Mark Gerretsen
Kingston and the Islands, Ontario · Liberal · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a Kingston icon and one of the most celebrated town criers in the world: our very own Chris Whyman. This year marks more than four decades since Chris first donned the regalia and stepped into the role of Kingston's official town crier in 1984.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Moments ago, the member for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South issued a social media post that included the results of a vote that occurred earlier this afternoon in the House. He indicated in his post that the Prime Minister voted against a motion. However, the Prime Minister did not even vote at all.”
“Mr. Speaker, I believe if you seek it, you will find consent among the parties to agree to switch the first two speaking spots between the Conservatives and the Liberals, with the understanding that all regular rules, including allotted time allocations for those spots, be provided accordingly with that switch.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am rising to respond to the point of order raised by my colleague, respecting the effect of the programming motion related to Bill C‑22 in the context of our collective and individual privileges.”
“The programming motion that would govern the consideration of Bill C‑22 seeks to achieve to set a procedural process for the disposal of the bill. The House is no stranger to innovative and constructive ways to dispose of business before the House and in committees.”
“I submit that the exercise of these powers is central to the matter before the House. The House can give direction to committees, which are creatures of the House. The House can decide, by a majority of the voices, to structure the legislative process for any given bill. This is precisely the case with the proposal before the House.”
The complete record
Every one of 398 lines we hold for Mark Gerretsen, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 7 of 8.
“Mr. Speaker, on the topic of immigration, I have heard the member speak about immigration quite a bit in this House. It is probably the thing I have heard him speak about most. The reality is that our country is a relatively new country. Other than those of indigenous descent, we have all immigrated here over about the last two hundred years. My father was eight years old when he immigrated from Holland with his parents, and he was able to thrive in this country because his parents chose to come to Canada. Can the member talk to the importance of having a healthy immigration system in a country that is relatively new, such as Canada?”
“Mr. Speaker, leave it to the Conservatives to blame something on the bureaucrats: “Oh, the bureaucrats did it. They were the ones who moved things around and closed them.” I think I will just leave it at that.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition dumbs down issues and tries to suggest that the global financial crisis was the sole responsibility of Justin Trudeau. What we have when individuals do that, and when they use the narrative and the language to support that, is a misinformed public. We want the public to be informed so they can make proper decisions. It begs the question, why do the Conservatives not want the public to be informed so they can make the best decision on the questions they have to face?”
“Mr. Speaker, the member would have to ask the Prime Minister about the digital services tax, but I will say that he is absolutely right; it is the job of the government to manage the finances and to introduce a budget. The questions Canadians have is this: Do we take the word of and look to an individual who has been the governor of two central banks and who, by the way, Stephen Harper himself said was responsible for getting us through the 2008 financial crisis, or do we take the word of the Leader of the Opposition , who has been here since he was 24 years old and has had no experience outside this place? I will leave it to the Canadian public to decide.”
“Mr. Speaker, if the member listened only to the one sentence, then he has done himself a huge disservice, because what I said is that Stephen Harper's two so-called surpluses were on the heels of Paul Martin. They were Paul Martin's surpluses. The surplus he had just in time for the election in 2015 was done on the backs of veterans. It was done on the backs of the military, of dropping our military to 0.6% of GDP. Is that something the member is proud of? It sounds like it to me.”
“As a matter of fact, a lot of the schools in the jurisdictions of the member for Lanark—Frontenac and the member to the east of me, the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes , receive food through its programs as well. I visited the Food Sharing Project and have seen exactly what it is and the impact that it has. This is not some imaginary bureaucracy; this is real. I will leave it at that. Once again, I have been subjected to a day of listening to the misinformation of the Conservatives, who are proclaiming that certain things exist and the reasons they exist, which are quite frankly not true. I hope I have contributed a bit of clarity today.”
“It gave us the ability to provide more to those who really needed it. I am bringing this up and spending time on it because there is a fundamental difference between government intervention by a Liberal and government intervention by a Conservative. Liberals believe in giving people opportunities so they can have the best shot. We talked about the national school food program. When there was an exchange going on, I heard the member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek say that it was not working. She was heckling that. I can say that the Food Sharing Project in Kingston delivers food to schools throughout my entire riding and neighbouring ridings.”
“What the Conservatives had under Stephen Harper was the universal child care benefit. What was the universal child care benefit? I am sure my Conservative colleagues here today are still extremely proud of that. They can go ahead and clap if they want, although I did not hear any claps there, which is interesting since I put them on the spot and offered them the floor to applaud. It gave the exact same amount of money for every child to every parent. That meant a millionaire got the exact same amount of money, because of course, the Conservatives would never want to miss an opportunity to send a cheque to a millionaire. What we did, which was truly transformative, was put in the Canada child care benefit so that millionaires and people who were extremely well off, those who did not need the cheque, did not receive the cheque.”
“members: Oh, oh! Hon. Mark Gerretsen: Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe that. I just said they did it on the backs of Canadians, and at least four or five Conservatives started cheering and clapping. That just happened moments ago as I was standing here. I have heard a lot of other misinformation in the time I have been sitting in the House today and listening to the debate. I heard a really interesting exchange. One thing the public does not get to see is the heckling that goes on back and forth. During a speech being given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister , the member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek , when the parliamentary secretary was talking about the Canada child benefit, yelled out that the Conservatives started it, that it was their program. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Then it vanished, and he was in a deficit position all the way through, right up until the last year when the Canadian Taxpayers Federation or some right-wing association told him it was absolutely imperative that he balance the budget. What did Stephen Harper do? He set out to balance the budget. (1630) How did he do that? He did it by selling shares of GM at bargain prices. He slashed veterans' offices. For the first time in recorded Canadian history, our percentage of GDP invested in the military dropped below 1%. It has only ever existed below 1% for one year. That was in the year 2015, when it was at 0.96% of GDP. That is the legacy. That is the surplus. When the member for Calgary Crowfoot comes in here and says that the Conservatives left a surplus, I guess they did, but they did it on the backs of Canadians. Some hon.”
“There is at least one currently in the House right now, and that is great, but I will make this a little more relevant for some of the newer members who may have been here when Stephen Harper was here. It is true that Stephen Harper had three surpluses out of the nine budgets he introduced in this House. Let us look at those budgets. The first two budgets were at the beginning of Stephen Harper's term, when he was first elected. He had a $13-billion surplus, but what is interesting is that the year before that, Paul Martin also had a $13-billion surplus. Stephen Harper actually inherited, from Paul Martin, a $13-billion surplus. Then in year two of Harper's government, he had a $9-billion surplus. It was on its way down.”
“No, they have not, because it was not contributing to inflation. This is the exact same logic they are trying to apply now. Earlier, I got a real kick out of the member for Calgary Crowfoot talking about how the Conservatives are great fiscal stewards of the economy and the finances of the government and had left the new Liberal government in 2015 with an incredible surplus. It is as if he was trying to suggest that Conservatives know something about bringing in balanced budgets. They know absolutely nothing about it. Let us go back. I will just talk about the preceding two Conservative governments. Brian Mulroney had 10 budgets, and he balanced zero. There were zero balanced budgets by Brian Mulroney. I understand that probably very few members of the Conservative Party were here when Brian Mulroney was here.”
“I have been in this House long enough to have heard countless speeches, as I am sure the member for Whitby has, from Conservatives who get up and say the carbon tax has contributed to inflation and the carbon tax is the reason food prices are higher right now. Over and over again, we have heard that. Let us just throw out the fact that Ukraine produces a third of the world's wheat and is in the middle of a war and that extracting all of that wheat from the global supply has a massive impact on inflation. Let us forget about all of that. It was the carbon tax. The Conservatives said that all we had to do was get rid of the carbon tax, and then suddenly inflation would disappear. Well, guess what. The carbon tax is gone. Have all the prices the Conservatives said would drop instantly dropped?”
“They suggested the government created the inflationary problem that the whole world has seen. The Government of Canada spent money and then the whole world saw inflation. That is what Conservatives would like us to believe. What I find most ironic about that comment is that I am sure the member for Regina—Lewvan , who was talking about me a few moments ago, and all members who have made comments are aware that they ran on a platform that had 106 billion dollars' worth of new spending in it. Are they now trying to say, indirectly, that their own platform was inflationary and was contributing to inflation? If I listen to what they are saying now, that is exactly what I am hearing. It is more than that.”
“Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding that the comments made by the member for Regina—Lewvan a few moments ago about what I said are completely inaccurate, I would like to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with the member for Whitby . I am very much looking forward to listening to his speech. I have spent quite a bit of time in the chamber today, so I have had the opportunity to listen to what has been said. I must say that some of the stuff I have been hearing from the Conservatives is quite alarming and hypocritical and, quite frankly, does not make a lot of sense when we look at their actions. I will start with what we heard recently from the member for Lethbridge , the member for Barrie South—Innisfil and the member for Huron—Bruce earlier. They all talked about inflationary spending.”
“Mr. Speaker, I believe the member was trying to reference a previous point of order in order to make the point he was making. I think it is incumbent upon you and it is your duty, Mr. Speaker, as I am sure you would agree, to at least listen to his point of order before interjecting, unless you believe you have heard enough.”
“Mr. Speaker, if government spending is inflationary and just contributes to inflation, does that mean that the budget the member ran on, of spending an additional $106 billion, would have contributed to inflation as well?”
“Mr. Speaker, I agree completely with the last comment that my colleague made, in particular about how the Conservatives, no matter what the issue is, will stop at nothing to suggest that the only cause of the struggles people might be having is squarely the Liberal government. Some hon. members: Oh, oh! Hon. Mark Gerretsen: Mr. Speaker, we heard them cheer; yes, they do agree with that. However, the reality is that there are many other factors that affect people's lives, such as global economic factors. We have a war in Ukraine, which is a country that produces one-third of the world's grain. Definitely, when there is a war going on, there will be inflation as it relates to products. I wonder if the member would like to expand on that.”
“Of course, Conservatives would never want to have a program through which they were not able to give millionaires cheques. I wonder if the member can highlight the importance between the two programs.”
“Mr. Speaker, what I found most interesting during the member's discussion was when he was talking about the Canada child benefit, and the member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek started suggesting that it was Conservatives who brought in that program. Of course, Conservatives would love to go home to tell everybody that it was their program, but in reality, what the Conservatives created was the universal child care benefit. Some hon. members: Oh, oh! Hon. Mark Gerretsen: Mr. Speaker, they are applauding it, but people should know that that program gave the exact same amount of money to every Canadian who had a child, which meant that, if a person was a millionaire, they were getting that money as well for their children.”
“Mr. Speaker, what I always find quite amusing is how Conservatives take an economic issue, completely dumb it down and try to explain things that in reality are not practical. I remember, a year ago, the countless number of times we heard the Leader of the Opposition say that the only thing that caused inflation was the carbon tax and that as soon as the carbon tax was gone all inflation problems would be gone. Of course, the Conservatives neglect to reflect on the fact that inflation is a global phenomenon that is impacted by so many different events. What the parliamentary secretary did today was highlight a lot of the dumbing-down of economic issues, which, quite frankly, is probably why the Canadian people do not put faith in the Conservatives when it comes to the economy.”
“Mr. Speaker, let us talk about the deficits and how Conservatives left this great surplus, as the member alluded to in his speech. Stephen Harper had three surpluses. The first one was a $13-billion surplus. We ask ourselves how he ended up with such a large surplus. It is because Paul Martin left him with that $13-billion surplus a year before. The second year that Harper was in the House, he ran a $9-billion surplus. After that, it was deficit after deficit after deficit. Finally, when it got to 2015, he referenced how a surplus was left. How did they leave that surplus? They left it on the backs of veterans and by depleting our military investment to under 1% of GDP for the first time in recorded Canadian history. Could the member please explain how this great surplus in 2015—”
“Mr. Speaker, Bill C-10 is part of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act's action plan. This, as the member would most certainly know, specifically protects the rights of indigenous peoples to their culture, identity, language, employment, health, education and natural resources. Notwithstanding the fact that, in 2021, every single Conservative member voted against the adoption of UNDRIP, could the member opposite please tell us how important it is to apply the principles of UNDRIP when working with indigenous peoples?”
“Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary can highlight why it was so important for this legislation to come forward now and why we should pass it through the House as expeditiously as possible.”
“Mr. Speaker, the second petition draws the attention of the government to the rhetorical talk and discussion we hear from the United States with respect to Canada becoming the 51st state. The petitioners are calling upon members of Parliament of all parties to immediately forswear and discourage any and all further divisive partisanship and come together collegially to prioritize the national interest in the conduct of the nation's business and external relations.”
“Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today. The first petition is with respect to malnutrition. The petitioners bring to the attention of the government the malnutrition that exists among many Canadians. In particular, they are calling on the government to convene a pan-Canadian malnutrition summit to expand Canada's healthy eating strategy and to mandate the collection and reporting of malnutrition metrics by Canadian institutes.”
“Very simply, can the member please explain to me where in the legislation my place of worship, a Christian place of worship, would not be properly taken care of whereas another place of worship would be? Where is it in the legislation?”
“Madam Speaker, I take great offence to this member coming into the House and trying to suggest that he represents the voice of all Christians. As an individual who is a Christian myself, who was raised in a family that attended service every Sunday, who has their own children in a Christian school and who values Christian beliefs and educates their children to support those beliefs, I take great offence to this member somehow suggesting that my place of worship would not be properly taken care of in this piece of proposed legislation if an event were to happen that is much like the other events he referred to. Based on the language he is using, I would say that this member, and Conservatives, is trying to drive a divide between religions.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In keeping with the spirit of how we were operating last week, we note that the member for Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay was not in her seat when you read out the vote. She came in right afterward as you started calling the question on it. Perhaps you could canvass the member to ask whether she voted from her phone, but it would appear that her vote should not count since she did rise and vote in the chamber.”
“Mr. Speaker, I love how the member phrased that preamble. He said that I said there are external factors. It is not me saying there are external factors; it is economists throughout the world, not just Canadian ones but those everywhere. I will say back to the member what I said earlier. When Ukraine starts producing a quarter of the wheat it produced before the war, how does he not think that will impact inflation related to wheat and any product that comes from wheat?”
“Mr. Speaker, for starters, I would like to thank the member for offering some solutions. He talked about cutting the GST in certain circumstances. I am not entirely opposed to that. I would love to hear more of his thoughts on that. I know a sticking point of the Bloc Québécois for years now has been the increase to the OAS for seniors over 75 versus between 65 and 75. We are a data-driven party. We look at the data; we make decisions, and the data showed that seniors over the age of 75 had a more precarious financial status and therefore needed larger supports. It made more sense to make sure that seniors over 75 were getting more, because the data shows that they are, as a whole, struggling more than seniors between 65 and 75. That is not to say there are not challenges among all demographics and all ages.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am definitely passionate. This is why we speak through the Speaker. I am certainly not trying to bully anybody. I am speaking with the passion I have for this place and this particular issue. For the member to say that I am misleading is completely false. Where the Conservatives and the member are misleading is in the characterization that somehow the problem we have here is uniquely and solely the responsibility of this government. It is not. By the way, Canadians agree and realize it is not. They realize there are external factors. That is why we are still sitting on this side of the House, and why despite all of her work doing the same thing in the preceding Parliament, she is not.”
“I will go back to how I started this speech, which is that Conservatives are up to the same tactics they have been up to since I came here in 2015. One would think that after having leader after leader, Conservatives would finally realize that maybe they have to try something new. I even thought that maybe after losing his own riding in Carleton, and having to go to find the safest Conservative riding in the country to run in to fight his way back to that seat, that maybe he had learned something along the way and would have a different approach. There is nothing. It is the exact same. The only difference now is that he is the member for Battle River—Crowfoot instead of Carleton, but it is same Leader of the Opposition playing the same tricks and, unfortunately, bringing the same misinformation into the House.”
“The Leader of the Opposition stood up and said “of course she does not”, as though it was impossible for me to even think that could possibly be true and to ask that question. She was registered as a lobbyist on the Ontario lobbyists registry as late as early 2024. It is very fair, when the Leader of the Opposition brings into the House the topic of discussion of the cost of food, inflation and the challenges that Canadians have buying groceries for me to ask if his campaign manager and senior policy adviser is still a lobbyist for Loblaws, helping to lobby government to reduce regulation so that it could make greater profits. He comes in here and acts as though he is the all holy individual who could properly represent and speak on behalf of the Canadian people, meanwhile his campaign manager is a lobbyist for Loblaws.”
“Our primary responsibility is to preserve the value of your money by keeping inflation low, stable and predictable.” The Leader of the Opposition came in here and just spoke about something that was completely untrue. I made a bit of a joke during that exchange, saying “I didn't even know they had a website.” He laughed and got his cohort behind him to chuckle along as he said “the whip...is saying he did not know the Bank of Canada had a website”, and that maybe I should do some research. The only thing worse than not knowing the Bank of Canada even has a website is knowing they have it and not being able to properly read it when quoting it. That is exactly what he did. I asked him a question. I just wanted to know if his senior policy adviser, Jenni Byrne, still did paid lobbying for Loblaws. It was a simple question.”
“They have taken that mandate off the main web page, where they used to describe their mission as low and stable inflation, and they have replaced it with a grand pronouncement that they are not just any bank, they are ‘the Central Bank’.” Members will remember that he used some language there and he got a good little cheer from the swath of Conservatives who were sitting in the perfect camera shot behind him. They all cheered for it. However, if we actually go to the Bank of Canada website, right on the main page, and this is not in bullet point form or somewhere random, buried in a policy document, there is an infographic on the main landing page of the Bank of Canada. It says, “What does the Bank of Canada do?”
“Sometimes that can be based on opinion and sometimes it can be based on information we get from one place that is argued by somebody else. (1310) Moments ago, the Leader of the Opposition had this is say. I want to quote him, so I went to his YouTube channel to replay the video, where he was on YouTube Live while he was speaking. He said, “Already, the Bank of Canada is signalling that it is again doing away with its main mandate, which is to fight inflation.”
“Governments have been calling for this for years, because the reality is that there are different socio-economic circumstances for different children, and they should not interfere with their ability to have proper nutritious food in the morning before they start to learn in school. To try to conflate such a meaningful program for so many young children in Canada with a band-aid solution for tackling an inflation problem is disingenuous at best and completely misleading at worst. I am also concerned about some of the things I heard from the Leader of the Opposition . He was talking earlier about the Bank of Canada, and I find his comment really interesting, because when we are in the House, we are expected not to mislead. We are expected to give factual information to the best of our abilities.”
“Even the false logic the Conservatives are trying to use today in the House is extremely misleading and untrue, yet they continue to do it. I am really concerned about some of the things I heard in the House today. I heard Conservatives asking questions, and then heckling during responses, about the national school food program. I heard someone heckle that it was a band-aid solution. An hon. member: Oh, oh! Hon. Mark Gerretsen: Mr. Speaker, I am pretty sure the member is heckling me again right now. It is not a band-aid solution. National school food programs have been in all G7 countries except Canada for decades. In Kingston alone, Andy Mills, who runs the Food Sharing Project in Kingston, has been facilitating some form of school food sharing through donations and volunteers since the eighties.”
“Conservatives want us to believe that it has nothing to do with it, that it is somehow only because of choices made by the government. What flabbergasts me even more is the fact that I witnessed this for years before the last election. The Conservatives did the same thing. They deployed the same tactics and used the same false arguments, and then they lost an election on it. They promised that, if we eliminated the carbon tax, inflation would go down. I also heard a member say earlier today that inflation did go down when the carbon tax was eliminated in April. This is not true. If we look over the last year and a half, inflation had been at, below or around the Bank of Canada benchmark for a solid eight to 10 months prior to the carbon tax being eliminated.”
“Every Conservative wants to somehow blame the cost of rising food prices on the government and the actions of the government, but most Canadians realize that, when we trade in a global environment, prices are affected by global situations and global events. I will give a perfect example. In 2021, Ukraine was exporting roughly 87 million metric tons of wheat. Now it is exporting about 21 million tons, which is about a quarter of what it used to export. When we consider that Ukraine was looked at as the breadbasket of the world and a major supplier of wheat, what did members think that would do to the price of wheat throughout the world when Ukraine had been distributing wheat throughout the world? Did they not think it would impact inflation?”
“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise today to speak to this opposition motion, but I cannot help but think it is just the same old Conservatives we have been seeing for years in this place. I am actually quite surprised they have not caught on to the fact that the tricks and misinformation they had been laying before Canadians for the last four years, in an effort to somehow try to clench power, has been unsuccessful for them. It did not work, yet here they are using the exact same tactics and thinking that Canadians are going to buy into their extremely disingenuous information.”
“People like Andy Mills, who has been running the Food Sharing Project in Kingston, have been doing these things since the eighties, yet Conservatives want people to believe it is a new problem. Can the secretary of state comment on how valuable a program like the school food program is, especially in the context of Canada's being one of the richest countries in the world?”
“Mr. Speaker, I thought the exchange with the Conservative member was quite telling of the Conservative Party's position when it comes to things like giving kids a shot at proper education by having proper nutrition at school. The Conservatives talk about it as if it were a band-aid solution. Some hon. members: Oh, oh! Hon. Mark Gerretsen: Mr. Speaker, they are heckling “yes, it is”, and they are talking about how provinces were doing it. I can say that the province of Ontario pretty much had nothing. It was done heavily through volunteers and donations. Now there is an actual school food program in place. By the way, we are the last country in the G7 to adopt one.”
“Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, is it appropriate for a member to be talking about how much somebody speaks? Every member has the right to speak in this place as much or as little as the Speaker recognizes. I do not think it is appropriate to be critical of that, given the fact that it is a right of every member in the House.”
“Mr. Speaker, if I heard the member correctly, during his speech, he said that inflation came down on food because the carbon tax was eliminated. Unfortunately, the reality does not match up with what he is saying. The carbon tax was eliminated in April, yet inflation had been coming down for a year before that and met the Bank of Canada's target rate in August 2024. How can the member say that just last April, inflation suddenly came down when the data does not support that in any way whatsoever?”
“Mr. Speaker, the problem with the member using ChatGPT is that the member is not the only one who has it. I asked the same question as he did. I asked what countries have regulatory emissions caps, to which the response was the European Union, the United Kingdom, South Korea, China, Canada and some states in the United States. Then I said, “I bet he asked a really specific question.” I asked what countries had oil and gas caps, and the reply was Canada and some of the United States. The member is selectively choosing information. In reality, according to ChatGPT, his source, jurisdictions with economy-wide caps, which include oil and gas, are the EU, the United Kingdom, South Korea, China, Vietnam and Indonesia. In addition to that, other countries, such as China, Vietnam and Indonesia, are currently exploring them.”
“Madam Speaker, I took great exception when the member for Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke said the Liberal Party has a top-down approach. As a matter of fact, the headlines we heard about the Conservative Party were that the Leader of the Opposition maintains tight control over what Conservative MPs say and do. However, my question hits much closer to home for the member. The word on the street right now, the rumour that has been flying around, is that the newly elected member for Battle River—Crowfoot plans to run in her riding of Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke in the next general election and might even be trying to push her out in order to do that. Can she assure us that she will be the candidate—”
“Mr. Speaker, the member seems to be giving a speech on the subject matter of the bill she is introducing. The point of this is to introduce the bill and give a quick summary of it. She has not even mentioned the bill yet or what is in it.”
“Mr. Speaker, we have heard Conservative after Conservative get up to talk about a substantial connection. A lot of provinces have substantial connection rules too. For example, the Province of Alberta says that someone cannot run as an MLA unless they have had a substantial connection of at least six months. I am curious if the member believes that Pierre Poilievre should have a substantial connection to Alberta before he runs as a member of Parliament in that province.”