Costas Menegakis
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, Ontario · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, last year we lost 5,630 Canadians to the opioid crisis. That is 15 lives lost every day. Emmy Liu, 14 years old, was one of the increasingly alarming number of young Canadians whose lives were stolen by the fentanyl traffickers.”
“Mr. Speaker, this bill seeks to criminalize anyone who dares to quote from scripture, a religious text, and that is crossing the line, as far as I am concerned and as far as a lot of Canadians are concerned. It is the difference between the state and religion, the state and faith.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister 's luxurious travel around the world has racked up a nearly $1-million catering bill. That is enough to feed a family for 55 years. While the Prime Minister eats five-star meals, Canadians are struggling.”
“Madam Speaker, the bill would basically strip away the right of a person to quote from their holy text. It would open the door to criminalizing people for uttering words that they are reading from their holy text.”
“Mr. Speaker, record-high youth unemployment in Canada is a direct result of the Liberal government's reckless immigration policies. By flooding the labour market with temporary foreign workers and residents, the current government has created a wage-suppressing crisis.”
“Now the Liberal government has launched an international campaign to recruit more foreign students to Canada who compete with Ethan and other young Canadians who are struggling to find work. The Liberal government should stop pandering to lobbyists and start putting Canadians first.”
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“Auto thefts are up 46%. Human trafficking is up 84%. Worst of all, total sexual violations against children are up 119%. We cannot forget that behind each of these statistics are real people who have suffered and who are continuing to suffer, who are frightened and who continue to be frightened. Two people, including an 11-year-old girl, lost their lives, killed, as a result of an arson, a deliberate arson, in the place they should have felt safest, their own home. This was in my community, where I live, in Richmond Hill. A man in Vaughan, as we heard yesterday in the House, from my very learned and exceptional colleague from King—Vaughan , was killed during a home invasion. A criminal walked in. This thug put a gun to his daughter's head. Naturally, a father would react.”
“After 10 years of the very tired Liberal government, people do not feel comfortable walking to school. They are unsafe taking public transit. They do not feel safe in their own homes. This is due to a wave of violent crime that has swept through communities throughout our country, particularly in urban areas, such as the one I represent in Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill. Due to the Liberal government's catch-and-release policies, repeat offenders continue to be released back into communities, where they can terrorize the communities again and perpetrate even more crimes, which are in many cases crimes similar to, or the same as, the ones they had been arrested for. Since the Liberals took office, soft-on-crime policies have caused crime rates to skyrocket. Violent crime is up 50%. Homicides are up 28%. Extortion is up a staggering 350%.”
“Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure to be back in the House representing the good people of Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill. After a long summer away, I confess that I have mixed feelings about that. I am happy to be back, but at the same time, this is the 22nd day this year that we are sitting in the House. I think that Canadians would have expected us to work through the summer rather than be home. Even though it is always a pleasure to engage with our constituents, we are elected to do a job for Canadians. It would have been so much better had we been here in the House, or at least in committees, working through the summer. The Liberals, of course, felt otherwise. While I enjoyed my time in my riding this summer, I was disheartened to constantly hear from so many people in our community that they feel unsafe.”
“Mr. Speaker, of course, we want to study the bill. We want to propose amendments to the bill that would make it a better piece of legislation. We have spent one day on it. It appears that the member has an issue with our spending all day on it. I would argue that it is not enough because the long-term ramifications of passing through a bad piece of legislation like this could be catastrophic for the immigration system and for Canada.”
“Hopefully, the government will come on board with us to make this a better piece of legislation so that we can pass it through the House unanimously at some point.”
“Mr. Speaker, I honestly believe that the legislation, as it has been presented by the Minister of Immigration , would make things a lot worse if passed. It would continue to get worse as long as government members keep playing musical chairs in the tired Liberal government. There have been seven different immigration ministers in a 10-year period. The government is not looking at the file seriously and this is, I would argue, a very important file for Canadians across the country, especially newcomers and immigrants who have worked so hard to obtain that right to come into our country and have done everything in the right way to obtain their citizenship. This legislation would continue to exacerbate the problems and make them a lot worse than they are today. We are here to hold the government to account.”
“Mr. Speaker, citizenship ceremonies are very emotional, as I said in my speech, and they are very important in the lives of the folks who are obtaining their citizenship on that day. I certainly believe that this bill needs to be studied a lot further. I hope the member opposite will speak to her colleagues in the Liberal Party to seriously consider amendments that we will be putting forward for this legislation, because as it stands right now, we cannot support the legislation. We agree with some of the points, as I said. We agree with recognizing lost citizens and we agree with adopted children obtaining their citizenship right away. However, we do not agree and will never agree with giving people who are not born in this country the right to perpetual Canadian citizenship without having contributed to our country.”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate Christiane Dupuis for her good work in helping the member in her work. I wish her every success in her future endeavours. It is important that we address the issue of the court decision. What we are saying here today is that we hope our colleagues in the Bloc and, quite frankly, in the Liberal Party will join us in ensuring that the piece of legislation we put through this House addresses the important issues we have raised here today. We are going to be proposing amendments at committee, for sure, and we would like those amendments to be considered very seriously by our friends from the Bloc and our friends from the Liberal Party, because at the end of the day, we are here to provide good legislation that addresses issues and resolves problems for Canadians. We need to work together toward that.”
“Mr. Speaker, I understand the need to present a new piece of legislation, but this is not a new piece; it is a cut and paste of the old piece. The member knows very well that this has gone through committee in the past, with both Bill C-71 and the Senate bill, Bill S-245 . The member also knows very well that for us to consider legislation to fix what he is saying and address the issue of the court ruling, we need to fix this legislation. With the way it is written, it is bad legislation. It needs to be fixed because we cannot give citizenship out in perpetuity with the excuse that somehow we have to address a court decision. Yes, there is a court decision, but even more important now is to ensure that we put in place a piece of legislation that would resolve the very issues we are talking about here today.”
“What is worse, the basics, such as processing applications, are taking much longer, and backlogs continue to persist. The government promises to fix issues that continue to be broken. It is just not fulfilling its promises. In the last minute I have, I want to say that it is just more of the same. The Liberals want to pass a bill that would add to that chaos, of course, cost taxpayers more and weaken everyone's citizenship. Only common-sense Conservatives will restore order and integrity to our immigration and citizenship system by tightening requirements, clearing backlogs, streamlining processing, respecting the will of the folks who want to come to Canada through normal immigration channels, welcoming them and giving them every opportunity to succeed in our great country.”
“My family came together by something called the miracle of adoption. Therefore, I applaud that the bill recognizes that those children who come into the country will become Canadian citizens. Nothing felt more unwieldy to my wife and me when we arrived in Canada and had to wait a period of time before our infant children, a biological brother and sister, could become Canadian citizens. This bill will correct that, which I applaud. As my colleagues on this side of the House have said previously, I am glad it is resolving the issue of lost Canadians as well. It has been 10 years, and our immigration system is in shambles. The Liberals are welcoming hundreds of thousands of new immigrants in a housing crisis, a health care crisis and a deteriorating job market.”
“Forecasts show that Canada may shed another 100,000 jobs by the fall. The government is adding hundreds of thousands of new people into a job market that is already at its weakest point in years. It is simply reckless. The Liberal government must create an environment in which new immigrants and Canadians can succeed. That is not happening currently. I have heard stories from my riding in which immigrants who came here 10 years ago are now considering leaving Canada, because the promise they were made has been broken by the Liberal government. The bill also touches upon children who are adopted internationally. That is something very close to me and very dear to my heart. Back in 1993, my wife and I flew to Guatemala City, where we had the honour and the privilege of meeting our children for the first time.”
“The CMHC, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, acknowledges that we need some 3.5 million more homes by 2030 to provide shelter for people who are already here. Here we are wanting to add to that, with a number we do not know. The government is not telling us. It is adding hundreds of thousands of new people into a housing market that is already undersupplied, overpriced and unfair to all who are trying to afford housing, especially our young people who have done everything right and cannot afford to buy a home in the community they grew up and would love to grow a family in. The job picture also looks a lot less rosy. Our youth cannot land entry-level jobs. Youth unemployment is at 20% in some parts of the country. Unemployment rose to 7% overall in May, the highest rate since the pandemic.”
“(1750) Over the last 10 years, the Liberals have continuously weakened Canada's immigration system and how we are perceived on the world stage. It is completely irresponsible to allow hundreds of thousands of immigrants into Canada, given the current challenges in the housing market. In fact, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD, in its May 2025 report, linked record immigration to worsening housing affordability. We know what that means in all of our communities across the country, irrespective of whether people want to stand up in this place and try to defend that somehow. Taxpayers have spent billions of dollars housing asylum seekers in hotels.”
“They did not want to consider any one of the 40, and now they want us to look at this bill and say, “We'll take it to committee and consider it, and thank you for allowing us to present some amendments.” Well, we know the record of my dear friends across the aisle on amendments, and we know how much consideration they will give them. Current citizens who were born in Canada or immigrants who went through other processes to become citizens would definitely have their citizenships weakened with this proposed legislation. There is no plan to process the new applications in an already backlogged, broken system, and the government does not know the scale of the impact or, if they do know, are not willing to share it with Parliament. The question is simply this: Why are the Liberals doing this? Quite frankly, I am not surprised.”
“To new members of Parliament elected on all sides of the House, the Liberals are saying, “Never mind, just take our word for it. It's good because we discussed it in the previous Parliament.” That makes no sense because that legislation died when Parliament was stopped and then reached its end of life to go into an election. Members of Parliament should have a right to review it. When one of those previous renditions, Bill S-245 , came up for debate, there were no fewer than 40 amendments moved by Conservative members, all of which the Liberal-NDP coalition of the day voted against.”
“It cannot tell us the cost. Of course, the Liberals do not want to talk about cost. They recently put through a throne speech and have decided to spend half a trillion dollars without presenting a budget in Parliament so we can debate and discuss it. Speaking of debating and discussing, I have heard Liberal members come up to the microphone, stand up in their spot and tell us that if we have amendments to Bill C-3 , we should bring them to committee. They appear to be saying that they are amenable to looking at some reasonable amendments to the bill. Well, we can be forgiven for questioning the veracity and, really, the honesty of those comments because of a previous rendition of the bill. This is not a new bill. The Liberals purport to be a new government, but this is a cut-and-paste bill. This is Bill C-71 cut and pasted into Bill C-3 .”
“They could come to Canada as a Canadian citizen with no background check. That is amazing. That does not make sense to me, and I can assure members that it does not make sense to my constituents of Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill. I represent one of the more diverse communities in the country, and I am positive it does not make sense to Canadians anywhere in this beautiful country of ours. The people I feel most for are the immigrants who went through the traditional immigration processes. These immigrants went through vetting, proved they had a connection to Canada and did the hard work to acquire the privileges and rights bestowed upon them as Canadian citizens. Under the bill before us, their citizenship would become weaker. To summarize some of these points, the government cannot tell us how many new citizens the bill would create.”
“However, the bill does not provide for that background check. Not vetting individuals coming into the country raises a lot of questions, but it is in line with the Liberals' soft-on-crime policies that we have seen over the years. The Liberals appear really comfortable with potentially allowing people convicted of serious crimes such as rape, murder and terrorism to gain citizenship and have the opportunity to be in our communities. As bizarre as that sounds, if I were a Liberal member of Parliament, God forbid, I would ask, “Why would I not want to do a background check on people coming into the country?” A 30-year-old who has never lived here before but is the son of somebody who has been out of the country would find out that the Liberals have passed a bill, and they could automatically become a Canadian citizen.”
“I am sure the Speaker is having difficulty understanding the reasons why as well, because no reasonable person could come up with a logical answer to that question. Worse, there would be no criminal check required for new citizens. The government requires criminal background checks for other immigration processes, so why would it not want to do that for this stream of people who they are suggesting come in through Bill C-3 . It makes no sense. I would argue that a primary responsibility of a responsible government of any country is the safety and the security of its citizens. (1745) Canadian families need to know that when they take their children to school, to a shopping mall, to a community centre or to a park, the people walking beside them have been properly vetted and are law-abiding residents and citizens of this country.”
“The government has not completed a cost analysis, nor has it told Canadians the number of new citizens that Bill C-3 would create or the cost to taxpayers, especially in health care, pensions and so forth. When we ask Liberals the questions, they say that they do not know, that they are not certain and that they cannot put a number on it. Any other time, the Liberals would look at the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report and recite those numbers with glee. This time, the Liberals have conveniently decided they are not going to refer, at all, to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who has said that this is going to affect some 115,000 people, at the very least, and initially cost Canadians $21 million. Why the Liberals are choosing to ignore the Parliamentary Budget Officer's analysis is perplexing, to say the least.”
“It is always meaningful for the people who are being bestowed with citizenship on that day. There is nothing more emotional for me in speeches that I have given on the subject, than that day when a citizenship judge affords me the opportunity to say a few words. My closing comment, when I look at the crowd of 30, 40 or sometimes 50 people obtaining Canadian citizenship that day, are, “Welcome to the Canadian family”, knowing very well that those folks had come here, worked hard, done all of the right things, waited their time and earned the right and privilege of Canadian citizenship. We should not look at this legislation without considering the importance and the value of Canadian citizenship.”
“That does not mean 1,095 days in the last five years, which is the standard today for a permanent resident to become a Canadian citizen. It is just 1,095 days in their life. A student who came to Canada, studied, spent three years here, obtained a Canadian citizenship, left the country and grew a family somewhere else can bestow that citizenship to their child born in that country, in perpetuity, to grandchildren and so forth, without ever having lived another day in our country. That does not make sense to Canadians who worked hard to earn that right of citizenship. Like many colleagues in the House, I have attended citizenship ceremonies. What a huge privilege it was and what an emotional experience it was for me to be there because it brought me back to thoughts of my parents when they came to this country.”
“(1740) We have a responsibility, when we bestow that Canadian citizenship, that huge privilege, on somebody. It means something. We do not water that down. Canadians have the right to vote. I would argue that people who have a right to vote should have contributed or contribute to this country, as many of our families do and as Canadians do from coast to coast to coast on a daily basis. Now, Bill C-3 , the bill we are discussing, weakens Canadian citizenship by eliminating that first-generation limit, allowing parents born abroad to pass citizenship to their children born abroad, generation after generation, as long as one parent has spent 1,095 non-consecutive days in Canada prior to the birth of the child.”
“These Liberals have eroded the trust in our immigration system, and under their watch, wait times for application processing is completely out of control. Now, they want to add to the chaos. I believe being a Canadian citizen is one of the greatest privileges one can have. Canadians died for the rights and privileges afforded to our citizens. Some of us may take that for granted on a daily basis, but 66,000 brave men lost their lives in the First World War, 44,000 brave soldiers lost their lives in the Second World War, 516 people lost their lives in the Korean effort, another 159 people lost their lives in Afghanistan and 29 in Cyprus and other efforts around the world. They lost their lives for those rights and privileges that we have today, and we need to take that seriously.”
“In fact, in 2024, if we add all the streams together, over a million people came to Canada at a time when we have a housing crisis, we have a job crisis, our young people cannot find work and there are 1,500 encampments just in the province of Ontario alone. People cannot find a place to live. I would argue that when we welcome people to our country, we should provide them with opportunities, opportunities like my parents had when they came here from Greece. When they came here, they worked hard. They got a good paycheque, which afforded them the opportunity to buy a home and grow their family. Those opportunities and that Canadian dream, under these Liberals, have gone completely out the window.”
“Today's asylum backlog, for example, stands at over 280,000 people as of March 31 of just this year, which translates to a four-year wait for asylum backlog. These are people who are waiting to get a response. Almost 29,000 people have failed to appear for their removal proceedings, and they cannot be located in the country, because there is no system in place for that to happen. This is what happens when we have no plan, no control and no semblance of organization on how we should manage a ministry of the Crown. The government planned to cap study permits in 2024, and then blew right past their cap by over 30,000 people.”
“This would be someone who had some working knowledge of either of the two official languages of the country and had a skill or a profession, something they could do where they could contribute to their families and to Canadian society from day one when they arrived in Canada. We had understandably set aside 25% for family reunifications, recognizing the importance of keeping families together, and we had set aside 10% for compassionate streams such as asylum seekers and refugees. In all of that, we had a reasonable and sustainable number of people we would welcome into Canada on an annual basis. In came the Trudeau Liberals, these Liberals we are now facing across the aisle in their third minority government in a row, and out goes this plan and in comes helter-skelter, as far as managing the entire immigration file is concerned.”
“I am sure that is a historic first if we look back in the history of Parliament. They have had seven. Basically, they have not been able to find a competent person to handle the file, which has resulted in the dilemma we have today. They often refer to the previous Conservative government with the great former prime minister Stephen Harper. We had a plan. I am the former parliamentary secretary to the minister of citizenship and immigration in the Harper government. We had a plan. Our plan was predicated on the following: 65% of newcomers coming to Canada would have to come through our economic streams.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this piece of legislation this evening here in the House. After 10 years of the tired Liberal government, our immigration system is broken. I say that somewhat with a heavy heart because I look across at my colleagues and I know they like to be referred to as a new government. It is anything but new. What the Liberals have done is they have played musical chairs with their front bench. Most of them are the same people, just in different positions. The same goes for the parliamentary secretaries; they are the same people. The system is broken, obviously for even a better reason than just them playing their musical chairs. Over the past 10 years of the Trudeau Liberals, because that is who they are, they have had seven ministers of citizenship and immigration.”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for that very thorough and thoughtful presentation she did on the inefficiencies of Bill C-3 , which the government is trying to ram through. How is it fair to legitimate immigrants who spend their entire lives contributing to this country when the government is ready to give citizenship away to people who have never actually lived here?”
“Last year, the House was besieged with a green slush fund scandal, when the same Liberals purporting to be new today refused to produce a list of who got over $1 billion dollars in funding. Of course, we all know who got the money. It was the same old Liberal cronies, friends and supporters who got the money. Otherwise, they would have no reason for not producing a list of those names. That is not to mention the ethics violations of the former Liberal prime minister, the only prime minister in the history of Canada to have been found guilty of ethics violations by an officer of Parliament, the Ethics Commissioner. To hear from the Liberals today that they decided last Friday, on the eve of the Auditor General presenting her report, to take action to ensure that GC Strategies is—”
“The Prime Minister certainly made sure to appoint a lot of the people who had a lot of experience dealing with scandals like this over the past 10 years. There are a few that come to mind. There was the SNC-Lavalin scandal. Two ministers on the Liberal side had the courage to speak truth to power, and they were tossed out. I would remind the House that this was the case in which the former prime minister and his office decided to interfere with the judiciary in holding accountable a company that itself had perpetrated fraudulent activity. Then, the same Liberals we see here vociferously stood up and defended the We Charity scandal, a billion-dollar boondoggle, with absolutely no opportunity for debate, communication or even presentation in this House of democracy, of the Canadian people.”
“I dare say the word “fraud” is something we have heard in this House today, and it is true. This company, GC Strategies, took some $64 million and did not produce what it was supposed to produce. The ask of the government by all parliamentarians elected to represent communities from coast to coast to coast is very simple. It is to get the taxpayer money back. We have a responsibility, a fiduciary duty, I would add, as elected members of Parliament to ensure that the taxpayer is made whole and that the money is given back. Also, the company that perpetrated this fraud on the Canadian people should be banned from contracts for life. Having sat here all day, I ask myself about the purported new Liberal government. It is not new, because I look across the aisle and see all the same faces on the front bench.”
“Mr. Speaker, I have been sitting here all day attentively listening to the debate and the questions and comments from both sides of the House. I have also received several emails and phone calls from the good people of my riding of Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, who, quite frankly, are a little perplexed that something that appears to be a no-brainer, a very simple motion, is creating such animosity from the current and old and tired Liberal government. It is quite simple. The Auditor General has produced a very scathing report on how the Liberal government managed a procurement contract, giving some $63.7 million to two people working out of a basement to produce an app that did not accomplish what it set out to accomplish. In fact, the Auditor General goes further in pointing to many irregularities in the way the contract was managed.”
“Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North has stood up in the House and vociferously defended the Liberal WE scandal, the Liberal SNC-Lavalin scandal, the Liberal green slush fund scandal and Justin Trudeau's many ethics violations, yet he stands up in the House today and refers to a time when we had good governance in this country. I ask the member opposite this: Why is it that the Liberal government opposite is refusing to get our money back? Canadians want their money back. It was stolen from us. We would like to have it back, and it is actually nonsensical that the government would not be asking for the money back as well.”
“Out-of-control costs, repeated construction delays and lack of staff threatened to delay the replacement of the fighter jets. Now the Liberals want billions of dollars to waste. The government promised change, but it is more of the same. Under the Liberals, Canadians have never paid so much for getting so little in return.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General's investigation into the Liberals' purchase of the F-35 fighter jets is deeply concerning. Costs have ballooned by more than 50%, and delivery is behind schedule, but it gets worse: The facilities to house the jets will not be completed until 2031. That is three years too late, and taxpayers will be left spending even more money on temporary hangars. The investigation also confirmed that we do not have enough pilots. How does the Liberal government expect the planes to fly without pilots? In fact, the Liberals have flip-flopped. First, they opposed the F-35 program, then they supported it, then they sent it to review, and so on. After the lost Liberal decade, Canadians are feeling anxious in an increasingly dangerous world.”
“Mr. Chair, clearly that is not a true statement. The minister has said that immigration must be sustainable. Are the tent cities, overflowing shelters and sky-high rents across Canada what her government—”
“Mr. Chair, experts have been warning for years that the Liberals' radical levels of immigration have been jacking up housing prices. Does the minister at least acknowledge that the Liberals' out-of-control immigration levels have made Canadians pay way more for housing?”
“Mr. Chair, the minister knows there are fewer housing starts than that. Rents have more than doubled across the country. Canadians cannot afford their mortgages or their rent. International students are sleeping under bridges or in tents due to the housing shortage. Why is the minister issuing hundreds of thousands more foreign student visas this year?”
“Mr. Chair, Toronto has the highest housing costs in the world. CMHC says we need 3.5 million more homes by 2030 to provide shelter for the people who are already here. Why is the government bringing in hundreds of thousands more foreign students and low-skilled labour in the middle of a housing crisis?”
“Mr. Chair, the 2025 global cities index from Oxford Economics found that people in Toronto spend more of their income on housing than residents of nearly every other city in the world. Why is the minister and the Liberal government bringing in hundreds of thousands more people to Canada this year?”
“Mr. Chair, it was the minister's government, the Liberal government, that created this crisis. It created the housing crisis. It created the health care crisis. It created the infrastructure crisis. Does the minister acknowledge that out-of-control immigration levels helped to double the cost of rent in Canada?”
“My question to the member opposite is this: Why does he not stand up to his boss, the Prime Minister , and say, “Present a budget now before the House breaks for the summer”?”
“Mr. Speaker, the member opposite seems to be confused. He does not appear to know the difference between a ways and means motion and a budget. There are Canadians across this country, young people, who are seeing a very bleak future for themselves. They cannot afford to buy a home in the community in which they are born. Seniors cannot afford to eat the same way they were eating just three years ago. Yet the Liberal government is refusing to present a budget. It wants a blank cheque of some $500 billion, half a trillion dollars, to spend six months' worth of that money, and to come back sometime in the fall and say, “We have already spent half of this money. Here is a budget now.” No Canadian would believe this is serious government.”
“Mr. Speaker, after 10 years of the Liberal government's catch-and-release policies, Canadian communities are riddled with rising and record crime. People are waking up in the morning hopeful that their car will still be in the driveway. Car thefts have hit record highs in municipalities like Aurora and Richmond Hill. Even worse, violent crimes, such as home invasions and blatant smash-and-grab robberies, have become a regular occurrence in the greater Toronto area. When will the Liberals finally focus on the safety of our communities and ensure jail before bail for violent criminals?”
“This being the 50th anniversary of that tragic event, the petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to uphold all UN Security Council resolutions on Cyprus and condemn Turkey's ongoing illegal occupation of northern Cyprus; advocate for the immediate withdrawal of Turkish troops; ensure no Canadian arms, military equipment or technology is sold to Turkey for use against Cyprus or other oppressed groups; continue rejecting the recognition of the illegal occupation regime in northern Cyprus installed by Turkey; and, finally, advocate for a free, united Cyprus based on the relevant UN resolutions and the European Union acquis.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on behalf of citizens and residents of Canada who would like to draw the attention of the House to the plight of the people of Cyprus. The Turkish military invasion of Cyprus in 1974 was illegal and brutal, resulting in the ongoing occupation of 37% of the island and 57% of its coastline. The Turkish occupation led to significant human rights violations, including the loss of lives, the displacement of thousands of Cypriots and the ongoing presence of the Turkish military forces and illegal settlers.”
“Mr. Speaker, I see that the member is young. It is unfortunate that the government has created a situation in which home ownership is very difficult for young people. Certainly, paying $56 billion a year in interest is not going to provide an—”