Blake Richards

In response to a question from Marie-Hélène Gaudreau

“The military needs the resources to do its job. We must deliver results without adding more bureaucracy.”

“Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, what matters is delivering results. The members of the Canadian Armed Forces must be given the resources they need to do their jobs. There must be no additional bureaucracy. That is all that matters.”

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In response to a question from Kevin Lamoureux

“People drop out of applying for the military because the process is too slow. Too much bureaucracy already delays equipment for our troops and benefits for veterans. This bill will not fix the problem because it only adds more bureaucracy.”

“Mr. Speaker, the first thing I notice from what the member had to say is that Liberals like to choose their words very carefully, because they have to keep their story straight. If they do not keep their story straight, then no one is going to believe them. The bottom line is that people do not believe what they have to say. When the member says that applications to join the Canadian Armed Forces are up, well, the problem is that there is another example where the Liberals’ red tape and their bureaucracy gets in the way. It is such a slow process that many people end up dropping out of that process before they ever get through it. That is the first problem. The second thing I will point out is that we hear time and time again from members who serve in our Canadian Armed Forces about the delays in getting their procurement. We have also heard from veterans who have served this country about getting the benefits they have earned through their service to this country, which is because there are too many bureaucratic processes already. All the Liberals are proposing to do is add more bureaucratic process on top of all that. That is not going to fix the problem.”

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“I do not support this bill. Our military needs real equipment, not more government bureaucracy. The government has changed the design of this new defence agency three times in about a year, but our troops are still waiting for gear that works. Before creating another corporation, the government must explain what caused past delays and how this bill fixes them.”

“Mr. Speaker, when rising on a debate about defence procurement, the debate needs to start with an acknowledgement and a thanks to the people it is intended to serve. That is the men and women who serve in our Canadian Armed Forces and who have served in our Canadian Armed Forces. I think it is especially important as we approach Remembrance Day, but it is something we need to do every single day of the year. We need to remember, pay our respects to and show appreciation for what they have done for the freedoms that we all enjoy. I know there are a number of veterans here in the House, even at this present moment. I want to point out that I am so honoured to live in the community of Airdrie, Alberta. It is so great at showing respect and remembrance. Just yesterday, I had the opportunity to join, as I do most years, in placing crosses at the LAV monument that we have for our Afghanistan mission and those who served in it at our museum in Airdrie. It was organized by the Airdrie Veterans Memorial Committee. People like Jason and Shawnee Hoffman, Bob McNevin, Dianne Kuhn and others were instrumental in making this happen. This gave us an opportunity to place a cross on the ground in front of the LAV monument for each of the 158 Canadian Armed Forces members who gave their lives serving our country in Afghanistan. This weekend coming up, I will have an opportunity, on Veterans Boulevard, to lay crosses for all who have fallen in all the different conflicts we have served in, the local members of our community who have given their lives in sacrifice for our freedoms. It is such an honour to represent a community that gets that right. Of course, we will have our major Remembrance Day ceremony organized by the Airdrie legion branch. I just want to make sure that we all remember, when we are talking about defence procurement, that this is what it is all about. It is about the men and women who serve this country and we need to make sure that we get it right for them. When standing to talk about Bill C-40, that is where the struggle is for me. It seems like the government’s answer to everything is more government bureaucracy. That is what we are seeing in this bill. It is another example in a long list of examples. Conservatives clearly support getting the brave men and women of our Canadian Armed Forces the equipment they need to defend our country and to do their jobs. We support a process that is efficient, that is accountable and that is driven by operational requirements. What we struggle with and what we cannot support is treating another organizational chart as a substitute for actual procurement. There is a record that is worth remembering. When our forces needed equipment for operations in Afghanistan, our previous Conservative government moved to ensure we acquired those essential capabilities. That included things like the Leopard 2 battle tanks, Chinook helicopters, Hercules tactical transport aircraft, C-17 Globemaster strategic airlifter, M777 howitzers and LAVS, armoured vehicles. All of those were among the equipment that was purchased during that period of time. They were not just announcements about a future process. They were the kinds of capabilities that our forces needed right then to do their jobs. We also launched the national shipbuilding strategy and we ensured that Canadian businesses had opportunities in the F-35 production and supply chain. Our position has been that Canadian industry should benefit from defence investment, though the military must still be able to acquire proven equipment quickly when it cannot be produced here in time. However, the first consideration should always be the security of Canada and the operational needs of our men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces. I think the F-35 is a particularly instructive example of what happens when political decisions keep changing the course of procurement. The Conservative government announced the F-35 as the intended replacement for the CF-18s. In 2015, of course, Justin Trudeau campaigned on a promise not to buy the F-35s. The Liberal government then pursued an interim Super Hornet option before launching another competition in 2017. In 2022, after all of that, the Liberal government actually selected the F-35. Then in 2025, the government put procurement under review again. Canada is actually now contractually committed to 16 aircraft, while the fate of the remainder remains completely uncertain. Our pilots cannot defend Canadian airspace with another political reset. They need clarity about the aircraft that they will fly. They need the infrastructure that will support them and the timetable for bringing that capability into service. They need planes. They need jets. That is what they need. That is a perfect example of the kinds of delays and bungling that we see from the Liberal government when it comes to defence procurement. This problem is not confined to fighter aircraft. There are also questions about the government’s announcement that it had entered into negotiations with Saab concerning the GlobalEye airborne early warning and control platform. That was an announcement of a preferred supplier, not a signed procurement contract. Conservatives have called for the Auditor General and the Parliamentary Budget Officer to examine whether the appropriate process was followed, and whether the air force’s operational requirements were properly considered. Canadians deserve to know how these decisions are being made, whether the operational needs of the armed forces are being put first and whether taxpayers are getting the best possible value for their money. At the same time, the condition of the equipment already in service shows why decisions matter and why decisions need to happen quickly. The 2024-25 national defence figures show that 59.6% of key maritime fleets, 51% of key land fleets and 42.3% of key aerospace fleets are not serviceable. Our soldiers, sailors and aviators need working equipment. They do not need just simple announcements about how Ottawa will organize the procurement process. They actually need the equipment. Now let us consider this so-called Defence Investment Agency. In October of last year, the Liberals established this Defence Investment Agency as a special operating agency within Public Services and Procurement Canada. In the spring of this year, they proposed a stand-alone agency through Bill C-31, and now, with Bill C-40, they propose a Crown corporation under a new associate minister of national defence for procurement. That is three versions of the same initiative in about a year. They are not even able to be efficient at creating efficiencies. The government’s own plans proposed about $31 million over four years to establish the original agency, and then another $104 million over five years to establish the stand-alone entity. However, the question still remains, what did the original structure actually deliver? What did the second proposal solve? Why are we now being asked to approve a third model before Canadians can have a clear accounting of results, if any? The Liberals promised to remove duplicative approvals and red tape when they created this agency, that was supposed to be the point of it. Yet here we are debating another structure, another board and another ministerial title. It is more bureaucracy. The government needs to tell Parliament and Canadians which decisions were delayed, which barriers remain and how this bill supposedly removes them. Otherwise, it risks replacing them with yet another announcement. The bottom line here is the men and women in uniform serve this country and defend our freedoms, putting their lives on the line every day. Wainwright, of course, is a tragic example of how every single day they put on that uniform, their lives are on the line. What we as parliamentarians owe them and what the government owes them is to ensure they have the equipment and the resources they need to do their jobs. What we seem to be getting from the government, instead, is more bureaucracy, delays and red tape. The one thing that we never seem to see is actual results for the men and women who we send, on behalf of this country, to defend our freedoms, and that is pathetic.”

In response to a question from Tamara Jansen

“This government has never made veterans a priority, and this budget proves it. Too many veterans are homeless and using food banks. The government is not giving them the help they have earned.”

“Madam Speaker, the first thing I would say to that is there is a bit of a premise to the question that I would take disagreement with. The member mentioned the idea of veterans remaining a priority. I would argue that veterans have never been a priority for the government. This budget only further proves that. I mentioned already some of the things that we have seen cut, but the member, very correctly, raises some of the concerns that we see among Canadians more broadly, like food bank usage and homelessness. These things affect veterans, unfortunately, even more acutely than the general population of Canadians as a whole, so they are feeling those things worse than ever. However, when they go to seek the help they need because of the service they have given to our country and the injury that has caused them, we owe them as a country to make sure we are there for them. We have not been there for them. Under the government, as the member mentions, far too many veterans are homeless, using food banks and cannot get the help they deserve, need and have earned from the government.”

In response to a question from Sean Casey

“The government is cutting services and benefits for veterans, including long-term care and pensions. Cuts to the office that helps veterans appeal denied benefits will create five-year wait times. The government needs to stop denying that these cuts are harming veterans.”

“Madam Speaker, I would be ashamed of myself if I was to stand and ask a question like that. I understand the role that the parliamentary secretary plays to defend a Prime Minister who is indefensible, frankly. However, when he stands up and tries to tell us that $4 billion is for cuts to cannabis, how much cannabis are the Liberals planning on handing out to veterans? That is a heck of a lot of cannabis. Another thing we are hearing from veterans in long-term care is that they are being shortchanged. We hear from RCMP veterans who are having their pensions reduced. We hear about cuts to the bureau of pension advocates, which is the group that helps veterans get their benefits when they are denied by the government far too often. These are the kinds of impacts. The BPA cuts alone will mean five-year wait times for veterans to finally get the benefits they have worked so hard to deserve. How can the member stand up and try to pretend that somehow we are manufacturing this? I guess all Canadians, veterans and everyone else who is crying about all of these horrible cuts are all rage baiting too, apparently. However, I will tell members right now that it is the government that is mistaken and it will pay the price for it.”

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“I do not support this bill. It creates a new defence agency that lets a minister spend money and hand out contracts without any oversight or competition. The government is also cutting money for veterans while wasting funds on consultants.”

“Madam Speaker, before we get too much into that debate, the members over there who are heckling right now should understand that that is exactly what happened. The members over there are taking a very hypocritical action. That is for sure. I stand today to address Bill C-31 and division 16 of that bill. I cannot help but feel a sense of concern among Canadians about what we are seeing here. It seems that the Liberal government makes announcement after announcement, and plan after plan, but it never actually implements anything. At times, people have been tempted to see some promise in some of the announcements and things that they hear, but Canadians are now starting to realize that once those announcements are made, nothing happens afterwards. The fear here is that this pattern is going to continue. There is concern around this so-called Defence Investment Agency. The express purpose of this agency is to expedite the process for procuring new materials and new supplies for the Canadian Armed Forces, but the new agency has been announced with no real framework on how it would work. This bill attempts to address the powers of the new minister who would oversee this agency, but it leaves an awful lot to be desired. It leaves many grey areas that have members of the Canadian Armed Forces, and Canadians more generally, very concerned. To start, there are many grave concerns about accountability. This seems to be a troubling pattern with the Liberal government. There seem to be some real, grave concerns about the accountability of this new agency, and the Liberals refuse to indicate who this new minister would be. There are provisions in the bill that would give this new minister immense power, to, for example, sole-source contracts on a wide variety of things without any oversight. Based on the sheer number of spending scandals that have been tied to the Liberal government over the past more than a decade, how can Canadians feel even remotely comfortable with the Liberals giving their ministers more power to spend without any oversight? Division 16 would allow the Liberals’ new agency the authority to spend on more consultants, despite the record number of bureaucrats they already employ to do the same work. It is well known that Liberals have abused the use of contractors and consultants to pay their own insider friends, and people are left to wonder how this would be any different. The division also provides extremely loose definitions of what would be counted as defence spending under this new agency. It would allow the minister untold powers to sole-source products and materials, even when they are only just very remotely connected to matters of national defence. Canadians need to have a clear understanding of what the Liberals are setting up in this agency, especially after they have misused so many taxpayer dollars on so many other occasions. The Liberals use what can sometimes be seen as good causes, and this would certainly be one of those, and they claim they are in the national interest, but then they use them to pay out their friends and to turn projects into slush funds. They did this with things like the green slush fund, the ArriveCAN app, SNC-Lavalin and, most recently, PrescribeIT. How can Canadians who are eager to see investment in and rebuilding of our Canadian military feel secure that Liberals will establish a new agency and grant the minister of this agency so many powers, to take loans, advance payments, give government financial guarantees, give grants, establish corporations and buy shares, and do this all with no oversight in place? The Liberals have done absolutely nothing that would warrant the trust of Canadians, yet they are marching ahead with new ways to pay themselves and their friends, and they are trying to shroud it as defence spending. I wonder if the Liberals could give the House even one example of past military procurement projects being held up or drawn out due to transparency in funding. Are they really suggesting that there is too much accountability in spending and that that is what has prevented the government from investing in the military? I doubt they can make that argument. If that is not their argument, then why introduce these provisions buried in the back of a division in an omnibus budget bill? This reeks of corruption, and Canadians are not satisfied with the answers they are getting. There are ample examples in the bill of the new agency’s being granted the power to bypass procedural fairness in contracting and procurement processes, but to what purpose could that be? How can avoiding open competition for procurement projects and being able to sole-source contracts without explanation possibly result in the best use of taxpayers’ funds for our military? Bill C-31 would grant the new minister of the agency the ability to spend up to $1 billion without any checks and without any reporting mechanisms in place to show Canadians what was purchased for the spending. Clauses in the bill would grant this unnamed minister the ability to purchase shares of corporations using taxpayer funds and to replace members, directors and officers at their own discretion. Once again, this is the government famous for enriching its friends by giving them taxpayers’ money and putting them in prestigious positions while the military suffers with outdated equipment and Canadians line up at food banks. The loss of trust does not end there, though. It also deeply affects veterans in Canada. This is especially troubling because the Liberals are so certain that all these new announcements will attract record numbers of Canadians to join the armed forces. That is what we keep hearing over and over again. While the Liberals assume this will happen, they turn around and treat Canada’s veterans like they are just a bother, a hindrance to get rid of, rather than treat them like the heroes they are and give them the help they deserve. How can the Liberals expect Canadians to line up outside recruiting offices, when they see thousands and thousands of veterans left injured, homeless, changed by their service and not getting the help or resources they need once they are released from the military? I have heard, in my role as shadow minister for Veterans Affairs, from hundreds if not thousands of veterans who say that while they are proud of their service to Canada, they would never recommend the forces to their children or loved ones, because of how poorly the government has treated them since they left. They often say this with a broken heart, because they love the country they served and want our armed forces to be successful. When our veterans are warning Canadians to stay away, we have a much bigger problem. The Liberal government needs to stop with all the talk and start with some action. The Liberals have been in power a year with the new Prime Minister, and it has been more than a decade that they have been in power in total. The only thing we have to show for it so far is an economic recession. Most of the provisions in Bill C-31 lay out how the Liberals can spend more money on contracts and consultants, but nothing is mentioned about actual defence procurement. The one area that Canadians do want to see some spending in is our defence and veterans. The Liberals are dragging their heels and are busy trying to bury in legislation ways that would allow them to spend without any oversight rather than really doing the work of building up the military. This same omnibus bill approach, designed to not allow Parliament the proper time to check and analyze the contents, made historic cuts to veterans services just months ago. More than $4 billion was cut from veterans services in this budget. On one hand, when the Liberals are caught trying to sneak in legislative changes to make it easier for them to enrich their insider friends, they tell Canadians that these provisions are actually going to make things better and make the ranks of the military swell with new recruits. However, on the other hand, they make the largest cuts to Veterans Affairs. This cognitive dissonance is not lost on Canadians or on members of our armed forces. Through creative accounting, the Liberals are claiming they are spending 2% of our GDP on the military, despite the fact that they are counting things such as infrastructure spending, personnel benefits, the civilian Coast Guard and other things in their calculations to reach this conclusion, and these are all things that NATO will not count toward the 2% criteria. Now the Liberals stand before the House, after slashing support for veterans, after years of numerous scandals and after billions wasted on consultants, and ask Canadians to trust them with these new measures that would make it easier for them to abuse taxpayers’ funds. I say that is something of great concern to many Canadians.”

“The government promises more money and recruits for the military, but it has cut funding and treats veterans poorly. I want to know what veterans in the member's area say about this, and if they still tell people to join the military.”

“Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the member something that is absolutely related to this. We hear this talk about the investments that we have yet to see that the Liberals claim they are going to make in our Armed Forces. They claim that it is going to mean huge increases in recruitment for the Canadian Armed Forces, but we see the way they treat our veterans. We see the massive cuts that have been made. I know that the member represents many veterans in his area. I wonder whether he would like to comment on what he hears from veterans and whether they would recommend that people get involved in our Armed Forces, based on how our veterans are treated by the government.”

“The Prime Minister has doubled the deficit and added a trillion dollars to the debt. Canadians are paying more for groceries and housing because of it. I want him to stop borrowing and spending so much money.”

“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister sold himself as a financial expert, but since taking office he has doubled the deficit and he is adding $1 trillion to the debt. Despite the illusions, it is more cost, more taxes, more debt, more on the national credit card and more of the same that we got from Justin Trudeau. Canadians are paying more for groceries, housing and everything in between. When will the Liberal Prime Minister stop the credit card budgeting so that Canadians can afford to live?”

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In response to a question from William Stevenson

“Veterans feel the government keeps telling them they ask for too much. Veterans deserve respect and the support they earned by serving our country, but they are not getting it.”

“Mr. Speaker, if I were to really summarize what I hear from veterans all the time, and I hear it frequently, it is probably summarized best in the words of former prime minister Justin Trudeau when he told veterans they were “asking for more than we [can] give”. That is what veterans feel like they are being told by the government, consistently and constantly, that they are asking for more than we can give. Frankly, we can never give enough. Our veterans, who serve the country, who are willing to lay down their lives for the country, deserve to be treated with respect. They deserve to have what they are entitled to for the service they gave to the country. Right now, they are not seeing it and they are expressing their alarm.”

In response to a question from Sherry Romanado

“Women veterans told us they need to have a choice. Our changes to this bill give them that choice, but the government is ignoring them. If the government truly cared about veterans, it would listen to them and accept these changes.”

“Mr. Speaker, what I need to remind the member of is that we are hearing, and the committee heard, from veterans, from women veterans, who have come forward, and they are saying that they need to have the choice. That is what the amendments, which the government is ignoring, are seeking to do. The government can stand up and pretend it is listening. It can claim that it cares. If it really cared, it would listen to what we have heard and act upon it. That is what the amendments give the opportunity to do. The second the government thinks it has a majority government and can do whatever it wants, the idea that it would work together to try to work with everyone and do what is in the best interest of veterans is just completely thrown out the window. That is done the very second it thinks it does not have to listen anymore.”

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“Women veterans told committees about the abuse they suffered in the military. They suggested changes to this military justice bill, and other parties agreed to them. Now the government is ignoring those ideas and removing the amendments. I want the government to listen to veterans and keep those changes in the bill.”

“Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot about it already, but clearly, in the defence committee, a lot of witnesses came forward, like veterans, and in particular, women veterans. They talked a lot about having the ability to choose and how the justice they needed to receive would be done. The Conservatives listened to that. We worked across party lines to see improvements to the bill. The Liberals did not seem to listen so much, which seems to be a pattern. They like to pretend that they care. They are about to have a majority government that they achieved through backroom deals. They think that means that now they do not have to work with others, work across party lines or listen to the victims. Instead, they can just ram through the changes they want to see. Here, they are trying to do what is politically expedient for them, but they are not listening. They are not hearing the concerns that are being raised. I have the honour of serving on the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs and fighting for our veterans there. Just a little over a year ago, we tabled what I would consider a landmark study on the experiences of women veterans. That is a study we did over several months. There were about 25 meetings to hear witness testimony. We heard some testimony from women veterans that was absolutely heartbreaking. I know many of the same veterans would have come to speak to the defence committee about the experiences they had, like with military sexual trauma. There are a lot of things that women veterans have experienced during their time in the Canadian Forces, like ill-fitting equipment and other things that are not designed for our women in our military. The Liberals publicly claimed how important this study was for them and how much they cared about this cause. In the end, out of the recommendations that were made, as far as I can tell, the only thing that was acted upon was the idea of creating a women veterans council to advise the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Of course, what we have seen since that time is that the women who were appointed to this committee were telling us that they were not being listened to. They were expressing their frustration. They were expressing concern about the fact that they had no access to the Minister of Veterans Affairs or to the Government of Canada. They simply felt like they were being used for photo ops or as a showpiece. In the end, despite raising these concerns with the Minister of Veterans Affairs, and despite many of us raising them at committee, there were still no efforts being made to listen to or address any of the concerns the members of this council were trying to raise. In January of this year, there was a massive resignation of the majority of the members of the women veterans council, because they claimed they were being ignored. We are now seeing that very same thing play out here with the Minister of National Defence. Therefore, after being forced to finally address the issues that were plaguing the Canadian Armed Forces and driving members from its ranks, and after public embarrassment from an Auditor General’s report, only then did the Liberals decide there was a need to address these issues. As I said, many of these same women veterans we heard from at the veterans affairs committee bravely came forward to recount their experiences, to talk once again to a parliamentary committee and face the trauma they experienced. They offered their advice on ways to amend Bill C-11 to ensure that victims of the broken justice system had their voices heard. Of course, the goal was to ensure that the military justice system would learn from its mistakes, so future members of the CAF would not be subjected to the same cruel experiences that they were subjected to. The amendments made in the national defence committee came straight from veterans. Those veterans had been on the receiving end of the failures of the military justice system. They were the same veterans that the Auditor General reported about and who suffered undue hardship under this system. Once again, the Liberals will pretend that this entire initiative is their own doing to support women. Then, as soon as they got their majority, they dropped the charade and completely wiped out some of the amendments that came from the very work of these women who came forward. Not only is this disrespectful to all of those who came forward and all of those who made themselves vulnerable to try to help future CAF members, but it is also a blatant display of disregard by the Liberal government. It is clear that, once again, this is just another “check the box” for them. Rather than trying to fix the issue, it is some kind of a show of pretending they are doing something. First, the Liberals sat on this issue for almost 10 years, while the media exposed case after case. I do not think Canadians are going to forget how long the Liberals buried their heads in the sand to avoid this issue. What is clear now is that the Liberals are going to attempt to ram through this legislation, rather than actually accept the things that were heard and the work that was done across party lines so that we could actually address the issues in the way the veterans were calling for. The disrespect for veterans does not end there. There have been numerous scandals in just the last few years alone where the Liberal government deliberately continues to ignore what veterans are asking for. I think about the Presence in Absence monument. For those who do not know, this is a monument the Liberals funded, which was supposed to honour those who gave their lives in Afghanistan. The Liberals did not do their due diligence and did not ensure that the project was inspected in the right way. It was constructed listing the names of many surviving veterans as killed in action, and other names, of those who actually did lay down their lives, making the ultimate sacrifice, were left off that monument. As we can imagine, survivors and family members of those who were killed in action were furious. The Province of Ontario put forward a motion to Veterans Affairs, just looking for a simple apology, and there was nothing. It is a clear pattern. With the time I have remaining, I will speak briefly about what the Liberals are doing in terms of the $4-billion cuts they are making to Veterans Affairs and what impact that is going to have on veterans. Veterans are screaming out, because they are going to see five-year wait times to get some of their basic benefits as a result of some of these cuts, including to the bureau of pensions advocates and other cuts. It is shocking, disappointing and sad. It just continues on. This is just another example where veterans are being ignored and not listened to, and where they seem to be the last thing the government thinks about or considers. It is not right. Veterans certainly deserve better. What I would say to the government is to think about the veterans who came forward and how much courage it must have taken for them to recount their stories. What needs to be done is to ensure that the recounting of their stories and the bravery they showed to come forward and try to make things better for their fellow future veterans are honoured in a way that involves listening to what was said and acting upon it, rather than just trying to ram through a piece of legislation and trying to pretend that the Liberals have done something by checking a box. The Liberals need to ensure that these veterans, particularly women veterans, have their voices reflected in this. I do not think that is what we are seeing now, when they are refusing to accept some of the amendments. I really hope that, perhaps, after listening to some of this today, the government will take a step back and say that it needs to make sure these voices are heard and work with the things that have been done across party lines to make sure those experiences are reflected in this. I do not see that now.”

“The Liberals claim to support women, but they ignore women veterans when it hurts them politically. They have a history of firing women who disagree with the Prime Minister, and they are doing the same kind of thing with this bill.”

“Mr. Speaker, what the Liberals are doing with Bill C-11 follows what I would call a really troubling pattern of behaviour toward veterans in Canada, especially when it comes to women veterans. This is the same party that proudly claims to be feminist, but it will happily disregard what women are advocating for the second it no longer suits its political agenda. I will remind everyone in this House that it was the Liberals who propped up Justin Trudeau, the self-proclaimed feminist, who would immediately fire any woman from his caucus who dared to stand up to him. It would appear now that Liberals continue to follow in those footsteps. Much has been said already today about we are seeing happen here. [Disturbance in gallery]”