Taleeb Noormohamed · TranslatePolitics.ca

Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-06-08

“That's a lot of dramatic words. A respected council looked at the same data and refused to call it a recession. Things are tough, but the Leader of the Opposition is reaching for the most frightening words to scare Canadians and justify reversing policies that help families. I want Canadians to know the government is working with premiers of every political stripe to build things and create jobs, like the new global mining headquarters in Vancouver. We're providing dental care, child care, and a national school food program to support people through tough times.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, we all know we are living through one of the most dangerous and divided moments the world has seen in generations. We all know the pressure that is coming toward Canadians is not coming from just one direction, but all directions at once. We know our closest ally and trading partner has imposed tariffs at levels we have not seen in living memory. Wars are being fought in Europe and the Middle East. Supply chains that took decades to build are being fractured in real time. All of this is unfolding against a technological transformation that is defining what work and our economy will look like a decade from now and, indeed, in less than a decade from now. This is not a normal moment, and most Canadians know it. They feel it at the grocery till and at mortgage renewal. A young person feels it doing the math on a first home. We all understand that. We all understand the concerns and the risks, and we all understand that it is our job to figure out how to make it better. No honest account of how we got here points to a single villain or a single year. This has taken decades, across governments of every stripe in a country where it has become simply too hard to build, too hard to get major projects off the ground, too hard to keep our best talent, research and companies from leaving to go elsewhere and too hard to turn ideas into industry. These are not partisan accusations. They are an inheritance for every single one of us in the chamber from decades and decades of action. The question before the House is not whether the moment is hard. We all know it is. The question is what a serious government does about it. What this government has chosen to do is focus relentlessly on what is within our control. We have established a Major Projects Office to make sure that we can get nation-building projects built and that they do not die in a queue. We passed the One Canadian Economy Act to make sure that we tear down the internal trade walls that made it absurdly easier to trade with another country than with the next province over. Our productivity superdeduction gives businesses a reason to invest here and now. Build Canada Homes is already building thousands of homes. Through team Canada strong, we are putting $6 billion behind 100,000 new skilled trade workers, because we cannot build what we approve without the hands to build it. Here is the part that the members opposite will never mention, because it is not convenient: We are doing this with people, not against them. Premiers of every political stripe, Liberal, Conservative and New Democrat, and even Danielle Smith have found that this government is a partner with whom they can actually work. That is what governing in a time of crisis actually looks like. We put down the partisan cudgel, we pick up the tools and we work together. This brings me to the motion from the Leader of the Opposition that is before us today, because it was definitely not written in that spirit. It is not an offer to build. It is not an offer to think about how we might work together. It is not even an honest account of where we are. It is, yet again, performative theatre. I want to take a moment to focus on a single word that is at the centre of it. The motion does not say “a difficult quarter”. It does not say “a slowdown”. It reaches, in the very first line, for the biggest word available: “recession”. There is a body that all of us have recognized, whose entire job is to decide whether that word applies. It is the C.D. Howe Institute's business cycle council. Trusted by Conservatives and Liberals alike, it is the organization that has effectively been trusted as the organization that determines whether we are, in fact, in a recession, and it has not said that. It is not a Liberal organization. It is not a Liberal press release or a Conservative press release that gets to decide this. It is the council that called the 2008 financial crisis and the council that called the COVID downturn. When the real thing arrives, that council is the one that names it, not politicians. Three days ago, the council looked at exactly the same data the Leader of the Opposition is brandishing, and it refused to use his word. It found the decline so slight, at a fraction of a single per cent, that it does not even come close to any recession it has ever declared, and it warned in very clear terms that it is precisely this kind of label placed upon it by politicians and stapled onto numbers like these that causes further problems, because it is designed to sound official and frightening. The country's own referees, the people who called the 2008 recession and the COVID downturn, looked at this and would not go there. The Leader of the Opposition decided that it is his job to go and write a bigger word than theirs into a motion. Let us ask the question that the motion was built to stop anyone from asking: Why? Why would the Leader of the Opposition reach past the experts, as is custom for him, for the most frightening word he could find? Why does he need a slowdown to be a catastrophe? Why is it valuable for him to cast fear into the hearts of Canadians, who are already facing challenging times, which we all acknowledge? It is because, for him, the catastrophe becomes a permission slip. A slowdown asks the government to steady the ship and keep building, but a catastrophe is the only thing that could ever justify what this motion actually demands, which is to reverse the policies. We should say what is clearly hiding inside that intention. Reversing the policies means taking away the dental care that seniors are using right now. Taking away child care means telling the parents at Butterfly Kisses, a child care centre in his own riding that has brought fees down for working families, that those working families will no longer be able to access the subsidies that make it possible for children in his riding to access affordable child care. Reversing the policies means taking away the national school food program that feeds children before they sit down to learn. Whether they are in Carleton or Battle River—Crowfoot, Canadians are asking for the same things. They are asking for dental care, child care and certainty and stability in the government. They are looking for leadership that not only tells them that things will be all right, but shows them a path and takes the action to do so by building consensus. The Leader of the Opposition wants rubble he can stand in. That is what reversing the policies means once we start performing the word “recession” in pantomime or theatre in this place and start reading the fine print. They cannot rip the floor out from underneath people over a fraction of 1%. They can only do it if they first convince the country, as they are seeking to do, that the house is on fire. The Leader of the Opposition needs catastrophe. He needs the fire, but not because the data supports it. He does not. He needs it because without it, there is no excuse for what he is selling Canadians. Without it, there is little reason for toxic leadership from his side. That is the real divide in this chamber, and it could not be starker. One side is working to convince Canadians, alongside premiers, Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats that it is time to work together and build things, and another side is saying the building we are trying to build together is condemned so that no one objects when they start tearing down the walls. On this side, we are going to keep building. That building is showing up in results where people live and in what they will experience. In B.C., which is my home province, the merger that created Anglo Teck has planted a new global mining champion headquarters in Vancouver, with thousands of Canadian jobs and billions of dollars in investment secured here at home. That is talent and capital choosing Canada at the very moment when the members opposite insist that Canada is collapsing. The OECD, which is by no means a Liberal agency, projects that this country will grow the second-fastest in the G7 this year and next—

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Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-06-02

“We can do two things at once. We are working to fix US tariffs. But we also want trade with other countries. More trade is good. We signed trade agreements to help Canada sell products to other countries.”

“Countries trust Canada because our government is reliable. Our workers are the best. Our researchers have good ideas. We're a safe bet for investment.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, if we look at the number of trade agreements we now have with countries around the world, we can see that countries are seeking to invest in Canada. Whether they are countries in the Middle East or Europe, or our partners in the EU, more and more countries are looking at Canada with confidence as the place to invest. Why? It is because there is a government they can trust and rely on. There are Canadian workers who have talent and are the best in the world. We have research and researchers in this country coming up with the ideas of the future today. They see the convergence of those three things as a recipe for success and a place where they can place a bet, and they know our word means something.

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“I have nothing new to say. You're impatient. Don't expect instant results. Building things takes time. I'll just attack you instead.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure exactly what the question was. It sounded yet again like a litany of complaints and no new ideas, which is exactly what the opposition is devoid of. Perhaps I could tell them something they might be hopeful about. In my province of British Columbia, there are now four projects at the Major Projects Office. I understand that the Government of Alberta is looking forward to putting forward a proposition to be able to get energy resources to tidewater. It seems that the provinces, the country and the private sector are working together to ensure that we are building things. I understand the impatience on the other side. After all, the bill was passed less than a year ago. However, they somehow expect mines to spring out of the ground, mills to be built overnight and pipelines to randomly show up. People who have actually built things know that is not how things get done in this country, and it is not how we build real, resilient infrastructure.

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“I don't want to talk about numbers. Numbers are bad. I want to talk about people and their feelings. There are sad people. I won't say they're wrong to feel bad. That would look uncaring. But I will blame the Conservatives. They're bad. They don't have real plans. Only we have real plans. Here are some programs and spending I like. These are good things. I want to be associated with good things. Companies are investing in Canada. That's proof everything is working great. Don't listen to Conservatives. They're mean. They'll take away your programs. We won't. We're giving you things. If you're impatient for results, that just means we should spend more faster. Don't look at bad numbers or question if our approach is really working. Look at our good intentions and all the things we're associated with. The other guys are just fearmongers. Ignore them.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Madawaska—Restigouche. I would like to begin where this motion does not. I will not begin with the numbers, but with the people this motion is supposed to be about. Somewhere, today, there is a parent at a kitchen table, running the math on a mortgage renewal for a second time because the first answer could not possibly be right. There is a young person in the same house who did everything they were asked to and is now looking at the cost of a home and wondering whether this country still has room for them. I am not going to tell either of them that these things are better than they feel. They are actually not, and we all know that. That worry is real, and it deserves a serious response, which is exactly what this motion is not, so this is where I part ways with the member who put this motion forward. The Conservative Party offers that family a story that all of this is the fault of one or two people, conjured in a single year, and that the cure, which the member just spoke about, is to simply tear things down. It is a tidy story. It asks nothing hard of the party that is telling it. It is a bid for power and a social media clip dressed up as an answer, but it is wrong. It is wrong about how we got here, and it is emptiest precisely where it ought to be the fullest, which is on what they would actually do instead. The members opposite are just about everything they are not and have no ideas about what we should be doing. Let us give that family an honest answer. The pressure did not arrive all at once. It built slowly over decades, through what successive governments of all stripes and at all levels chose to do and, far more often, chose to put off. There were too few homes built year after year, infrastructure was deferred and deferred again and productivity was left adrift while other countries pulled ahead. The one I know best is that, for decades, we let it become too hard to build big things in this country. Governments left the walls standing between our provinces so that it stayed easier to trade with another country than to trade with one another. None of it was inevitable. It was the accumulated cost of choosing not to act. The bill for everything that was waiting came up at the very moment the global economy was being torn up and rewritten. There are tariffs at levels not seen in generations and supply chains are fracturing under conflict in Europe and the Middle East. The Prime Minister has called this what it is: a rupture, not a transition. I did not come to this chamber as a political staffer. I did not grow up in politics. I came from building companies and creating actual jobs. I know what it takes to start something, to make payroll and to scale a business past the point that it is fragile. I know the patterns the members opposite never name. In this country, we generate world‑class research. We build competitive firms and then, sometimes, we watch the industrial scale, the intellectual property, the jobs and the talent migrate somewhere else. This pattern is not a law of nature, but a result of choices. This is a government that has finally made the other choice. It has chosen to back our champions, keep our IP here, keep jobs here, build talent here and let Canadian companies scale without having to leave Canada to do it ever again. We have made it easier to build big things again with the Major Projects Office so that nation-building projects stop dying in the queue. Ground has already broken on projects, like the port expansion in Montreal, which will move Canadian goods to the world for decades, and there are four major projects in my own province of British Columbia. The One Canadian Economy Act tears down the internal trade walls I just described. We have a productivity superdeduction so that businesses can write off investment right away and have a reason to make it here. We have a plan to unlock $1 trillion in investment over the next five years. We have $6 billion and 100,000 new skilled trades workers through team Canada strong so that we have the hands to build what we approve. We have Build Canada Homes, which is not another task force, but an actual builder with more than 7,500 homes already under way in this country. Here is how I know it is working. It is showing up in my own province. Anglo Teck is choosing Canada as its headquarters, bringing blue- and white-collar jobs to British Columbia. Torys is opening up a new office in Vancouver. Lululemon is keeping its headquarters in British Columbia. These are companies that could plant their flag anywhere on earth, and they are choosing here because they see what British Columbia and Canada have to offer. They are betting on our prosperity. They would not place that bet on a country in decline. The Conservatives are gleeful about the fact that there are challenges in this country. They propose no solutions and they continue to tear down, but what the rest of the world is seeing, through foreign direct investment, companies moving their headquarters here, talent coming to this country and researchers coming to this country, is that this is the place to build a future. That is because we have a Prime Minister and a government that are focused on that, know what it takes to build big things and are prepared to do the heavy lifting to get it done. The wider proof is real. Wages have outpaced inflation every single month this government has been in office. Foreign investment, as I said, is flowing to us faster now than it is to any of our closest peers. It is at an 18‑year high. Canada has now surpassed the United States as the most attractive market in the world for infrastructure investment. Our economy is now projected to grow the second fastest in the G7 this year and next. To me, this is not the portrait of a country in retreat, but a country that has decided to build again. The member opposite asked the government to “immediately...reverse all the economic policies” that got us here. I would ask him to be honest about what that actually means. Does it mean reversing the Major Projects Office? Does it mean eliminating the superdeduction that rewards firms for investing in this country? Does it mean eliminating the work to tear down the walls between our provinces or the $6 billion for 100,000 new tradespeople? While he is at it, let him tell that family at the kitchen table which of their savings he means to take back. Is it the national school food program, which his own party has called “garbage”? Is it the child care that his party leader calls a “slush fund”, which has benefited people in his own riding? Is it the dental care that seniors in his communities are currently benefiting from? Are those the programs he would choose to roll back? To the Conservatives, the help that gets a family through the month is a line item that they sneer at. It is something to be looked down upon. To us, it is precisely the point. It is lifting families up so that they can build success. We cannot rip out the scaffolding and claw back what families are counting on and call that a plan to build. I understand the impatience. After this many years and decades of building too little, Canadians have every right to be impatient, but impatience is not a reason to stop building and tear out the scaffolding. It is a reason to build faster. A family having a tough time does not need a politician to name their fear back to them, only louder. They have lived that fear. They do not need it performed as political theatre. The young person wondering if there is room for their future in this country does not need another performance of outrage from the members opposite, which has, sadly, become the only thing they seem to know how to do. Young people need us to build something worthy of their trust, and that is what our government has chosen to do. In times of crisis and in times of difficulty, Canadians expect us to come together and build big things. They expect us to put aside pettiness and all of the things we cannot do to focus on the things we can and should do. They expect us to show up with solutions. All of us who have kids know that when we have difficult conversations with them, a temper tantrum is not the way to a solution. Resolution comes through doing things together and showing by example. The Conservatives would have us believe that by ripping up the paper, tossing our toys and walking away, we are somehow going to build a stronger economy. That is not how economies are built. They are built by people who are prepared to invest in this country, which we are seeing now in record numbers. We are seeing that through workers who are prepared to be retrained today for the jobs of the future. That is what we are seeing. It comes with governments that are prepared to match the ambition Canadians have with what they need, which are the resources and the support to be able to get to those places. Danielle Smith talked about how working with this Prime Minister is a joy. David Eby talked about how working with this government is a joy. I am really curious to know how provincial governments, from Wab Kinew's and David Eby's to Doug Ford's and Danielle Smith's, look at this government and say this is a government they can work with, yet the Conservatives sit there and wonder why their poll numbers keep going down and Canadians refuse to return them to office. It is because premiers of all parties have recognized that this is a government that is prepared to work hard for Canadians, build things for Canadians and invest in the type of economy that Canadians want to see built in this country for a future their kids can look at and be proud of. Yes, we all know that times are tough. When times are tough, we work together. We are providing solutions to people to give them the supports they need to get through this period. We are showing them a path to a brighter future with the dollars, supports, commitments and, most importantly, the compassion and hope to be able to deliver on big things. We are doing that. We are backing it up by having the provinces and the private sector working with us. I encourage the Conservatives to stop the slogans and get to work for Canadians with us.

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Private Members' Business

An Act to repeal certain restrictions on shipping

2026-05-26

“I talk a lot about history to avoid the topic. I don't want this bill to pass. I think it will make it harder to build pipelines. My party expanded oil pipelines while protecting the environment, but I won't say that right now. I want to use big words and talk down to my opponents. I want everyone to vote against this bill. I want to cheer for our environmental programs. I want my party to look good. That's all I care about.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon to speak to Bill C-264, and I will say at the outset what the central problem with this bill is. It is a one-line proposition dressed up as serious policy. It is a slogan in legislative form. It asks this Parliament to do something that the legislative record, the scientific record, the consultation record and the conservation record of this country have all decided against repeatedly over 50 years under prime ministers of every party. Perhaps we should take a walk down memory lane and look at history. In 1972, the House passed a resolution declaring that “the movement of oil by tanker along the coast of British Columbia...is inimical to Canadian interests”. It said “inimical”. That was the language of this Parliament in 1972. In 1985, a Conservative prime minister named Brian Mulroney established a voluntary tanker exclusion zone along the north coast of British Columbia. It was a Tory prime minister, a Tory cabinet and a Tory decision, and a good one at that. In 1988, that exclusion zone was formalized through coordination between the Canadian Coast Guard, the United States Coast Guard and the Reagan administration. A Conservative government and a Republican government worked together to protect the environment, imagine that. Now a Conservative opposition in Ottawa is working to undo exactly that. Let us think back to 1989. The Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound. Thousands of kilometres of coastline were contaminated. A herring fishery collapsed and is still not yet fully recovered. Marine ecosystems were damaged in ways that are still being studied today. That disaster reinforced what Canadian governments had already concluded: The risk on that coast is unique, and the consequences of failure are too great. Members from British Columbia, particularly, are concerned about this. While I appreciate the concern for the environment from our members from Alberta, this is a particular problem that affects British Columbia, but it should affect the sensibility of all Canadians. For 34 years, this voluntary moratorium held, through four Conservative prime ministers and four Liberal prime ministers. None of them moved to repeal it, and none of them tried. In 2017, our government introduced Bill C-48, the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, to give that 34-year consensus the force of statute. It passed the House with support from members of four of five parties represented. That is the history, and that is what this slogan, or this bill, proposes to overturn. The members opposite are not making a science-based case for repeal. They are not bringing forward new evidence about the risk on the north coast. They are not presenting a new technology or a new spill response capacity that changes that calculus. They are not pointing to a change in the vulnerability of that coast. They are bringing forward a one-line bill, with no consultation, no indigenous engagement and no environmental review, that asks Parliament to undo half a century of careful policy because it might look good in a social media clip. I want to make a point that I think the members opposite have not fully thought through, and I say this in the spirit of genuine concern for the credibility of debate in this institution. If the members opposite truly believe that a pipeline to the north coast of British Columbia is the future of Canadian energy, passage of this bill would be the worst possible way to pursue that future. The moment that this bill comes to a vote, it would galvanize every coastal first nation, every B.C. municipality, every environmental organization, every one of us who is concerned about the environment and every legal team in the country who has spent decades preparing for exactly this fight. It would guarantee injunctions. It would guarantee litigation. It would guarantee gridlock. If I were being cynical about it, I might encourage members opposite to proceed and encourage us to vote for it, to tie that up in the courts. Passing this bill would be the single most effective way to ensure that no pipeline ever gets built to the north coast of British Columbia, because the legal and political response that this bill on its own would trigger would be exactly that. That is not how to build big things in this country. That is how to make sure they never get built, and the proof of that is the years of Conservative government when not a single pipeline was built and no progress was made in protecting the environment, all at once. It was quite remarkable. Let us talk about the substantive case for why this moratorium should stand. First is the nature of the coast itself. The waters from the northern tip of Vancouver Island to the Alaska border are some of the most biologically productive seas on the planet, habitat for over 25 species of marine animals and spawning grounds for salmon runs that sustain ecosystems. This is not any ordinary coastline. The second is the nature of that risk. Crude oil tankers are vessels carrying volumes of persistent oil that, in the event of a failure, cannot be cleaned up. A herring fishery collapsed after the Exxon Valdez, and as I said earlier, it has still not recovered. The Nathan E. Stewart tug ran aground near Bella Bella in 2016. There was a diesel spill, and the Heiltsuk Nation is still measuring the consequences of that a decade later. The third is the obligation to coastal first nations, something that seems like an inconvenience to members opposite. The Coastal First Nations alliance has made its position clear, repeatedly, for decades. They are rights holders whose constitutional position is at the centre of it. Those nations have spoken loud and clear, and I would encourage members opposite to speak to them directly to hear their voices. The fourth pillar is, of course, the alternatives. There is already a pipeline to tidewater in this country, TMX. Expanded and operational, it is moving Canadian energy to global markets through the port of Vancouver, where the safety architecture, the spill response capacity, the marine traffic management and the indigenous consultation frameworks are all built around that infrastructure. Canadian energy has access to the Pacific. It has access to the markets that it needs to be going to, and we are working hard to ensure that, in the cleanest, greenest way possible, we continue to make that possible under the right conditions. It does not need access at the cost of a coastline that this Parliament, 50 years ago, declared inimical to Canadian interests to put at risk. Unless every single box is checked and all of the criteria are met to the satisfaction of all parties involved, there is no reason for a new pipeline to go through the north coast. If the science has changed, if science tells us something different and if indigenous consultations tell us something different, then we should all be having that conversation, but a one-line bill that proposes to change history just because it would look good is not how serious governments should make decisions. This is a government that believes in evidence. It is a government that believes in science. This is a government that believes in building a strong economy and protecting a healthy future for our environment. We believe these are not opposites. Quite the opposite, in fact, we believe they are part of the same future. We have demonstrated that. We have ensured Trans Mountain's viability. We signed a Canada-Alberta memorandum of understanding, which put a $130-per-tonne price floor under industrial carbon pricing in Alberta. We have secured an agreement in principle for a 75% reduction in methane emissions from Alberta's oil and gas sector by 2035. We have launched a joint electricity working group with Alberta to build a net-zero grid by 2050, including transmission interties that will finally allow British Columbia to export clean hydroelectric power eastward. Let us also look at the facts. From 2014 to 2025, bitumen production in this country grew by 63%. Alberta's royalties from 2021 to 2025 totalled $58 billion, nearly four times what they were in the previous seven years combined. At the same time as this happened, under a Liberal government, we were also able to preserve and protect 6,700 square kilometres on the north coast of British Columbia, larger than the size of P.E.I., in a nature reserve. That is how intelligent, managed, evidence-based energy policy works. It looks like signing an MOU. It looks like pricing carbon, cutting methane, respecting indigenous rights and our natural environment, and protecting our coast. It looks like building big things and protecting what no amount of private sector intervention can replace. What it does not look like is a one-line bill repealing 50 years of conservation policy because it polls well in a fundraising email for Conservatives. We owe Canadians better than that. We owe the next generation better than that. My son is in the lobby watching this speech today. I owe him better than that. We all do. We owe the coastal communities of British Columbia better than that. The case for repeal has not been made. I will be voting against Bill C-264. I urge every member of the House who has a conscience, who cares about the coastline of British Columbia and who cares about our environmental future and about building a prosperous economy to do the same.

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Oral Questions

Indigenous Affairs

2026-05-25

“You're wrong. The government is fighting for you in court. Your home is safe. Conservatives exaggerate and that hurts everyone.”

STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Housing Development in Vancouver Granville

2026-05-25

“I want taxpayers to spend more money. More money for my housing program. I don't like that people were removed. I was at a ceremony. That makes me happy.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, earlier this month, I attended the blessing ceremony of Sen̓áḵw, a housing development in my riding of Vancouver Granville. When complete, Sen̓áḵw will bring more than 6,000 rental homes to Vancouver open to everyone, including much-needed affordable and below-market housing units for families, workers and newcomers alike. However, Sen̓áḵw is more than a housing project. It is a homecoming. More than a century after Squamish families were forcibly removed from their ancestral village, the Squamish nation gathered once again on their land. They gathered with elders. They gathered in language, in song, in ceremony and in strength. I was honoured to be a witness to that ceremony, that blessing, as the first tower prepares to welcome families into 333 new homes. It is high-quality housing. It is affordable housing on prime land in Vancouver. Above all else, it is reconciliation in action. Sen̓áḵw reminds us that when we work with first nations, when first nations lead and we partner, we do more than build homes. We build trust, we restore belonging and we build the future.

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Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-05-07

“I don't like the Conservatives. They say mean things about indigenous people. We should work together, but the Conservatives won't.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, it is sad that we have to rise in the House to even address this issue. I suppose when we are dealing with an opposition party whose leader once said that indigenous people needed a better work ethic, not support, this is what we get. There are members across the way who have made comments that have disparaged indigenous people, directly and indirectly. Their arguments about this case, which are being litigated with absolutely no basis in judgment, are causing people to look at indigenous people as the cause of a problem, to blame them and cast dispersions upon them, when in fact what we need to be doing is working through this toward reconciliation in a way that creates prosperity but also ensures private property is protected. If the Conservatives focused their attention on that, perhaps we would have committees in which we felt like we could work together, which is what the Conservatives simply have no interest in doing.

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“I'm glad you said 'viable argument'. See, we only make arguments that can win in court. We're defending property rights the way the Constitution says: in court, with strong arguments. Maybe look at what we actually agreed instead of falsely claiming it was secret.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased the member opposite chose to hang his entire argument on the word “viable”. The whole premise of our legal system is based on viable argument, on the fact that we make arguments that can stand up in court and that we win or lose decisions on the basis of the quality of our arguments and our understanding of the law. I would invite the member opposite to look at the agreements with Musqueam that he claims were done in secret to understand the Cowichan decision and the basis of the appeals. What he would see is a government that is vigorously defending private property rights and doing the work that is required to run this through the systems designed by our Constitution, which are the courts.

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“Everything the government does is good. Just read the whole directive. I won't list any actual problems.”

“I don't like your jokes. The government should do more to help.”

“I want British Columbians to know I care about their property rights. Reconciliation and property rights can coexist if we trust the legal system. The other party is causing uncertainty and division on this issue for political gain, but I won't let them.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for South Surrey—White Rock. I rise this afternoon to speak about a court decision that has caused real worry in my province and to speak directly to the Canadians, particularly British Columbians, who have been watching this debate and wondering what it means for them and for their homes. Let us begin with the facts, because the facts have been in short supply in the debate by members opposite. The fact is that the government has fundamentally disagreed with, and continues to disagree with, the British Columbia Supreme Court's decision in Cowichan. The fact is that we appealed that decision on September 8 of last year. The fact is that the Prime Minister of Canada has stood in this House and stated clearly to all who would listen that private property rights are fundamental, that this government will protect them and that federal agreements, including agreements about aboriginal title, have always protected and will always protect private property. These are the facts. They are on the record. They are not in dispute, except by those who find facts inconvenient to the story that they would prefer to tell, a story that leads to mistrust, anti-indigenous racism and, perhaps most importantly, instability in British Columbia's economy. I want to speak directly to the homeowner in Richmond who read a headline and felt their stomach drop. I want to speak to the family in my riding of Vancouver Granville who have spent 20 years paying down a mortgage and are now wondering whether the ground beneath their home is as solid as they believed it to be. I want to speak to the small business owner who has been asking their bank for financing and getting questions they have never been asked before. These concerns are legitimate. A home is the largest investment most Canadians will ever make. When a court raises questions about the relationship between aboriginal title and fee simple ownership, people are right to ask for clarity. They deserve a serious answer, not a slogan or a sound bite, so allow me, if you would, Mr. Chair, to give them one. Three principles guide this government's response to the Cowichan decision. First, we believe in the security of private property. Canadians who hold title to their homes and their land must be able to rely on that title. This should not be a partisan position. It is the foundation on which families plan their future, on which businesses make investments and on which our economy functions. Second, we believe in the principles of reconciliation. Reconciliation is not a slogan, and it is not an obstacle to be managed. It is a constitutional and moral obligation that this country has been working through for generations, and we continue that work patiently, lawfully and in good faith. Third, we believe in building shared prosperity for homeowners, for workers, for businesses and for indigenous communities who have for too long been excluded from the economic life of this country. These are not competing goods. They are connected goods. I want to be honest with the House and with the Canadians watching. The legal questions raised in the Cowichan decision are genuinely complex, and the clarity that Canadians deserve is going to come from where it should come from in our system: from the courts on appeal, with all viable arguments tested and all parties heard. That process is under way. It will take time, and none of us should stand in this place and pretend otherwise, because Canadians deserve, as I said before, a serious answer, not a slogan. They deserve facts, not fearmongering. The Conservative motion before the House asks Canadians to choose between the first principle and the second. It asks them to believe that property rights and reconciliation cannot exist in harmony. This is false and has always been false, and the people advancing that false choice know it is false. Let me say something very clearly. The legal questions we are working through in Cowichan are not questions that indigenous peoples created. They are the product of decisions made by the Crown over generations in a province where most of the land was never covered by treaty. The Crown made those decisions, the Crown bears responsibility to resolve them, and no responsible government should allow any ordinary homeowner to be made afraid, or indigenous peoples to be scapegoated, while that work is carried out. Here is what is being missed in the noise: Almost every party to this litigation has gone to the Court of Appeal. The Government of Canada is appealing. The Province of British Columbia is appealing. The City of Richmond is appealing. Musqueam is appealing. Chief Wayne Sparrow has spoken publicly about Musqueam's deep concern with the decision that declared aboriginal title in what they assert is their own traditional territory. Tsawwassen First Nation is appealing alongside Musqueam on similar grounds. The Cowichan themselves are appealing on different grounds. This is not the picture of settled judgment. This is the picture of a decision that has satisfied almost no one, that produced a clarity that almost no one was looking for and that is now being worked through by our courts exactly as our system is designed to handle it. This is also not the story of homeowners on one side and indigenous peoples on the other. It is the story of a serious country with a serious legal system doing serious work. This includes first nations that are using that very system to seek the clarity that each and every one of us needs and deserves. It is the story that members opposite are refusing to tell because it does not serve a political agenda. The cost of that political agenda and of this misinformation is real and is being paid right now in my home province of British Columbia. Just yesterday, the Business Council of British Columbia released a survey of its members. About 74% of respondents are decreasing investment plans in B.C., one in three are reducing hiring, 41% report harder access to external financing, and 80% of those same business leaders say they continue to support reconciliation as an important goal. Why are they reducing those investments? They are reducing those investments because of misinformation and uncertainty that is being spurred on by people who would like to use the Cowichan decision as a political cudgel. In this House, in this Parliament, we must ensure that does not continue, for the security of the economy in British Columbia and for preservation of the principle of true reconciliation. The people who are supporting reconciliation are very clear. This is a business community that is pro-reconciliation and is exhausted by uncertainty. They are not asking us to choose. They are asking us to lead. The damage is not abstract. Homes are not being built. Jobs are not being created. There are workers waiting for projects that have been paused while financing is renegotiated. There are businesses across B.C. that are delaying decisions; holding back on investment; watching the noise around this case created by politicians, not by the courts; and concluding that the cost of moving forward is too uncertain to bear. That is what irresponsibility looks like in practice, and it is being done deliberately for the political gain of the party opposite. The seriousness of this moment is not lost on the political leadership of British Columbia. The Premier of B.C. has spoken at length about the impact of legal uncertainty on his province. Mayors have spoken. The City of Richmond is in court. There is broad cross-partisan recognition in B.C., not from one party and not from one ideology but from across the political spectrum of my province, that resolving this matters and that the work cannot wait. The only people who seem to disagree are the Conservative members opposite, who have decided that uncertainty and a parliamentary committee are more useful to them than actual resolution of the problem. The Conservatives know exactly what they are doing. They know that the Cowichan decision is under appeal. They know that the Government of Canada, the Province of B.C., the City of Richmond, Musqueam and Tsawwassen First Nation have all gone to the Court of Appeal precisely because the legal questions need to be resolved. They know that the Prime Minister has committed, clearly and repeatedly, that this government will defend private property rights. They know the historical record across this country is that modern treaties and negotiated agreements have always protected private property. Not one Canadian has lost their private property as a result of a negotiated agreement. They know this, and they are choosing every day to tell their constituents the opposite because fear is more politically useful than the truth. It is not leadership but a calculation, and the people paying for that calculation are the homeowners they claim to defend. I want to close with a story about what is possible when we get this right. This Friday in my riding of Vancouver Granville, I will be at the blessing ceremony of the opening of Sen̓áḵw. Sen̓áḵw sits in Squamish territory at the foot of the Burrard bridge, where it has always been, in the land, in the stories and in the people. What is new is what is being built there: 6,000 rental homes in a city that is desperately in need of them. This is true reconciliation, where rents to 30% below market are being provided by the Squamish Nation in partnership with the Government of Canada. The Squamish Nation is moving toward economic independence and helping Vancouver provide the housing it needs. Property rights will be respected, indigenous rights will be honoured, homes will be built, and jobs will be created. For the Squamish Nation, there will be prosperity, and for the city that I represent, 6,000 families will be able to call Sen̓áḵw home. That is reconciliation, that is prosperity, and that is what is possible when we refuse the false choice being put upon us by the opposition. That is happening in real time in my riding. To the homeowners in my riding and across B.C. who have been worried, the government has appealed the Cowichan decision. We are advancing every legally viable argument to defend the security of fee simple. We have been clear, from the Prime Minister on down, that protecting private property is fundamental to who we are as a country, and we will always stand for that.

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“You say you want true reconciliation, but your party won't even condemn its own member who denies indigenous genocide and blames them for residential schools. That's not reconciliation.”

Oral Questions

Indigenous Affairs

2026-05-06

“I want people to think we're defending property rights. The Prime Minister said so. Pay no attention to what our lawyers actually do. The opposition is fearmongering and we're the good guys. Believe us, not them.”

Statements by Members

Asian Heritage Month

2026-05-06

“I want to celebrate Asian Heritage Month. Asian Canadians help our country.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, this May, Canadians mark Asian Heritage Month, and someone who comes from a city like Vancouver, as I do, does not have to look far to understand why that matters. There is no one Asian story in Canada; there are tens of thousands. They are written in many languages, carried through many faiths, shaped by many histories and lived through families that crossed oceans, built lives from nothing, endured exclusion and still chose to give this country their labour, their hope and their children's future. Those of us who grew up in Vancouver know this story well. We know it in the restaurants that feed us, the businesses that raise up our neighbourhoods, the music and festivals that fill our streets, the athletes who carry our pride and the volunteers who show up for community day after day. Asian Canadians did not simply arrive in Canada. They have helped build it. They have established communities, preserved culture and built bonds across differences. This month we honour that legacy and this commitment, not as a footnote to Canadian history but as a critical story in that history and in Canada's future. I invite all members of the—

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Statements by Members

Andreas Arsoniadis

2026-04-29

“I want to say kind things about a nice restaurant owner who died.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, British Columbia and Vancouver's Greek community lost a giant earlier this month with the passing of Andreas Arsoniadis. Those of us who grew up in Vancouver remember Andreas not for his incredible skill with numbers or his entrepreneurial spirit but as the guy who was responsible for feeding us some of the most incredible food: Greek food, pizzas and the most generous portions one could ever imagine. He always greeted us with a big smile and welcomed us into his restaurant like we were coming home. For decade upon decade, he made sure that each and every one of us felt like we belonged when we walked into Andreas Restaurant. He leaves a massive hole in the heart of the Greek community, of which he was a pioneer and a builder, and a massive hole in the hearts of his loved ones, including sisters Marikoula and Parthena; his children, George, Dimitrios and Kaity; his grandchildren, Mati, Anna, Mia, Amalia, Andreas and Adriana; his first great-grandchild; and so many people in our community who celebrated his life in Van Gran's St. George’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral on April 15. We will all miss him dearly. May he rest in peace.

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