- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Hamilton Centre
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 62%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $131,250.15
- Government Page
- Jun/8/23 8:44:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise with eagerness, because in my former life as a city councillor in a port town and in Hamilton Centre and with a home about 100 metres from a rail line, I had to continually fight the port, which wanted to put garbage incinerators into our community, and the rail lines, which I fought in order to get more transparency and more accountability around their shunting yards and around the piercing decibels of their operations in residential communities.
Given the tragedies that have happened in Quebec and given the local impacts in those communities, does the member agree that we should ensure that both rail and port works within our local communities should provide greater transparency, better communication and co-operation with local government, and accountability to the local communities where they operate?
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Madam Speaker, while I have a growing appreciation for the Bloc's propensity to be here as representatives of the Quebec legislator, I am not here in that capacity.
Any legislation we put forward does have international ramifications that must be met in terms of the international standards related to the protection and collection of data.
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- Feb/14/23 11:39:19 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened to the hon. member with great interest. He listed at length all the ways in which he demands the federal government support the social programs and social spending in Quebec, yet when it came time to listing what New Democrats were asking for, he basically dismissed investments in our provinces.
Which one is it? The member cannot have it both ways. Does the hon. member want more investments in his province of Quebec, or would he run an austerity budget, just like the Conservatives would?
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- Feb/6/23 5:25:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the Bloc for paying me perhaps the highest compliment I could be paid in this House by referring to me as the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre, for whom I have a great amount of respect. I will take that as it was intended.
I want to appreciate that the hon. member brought up a very important word, which is “austerity”. It is important for us not only to recognize exactly who is making decisions but also to ask what ideologies they hold. How are McKinsey, Deloitte, KPMG, Accenture and these others advising the government on pathways toward austerity and cutbacks, as well as cuts to the public sector and programming?
It is true that, as New Democrats, we encourage the government to provide social spending on behalf of Canadians and Quebeckers across the country. However, this ought not to come at the cost of almost a billion dollars in outsourcing to consultants. We have some of the best talent in the country working in our public sector. We believe that we should pay competitive wages to public sector talent and allow those with the bureaucratic knowledge and memory to present sound decision-making advice to the government. Ultimately, what has been lost in all of this is that governments are elected to make decisions.
When the government outsources its decision-making to unelected, unaccountable, nameless, faceless supranational corporations, which have insidious ties to unsavoury characters around the world and to corruption, campaign financing violations and narcotics dealing, we absolutely need to hold it to account.
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- Sep/27/22 12:07:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his incredible work for workers in Quebec and across Canada.
He mentioned the way workers were being impacted in his home riding. I am hoping he can expand on ways in which a New Democratic plan might provide for a just transition and actually get to the heart of the matter of inflation.
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- May/2/22 6:29:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have to say that nobody does indignance in the House quite like the hon. member who just gave his speech. I appreciate him for that because I share some of it.
Quite frankly, at committee there have been lots of opportunities where the opposition parties have worked hard to hold the government to account, yet it seems that every time we are in this House, the political impotence of the Conservatives and the Bloc, who have been missing in action, quite frankly, for the last three years, rears its ugly head, and they try to grind this process to a halt.
Could the hon. member please elaborate and expand upon just what is at stake in these upcoming weeks for Canadians and Quebeckers, in order for us to deliver it to them during this time of a COVID recovery?
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- Feb/20/22 8:03:54 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, flags of the far-right Québécois ethnonationalist group La Meute have been present at the occupation here in Ottawa and at related protests across the province of Quebec. La Meute, or the Wolf Pack, was founded in Quebec by two former Canadian Armed Forces members, Éric Venne and Patrick Beaudry. I call on the member for the Bloc to take this opportunity to denounce Le Meute and join my call for a secretariat or some other office to report on the radicalization in our Armed Forces and police.
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- Feb/19/22 9:39:21 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would also reflect on the fact that just a few short weeks ago in the House, we recognized and mourned the tragedies that occurred in Quebec City.
For far too long, this nation has underestimated and understated the threats of white supremacists organizing within this country. It is time for the same politicians who joined these communities in mourning to step up now and denounce the white supremacist elements that clearly provide a violent and volatile element that goes well beyond any student, climate justice or indigenous land defender elements that we have seen.
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