the Torah contain categorical hatred and that there should be discretion for prosecutors to press charges. I would ask her very simply whether she agrees with the minister or not.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition today, again, on Bill C-9 . I may sound like a broken record here, but some truths just bear repeating. Petitioners in my community are calling on the government to reverse course and not remove long-standing protections from the Criminal Code that protect people of faith, Canadians of faith, reading sacred texts like the Bible, the Torah and the Quran. The proposal by the Liberals and the Bloc would subject those Canadians to potential criminal prosecution for the simple fact of believing in a faith and expressing that belief publicly. Therefore, residents in my riding are calling on the government to withdraw this proposal and, secondly, to protect and promote religious freedom in Canada.”
“Mr. Speaker, forgive me if I do not take advice from the former finance minister of Ontario. For a decade before his current job, he watched Ontario's auto sector decline, so it has been two decades of decline with this member. Here is my question to the hon. member: Part of their supposed strategy is exports to non-U.S. destinations. I have seen no evidence from the government that this is a realistic objective. In fact, we export nearly zero, a de minimis number of cars, to non-U.S. and non-Mexican destinations. Where is the evidence that customers around the world are going to wake up and decide to import Canadian cars? I do not see any evidence of that. Does he have anything that he can show us on that?”
“Mr. Speaker, the unanimous voice of Conservatives, non-Conservatives, Canadians of a faith and Canadians of no faith has been that this bill would harm free expression and would derogate from Canadians' right to freely express their religious beliefs. I am sorry, but I disagree with that supporter.”
“Mr. Speaker, I will give my colleague a genuine answer to his genuine question. As I said in my speech, calls to violence are not protected under the Criminal Code or by free expression. That was true before Bill C-9 and it will be true after Bill C-9. I must disagree with the hon. member when he suggests a revision or an update is needed to deal with Mr. Charkaoui. That is not the case. He called for violence, which is not protected by the Criminal Code or the charter. He could have been prosecuted, and it was a decision by the police force in his province to not do so. I will remind the member there are numerous tools in the Criminal Code that could be used to address this, such as criminal harassment, mischief and causing a disturbance. There are so many tools to be used, but none were used.”
“Mr. Speaker, let me just start by saying it is not just my opinion that this bill is horrible. The Liberal government has unanimously gotten Canadians to oppose this bill. Christian organizations, Muslim organizations, Hindu organizations, non-religious organizations, constitutional foundations and civil liberties groups have all unanimously opposed the bill because they see the danger in opening the door to the government policing religious speech and religious text. That is a door we want to be firmly shut.”
“Mr. Speaker, there are several parts of Bill C-9 that we were willing to work with the government on, and I am glad to see that we did find some common ground. Putting back the Attorney General's consent to invoking prosecutions was a positive that we supported. Increasing back to the Supreme Court jurisprudence the definition of hatred was a change we supported. Unfortunately, all of these changes that could have been made, that could have been positive and that we could have worked on were entirely undermined by the government's tyrannical approach to revoking Canadians' free expression and free religious expression by removing the good-faith defence in the Criminal Code.”
“On the other side, they believe in the benevolence of the state and that government can and should shield people from ideas and decide which ideas may be debated in the public square and even which people may participate. We, on the other hand, believe in people. We are not afraid of ideas. We welcome them. In closing, there is another principle etched on the Centre Block of Parliament. It can be found on one of the south windows, the stained glass windows in Centre Block. It also comes from Thucydides: “Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have courage to defend it.” It is the courage to confront this censorship and the courage to protect and defend freedom and our liberties. We have that courage here. I hope the government does too.”
“We do not trust the Liberal government because when confronted with protesters that the Liberals found distasteful, it invoked warlike powers to persecute them, because it remains the avowed aim of this government to revoke the charitable status of pro-life organizations, and because it was the Liberal government's approach to require applicants to Canada's summer jobs program to pledge fealty to its ideas to access government services. Bill C-9 is not a serious response to hatred. The antidote to hatred is not censorship. The antidote to hatred is not government-approved truths. The antidote is and always has been more speech, more voices raised in truth, more ideas tested in public and more freedom to speak, to debate and to persuade. That is the bedrock of a free society. That is really the difference between us and them.”
“We do not trust the government because, when given the chance, the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture told Canadians that certain parts of the Bible and the Torah contain clear hatred and that he could not conceive of how parts of the Bible could be expressed in good faith. His opinion was that prosecutors should have discretion to press charges. We do not trust the Liberal government because Canadians of all creeds and of no creed at all have agreed that Bill C-9 would harm free expression.”
“Whether it is a preacher, a madman or the Prime Minister himself, the good-faith defence does not apply when someone calls people to action through violence. With reason and logic failing them, the Liberal response has increasingly resorted to a form of “just trust us”: Just trust us that the bill does not do what opposition members think; just trust us that the government would never harm or tread on the liberties of Canadians; and just trust us that prosecutors, courts and tribunals will protect and uphold free expression. I am sorry, but we do not trust the Liberal government. We do not trust the government because it has shown itself to be untrustworthy when it comes to defending the liberties of Canadians. We can read the bill and see what it means.”
“I also want to address several misconceptions that have been playing out throughout the House. Many have suggested that the good-faith defence can be and is being used to shield otherwise hateful speech, or put another way, that religious expression is being used to cloak hateful speech. This misrepresents the content and effect of the good-faith defence. First, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that this defence is or has been abused since it was first introduced in the 1970s. Second, threats of violence are by definition excluded from protections of free expression. It should go without saying that a threat to violence can never be made in good faith. That is a complete answer to the question of Charkaoui so often posed by my Bloc colleagues.”
“The bargain was the removal of long-standing protections in the Criminal Code for Canadians who express, in good faith, sincerely held religious beliefs in return for the Bloc agreeing to support Bill C-9. (1330) It is a dramatic divergence from where the government started with their proposal in Bill C-9 . The good-faith defence has an important purpose. In the same way that our hate speech laws protect groups from hatred, the good-faith defence ensures that those protections are not wielded as a tool of hatred by those who find religious thought distasteful. Let me stress that the defence works both ways. It applies equally to expressions critiquing a religious view as it does to expressions espousing a religious view. In other words, one can be critical of religion without being found criminally liable for hate speech.”
“Combatting hate is a laudable goal. Combatting hate is a goal that I share. I know that each member of the official opposition shares that goal too, one that I am sure every parliamentarian here shares. The issue is not whether we share the same goal. The issue is the means by which the Liberal government has chosen to attempt to achieve its goal. Unfortunately, the path chosen by the government, Bill C-9 , would not achieve that goal. Not only would Bill C-9 not achieve that goal of combatting hate, it would, in fact, impose harm on many of the very groups it seeks to protect. This is because, rather than working with the opposition to craft a useful bill, the Liberals instead made a Faustian bargain with the Bloc.”
“One translation of Thucydides puts it this way: “We alone do good to our neighbours not upon a calculation of interest but in the confidence of freedom and in a frank and fearless spirit.” Another translation puts it slightly differently: “We Athenians...instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.” Wise action requires frank, open and fearless speech. In fact, the very prayer that the Speaker offers at the opening of Parliament pleads with the Almighty for wisdom. I hope that the Prime Minister will reflect on this as his government moves to enact a law that would potentially significantly harm and erode free expression, including the religious expressions of Canadians. I have a comment on Bill C-9 and the proposal itself.”
“In Greek, it was known as parrhesia, meaning frank, open and fearless speech. Before Milton, before Mill, before Madison even, before all the Enlightenment thinkers and those who came after them were the ancient ones of western culture and civilization. In his histories, the great Athenian recorded how his people enjoyed personal liberty without constant surveillance and meddling by the state yet remained engaged in public affairs through open discussion, which was essential, he said, for wise governance, for civic virtue and for a vibrant society where citizens could advise the public. The idea of open expression is foundational to our democratic strength and became a cornerstone of western thought.”
“It is another sad irony that just steps away from where we speak today, etched into the very rock of Centre Block, are more than two dozen scriptures from that Bible. The very motto of our country, “From sea to sea” is found in Psalms. How can a nation carved from biblical truths seek to criminalize those truths now? The Prime Minister has shown his fondness for some great Athenian thinkers. The first, of course, was Thucydides, whom he quoted at length in his speech at Davos. I would ask the Prime Minister to reflect on that and reflect on that great Athenian's enthusiastic support for democracy. Not only was Thucydides a realist in some manner, but he was an ardent proponent of liberty and the liberty that served as the very foundation of Athenian democracy, including the foundational idea of free expression.”
“Mr. Speaker, I have to warn us today that I may reference and read from a very dangerous book, a book so dangerous that the government is moving to criminalize the very utterance of its words in public spaces, a book so dangerous that at least some Liberal members say it is full of hate, and a book so dangerous and so full of hate, the government says that it is seeking, through Bill C-9 , to strip away protections that shield good-faith readings and teachings from the Bible and other holy texts Canadians read every day. I am, of course, talking about the Bible, a book targeted by Bill C-9 , like so many other holy texts that millions of Canadians read and rely on every day. What a sad irony it is that a book filled with the promise of the gospel is called hateful.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition on behalf of Canadians concerned with Bill C-9 , the Liberal censorship bill, including Canadians who joined us yesterday on Parliament Hill to rally against it. The petitioners are particularly concerned that the Liberals and Bloc have passed an amendment that would remove long-standing protections for the good-faith expression of religious belief and the good-faith reading from and expression of religious texts. These changes would subject Canadians to criminal sanction for simply reading the Bible, Torah, Quran or other holy texts. Therefore, these Canadians are requesting that the government withdraw the bill and protect freedom of religion.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed and saddened by the member's response. Not once did I impugn the Prime Minister . Not once did I cast aspersions on his character. I simply asked questions about his ethics screen, which is applicable to him as the Prime Minister. That is a fair question. Justice must be done and must be seen to be done. The member can protest all he wants. He can yell all he wants, but that does not change the facts of the matter. My follow-up question is this: The Prime Minister is about to take another trip to Europe, and I would like the parliamentary secretary to confirm for us that he will not be taking any meetings with any Brookfield-related companies while on that trip.”
“Mr. Speaker, on August 11, just one month after the ethics screen was put in place, the Prime Minister was seen speaking with and taking photos with, again, none other than Mr. Pollock, who is, as I mentioned, a part of Brookfield Infrastructure. Then, on October 3 of last year, the Prime Minister met again with the CEO of Brookfield, Justin Beber. All of these things taken individually may be understandable, but when we consider the entire picture of all of the meetings and lobbying that has taken place with the Prime Minister and his former business associates, it leads to questions. When the CEO of Brookfield appeared at the ethics committee, he suggested a very simple means to address some of these concerns, which was for the Prime Minister to divest himself of these assets.”
“On April 30, 2025, just a few days after the election, the Prime Minister was personally lobbied by NorthRiver Midstream, a Brookfield portfolio company. On May 6, 2025, after a meeting with the President in Washington, the Prime Minister met with Sam Pollock, the CEO of Brookfield Infrastructure, also in Washington, who is also now subject to his ethics screen. On September 27, 2025, while in London, the Prime Minister attended a working breakfast with the high commissioner and a number of institutional investors. Four of those investors were from companies that have major connections to Brookfield. On August 11, just one month after the ethics screen was put in place, Mr. Carney was seen speaking with—”
“Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to follow up on a question I asked about ethics, in particular, the Prime Minister 's ethics. I think all members of the House would agree that all Canadians expect the highest level of ethics and transparency from the highest leader in the land. Unfortunately, there continue to be instances where that does not seem to be the case. I will give some examples that I think appear to be more than coincidence when it comes to the Prime Minister and his former business dealings. Of course, I encourage successful people to seek public office, but we want people to be transparent about their investments and transparent about their business dealings. It appears to me that that has not been the case. I will share just a few examples.”
“Mr. Speaker, I have to disagree with her with respect to investor-state dispute resolution. I know that she believes in the rule of law, so surely she must agree that when the Canadian government violates the rule of law, treats companies in a discriminatory fashion or expropriates their property or investments, there should be recourse. There is through these ISDS provisions. They are not secret. The Government of Canada is there defending those decisions. The decisions are almost always public and written, so the Canadian public can see what arguments were made and the decision made. What is her solution to when the Canadian government is behaving badly, discriminating against companies or expropriating their property?”
“Mr. Speaker, there is an excuse for every problem, but this is a new one: The war in Iran is the cause of our housing crisis. Wow. I do not know how the Liberals figure that, or square that circle. The minister boasts about 9,000 new homes. He promised 500,000 new homes. That is not even 2% of his target. Guess what. CMHC says that only 259,000 were built last year, which is only half of the target again, so at the rate the minister complacently brags about, we will never hit the target. Will the minister take our idea and remove GST on all new homes for Canadians?”
“Mr. Speaker, CMHC's spring housing report is out, and the headlines are concerning. Here it is: Condo sales have collapsed, inventory of all types of housing has surged and financial conditions have worsened for homebuyers. However, here is the most concerning thing about that report. It says Canadians are delaying starting a family because of housing and affordability. They are delaying marriage and delaying having children, which are the very foundations of our society, because they cannot afford a home. We have offered one positive solution: Remove the GST on new homes for all Canadians. Will the minister commit to doing that today?”
“Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition today on behalf of residents in my community on Liberal Bill C-9 , in particular the Liberal and Bloc amendment to Bill C-9 passed at the justice committee that would remove long-standing protections for the good-faith expression of religious beliefs and the citing of religious texts. That amendment would subject people who read the Bible, the Torah or other religious texts to potential criminal prosecution. Therefore, residents in my riding are calling on the government to do two things: one, withdraw Bill C-9 ; and, two, protect religious freedom, uphold the right to read and share sacred texts, and prevent government intrusion into matters of faith. An hon. member: Oh, oh!”
“Mr. Speaker, in short, to answer the member's question, the government does not need this. It had all the tools before it, but instead it has created a new, shiny object to put in the window to distract from its failure. Also, the government does not even have a target. The Prime Minister says 500,000 new homes and Build Canada Homes says that it actually does not have a target, so who knows what this agency, this new Crown corporation, will achieve. I hope for the best for young Canadians, but I will plan for the worst.”
“Mr. Speaker, I would have confidence in any government that can show results, but we do not have that. We have the CEO of Build Canada Homes saying that we built nine, the Parliamentary Budget Office saying that maybe we will build 5,200 and the minister himself, in his own speech, saying maybe we will build 9,000. The government's target is 500,000. That is the Prime Minister 's target. I believe politicians should be held to their promises, so when I see 500,000 new homes, then we will have a discussion.”
“Mr. Speaker, I gladly take that opportunity. The first thing I want to say to the next generation, if they are listening, is that we are on their team. We hear their complaints, their struggle, and we will fight every day in the House to make housing affordable and accessible to them. Some of the suggestions we have are to remove the GST on all homes, get rid of federal lands that are useless, incentivize municipalities to get shovels in the ground and cut development taxes. All of these things would help increase the supply, build it faster and get it to them so they can experience and realize the dream of home ownership in Canada, which is the right of every Canadian.”
“Mr. Speaker, the federal government should incentivize municipalities to speed up permitting, cut down red tape and get more shovels in the ground. I think that is the same for Quebec as it is for any province in this country. We need the same rules for everybody.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am a positive person. I believe in Canada. I believe in the next generation. I do not think this is a laughing matter. It is a serious matter for the next generation, who struggle day after day, week after week, dreaming of home ownership and having that dream ripped away from them by a Liberal government that is presiding over the worst housing crisis in a generation.”
“A previous prime minister said that we are going to “move faster in building supply, issuing permits and developing low-income and middle-class housing, creating the supply that is so needed to take the pressure off families and communities.” That was in 2021. It sounds a lot like the Prime Minister today. Where is that promise now? Is it with so many Liberal promises, on the trash heap of history? The next generation should have the same opportunities as the generations before them had to earn, work hard, save and buy a home.”
“I will give him another number that is not so funny. It is, in fact, sad. The minister , in his own speech when introducing the bill, said that he maybe had agreements for 9,000 homes this year. I will remind the member for Winnipeg North what the target was. It was 500,000 new homes a year, so is the target nine, 5,200 or even, at best, 9,000? I would laugh if it were not so sad for the next generation. Build Canada Homes does not address any of the root issues. We have a permitting and permission issue in Canada. Bill C-20 does not speed up or incentivize permitting. In fact, among the OECD, Canada ranks second to dead last in permitting approvals; it is 29 out of 30. Housing starts are projected to decline every year until 2028. Therefore, the target has been raised, but the numbers are going to decline.”
“It is quite a short bill. I have seen it many times before, in fact, to create Crown corporations. One question I have for the government is this: If we want to move at speeds not seen since the Second World War, why did it take nearly a year to introduce Bill C-20 ? If this was the most important thing, as the government says, why are we only debating this piece of legislation now? Let us consider what has been accomplished in that year. The new CEO of Build Canada Homes was here in Parliament giving testimony. She said that nine homes have been constructed and are move-in ready. The Parliamentary Budget Officer looked at Build Canada Homes and said that it might build 5,200 homes a year. Lastly, the minister— An hon. member: Oh, oh! Jacob Mantle: Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North can laugh.”
“I do not know about other members, but that is not a bunch of countries I want to be ranked with when it comes to happiness. That means increasing proportions of the population of young Canadians are feeling hopeless about their futures and are lacking a sense of connection with their community. It is a concerning trend for future population health and our economy. There are significant studies that correlate happiness with productivity, growth and wealth. We are seeing a divergence in the next generation, who are increasingly feeling despondent, despairing and out of luck when it comes to housing. How does Bill C-20 fit in? It is the “building no more homes in Canada” act because it is not going to build any more homes, but it will build another Crown corporation. There is nothing particularly unique about the structure of the bill.”
“The world happiness report, which is a joint report of Oxford University and the United Nations sustainable development office, reports on the happiness measures of countries. I will let members decide if this is correlation or causation with respect to the Liberals and our declining happiness. I know where I stand on the issue. In the 10 years of the Liberals being in power, Canada has fallen from fifth place, the fifth most happy nation in the world, to 15th place. That is a pretty poor result in and of itself, but the results are even more dismal for young Canadians. This is where it gets really bad. For those below the age of 30, we rank 58th out of 134 countries. The only countries that scored worse than us in this last rating were Jordan, Venezuela, Lebanon and Afghanistan.”
“(1630) The second statistic is that the average household income needed to afford a representative home in the Toronto area is now $253,000. That is according to the most recent numbers in the National Bank of Canada's housing affordability monitor for Q4 of 2025. If one earns $253,000, that puts them among the highest earners in the country. Most Canadians do not earn that much, which means most Canadians in Toronto cannot afford the representative house. I repeat that the kids are not all right. Let me give members more statistics to prove my point that the housing crisis is hitting young Canadians the hardest. The lack of affordable housing in Canada is causing Canadians, particularly young Canadians, to feel less free and less happy. That is not just my argument. I have some numbers here.”
“That trend, in my neck of the woods in Toronto, is very on the mark for Toronto more generally, where, many studies have noted, the average price-to-income ratio is about 10 to 11 times income. I have two more statistics to put this into perspective. First, mortgage payments as a percentage of income shows us how expensive mortgages have become. It shows how much of someone's paycheque their mortgage payment is eating up. According to the National Bank's housing affordability monitor for the fourth quarter of 2025, the most recent numbers, it is nearly 70% of income for a mortgage payment in Toronto. CMHC says that an affordable house is 30% of one's income in payments toward housing, so we are at more than double what the government's own housing agency says is appropriate.”
“Let us look at what that means for the household price-to-income ratio. This is an important metric that I use when I am talking to people, to explain the difference that young people are facing today. I often hear, when we talk about housing, the response that we had a hard time too, that we had to save money and that we endured high interest rates. I am not taking away from that. My parents endured that too, as did others before them, but it is simply different. It is not apples to apples. Here is the proof. In 2015, the price-to-income ratio in Durham Region was just about five times income. By 2020, it was 6.7 times income. As of 2026, it is nearly 10 times after-tax income, 10 times what one makes in a year, to qualify for an average home.”
“In January 2015, just shortly before the government was first elected, a single-family home in my region of Durham was $399,000. The most expensive was about $448,000. Just five years later, prepandemic, in January 2020, a single-family home in Durham Region was $631,000. Fast-forward to today, January 2026, and a single-family home in Durham Region is almost $900,000. In 10 years, the price of a single-family home, a starter home, an average home, has more than doubled in my region. Let us look at what happened to incomes at the same time. According to the 2016 census, with 2015 numbers, the median after-tax household income in my region of Durham was $77,000. Five years later, in the next census, after-tax household income was $93,000. My math is not so good sometimes, but that is not a doubling of after-tax income.”
“The kids are grown up, but their lives are worn That is true today. The next generation has grown up. Millennials are growing up. Gen Z is growing up, and they are worn out. They are tired. They have been working, but they cannot get ahead no matter how much they save, how much they scratch or how much they plan. They cannot get into the housing market. After 10 years of being priced out of the market, they are worn out, and we see it today. The speakers on this side of the House have been millennials, constantly pushing the message of housing. I do not hear any of the younger members on the other side speaking in this debate. To me, their silence is telling. Let me take us through some of the brass tacks in my part of the country, Durham Region, to show what has happened to housing and to incomes over the last 10 years.”
“Mr. Speaker, the kids are not all right. I believe that idiom originates from an older song, perhaps known by some of our older members, by a good rock band from the 1960s, The Who. It said, “the kids are alright”. Over time, those lyrics were inverted, and they are as relevant today and as pointed today as they were when they were inverted. The kids are simply not all right when it comes to housing. That culminated in the lyrics of a rock band of my youth, The Offspring. I know that the Speaker is probably young enough to know The Offspring. They had a song, The Kids Aren't Alright . Part of the lyrics really hit me for this presentation on housing. The song says: When we were young, the future was so bright... The old neighborhood was so alive... Now the neighborhood's cracked and torn...”
“Mr. Speaker, my colleague provided her perspective as a member of the Inuit from northern Canada. I thank her for that, but I wonder how she is not angry. How is she not seething mad that under the present government, conditions have become so bad in Canada's north? The Auditor General, several years ago, concluded the same. Nunavut's own housing agency cannot keep up with it. In fact, the wait-lists for those seeking public housing in Nunavut have increased under the government and only continue to increase. How can the minister support this? How can she support a government that is failing so miserably for her own people?”
“Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of promises from the other side, going back years and years. There was a housing accelerator fund, and there were promises of hundreds of thousands of new homes. I would like to get my colleague's opinion on whether this new promise, dressed up in old trappings, is going to achieve any of the results we hope it will.”
“The first is to withdraw this proposal entirely, and the second is to promote and protect religious freedom for all Canadians, uphold their right to read, share and teach sacred texts and prevent government overreach into matters of faith.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition today on behalf of the residents in my community on Bill C-9 and the proposal by the Liberal and Bloc members of the House to remove long-standing safeguards that protect religious freedom and religious expression, including religious expression based on sacred texts. The petitioners share the desire to combat hate and acts that propagate hate, but note that this proposal would not achieve those goals and would instead subject those who hold sincerely held religious beliefs to criminal prosecution. Therefore, the petitioners are calling on the government to do two things.”
“Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned tax fairness in his most recent response. I am increasingly concerned with the tax unfairness being brought on by the Liberal budget. Canadians in the next generation will have to pay for every dollar that is borrowed. Does the member think it is fair for the next generation to be saddled with the debts of this generation for their entire lives?”