Garnett Genuis · TranslatePolitics.ca

Government Orders

2026-04-27

“Liberals don't care about democracy. They only want power. Liberals took MPs with different beliefs just to get a majority. They want power just because. They shut down debate and hide documents. Now they want a supermajority on committees. The Prime Minister doesn't respect his own MPs. He just wants control. This is bad for democracy. We need to fight this abuse of power.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate and will reflect upon your advice. What we have happening today is that the Liberals have taken unprecedented steps in a pattern of trying to undermine democracy in this country. Canadians voted for a minority government, and the Liberals used all kinds of devices and connivance to draw in members with whatever conviction, with no consideration whatsoever of the beliefs of those members. They took members who, in normal times, would obviously not fit what the Liberal Party pretends to be ideologically, and they did so out of desperation for power. Mr. Speaker, you have chastened me to not be too strong in my language, but I hope you will not mind me quoting some of the things the new member for Scarborough Southwest said about Liberals. Of course, I welcome her to this place, and I think she has had some very thought-provoking things to say in the past. She previously described the Liberals as “the surest path to greater evil”. What a thing to say. I am not sure if she could say that in the House. She described the Liberals as “the surest path to greater evil”, as well as “untrustworthy” and “conniving”. Those were things the new member for Scarborough Southwest had to say about the Liberals before she decided to run for them. The member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong said that many Liberals think she belongs in jail. She said that about two weeks before she crossed over to join the Liberals. This is not about bringing people together with some common agenda. This is about Liberals who care about nothing except power and who are pursuing power, not as a means to advance anything in particular, but for its own sake. Today we are debating this motion that they brought forward and quickly moved closure on. Now that, through backroom deals, they have a majority that Canadians did not give them at the election, they have quickly moved to impose upon committees a supermajority that Canadians certainly do not want. I note that we have multiple committees right now where Liberals are actually filibustering. At the human resources Committee, which I am a member of, and a number of other committees, Conservatives are working with our Bloc colleagues in seeking information from the government. Liberals are filibustering those committees. Members can bet that those requests for documents will immediately be shut down as soon as the Liberals who have taken the majority feel that they no longer have to be accountable. In fact, in the past when they have had minority governments, they have refused to hand over documents, even when they were ordered to by committees. These Liberals are completely allergic to accountability. In a minority situation, committees must at least work together to achieve results. They are, in a way, forced to work together because no party has all of the power. This has led to very constructive outcomes. In the last year, the committee that I am a part of has done very good work. We have tabled eight reports in the House, which is very productive work as a committee, because people have had to negotiate. It is not always easy. Sometimes there are conflicts, but people have had to negotiate to get a result. Liberals do not want to have to do that hard work of listening to other ideas and working with other parties. They are pursuing power at all costs. They are pursuing power in defiance of democratic norms and in defiance of the wishes of Canadians. They would like to be able to impose their will on committees, prevent documents from being requested and prevent the necessary accountability work from being done. I also want to also point something out, which may be something worth the reflection of the individual members of the government. Even if we were to accept the argument that the committee should have the same proportions as what the Liberals have engineered in the House through floor crossings, we might then say that there should be six Liberal members. Maybe we would say that, if we believed their arguments, we would go from five to six. Why are they asking for seven? Why are the Liberals, who now have a very narrow majority in the House, seeking a supermajority on committees? It is particularly worth asking because, in practice, given the rounds of questions and the activity of those committees, the fifth, sixth and seventh members of that committee likely would not have an opportunity to do too much. The nature of time allocation within a committee, with questions, etc., means that the extra member at the table is probably just going to be sitting there, for the most part. Why does the government want to have seven members? I will say that this demonstrates that the Prime Minister has as much respect for his own caucus members as he does for members on the other side of the House. He wants to have extra members there who will likely not have an opportunity to speak very much. He wants to keep them busy. He wants to prevent them from being able to engage in and challenge things, even in the very measured and limited way that government members sometimes do. What the Prime Minister is trying to engineer is the greatest amount of power, not merely for his party, but for himself. He views members of Parliament as encumbrances to his exercise of executive power, to his pursuit of power, for reasons that are largely unspecified and that have not been articulated up until this point. This is a sad day for Canadian democracy. The Prime Minister, through connivance, has weakened this institution and is pursuing a reality in which he can rule without the normal checks and balances that are supposed to be a part of our system, and without the checks and balances that Canadians voted for when they chose to elect a minority government. We need to fight back against this abuse of power and defend democratic norms in this country. Conservatives, despite the limitations the government is imposing on us, will continue to fight for democracy and for the common good.

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“I want to attack the other party's motives. I'm going to throw out criminal accusations to make them look bad. I don't like how they're ignoring voters.”

Government Orders

Government Business No. 9—Changes to the Standing Orders

2026-04-27

“I want to paint the Liberals as power-hungry. They tied themselves in knots to recruit an NDP MP who endorsed left-wing radicals so my party could attack them, and they poached an MP who spoke kindly about the trucker convoy protests so we could get outraged about it. So now I want to jump on that bandwagon and lob some talking points about the Liberals having no real principles -- prying open that contradiction to score some points. And I'm going to throw in a gotcha question too about how low the Liberals will go for more votes. It doesn't matter if it's super broad -- my goal here is just to make them squirm.”

Adjournment Proceedings

2026-04-23

“I'm optimistic if we change policies. Change policies so young people can get back to work. Don't call me pessimistic. I can read reports about unemployment. Labour force participation is down. Unemployment is up among young people.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary wrongly described my outlook as “pessimistic”. I want to say that I am incredibly optimistic about the potential of young people, about what is possible in this country if policy changes are made, and about our potential to shape our own reality if we make different choices as leaders. I am also capable of reading Statistics Canada reports about unemployment. It is not a question of opinion; it is a question of fact, from objective reports, that labour force participation is way down among young people and unemployment is way up. The good news is that we can change this reality if we change policies that have targeted tradespeople for defunding, through changes to the student loan program, and change policies around immigration and in other areas. Why will the government not change policies so young people can get back to work?

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“I'm very concerned about the recent job losses, especially among young people. The government should take our proposed solutions to fix the economy, immigration, training, and labor mobility. If they don't, the problem will keep getting worse.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, Canada is losing jobs at rates not seen in a generation, and it is the next generation that is bearing the brunt of these job losses. The Conservatives have been sharply and pointedly highlighting this problem, and we have been offering constructive solutions to the government that would make a difference. Sadly, the government has chosen to ignore these constructive solutions. In many respects, it has actually moved in the opposite direction in ways that have made, and will continue to make, the problem worse. We follow these monthly updates from Statistics Canada that show us how the job market is doing. The February results of the labour force survey were particularly dire, showing that over 100,000 full-time jobs were lost in one month alone, with close to 50,000 youth jobs lost in that month. In the next round of data that came out after March, we saw a continuation of that situation with the persistence of this youth unemployment crisis. The unemployment numbers are bad, but so are the workforce participation numbers. Unemployment measures the percentage of youth in the workforce who are not employed. Labour force participation identifies the number of youth who are in the workforce. What we are seeing, in addition to high unemployment, is that many young people are giving up, with lower workforce participation rates in general among youth. This is driven by this frustration about how challenging it is for young people to get jobs that will allow them to get ahead. This is a grave and serious problem that can not be explained away by external events, as the government tries to do. When we highlighted the February workforce numbers, the government tried to blame the war in Iran, even though the war in Iran had not started at the time that data was collected. Moreover, what we normally see in youth unemployment figures is that there is a certain natural relationship between youth unemployment and overall unemployment. It is usually a bit higher. However, we are seeing a widening of that gap. Youth unemployment relative to overall unemployment is very high, which suggests that there are particular factors unique to our own circumstances that are contributing to a widening of that gap. The constructive solutions we have proposed are in four areas. First is unleashing the economy, removing barriers that have limited economic growth. Young people are often last in and first out. If a company's owners are optimistic about its future, they will be able to hire more young people and they will take on summer students and this sort of thing. However, for company owners who are more pessimistic about their future and are in the process of downsizing, it is likely not going to be their long-tenured, experienced employees who are let go first; it is going to be those young people who have just started. The second area is fixing immigration. We have seen how a failure of immigration policy has exacerbated the competition for entry-level positions, and we need to change that. Third, we have talked about fixing the training. That means supporting young people to acquire skills that are required for the Canadian economy. We must train Canadian workers for Canadian jobs. Sadly, the Liberals are moving in the opposite direction by attacking students, particularly those who attend vocational institutions and particularly students in the trades. Finally, we have proposed policies to support labour mobility, to help young people move to places where the jobs are. These are constructive solutions that we have put forward. Unfortunately, the government has chosen not to adopt them and so we see the continuing worsening of this youth unemployment crisis. What is it going to take for the government to listen to what we have proposed, for it to take good ideas in the spirit that they have been presented and actually propose a plan to fix this problem?

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Private Members' Business

National Framework on Skilled Trades and Labour Mobility Act

2026-04-23

“The government messed up. They should fix their own mistakes, not make us pass a bill to make a plan to fix them later. I want the government to stop attacking trades workers. The government says it wants to help workers, but then it made a rule to give less money to students who go to trade schools. That’s not fair. Some schools got an exception, but not trade schools. Conservative MPs said that was wrong, but all the Liberal MPs voted for it, even ones who said before that it was wrong. Talking about making a framework isn't the same as actually fixing the problem. The government should stop saying one thing and doing another.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, the bill that the Liberal member has brought to us is an interesting one, because in many respects it feels like an admission of failure on the part of the government. The Liberals have been in power for more than 10 years. They have repeatedly ignored the needs of trades workers and treated trades workers, as well as the work they do, with utter disdain, and now a member of the Liberal government is saying that maybe it should have a framework to try to fix some of the problems confronting trades workers, including problems around labour mobility. I will give the member credit insofar as his speech identified very real problems that are making things more difficult for trades workers trying to get certification, trying to move, trying to find jobs, etc. However, I think it is important to observe that the government did not need a private member's bill compelling it to introduce a framework in order to solve these problems. The government could simply have acted to solve these problems that are, in many respects, of their own making. The government also could have proposed the framework without having one of its members propose a bill to require it to present a framework. Fixing these problems is within the power of the government, and the problems are ones that have emerged from the actions and failures of a Liberal government that has been in many respects negative and disdainful about the people who build this country. Instead of fixing the problems, the government got one of its members to propose a bill that calls for the development of a framework that is kind of directed toward pushing the government to solve problems that, at the end of the day, the government should solve itself. I appreciate the identification of the problems, finally, but what we would really like is for the government to change policies in order to reverse bad decisions it has made that are bad for trades workers. If we look at the history of the government, we see that there are repeated instances of criticism and disdain for our hard-working trades workers. Most notable was when the former prime minister said that major projects in this country require a gender analysis because male construction workers' coming to towns to build things might have gendered impacts. The former prime minister never spoke about the gendered impacts of people in suits' showing up. Instead he was purveying negative stereotypes about hard-working men and women who travel from home to build the projects this country needs. He talked about how we should not be known for our resources but should instead be known for our resourcefulness. This was constant negative discourse from the former prime minister about hard-working trades workers. Maybe we could have hoped that the negative discourse would change with the new Prime Minister, but things have gotten even worse under him. In particular, in the last budget, a policy was announced that effectively singles out people in certain vocations, including trades workers, to no longer be able to access student grants. Page 217 of the last federal budget explains the dynamic. It says that students at private for-profit institutions, which includes vocational schools where many trades workers learn their trade, would no longer be eligible for grants under the federal student loan program. This means that if someone studies any program at a university, no matter how labour-market relevant it is or is not, they can get those grants. However, if they study at a vocational institution to learn a trade, regardless of how urgently our economy needs those workers, they cannot get those grants. University students get the grants. If students are studying in the trades or for other critical skills at vocational institutions, they do not get the grants. This was the policy of the Prime Minister in the last federal budget, effectively singling out these occupations, including trades workers, to be denied student grants. This policy is going to exacerbate existing shortages in these critical areas, because it sends a message to young people that the government is going to support them more if they go through the one door than if they go through the other door. In fact what we should be doing is trying to magnify the signals of the labour market to young people. We should be offering, as Conservatives proposed, more generous student grants to students who are pursuing studies in in-demand fields. Instead, the Liberals are discriminating based on the institutions that students apply for. Just today, the government announced some further details of this planned policy. It announced some exceptions for certain kinds of vocations that people might study for at private institutions. The exemptions are better than nothing. We have done a lot of advocacy around this work and it feels like we are pushing the needle a bit. The exemptions were for nursing, dental hygiene, early childhood education and paramedics. It should not be a policy of exemptions. We should just eliminate in general this discriminatory policy that the government has proposed. What I notice about these exceptions is that none of them apply to trades workers. Therefore, the government's policy continues to be that if someone is studying to become a tradesperson, and in many cases that training is offered at private institutions, then they cannot get a student grant. It is mind-boggling to me, in this time when finally even the Liberals are paying lip service to the fact that we need more trades workers, that they are still pursuing a policy that attacks trades workers by denying grants specifically to those who are pursuing careers in the trades. The Conservatives have been doggedly pursuing this issue. We are defending trades workers, defending those who are trying to pursue critical skills at vocational institutions. In many cases, these are skills that are simply not offered at public or not-for-profit institutions. We have pushed this issue at the human resources committee and we were able to get the human resources committee to adopt a unanimous report encouraging the government to reconsider this policy. Even Liberals on the human resources committee at the time voted in favour of asking the government to reconsider this policy. Then, this week, we put the motion before the House of Commons on Tuesday, and every single Liberal member voted against our motion to reconsider this policy. Every Liberal member present voted in favour of this Liberal policy to discriminate against trades workers and others pursuing vocational training at private institutions. The member who sponsored this bill and just spoke about the importance of trades workers voted in favour of the Liberal policy and against our motion to reconsider it. The Liberal member who put forward this bill earlier this week voted in favour of denying funding to students specifically and uniquely in the trades at private institutions. The member for Markham—Unionville, who previously as a Conservative worked with me on this issue, called out the Liberal policy change for being systemically discriminatory because of its attack on those studying traditional Chinese medicine. He called this Liberal policy discriminatory and then, after he crossed the floor, he voted in favour of the policy that he said systemically discriminates against his own community and others. It is pretty baffling, to say, “This is systematically discriminatory against the community that I represent, and now I am going to vote for it.” Every Liberal member of the human resources committee who initially voted in favour of this motion to reconsider the discriminatory Liberal policy reversed their position when the motion came to the House. It is unbelievable. We have this situation of “say one thing and do the exact opposite”. There are members in today's debate, I am sure, eager to pay lip service to the value of trades while attacking trades workers by targeting them with the removal of funding through these student grants. They cannot deny it because every one of them voted for it. Not only did they vote for the budget, but we had a stand-alone vote on this discrimination against trades workers. Every Liberal who was present, including the sponsor of this bill, voted in favour of that discrimination. They cannot get away with saying, “We are going to attack trades workers. We are going to insult them. We are going to deny funding that is available to every other stream, but then we are going to have a framework to study trying to fix these problems in the future.” It is time for the Liberals to put their money where their mouth is on this issue, to put actions behind words. The Conservatives will always stand with, and stand up for, the hard-working trades workers who built this country. It is a pity that the Liberals are attacking them while hypocritically pretending to care.

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“You say you respect trades workers, but you cut their grants on page 217 of the budget. When Conservatives tried to restore those grants, you voted against it. Why did you join the Liberals to block our effort to help trades workers?”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I wish we saw more respect for trades workers from the government. Sadly, in the last budget, the government chose to cut trades workers off from access to student grants. It is on page 217 of the budget that people who go to private institutions, which generally includes trades workers, as trades programs are not offered at universities, are cut off from student grants as a result of a decision made by the government. The Conservatives put forward a motion earlier this week, on Tuesday, asking the government to reconsider this policy, and the member who put forward the bill that is before us and who just spoke about respecting trades workers, voted against our motion that sought to give these grants back to students. I want to ask the member why he joined the rest of the Liberals in opposing our effort to get grants back to people in the trades.

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Government Orders

Government Business No. 9—Changes to Standing Orders

2026-04-23

“I'm saying that the government is attacking democracy by trying to get a majority it wasn't given. The government doesn't care about ideas, only about power. They're using this power to try to rule committees absolutely without having to co-operate or listen to anyone else. Canadians elected a minority government and the current government is violating that by trying to give itself a supermajority on committees.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, it grieves me to observe that we are seeing an unprecedented attack on democracy in the country by the Liberal government. Canadians in the last election chose to elect a Liberal minority government, which means that, yes, the Liberals continue in power. At the same time, power is dispersed. Opposition parties have a role in holding the government accountable and in being able to drive outcomes in terms of committees and in terms of legislation. We have clearly played that role responsibly, expediting legislation in certain cases, strongly opposing legislation in others. The Liberals have been pursuing this violation of our democracy, of our democratic institutions, by trying to take a majority that Canadians did not give them. Let me clear on the issue of floor crossing. We have had floor crossing in the country before, individual instances where individuals came to different conclusions based on shifting events or, maybe, changes in their own thinking. That is not what we are talking about in this case, very clearly. What we are seeing in the country is an effort by the government to gain an undemocratic majority government they were not given by Canadians, by recruiting any and every individual, regardless of convictions and regardless of ideology, through backroom deals. In recent weeks they have recruited someone who endorsed Avi Lewis and someone who endorsed the convoy. This clearly has nothing to do with shifting ideas or world views. This is about a naked power grab. In fact, the member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong was explicit about this. She said the Minister of Housing did not return her phone calls beforehand, and that he called her back the next day once she crossed the floor. This is not about world view. This is not about shifting ideas. This is about a naked, undisguised, backroom power grab that is now being used to subvert our democracy. Liberals are using the bare majority that they have taken in violation of the will of Canadians and they are now using it to try to get a supermajority on committees. They are proposing a supermajority of additional members, seven members in total, which would allow them to do anything they want at committee. They have claimed that this is about co-operation. No, this is about subverting democracy. In a minority, parties have to work together. They have to co-operate to get things done. We have co-operated to get things done, in this Parliament and in committee. The government does not want to have to co-operate. The Liberals do not want to have to listen to other parties and to Canadians who voted for those parties. They want to be able to rule absolutely, without consultation and in defiance of the democratic will of Canadians, which is why they are putting forward the motion today to give themselves a supermajority on committees that Canadian voters did not give them. It is wrong and it undermines the work these committees do. Up until now, committees have been working to request information and documents from the government. Multiple committees are now in the midst of Liberal filibusters. The human resources committee, the ethics committee and the health committee are all in the middle of Liberal filibusters. They do not want to hand over documents that have been asked for—

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“I have to say the word 'collaboration' a lot. I sit on a committee. The committee did things. I want the committee to keep doing things. I don't want the government to change the balance of power on the committee. I am arguing that the change would reduce collaboration and centralize power in the government. That's bad. I don't like that.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the issue of collaboration. “Collaboration” is a word we have heard bandied back and forth. It seems to me a basic truth that the way power works is that when power is dispersed, co-operation and collaboration become necessary, because if power is dispersed, people have to work together in order to achieve some result. The committee I am on, the human resources committee, has adopted eight reports in the last year. It has been an extremely productive committee. I know there are many other committees that have undertaken important studies and gotten a lot of work done, and have done so through collaboration that is forced by parliamentary committees that reflect the reality that Canadians voted for, which is dispersed power through a minority government. If the government takes an undemocratic supermajority on committees, that means that collaboration is much less likely to happen, because the power would be centralized in the government and there would be no pressure on it to collaborate. There is more collaboration in the present than there would be if the motion were to go forward.

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“I want you to stop changing the rules to give yourself a blank cheque. Nobody should have total control.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is really outdoing himself today by making the claim that giving government members all of the power on committees will somehow lead to more co-operation. The nature of a committee structure in which no single party holds a majority is that parties have to negotiate, work out their differences and figure out how to collaborate in order to get things moving forward. The new reality that the Liberals are trying to impose is one in which the government does not have to co-operate with anyone but can instead impose its will through an undemocratic majority, in fact an undemocratic supermajority, on committees that they were not given. In what world is it even plausible to argue that taking away the need to negotiate and putting all the power in the hands of one party is somehow going to lead to more collaboration?

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