SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 112 - Oct/18/22

Oct/18/22 12:58:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, yes, I am concerned. It is absolutely egregious that the government promises one thing and then does not deliver on it. I am a big believer that we should not make promises, or that it is way better to underpromise and overdeliver than vice versa, as we have seen so much over the last seven years of the Liberal government. It is really good at promising but really bad at delivering.

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Mr. James Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, CPC)

Oct/18/22 12:58:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise and close the debate this morning on this important concurrence motion. I was disappointed to hear the member Winnipeg North say that he wanted to shut down this debate on the condemnation of the Russian invasion and genocide being committed in Ukraine. We need to reaffirm our position of standing with the innocent people of Ukraine, who are now civilian targets of the Russian Federation. We know Russia has been brutally attacking infrastructure, as well as places like hospitals, apartment buildings, and using not just cruise missiles and artillery but kamikaze drones it has acquired from Iran. We have to stand against these terrorist actions that the Russian Federation has taken. We have to continue to point out that when it is brutalizing the innocent people of Ukraine, it is committing war crimes. When it is wildly saying that it is going to try to take away Ukraine's language, culture and, again, revisiting that Stalin era under the Soviet Union of the Holodomor when it tried to stamp out Ukrainian nationalism, we have to call it what it is: an atrocity, a genocide. Everyone who is responsible for raping women, murdering children, attacking seniors in Ukraine must be held to account before a higher authority. I want to thank my colleague from Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound for his articulation of what Canada could do, and should do more, in support of the Ukrainian forces in their war of defending their territory from the barbarians of the north. Russia continues to recruit and conscript more Russian men to join the battle. It continues to reach out and hire mercenaries from places like Syria and Chechnya, using the Wagner Group, which should be listed as a terrorist organization. We are now hearing that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, RGC, of Iran is also fighting in Ukraine to support Russian efforts. We have to ensure that we are properly equipping all the Ukrainian armed forces and meeting the demands and requests they have made of Canada and our allies. As has already been articulated by the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, we are sitting on a fleet of armoured vehicles, Bisons, Coyotes and TLAV, all which are about to be retired and replaced with brand new super-Bisons, the new LAVs that are being built in Canada, at GDLS in London, Ontario. Those will be replacing this fleet very shortly. Why are we not sending those LAVs. These armoured vehicles have proven themselves in places like Afghanistan, to support Ukrainian troops on the ground, providing them with the armoured ambulances, the Bison ambulances, so they can get their wounded off the front lines and into hospitals. We need to actually provide them with Role 3 Field Hospitals. We bought a bunch to support Canada's pandemic efforts. We know these mobile hospitals are sitting in containers, never used. Let us put them on a plane and get them over there so Ukraine can properly triage battlefield wounds, save lives and help soldiers recover. One part of the motion also calls on helping those who are resisting Putin's hypocrisy, who are opposing the war in Ukraine and are in Russia today. Just yesterday, I met with Bill Browder, who has advocated for the Sergei Magnitsky legislation around the world. I met with with Vladimir Kara-Murza's wife, Evgenia. Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is a political opponent of Vladimir Putin, has now been jailed on trumped up charges of high treason, He has been given a 22-year sentence. His crime is that he called out Vladimir Putin for his illegal invasion of Ukraine, a Russian criticizing a Russian. We are talking about free speech, which no longer exists in Vladimir Putin's Russia. It is about ensuring people have informed debate. Of course, with the disinformation campaign put on by the Kremlin, there is no way to get the truth into the hands of the Russian public. As Russia conscripts another 200,000-plus men to join the fight in Ukraine, people are leaving in droves and fleeing as refugees from Russia. It is not just having to deal with the displacement and the refugee crisis that has been created in Ukraine because of this illegal invasion, but fighting-age Russian men know this war is illegal. They know Putin is going to lose this war and they are not about to sacrifice their lives for a dictator. We have to provide them with the opportunity to flee the country and come to allied nations, including Canada, so they can have safe haven, because they are taking up a very principled stand as conscientious deserters. Therefore, we have to be there as they object to this unnecessary war. I also want to comment on the comments by the new premier of Alberta, which has come up a few times today in debate. I will say this. She needs to educate herself on what is happening in the war in Ukraine. She needs to actually go and talk to the thousands of Ukrainian refugees who have now decided to call Alberta home. If she talked to those refugees, she would realize very quickly that neutrality, as she has suggested, is not an option. We cannot trust Vladimir Putin. He is a pathological liar. We cannot trust any piece of paper he has signed, because he has already violated the Minks 1 and 2 agreements, never mind throwing away the treaty on the nuclear disarmament of Ukraine, the Budapest memorandum. If we cannot trust him, how can we negotiate with him? How do we maintain a level of neutrality? There is something to be said about respecting the will of their Parliament, the will of the people. Through free will, the people of Ukraine have demonstrated, first through the Orange Revolution and then the Euromaidan on the streets of Kyiv and across the country, that they want to have closer relationships with the West. They want to be a member of the European Union. They want to be a member of NATO. If the people want that, which is one thing that President Zelenskyy came to power on, then we had better support them, because that is a democratic right and a democratic thing to do. I congratulate Premier Smith on her ability to get elected as the premier of Alberta. She is respecting the democratic process there. I hope she respects the free will under the democratic process that is taking place in Ukraine today and that she will support those people from Ukraine who have decided to call Alberta home.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Oct/18/22 1:06:23 p.m.
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Is the House ready for the question? Some hon. members: Question. The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The question is on the motion. If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division, or that the motion be adopted on division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

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Deputy

Mr. Garnett Genuis

Oct/18/22 1:06:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to request a recorded division.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Oct/18/22 1:07:00 p.m.
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Pursuant to order made Thursday, June 23, the recorded division stands deferred until later today, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Oct/18/22 1:07:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have a number of petitions I want to present to the House today that deal with a variety of issues. The first petition raises the concern of petitioners with respect to a commitment made in the Liberal Party's 2021 election platform. That was a commitment to, in effect, politicize charitable status determinations and deny charitable status to organizations that take positions on important issues with which the Liberal Party of Canada does not agree. They call this the application of a values test to charitable status determinations. They want to see charitable status determinations made on a politically and ideologically neutral basis that respects the letter and the spirit of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when it comes to freedom of expression without discrimination. The petitioners call on the House to protect and preserve the application of charitable status rules on a politically and ideologically neutral basis without discrimination and they also ask the House to affirm the right of Canadians to freedom of expression.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Oct/18/22 1:12:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this next petition highlights the concern of petitioners about the government's plan to triple, triple, triple the carbon tax. The petitioners note that in the 2019 federal election, the federal government said that the carbon tax would be frozen at $50 a tonne annually and—

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Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Oct/18/22 1:12:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the next petition I am tabling is about the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. The petitioners note the various forms that persecution has taken over decades, as well as the work done by the late, great David Kilgour, as well as David Matas and others on exposing the persecution and the organ harvesting and trafficking component of that persecution. The petitioners ask the House to take action with respect to this persecution, to stop the killing and organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners and to take every opportunity to speak out against the persecution of these practitioners.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Oct/18/22 1:12:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the next petition relates to another human rights issue involving the People's Republic of China. It deals with the ongoing, arbitrary and illegal detention of Canadian citizen Huseyin Celil. The petitioners note the significant amount of public conversation and government conversation, rightly so, around the arbitrary and illegal detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. They also note that like the two Michaels, Mr. Celil is a Canadian citizen and is facing ongoing arbitrary detention. Mr. Celil is a human rights activist detained in China for supporting the rights of Uighurs. He was taken from Uzbekistan, illegally rendered to China and he has been in detention there for over a decade and a half. The petitioners have a number of asks of the government. They want to see the government push and demand that the Chinese government recognize Mr. Celil's Canadian citizenship and provide him with consular and legal services in accordance with international law. They want the government to formally state that the release of Mr. Celil from Chinese detainment and his return to Canada is a priority of the Canadian government, of equal concern as the unjust detentions of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. The petitioners want the government to appoint a special envoy to secure Mr. Cecil's release and also to, as it has done with other cases, to seek the assistance of the Biden administration and other allies around the world in obtaining Mr. Cecil's release.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Oct/18/22 1:12:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the next petition is in a way similar. It relates to organ harvesting. The petition is in support of Bill S-223, a bill proposed in the other place by Senator Ataullahjan, which is currently in the House before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. It is currently stalled before that committee, and petitioners want to see this Parliament be the one that finally gets Bill S-223 passed. The bill would prohibit someone from going abroad to receive an organ taken without the consent of the person whose organ it is. It would also create a mechanism by which people could be deemed inadmissible to Canada if they were involved in forced organ harvesting and trafficking.

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Ms. Elizabeth May

Oct/18/22 1:12:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I really do enjoy this member's presentation of petitions, and he is diligent in presenting them, but I do think some of the last rhetoric may not have been found in the petition and was actually the talking points of the Conservative caucus we hear every day. I would ask the Speaker to rule on whether saying “triple, triple, triple the carbon tax” is part of an appropriate petition presentation.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Oct/18/22 1:12:25 p.m.
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I am not sure what is in the petition itself. I would hope that members are sticking to a short summary of the petitions themselves. I know there are other members who want to present petitions as well. I will allow the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan to continue, but I also want to remind him to ensure that what he is saying is within the petition itself. I do not want this to be a point of debate. The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan has the floor.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis

Oct/18/22 1:12:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if there are other members, maybe I could be given a signal when there are three or four minutes left in the time, and I will stop there. I do have a few petitions, but I am happy to stop partway through to ensure others have an opportunity. This petition does not specifically use the phrase, “triple, triple, triple”. However—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Oct/18/22 1:13:12 p.m.
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I ask the member to ensure he sticks to what is in the petition and not put his own views forward or his party's views forward. Please stick to the petitions and summarize what is in the petition.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis

Oct/18/22 1:13:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was going to say that I think it is a reasonable summary, insofar as the text of the petition specifically notes that in the 2019 federal election the then Liberal environment minister said the carbon tax would be frozen at—

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Mr. Ken Hardie

Oct/18/22 1:13:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I believe the rules of presenting petitions are that there should be a brief summary and do not allow a member to literally fill up the time that might be asked for by other members presenting petitions. The member should be directed to keep it brief. This is not a speech.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Oct/18/22 1:14:01 p.m.
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I did just mention that to the hon. member, and I would say that applies to everyone. Again I would just ask the member to provide us with a brief summary of what is in the petition. When presenting petitions, we cannot be providing our own views on the subject matter. The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis

Oct/18/22 1:14:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will certainly triple my efforts to stay true to the rules of this place. Petitioners are concerned that the Liberal government has repeatedly claimed that the carbon tax would be revenue-neutral, whereas in many cases that is not the case. These petitioners say that low- and middle-income Canadians are already overtaxed. Specifically, they are asking the government to keep its promise to not increase the carbon tax beyond $50 per tonne.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Oct/18/22 1:15:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am sure the member is aware that we are not supposed to be actually reading the petition either. We are supposed to be reporting a summary—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Oct/18/22 1:15:13 p.m.
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I understand. The hon. member is actually summarizing the petition by reading a couple of the remarks. I think that every member does that, so I just want to allow the hon. member to continue so that we can get on with the business of the day. The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

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