Kelly DeRidder · TranslatePolitics.ca

Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-05-28

“I want the minister to explain why a violent criminal who isn't allowed to work here gets to stay in Canada. That's wrong and it makes me mad.”

“I don't want a new tax. I think it will hurt people. I want the government to help the arts another way.”

Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-05-26

“It costs farmers money. It's a bad thing. There, I gave a response!”

“I don't think you asked a real question. But I'll respond anyways. Affordability is a real crisis. Our measure won't fix everything. But it's a start. It shows we're listening. The Liberal measure is only a half measure. It won't really help Canadians' wallets.”

“You lied. I only voted to axe tax for normal folks, not your carbon tax. I couldn't stop that one. Ask real questions or buzz off.”

“I want the government to adopt our motion to cancel all federal taxes on gas and diesel and scrap the clean fuel standard. It's making life harder for people in my riding. They work hard and deserve a break. Life is unaffordable. High gas prices make everything more expensive. People are struggling to get by. Even people with jobs are using food banks. The government keeps adding costs but Canadians don't see the supposed rebates. Cancelling the taxes is a straightforward step to provide relief and show we're listening.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, today we are talking about something in our country that should not even have to be debated: whether Canadians deserve a break. People in this country who wake up early, work hard, pay their taxes, raise their kids, care for loved ones, live on fixed incomes or navigate life with a disability do everything the way they are told, and they deserve a break. This is what our motion is about today. It is about cancelling the federal taxes on gas and diesel and scrapping the clean fuel standard that continues to drive up costs across this economy. Frankly, we all leave this place and talk to our friends, neighbours and constituents, and we hear it in conversations in our offices, in the grocery store lineups and at community events: the reality that life is unaffordable. A couple who both work full-time are wondering how they are going to afford a home. A senior is cutting back on visiting grandkids because the cost of filling the tank is getting to be a bit too much. A single parent is deciding which bill can wait another few days. It is the farmers, truckers, tradespeople and small business owners who are watching their budgets erode month after month while being overtaxed and stretched thinner every day. People are tired. They are doing everything they can, and it still feels like they are falling behind. They are why this motion matters so much. Over the past few years, Canadians have watched as the price of absolutely everything has gone up: groceries, utilities, rent, mortgage payments, insurance, transportation and everyday necessities. While the government will often talk about how it is saving Canadians money, and even the Prime Minister stood up and said that affordability has not been better in a decade, the reality is that Canadians are looking at their bank accounts and wondering how much more they can stretch. When we increase the cost of fuel, it increases the cost of everything. It is passed to the consumer. Every single thing Canadians buy becomes more expensive, and yet the government continues to insist that adding more costs somehow makes life more affordable. It does not even make sense. For many Canadians, gas prices are not just a number on a sign that they drive by. They shape almost every financial decision people make during the month. People feel it when it costs them more to fill the tank. That is money that no longer goes toward groceries, savings, bills or their kids' activities. For families already stretched thin, there is zero room in the budget to absorb these increases. There are people planning errands around fuel usage, driving less to visit family and thinking twice before accepting extra shifts because of the commute. The impact ripples through our entire economy. Everyone pays more. One of the things I hear most often in my riding is that people no longer feel like hard work gets them ahead. This is devastating to hear in a country like Canada. We have young couples delaying having kids because they cannot afford a home. We have parents worried that their kids will never be able to get a start on their own or build a life for themselves. We have people working overtime, second jobs and side jobs and yet still relying on credit cards just to get by. More and more, we are hearing about households with dual incomes that are barely staying afloat because the cost of living has risen faster than the ability to keep up. I recently heard from Sayed in my riding who told me that rent, groceries and utilities have become nearly impossible to manage. They said they are under enormous stress to find safe and affordable housing while everyday expenses keep climbing faster and faster, and their income is not keeping pace. Also, Nathalie shared that they are already behind on rent and struggling to afford basics like food and phone bills at the same time, let alone this gas increase. They told me their bank account balance is at zero. They are beyond negative, and they cannot afford this price increase in gas, and they are terrified of losing their housing altogether. Adis, a father of five who lives in a two-bedroom apartment with his family, wants to move into a three-bedroom apartment, but the rental prices have become incredibly unaffordable, and year after year, the increases keep pushing them further and further behind. These are not one-off stories. We are hearing more and more of the same stories across our country from everyday Canadians. Even food insecurity is a national crisis. It is at record highs. There are families with children using food banks, and seniors using food banks. People who never imagined they would need help are now standing in line because they simply cannot keep up. Let us think about that. In one of the wealthiest countries in the world, people with jobs are struggling to feed themselves. To be a bit nostalgic for a second, only 11 years ago we had the wealthiest middle class in the G7. Look at what has happened with the Liberal government. Those same people are now in food bank lineups. When fuel prices rise, grocery prices rise. Farmers need fuel to operate their equipment. Truckers need fuel to transport goods. Stores need fuel to supply their chains. These costs do not disappear. They get passed on to the consumer. People drive their kids from Kitchener to Cambridge for sports and activities, and that is putting a strain on families. People drive because they have to. Farmers drive because they have to. Parents drive their kids to school, sports and appointments because they have to. They are not the problem. When the government increases tax on fuel, Canadians see it at the checkout counter when they buy milk, bread, produce or even diapers. The most frustrating part is that Canadians say they are feeling completely ignored when they try to point out the unaffordability. Disabled people already live below the poverty line, which is a discussion for another day. How can the government keep punishing people financially? There is something so fundamentally unfair about asking Canadians to make it work when so many are already stretched to the breaking point. The government often talks about supposed rebates, but the majority of Canadians do not see them. All Canadians want is breathing room. They do not want handouts. They just want breathing room and to get ahead. They want to feel like they make responsible choices and can build a decent life for themselves and their families. That should not be too much to ask. Canadians do not feel that things are affordable. They feel stressed when they are walking down the grocery aisle or paying their bills. It is not enough for them to have to cut back on groceries or cancel excursions for their kids. They are still not making ends meet. This is not a choice they should even have to make. Canadians do not need more talking points. They need relief. This motion offers a very straightforward step toward that relief. The motion would cancel all federal taxes on gas and diesel, scrap the clean fuel standard and stop making everyday life more expensive. We should never become so disconnected from reality that we forget who we are here to serve. We are here to serve the people who sent us here: the people balancing budgets at the kitchen table, trying to keep their small business alive and skipping meals so their kids can eat first. We have the opportunity to show Canadians that someone is listening to them. Will the government support our motion and show Canadians that it is listening?

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Statements by Members

Kitchener Rangers

2026-05-26

“I'm cheering for a famous local sports team that makes my community feel good.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I want to take a moment to say just how proud I am of the Kitchener Rangers. What we have seen this season is pure talent and character. Winning the OHL championship does not happen by accident. It takes discipline, resilience and a relentless commitment to one another day in and day out. It is about showing up when it matters, pushing through, having a commitment and believing in each other as a team. To see the Rangers competing for the Memorial Cup, the most prestigious prize in junior hockey, is something truly special. The Rangers are representing the entire Kitchener-Waterloo community with heart, determination and skill. The players, coaches and staff have made our city proud. No matter what happens next, they have shown what it takes to compete at the highest level. Let us be real, the boys have this. Go, Rangers.

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Private Members' Business

Offender Rehabilitation Act

2026-05-01

“That's bad. I don't like that. I think it's very bad. I want to talk about myself and my problems instead.”

“Addiction breaks relationships. People feel guilt over their choices. I want people struggling with addiction to know they are still loved. I want them to take that first step and get well.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for the opportunity to speak a little further on focusing on taking that first step. One thing that addiction does is it breaks one's relationships. The continued cycle of bad decisions that someone makes is carried with them and it actually stops them from wanting to heal. It is not only that they have their own personal trauma but they have the guilt and they have everything else surrounded in the choices they made while they were in active addiction. I want people to know that they are loved. Everyone still cares about the person. Everyone still loves the person. All they want the person to do is to get well. All the person has to do is get well. All the person has to do is take that first step.

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“I want taxpayers to pay for my plan. If a judge orders it, the government has to spend the money.”

“Thank you for sharing your family's addiction story too. I hope talking about addiction helps end stigma. Please vote for my private member's bill. It spends money on addiction treatment in jails.”

“I want to change how we deal with addiction. We need to focus on recovery and rehabilitation, not just enabling. I'm a recovered addict myself. I used to be homeless. Now I'm a Member of Parliament. Recovery works. We need more of it.”

Official Hansard

moved that Bill C-240, an act to amend the Criminal Code, to make related amendments to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee. She said: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour today to rise for the first hour of debate on the second reading of my private member's bill, Bill C-240. Canada is facing a crisis, one that is often described as silent. It is silent in our national conversations, perhaps, but deafening in our homes, in our communities and in our daily lives. It is a crisis heard in worried phone calls, in empty chairs at the family table and in the quiet grief carried by parents, friends and loved ones. This is not an abstract policy debate. It is this drug crisis, and it is affecting Canadians everywhere. There are 343 seats in the House, and every single one of them has been impacted in some way. No region, no riding and no community has been spared. For some, it is a 15-year-old girl's grandmother asking for help to save her from this crisis, or a conversation with a police officer when one can literally see the mental anguish on his face because of the human-trafficking aspect of this crisis and the toll it is taking because it feels endless. For others, it is a friend, a neighbour, a colleague or a family member who is struggling right now. This crisis has a face in every corner of our country. We have lost more than 50,000 Canadians to this drug crisis in the past 10 years. This is more lives than we lost in the Second World War. If this level of loss were caused by any other threat, the House would be united in urgency, relentless in its response and clear in its resolve, yet despite the scale of this tragedy, the drug crisis too often remains hidden, spoken about quietly, not fully addressed or avoided altogether. Too often stigma replaces understanding, discomfort replaces honesty, and political talking points replace action. We hesitate to talk openly about addiction because it is complex, because it is painful and because it forces us to confront the difficult truths about mental health, trauma, housing, crime and care, but silence has never saved a life. Avoidance has never led to recovery. If we are serious about protecting Canadians, then we must be serious about acknowledging the reality that is in front of us. We must start talking about this crisis openly and honestly. We must move from debate to action, and we must work together across federal, provincial and municipal governments and alongside our communities on the ground, because recovery is possible. People can and do recover. People can come home happy, healthy, healed and drug-free. Recovery must be at the centre of any serious response to this drug crisis. If we truly want to help people who are suffering from addiction, we have to focus on getting them well, not enabling and not just cycling them through systems that never really address the root cause. Addiction is not a moral failure, and recovery is possible when people are given the right supports. In my community, I see what works. I see organizations that are changing lives every single day by focusing on rehabilitation and recovery. Groups like Frontline Recovery, HART Hub at the House of Friendship, Celebrate Recovery, Porchlight, Key Metrix and Crow Shield Lodge, along with many others, are doing the hard, often unseen work of helping people rebuild their lives. These frontline organizations understand addiction not as a headline but as a human reality. They prove that recovery works when properly supported. Our stories are different, but at the core of addiction there is trauma. It drives substance use and keeps people trapped in cycles they cannot escape on their own. If we do not heal the trauma, we do not break the cycle. If we do not break the cycle, we are not offering real recovery but only enabling addiction. That belief is what led me to bring forward Bill C-240. It is a bill about breaking cycles and putting recovery at the centre of our justice system's response to addiction-driven crime. Bill C-240 would introduce rehabilitation directly into incarceration. It would allow a judge to prescribe rehabilitation, mental health supports, education and training. It would give the individual the opportunity to participate in that treatment, and it would allow a parole board to consider whether that treatment plan has been completed. What makes this different from what exists today is accountability. Right now, programs may exist, but there is no real accountability to ensure that they are delivered as intended or that the individual receives the full support required to complete them. When rehabilitation is judge-prescribed, accountability exists on both sides: on the correctional facility to provide meaningful programming and on the individual to engage in treatment. That accountability is what turns intention into outcome. Bill C-240 also sends a very clear and necessary message to those who profit from addiction. It treats the trafficking of fentanyl as an aggravating factor, allowing for harsher penalties for dealers who knowingly make money off human suffering. Recovery must be paired with the consequences for those who exploit vulnerability for profit. The goal of this bill is simple and focused: to heal and break cycles for those afflicted by addiction and to punish those who knowingly fuel it. If we want safer communities, fewer victims and fewer lives lost, recovery must be the path forward and accountability must be a part of that path. This last part may be difficult for me to get through, but it matters that I say it. There are many faces, backgrounds, stories, people, different walks of life and reasons for addiction. I know this because I am one of those faces. I am one of those walks of life. I am a recovered addict. I fell into addiction in high school. It starts as fun, an escape from reality and good times with friends. Then it turns into something very different. It becomes one's life. It steals from people, who then burn bridges and make choices that trap them in a life of continued trauma. No one talks about the dark side of addiction: those choices, the self-harm, the trap houses, the abusers of vulnerability and the realities of the life of addiction. I was young. I was vulnerable. I had my own trauma. Then one day, while I was in one of those trap houses, I was looking around and thought to myself, “What am I doing? What is this life? What is my future? What is next, death?" That is when I decided to change. When I was in addiction, my mom showed me tough love. While I was in active addiction, I was not allowed at home. However, she always checked in on me. She always knew where I was, and she would make me go for coffee or Sunday dinner at nana and grandpa's house. Every time she checked in on me, she would always plant a seed, asking, “When are you going to school?” The very first thing I did when I got through detox was march up to my mom's office. She worked for the Waterloo region her entire career, and at the time she was at 99 Regina Street South. I went into her office and said, “Mom, I need a Conestoga College book.” I applied for early childhood education, radio broadcasting and television, and mechanical engineering, specializing in robotics and automation. I literally had no idea what I wanted to do next. I just knew I wanted to do something different. The only thing I was accepted into right away was the engineering program, so that became my path. I have been told, often by people who do not know me, that I need to be trauma-informed or that I need to listen more closely to the research, the data or the intellectuals who study this issue. While research matters, I want to say this very clearly: We will never solve this crisis if we do not listen to the people with lived experience, especially those who have healed. Recovery is not theoretical. It is lived, one day at a time. I wear the scars, but I also wear the success of defeating the demon of addiction. I always wanted to go into politics, but I delayed running because of my past. The weight held me back. I asked myself, “What if I win? What if my past comes out? What if I am judged or shamed or dismissed because of who I once was rather than who I am today?” That fear is not unique to me. It is the stigma many recovered people carry with them, even after they have built their lives. I decided I would no longer carry that stigma in silence. I am ending it by telling my story. Under our party's leader, I knew I would be supported, not only because of who our leader is as a person but because of the message that he continually shares. During the last election, he spoke about recovered addicts as having a kind of strength others may never fully understand, because recovery means climbing a mountain that most people will never see. He spoke about the need for rehabilitation beds across this country and for real pathways to recovery. That message mattered to me. It told me I would not only be accepted as a member of Parliament, but also be supported. We need more leaders like this. That support has given me the strength and the courage to stand here in the House of Commons and share my own personal story. However, there is one thing I would like to add to that message. Yes, recovered people climb a mountain, but at the very beginning of recovery, all a person can see is that mountain in front of them. It feels impossible. It feels endless. It feels lonely, but if they take one day at a time, one step at a time, they will reach the top, and that is where their life truly begins. There is a big, beautiful, happy, healed life on the other side of addiction. If members have ever seen the view from the top of a mountain, they know that the world opens up, possibilities expand and our future becomes something we can finally imagine. I was an addict sleeping in Victoria Park in Kitchener, Ontario. I slept in the streets and at the women's shelter on Frederick Street, Mary's Place, and now I am a member of Parliament representing that very same area. The very same area and community I was homeless in, I now represent as a member of Parliament. If someone hears this who is struggling or feels trapped at the base of that mountain, I want them to know this: They should take that step, start the healing journey and give themself the life they deserve.

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Oral Questions

Finance

2026-05-01

“I want the Prime Minister to apologize for breaking his promise to spend less. He spent double. Families need real results, not big deficits.”

Statements by Members

Fuel Tax

2026-05-01

“I want to lower fuel prices and save people money. I support a plan to cut fuel taxes for the rest of the year. I think that will lower the cost of everything else too. The other side's plan doesn't do enough.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are being forced to choose between a full tank of gas and a full grocery cart. After 10 years of rising costs, the government's plan only offered limited, short-term relief that has not actually lowered prices at the pump. Conservatives have a plan for a full tank, which is to scrap all federal gas and diesel taxes for the rest of 2026, saving Canadians up to 25¢ per litre and over $1,200 for a family, because when we lower the cost of fuel, we lower the cost of everything. That matters because every truck driver delivering the goods, every small business needing those goods and every commuter that goes to work will feel this cost-savings in their wallets. Canadians do not need another announcement. They need relief. It is time to deliver relief for Canadians that they can actually feel.

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Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-04-30

“The government is misleading people. The Norwegian wealth fund built up savings for citizens over many years. The Canadian debt fund just goes deeper into debt. I want the government to admit they are being misleading.”

Statements by Members

Kitchener Centre

2026-04-28

“It's my one-year anniversary since being elected. I want to thank everyone who helped me get here.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, one year ago today, I got that little blue check mark on election night that told me I was coming to the House of Commons to represent Kitchener Centre. I thank all the volunteers who dedicated their time. I thank all the voters who placed their trust in me. I thank my husband, Chris, my rock, who went with the flow when I blew up our lives. There is also my mother Merren, and I know Abigail's life would be very different without my mother's guidance and support at this time. I love my mom, and I thank her. To my caucus colleagues who have been around a while, I thank them for their guidance, their support, their conversation and every answered question. I value them all so much, and I thank them. To all my colleagues in the House, I wish a happy one-year anniversary to the class of 2025.

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Government Orders

Government Business No. 9—Changes to the Standing Orders

2026-04-27

“It's true. The government tried to get me to switch parties. I said no.”

“Liberals are preventing us from doing our job. They're going to hide their actions from Canadians. Watch for it.”

“I want people to think the government is up to something. Other party is bad. We must stop them.”

“Justin Trudeau broke his promise. He said he'd work with other parties, but now he's stacking committees to silence anyone who questions him. It's a power grab, plain and simple. He won't even give us one more committee seat - no, he needs two seats to really ram through what he wants without scrutiny. This government is all about control and covering its tracks.”