SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 171 - Mar/22/23

Mr. Yves-François Blanchet (Beloeil—Chambly, BQ)

Mar/22/23 2:29:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, although no one knows just how many there are, many Chinese nationals who are under the Prime Minister's solemn responsibility and whom Canada let in, are being forced under threat to return to China. We can imagine what is waiting for them upon their return. Our main ally is coming to Ottawa tomorrow. Is that not just one more reason to establish that the Prime Minister cannot choose who will lead the inquiry or establish that the inquiry does not need to be public?

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Context: House Hansard - 171 - Mar/22/23

Mr. Yves-François Blanchet (Beloeil—Chambly, BQ)

Mar/22/23 2:44:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my point is that the work must be done for everyone in the House and for all of our constituents. I am not convinced that that is going to happen. All opposition parties in the House want an independent public inquiry. At a time when all eyes in the U.S. are about to be on Ottawa, which tolerates interference and looks like it has something to hide, who is being partisan here?

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Context: House Hansard - 171 - Mar/22/23

Mr. Mark Gerretsen

Mar/22/23 5:33:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have been speaking for the last 15 minutes, not including interruptions, and I am unaware of the breaking news that this member is referencing. I look forward to looking into it. We see, once again, the exact same rhetoric that comes from Conservatives. We see the exact same thing the member for Red Deer—Lacombe was trying to do, when he was walking through an airport and was looking like the hero on his way back to Ottawa saying, “I'm on my way to Ottawa to fight for you and deal with the agents of Beijing.” Come on, that is not what this place is supposed to be about. The rhetoric that comes from Conservatives, including that last question, is intentionally trying to mislead Canadians, and I find it extremely unfortunate.

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Context: House Hansard - 171 - Mar/22/23

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Mar/22/23 10:18:45 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I want to get into the reality of the Conservative opposition motion that they are talking about today. We have to put it in proper perspective. Over the last number of months, there has been a great deal of canvassing. The Prime Minister often says that Ottawa is a great place to be, and one has to bring the issues and the concerns of the constituents in one's ridings to Ottawa. I can assure those who are following the debate that we bring a wide variety of different types of issues from out in our communities to Ottawa. We do this to ensure that we reflect what Canadians want to see. The Conservatives are really focused on things like character assassination. In contrast, we are concerned about making sure that we have the backs of Canadians. I say that because today they want to talk about beer and wine tax. There is no doubt that beer, alcohol, is a very important issue. I do not question that. However, when I do the math, I think it works out to about 15¢ or 16¢ on a case of 24 beers. That is what they want to talk about. That is an opposition day. They get a few every year. I would suggest that if we were to listen to someone like me, who likes to respond to what my constituents are talking about, they talk about a wide variety of issues of great concern, whether it is inflation, health care or the environment. The list goes on. By the way, I will be splitting my time with the member for Edmonton Strathcona. I can assure everyone that there is a great number of issues. However, the Conservatives want to talk about taxes. They are being selective. One of the very first things we did in government, back in 2015 when Canadians kicked out Stephen Harper, was to reduce the tax for the middle class. How did the Conservatives respond to that reduction, that legislation that reduced the tax for Canada's middle class? They ran. They voted against it. We also increased the tax for Canada's wealthiest 1% of people. Once again, how did we see the Conservative Party vote? It voted against that too. Let us fast-forward, right from the beginning to where we are today. It was not that long ago, three or four months, maybe five, that the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, said we want to provide additional tax relief for Canadians. We brought in legislation to say that we are going to double the GST rebate temporarily for the next six months. Originally, the Conservatives actually opposed that tax initiative. In fairness, it took a little bit of shaming, quite a while, but at the end of the day, they actually flip-flopped. I say it somewhat candidly, but I compliment them on their change of heart. I am glad, because that tax break that we provided, if we relate it to this one, would buy hundreds of bottles of beer, that one break. At the end of the day, we understand the benefits and the drawbacks of what is happening in our communities from a taxation perspective. They are talking specifically about alcohol and beer. We are all concerned about that issue. We have a budget coming up awfully soon. I know that I am getting anxious about it; maybe there might even be the odd Conservative who is getting anxious about it. We anticipate that there is going to be a wide spectrum of issues dealt with in that budget. For years, I have been a very strong advocate, for example, on the health care file. Health care, I have argued in the past, is part of our Canadian core identity. I would suggest that it might have been more advantageous to talk about the health care issue based on what the Conservative Party has been talking about for the last few days, something Canadians are genuinely concerned about: the recognition of credentials and how we get more health care workers, whether doctors, nurses or support workers, into the system. Conservatives might not fully understand jurisdictional responsibilities and things of that nature. They might be trying to intentionally mislead people in terms of what they could be capable of doing, especially if we look at the history of the Conservative Party. It is not very good when it comes to health care; I can assure everyone of that. At the end of the day—

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