Helena Konanz

“The government wasted 300 million dollars on a digital prescription program. They are shutting down committee meetings and blocking the minister from testifying. I want to know why they are stopping us from investigating this.”

“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are denying Canadians transparency on the $300 million that was wasted on PrescribeIT. At the health committee, they turned off the cameras, shut down meetings and blocked the minister from testifying. Conservatives are prepared to work through the summer to get to the bottom of this scandal. Why are the Liberals blocking the health committee from investigating this $300-million PrescribeIT failure?”

“People tell me they want cheaper food, lower taxes, safer streets, and affordable homes. Why did the government make a budget bill that ignores these things?”

“Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned that he is knocking on doors and that his constituents are talking about lower grocery costs, making our streets safer, lower taxes and more affordable housing. I am hearing that at the doors also. I am sure all of us are hearing some of the same things, at least. Why does the member think the Liberals would create this bill that is basically ignoring what Canadians are really asking for?”

“I want the House to pass this bill. Crime and drug overdoses are rising in my riding, and people cannot get treatment. This bill lets judges order offenders to take treatment, training, and education programs while they are in jail. It will help people get better and return to their families, while keeping dangerous people behind bars.”

“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the ability to speak today on Bill C-240. This touches my heart, because I would imagine that for all MPs sitting in this room, no matter where they are sitting today, their lives have changed and their communities have changed. I know all Canadian cities have changed, including all communities in the Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay riding. I want to speak a bit about the city I live in. Penticton is a beautiful city. It is a place where people have always wanted to come to vacation, and possibly even retire, if they reach that point in their lives and have saved up enough money, because, of course, our housing is expensive, like it is in many communities. Unfortunately, our city, like so many, is filled with chaos right now. I hope everyone here knows they can go and enjoy the city and enjoy the area, but there is chaos because crime rates are skyrocketing. In fact, it was announced last week by our first responders that overdose rates in Penticton increased by nearly 500% in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the first quarter of 2025. This was reported by our fire department. Imagine what being a first responder in Penticton is like right now, when all they are doing is constantly going out to calls and trying to bring people back to life. Imagine how difficult it would be for them psychologically to not fight fires, like they were trained to. We do not have a lot of fires anymore, except for quite a few that are caused by people who are homeless and on the streets. Instead, our first responders are constantly going out and injecting people with some type of drug to try to bring them back to life. Sometimes they are successful and sometimes they are not. It has ruined our community and our most vulnerable people, who are those are on drugs and living on our streets. It has also ruined our community for many vulnerable people, as we have a very large senior community. Going back to Bill C-240, the bill aims to amend the Criminal Code to empower judges to prescribe structured rehabilitation programs for individuals whose offences stem from circumstances that can be addressed through skills development, education and recovery as part of a holistic healing process. It is important to know that in Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay, which is a very big riding in the B.C. interior, there is not one detox bed available. In fact, as a city councillor, a couple of years ago, I was given a presentation by leaders in the community who were addressing this issue. I asked them a question. If someone were to come into our city council meeting right then and say, “I am a drug addict. I want help. I want to go back to my family”, how long would it take for that person to get into a detox bed or a rehab bed? By the way, this was in public. Members can look this up from the City of Penticton’s council meeting two years ago. They told the city council that it would take two years for that person to be given any type of detox bed or any type of rehabilitation. They also said it would not be in our huge riding. They would have to leave the community in two years and go to another community to get help. We all know what would happen in those two years. I am sure I will get letters saying, “No, it’s not two years.” Maybe it has gotten better, and hopefully it has, but it would still be at least half that time. We need to give people the ability to go back to their families, and we also need to keep people behind bars who are not safe for our communities. Some of the residents I represent are afraid of even going to the grocery store anymore to shop because there are erratic people walking down the aisles. There has been a huge issue, obviously, since the pilot project to decriminalize drugs in B.C. That was a great experiment put together by the Liberal government and the NDP provincial government. I would like to ask everyone in this great room today, would they like to try that decriminalization project? Let us just see what might happen. British Columbia has the most deaths from fentanyl in the world now. The genie is out of the bottle now. Sure, the decriminalization project has been declared over, but we have not found out the complete chaos that was caused by it; the numbers are not out yet. That will happen, and we will bring them, hopefully, before the Standing Committee on Health, which I sit on, and get the complete numbers, but do we really need them? We all know that thousands and thousands of people have died in British Columbia from that project. I do not see anyone representing any other province wanting to come forward and try it for their communities. I want to thank MP DeRidder, who— An hon. member: You cannot use the name. Helena Konanz: Excuse me, Mr. Speaker. I thank the MP for bringing forward this bill, and I want to quote her. She said Bill C-240 “would empower courts to prescribe structured rehabilitation measures, including education, skills training and treatment programs, to be undertaken during custody. These are not soft-on-crime measures. They are smart-on-recovery interventions.” We have to give people the opportunity to go back to their families. I was given a tour, as a city councillor a couple of years ago, of the penitentiary in my riding, the Okanagan Correctional Centre. At that time, the warden told us city councillors that it was 25% full. We have one of the highest crime rates, in Penticton and area, in all of B.C., per capita, and our correctional centre is only 25% full. The leaders in the community, the mayors of all the cities in the valley, have sent a letter to the province asking to use that correctional centre for exactly what the MP for Kitchener Centre is asking for: to provide rehabilitation measures, education, skills training and treatment, to give these people a chance to go back out in the world and back to their families, if they are able. If they cannot, if they are dangerous people, as we know there are, then they should not be released as they have been. This bill would also allow court-ordered rehabilitation measures for offenders. I believe everyone in this great hall knows that people get to a point in their drug use where there is no going back. I want to thank, again, the MP for bringing this forward, and I hope everyone here votes to support it.”

In response to a question from Leah Gazan

“We need to vote for this motion so we can all meet and figure out what to do next. This is a very serious and complicated problem.”

“Mr. Speaker, the member’s question just confirms the fact that we all need to sit together. This is what the motion says. We need to sit together and talk about what our next steps are. This is a very complicated issue, and we cannot continue to pretend that it is not serious.”

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“Gas prices are too high because of federal taxes. The Conservatives want to remove all federal taxes on gas for the rest of 2026. We would pay for this by cutting wasteful government programs.”

“Mr. Speaker, gas prices across Canada remain higher than they need to be, not just because of the war in Iran but because of unnecessary federal taxes. The last time a barrel of oil cost $100 was in 2014 under a Conservative government, and gas prices never reached their current levels. In Penticton and Oliver, gas prices are now two dollars a litre, with communities like Castlegar, Grand Forks, Osoyoos and Princeton over $1.90 a litre. We need to offer real relief for longer. Our Conservative plan would scrap all federal gas taxes, the excise tax, GST and the fuel standard tax, for the rest of 2026. We would pay for this by ending Liberal waste, like their gun-grab program. Uncertainty abroad does not mean Canada cannot be affordable and strong at home.”

In response to a question from Costas Menegakis

“A court in British Columbia ruled that Indigenous land title applies to private property. This decision confuses landowners, hurts the economy, and makes people worry about whether they truly own their land. The federal government is appealing the ruling. I want the government to talk honestly with people in British Columbia while this long court case continues.”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to an issue of great concern to every British Columbian, which is the impact of the B.C. Supreme Court decision in Cowichan Tribes v. Canada and its effect on private property rights across British Columbia. It is the first time in Canada’s history that a court has declared aboriginal title over non-Crown lands, privately owned lands. There are 150 private landowners, farmers, homeowners and business owners in Richmond who discovered that their titles were now in conflict with aboriginal title designation. This is not a matter of reconciliation. It is a matter of confusion. It creates tension. It does not create a path forward. The Business Council of British Columbia conducted a survey of its members on the current uncertainty regarding B.C. property rights and found that 98% of respondents are very concerned. They are not a little concerned, but very concerned. We have already seen financing for job-created projects, including those for indigenous communities, pull back. Reconciliation remains the goal of every British Columbian I speak with, whether they have called their province home for a few years or for a few millennia. Let us not forget that our indigenous peoples own a huge swath of private property in British Columbia. They too are left in confusion by Cowichan. Our province wants to prove that the stewardship of British Columbia’s many indigenous communities, both on their lands and in many projects of prosperity they are engaged in, can be a model for the nation. What we are not calling for today is for the government to appeal this decision, as it has already, and rightly, said it will do so. What we are asking for is that the federal government engage with British Columbians straightforwardly throughout what will likely be a long judicial process. We ask it to engage with British Columbians who are confused as to whether their private property is still theirs in full and whether their property rights, long an ancient feature of our legal traditions stretching back centuries, are still theirs. We ask it to decry those who use an error of the court to spread hate, and we seek to understand those who do not know if the home, business or property in their name will remain theirs. The decisions of the courts will not be swift. Uncertainty will persist so long as Ottawa remains in court and Victoria remains deadlocked. A very real and local example of this uncertainty is occurring in my riding in the community of Okanagan Falls.”

“The government wasted $300 million on an electronic prescription project. The Liberals blocked witnesses and an investigation into this waste. Why did the Liberals shut down the committee meeting and seal the records for 30 years?”

“Mr. Speaker, what Canadians deserve is transparency. Conservatives want to get to the bottom of how $300 million of taxpayer money was wasted on this project, PrescribeIT. When Conservatives demanded that Mr. Green return to the committee to account for the millions of tax dollars that he had been paid for no results, the Liberals voted us down. When the Bloc moved to have the Liberal health minister appear within the next month to testify to her role in this scandal, Liberals ended our meeting entirely. When Conservatives moved to call on the Auditor General of Canada, a non-partisan official, to investigate, the Liberals moved to turn off the camera and seal the records of that committee for the next 30 years. My question is simple: Why did the Liberals turn off the camera and seal the records of that meeting for the next 30 years?”

“The government wasted $300 million on a failed digital prescription program. Now they are shutting down committee meetings so the minister does not have to answer for it. I want to know why they are hiding this from Canadians.”

“Mr. Speaker, Canadians need answers on how the Liberals burned $300 million on their failed PrescribeIT program, money that could have been spent on other health care needs. Just last week, the Liberals moved to shut off the cameras at the health committee, sealing the records of that meeting for 30 years. Yesterday, the Liberals shut down the health committee to prevent the minister from testifying. Why is the Liberals’ $300‑million PrescribeIT failure being hidden from Canadians?”

“The forestry industry has lost thousands of jobs. My area relies on trade with the United States. Why has the government spent so little time negotiating for this sector?”

“Mr. Speaker, I am going to focus a bit here on the forestry industry, which is not talked about a lot. Obviously, we have lost thousands of jobs in that sector. The government talked about expanding opportunities in trade as something we definitely need to do. The Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay riding that I represent has six border crossings we depend on and have used historically for trade with the United States. With respect to the industries that are dependent on that cross-border trade, like the forest industry, what does the member think about the very little time spent in negotiations for this sector?”

“People are worried about their property rights after the Cowichan court decision. The Liberals say they will defend these rights in court now, but they did not do that at the trial. How can their lawyers make new arguments on appeal?”

“Mr. Speaker, the Cowichan decision has left many residents across our communities concerned about their private property rights. The Liberals are now talking about how they will defend property rights in court, but they never made this argument in Cowichan before. Appeals are not do overs. They cannot raise new arguments they never argued before. How will government lawyers argue what Liberals MPs are arguing here when they did not do so at trial?”

“Conservatives asked for an investigation into a government program that wasted $300 million. The Liberals moved the meeting behind closed doors, which legally stops me from talking about it for 30 years. That is not transparent.”

“Madam Speaker, at a recent health committee, Conservatives moved a motion calling for a full investigation into the Liberals’ wasteful, $300-million PrescribeIT boondoggle. The Liberals immediately responded by moving that meeting behind closed doors. As a result, under House rules, I am forbidden from telling Canadians what happened in that meeting for the next 30 years. Does silencing MPs on committee work for 30 years show transparency from this majority Liberal government?”

“The war in Iran will keep gas prices high past the summer. Other countries have cut fuel taxes for longer than Canada has. I want the government to cut gas taxes for a longer time to help Canadians.”

“Mr. Speaker, we agree that recent gas price hikes were helped by the war in Iran, but will that be over by Labour Day, as the Liberals’ policy suggests? Even if the U.S. and Iran ended the war tomorrow, the Pentagon has said it would take up to six months to fully clear sea mines from the Strait of Hormuz to restore shipping. That is not to mention the damage to oil and gas infrastructure hammered by missile attacks. Conservatives believe it is more prudent to provide Canadians with higher, longer-lasting relief at the pump, given the uncertainty abroad. Nations like Australia, Spain and Ireland all cut their taxes more than Canada has in response. On average, Americans currently pay less at the pump. Will the government take note of our Conservative plan and other plans abroad and cut the tax on gas for longer than just the summer?”

“The government spent $300 million to replace pharmacy fax machines, but it did not work. I want the health minister to let the Auditor General investigate where that money went.”

“Mr. Speaker, Canadians deserve accountability, as $300 million was spent on PrescribeIT to replace pharmacy fax machines, with nothing to show for it. Liberal obstruction at committee has prevented Canadians from finding out where the money went. That is enough. We need a full investigation. Will the Minister of Health agree to our call for the non-partisan Auditor General of Canada to investigate this $300-million boondoggle?”