Jeff Kibble · TranslatePolitics.ca

Government Orders

An Act to Authorize Certain Payments to be Made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund

2026-06-16

“I agree with my colleague that this government keeps creating scandals and lying to us. They say they are spending 2% on NATO but they aren't. They say they will build 500,000 homes but they won't. People are sick of it.”

“I want more accountability before spending money on housing. The current bills waste money without building enough houses. We should vote against those bills. I have four points for how to add accountability.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his great question. I appreciate my colleague's kind words and the opportunity to speak a little, very briefly in the time I am allowed, about some of the improvements. I laid it out fairly clearly in my speech, but it is about accountability. Look, we love when money is spent to help housing in Canada. We are always accused that we are voting against that and voting against Canadians. No, we are voting against lousy bills that are wasting money and are not building houses, and we have seen that with $13 billion for 11,000 houses. That is what we are voting against. We are voting for Canadians. I encourage my colleague to review my notes and go over the four points for bringing accountability.

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“The government promised 500,000 homes per year. They didn't deliver. 260,000 isn't enough. Canadians care about homes, not what that guy thinks of me.”

“This bill is a blank cheque for the Minister of Finance. It gives him $1.7 billion to spend however he wants, with no conditions and no requirement to report back. This is not a housing plan. We need real conditions, reporting, and oversight to make sure every dollar is used to build homes, not just make announcements.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I will share my time today with the member for Flamborough—Glanbrook—Brant North. Before I turn to the business at hand, I would like to share that I was in Hamilton this morning for the change of command of the Royal Canadian Navy. I have had the honour of serving and sailing with both naval officers, Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee and Vice-Admiral Dan Charlebois. After four years of distinguished service and amazing leadership, Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee has turned over command of the Royal Canadian Navy. I think of all the amazing things he did, and he should be acknowledged for his care of those sailors and the others who worked for him. As well, I want to send my congratulations to recently promoted Vice-Admiral Dan Charlebois, who will be taking over command of the Royal Canadian Navy. I have no doubt that he will lead with distinction. Today, I rise to oppose Bill C-26, an act to authorize certain payments to be made out of the consolidated revenue fund for the purpose of improving housing supply. As always, I rise on behalf of the great people of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford on beautiful Vancouver Island, the seniors, the young families, the trades workers, the veterans, and the men and women who get up before dawn, work hard, play by the rules, yet watch the dream of owning a home drift a little further out of reach every year that passes. In the Cowichan Valley today, the benchmark price of a single-family home sits above $780,000. Across Vancouver Island, it is close to $800,000, and in greater Victoria, including Langford, the average sale price is now nearing $1 million. However, there are people behind those numbers, and I know many of them by name. I know veterans, men and women who once wore this country's uniform, who are now living out of their trucks. I know forestry and mill workers who have been knocked down by mill curtailments and closures and are now living in campers. I know people who have been taxed out of the very homes they worked their whole lives for, who are now living in trailers and tents. I know young couples who have all but given up on the idea that they will ever stop renting. When I speak about housing in this chamber, I am not speaking simply about a line in a budget. I am speaking about the greatest single worry in people's lives right now. This bill is such a disappointment to me because the people I represent do not need another illusion. They need a home. The government has a real gift for illusion. Bill C-26 is dressed up as Emerald City on the Hill, with $1.7 billion announced with a great deal of fanfare, and all of it said to be for housing. What I would ask of every member of Parliament is that they pull back the curtain and reveal what the illusion is. When they do, they will find that the whole substance of this bill is in a single small section that says, “The Minister of Finance may make payments to the provinces and territories, the total of which is equal to $1.‍713 billion”. It also says, “The amount of each payment is to be determined by the Minister of Finance.” Those payments may be made “at the times and in the manner that the Minister of Finance considers appropriate.” That is the entire bill. There are no conditions attached to it. There is no requirement to come back and report to Parliament, no definition of what “improving housing supply” is even meant to mean, and nowhere does the government commit to building so much as a single home. The government claims there will be 11,000 for the $13 billion it is spending. What we are being asked to approve is not a housing plan at all, but a blank cheque, and we are being asked to trust the one man who gets to fill in that amount. We have seen this before, and not long ago. Buried inside division 16 of the last budget bill, Bill C-31, was the Defence Investment Agency act. I studied it closely as a member of Standing Committee on National Defence, and tucked away in it was a remarkable power: the authority for a single minister to draw up to $1 billion at a time out of the very same consolidated revenue fund. It is the same fund, the same kind of open-ended discretion, and it is once again being slipped quietly into a budget where most Canadians would never think to look. I spent a better part of three decades in uniform, and I can plainly tell members of Parliament that we do not rebuild a military or a country on a blank cheque, a fancy press release and announcement. Now, here we are again with Bill C-26. It is a different minister and a different file, but the very same approach. The Minister of National Defence was reaching into that fund $1 billion at a time, and now the Minister of Finance is reaching into that fund for $1.7 billion more. The illusions have many names, and it is my job to pull back that curtain and expose the reality. This is not a coincidence. It is becoming a habit of the government to gather the money and the decisions into as few hands as possible, strip away the accountability that ought to come with them and trust that the fancy announcement of the day will carry the day. I would gently remind the House where that kind of governing tends to lead. When enormous public resources can be moved around by a handful of powerful people with little real scrutiny, we are no longer describing a healthy democracy. We are describing something closer to an oligarchy. An oligarchy is never built one dramatic stroke at a time. Rather, it is built quietly, one billion unaccountable dollars at a time. When money on that scale can move on the say-so of one minister with no criteria and no audit, I think we all know who tends to benefit in the end, and it is rarely the young family in Langford or the senior in Duncan. Instead, it is the well connected and the well placed. This brings me to the real question at the heart of this bill. It does not ask us to trust an institution with all of its checks and balances and safeguards. It asks us to trust one man: the Minister of Finance. I think it is fair to ask whether that trust has been earned. Let us consider the record. The minister told Canadians he had recused himself from the Alto high-speed rail file, one of the most expensive projects in our country's history, because his own wife serves as vice-president at the very corporation building it. He wrote a letter, he announced a screen, and he assured us he had stepped aside. However, when a motion came before Parliament that would have stripped the high-speed rail provisions out of the government's budget bill, the minister did not step aside at all. He stayed and voted to protect the project. Both of these things cannot be true at the same time. Either he genuinely recused himself or he voted on a matter that reached his own wife's employer. Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been spent and poured into that project, and the track has yet to be laid. I do not raise this to make anything personal. I raise it because accountability is the whole purpose of Parliament, and this is the same minister who is asking for the same trust on the same terms, only now the figure is $1.7 billion higher. I have not risen here only to criticize and to show the illusion. The people of Vancouver Island deserve better than what this bill offers, and there is a better way forward, so let me set it out. First, we could tie the money to results rather than to announcements. The funds should flow against real, measurable increases in housing starts and completions that are verified and made public. Second, we would put the conditions in the legislation itself, not in one minister's head. We need clear criteria, clear timelines and clear reporting back to Parliament. Third, we would bring in the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Auditor General to follow this money, from the first dollar to the last nail, and tell Canadians honestly whether it worked. Finally, we could direct the funding to the communities that are actually developing, improving and building homes, be it on Vancouver Island or across the country, rather than rewarding the ones that stall. That is how a government could actually improve the housing of Canada. The people of Vancouver Island are not easily fooled. They have been shown the Emerald City before. What they are asking for this time is a home they can afford in a community they love and a government they can actually trust with every dollar it spends. They are watching this debate right now, and they are waiting. Let me be clear: I cannot support Bill C-26 as it is written. If it does proceed to committee, it must not pass unchanged. It must be fixed. It must be amended to carry the safeguards I have set out today. We need real conditions, real reporting and real oversight so that every dollar is tied to a home built and not one more announcement. The people of Vancouver Island deserve nothing less. The people of Canada deserve nothing less. They deserve a government they can trust and a Parliament with the courage to hold $1.7 billion of taxpayers' money to account. I urge every member of Parliament on all sides to summon that courage.

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“You are short hundreds of thousands of homes. How do you explain that failure for all the money you spent?”

Government Orders

Protecting Victims Act

2026-06-09

“I want to argue this bill is weak. I want voters to demand tough sentences.”

“I'm filling time with kind words for my friend. The other party wants mandatory minimums but also ways to go below them. A court said how minimums can work and this bill doesn't do that. When a bad guy goes free early, who will the other party blame - the court or the bill that lets this happen?”

“I want to hurry up and bash you over the head with the worst-case scenario.”

Statements by Members

Community Service

2026-06-09

“I'm filling time with kind words and saying nothing anyone could pin down later.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to honour a man who has spent a lifetime proving that success means nothing unless one shares it. Bob Saunders has been called a perennial booster of good things, a title that is well earned. From founding Saunders Subaru to supporting arts, youth, sports, health care, veterans and education across Vancouver Island, Bob has never stopped giving back. I can speak to this personally. As a former Wounded Warriors Canada team runner, I have seen first-hand what Bob's generosity means to those who carried the weight of service long after coming home, not just in dollars, but in dignity, hope and healing. Bob believes that paying it forward and civic-minded people who lead by example inspire the next generation of community leaders. He has lived every word of that and he has inspired me. Recently, I had the honour of joining Bob and his beloved Norma at a Victoria Shamrocks season opener, celebrating 70 years of marriage and 70 years of making our island better. On behalf of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford and those across Vancouver Island, I thank Bob, Norma and the entire Saunders family. Their legacy is written in the lives that they have changed.

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Government Orders

Main Estimates, 2026-27

2026-06-08

“The Liberals have no real plan. They want to spend $50 billion on ships and jets and programs with big names. But experts say we need a real national security strategy first. The Liberals' own plan even says we need one! Without a strategy, their fancy Defence Investment Agency is set up to fail.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, the member is from Halifax, where I served many years in the navy. This is $50 billion for the “most ambitious defence rebuild in a generation”, ships, submarines, fighter jets, the Defence Investment Agency and the defence investment strategy. It all sounds impressive. Here is the reality. The Liberals have left Canada with no national security strategy or national defence strategy. Experts, and even worse, our allies are calling us out. Indeed, the Liberals' own “Our North, Strong and Free” plan, which is not a strategy, calls for Canada to have a national security strategy every four years, yet we have none. Does the member for Halifax agree that they are putting the cart before the horse and that, without a national security strategy, the DIA and the DIS are doomed to fail?

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Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-06-08

“The government keeps announcing new things to fix problems, but the problems are just getting worse. Canadians don't trust the government's promises anymore because they can see for themselves that the promises don't match reality. The government needs to admit it can't just announce its way out of trouble.”

Oral Questions

The Economy

2026-06-08

“The economy is bad under the current government. People are having trouble affording food. The Prime Minister laughed at Canadians who are struggling. Does the Prime Minister care enough to help Canadians put food on the table?”

Government Orders

Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 2

2026-05-29

“You're delusional. I'm just stating facts. My party put money into the military and it worked great. Your party is using tricky accounting to make it look like you're investing more, but really the military is weaker. You're living in a fantasy.”

“The Prime Minister announced a big deal to buy military aircraft. It's just an illusion. There is no contract or order.”

“Canada isn't spending 2% of GDP on defence like we claim. The real number is 1.6%, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The Liberals are fudging the numbers and shuffling money from the Coast Guard to inflate our defence spending to meet NATO commitments. It's an illusion and it's shameful.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite's question was ill-informed. The 2% NATO spending that the government constantly boasts about is truly an illusion. Money was shuffled. The Coast Guard, which is not operationally deployable, was accounted for, and that is not within the NATO regulations. In fact, I would like to draw the member opposite's attention to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the gold and global standard for identifying government and NATO spending, which said that the discrepancy was 0.4%. In other words, Canada has only actually spent, by this gold standard assessment, 1.6%. This is another Liberal illusion, and Canadians need to see that reality. Of note, I will add that Canada was the only country mentioned with such a large discrepancy in our alleged 2% spending. It is shameful.

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“I'm saying the government is announcing a big defence strategy without actually making the hard choices to back it up. They're making promises to our military they can't keep. The strategy will fail without real plans to match. All Canadians will pay the price. Conservatives support our troops and we won't accept this illusion of action. Our riding deserves better.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to conclude my remarks. I was speaking about not having a national security strategy for Canada to back up the government's Defence Investment Agency and defence industrial strategy. None of this will work without this key foundation. A procurement architecture cannot be designed for a mission that has never been defined or for threats that have not been assessed. We cannot build an agency to deliver capability to our armed forces when we have not decided what capability Canada actually needs. The Minister of National Defence admitted to me in testimony at committee that no consideration of threat assessments, pre-kinetic warfare, grey zone warfare, cognitive operations or PSYOPS is in the defence investment strategy. How could there be? That would require a foundational national security strategy, a strategy the government does not have. Simply put, the government has put the cart before the horse, and Canadians in uniform will pay the price. Indeed, all of Canada will pay the price. This is the exact opposite of creating a self-reliant and sovereign country. The fancy speeches, the hollow announcements and the promises are all illusions. The reality is that it seems as if the Prime Minister is more focused on building his own defence industry oligarchy. As Conservatives, we have always stood proudly with the women and men who serve in uniform. We ask them to do dangerous things. We ask them to stand between Canadians and harm. We send them to protect our sovereignty, to serve our allies and to represent our country at its best. The very least we owe them is the right equipment, honestly procured without corruption, without patronage and without a $1-billion slush fund that answers to no one. Vancouver Island is home to both CFB Comox and CFB Esquimalt. The families there are watching, the veterans there are watching and the serving members are watching. They are all starting to see behind the curtain of illusion, and the illusion is starting to crumble. We will oppose division 16 of this bill, not because we oppose defence investment, but because we refuse to accept the illusion of it in place of reality. Canada deserves better. Our armed forces deserve better. The people of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, who live alongside—

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Statements by Members

The Economy

2026-05-29

“Canada is the only G7 country in a recession. The government spent too much and now we owe over $1.4 trillion. Other countries face the same problems but they are not in a recession. The Prime Minister is to blame.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, this morning Canadians learned what many families on Vancouver Island already feel. Canada is now the only G7 country in a recession. The Liberal government's tax hikes, antidevelopment laws and reckless spending have doubled Trudeau's deficit, with Canada now owing over $1.4 trillion. There has been negative economic growth in the last quarter in 2025 and again in the first quarter of 2026. The Prime Minister claims that Canada has the best economy in the G7. Reality tells a different story. Every other G7 nation is facing the same tariffs and global headwinds, yet not one of them is in a recession. Only Canada is in a recession. Workers, families and small business owners on Vancouver Island are paying the price for Liberal economic failure and mismanagement. They deserve a government that grows our economy, removes barriers to development and stops loading future generations with debt. This recession was a choice and Canadians did not make it. The Liberal Prime Minister did.

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Government Orders

Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 2

2026-05-29

“I'm skeptical of this big omnibus budget bill. I want more scrutiny and debate on defense spending changes. Hiding major restructuring in a giant bill like this avoids accountability.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, thank you for allowing my speech to bracket the all-important question and member statement periods. I will be splitting my time today with the member for Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry. I am pleased to rise to share my analysis of this important piece of legislation. I want to be clear from the outset that not all of this bill is without merit, but there are provisions within it that deserve serious scrutiny, serious debate and serious answers from the government. As a member of the Standing Committee on National Defence, I have a particular and direct interest in division 16 of this bill, the establishment of the Defence Investment Agency act and the amendments to the Defence Production Act, which would be renamed the defence and national security production and procurement act. It sounds complicated. Although buried as a peripheral issue within a budget bill, in reality this is a fundamental restructuring of how Canada processes and invests in its own defence, which deserves far more scrutiny than an omnibus budget process will ever allow. I want to be direct about something. I served nearly three decades in the Royal Canadian Navy. I served at CFB Esquimalt, one of the largest military installations in this country and the beating heart of our naval presence on the Pacific. It is a base that Vancouver Island depends on and has given more to this country than most Canadians will ever know. When I stand in the House and speak about defence procurement, I do not speak from a briefing note; I speak with 30 years of experience and of knowing exactly what happens when governments get procurement wrong. The government has this part of this bill catastrophically wrong. Bill C-31 is 330 pages long. It touches on everything. That is the first problem. Changes of this magnitude, such as giving a minister up to $1 billion in spending authority with no meaningful oversight, deserve their own bills, their own debates and to be studied in defence committee, not buried inside a budget omnibus bill that only gets sent to finance committee. When we bury such a key strategic plan, we hide it, and when it is hidden, Canadians cannot hold the government accountable. This is not an accident but yet another Liberal illusion. It is as if the Liberals have turned Parliament Hill into Emerald City on the Hill. They constructed a gleaming facade, the rhetoric sounds good, industry gets excited, and people are tricked into believing the illusion, while the Liberals ask Canadians to pay no attention to the wizard behind the curtain. Instead of the Prime Minister of Canada, perhaps we should refer to the position as the “Prime Minister of Oz”. My job is to pull back that curtain to reveal the reality and shatter the illusion. Let me speak to what the Defence Investment Agency actually is and what it is not. The Prime Minister has hired a CEO, a successful investment banker with no defence experience or procurement background who used to work alongside the Prime Minister at Goldman Sachs. He is now head of the new Defence Investment Agency. It goes further than that. In testimony in committee, this CEO admitted that in his former role as a top-level investment banker, he worked with high-value companies directly connected with the communist government in China. This is a serious security risk. On a file this sensitive, it is a detail we cannot brush aside. He also worked with high-value companies that have direct connections to the defence industry. This presents a very real potential for conflict of interest. This is not a risk Canada should be taking on one of the most consequential files this country faces, but here we are. The CEO of the DIA reports to a junior secretary of state, who reports to another minister, who reports to the Prime Minister, not at a cabinet table. There is no direct line of accountability or single point of authority. It is a rather confusing chain that only adds to more bureaucracy, red tape and delays and more boards, advisory committees, consultants and patronage. This is not procurement reform but the illusion of procurement reform. The Canadian Armed Forces cannot afford the difference, nor can Canada. Let me share some numbers with the House, because the numbers tell the story the government will not. Only 59% of our maritime fleet is serviceable and ready for operations, and that figure only holds because the government retired the entire Kingston class coastal fleet to make the math work. Of our 12 major warships, the navy, through no fault of its own, can barely keep three fully crewed, operational and ready to deploy. Only 51% of land vehicles are ready for troops to use. They are worn out and undermaintained. Over $2 billion a year was cut from defence budgets between 2021 and 2025. As for our aerospace fleet, only 42% of our aircraft are ready to fly. Our CF-18s are nearly aged out, and we still do not have a signed contract for the F-35s because the government spent years playing political games with the air force. I will leave the government's failure to keep our beloved Snowbirds flying for another debate. The brave men and women who serve at CFB Esquimalt, who serve across the country, deserve better than 42%. They deserve better than 51%. They deserve more than only three operational frigates. They deserve a government that signs contracts, shows stability and has a realistic strategy to build upon, not the illusion of reannouncements and press releases and fancy-sounding new layers of bureaucracy. It has been more than four years since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, four years since we heard the language of putting Canada on a war footing. In four years, the only increases in the production of munitions, artillery shells and rockets in this country have come through contracts with the American military, not for Canada but for America. The government never signed the contracts for our own requirements. We can announce an agency. We can name a CEO. We can create a board. However, until we put ink to paper and actually buy the equipment our forces need, we have done nothing. Division 16 of the bill does not fix this. It locks in the inefficiencies. It entrenches the old bureaucracy. It gives the minister the power to exclude companies from competition without ever explaining why. It creates the ability to sole-source contracts without accountability. It grants authorities to procure shares in corporations and to replace directors and officers, language that sounds an awful lot like nationalization. We have been down this road before. It is called the Emergencies Act. This reeks of the same unaccountable overreach. In clause 310, there is more sole-sourcing. In clause 322, there is a competitive process riddled with exceptions so wide that almost anything can be exempted. In clause 312, there is ministerial power to replace corporate leadership at will. There is no transparency, no explanation and no accountability. Here is the foundational problem that makes all of this worse. Canada has no national security strategy, a strategy that should be the key foundation upon which the defence investment strategy and the Defence Investment Agency should be built. Without a national security strategy, none of this works. We cannot design a procurement architecture for a mission we have never defined—

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Oral Questions

Indigenous Affairs

2026-05-25

“Families on Vancouver Island worked hard and bought homes. They deserve certainty about their property. But the Prime Minister's mismanagement has shaken that certainty. People are anxious. Communities are divided. Reconciliation has been set back. Leadership means bringing people together. The Prime Minister failed. He should support our motion to protect property rights, restore confidence and unite people.”

Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-05-07

“Liberals keep dodging my real question. They misled Canadians. I want a direct answer on extinguishment. Stop giving fake impressions. Are the Liberals just creating an illusion? Stop hiding behind vague words.”