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Member of Parliament

Cheryl Gallant

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 63%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $105,420.55

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 134 - Nov/24/22
Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, CPC)
  • Nov/24/22 4:22:47 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill S-4 
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Edmonton Manning. I begin my comments regarding Bill S-4 by acknowledging the hard-working and law-abiding citizens of my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke. During these challenging economic times and the troubling revelations Canadians are hearing every day in testimony from the Emergencies Act trial, Canadians in my riding and across the country know that I will always defend whomever the target is for this week's two minutes of hate from a Prime Minister who likes to make fun of other cultures by mocking them in their native attire and wearing blackface. Why is it that whenever the Liberal Party brings forth legislation to change criminal laws or the administration of justice, it is always about protecting criminals, never about the victims or their families? The system is failing everyone. lt is failing victims, it is failing the accused and it is failing everyone working in it. We have a situation where the public lacks faith in the justice system, and that is what we are beginning to see happen. There is even a call for the Liberal-appointed head of the RCMP to resign. People have lost trust in our public institutions. Everything the government touches breaks. Everything is broken. Bill S-4 is about technology. Knowing how the government thinks, could Judge Dredd be far behind? The fact is that technology is not a quick fix for what ails the criminal justice system in Canada. The government has all the wrong priorities. For once, the government needs to think about the victims of criminal justice. Someone has to speak for the victims. Earlier this year, a coroner's inquest was concluded in one of the worst cases of multiple-partner violence in Canadian history. Basil Borutski murdered Anastasia Kuzyk, Nathalie Warmerdam and Carol Culleton in separate incidents on the morning of September 22, 2015, in Renfrew County. Borutski was well known to all of his victims and to police for a long history of violence. He was a dangerous serial offender with a history of beating women. The three grieving families and our entire community relived the horror of that event through the inquest. Borutski went on a violent rampage in the Ottawa Valley on that day and murdered three women: Carol Culleton, Nathalie Warmerdam and Anastasia Kuzyk. In their verdict, the jurors determined that Culleton, Warmerdam and Kuzyk all died by homicide. Carol Culleton's cause of death was upper airway obstruction, which is a polite way of saying she was choked to death, while Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam both died of shotgun wounds to the chest and neck. The violence did not happen without warning. All the women were former intimate partners of Borutski, and the murders were a culmination of abusive behaviour that had been happening for over 40 years. He was sentenced to life in prison with no eligibility of parole for 70 years. Multiple sentences were to be served concurrently for the multiple murders he committed. Prior to the law passed by the Conservative government, the maximum sentence for first-degree murder, even when multiple victims were killed, was a life term with no chance of parole for 25 years. The Conservative government law that I was pleased to vote in favour of allowed for parole terms to be stacked on top of one another in cases involving multiple victims. The sentence of serial mass murderer Basil Borutski is an example of a sentence that takes into consideration the severity of the crime. The Supreme Court has since ruled that there can be no more multiple sentences. Alexandre Bissonnette, the Quebec City mosque shooter who was initially sentenced to 40 years for the murder of six people, had his sentence struck down on appeal. The Supreme Court upheld the appeal and ruled that sentences of that length are cruel and unusual and violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Unless the Liberal government brings in new legislation, the court's ruling will mean the maximum sentence a person can receive for first-degree murder, even in cases of multiple murders, is life with no chance of parole for 25 years. When women are killed because they are women, that is different than first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter or the general term “homicide”. It sends the wrong message to the courts. In the case of serial killer Basil Borutski, a violent offender who openly ignored court orders that were part of his probation, he was released anyhow. Bill C-5 is a slap in the face to every woman in Canada by a Prime Minister who is consumed by his own toxic masculinity. By reducing or eliminating mandatory minimum sentences, a downward pressure on all sentences is exerted, especially in circumstances in which supposedly determinate periods of imprisonment are routinely reduced, halved or more by early release. If a man such as Borutski is released early after a triple murder, what sentence will a mere murder receive? What does all this mean to the people of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke? In the case of Bill C-5, which was brought to the House instead of the Senate like Bill S-4, Bill C-5 is a radical, left-wing bill that would eliminate mandatory minimum penalties. It sends the wrong message to the community and the families of Carol Culleton, Nathalie Warmerdam and Anastasia Kuzyk, and women who live in fear of domestic violence.
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Context: House Hansard - 74 - May/18/22
Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, CPC)
  • May/18/22 7:22:31 p.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, I begin my remarks by recognizing the hard-working people who live in the Ontario riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke for their confidence in me as their federal member of Parliament. They are the reason I will not waver in my determination to build a better Canada. Earlier this year, I asked a very simple and direct question to the Prime Minister regarding the inappropriate use of Canada's women and men who serve in Canada's armed forces to spy on their fellow citizens. Rather than answer in a clear and forthright manner, the Liberal government once again responded with a propaganda technique that Russian madman Vladimir Putin uses to misinform the Russian population about the genocide taking place in Ukraine. The propaganda technique I am referring to is illuminated in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as accusation in a mirror. Accusation in a mirror, or AIM, is the rhetorical practice of falsely accusing others of conducting, plotting or committing precisely the same transgressions as one plans to commit against them. The claim, by the Prime Minister and his senior members in the Liberal Party, that members of the “Freedom Convoy” were racists, misogynists and unacceptable is a textbook example of accusation in a mirror: dehumanizing and demonizing that comes by labelling certain groups in society as undesirable. Canadians can see the hypocrisy in the Prime Minister accusing others of being racist, as he did today during question period, when the Prime Minister himself enjoys dressing up in costumes and in blackface to make fun of other people's cultures and skin colour. The accusation-in-a-mirror propaganda technique has been used in non-genocidal and other forms of persecution committed against Jews, Blacks and first nations, among others. He had the audacity of using AIM in this instance to claim conspiracy theories and to hide the misdeed that is actually taking place. This is not to be confused with IMVE: ideologically motivated violent extremism. IMVE is the term used by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to identify members of the radical ultraleft who burn churches, violently destroy public infrastructure, attack oil workers with axes in British Columbia and plant car bombs with the express intent to maim and kill, as in the recent incident in Montreal. The fact there have been no arrests for these recent activities would reveal a double standard of the Prime Minister and members of his government and where their sympathies lie. The Prime Minister called members of the "Freedom Convoy" misogynists, homophobes and racists. He did so out of ignorance, hate and the absence of evidence. The Prime Minister accused my Conservative colleague of using “misinformation and disinformation... and conspiracy theories”. That the flight took place is fact; not conspiracy theory. This fact was confirmed by the Department of National Defence after it was forced to respond to media reports. What an incredible coincidence it was that the day the “Freedom Convoy” began to arrive in Ottawa there just happened to be, according to the government, a preplanned so-called training flight to test top-secret surveillance equipment. After a clumsy attempt by DND to first disassociate itself from the spy surveillance flights, DND was forced to issue an apology as more information about the spy flight became known. DND claims it instructed the spy plane to refrain from flying over downtown Ottawa during the truckers' strike action. Canadians then learned that, as an excuse to get around the DND directive to stay away from the skies over the “Freedom Convoy”, Canadian special forces military leaders reportedly used a private defence contractor's military plane to conduct the spy operations. The modified small passenger plane that was conducting spying was outfitted with surveillance equipment allowing for the interception of cell phone calls, radio transmissions and other communications—
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