Marilyn Gladu
Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, Ontario · Liberal · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, the hon. member talked about affordability measures and the major ongoing projects. Could he perhaps speak to the government's responsiveness to the tariff threat that faces us in the section 232 tariff response, the aluminum tariff response, etc.?”
“Not only has our government provided relief to get them through, such as $1 billion from the BDC and another $500 million in tariff relief funds, which were responsibly brought to the table when these tariffs arrived, but we are also seeing that people can pivot into the defence industry.”
“As members may know, one of the apprentices we met actually won a gold medal in Ontario for the welding competition and is on his way to nationals, so I send a shout‑out to Ryan Beattie for that. Making sure that our young people have well‑paying jobs is just one of the things we need to do.”
“I do not know if members saw the announcement from the Prime Minister yesterday about food security and a huge investment of $3 billion to try to make sure that we can get food prices down and that we can produce more of our food supply domestically and become less dependent on others in the world.”
“This is really good news, because for a while, foreign investment was fleeing the country, so to have it returning, as well as to have the highest investment per capita, is another positive indicator. I am personally quite proud of the Prime Minister 's efforts to diversify our trade.”
“In my riding of Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, we had a very tragic incident happen recently at Lambton College, where an innocent student, Dane Nisbet, was shot by someone who has been involved in crime previously, and he died. He was 20 years old. People in my community are outraged now because the perpetrator has been let out on bail.”
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Every one of 293 lines we hold for Marilyn Gladu, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 6 of 6.
“Madam Speaker, the Liberals have continued to spend taxpayers' money without a plan or a budget. They are not following the rules of Parliament. This is unacceptable. What does the member think about that?”
“Madam Speaker, I thank the member opposite for outlining the spending. I believe he said that $2.1 billion would be spent for the men and women in uniform, on items such as equipment and recruiting. I was happy to hear this. I know the Prime Minister announced $4.3 billion for Ukraine, additionally, today, on top of the $25 billion that we already spent. I have heard concerns that people in the Canadian military are having to buy their own boots and equipment. Can the member tell me if the $2.1 billion is going to fix that problem?”
“I do not see any evidence of a plan of how we are going to essentially triple in one year, by 2026, the uptake in electric vehicles. There is nothing, not even a marketing campaign that I can see, that would drive any kind of behaviour like that. The incentive program is out of money, and people are not going to pay the additional cost. All of these reasons, from freedom to cost, the lack of a plan, the cradle-to-grave and the fact that we are not going to achieve anything, are good reasons why I cannot support an EV mandate, and I will continue to stand against it.”
“The government invested $55 billion of taxpayers' money trying to build battery plants, EV facilities and the downstream supply chain, so they were trying to pick winners and losers. What have we seen from that money that was spent? Most of them have gone bust, and those that have not, like Stellantis, have announced they are going to move their production to the U.S. The government has already put out a huge amount of money without getting anything for it. I think Canadians are right to be concerned that we will not be able to meet this mandate. The automotive manufacturers are raising the flag; many of them have already shut down their facilities because of lack of demand. There are a lot of Canadians, as I said, including myself, who will not buy them.”
“I can say that this is certainly not my definition of Canadian identity and culture. He has said so many ridiculous things, starting with saying that he is not going to build any more roads. Do members remember that? Now there is this EV mandate, which is an ideological thing, but it is not practically something that we are able to afford to do. I really think there needs to be some reflection on the Liberal benches to say, “We do not have a plan. Let us at least cost the plan, figure out how much it is going to cost to build all this stuff or at least figure out the timing.” The Liberals have already set the time in the mandate: 20% by 2026. We are only at 7.5% right now. How are we going to incentivize people to buy EVs?”
“It is not commercially proven yet, so we do not know. If people have a desire to do it, my question again is, why are we trying to do it? Are we really going to get this kind of reduction in our footprint? No, we are not. We should be building LNG facilities and shipping it to China and India. That is the bigger success for Canadians. It would also help pay down the huge $2-trillion deficit that we have racked up and that we will keep racking up, as far as I can see. Those are things that would be of great concern to every Canadian, and I am sure that when it comes to the mandates, we are going to continue to see them. We know that the previous minister of the environment, the radical environmentalist who is like a convicted felon, is now the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture .”
“The amount of energy that it takes to mine, process and turn them into batteries is actually net destructive to the planet. Then, at the end of life, there is currently no idea of how we are going to dispose of these things, so we may be creating another contamination issue that, again, will cost money to fix. That is not part of the plan, because there is no plan. These are all concerns that I have when it comes to why I do not think these EV mandates need to happen. I think a much better way to go would be to introduce targets. The automotive industry has said that it will work towards that. The technology, as I said, is developing and I think people are willing to do something, but we are not going to fix the fact that Canada is cold. The solid-state batteries do run better at cold temperatures, so we will see.”
“We need to check what we are doing here. There is also no solution for the roads. EVs are heavier than regular cars. They do more damage to the roads. Today, the system is that people pay a gas tax and that gas tax is sent back to the municipalities to build roads. In rural communities, it is very difficult, with the number of people the communities have and the amount of gas tax they get back, to maintain the roads. (1825) Now the roads are going to be in even worse condition. How will we address that? I am sure there is another tax coming, because if it is not spending with the Liberals, it is taxing. That is why people call them tax-and-spend Liberals. Those are some concerns. The other concern I would highlight is my concern about the whole cradle-to-grave of the lithium batteries.”
“It has to pay $75 billion on the debt, $55 billion for health transfers, $25 billion for social transfers, $20 billion for equalization payments, $5 billion for territorial transfers, and $259 billion for the cost of running the government. That gives the government $20 billion before it starts doing any other projects. However, the government announced $77 billion during the election, and then after the election, with the estimates, it announced $486 billion. Now we are talking about possibly $543 billion in deficit before we even talk about building more charging stations, building the electrical infrastructure and building the infrastructure in apartment buildings and neighbourhoods to take it on. This would absolutely bankrupt Canadians and drive the affordability crisis even further into the ground.”
“It is going to build a cogen plant, small modular nuclear reactors and alternate energy in conjunction with the indigenous people in my riding. That is fantastic, and it will take a certain number of years to get it in place, but the federal government has no plan for how the rest of the country would get electricity and get it into the grid with the infrastructure. Again, there has not been a lot of thought to that. How much is all of this going to cost? The government will not even come forward with a budget, and I would like to be helpful, so here we go. This is from the government's own web page and finances. The government gets about $459 billion in revenue every year.”
“If everybody has to plug in, the infrastructure is not there to supply the electricity to them. How much would it cost to get that? Again, there is no plan for that. Then there would not be enough electricity in the grid. We can see that people recognize that we are going to be increasing our take of electricity. We have brought four million people into Canada, which increases, by about 10%, the usage of electricity. We have emerging businesses, which is a good thing, but it takes electricity. There is a pinch point, and we are going to see brownouts before we can build the capacity in electricity that we need. In my riding of Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, the Ontario government has provided a mandate to build a facility, the Riverside Generating Station.”
“How much would that cost, and how long would that take? The government has not provided any answers. It does not know. That is not a plan. Also, with respect to the practical details, people living on a suburban block will notice that there are 600-volt transformers. If one person has an electric vehicle, it is no big deal, but if everybody is forced to buy an electric vehicle, there is this little equation in electricity that says voltage is equal to current times resistance, and plugging in cars is resistance. If the resistance is increased with the same voltage, that will reduce the current, and eventually people will not have enough current to turn the lights. This is especially problematic with respect to high-rise apartment buildings, where there could be 20 or 40 floors.”
“I just think that the initiative would not make any difference, but it would really hurt Canadians because it would cost us 38,000 jobs and $138.7 billion. That is assuming it does not put the car businesses and the auto manufacturers out of business, which is a real possibility. The next reason that I do not like the mandate is that there is no plan. The Prime Minister was supposed to be the man with the plan. What do we need to put this mandate in place? We have to have places to plug the things in. We have to have a source of electricity. We have to have the infrastructure in the residential and commercial places where people are in order to make it all go. With respect to the issue of charging stations, it is being said that we would need 670,000 charging stations across Canada, and we currently have fewer than 150,000.”
“Where does the control of the government stop? I have a problem with that. What are we trying to achieve with the mandate? We talk about how we are trying to address climate change, but the reality is that this mandate will reduce the carbon footprint of Canada, which is now 1.6% of the world's footprint, by 0.08%. If we compare that to those of China and India, which are at about 60% of the world's footprint, it is an insignificant change. It is not going to impact climate change in a real way. (1820) If we really wanted to impact climate change, we would sell Canadian LNG to supplant coal and heavy oil in China and India, and that would reduce their 60% to 15%. That is huge. It would create well-paying jobs here in Canada, and it would help the environment and address climate change.”
“Also, the current technology for lithium batteries is not great in that they catch fire. According to the U.S., 3% of vehicles catch fire. We saw the horrific accident that happened in Toronto recently where the battery caught fire in an electric vehicle, and that shorted out the electricity in the car so the doors could not be opened. Sadly, four people burned to death. The technology is developing, and the proposed solid-state batteries do not catch fire, so I think better technology is coming, but at this time, with the existing technology, I have concerns. I am sure other Canadians do as well. When it comes to freedom, I see this as another step through which the government is trying to remove our freedom. What is next after this? Is it going to try to control what we can and cannot eat or what kind of house we buy?”
“I am all about choice. I do not want one because I live in a really rural part of the riding and there are no charging stations. I have not seen a plan from the government to put any charging stations in place. I can just see myself trundling around the riding and running out of juice with no options. I would have to get towed, and then the next day I would have to get towed, because there is no infrastructure there. What I would also say is that EVs do not work very well in the cold. If it gets to -40°C, they lose 40% of their efficiency. We have all seen online the experiences of people who have electric vehicles and were trapped in snowstorms. They were very concerned about the fact that they were trapped and did not have enough power to keep the car warm. That is another risk there.”
“There have also been attacks on freedom of the press, not just through buying the media by donating huge sums of money to mainstream media, but also with bills such as Bill C-18 , which really compromised the ability of Canadians to share news links now on things like Meta and hurt a lot of local smaller media because of it. Freedom of religion has got to be a concern for every person of faith across this country. It does not matter which faith one talks about, we have seen attacks on people and their places of worship, and a rise in violence against them and vandalism. We have seen our freedoms under attack, and now the Liberals want to add another freedom. They do not want to let people choose what kind of vehicle they want to buy. They want to make them buy an EV. If somebody wants an EV, I am happy for them to have it.”
“I am opposed to this EV mandate on a whole number of grounds, which I will outline. The first thing I would say is that this mandate is not freedom of choice. I really believe there has been a huge war on our freedoms under the Liberal government over the last 10 years. We know that freedom of expression has been under attack with bills such as Bill C-11 , where the government gets to control what social media content is put up, such as videos and the like. We have seen Bill C-63 , where it wanted to put people in jail in the future if it thought they might commit a hate crime. Fortunately, that one died on the vine. I hope not to see it again.”
“Madam Speaker, we are here tonight to talk about the EV mandate the Liberal government has put forward, which states that 20% of Canadians will have to be driving electric vehicles by 2026, 60% by 2030 and 100% by 2035. These are not targets. It is going to be a mandate that will force Canadians to drive electric vehicles whether they want to or not. There is a cost associated with this, because within the mandate it says that the auto manufacturers will have a quota of how many EVs they have to sell. For every one they do not sell, they will be charged a punitive fine of $20,000 per vehicle. We can be sure they are not going to absorb that cost themselves, but will pass it on to the consumers, which will drive up the price of the electric vehicles people are being forced to buy.”
“Mr. Speaker, the whole point of this EV mandate is to try to reduce our carbon footprint, but we are going to reduce our carbon footprint by only 0.08%. China and India are 60% of the footprint. We could do more by shipping our LNG to displace coal and heavy gas there. At the same time, it is going to be very destructive for Canadians, killing 38,000 jobs and costing $138.7 billion from the economy, so why does the member think it is a good idea to do this EV mandate?”
“These are challenging times, and I will be standing up for their civil liberties and the rights and freedoms we hold dear. I look forward to working with all sides of this House to build a better Canada for everyone.”
“Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the people of Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong for putting their trust in me for a fourth term as their member of Parliament. I want to thank my campaign manager, Anne Denman, and the many dedicated volunteers who worked to ensure a victory. Special shout-outs go to Mackenna, the best volunteer coordinator and door knocker ever; Brandon, the brains behind getting out the vote; and Bill, a.k.a. “Murph”, who made sure there were blue signs from one end of the riding to the other. I also want to thank my husband, Paul, who put up signs, door knocked, and was a major support for me, as he always is. I also thank my daughters, Gillian and Katie, for their love and support. I commit to being a strong voice for our issues in this riding and to be helpful to all constituents who need my assistance.”
“Madam Speaker, I live in a rural part of Ontario where we have difficulty getting money to fix the roads all the time. The gas tax has been a good mechanism to make that happen. What is the government's solution as we transition to electric vehicles and those gas tax transfers decline, eventually going to zero, to keep the roads in repair?”
“Madam Speaker, the member opposite's speech gave a lot of details about the progress that is being made on electric vehicles. I am not opposed if somebody chooses to have one, but I can clearly see that people are not choosing them. We are at 7.5% uptake on them, even with government incentives in place. It is also worrisome to me that after investing $55 billion to get some of the battery plants and supply chains going, many of which have gone bust or moved to the States, now the Liberals are thinking of mandating a $20,000-per-car penalty if people do not meet the quota. Does the member think it is a good idea to do that to the auto manufacturers in these difficult times, when clearly they would pass those costs on to the consumer?”
“Mr. Chair, the government got sued by plastics producers, and the courts agreed that plastics are not toxic. It is a natural resource, and there are multiple plants in my riding. Will the minister stop the war on plastics?”
“Mr. Chair, let us talk about plastics. My riding has multiple plastics factories. The former radical environment minister tried to have plastics classified as toxic and tried to eliminate single-use plastics in food packaging, which would drive the cost of groceries even higher. Will the minister stop the war on plastics?”
“Mr. Chair, Ontario Power has been given a mandate by the province to build electrical capacity in the former Lambton generating station in my riding to address the gap. Will the minister commit to federal support and to fast-track using the new one Canadian economy act to accelerate that project?”
“Mr. Chair, to reduce our dependency on the U.S., we have to export our oil. In order to do that, we have to increase production. We cannot do that because there is an emissions cap, which is really a production cap. Will the minister repeal the emissions cap?”
“Mr. Chair, no proponent will come forward if they do not get an exemption to Bill C-69 , the uncompetitive industrial carbon tax and the emissions cap. On the emissions cap, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that it will reduce nominal GDP by almost $21 billion and kill almost 55,000 full-time jobs. Will the minister repeal the emissions cap?”
“Mr. Chair, the one Canadian economy act allows the government to choose which projects will be exempted from Bill C-69 and the non-competitive industrial carbon tax. If the government is going to exempt some projects, why not exempt them all?”
“Mr. Chair, Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong is home to three refineries, multiple plastics facilities and major energy infrastructure, so my questions will pertain to that. Since the no more pipelines bill, Bill C-69 , was put in place, Canada has cancelled 16 major energy projects, resulting in a $176-billion hit to our economy. Will the minister repeal Bill C-69?”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member for his speech entirely in French. It was very good. He said that the Liberals had a plan. If there really is a plan, will the government table a budget?”
“Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the speeches all day. The Liberals keep saying that Quebec did not participate in the federal carbon pricing program. According to them, that is why Quebec will not receive the $800 million. What does the member think of that logic?”
“Mr. Speaker, the member opposite talked about how we are going to work together to build all these projects that are in the national interest, and he mentioned getting to tidewater. I wonder if that means he does not need consensus, because David Eby has already said that he does not want to build a pipeline.”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about an issue that arose during the last election. The Prime Minister tried to buy the votes of Canadians with the carbon tax rebate. He tried to influence the media. For example, he announced over $150 million for the CBC. I think that there has to be consequences for doing such a thing. What does the member think?”
“Mr. Speaker, the housing accelerator cost $4 billion and zero homes were built. Meanwhile, housing prices have doubled, rent has doubled, down payments have doubled and people are now defaulting on their mortgages at record rates due to the disastrous inflationary spending of the Liberal government. A federal memo confirms that housing will consume 52% of the household budget this year, up from 38% in 2015. They know they caused this problem. When will the government table a budget with a plan to give the hope of home ownership back to young people?”
“Madam Speaker, I was one of the people to whom the member was alluding who asked a question about what the criteria for Canada Post would be for it to be able to open something. The member said that I was intentionally misleading Canadians, and that is not a fact. You could consult the Hansard, Madam Speaker, and you would be convinced of that yourself, I am sure.”
“Mr. Speaker, obviously this bill is intended to address some of the crime and fentanyl issues that are happening in the country, but my question really relates to the fact that right now we are not even enforcing our existing laws. We have repeat offenders out on the street, committing gun crimes and committing car thefts, and we are not addressing those. Adding additional laws, if they are not going to be enforced, is not going to really help the situation. Why did the government not put measures in this bill to address its catch-and-release policies?”
“Mr. Speaker, I hope everybody in the House listens carefully to what my colleague has to say because she has a lot of experience with a lot of legislation and everything that she said is right on the money. I want to follow up on some of the civil liberties issues she was pointing out and ask her about not only some of the things that are in the bill that impact people's privacy rights but also some of the language in the bill that talks about, if the government suspects money laundering, it could potentially get someone's financial information. This, of course, gives shades of the issue of freezing bank accounts.”
“Mr. Speaker, clearly we all want to cut down on crime and resolve the issues at the border. As the shadow minister for civil liberties, I have one question for the member. There is a measure in the bill that talks about Canada Post and the employees having the ability to open mail and potentially seize it. In light of our charter right to ensure no unwarranted search and seizure, I wonder what criteria would be applied. What would be the threshold to allow Canada Post workers to do that?”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition to the House regarding medical assistance in dying. It expresses concern about people who are vulnerable, those who have a disability, do not foresee imminent death, or have mental health issues, etc. The petitioners are looking for the Government of Canada to protect Canadians whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable, by prohibiting medical assistance in dying for those whose prognosis for natural death is more than six months.”
“Mr. Speaker, first let me say how delightful it is to see you in the chair, and I would like to congratulate the member for her maiden speech. The throne speech had a lot of things in it that sound good. This has been the problem with the last decade of the Liberals, that they say one thing and do another, leading to some of the highest inflation we have ever seen, people in the longest lines at food banks, the homeless issue, encampments and all of these things. I wonder how the member squares the words in the throne speech with a plan to spend another $486 billion that will drive the same results as in the last decade.”
“Mr. Speaker, yesterday, our motion to have the government table a budget this spring was passed in this House. The Liberals wanted us to approve $486 billion of spending with no plan, and $20 billion in revenue was supposed to come from the elbows-up countertariffs. However, secretly, during the election, the Prime Minister and cabinet signed an order to cancel them while telling Canadians they were still going to fight with dollar-for-dollar tariffs. Will the Prime Minister listen to Parliament, table a spring budget and explain where the extra $20 billion is going to come from?”