Dave Epp · TranslatePolitics.ca

Government Orders

Government Business No. 12—Proceedings on Bill C-30

2026-06-15

“I don't like how this majority government is limiting debate. It's not what I expected from their minority mandate. The Liberals are being too aggressive.”

Private Members' Business

Ukrainian Heritage Month Act

2026-06-12

“I went on and on about how I am a Mennonite with distant ancestors from Ukraine. I told long stories about my family history and travels. I mentioned my Neufeld and Epp heritage many times. In the end, I said I support making September Ukrainian heritage month. But I only spoke to use up my time with long personal stories and repeat my support without adding any substance.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour and a privilege to bring the voices of Chatham-Kent—Leamington to the chamber. I come today representing, especially, both the people of Ukrainian ethnicity and those of Ukrainian heritage. There is actually a difference, and I am going to come back to that in a moment. Of course, we are talking today about Bill S-210, about designating September as Ukrainian heritage month. Here are some ties that bind our country of Canada and our country of Ukraine. Canada is home to approximately 1.4 million people of Ukrainian descent, and I am referring to ethnic descent. That actually represents 4% of Canada's population. Canada has the second-largest Ukrainian diaspora outside Russia in the world. The first Ukrainians came to Canada in 1891, with about 150,000 estimated to have landed between 1891 and 1914. These figures come from the Government of Canada in 2020, and I am actually going to dispute some of the numbers in a moment. Most Ukrainians from this period settled in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, which we have heard from other interventions today. They came to obtain farmland, bringing their rich heritage of agricultural expertise from the steppes of what was Russia at the time and is now Ukraine, here to Canada, to our untamed west at the time and to Ontario. In fact, 28% of Canadians identifying as being of Ukrainian ethnic descent live in Ontario. These are the statistics from Canadians who identify as being of Ukrainian ethnicity, but as I mentioned earlier, there are others who claim Ukrainian heritage, and I count myself among that group. As many members know, I am from a Mennonite background, and there are a number of Mennonites here in the chamber who have the honour of representing their constituencies. This year marks 100 years since all four of my grandparents came to Canada from, at the time, the steppes of Russia, which is now part of Ukraine. All four of them were actually part of the second wave of Mennonites who left Ukraine and chose Canada as their home. The first wave came in the 1870s and settled in southern Manitoba, primarily in the east and west reserves. They were also fleeing the greater intervention of the Russian government at the time into their way of life in the colonies of what we call Russia. I consider myself of Russian Mennonite background. There are two streams: Russian Mennonite background and Swiss Mennonite background. I could spend my 10 minutes and the next three hours talking about that wave of history, as Mennonites have fled war and persecution from the Russians from the late 1500s to Danzig in northern Poland, and then to Ukraine. I am going to talk specifically for a moment about the ties that bind my own family, specifically my Epp lineage, but I am fairly confident that my Neufeld, my Reimer and my Rempel sides also trace this same path of immigration into Ukraine in 1804. My ancestors spent 122 years in Ukraine and now 100 years in Canada. They came to Ukraine at the invitation of Catherine the Great. This is important because, again, they were fleeing, at the time, greater government intervention in their lives in Gdańsk, called Danzig at the time of the Austrian Hapsburg empire, in northern Poland. They came to the steps of Ukraine at the invitation of Catherine the Great to farm, to break those steppes of Ukraine, and they turned that into part of the breadbasket of Europe. That heritage is in my blood today. They were told, actually, that the territory at the time was empty. Reflecting now and looking at history, that actually is not true. The Tatars had been cleared of that area, and the land was given to my forebears in 1804. It was the second wave that came into southern Ukraine. The first wave of Mennonites who came from the Prussian empire actually came in 1789, settled into the Khortytsya region, which is called Zaporizhzhya today. My ancestors, as I stated, came in 1804, settling into the Molotschna region, which is near the present-day city of Tokmak. I will come to that. They left 100 years later. They came into Ukraine and left Ukraine for the same reason, and that same reason is actually one of the reasons we are talking about the bill today. It was the fact that they were experiencing both war and revolution. Mennonites have a complicated relationship with government. When they feel that their allegiance to their faith is superseded by government, historically they have fled or moved, but we must not mistake that for a lack of service to country. That is evidenced by the members of the chamber, and it is evidenced by my own family history. I am going to get into two short stories. My great-grandfather Gerhard Neufeld was drafted into the service, in 1904, of Czar Nicholas II. Rather than serving in the army, he served in what was called the Forsteidienst, the forestry service, so he was stationed on the banks of the Black Sea at the czar's summer resort, Yalta. My mother's father's family, the Neufelds, came from wealth, so my great-grandfather had been educated in Europe and knew that the phylloxera virus was spread by the aphid, and he saved the czar's vineyards from the phylloxera virus. He was decorated with a silver pocket watch, which remains in our family to this day. It was given to him in 1904. Those who know me personally know that I do enjoy the odd sip of wine. I do that not for enjoyment reasons but obviously because I am genetically predisposed to enjoy wine, given my Neufeld heritage. My Neufeld family, on August 1 and 2 of this year is celebrating 100 years of settlement in Canada. We are celebrating that in the Vineland region, where my great-grandmother is buried. That same Gerhard Neufeld who was decorated by the czar was shot dead in his bed, five days before they came to Canada. My great-grandmother left, bringing five children, and I and my mother are here because of that history. On my father's side is my Epp heritage. In 1926, my great-grandfather Epp bought, yes, bought, a passport in order to flee. He saw what was coming. My grandfather came to Canada on that passport at the age of 22. His parents were going to come that fall. When they had finished the harvest in southern Ukraine, they were going to join their family. For seven years, there were letters that went back and forth between my grandfather and his parents, and here is where those histories of ethnic Ukrainians and heritage Ukrainians unite. Stalin slammed the door shut on my great-grandparents. Their visas and passports were never honoured. They tried and retried. Those seven years of letters became increasingly desperate, and eventually a letter came from my great-grandfather to my grandfather stating that his mother had passed away at the beginning of the Holodomor. My great-grandfather would follow, dying of starvation in 1933. My own heritage is intertwined with the conflict that comes from war and revolution. My parents never had a desire to visit Ukraine, and neither did any of my grandparents, even when those opportunities opened up again post-1991. I, on the other hand, have been back three times. I have been to that soil, but it actually has not been my own heritage that has allowed me to go back. It has always been tomatoes and the Ukrainian involvement in the tomato industry. I could spend another hour talking just about that, but I will not. In the final minute of my speech, I want to talk about other areas in which Canada and Ukraine have become close and have supported each other. Canada was the first western country to recognize Ukraine's independence, and since then, we have maintained a close bilateral relationship. Canada is one of the leading bilateral development assistance partners of Ukraine, and many of us continue in that work today. Our free trade agreement has allowed for the further expansion of trade. Of course, time will not allow me to get into the last four years, but it is war, again, that has brought our relationship even closer. I stand here proudly today, as proud as a humble Mennonite can be proud, to support Canada's relationship with Ukraine and the designation of September as Ukrainian heritage month.

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Government Orders

Bail and Sentencing Reform Act

2026-06-12

“The Conservative party wants the Liberal party to stop stifling debate at the health committee. I say the Liberal party is being a hypocrite. I say the Liberal party uses procedural tools to avoid debate.”

Government Orders

Government Business No. 12—Proceedings on Bill C-30

2026-06-12

“I think the member said two things that do not go together. How can she explain that?”

Oral Questions

Agriculture and Agri-Food

2026-06-05

“The Liberals' expensive rail project is a direct threat to our food security. It's cutting through farmland and the government doesn't seem to care about the collateral damage. It's paying bonuses for an unfinished project during a recession. This is a war on agriculture.”

Oral Questions

The Economy

2026-06-04

“I want to say the economy has big problems. These problems did not start now. These problems are from Liberal choices. Someone else is not responsible. The Prime Minister should fix these problems. Does the Prime Minister have a plan? Or does he just have a new word for recession?”

“Prices are high and the economy is shrinking under these Liberals. They have no plan except to watch it all fall apart.”

Government Orders

Report Stage

2026-05-04

“I want to cheer that my side and the Bloc made amendments together. But I'm upset the government is ignoring the victims and all our hard work. Why won't the government listen to us?”

Government Orders

Military Justice System Modernization Act

2026-05-04

“I want to talk about the Prime Minister. He said he would move fast. Now he moves fast to ignore parts of the government I like. I don't like that.”

Government Orders

Government Business No. 9—Changes to the Standing Orders

2026-04-27

“You've told me to praise when the government helps industries in my riding. So here's a golf clap for extending one tax break. But since the Prime Minister wants more power in committees, how about we use it to extend those tax breaks to every other industry too? My riding needs more help since the Prime Minister failed to get a trade deal with the US like he promised last year. So how about it?”

“You're ignoring the real problem. The Prime Minister flipped this riding on purpose to get a majority. This is an orchestrated power grab.”

“I'm filling time with an unrelated personal story. The government is doing something that's never been done before. I blame the Prime Minister's Office.”

“I want to talk about something everyone agrees with. The election outcome was the will of the people.”

Adjournment Proceedings

2026-04-23

“I'm frustrated that the government doesn't spend more money on agriculture. Agriculture is a very important industry. I want the government to spend a larger share of its budget on agriculture programs.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, at least the minister addressed my question. The response we just heard, actually, is typical and it exemplifies the government's approach to agriculture. I recently participated in a poll from a national polling firm, answering the question of how I felt the government values agriculture and the agri-food sector. Here is how I responded. The sector provides $150 billion in GDP. It is the largest manufacturing sector in Canada, larger than auto and mining combined, and it provides for one in nine jobs in Canada. Let us look at the federal budget, $498 billion. Call it $500 billion. Strip away those nine zeros and just think about the number 500. The federal budget investment in AAFC is $3.6 billion. If we get rid of the nine zeros, that's 3.6. That is less than 2%. That is how much the government values agriculture, less than 2% investment in the largest manufacturing sector in this country.

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“I don't like that the government is closing agricultural research stations. Farmers told us they want more research funding, not less. The minister even admitted research funding is down. But Liberal governments have been in charge while it happened. The federal government keeps growing but they're cutting agriculture. This is bad. We should support science and find savings somewhere else.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to bring the voices of Chatham-Kent—Leamington to this chamber, and this evening I am pleased to have the opportunity to follow up on a question to the Minister of Agriculture from March 13, when I probed why the government is closing ag research stations. Over 20 ag organizations have written in to the AGRI committee in response to our study examining these closures. “Why?” is the question. We are coming up on one year since the last general election. As part of the preparation for our policy platforms for that election, meetings were held with all ag organizations, and there are an awful lot of ag organizations. We were after the priorities that were on the minds of those in the sector. Those ag organizations do not always agree, but they did agree on five priorities. The primary focus was to maintain, enhance and support funding for research and innovation. Time will not allow me this evening to expand into the other priorities, but I just want to list them: the harmonization of regulations and elimination of red tape; the elimination of the carbon tax; realigning the mandates of the CFIA and PMRA to include an economic lens to decision-making; and finally, ensuring continued access to labour. However, the primary ask was to keep a focus on research and innovation, on science. What did the government do? It just announced three agricultural research station closures and four site-specific field station closures. When I asked the minister why the government would do this when the sector has identified research as foundational to the food sector, I, surprisingly, did not get a defence. I got a confession. When those in the sector told us about their five priorities, we assumed they had also told the Liberal Party those same five priorities. The minister acknowledged the following in his response to me. He said public investment in ag R and D is down 15%. He acknowledged that private sector research at universities has plummeted 77% and that the number of enterprises doing research has shrunk by 30%. He is right about one thing. He concluded by saying we cannot keep going down this path, and he is absolutely right, but what he forgot to say is that it has been Liberal governments driving the ship for the last 11 years. He also acknowledged that academia and the private sector are not in the position, as is sometimes misstated at committee, to take over the shortfall on research. We need to put these cuts to agriculture research in some context. Over the past decade, the size of the federal bureaucracy has grown by 40%, but Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada by only 11%. The Prime Minister has charged many departments to cut their spending by 15% over the next three years, and we absolutely agree that the size of the federal government needs to shrink, but 15% cuts across all departments cut differently when a department has only grown by 11%. The reality is that with the previous cuts to ag, that sector is going to shrink by 27% while all other departments have gone up 40% and will then go down 15%. The minister was right that we should not go down the path that the government is contemplating with these closures. Science should be supported. There are certainly other areas in the ag portfolio where we could help them identify savings. We would be only too happy to help with that. We are talking about the renewal of the five-year ag policy framework right now. I will go back to those ag station closures. The witnesses at committee were critical of both the process and the outcome of the decisions. This needs to be reversed.

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