Grant Jackson
Brandon—Souris, Manitoba · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think it was very audible, the government whip shouting across that a member was a “liar” in the House. You previously ruled on a heckle that called another member a “liar”, and the member was asked to retract that statement. I would ask, Mr.”
“Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister minds addressing whether any of this money would be available for municipalities that are quite small. Despite their not being perhaps as flashy as big announcements in the major cities across Canada, these municipalities, in previous Liberal iterations of bloated federal government programs and fundi…”
“Mr. Speaker, I find it very unfortunate that the member for Winnipeg North would accuse this member of the things that he has put on the record today. I think that is a pretty disturbing accusation to put on the record.”
“Mr. Speaker, I do not think we will be trusting the minister's word on what a .22 is, given that he did not know what an RPAL is either. Manitoba's premier, Wab Kinew, recently said that the Prime Minister is requiring LNG to be shipped through the port of Churchill by 2030 as a requirement for federal support of the port of Churchill plu…”
“Mr. Speaker, it always amazes me that the theme for the government should be that someday they will get it done, and that member is certainly no exception to that rule. He is in charge of planning for the government, in terms of the House schedule, as is the House leader he serves. That member has been elected in this House since 2010.”
“Mr. Speaker, despite leading Canada into a recession, the Prime Minister continues living in luxury, racking up $1 million in inflight catering alone. Meanwhile, more and more Manitoba families are struggling just to put food on the table.”
The complete record
Every one of 325 lines we hold for Grant Jackson, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 6 of 7.
“People are living the challenges with the border and the relationship that is ongoing between our two countries. For the past decade, Conservatives have been urging the Liberal government to reverse its failed policies and restore safety to our communities. (1630) My communities are at the forefront of the influx of weak border and weak criminal justice policy from the Liberal government. We have seen an influx of crime and drugs infesting small communities in southwestern Manitoba, further up into my colleague from Riding Mountain 's constituency and further north into northern Manitoba. These are communities that are collectively calling for better action from the government and calling out its failure to deliver safety and a solution to the influx of drugs. Instead, the Liberals, as we know, have let the situation get out of control.”
“When we talk about border issues, we know that Manitobans, and certainly southwestern Manitobans, deal, work, live and play crossing that border on a regular basis. My constituents believe in law and order and a strong border. They have made that very clear to me. During the election and over the course of the summer, I held a number of community barbecues along Highway 3, which is Manitoba's southernmost major highway that runs parallel to the American-Canadian border. I held community barbecues in Melita, Boissevain and Manitou, all border towns. In fact, the Boissevain local hockey team is called the Boissevain Border Kings. That is how close our relationship is in my constituency to the border and its impact on Manitoba's economy. These are ongoing conversations that take place on a regular basis.”
“People can actually land on the North Dakota side, the American side, taxi onto Canadian soil and then disembark. It is one of the few instances where that takes place in the country as well. Certainly, my riding shares the border. It is a border constituency, and our economic ties with our immediate partners to the south, North Dakota, and further south into the Midwest states are significant. They are close. When I grew up, Minot, North Dakota, was just as close for me and my family in our hometown as Winnipeg, the major city in Manitoba. We would often spend family vacations, special birthdays or anniversaries travelling to Minot rather than Winnipeg to share in our collective relationship with the Americans.”
“It is one of the few lakes where people can get in their boats on the Canadian side and drive them across to the American side without having to go through a port of entry per se. It is one of very few examples where that exists in the country. It is the part of the border that is all-accessible, unlike other parts of the country, like Alberta and British Columbia. There are 226 kilometres of border between Manitoba and North Dakota in my constituency, 302 kilometres if one takes the highway. We also have the International Peace Garden at the second-largest border crossing in Manitoba, in Boissevain, or the peace garden border crossing if people come from the American side, which shares a monument to peace that both of our countries share and maintain. They also share a cross-border airport.”
“They let this go on for 10 years without taking any recognizable action to stop the flow of illegal substances from other countries into this country. Now they think it is wonderful that they have finally come up with a half-decent, but very problematic in some instances, proposal to address this situation. I will get back to my speech. I will have more to say on that as we proceed. Brandon—Souris, in the context of the country, is a border riding. There are nine ports of entry in my constituency alone, a number of which have just had their hours reduced, which is impacting trade with our American counterparts. Plus Lake Metigoshe is in my riding. It sits right on the border. It is shared, half Canadian and half American, and is policed by both entities.”
“Mr. Speaker, I had a different beginning to my speech, but after hearing all the long-serving Liberal MPs get up and talk about how great it is that they have finally discovered our border is an issue, that after 10 years in government they are taking some action with this piece of legislation and should be congratulated for it is a bit of an astounding proposition at the beginning of this fall session. They waited so long to take any action that fentanyl and other drugs are rampant throughout the country, not just in the big urban spaces but in the smallest of the small communities across my riding in rural southwestern Manitoba and in every other riding across the country. I do not know that they are going to get as much sympathy and applause from Canadians as they expect based on their speeches today.”
“Mr. Speaker, I would like to get my colleague's opinion. Earlier the member for Winnipeg North said that we should just take the Liberals' word for it that they believe in protecting the charter rights of Canadians for privacy, because in the 1980s they were the party that brought the charter in. Do we have to take the Liberals for granted on everything they campaigned on in the 1980s? They were against free trade then; is that also why we are not getting a deal with Trump on free trade today, because they are secretly still back in the 1980s and everything they were committed to then? Perhaps my colleague from Cambridge can respond to the question about whether we can take the Liberals' campaign platform at its word or whether we should be looking back in time to see where the Liberals really stand on these issues.”
“Mr. Speaker, I think that is a fair comment, and that is why we are proposing amendments to make this bill better. I look forward to my colleagues' proposing those recommendations. I think some of them have made some recommendations as to how to improve this bill in their comments earlier today. We hope the Liberal government decides to adopt them so that, indeed, we have a framework that is robust for these folks who want to apply for Canadian citizenship.”
“Mr. Speaker, I think any reasonable person would believe the government should have at least an estimate of how many people are going to be impacted by a policy before it introduces it into law, passes it into law and proposes to implement it for Canadian citizens and the general public. The fact is that it has not done that now, and, as many other members have mentioned, the Liberals have been on this and have been ready to introduce this legislation for 16, 19 years. They have tried to impose it two different times. They were on recess for half this year. Parliament is at the lowest record of sitting, I think, in Canadian history since the Depression. Hopefully, they have done that homework. Maybe one of them will get up today and deliver that number for us.”
“I think the member is being a bit disingenuous when he says increased immigration levels are having no impact on our health care system.”
“Mr. Speaker, we are coming at this from two sides of the issue. The member seems to think we are blaming immigrants solely as being responsible for our delayed health care. That is certainly not the case, but I think he would agree that when we increase population by half a million people per year for several years, some of those hundreds of thousands of people per year are going to need health care, and all of those people are going to need housing. The member says that increased immigration levels are having no impact on our health care delays, and it is only Canadian citizens who are having an impact on our health care lag times. Yes, health care wait times in Manitoba are out of control; they are totally unsustainable. The Health Sciences Centre—Manitoba's Hospital has been listed by the union as a grey zone for nurses to work in.”
“The Conservative team is going to put forward recommendations to improve the bill, so that there are real standards for these folks to be able to prove a commitment. The member for Provencher said earlier that we believe that Canadian citizenship requires an investment in Canada. If a person has not lived here their entire life and has no intention of living here, we do not believe that is a stringent enough requirement in order to qualify for Canadian citizenship. That is the Conservative Party's position, and we look forward to further debate with members opposite on this legislation as it moves forward.”
“Canadians, particularly young Canadians, are frustrated with immigration and the fact that they cannot find an affordable home, or that when they are expecting a child they cannot get into an emergency room to get the health care they need. These are issues that are top of mind for the young Canadians and the rural Canadians who sent me here to represent them as their voice. They do not believe in a Liberal government that has failed to plan time and time again and that has brought hundreds of thousands of people into Canada without the proper planning, without that expectation, and without criminal record checks or language tests in place. My constituents, and I think many constituents of colleagues across the country, expect better planning by the Liberals.”
“They have no idea how many people may now be eligible, if the bill passes, to claim Canadian citizenship after having never lived here or having spent only, at the minimum, 1,095 days here over the course of their entire lives. I am not sure how the government can claim that it has been planning this out for years and has known about this for decades. Members opposite are very aggressive about how terrible this has been and that they needed to address it. It is coming 10 years into their mandate. They have no numbers to back up how many people this may impact, what the impact on our health care system may be and what the impact on OAS and other income supports may be. Why have they not done any planning?”
“Somebody across the way was saying that, “Oh, all these people who would be impacted by the bill are almost all paying taxes in Canada already.” Well, I am not sure why that would be the case if they are not citizens of this country now and they have never lived here. Members opposite cannot provide any evidence as to how many have paid into the OAS or GIS systems or into the health care system. In fact, their own department cannot tell us how many people the bill would make eligible for Canadian citizenship. In fact, IRCC officials were questioned on that the last time the bill, in its previous form, was up for debate, and the officials could not answer that question at committee.”
“Someone who is the child of a foreign-born Canadian citizen and whose grandparents were born in Canada may have had summer breaks here as a baby, as a toddler, a couple of times in high school and a couple of times in their twenties, but then at 50, 60 or 70 decide they want to go through this process that the bill before us seeks to put in place to become a Canadian citizen. They may not have spent time in the country for decades, because there is no time frame imposed for when the 1,095 days have to be taken. Exactly when is that going to impact the systems that seniors who are Canadian citizens, quite rightly, come to rely on? If we have thousands of people or tens of thousands, which is estimated, who are going through this process later in life, they may not have paid tax.”
“The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands used Rosie O'Donnell and the idea of her citizenship getting revoked by Donald Trump as an example, but Rosie O'Donnell was born in the United States, so that is not a good example in terms of the discussion we are having today. We are talking about people who were not born in Canada and their children who were not born in Canada. (1625) On this discussion about the reasonable connection to the country of Canada, 1,095 days, or three years, and non-consecutive, on face value, to the majority of my constituents anyway, sounds like a long period of time. Let us look at that a little more at length.”
“We also support the equal treatment of adopted children. In a previous role, I worked for the Minister of Families in Manitoba. For those who do not have the context on that, Manitoba has one of the largest CFS systems in the country, a very tragic legacy of the treatment of children there. Too often, in both federal and provincial law, adopted children and adoptive families are forgotten about or left behind in the framework that we proceed under in supporting young families and children in this country. We certainly support that update to ensure that they are treated equally, as they should be, as true families. However, there are lots of concerns.”
“I was not here, of course, being a newly elected member, but it is certainly something we supported. It is unfortunate that Senator Martin's bill was stalled and delayed by the Liberals and their allies in the previous Parliament. It should be law by now; it should be in effect. Unfortunately, Bill C-3 and its predecessor, Bill C-71 , are dramatically expanded in the terms of their scope. We as Conservatives have some serious questions as well as some amendments to propose about exactly what we feel could improve this piece of legislation. To be clear, we very much support the provisions that came from Bill S-245 by Senator Martin supporting section 8, lost Canadians. This is something that, as the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands mentioned, was a compounding of bad legislation that should have been addressed a long time ago.”
“The members opposite seem to want to completely differentiate this conversation and say that it has no impact whatsoever, the context of who would be impacted by this bill. Certainly we on this side and the vast majority of common-sense Canadians understand that the two are related and that these two topics have to go hand in hand when we are talking about whether Canada is prepared to welcome these potential Canadian citizens, if they get their citizenship, back into the country and what the impact of that would be. The member opposite also talked a lot about our colleague in the Senate, Senator Martin's Bill S-245 . My colleague from Ponoka—Didsbury covered that quite well, in that that bill very specifically dealt with lost Canadians, which is certainly a challenging situation, and we supported it as Conservatives.”
“I recognize some comments from members opposite about immigration and that this is a citizenship bill, which is a separate conversation. However, if this bill ends up being passed in its current form, there would be a significant number of new Canadians as a result who would be eligible to be Canadian citizens and to receive all the rights and privileges that that entitles them to, which in effect still affects the number of Canadian citizens. We are in a time when we are talking, in the broader immigration context, about the fact that all of our social services, particularly our health care system and, without question, our housing system, have not been able to compete and keep up with the number of people coming into Canada and becoming new citizens of this country.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise again in the House of Commons, for the first time this fall session after a couple of interventions as a newly elected member in the spring. It is such an honour to be here to represent the great people of southwestern Manitoba and the Wheat City of Brandon. Bill C-3 is an important topic. Our Manitoba Conservative caucus just completed a couple of days of caucus retreat to make sure we were hearing from different stakeholders, industry groups, etc., from the province, to make sure we are on top of issues coming back to Parliament today. We certainly heard a lot about immigration. It is top of mind for a lot of Manitobans right now. Manitoba has always been an interesting context within the framework of the overall immigration system across the country.”
“To Murray, his wife Donni and the Zuk family; and to Bill's wife Sheila and the Kirkup family, I thank them both for a lifetime of service to the great game of baseball, to our hometown of Souris and to Manitoba. We are certainly better off because of the lives of Murray Zuk and the late Bill Kirkup.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to two exceptional constituents of Brandon—Souris. Last Saturday, Souris residents Murray Zuk and the late Bill Kirkup were inducted as honorary life members into the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame. Murray Zuk helped found the Hall of Fame and Museum, serving as a director since its inception in 1997, with a significant career as a baseball scout and organizer in Manitoba, all while maintaining a remarkable career as principal of Souris School. The late Bill Kirkup was a builder and loved the game of baseball. He committed countless hours to promoting teams and various leagues throughout Manitoba and western Canada, in addition to supporting countless other initiatives and causes in our community. If there was a project to get done in Souris, it was very likely that Bill Kirkup was involved.”
“Mr. Speaker, violent crime continues to spiral out of control under the Liberals, devastating our families and communities. In Brandon earlier this year, a 67-year-old man was beaten over the head with a baseball bat by a repeat offender out on bail, completely unprovoked. Weeks later, a woman was assaulted in an elevator by an individual out on bail facing similar previous charges. These are just two examples of far too many violent assaults by repeat offenders released to wander our streets. When are the Liberals going to get serious, reject their soft-on-crime agenda, repeal Bill C-5 and Bill C-75 , and put these criminals in jail, not out on bail?”
“Why will this member, who talks laudably about all of these highfalutin goals but has delivered none of them, not stand up and force the minister to deliver a budget before the House rises for the summer to deliver for his constituents in Newfoundland and all the rest of this great country of Canadians?”
“Mr. Speaker, what a relief they are just getting started because the first three weeks of the government have surely been a disappointment to Canadians. The member talks about transparency, leadership and accountability. As the parliamentary secretary to the President of the Treasury Board , why have that minister and that parliamentary secretary not introduced a budget? All of these things would give Canadians confidence in the financial literacy of the government, would give them confidence in the transparency, the leadership and financial accountability this member talks about but has not delivered in the first weeks of the government.”
“It is not optional for families and businesses in Brandon—Souris, and it should not be optional for the Liberal Prime Minister , his Liberal Minister of Finance or those Liberal MPs. My question is, why are the finance minister and the Prime Minister completely ignoring the will of Canadians in the House of Commons and refusing to table a complete, transparent and accountable budget before the House rises on Friday?”
“Tens of millions of dollars lined the pockets of their insider friends on the backs of young Canadian families who work hard to make an honest dollar and put healthy groceries on the table and gas in their vehicles to take their kids to hockey practice and piano lessons. Just last week, the House voted to force the government to make sure the $64 million paid to GC Strategies was returned within 100 days. Only time will tell if the government will follow the will of Canadians and their democratically elected representatives or if it will side with its insider friends, who are surely sitting on a beach or a fancy yacht by now waiting for those Liberal MPs to join them. A budget is Canada's best opportunity to review the decisions the Government of Canada is making.”
“Mr. Speaker, I say good try to my friends from the Liberal Party. The only thing Canadians can confidently expect from the Liberal government and these Liberal MPs, who just tried to silence me, is rising housing prices, now rising car prices, soaring debt, runaway overall inflation and absolutely zero economic leadership, just as we have seen for the last 10 years. Canadians, and particularly the young Canadians I represent, are the ones who are going to be on the hook to pay for the government's reckless spending. Take the millions of dollars that were dished out to the Liberals' insiders at GC Strategies, for example.”
“The Prime Minister promised to cap spending at 2% but then immediately turned around and handed Canadians a tax bill that shattered the promise and jacked up spending 8%. An hon. member: Point of order.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise once again to ask the Minister of Finance why he finds it acceptable to not table a budget before he and the Prime Minister , the so-called man with the plan, head off on summer vacation. Budgeting is not optional for families and small businesses across this great country, and it should not be optional for the federal government either. Months of uncertainty about Canada's finances will undoubtedly harm Canada's credit rating and spook investors into moving further capital out of this country. However, that should not surprise anyone, given the Prime Minister 's track record of moving capital and jobs out of Canada and over to his friends on Wall Street in New York City.”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to put some facts on the record, contrary to the member for Winnipeg North , who talks about misinformation. The only misinformation here is from him. A government that he is pretending is different is exactly the same as it has been for the last 10 years and the last 20 years that he has been here. He questions the credibility of a long-serving municipal official from British Columbia about what she is hearing from her constituents. I would like to give her another chance to put the facts on the record about what she is hearing from her constituents with regard to the failures of the same Liberal government on border security and public safety as a whole.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government is banning gas-powered vehicles and forcing Canadians to buy electric. This will add $20,000 on top of the average $66,000 price of buying a car, as if they need to be more expensive in this country. This will jack up prices for Canadians and gut hundreds of energy sector jobs in western Manitoba. Canadians do not want to be forced to drive EVs. With manufacturers like GM and Ford calling for its removal, will the Liberals admit their mistake and vote in favour later today of our Conservative motion to give Canadians back choice in what they drive?”
“I would like the member for Souris—Moose Mountain to highlight just a little more about how terrible the Liberal government's policies over the last 10 years have been for affordability in our region, how they have suppressed our fertilizer industry, our natural resources industry and the ag sector, with disastrous policies that have resulted in tariffs on canola and the pulse crops from India, and what a disaster that has been for affordability measures in Souris—Moose Mountain and Brandon—Souris.”
“Mr. Speaker, what a pleasure it is to hear the speech from my colleague for Souris—Moose Mountain. Of course, both of our constituencies are named after the proud Souris River that flows from his constituency in the west into mine in the east, and it is a pleasure to have him as a neighbour. As neighbours, we both have the same economies in our region.”
“Madam Speaker, earlier in this debate, the member for Winnipeg North made some outrageous comments about this being an entirely new government, which of course Canadians know is patently ridiculous, given the fact that 80% of the cabinet is the same as in the Trudeau era. It is sad that the member for Winnipeg North did not make the cut. Despite the only cabinet member from Manitoba abusing her staff, he still did not make the cut. I wonder if my colleague from Calgary Skyview could possibly comment about how ridiculous these comments are and how the failed record of the Liberal government is impacting the financial security of Canadians.”
“Mr. Chair, the minister has no idea how many fraudulent student visa holders became permanent residents in this country last year. The minister's foreign student visa system is a mess. How many fake college acceptance letters were caught in 2024?”
“Mr. Chair, the minister has no idea how many students are in this country with fraudulent student visas, and that is the direct responsibility of her department. How many foreign students who came to Canada with fraudulent visas in 2024 became permanent residents?”
“Mr. Chair, there is no question that the Liberal government's failed policies have destroyed the student visa system. The previous minister was supposedly going to clamp down on fraud among student visa holders. How many migrants are currently in Canada with fraudulent student visas?”
“Madam Speaker, one has only to look at the member's Twitter feed to understand that he is a big fan of the most unpopular prime minister in recent memory, Justin Trudeau, and his policies on an unsecured border, a lack of safety on the streets, the carbon tax, etc. How does the member for Winnipeg West feel, knowing that the Liberal Party had to walk away from his record as a former member of Parliament and from that of his mentor, Justin Trudeau, just to get re-elected in Parliament?”
“Madam Speaker, I want to welcome my new colleague as a fellow newbie from Manitoba. The Prime Minister and the government have talked a lot about nation-building energy projects. My constituency of Brandon—Souris in Manitoba, the member's and my home province, contains its oil and gas industry in the southwestern corner. We have talked a lot about getting our natural resources, oil and gas products, to tidewater on Hudson Bay. The throne speech failed to mention any real plan to get those products to Hudson Bay's tidewater. Will the member agree that the throne speech failed to mention this and that the government should take further action to ensure that natural resources and products from my constituency in southwest Manitoba can get to Hudson Bay in northern Manitoba?”
“Mr. Speaker, I will follow up on that line of commentary of my colleague from St. Albert—Sturgeon River. The Liberal government certainly has a record on ensuring that Canada faces these challenges. I wonder whether the member could respond to what exactly he thinks the Liberal Party's record is in ensuring that Canada is well prepared to respond to emergency events like natural disasters and wildfires. Does the member believe that the Liberals have, over their 10 years in government, prepared this country well to respond to these types of events?”
“Mr. Speaker, I certainly thank the government of B.C. and the people of B.C. for punching above their weight in supporting other provinces that are under serious threat right now. There is no doubt in my mind that when a federal government makes a commitment to invest in a particular outcome for a particular group of communities or group of people, it should absolutely fulfill that commitment. The Liberal government should have done it. The government failed and should be held to account for that.”
“The federal government, when it is making funding decisions, needs to ensure that actual infrastructure and equipment are being purchased with federal dollars to protect vulnerable communities in northern Manitoba and everywhere else across the country.”
“Mr. Speaker, I certainly thank my colleague for that excellent question. There is no doubt I agree that when a federal government makes commitments to people, particularly people in vulnerable areas of the country, it should keep those commitments. The Liberal Party failed to do that when it made that commitment in 2021. In addition to that, the member for Winnipeg North earlier claimed that the Liberal government flowed money to the Manitoba government, which subsequently allowed Wab Kinew, as premier, in his first budget, to cut the emergency measures budget in the province last year by $50 million.”
“It is important to note also that our forestry partners in Manitoba are very responsible, and they do great work on behalf of the forestry industry and all Manitobans.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what speech the member for Whitby was listening to. It was not mine, because I did not mention forestry management plans a single time in my speech, despite his claiming that I did. However, here is what I would say about that. None of northern Manitoba, which is currently burning, is in a national park, which is what my colleagues across the Conservative bench have made comments on previously. Certainly, it is a provincial responsibility to manage forests that are outside national parks. It is important for the province to have the tools to do so. I understand there are acts that the previous Liberal federal government enacted, such as the Species at Risk Act, which prevent certain controlled burns from being undertaken. That is limiting the ability to manage forestry.”
“I look forward to hearing more from the government members about the steps they are taking to address this initiative and support the evacuees and the province of Manitoba in getting these fires under control.”
“In fact, even my hometown of Souris just developed a new campground and has made campsites available, obviously at no cost to evacuees. Evacuees will be housed in hotels first, but depending on how long this situation drags on for, and we hope it is not long, Souris has made accommodations available in alternative formats if folks want to get out of the hotel after a short stay there. These are important initiatives. Brandon—Souris and Westman are welcoming the evacuees with open arms while we send our first responders north to address the situation there. I am very proud to represent these hard-working and very caring Westman and Brandon—Souris residents. I thank them for their commitment to dealing with this situation.”