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.”
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“My team reached out to the City of Brandon's team earlier today in advance of my giving this debate and wanted to make sure the main message from the City of Brandon is to those folks who have been evacuated, who are landing in the city of Brandon: It is so important that they register with the Red Cross so that we know where they are, they can be tracked and services can be delivered to them. That is the message, folks. If someone is landing in Brandon and accommodations are being provided, they should please remember to register with the Red Cross. We know people have a lot on the go right now, but it is so important to make sure that they get the services they need and deserve at this time when they are evacuated from their homes. I know other regions of Brandon—Souris are stepping up as well.”
“We know they are leading the emergency response now that the request for support has been received. To those fine folks who put uniforms on and put their lives on the line to protect this country, both at home and abroad, I say that I sincerely appreciate their support and their work at this incredibly challenging time. Brandon received those planes. It is currently housing several hundred, if not over a thousand, evacuees within hotels and across the city. We know that things are getting challenging.”
“They may not find it there when they return, but it is so important that people do so to protect themselves and protect their families. They should please respect those evacuation orders when they come. We know that there is a lot of ground to cover. There are thousands of hectares currently burning. Again, I will reiterate my thanks to the professionals who are working diligently to get the out-of-control fires under control and maintain the ones that are out of control. It is so important that we respect and support them in everything they do. I know Brandon—Souris residents are certainly doing that. Over the weekend, a number of C-130 Royal Canadian Air Force planes landed at the Brandon Municipal Airport. They came from the RCAF headquarters in Winnipeg.”
“It is very important that they follow the requests of provincial officials and remove themselves from those areas if they are under an evacuation order. (2300) From the bottom of my heart, with all common sense in mind, I know this must be difficult. I myself was evacuated from my family home during the 2011 flood season in southwestern Manitoba. It was a significant water event, a once-in-300-years flood in our community. The military was called in by former NDP premier Greg Selinger and former prime Minister Stephen Harper, working together across party lines to save our community. They certainly did. We were evacuated from our home for over a month. I know they are not easy decisions to make, to leave everything that someone owns and everything that they know behind.”
“It is still a significant challenge, so Manitobans are urged at this time to be very cautious with their actions and their activities. We certainly do not need more strain on our emergency services personnel at this time. We thank Manitobans for their commitment. In addition, a number of chiefs have spoken publicly to the media about their frustration with folks who right now are not following the request to evacuate communities. I just cannot stress enough, in this important, hallowed chamber, how impactful and how necessary it is for folks in those communities that are under an evacuation order to please follow the commentary from the provincial government and the professionals. Folks should please respect those notices as they receive them. This is for their health and safety. These are not safe places to be right now.”
“This is at level 3, as of the latest fire bulletin published by the Province of Manitoba's emergency measures team, and it is important for Manitobans to understand that those measures are in effect. We have heard a lot of talk already tonight and through the evening about the impact of climate change. We are not here to debate that necessarily, but it is important to note that the Province of Manitoba is reporting that over half, approaching three-quarters, of the fires so far are known to have been caused by human activity. It remains a challenge for our fire and emergency measures personnel that human activity is causing these fires, not intentionally I am sure, but accidentally in the vast majority of cases.”
“Deployed in Manitoba alone to address the challenging circumstances that we simply do not have the capacity as one province to manage, there have been 38 personnel from Alberta, 87 personnel from British Columbia, 19 personnel from Parks Canada, 23 personnel from New Brunswick, two personnel from Prince Edward Island, 500 sprinklers from our friends in British Columbia and two skimmers and one bird dog plane from our friends in Minnesota. On behalf of Brandon—Souris constituents and all Manitobans, I say a hearty and heartfelt “thank you” to our friends from other provinces and our friends in Minnesota for their support at this incredibly challenging time. Manitobans continue to urge people to follow carefully all fire and travel restrictions.”
“I should have noted at the beginning of my speech that I plan to split my time with the member for St. Albert—Sturgeon River . As Manitoba continues to battle the flames, our firefighters, both professional and volunteer, are deployed from across regions of the province, including from the city of Brandon and Westman. We are responding. Many people have volunteered to go up north to address the challenging circumstances in the constituency of the minister who just spoke, as well as elsewhere. We thank them for their significant commitment to protecting the lives and livelihoods of our northern Manitoba friends. We also know that we Manitobans are not doing it alone.”
“Just as a bit of an update, my portion of the province is not currently under threat of fire, but we are receiving refugees and evacuees from regions of the province that are, and we are certainly doing our part to welcome those folks into our constituency, into our homes in many cases, to make sure that they have a safe place to go. It is important to note that many of the fires are still significantly out of control. They are extreme conditions, and we remain in a province-wide state of emergency. There are also small pockets of high fire danger in other areas of the province. While I am told that after I left Winnipeg yesterday morning they did get a bit of rain, it is certainly not enough and not in the right regions to stem the fires that are currently burning, both under and out of control, nor to stem the focus previously.”
“Mr. Speaker, I wish that I were rising, for the second time in this chamber since my election, with respect to a better topic than the one at hand, but I appreciate that we are having this emergency debate about the ongoing wildfire situation affecting my home province as well as our neighbouring province of Saskatchewan and elsewhere. I know other parts of the country are affected as well. Although the debate is labelled as being about Manitoba and Saskatchewan specifically, we know our fellow Canadians in other provinces are impacted as well, and I think it is important to mention that.”
“Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North made a lot of comments about the previous Liberal government and all the money it flowed to the provincial government in Manitoba to buy firefighting equipment. I would put on the record that the first budget of Wab Kinew as the NDP premier actually reduced the emergency measures budget in Manitoba by over $50 million. I am not sure where the money from the Liberal budget went, but it certainly did not go to expanding firefighting infrastructure in the province of Manitoba. Does that sound like a responsible approach to fire prevention to him? What does he think about the record that the member for Winnipeg North is putting on the record here?”
“Madam Speaker, I want to make it clear that our Conservative Party, while supporting tax cuts, does believe that the proposal from the Prime Minister 's government does not go far enough. We think Canadians deserve more relief from the massive increases in higher taxes that they have received after the last nine and a half years of the Liberal government. The government needs to go further. That is why we are calling for a spring budget to deliver more relief for Manitobans, Westman residents and Canadian families who are struggling to put food on the table.”
“Madam Speaker, it is certainly not. Our position is that the bureaucracy has become so bloated that we cannot get anything built in this country in a timely fashion. It is taking years upon years to get these permits approved and get construction actually happening, so while we believe that the environment is very important, and that protecting our environment and our natural spaces is very important, we also need to get permitting timelines down to a modicum of a reasonable time frame so that companies and investors have the assurance that these projects are actually going to get done sometime in our lifetime. The Conservative Party's platform is to reduce the amount of time it takes to get these permits done and actually get this country built for a change.”
“Madam Speaker, we will certainly support the government if it actually provides a plan to build national energy projects in this country, including oil and gas pipelines. We have seen nothing from the government members about that, and we look forward to seeing that plan come forward. If it does, then we will consider it at that time. However, the member is certainly wrong. There were more Conservative votes in my constituency this time than in many years past. People supported the Conservative Party platform in my constituency. They voted for change in Ottawa, and we are going to work hard every day to make that change happen.”
“We can do big things in this country. We can make positive change so that those who come after us have a better country and more opportunity than we had when we were growing up. Without a doubt, this Conservative team, under the leadership of Pierre Poilievre, is the team to get that done. I am ready to get to work, so let us get to it.”
“To those people who bought into this vision, this path and this campaign of hope, I say this: Do not lose that hope now. We did not get across the finish line, but the team surrounding me is fighting for them. Day in and day out, we are working to implement that agenda from the opposition benches, and we will get some results. Look no further than last night, when the Liberals lost their first vote on their own throne speech, when we amended it to include the adamant statement that there be a financial update this spring, before the House rises, to ensure that there is a fiscal plan to support the challenges that are impacting them and their families. I know things are not good right now, but they can be better. We know they can be. With a lot of hard work, patience, persistence and determination, we can make them better.”
“That is a credit to Pierre Poilievre and those in our leadership team, who have made this Conservative Party younger with a broader vote coalition. That bodes very well for the future of the Conservative Party of Canada. It is a plan to make life more affordable by reducing taxes; reducing government spending; cutting waste; building safer communities; targeting investments in nation-building projects, such as national energy corridors and pipelines; and having a jail, not bail, plan, which would put criminals behind bars and ensure that they remain behind bars to serve time for the crimes they committed to destroy our communities and destroy our families. This is the Conservative plan that young people across the country supported and will support again.”
“We need to look no further than the Phoenix pay system debacle, where the Liberals could not even figure out how to pay their own civil servants, or the arrive scam issue, which complicated crossing the border with a Canadian passport as a Canadian citizen. These are just some of the smallest examples. I am not even getting into infrastructure, procurement and the other debacles of the last nine and a half years. Young people in this country voted for a common-sense plan, but even more than that, they voted for a plan full of hope. More young people in Canada under 40 voted Conservative than ever before because our plan inspired them with a path forward to a more hopeful future for this country.”
“Part of this larger vote coalition was young people, people who have never voted Conservative or who have never voted at all, and they voted Conservative for the first time. They voted in favour of a Conservative plan that offers a very proud and important path forward for this country. (1235) Young people in Canada want very simple things. They want to be treated with respect and to be able to get a good job that earns them a good wage that allows them to buy an affordable home and start a family in a safe neighbourhood. These are not complicated requests. However, if anything, the Liberal government of the last nine and a half years has shown us that the Liberal Party's secret party trick is to complicate even the simplest of government tasks.”
“This is not an acceptable state of affairs, and unfortunately, it gets worse. With Chinese tariffs on Canadian canola, and our oil and gas sector being suppressed by failed Liberal government policies, people are being left feeling like there is less hope than there has been in many years. Why are we here? The Liberal government seems focused, or have been focused, on offshore challenges. It is funding farming initiatives in Africa, but there is no support for Canadian agriculture. It is investing in the Asian Infrastructure Bank, building pipelines in Asia, but there has been zero major infrastructure, nation-building projects conducted here on Canadian soil in the last nine and a half years of the Liberals. That is a shame, and Westman residents have had enough. They made it clear with a decisive mandate vote for change in Ottawa.”
“I do not take that faith lightly, and I plan to work hard on behalf of this team every day. Most importantly, I want to thank the people of Brandon—Souris. It is such a humbling experience to be a member of Parliament and to be their voice here in Ottawa. I am so privileged to be that voice, and I am going to work hard every day to ensure that their issues, their challenges and their experiences are raised here in the House of Commons. When I think about Brandon—Souris or Westman, the first word that comes to mind is “home”. Like any home, sometimes the house needs a bit of work, and that is certainly what we heard at the doors during this campaign. We heard that Westman industries are struggling. Young families are having a hard time paying the bills and buying affordable homes. Crime is up, both in our urban cities and on farmyards.”
“I thank them for their hard work, which was done in very quick fashion to get organized to get up and running. I also must thank my predecessor, Larry Maguire. He is a stand-up individual. He has been a great advocate for rural Manitoba, for all of Manitoba and for western Canadian agriculture over his many years in politics. He has been a great friend and mentor to me personally. I thank him for his friendship and mentorship, and I wish him well in his retirement, although I am sure we have not seen the last of him in his involvement in politics across Manitoba and the country. I want to thank the Conservative Party, my Conservative colleagues and our leader, Pierre Poilievre, for supporting me and putting their faith in me in my stepping into Larry's shoes and fulfilling the responsibilities of this role.”
“They have been supportive of me through this political journey, so I thank them for being there through thick and thin. I have not always made it easy. I am sure they would reaffirm that, but they have been there with me through it all, so I thank them for that. I thank my in-laws as well, who have allowed a political junkie into their family with open arms. I thank them for their support. Members get here with a team, so I would be remiss if I did not also thank the members of my campaign team. They came together very quickly after my predecessor announced a sudden departure from politics. We garnered very good results. There is no doubt about that. We broadened our voter coalition. We increased the number of Conservative votes that were received in our constituency.”
“Madam Speaker, it is a real pleasure to rise today to deliver my first speech in the House of Commons. I was reflecting while debate was going on earlier, and it is such an incredible honour to be in this place on behalf of the great people of Brandon and Westman. Members do not get here alone. I would be remiss if I did not start by thanking, of course, my partner Ashley, who has agreed to come along on this wild political journey. She has been a trooper in making the leap into federal politics with me, so I thank her from the bottom of my heart. I thank my parents, Darryl and Cherilyn. As an only child, I am sure it is a bit of a strange phenomenon for them to see their only child carted off to Ottawa to represent the rural areas of south-western Manitoba.”
“Mr. Speaker, this week, the Prime Minister introduced his first spending bill, and despite promising to cap spending during the election, the bill would increase spending by another 8% on an already bloated federal government. Half a trillion in spending was introduced the same day as he promised again to cap it, all with no budget, on the backs of hard-working Canadians and at the expense of future generations. When will the Liberals finally cap spending and put the financial future of young Canadians first? Will the Prime Minister give us the date for a spring budget today?”