Michael Cooper
St. Albert—Sturgeon River, Alberta · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a supplementary report on behalf of the Conservative members of the committee. The Conservatives would have liked to see additional recommendations with a view toward strengthening the integrity of our elections, including an amendment to the Canada Elections Act to require electors residing abroad to provid…”
“Mr. Speaker, it has been two years since legislation was passed to establish a foreign influence registry. Two years later, the Liberals have missed every deadline to get the registry up and running. On what date will the foreign influence registry finally be fully operational?”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on Bill C-25 , an act to amend the Canada Elections Act, at the third reading stage. As I noted in my speech during the second reading debate, there are a number of measures in this bill that would strengthen the Canada Elections Act, which Conservatives welcome.”
“(2235) I have to say that, ironically, to the degree that third parties would be captured by the general rule versus third parties that would not and would be captured by the exception, or could take advantage of the exception, I expect that in general it would be the smaller, grassroots-oriented third parties that would be subject to the…”
“This is much like how, as a general rule, third parties would be required to use and be limited to contributions from individual Canadians. That is all very good. That is in the bill, and we support that.”
“to eight registered third parties that were involved in, effectively, campaigning against the then Harper Conservative government and various Conservative candidates.”
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“One is a melding-of-funds issue, whereby certain contributions can be treated as part of the general revenue of the registered third party. I asked the Chief Electoral Officer about this at the procedure and House affairs committee and he confirmed that this loophole exists. It is described as follows: Third parties are required only to record contributions given to them for the purpose of engaging in regulated activities. Contributions received for no specific purpose, or no purpose directly linked to regulated electoral activities, are treated as general revenue. If they are used for regulated activities, they are reported as forming part of the third party's own funds or resources.”
“On another matter, with respect to the third party regime, the bill does, in large part, close identified loopholes with respect to foreign funding of third parties. Integral to our democratic process is that our elections should be decided by Canadians, free of foreign influence and foreign interference, yet there are very significant loopholes that have allowed foreign interests, foreign actors, to influence our elections with witting third parties. One might ask how this is possible, given that, for example, section 349.02 of the Canada Elections Act states that no third party shall use funds for a regulated activity if the source of the funds is a foreign entity. There are two loopholes, in practice.”
“The activities of the longest ballot committee need to be put to a stop. The bill contains measures that would, I believe, largely achieve that objective, including requiring that electors sign only one candidate's nomination form and making it an offence to sign multiple forms, as well as requiring that an official agent act for only one candidate per riding. The longest ballot committee, other than in the most recent Terrebonne by-election, had, effectively, the same agent acting for all of the candidates. It would normally be seen as a conflict of interest to be acting for multiple candidates who were supposedly competing against one another, which would be the case if these were legitimate candidates instead of what amounts to a total and complete sham of the electoral process by the longest ballot committee.”
“Let me say, for those who would dismiss the activities of the longest ballot committee as some sort of joke or something to shrug off, that nothing could be further from the truth. The activities of the longest ballot committee have had very negative consequences for voters, for candidates and for Elections Canada. We saw in Carleton, for example, 91 fake candidates, resulting in a metre-long ballot. What impact do things like a metre-long ballot have on elections? (1050) They certainly cause voter confusion. They create barriers for persons with certain disabilities. They make it more difficult to administer elections. They create barriers for legitimate candidates to break through with voters and they cause long delays in tabulating the vote, with the overall effect of undermining confidence in the democratic process.”
“The longest ballot committee has been able to flood the ballot by taking advantage of certain provisions in the Canada Elections Act. The clearest example is the signature threshold with respect to nomination papers. Under the act, a candidate must obtain 100 signatures from electors in the riding to get on the ballot. The longest ballot committee has identified roughly the same pool of 100 voters and encouraged or invited those voters to then sign the nomination forms of all of the fake candidates that they seek to get onto the ballot. This is a clear abuse of the Canada Elections Act insofar as the purpose of that section is to require that a candidate have the support of at least 100 electors, not that the same 100 voters can flood the ballot with an endless list of candidates. It is a low threshold, but a threshold nonetheless.”
“With that said, Conservatives support debating this bill vigorously at second reading and then getting it to the procedure and House affairs committee for further study, review and possible amendments. Let us move on to the particulars of the bill. The bill does deal with the very unwelcome activities of the longest ballot committee. We have seen, in the last number of years, the spectacle of this rogue group flooding the ballot in targeted ridings with fake candidates who have no interest in campaigning, no interest in engaging in voters, do not put forward substantive policy positions and have no interest in getting elected. They are merely names on a ballot, all part of a coordinated scheme to weaponize the ballot and undermine the democratic process.”
“Additionally, the bill would create a number of new offences and extend existing offences under the act to leadership and nomination contests, and the bill would give significant new powers to the commissioner of Canada elections to undertake investigations and to enforce the act, among other measures. As I said, it contains a number of moving parts. Before getting into some of the particulars of the bill, let me say that, on the whole, the measures contained in the bill are welcome. That is not to say that amendments need not be considered. I think in some instances they do. Moreover, certain measures within the bill warrant careful scrutiny, particularly some of the new offences, as well as the additional powers being afforded to the commissioner of Canada elections.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on Bill C-25 , an act to amend the Canada Elections Act. This bill would make a number of substantive amendments to the act. It is, in some respects, a technical bill with many moving pieces. Those pieces include welcome measures to counter the disruptive and anti-democratic activities of the so-called longest ballot committee. This bill also contains welcome measures to counter foreign interference in our elections, as well as nomination and leadership contests. The bill would largely close loopholes that exist with respect to foreign funding of third parties.”
“Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up on my previous question. As I understood the government House leader's answer, with the exception to third parties being able to use their revenues rather than setting up an individual bank account, there would be some possibility of melding or of foreign monies. Would it not be better simply to eliminate the exception and require all third parties to set up a separate bank account and have contributions from individual Canadians?”
“Mr. Speaker, I welcome many of the measures contained in the bill. One measure I welcome is the closing of certain loopholes with respect to foreign funding through registered third parties by requiring third parties to set up separate bank accounts so that only funds donated from individual Canadians and permanent residents could be used for regulated activity. That being said, there is an exception that would allow third parties to use their revenues, their existing funds, if contributions are 10% or less on an annual basis the year before the pre-writ period. Under any circumstances, could foreign funds be treated as being melded with the general funds or general revenues of the third party entity, thus creating a new loophole while seeking to close other loopholes?”
“Mr. Speaker, the minister has acknowledged a conflict in respect of Alto, hence setting up the so-called ethics screen, yet he has repeatedly introduced, spoken to and voted on legislation to advance the project. Instead of clearing the air, we now have the spectacle of Liberal MPs filibustering at committee to shield the minister from accountability. It begs this question: Is this what Canadians can expect a Liberal majority government to look like?”
“Mr. Speaker, for more than eight hours, Liberal MPs have been filibustering to shield the finance minister from appearing before the ethics committee to answer questions about his role in directing billions of tax dollars to the Alto high-speed rail project, notwithstanding that his partner is none other than a VP at Alto. This raises serious questions about a potential conflict of interest. If the minister has nothing to hide, will he tell the filibustering Liberal MPs to stop, and will he come to committee?”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a supplementary report from Conservative members of the committee. The longest ballot committee constitutes a coordinated effort to undermine our elections, undermine confidence in a democratic process and sow confusion among voters. Conservatives support the recommendations in the report to close the loopholes in the Canada Elections Act that the longest ballot committee has taken advantage of. I would add that it was an initiative of the Conservatives that led to the study, and it was the Conservatives who first called on the Liberal government to take action to address the disruptive activities of the longest ballot committee. We now urge the Liberal government to speedily introduce targeted legislation to prevent groups like the longest ballot committee from disrupting future elections.”
“Mr. Speaker, the past record of the Harper government was a solid one. We did not have a housing crisis in this country at the time. Housing costs were half of what they are today. The idea that a first-time homebuyer would be priced out of the market was not the reality in 2014 or—”
“Mr. Speaker, if it were a matter of building bureaucracies and spending money, we would have more housing and the most affordable housing in the world, because the government has added layer upon layer of bureaucracy. It has spent tens of billions of dollars around so-called affordable housing, but at the end of the day the results are that fewer and fewer Canadians can enter the market. Housing has never been more unaffordable than it is today after 10 years of the Liberals.”
“Mr. Speaker, there is a role for the federal government to play when it comes to working with provinces and municipalities. In that regard, I concur with the hon. member, but at the root of the problem is supply. The reason we have an issue of supply is red tape and bureaucracy due to policies of gatekeepers. We need to get gatekeepers out of the way, cut taxes and reduce barriers in order to increase supply, build the homes that Canadians need and bring home affordability. Conservatives have put forward a number of concrete measures to do just that.”
“Mr. Speaker, Build Canada Homes would build 5,000 new units at an extraordinary cost. It would be totally inefficient and would not achieve the results that are needed to restore affordability. By the way, it is a concept that is not particularly new. In fact it has been tried and tested, and it failed, as recently as the last few years in New Zealand. The socialist government there put forward KiwiBuild, which had the target of building 100,000 new affordable housing units in 10 years. After six years, KiwiBuild managed to build 2,400 units.”
“As I noted at the beginning of my speech, Build Canada Homes is badly misnamed because it will not build new homes. It will build bureaucracy. We do not need bureaucracy. We need to get gatekeepers out of the way and let builders build the homes that Canadians need.”
“They are offering Build Canada Homes, which does nothing to address the underlying cost factors that have stifled supply, resulting in housing being unaffordable due to a lack of supply. Now, what will Build Canada Homes do? One thing it will certainly do is build a big, fat new bureaucracy, a $13-billion bureaucracy, but what it will not do is build new homes. In fact, according to analysis from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Build Canada Homes will build approximately 5,000 new units per year. That is 1% of the half million new units that we need to restore affordability. This is the brainchild of the Prime Minister , his solution to the housing crisis. He said during the election that he would accelerate housing at speeds not seen in generations. He has put forward a bureaucracy that will build 5,000 new homes.”
“The problem with that, of course, is that very few first-time homebuyers purchase a brand-new home, meaning that the Liberals' GST cut helps very few purchasers. Conservatives have also called for the government to take action to reduce development charges. This is something that the Prime Minister campaigned on. In fact, the Prime Minister quite correctly noted that taxes can contribute to 30% of the cost of a new home. When it comes to actually doing something about it, we have not seen action from the Prime Minister, just talk. Conservatives have proposed taking the capital gains tax off reinvestments in Canada, including reinvestments in housing, which would help unlock billions of dollars in Canada's home building sector. In contrast, what are the Liberals offering?”
“Under this proposed legislation, federal infrastructure dollars would, in part, be tied to the building of new homes to municipalities, so that municipalities that sped up permitting and increased the housing supply would receive a building bonus, whereas those municipalities that insisted on being gatekeepers would see a similar percentage or the same percentage of federal infrastructure dollars withheld. However, we did not stop there. We are calling for the cutting of the GST on all new homes. That would save the average family $65,000 on the purchase of a new home. The Liberals promised something similar during the election campaign. What they delivered instead is to take the GST off new homes for first-time homebuyers.”
“(1235) Given that, is it any wonder that we are not building the homes that we need and that we have a supply issue that has resulted in housing being very expensive, pushing Canadians right out of the market? In the face of that, the solution, intuitively, is to get the gatekeepers out of the way to let builders build. To that end, Conservatives have put forward a number of common-sense proposals. For example, we proposed the building homes not bureaucracy act.”
“It takes, on average, 250 days for a building permit to be issued in Canada. By comparison, for a residential building permit in the U.S., the time is, on average, a month, and in some cases, they are issued in the span of a week. The source of the layers of red tape and regulation largely falls at the municipal level with big city mayors and councils that have acted as gatekeepers. These local gatekeepers have created some of the most unaffordable, most expensive housing markets in the world. Vancouver is the most extreme example, being the third-most unaffordable housing market in the world, but other cities, such as Toronto, are not far behind. According to analysis from the C.D. Howe Institute, gatekeepers, with their red tape and regulation, have added $1.3 million to the cost of the average home in Vancouver and $350,000 in Toronto.”
“Well, it is about getting the federal government into the business of building homes. It would establish a Crown corporation wherein the federal government would act as a real estate developer for affordable housing. The overriding problem with Build Canada Homes conceptually is that it seeks to solve a problem that does not exist. In Canada, we are not lacking real estate developers. We have plenty of real estate developers, but that is what Build Canada Homes is. It is about the federal government acting as a real estate developer. The real problems that we face when it comes to housing are layer upon layer of red tape, regulation, development charges and taxes, which have discouraged builders from building. Indeed, if one looks at building permits in Canada, we rank 34 out of the 35 OECD countries.”
“Indeed, we are building fewer homes today than we were in 1972, at a time when Canada had half the population we have today. According to CMHC, Canada needs to build anywhere from 430,000 to half a million new homes for a sustained period, year upon year, to restore affordability. We are nowhere near that mark. In fact, in 2025, new housing starts languished at 259,000, and according to CMHC data, the trajectory is not a positive one. The projection from CMHC is that new housing starts are trending downward year upon year, falling to a mere 212,000 new housing starts in 2028, which is less than half the number of new homes needed to restore affordability. We enter into Build Canada Homes, which is the Prime Minister's brainchild to solve Canada's housing crisis. What is Build Canada Homes?”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-20 , the badly misnamed Build Canada Homes act. Before getting into some of the problems with Build Canada Homes, let me just outline the very real housing crisis that this country faces. After 10 years of the Liberals, housing costs have doubled. In fact, housing costs are now 50% higher than they are in the U.S. Consequently, many young Canadians cannot afford a new home. The aspiration of home ownership has become unattainable, something that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. The Liberals have literally priced an entire generation of Canadians out of the market. What is the root of the problem? The root of the problem overall is one of supply. The reason housing is expensive is that we are not building enough of it. We are not building enough homes fast enough.”
“Mr. Speaker, we are talking about a $200-million sweetheart loan to Liberal insiders. Canadians deserve to know that their tax dollars are not being handed out on the basis of political connections to this government. If, in fact, everything is above board, the Liberals should have no trouble releasing all of the documents and all of the terms of the loan. Will they?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals handed out a $200-million loan at below market value to a company to build a wind farm in Nova Scotia. It turns out that the chair of the company is the former leader of the Nova Scotia Liberal Party, and three of the directors are close family members of former Liberal MPs. Given that, are we to believe that it is just a coincidence that this cabal of Liberal insiders received this $200-million sweetheart loan?”
“Mr. Speaker, here is the reality. Under the current Prime Minister 's watch, more investment dollars have left Canada than have come in. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has doubled down on the worst policies of Justin Trudeau: higher taxes, inflationary spending and the same anti-development laws. Not a single major project has been approved. With a record like that, is it any wonder that Canada has the worst economy in the G7?”
“Mr. Speaker, the numbers are in, and Canada's economy shrank during the fourth quarter of 2025. In fact, Canada's economy is the only shrinking economy in the G7. The Prime Minister promised to build the strongest economy in the G7. Instead, he has delivered the weakest. In the face of that, will the Prime Minister accept any responsibility for the dismal state of Canada's economy?”
“Mr. Speaker, I guess it is politics as usual from the Liberals. That would be the explanation. I spoke about the fiscal anchor. The Liberal government had, previously, a pretty weak fiscal anchor, but it was at least a clear fiscal anchor. The Prime Minister has a convoluted, complicated fiscal anchor that is nothing more than a shell game, as I noted, to hide massive deficits and massive debt.”
“Mr. Speaker, we are standing in opposition to a budget implementation bill that is reckless, that doubles the debt of Justin Trudeau. We are not the only party that is opposing this budget implementation bill. I believe all opposition parties oppose this budget implementation bill. We are not going to support this bad legislation coming from the government.”
“Mr. Speaker, let us look at the definition of what constitutes an investment. It includes so-called incentives. It includes things that support the formation of capital or which meaningfully raise private sector productivity. In other words, the government's definition of investment includes handouts and corporate welfare. It is all part of a scheme by the Prime Minister to blur, to hide and to make it more difficult to understand the massive deficits and massive debt he is presiding over, which, as I noted, is double the deficits and double the debt of Justin Trudeau, one of the most—”
“By the way, this would not be that difficult to achieve, given 10 years of fiscal vandalism under Justin Trudeau. However, the Prime Minister has not taken a very different approach. He has taken the same approach as Justin Trudeau. Just like Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister is presiding over out-of-control spending, massive deficits and massive debt. Here is the deal: He is a Prime Minister who is not as advertised. He calls it Canada's new government, but it is not a new government. It is the same old Liberals with the same failed and reckless fiscal policies. It is Justin Trudeau 2.0, except worse.”
“The Prime Minister is planning to rack up a quarter-trillion dollars in new debt, double the amount of debt that Justin Trudeau's government was planning to rack up during the same period of time. The bottom line is that the Prime Minister has separated operating and capital budgets to hide from Canadians the fact that he is presiding over more spending than Justin Trudeau, and with bigger deficits, and accumulating significantly more debt. It is straight-up budget trickery by the Prime Minister. When the Prime Minister promised that he would take a very different approach to Canada's finances than Justin Trudeau, most Canadians expected that the Prime Minister meant he would be more fiscally responsible. That is certainly what he was hoping Canadians would think.”
“As such, when we look at the fiscal projection for fiscal year 2028-29, the year the Prime Minister is going to meet his fiscal anchor of balancing the operating budget, and we look at total revenues projected versus total spending projected, the overall deficit is projected to be a staggering $57.9 billion, which would be one of the largest deficits in Canadian history. In short, the Prime Minister is not balancing anything. All that he is doing is making the budgeting process more complex and less transparent, all to make it more difficult to see the state of federal finances. What is the Prime Minister's spending plan between now and when he balances the operating budget?”
“It is quite deliberate, to give the Prime Minister and the government the flexibility to move spending from the operating budget to the capital budget and say that actually it is not spending but is investing. Again, it is smoke and mirrors. After creating this fiscal shell game, the Prime Minister has come out and announced his big fiscal anchor, which is to balance the budget by 2028-29, but not the federal budget, the operating budget. (1535) Here is the bottom line. Whether we look at the operating budget or the capital budget, if we call it spending or we call it investment, it all relates to the fiscal finances of Ottawa and Ottawa's bottom line.”
“He claims he has one, which I will get into momentarily, but in substance, I would say, the Prime Minister's fiscal anchor is nothing more than smoke and mirrors in an effort to create the mirage of balancing the budget, all the while hiding massive deficits and massive debt. The Prime Minister has created a fiscal shell game by creating two budgets: an operating budget and a capital budget. The operating budget ostensibly deals with day-to-day government spending, whereas the capital budget deals with so-called investments. One of the problems is that the government's definition of an investment is quite elastic. That is not by accident.”
“It is not as though the Prime Minister can say that this is a one-off or a one-time deal, because when one looks at the government's fiscal outlook, what we see over the next three years are deficits that are projected to average $62.3 billion, double what Justin Trudeau's government forecast. What about fiscal anchors? Justin Trudeau's government touted its fiscal anchor, and it was quite an unambitious one, as being to keep the deficit below 1% of GDP. What has the Prime Minister done with respect to that fiscal anchor? He has blown completely past it, because the deficit-to-GDP ratio has doubled to more than 2%. The government is on course to have a deficit-to-GDP ratio double that of Justin Trudeau's fiscal anchor in the coming fiscal years. Speaking of fiscal anchors, what is the Prime Minister 's fiscal anchor?”
“In some respects, he is performing worse than Justin Trudeau, as tough as that is to believe. One area, amazingly, in which the Prime Minister is performing worse than Justin Trudeau is Canada's finances. He is a Prime Minister who promised to spend less. It turns out he is spending more, an eye-watering $90 billion more. He is a Prime Minister who has managed to double the deficit. He is presiding over a $78.3-billion deficit, up from a massive $36.3-billion deficit, which was Justin Trudeau's last massive deficit. In fact, the Prime Minister now has the record of presiding over the largest deficit in Canadian history outside COVID.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-15 , the budget implementation act, at third reading. The Prime Minister often bills his government as Canada's new government. It is a clear public relations effort to distance himself from 10 years of failure under Justin Trudeau. Consistent with that, the Prime Minister promised that he would take, in his words, a “very different approach” than Justin Trudeau when it comes to Canada's finances. It is true that the Prime Minister has a very different style from Justin Trudeau, but, putting aside the facade that the Prime Minister puts on, the more that things change with the Liberals, the more they stay the same. When it comes to the policies and priorities of the Prime Minister, he is nothing more than Justin Trudeau 2.0.”
“What does that say about the government's approach when it comes to holding the most serious offenders, convicted murderers, accountable for their crimes?”
“Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned consecutive sentencing. One thing that is completely missing from the bill is consecutive sentencing for murderers who have committed multiple murders. In fact, the Liberals have refused to take any action in the face of the Bissonnette decision, which struck down a reasonable law that gave judges the discretion to apply parole ineligibility periods on a consecutive basis to take into account each life lost. Not only that, but the Liberals appear to oppose Brian's bill, named in memory of the late Brian Ilesic, which was introduced by my colleague, the member for Edmonton Griesbach , so convicted murderers would not be able to apply for parole year after year once they have served their minimum sentence.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition. The petitioners note that brain cancer research is critically underfunded in Canada and that Canada is years behind the United States in approving new drugs and treatments. Accordingly, the petitioners call on the Government of Canada to increase funding for brain cancer research; work with the provinces and territories to ensure that drugs, medical devices and new therapies are accessible to brain cancer patients nationwide; and to remove unnecessary red tape so brain cancer drugs can be approved expeditiously.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have signed on to using $52 billion of taxpayer money to subsidize EVs. However, there is one big problem, and that is that only a single EV model is manufactured in Canada. Consequently, 52 billion taxpayer dollars will be going directly to subsidize foreign EVs and foreign auto workers. This is at a time when thousands of Canadian auto jobs have been lost in the face of U.S. tariffs. Meanwhile, the Liberals are opening the floodgates to 50,000 Chinese EVs. This is a straight-up $52-billion foreign giveaway that undermines Canadian autos and Canadian jobs. We literally cannot make this stuff up. Liberal incompetence knows no bounds.”
“Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister promised a strong economy. He delivered stagnant growth, including negative growth in the first two quarters of 2025. The Prime Minister promised to build big, build bold and build now, but not a single project has been approved. Meanwhile, 25,000 Canadians are out of work in January alone. We have had enough of the rhetoric and enough of the empty promises. When will the Liberals come up with a real plan to get Canadians back to work?”
“Madam Speaker, Canadian workers are being pummelled. There were 25,000 net jobs lost in January, including 52,000 in the private sector. These numbers are not outliers. After 10 years of the Liberals, Canada has seen the slowest GDP growth in the G7, a meagre 0.5% compared to more than 20% growth in the United States. In the face of these numbers, will the Liberals finally accept responsibility for a decade of economic failure?”
“Madam Speaker, I am glad that the government copied and pasted the member for Calgary Nose Hill's Bill C-216 into the bill before us with respect to criminalizing non-consensual sexual deepfakes. That is a positive. I do not know what the member is talking about when she says that we are being obstructive. There is such a place called the House of Commons where we actually debate bills. The last time I checked, we have only had a few hours of debate on this very large bill, an omnibus bill, which has many moving parts. I do not know what the member is talking about.”
“Madam Speaker, we have a government that has put the rights of criminals ahead of the rights of victims. The government is now touting bail reform, but it had weakened Canada's bail laws, which has resulted in a massive crime wave. This is a government that, according to the parliamentary secretary , supports mandatory minimums, while the bill it has brought before us eviscerates them. This is a government that, of course, has a track record of not waiting for the courts to strike down mandatory minimums but proactively removing mandatory minimums from the Criminal Code, including those for some very serious offences, including serious firearms offences.”
“Madam Speaker, I suppose the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader ignored or did not listen to my resuscitation of pronouncements of the Supreme Court as it pertains to mandatory minimums and their constitutionality. If the government saw the need to bring forward an escape valve, then it ought to have done it in a careful and tailored fashion. However, it has not done that. The Liberals have drafted the bill in such a way that it would invite judges to effectively disregard mandatory minimums, hence eviscerating them. That is the problem.”