Blaine Calkins
Ponoka—Didsbury, Alberta · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, the verdict is in, and the Prime Minister is in way over his head. He is the only leader, not just in the G7 but also in the G20, who has led his country into a recession. What does this mean practically?”
“Mr. Speaker, with regard to the Liberals' bill, where they say they are putting back mandatory minimum sentences, but they have this safeguard or whatever they want to call it where it is actually optional, I want to ask my colleague, the member for Bow River , is that not akin to putting seat belts in vehicles and then never requiring an…”
“That catering bill would have been enough to feed a Canadian family for 55 years. Every dollar spent on luxury catering is a dollar that cannot go towards lowering taxes, building homes, improving public safety or helping Canadians put food on their own tables. Conservatives are here and ready to get to work. Where is the Prime Minister ?”
“It is wrong not just when it happens to Conservatives; it is wrong when it happens to Liberal, NDP or Bloc members, or to anybody. Since these incidents, the Prime Minister has praised Paul Chiang as a person of integrity, and he has also strengthened Canada's ties with the People's Republic of China through trade and security partnership…”
“Tay, issued by the Communist regime in Beijing for making pro-democracy comments from here in Canada about what is going on in Hong Kong and China. This was a Liberal MP at the time basically encouraging the kidnapping of a political adversary. Goodness knows what would have happened if Mr. Chiang had actually gotten his way.”
“It seems like common sense to me, but that might not be such a common thing across the aisle. We studied the issue at length at committee, where we heard from several witnesses, including, most recently, Gerald Chipeur, that the bill does not go far enough and would need to crack down even harder on foreign monetary contributions.”
The complete record
Every one of 294 lines we hold for Blaine Calkins, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 5 of 6.
“Mr. Speaker, the current government is the most expensive in Canadian history. Every dollar the Prime Minister spends comes out of the pockets of Canadians. The more the Liberals spend, the more things cost. Unfortunately, the Liberal Prime Minister did not learn anything from the mistakes of the last Liberal prime minister. The Liberals had a chance in their budget to lower food costs for Canadians by scrapping the industrial carbon tax, yet they chose to make food more expensive by increasing the industrial carbon tax, driving up the cost of fertilizer and farm equipment. Why is the Prime Minister increasing the industrial carbon tax and making food more expensive for Canadians?”
“Madam Speaker, I am not familiar with the case my friend from Waterloo has brought up, but I will simply suggest this: I have been an MP for 20 years. I have had numerous cases of people who have been in this country paying taxes for years and years, and their children, born even in this country, and they speak the language, are being sent back to the country of origin of their parents. However, that is a first-generation decision, and Conservatives always stood up for that first-generation commitment. It is the second-generation one that is most problematic.”
“There are a lot of people who want to have access to Canadian privileges, want to have access to the Canadian passport and want to have access to Canadian programs and services but might not be contributing much, when it comes to the prosperity of our nation, for example, and I think a 1,095-day tour of Canada is not substantial enough in any way, shape or form. It makes me wonder if perhaps this is being done to advance the interests of just one particular party in this House, instead of advancing the interests of our country writ large.”
“Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend from Alberta for bringing this up. I have been here a long time. I was here in 2006, when the Lebanon crisis broke out. We found that there were not only a few hundred or a few thousand but some 60,000 Canadians living abroad in just that particular case, which I think inspired some of the conversations about whether we have citizens of convenience. I mentioned in my speech that our passport has visa-free access in over 184 countries around the world.”
“Notwithstanding that, if that person's parents are Canadian citizens or have those rights, that means the grandchildren of those parents, through this person who has been incarcerated in Canada, meet that threshold and will now be entitled to Canadian citizenship. I think that is ridiculous.”
“Madam Speaker, I think my “friend”, and I use that term sparingly, the member for Winnipeg North , missed the point. If someone who is not a citizen has their child here, and that person commits a crime, they may go to a federal prison, and I have just explained that the average sentence length is 1,787 days. They may then leave prison and go back to another country, where they were originally from or their parents might have been originally from. Millions upon millions of Canadians have moved here from elsewhere, my wife included. I am not anti-immigrant at all. Thanks for the accusation, though.”
“Will other countries retaliate and reduce our visa-free access? Citizenship is not a commodity. It should not be bought, and it certainly should not be given away cheaply by way of Bill C-3 . To hold Canadian citizenship is to belong to one of the greatest nations on the planet, and that should not be forgotten.”
“It is the pinnacle of proof of belonging to a certain group of people, these being people who share the same rights and obligations; who have similar underlying values, and in Canada this includes things like the rule of law, a respect for democracy and a tolerance for those with differing views or opinions; and who share similar historical, linguistic and cultural links to each other. In our system, those who wish to attain this level of belonging are diligent and work hard to attain it. This is not given to them; they earn it. They are the best fits for our system, including their participation in our economic and social fabric. That is why it is disheartening to see the current government say our citizenship basically has no value. If we do not treat our citizenship carefully, why would any other country do so?”
“His ideas of citizenship were still primitive compared with today. Rome would expand on these ideas by defining the rights of citizens as being tied to certain responsibilities, namely the protection of the state through military service. Later, Rousseau and Locke expanded on these ideas to include a more robust system of rights and responsibilities, often referred to as the social contract that defines the obligations that both citizen and state have with each other. While the franchise of citizens has expanded since then, no one disputes these ancient ideas that rights cannot exist without responsibilities. How does this tie into the current debate on Bill C-3 and on citizenship? Citizenship is the culmination of these ideas.”
“This whole debacle arose because the last prime minister refused to challenge a 2009 court decision in Ontario that struck down the previous Harper-era provisions that protected our citizenship system from abuses. Conservatives have always understood that citizenship has an inherent value. After all, a Canadian passport is one of the most valued in the world, offering visa-free travel to 184 countries. For years, Canadian citizenship was the envy of the world, attracting the best newcomers wishing to better their lives, but years of mismanagement under the Liberal government has harmed the reputation of our citizenship. Where does this value lie? Aristotle defined this concept of citizenship roughly as the right “to rule and be ruled in turn”, being closely associated with the ideas of civic participation in the polis.”
“These were common-sense proposals, such as requiring knowledge of Canada's official languages and undergoing a security assessment. However, the government has teamed up with the NDP to gut these changes. This is happening despite the NDP not even having a seat at the committee table. Not only is this underhanded, but it also violates the spirit of the democratic process we have in this place. (1320) They even removed our changes that would allow Canadians working overseas in the service of our government to pass on their citizenship. This goes to show that we may have a new Prime Minister , but this is the same old Liberal government. It should be noted that Bill C-3 is the successor to Bill C-71 in the previous Parliament. The government has basically tried to re-pass the same failed policies as the last government.”
“Blaine Calkins: Madam Speaker, I would say to the member for Winnipeg North that it is very simple: If they are the children of Canadian citizens, but not citizens themselves, and are in a federal prison, they can confer citizenship to the second generation, and that is exactly the point the legislation has. Essentially, Bill C-3 would allow foreign-born individuals who have never lived in Canada to bypass the immigration system and gain citizenship just because a parent spent a few months in Canada years or even decades ago. It would create a plethora of citizens born outside the country with no meaningful connection to Canada whatsoever. That is what grandchildren are. That is why our party worked collaboratively at committee to improve the bill. Our amendments would have solved the lost Canadians issue but limit potential abuses.”
“It showed that there are nearly 1,000 non-Canadians in federal institutions in Canada. If one is serving a federal sentence, the average sentence for a federal penitentiary is 1,787 days. When those 1,000 people get out, they will have now met the arbitrary 1,095 nonconsecutive days test. They can go anywhere they want in the world after they are released from a federal prison in Canada, and, because they have spent that time in Canada, any children they might have could now be conferred Canadian citizenship. Should the children of these people who have spent time in a prison who might be the— An hon. member: No, because they are not Canadians.”
“It introduces an extremely weak substantial connection test to gain citizenship. An individual's parents need only to spend 1,095 nonconsecutive days in Canada at any point to gain citizenship. No criminal background check would be required. This was something Conservatives proposed as an amendment at committee and had passed, but, suspiciously, it has now been removed from the bill at third reading. This is the point I would like to expand on, and it should not be ignored. In the last few days, I received a response to an Order Paper question in which I asked how many non-Canadians are incarcerated in federal prisons in Canada. That number would not even include the ones incarcerated in provincial institutions, which are for people serving sentences of up to two years less a day.”
“Lost Canadians are those with strong ties to Canada who have been denied the privilege of being conferred our citizenship because of complexities or outdated provisions in our laws. Conservatives believe those who have been arbitrarily or unfairly denied this privilege should have this error corrected, yet the bill that is currently before Parliament remains a bad one, notwithstanding that issue. Instead of merely remediating the most egregious cases of lost citizenship, the Liberals took the liberty of creating a system that would completely gut and undervalue the value of Canadian citizenship. While most immigrants to Canada must work hard to acquire their citizenship, something they are immensely proud of, the bill would create a system in which citizenship is not awarded in a merit-based manner.”
“Madam Speaker, I was really enjoying the debate; it is lots of fun. I want to thank my colleague who split his time with me, my friend from Red Deer , for his excellent speech. I am happy to rise again and talk about the bill. I spoke to it at second reading, and I am happy to offer my thoughts again at third reading, although I have some suspicion about what actually happened. I have been in this place a long time, and the fact that we are not debating the bill the committee actually adopted at third reading is interesting, to say the least. I rise today to deal with Bill C-3 , which claims to redress the lost Canadians issue but, of course, goes far beyond that goal and scope in its intent.”
“Violent crime is up 55%, and firearms crimes are up by over 130%. These are crimes committed with illegal guns; they are not committed by hunters like me or by sport shooters but by criminals who get guns illegally. Extortion is up by over 330%, sexual assaults are up 76% and homicides are up 29%. It is no wonder a recent Léger poll shows that over half of Canadians no longer feel safe in their own home. I would like to know this: Will the government apologize to all the victims of crime for all the abuse and the murders, to the people who are suffering as a result of the decisions the MPs on the other side have made?”
“The bill even permitted conditional sentences, allowing house arrest for serious offences such as sexual assault. Imagine a person's sexually assaulting somebody and being able to serve their sentence from the comfort of their own home. The Liberal government has been one of the most divisive governments in Canada's history over the last 10 years. Somehow the one thing it was able to do was unite all 13 premiers with respect to its approach on crime. The 13 premiers, one for each province and territory, wrote to the previous prime minister in 2023, saying that he had it completely wrong. The most unifying thing the Liberals have actually done is galvanize the whole country in saying that they had it wrong. Since 2015, there has been a staggering increase of lawlessness across Canada.”
“All hunters and farmers know this, and we are very careful. Gun control means muzzle control to a law-abiding gun owner but not to a criminal. However, if someone is a Liberal, why would they let common sense get in the way of ideological agendas? Of course they would remove that provision. Robbery with a firearm must be a lot of fun for the victim. If a person is robbing somebody at gunpoint, under the previous or current Liberal laws of this country, they do not have to fear going to jail. As a matter of fact, they are probably going to be able to serve their sentence from their couch. Extortion with a firearm is up by over 350% in Canada. In some communities it is up by over 500%. It was not like that until Bill C-5 was passed.”
“Madam Speaker, what I was saying is very important. If the Liberals had listened over these 10 years, we would not have the problems we have right now, but it is clear they do not like to listen. When it comes to weapons trafficking, excluding firearms and some ammunition, one does not have to go to jail if one trafficks in weapons. Possession for the purpose of weapons trafficking, that is, when a person carries them across the border or sells them; and importing or exporting firearms or ammunition without a permit, all related to organized crime and the smuggling trade, are things for which the Liberals erased minimum sentences. Discharging a firearm with intent or recklessly is a problem. If someone discharges a firearm recklessly or with the intent to hurt somebody, they should go to jail.”
“As a matter of fact, someone would probably get in more trouble for having their guns stolen from them than the person who actually stole the guns in the first place.”
“These were common-sense penalties for dangerous offences and included using a firearm or an imitation firearm in the commission of an offence. It also included possession of a firearm or weapon while knowing that the possession is unauthorized. We all know criminals do not get gun licences and do not register their guns. Why on earth would we take away minimum penalties for people who knowingly do that? Regarding possession of a prohibited or restricted firearm with ammunition, I do not know why people would not go to jail for that. Every law-abiding gun owner knows they would not have to suffer those consequences because they follow the rules, but criminals do not follow the rules. Regarding possession of a weapon obtained in the commission of an offence, if someone steals somebody's guns, they do not get to go to jail.”
“Bill C-75 eased bail provisions and legislated the principle of restraint for police and courts, ensuring that criminals would be released at the earliest opportunity under the least onerous conditions. This is, essentially, the open door to the catch-and-release system we see today. I am a conservationist at heart and an angler. I know that catch and release can sometimes be a good thing. When it comes to justice, though, catch and release is poor public policy and comes at enormous costs for certain Canadians. Bill C-5 , for its part, removed the mandatory minimum sentences on 14 different Criminal Code offences, even some minimum sentences that were put in place by none other than Pierre Elliott Trudeau.”
“It is, in fact, an important tool for restraining the liberties of those who threaten public safety, especially when they are likely to reoffend. In other words, Conservatives believe public safety to be the paramount consideration in whether somebody's civil liberties should be restrained. Victims of crime deserve a voice, and the actions of criminals should have real-world consequences. Unfortunately, the last 10 years of Liberal rule have seen all the progress made under the Harper administration completely erased. During these years, the current Liberal government and the ones before it waged an ideological crusade against those who uphold Canada's laws. Of the Liberals' soft-on-crime bills, none are more egregious than Bill C-5 and Bill C-75 .”
“Madam Speaker, Ponoka—Didsbury is a great riding in rural central Alberta. It is almost as close to the north end of Calgary as it is to the south end of Edmonton, with some of the finest, hardest-working and noblest people we could ever find, and honest, law-abiding citizens. There are lots of farmers, businesses and all-around good people. It is a pleasure for me to rise on their behalf today to give a speech that I am going to entitle “We told them so”. I am rising to speak to Bill C-14 , a bill introduced by the Liberal government to fix a problem that it, essentially, created. When the Conservative government left power in 2015, Canada had the lowest total crime rate since 1969, and that was not simply a coincidence. Conservatives understand that the justice system is not a toy for the use of social engineering.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Prime Minister once said that he would be judged by the prices Canadians pay at the grocery store. Canadians have judged him, and Canadians are paying the price. Food inflation is up 4%. Vegetables are up 2%. Sugar is up more than 9%. Meat is up 6%, and beef is up 14%. What is the government's so-called plan? It is to spend more, tax more and call it “affordability”. Their hidden food taxes on fuel, food packaging and production show up on the receipt as higher prices for everyone, or at least everyone who has to pay for their own groceries, and Canadians feel it every single time they shop for food. When will the Liberals get it through their heads that the more they spend, the more inflation goes up? The more inflation goes up, the more the prices go up for Canadians.”
“We actually make it so that when they do their job, when they go out and risk their lives to apprehend, arrest and convict a bad guy, the bad guy stays in jail for a while. Otherwise, what is the point in a police officer risking his life to go do the job? We need tougher laws so that when our police do the job that we have asked them to do, there are consequences.”
“Mr. Speaker, I would not have time to litigate the issues with former commissioner Lucki and the previous minister of public safety, who is now the member of Parliament for Scarborough Southwest . That actually played out in the public discourse. There were criticisms offered up by even the RCMP senior officers themselves about the conduct of the minister and the commissioner of the RCMP at the time. That is a conflated issue with what is going on right now. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the frontline men and women who protect our country day to day, whether they are police officers, border services agents or correctional services officers. We need to continue to support them. Do members know how we do that?”
“If what I understand is true, if reasonable amendments could be made to actually strengthen the bill and make it better, we might have another conversation at third reading. At this particular point in time, this is how incompetence looks. We have one bill, and then we have another one that does the same thing, because they did not get it right the first time.”
“Mr. Speaker, if we ever wanted to see a government that does not know what it is actually doing and what that looks like and what that manifests itself as in the House of Commons, it is this: It will table a bill and realize that it has got it wrong, and then it will table another bill in the hopes that it might have actually gotten it right. This has been talked about. The previous speaker, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands , spoke about it as well. We now have two bills on the Order Paper that do essentially the same thing. My confidence in the government's getting Bill C-12 right, in lieu of Bill C-2 , has improved a little bit, but the reality is that we are only going to support Bill C-12 as far as getting it to committee goes, and then we will take a look.”
“I had the ability to draft a piece of legislation over the summer and table it, for my private member's bill. The government, with all of its resources, cannot table a bill on bail in seven months. Why is that?”
“Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, some people around here talk so much, they do not get to the point of actually asking their question. If I understand what he was asking me, it was whether we will support Bill C-12 . Yes, we will support it to get it to committee, and we will do our due diligence. That is why we are having this debate in the House of Commons. I raised a number of very serious issues in my speech. I led the rural crime task force in a previous Parliament. Rural crime is up. Dangerous and violent crime in the country is up. Police associations across the country are saying that the government has had misguided policies for the past 10 years and that it is doubling down on them in this particular Parliament. Where is the bail bill? It has been seven months.”
“When enacting policy, we have to heed the law of unintended consequences and try to understand the downward effects a piece of legislation may have. The Liberals did not do their due diligence on crime, and I do not think they have done it on the border bill. When Conservatives forced the Liberals to back down on Bill C-2 , we did so because we understand that the policies contained in Bill C-2 have unintended consequences and unforeseen ramifications. As with Bill C-2, we believe there could be provisions in Bill C-12 that violate people's freedoms and privacy, and it is our duty to ensure that Bill C-12 receives the proper scrutiny it deserves at the committee stage to ensure Canadians do not pay for another boondoggle of unintended, or not unintended, consequences.”
“We would think a prime minister in Canada would have said the flow of illegal guns across the border from the United States into Canada is killing Canadian citizens, pushed back on the American administration and stood up for law-abiding firearms owners in this country. However, the Liberals did not do that, because they did not want to admit that it was illegal guns killing Canadians on the street. They wanted to maintain the mantra of going after law-abiding citizens. We know that because the current public safety minister said as much when he thought nobody was listening. How does all of this relate to Bill C-12 ? If the last decade is any indication, the government has an issue understanding that policy work is a careful game of trade-offs.”
“The Liberal government is going to spend $750 million to take lawfully acquired property away from Canadians. That is about $500 million U.S. If we divide that by $3 million per scanner, we could easily put 150 of these scanners at our ports of entry to make sure we scan at least 10% of all containers coming in and going out. I think most Canadians would be shocked to realize that we do not scan a single container that leaves our country. The shocking thing about all of this is that, with the change in administration to the south, the administration has claimed that fentanyl was flowing from Canada into the United States and, as a result, was killing American citizens.”
“If implemented, this costly and ineffective gun buyback is estimated to cost at least $5 billion, even though only $742 million has been allocated to it. With that kind of money, the government could easily fund such programs as acquiring modern scanning technology at our 119 ports of entry to secure our border. I have an example to share that I also brought up during the committee hearings on Bill C-21 . In the Cayman Islands, a high-efficiency scanner was bought. Someone can drive right through it in a truck, or a sea-can can go through it. It can be put at any port of entry. It will scan a container. It is safe for anyone who happens to be going through, and it will find all manner of contraband: drugs, people, firearms and illegal weapons. Those are about $3 million U.S. apiece.”
“These bills include Bill C-71 , which created a backdoor gun registry; the 2020 order in council, a massive list of newly restricted firearms; and Bill C-21 in 2023, which created a national freeze on the sale, purchase and transfer of handguns for law-abiding citizens and sport shooters, as well as a new prohibition on many long guns used for hunting and sport-shooting purposes. Since the passing of these bills, the government has not stopped adding firearms to the restricted list. The Liberals have now embarked on their so-called voluntary assault-style firearms compensation program, the gun grab, which is a program to confiscate guns from law-abiding citizens. It completely misses the mark by letting criminals go free and going after people who follow the law.”
“The bill eased bail provisions and legislated the principle of restraint, which was codified in the Criminal Code for police and courts to ensure that criminals would be released at the earliest possible opportunity with the least amount of restrictions. Essentially, this favours release over detention; it is precisely these two bills, along with a copious number of bad decisions made, that created the revolving door in our justice system by which offenders are free to continue to terrorize communities. While the Liberals were making life easier for criminals by passing Bill C-5 and Bill C-75 , they increased their attacks on law-abiding firearms owners, who are in no way responsible for any of this crime wave. They did so with a trifecta of bills with zero public safety value.”
“Discharging a firearm with intent and discharging a firearm recklessly are offences that people no longer need to go to jail for. If someone wants to commit a robbery, they might as well do it with a gun, because they do not have to go to jail for that either in this country anymore. Did I not just say that extortion is up 357% since 2015? The mandatory minimum penalty for extortion with a firearm is gone thanks to Bill C-5 and thanks to the Liberals and the NDP, which supported them at the time. (1310) In fact, these policies were all informed by expert opinion, yet the Liberals did not seem to care. Instead, before passing Bill C-5 , they doubled down and passed Bill C-75 during their majority tenure from 2015 to 2019.”
“Possession of a firearm or weapon, knowing that its possession is unauthorized, so illegal possession of a gun, for example, is another offence that people no longer have to go to jail for. Possession of a prohibited or restricted firearm with ammunition is an offence that people do not have to go to jail for anymore. Possession of a weapon obtained by the commission of an offence, so if someone steals a gun, they do not have to go to jail. Weapons trafficking, possession for purposes of weapons trafficking and smuggling, so someone can smuggle weapons now, in this country, and not go to jail. Importing or exporting knowing it is unauthorized is another example of smuggling; someone can traffic smuggled firearms, guns, ammunition, weapons or anything we can name.”
“It is the hypocrisy of the government that it has opposed and demonized those who support our hard-on-crime agenda while now implicitly acknowledging that Conservatives were right all along. How did we get here? In 2022, Bill C-5 was passed. In this piece of legislation, the Liberal government removed the mandatory minimums on 14 different Criminal Code offences. These were common-sense penalties on dangerous offences that were instituted and put in place by our Conservative government; these were bills that I proudly passed when I sat on the other side of the House. They include using a firearm or imitation firearm in the commission of an offence, which people do not have to go to jail for anymore in Canada, thanks to Liberals.”
“It is the realization of the law of unintended consequences brought on by a decade of bad policy, informed by a world view that cares more about optics than it concerns itself with the real-life effects of its own self-serving ideological agenda. We now have a so-called government that is presenting bills in the House that purport to fix this collection of self-inflicted issues that Canadians face. These are the same problems that the members across the aisle from me created. In 2015, our Conservative government oversaw a Canada that had its lowest total crime rate since 1969. Unfortunately, the last 10 years has seen this progress almost completely erased.”
“Canadians understand that the situation is untenable. After all, it is they who have had to shoulder the burden of this rise in criminality in our communities. For context, since 2015, violent crime has spiked significantly, and it is up nearly 50%. That is not all; crime of almost every category has seen an increase: Sexual assaults are up nearly 75%, homicides are up 28%, gang-related homicides and organized crime have increased by 75%, violent firearms offences with illegal guns are up 116%, extortion is up 357%, auto theft is up 46%, and trafficking is up nearly 84%. Fraud, homicide and anything we can name are all going up. I could continue, but I think my colleagues get the picture. This upswing in violence is not a coincidence; it is a result of soft-on-crime policies and a porous border.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today on behalf of the residents of Ponoka—Didsbury. After a long decade of nihilistic Liberal rule, chaos and disorder reign supreme in our streets. Criminality may be only one of the many problems Canadians face, but it is a significant one. A survey by Abacus Data released this year, in 2025, found that 46% of Canadians ranked crime and public safety among their top concerns. This can be contrasted with an Ipsos poll taken in June 2015, the year our previous Conservative government left office, which found that 15% of Canadians ranked crime and violence among the issues on the national agenda at the time. I will let Canadians ponder those two statistics to find out just who has been a better steward of peace, safety and security in this country.”
“Mr. Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. The Liberals cannot get their story straight on the economy. On one hand, they say that tariffs are hurting us. On the other hand, they claim we have the best possible tariffs of anyone in the world. Both of these statements cannot be true, but that never stops a Liberal from saying them. Here are the facts since the Prime Minister took office: The deficit has doubled; Canada has the fastest-shrinking G7 economy with the second-highest unemployment rate; $54 billion of net investment has fled the country, and 86,000 people have lost their jobs. Energy workers cannot afford to wait for empty promises to materialize. If the Prime Minister cannot get the job done, why will he not get out of the way so Conservatives can get back to work and build this country to what it should be?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Prime Minister is breaking his promises to Canadians. He claimed that Canada would become an energy superpower, but refuses to put a pipeline on his list of nation-building projects. He promised the fastest-growing economy in the G7, yet he has delivered the fastest-shrinking. He promised to create jobs, yet he has lost 86,000 jobs since becoming Prime Minister. To make matters worse, TC Energy is investing over $8 billion in an energy infrastructure project, not in Canada, but in the United States. President Trump has made it clear that he wants to take jobs and investment away from Canada. Why is the Prime Minister so hell-bent on helping him?”
“Mr. Speaker, in a leaked recording this week, the public safety minister told the truth and admitted that his Liberal gun grab is a failure. It will not improve public safety, it will be expensive and it is politically motivated. Then on CTV's Power Play , he refuted his own words, saying they were “in jest”. Taking people's property without consulting them is not funny. Wasting $750 million for the sake of crass politics is not funny. Demonizing vetted and tested law-abiding Canadians is not funny. The only funny thing here is that the minister still has his job. When will the Prime Minister fire him?”
“In an astonishing turn of events, both the Prime Minister and the public safety minister have now said that their gun grab will be voluntary, but, in a leaked audio clip, the public safety minister was caught saying that Canadians would never get arrested if they did not turn in their now-prohibited guns. Is the minister suggesting that gun owners follow gun laws the same way the last Liberal prime minister followed ethics laws? Do the Prime Minister and the public safety minister realize that it is a crime to counsel people to not follow the law?”
“Mr. Speaker, in the Speech from the Throne, the so-called new Liberal government claimed it would tackle crime while protecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners. It was a staggering admission of failure by a government that saw illegal gun crimes skyrocket by 130%. Since then, it has shown it is no different from the last Liberal government. Not only will it spend four times the money to harass legal gun owners than it will to harass criminals and gangs, but it has also doubled down on its promise to finish its gun grab within the year.”
“I am very happy to table this bill, and I look forward to the debate and the support of everybody in the House this time. (Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)”