Mr. Speaker, last night at 6:45 p.m., the NDP House leader rose in his place and said exactly the same thing that he just said now. Perhaps he was not happy with his performance last night or wanted another opportunity to try to get a clip. The fact is that I do not think it is in accordance with the rules for a member to be able to rise again and state the same point of order when he is perhaps not happy with how it sounded. I understand that the member would have felt embarrassed last night because I responded to his point of order by pointing out that the NDP House leader has repeatedly used the word “wacko” in the House, in committee and, no doubt, in various other places. I encourage the member, rather than repeating the same argument, to consult his own conscience, to reflect on possible feelings of guilt he is experiencing. If he has decided that it is wrong to say “wacko” in the House, I invite him to reflect deeply on his own—

Colleagues, this matter has been brought to my attention. It was raised yesterday. The Asssistant Deputy Speaker who was in the chair had engaged to come back to the House if necessary on this matter, and so we shall.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8)(a), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to eight petitions. These returns will be tabled in an electronic format. While I am on my feet, I move: That the House do now proceed to orders of the day.

If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, we request a recorded division.

Call in the members.

I declare the motion carried. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Yellowhead, Carbon Pricing; the hon. member for Chatham-Kent—Leamington, Carbon Pricing; the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill, Public Safety. The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader is rising on a point of order.

Is it agreed? Some hon. members: Agreed.

Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 2418, 2419, 2424, 2428, 2432 and 2434.

Mr. Speaker, furthermore, if a revised response to Question No. 2007, originally tabled on January 29, and the government's responses to Questions Nos. 2420 to 2423, 2425 to 2427, 2429 to 2431, 2433, and 2435 to 2437 could be made orders for return, these returns would be tabled in an electronic format immediately. The Deputy Speaker: Is that agreed? Some hon. members: Agreed.

With regard to police-reported hate crime data and the reporting of transphobic hate crimes: (a) what measures are being taken by the Government of Canada to create a specific category for reporting transphobic hate crimes rather than the current practice of grouping these hate crimes with those targeting sexual orientation or biological sex and gender; and (b) what other methods of collecting data on anti-trans hate and violence are used to supplement police hate crime data? With regard to gender-affirming care: what actions is the Government of Canada taking to improve coverage of, and access to, gender-affirming care? With regard to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SRED) credits and Sustainable Development Technology Canada's (SDTC) decision to freeze funding to SRED recipients: (a) is the CRA targeting SDTC funding recipients for audits, and, if not, what is the CRA's explanation for the high rates of audits being conducted on such businesses; and (b) how many SRED recipients have had their SDTC funding frozen, and, of those, how many are the subject of a CRA audit? With regard to the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario: (a) what was the total amount spent by the agency on advertising and outreach during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 fiscal years; (b) what are the details of the agency’s advertising and outreach initiatives; (c) what metrics were used to determine the success of such endeavours; and (d) were the targets met? With regard to the letter sent to the Minister of Health by the office of the Member from Chatham-Kent—Leamington in December 2023, and the minister's mandate letter of July 2023: (a) why were representatives from Health Canada (HC) and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) not made available to attend the CFIA Food Security Roundtable in Chatham-Kent, Ontario on March 24, 2024; and (b) what are the current best practices for industry and various levels of government, including HC, in the event of a pathogenic or contamination crisis, when importing and exporting Canadian greenhouse and mushroom products to and from the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement and the European Union? With regard to the government’s approval of the merger of the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) Canada: (a) was the Minister of Finance aware of HSBC mortgage fraud allegations before she approved the merger, and, if so, when was the Minister of Finance aware of those allegations at HSBC Canada; (b) were any recommendations given by the Department of Finance to the Minister of Finance regarding the allegations of mortgage fraud taking place at HSBC Canada, and, if so, who provided the recommendations and what were they; (c) has HSBC Canada reported any suspicious mortgage‑related transactions to the Department of Finance since 2015, and, if so, what is the number of reported transactions, broken down by year since 2015; (d) how many of the reported suspicious transactions in (c) involved a mortgage borrower who is not a Canadian citizen; (e) were the allegations of mortgage fraud taken into account when the decision was made to allow the merger of RBC and HSBC Canada, and, if not, why not; (f) has the Minister of Finance received any concerns from any government departments, agencies, officers of Parliament, or the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments regarding the allegations of mortgage fraud at HSBC Canada, and, if so, what are the details, including (i) who raised the concern, (ii) what concern was raised, (iii) the date, (iv) the minister’s response; (g) have any suspicious transactions related to mortgages been reported by HSBC Canada since the RBC‑HSBC Canada merger was approved, and, if so, how many; and (h) who will be responsible for paying any fines issued to HSBC Canada, following the completion of the merger, for failure to comply with anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing rules, the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, the Bank Act, or other laws in Canada?

Mr. Speaker, finally, I ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand. The Deputy Speaker: Is that agreed? Some hon. members: Agreed.

With regard to the $669,650 contract awarded to KPMG to provide advice on how to save money on consultants: (a) what advice did KPMG provide to the government; and (b) does the government consider the advice to be worth $669,650? With regard to suicide among trans and gender-diverse Canadians: (a) are there any data collection efforts to measure the rate of suicide and suicide attempts among these Canadians; and (b) are there any policy initiatives to address the issue of suicide among these Canadians? With regard to the contracts awarded by the Government of Canada or any other government agency for the Canada Border Services Agency's (CBSA) Assessment and Revenue Management project since February 7, 2018, broken down by supplier: what are the details of all these contracts, including, for each, (i) the date the contract was signed, (ii) the value of the contract, (iii) the title of the public servants who approved the contract, (iv) the start and end dates of the work, (v) a detailed description of the goods or services provided, (vi) specifics on the way the contract was awarded (sole source or competitive bidding process), (vii) the status of the contract, namely, whether the contract was delivered and completed and whether the deliverables met the requirements of the CBSA and any other department or agency involved? With regard to the awarding of non-competitive contracts, broken down by department, agency or body and by year, from 2006 to present: for each contract, what is the (i) total amount awarded, (ii) reason, if any, for awarding the contract, (iii) name of the organization that received the contract? With regard to the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF): (a) what grading or scoring system is used by the CAF when determining whether someone gets promoted, including (i) what the scores based on, (ii) what importance or weight each item carries, (iii) what grade or score is required to be eligible for or to obtain a promotion; (b) what is the current breakdown of members of the CAF by demographic; and (c) how many and what percentage of members of the CAF received promotions, broken down by each demographic that the CAF tracks and by year, for the past five years? With regard to the temporary public policy to facilitate temporary resident visas (TRV) for certain extended family affected by the crisis in Gaza, since January 9, 2024: (a) how many crisis web form applications have been received by the department, and how many sponsored individuals are represented; (b) how many unique reference codes have been issued and how many anchors and sponsored individuals are represented; (c) how many crisis web form applications have been rejected and (i) how many sponsored individuals are represented, (ii) what was the reason for the rejection; (d) how many crisis web form applications are still being processed and how many sponsored individuals are represented; (e) how many unique reference codes have been used to complete TRV applications; (f) how many TRV applicants have completed biometric processing at a biometric collection processing site prior to January 9, 2024; (g) how many TRV permits have been issued to those who have completed their biometrics prior to January 9, 2024; (h) how many TRV applicants have completed biometric processing at a biometric collection service point since January 9, 2024, and how many of them have been issued a TRV permit; (i) how many TRV applications have been rejected, and what was the reason for rejection; (j) how many TRV applications have been stamped and approved; (k) how many successful applicants were sent to the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) to be allowed to exit Gaza to migrate to Canada; (l) how many TRV applicants have had personal details, which were shared in the application process, other than a full name, date of birth, sex, passport or national ID details, mobile phone number, or current location by district, shared with Israeli authorities; and (m) how many TRV applicants have had information disclosed or additional background information forms shared with Israeli authorities? With regard to application backlogs and processing times at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to date: (a) how many temporary resident applications, permanent resident applications, and citizenship applications are in backlog, broken down by individual stream, including pilot programs; (b) what is the month-to-month reduction or increase in the number of applications in backlog, broken down by each individual stream, including pilot programs for the previous 60 months; and (c) how many applications have been processed and accepted for each individual stream, broken down by year, and by province or territory? With regard to the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario: (a) what was the total amount spent by the agency on consultations and consultants during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 fiscal years; and (b) what are the details of all contracts related to the consultations or consultants in (a), including, for each, the (i) date of the contract, (ii) vendor, (iii) amount or value, (iv) description of the goods or services provided, (v) manner in which the contract was awarded (i.e. sole-sourced, competitive bid)? With regard to the government’s provision of goods and services to irregular border crossers seeking asylum: (a) what items are provided to entrants at the time of crossing; (b) what items are provided to entrants once they are relocated to accommodations; and (c) what is the cost, per item, of provisions to entrants, broken down by each item with its associated per unit cost? With regard to the technologies used by the federal government and its various departments, agencies and Crown corporations, notably the RCMP, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces: (a) have they purchased Hikvision surveillance cameras, owned by the Chinese company Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd.; (b) do they use Hikvision surveillance cameras, owned by the Chinese company Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd.; and (c) if the answer to (a) and (b) is affirmative, have they conducted a privacy impact assessment? With regard to legal services provided to the government, broken down by department or agency: (a) for each year since 2020, what was the total amount of expenditures on contracts for legal services, in total and broken down by vendor; and (b) how many in‑house lawyers or legal advisors are currently employed by the government? With regard to Public Health Agency of Canada, Health Canada, National Advisory Committee on Immunization and Privy Council communications in 2022: (a) were there communications between any of the entities or their personnel with the Ottawa Police Services Board or Ottawa Police Services personnel or the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario; (b) if the answer to (a) is affirmative, was any of the communication with respect to Detective Helen Grus, stillbirths or deaths of infants under one year; (c) if the answer to (b) is affirmative, what are the details of each communication, including the (i) date, (ii) type of communication such as memorandum, telephone conversation, fax, or email; (iii) subject, (iv) reports produced as a result of the communication, (v) names of people included or copied on the communication; (d) were any of the named entities above or their personnel included in communications involving one or more of the following individuals, Deputy Chief Steven Bell, Superintendent Heather Lachine, Hugh O’Toole of the Professional Standards Branch, Prosecutor Vanessa Stewart, or the Ontario Coroner’s office; and (e) if the answer to (d) is affirmative, what are the details of each communication, including the (i) date, (ii) type of communication, (iii) subject, (iv) reports produced as a result of the communication, (v) names of people included or copied on the communication? With regard to anti-terrorist financing, broken down by year since 2015: (a) have any federally regulated financial institutions reported transactions involving people or organizations with suspected or confirmed ties to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and, if so, how many were reported; (b) how many of the reported suspicious transactions in (a) are related to people or organizations with suspected or confirmed ties to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; (c) how many transactions involving people or organizations with suspected or confirmed ties to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been investigated by the Government of Canada or its agencies, including the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and the RCMP; (d) how many people or organizations have been investigated for transactions involving the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or people or organizations with suspected or confirmed ties to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; (e) how many federally regulated financial institutions, credit unions, or lenders have been investigated for transactions involving the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or people or organizations with suspected or confirmed ties to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; (f) what are the names of each company or entity investigated in (e), and what is the current status of each investigation; and (g) why has the Government of Canada not listed the entire Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization? With regard to the government approach to anti-money laundering: (a) how much money does the government estimate has been laundered through Canada, broken down by year since 2015; (b) how many individuals, companies, entities, or organizations have been convicted of money laundering offences in Canada since 2015, in total, and broken down by year; (c) how many investigations related to money laundering have led to (i) fines, (ii) incarceration, in Canada since 2015, in total, and broken down by year; (d) of the total number of fines in (c), how many are a result of plea deals or other agreements where charges were not filed or were dropped; and (e) has the Department of Finance, its agencies, or the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation done an analysis on the impact that money laundering has on the housing market, and, if so, what are the details, including when the analysis was conducted and the results? With regard to government statistics on homelessness in Canada: (a) how many homeless people are there currently in Canada; (b) how many homeless people have there been in Canada, broken down by year since 2015; (c) how many homeless encampments are there in Canada; (d) how many homeless encampments have there been in Canada, broken down by year since 2015; (e) how many homeless people have been housed as a result of Infrastructure Canada funding; (f) how many homeless people have been housed as a result of the National Housing Strategy; (g) how many homeless people have been housed as a result of the National Housing Accelerator Fund; and (h) what is the breakdown of (c) through (g) by province or territory and by municipality?

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to seek unanimous consent to have my vote counted. I heard that it was not counted, not the previous vote, but the one before.

Is that agreed? Some hon. members: Agreed. The Deputy Speaker: What is the hon. member's vote?

Mr. Speaker, my vote was nay.

The vote is recorded. The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I should have also requested that all notices of motions for the production of papers be allowed to stand. The Deputy Speaker: Is that agreed? Some hon. members: Agreed.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to be sharing my time with the member for Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook. As always, it is a true honour for me to be speaking in the venerable House on behalf of the residents of my riding of Davenport. Today I am going to be speaking to federal budget 2024. It is a very important budget. It is 416 pages. I will not be able to go through all of it, but I will focus on a few key areas. I will start by talking about what I think is the overall theme of our budget, which is fairness for every generation. We have been talking a lot about some of the pre-announcements that our government made before we introduced federal budget 2024. There is a huge focus, and rightly so, on the gen Zs and millennials, but I just want to reiterate that the theme is fairness for every generation. There is a lot in the budget that will benefit every single generation here in Canada. The other question that we asked ourselves and that is important to note as we are going through a number of measures I will be talking about today is “What kind of Canada do we want to live in?”. The measures in our budget very much answer that question. I also believe that the measures we have comprise a plan that would meet the current moment, including the challenges and opportunities of the current moment. On Friday, as I always do every single year, I hosted a town hall respecting federal budget 2024, with Davenport residents. They had a lot of questions, which took over an hour. I am going to speak to the top three issues that I heard at the town hall. The first thing I want to talk about is housing. That is the top concern for Davenport residents. We receive a lot of letters and a lot of calls, and when I go to events, that is what I hear from millennials, gen Zs and also from parents and grandparents who are are worried about their kids and grandkids being able to live in the city where they have grown up. Indeed, the core focus of federal budget 2024 is getting housing built as quickly as possible, getting as much supply as possible into the marketplace. I do not know whether members noticed, but the week before federal budget 2024, we actually introduced our master housing plan, and there are three parts to it. First is building more single-family homes. Second is how it is that we are going to make it easier for Canadians to own or rent a home. The third part of our housing plan is helping Canadians who cannot afford a home, and that is by building more deeply affordable housing, whether for students, seniors or persons with disabilities. Part of the whole plan is also eliminating chronic homelessness in Canada. There are a number of new measures that we have included in the budget. One that I want to focus on is using under-utilized federal lands for housing in Canada. I am very excited about this because in Davenport, something we have been pushing the federal government to look at is particularly using federal commercial lands in the hands of the government for affordable housing or for the use of local communities. We made a big push for Canada Post lands to be relooked at. Indeed, within federal budget 2024, we have introduced the whole concept of freeing up some of the lands that currently are under-utilized and available, and they would be used for affordable housing spaces. I want to thank Davenport residents very much for pushing this idea, and the ministers and the Prime Minister for ensuring that we take a serious look at the federal lands that are in our hands and making them available right across this country. The second issue that is important for Davenport residents is affordability. We do have an affordability crisis in Canada. I have been very proud of our federal government, which has introduced a number of programs over the last few years that have been extremely beneficial, have strengthened our social welfare system, and have also made life more affordable. The national child care system, our national dental care plan, our Canada worker benefit and our increase in OAS payments by 10% are just a few of those programs. In federal budget 2024, we also introduced the Canada disability benefit and the national school food program. I will speak to both very quickly. On the Canada disability benefit, I am very happy that we have introduced phase one, which would be $6.1 billion over six years, beginning in 2024-25, and would be $1.4 billion ongoing. That would provide a maximum benefit of $2,400 per person for low-income persons with disabilities. To me, this is great news. Every bit of money will help, particularly during times when we have inflation that is higher than normal. This is phase one, and I know many Davenport residents are going to continue the work, including with me, to try to see if, in future years, we can get more money allocated to the Canada disability benefit. However, the dollars we have now are very much appreciated and would go a long way. The second thing I want to mention is our national school food program, which would benefit more than 400,000 kids in Canada. It would save the average family with two children as much as $800 per year in grocery prices. Again, I am very proud of the affordability measures we continue to have in federal budget 2024. I know it would go a long way to help support not only residents of my riding of Davenport, but also Canadians right across this country. This is the last area I want to spend a bit of time on. Looking at all the programs we have introduced to expand our social welfare system and to help Canadians with the affordability and the housing crises we have in Canada today, there are often those who ask me how we are going to pay for it. I am very proud to say that we do have an economic plan that would set up Canada and Canadians for future growth and prosperity. The measures we have introduced in our budget this year would very much build on a number of measures we have introduced over the last few years. I will speak to some of them now. First, we put $2.4 billion toward AI leadership. We would launch a new AI compute access fund and a Canadian AI sovereign compute strategy that would support AI adoption across the entire Canadian economy. It is very important for us to make this investment. It would help Canadian researchers start up and scale up businesses, and access the computational power and the digital tools they need to compete, and it would help catalyze the development of Canadian-owned and Canadian-located AI infrastructure. We also introduced the new investment tax credits to attract companies to invest across the electric vehicle supply chains. These are much-welcomed tax credits by the electric vehicle sector. We, indeed, have made huge investments. This continues to ensure we would have a very robust structure and would become global leaders in this area. I want to note that in our fall economic statement, we introduced the clean technology manufacturing investment tax credits, which are very beneficial for the transition we are trying to make to a low-carbon future and a low-carbon economy. There are two other great things I want to speak to. We have made a $5.9-billion investment in research and scholarships, and also in new strategy research infrastructure. In my community, for many years, I have had a number of university post-docs and doctoral students come up to me and ask for more core research grants and more scholarships and fellowships. Indeed, we have made a historic investment in federal budget 2024. I am very pleased that it is there. It would bode well for a good economic future. The last thing I will say may sound unsexy, but I think it is sexy because it is going to help our Canadian economy. We have introduced a national regulatory alignment. Essentially, we are trying to eliminate interprovincial and interterritorial trade barriers. When we do that, we make it easier for companies, businesses, non-profits, people and goods to move across our country. It is great for our current economy and for our future economy, and it would bode well for our future prosperity. We have set up what I would call a “registry” so that we would have an idea what those barriers are and could start eliminating them systematically. In 416 pages, we have something that would benefit every generation in Canada. I am very proud to stand here on behalf of Davenport residents. I am now ready to answer any questions.