Official Hansard
Madam Speaker, before I make my comments, as some of the other speakers have done, I want to offer my condolences to and prayers for the people at CFB Wainwright. What happened on the base last weekend is so tragic. While many suffered, I do not think people always appreciate, as in this House, the families behind the injured individuals and those who lost their lives. I also want to say a prayer for the families that have to deal with the uncertainty of those who are still sick and of whether and how those people are going to recover. The same thing happens here. We are here all week. We are doing our thing and we are off to events, but there are always family members back home who are the ones holding down the fort for us. I think it is appropriate that every chance we get to stand up in the House, we thank our spouses and families for the ultimate sacrifice they make. As we talk about this bill, and I know it has been mentioned in a couple of comments, it is not that we are saying we should not be dealing with space and an opportunity for people to create a great industry. Our problem comes from the fact that the government does not have a great track record on transparency. Part of the challenge we have right now is what we find when we start looking at what is going on and things that have come before. The government will announce a bill, and parts of the bill will be excellent and we will be supportive of it, and then what ends up happening is that this small piece called “transparency” seems to be an issue. I could rhyme off 100 instances of things right now. We could talk about the green slush fund that happened last year, or others from recent times. They were programs that seemed to make sense. Of course, we are transitioning and trying to figure out some of these things, so maybe we should be spending money on them. However, the problem that happens as we are dealing with them is that there is a huge disconnect when it comes to accountability, how we are we going to follow up and how we are going to make sure that these things are follow through on. Our challenge is not that we should not be looking at doing more in space. I think all my colleagues around the House would agree that that seems reasonable. Our challenge is always that what we see happening more and more with the Liberal government is that Liberal ministers and those who have the ability to write cheques are the ones making sure that insiders profit, with little transparency. That is our challenge as we look at these things and as the Liberals announce program after program. We can go back to the WE sponsorship scandal. There are so many things that have happened over the years that I think most Canadians should be concerned about when we start talking about legislation. Maritime Launch Services in Nova Scotia has been mentioned by my colleagues before. The question is, with all the Crown land available and everything that is made possible, how did it happen to be that particular piece? Why was that piece picked and not anything else? That is what we are talking about here. As we look at the process of what happens in this House, the challenge is not that the idea is a good idea or a bad idea. The challenge is how we are going to be accountable and transparent. The government has not been very transparent in recent years. As we look at these things, we are looking at how we deal with them. We see more and more power. We see more and more Liberal insiders seemingly doing better as a result of that while Canadians are struggling. We see that food bank use is at an all-time high in this country. We see that and think to ourselves, “How do we have money for all these things?” I am not talking about this one thing in particular, but we are writing all kinds of cheques all around the world. We spend money on foreign aid. Not all foreign aid is bad; we are not saying that is the case, but the challenge is that we have struggles here at home that we need to deal with. We have struggles here at home that need our attention. When we look at bills like this one, our challenge is not that we should not be looking at space travel in Canada. It is about who should be dealing with it. How should it be brought forward? Parliamentarians should also have opportunities to look at these things. Canada has a proud history of exploring space; there is no question about that. We have launched satellites, like the Alouette I, which was launched under the Diefenbaker Conservative government, making Canada the third country to design and build satellites. As mentioned in the House already, we have had astronauts like Chris Hadfield, Roberta Bondar and Jeremy Hansen. We have also had technology like the Canadarm. We have definitely had a proud history in this country of being able to deal with and work in space. When we look at these things, we have to keep going back to how we are going to make the government accountable. How are Canadians going to make sure that we have an opportunity to see what has gone on and see what has happened? We realize there is a real market for space launches; there is no question about that, but when decisions are made behind closed doors, that is the challenge we have. We can look at other programs. We can look at some of the things that have gone on so far in terms of censorship. There have probably been at least a dozen bills since COVID through which the government has tried to introduce some form of censorship in what it is doing, whether it is looking at metadata or setting up different types of things to keep an eye out and do more around that. We will look at the challenges as we continue to question legislation. That is our job as opposition: to question legislation. We should not be challenged, we should not be chastised and we should not be given a hard time for wanting accountability. As we move forward on this, one thing we need to constantly remind people of is that we are definitely in favour of enhancing our sovereignty and space capabilities, but we are certainly not supportive, and never will be supportive, of laws that could potentially give Liberal insiders and foreign agents blank cheques. I would just like to remind people that we were all sent here for a reason, and that is to do the best job we can when it comes to legislation in this House. As the opposition, we are required to ask questions. We are required to scrutinize bills. We should never have to worry about being challenged because we are asking too many questions or are not asking the right questions. I said at the start of my speech that the Liberal government does not have a great track record when it comes to transparency, so we are going to continue asking questions on this side of the House. We are going to keep challenging legislation. As I said, it is our duty as opposition to make sure that we are able to do that. In closing, once again, as we look at other legislation that is going to come forward over time, we are not going to slow down. We are not going to stop challenging. We are not going to stop asking questions. We are going to continue to do our job, which is our due diligence. We were sent here by Canadians to ask questions and to challenge the status quo. As long as we are here in opposition, we will continue to do just that. I want to thank you, Madam Speaker, for giving me time here. I see my time is almost up, so I will just finish with that. I appreciate the opportunity to speak once again in the House.
