Tamara Kronis

“The government is rushing debate on this hate crimes bill. Rushing past bills caused backlogs and confusion. I want to know why we cannot take the time to study this bill properly.”

“Mr. Speaker, I have lost track of the number of times I have risen just this week to talk about why the government’s inability to plan a legislative agenda should not become an emergency in the House. This is yet another move toward time allocation. I want to remind everyone in the House that the rush the Liberals did with Bill C-3, when they rammed it through the House and undid the amendments that were done at committee, showing a disrespect for the committee process, led to unintended consequences, creating a large document backlog, confusion for families and a very broad path to citizenship for people with a limited connection to Canada. I see another bill and another set of unintended consequences, and we have gotten so much mail about this. I would like the member to explain yet again why we cannot take the time to properly consider this important legislation.”

In response to a question from Frank Caputo

“The government is using its majority to shut down debate in committee instead of talking things through.”

“Mr. Speaker, I was in committee when the first vote happened after the government received its majority. Members can look at the tapes. I sat there and said, “We are going to go upstairs, and when we come back down here, the government is going to use its majority to end the conversation in this committee,” and that is exactly what it did. This is not a government that is starting conversations. It is a government that is ending conversations.”

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“The Prime Minister has pushed Canada into a recession. Food bank use is at record levels, people cannot afford food, and workers cannot afford housing. I want the Prime Minister to end his expensive policies so Canadians can afford to live.”

“Mr. Speaker, I will remind that member that today the Prime Minister is at the G7 summit as the only leader in the G20 who has caused a recession in his own country, technical or otherwise. He says the data can be uneven. What is not uneven is the pain. Food bank use is at record levels, while two in five Canadians struggle to eat and full-time workers live in people’s driveways because a paycheque no longer buys a home. This is all while the Prime Minister’s inflight catering bill for just 14 trips could feed a family for 55 years. When will this Prime Minister reverse his costly policies and make good on his announcements so Canadians can afford to live again?”

“This bill lets ministers bend food and farming rules for years. We need to debate these powers carefully instead of rushing them through committee.”

“Madam Speaker, Bill C‑30 contains measures that allow cabinet to grant exemptions to certain rules on food and agriculture for up to three years with a possible extension. Does my colleague agree that such powers should be debated rigorously and thoroughly rather than being rushed through in committee?”

“The government refused to answer our questions in committee about public pensions. A top finance expert told me our work to explain these changes clearly is very important. I want the government to explain why it will not give Canadians clear answers about what it is doing to their pensions.”

“Madam Speaker, when we sit in a committee with members opposite and officials who are unwilling to answer questions, we make whatever analogies we can to try to convince them to answer those questions. What we were talking about in committee, which was very important and very serious, was how we explain to Canadians what we are doing with CPP. That is very important to those in this country. Following the supposed filibuster that they are talking about, which was really questions about CPP, I got a phone call from a very senior finance executive who has worked for not one but two of the maple eight pension funds, telling me how important the work we are doing in finance committee is and saying how important it is to produce reports that explain, in plain English, what we are doing in the House to Canadians’ pensions. If the members opposite do not understand how important it is to make sure that there are no unintended consequences through the drafting of bills that affect Canadians’ pensions, then I do not know what to do. Perhaps the member could explain why he does not think Canadians should be able to get a full explanation about what the government is doing to Canadians’ pensions?”

“Turning waste heat into electricity makes clean power without burning extra fuel. I want my colleague to explain how this helps forestry and resource industries in British Columbia and Western Canada.”

“Madam Speaker, as my colleague described, waste heat to power is a well‑established technology that captures excess heat from industrial processes and converts it into reliable baseload electricity, while producing no additional emissions or fuel use. Can my hon. colleague explain how this pan‑Canadian opportunity would be especially beneficial to the forestry sector and other resource sectors in western Canada, and particularly in British Columbia?”

“The job of Canada's corporate watchdog has been empty for a year, which is stalling cases of modern slavery. When will the minister fill this job, and with whom?”

“Mr. Speaker, my colleague asked a serious question and she deserves a serious answer. The position of Canada’s independent ombudsman for responsible enterprise has sat vacant for a year. Open cases have stalled, and as a result, victims of modern slavery and exploitation are blocked from justice. Can the minister tell then House the date for when this important position will be filled, and by whom?”

In response to a question from Martin Champoux

“We might break for the summer soon. What will that mean for summer by-elections and foreign interference, whether this bill passes or not?”

“Mr. Speaker, we have just received this report that the House has adjourned or maybe will adjourn in the near future. I wonder if the member can comment on what the consequences of that would be for summer by-elections, particularly if this bill is not passed, but even if it is passed, in terms of issues that Canadians really care about, like foreign interference?”

“I want this bill to go to a committee for careful study. We need to help very sick patients get new medicines faster. But we also must make sure these drugs are safe, and that drug companies cannot use this rule to avoid regular safety checks.”

“Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the chance to finish my remarks about Bill C-265, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act regarding a list of therapeutic products pre-approved for special access. In the interregnum between the first and second half of my remarks, members of my community sought me out to discuss how the bill would apply in complex cases. They reminded me of some things that should be considered at committee. First, we should avoid loopholes that could unintentionally weaken Canada’s drug approval framework or allow inappropriate products to bypass proper scrutiny. Parliament should closely examine how products would qualify for inclusion on the proposed pre-approved list. While the bill references foreign approvals and clinical evidence, committee members should ensure that those standards are clearly defined and appropriately rigorous. Committee members should also study how oversight would function once a product is granted special access. If adverse outcomes occur, what reporting mechanisms would exist? How would Health Canada monitor safety data? Would there be transparency requirements so that Canadians can understand how these decisions are being made? Those are all reasonable questions. Another issue that deserves scrutiny is whether pharmaceutical companies could exploit the system in unintended ways. Compassionate access programs should exist for patients, not as alternative market entry strategies for manufacturers seeking to avoid the normal approval process. Parliament should ensure that the bill would not inadvertently create incentives for companies to delay seeking full Canadian approval while still gaining widespread access through an expedited pathway. Likewise, safeguards should ensure that access remains focused on exceptional circumstances involving serious or life-threatening conditions where comparable approved Canadian therapies do not exist. Clinical judgment really matters in medicine, and I appreciate that the bill acknowledges the role that physicians play in emergency decision-making. However, clear guardrails would still be necessary to maintain public confidence and consistent application across the country. We should also acknowledge that access alone does not solve every problem. Many advanced therapies are extremely expensive. Some treatments for rare diseases cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars annually. Families already struggling emotionally should not be left facing impossible financial uncertainty after finally obtaining access to therapy. That broader conversation around affordability, provincial coverage and rare disease strategy must continue alongside the bill. One thing I hope we can all agree on is that Canadians facing devastating diagnoses should not feel abandoned by their health care system. At the same time, Canadians also expect Parliament to proceed carefully when it comes to medical safety and regulatory oversight. Those principles are not in conflict. Committee work exists precisely for bills like this one. It allows Parliament to hear from physicians, rare disease advocates, pharmacologists, regulators, patient groups, ethicists and health care administrators. It allows members to test assumptions, identify weaknesses and strengthen legislation before it advances further. It also allows parliamentarians to hear from patients. Perhaps committee study will reveal areas where the bill should be amended. Perhaps stronger oversight mechanisms will be needed. Perhaps definitions will need tightening to prevent unintended consequences. That is not a flaw in the legislative process. That is the legislative process working as it should. I also believe that Canadians are increasingly frustrated when Parliament simply shuts down debate at the outset rather than engaging constructively with proposals that may have merit. I think we will see some of that shutting down today on other matters. We should be willing to study good-faith ideas seriously, especially when they concern patients facing life-threatening illnesses. In closing, this is an issue that Parliament should be willing to study seriously, because if we can respond and reduce delays in a responsible manner, especially for cases that are exceptional, and empower physicians while maintaining strong safeguards, then Canadians will thank us.”

“I want the House to pass this bill. It requires dangerous offenders and people who committed more than one first-degree murder to stay in maximum-security prisons. Canada's worst criminals should not be moved to medium-security prisons just because they behave well behind bars.”

“Mr. Speaker, when I was growing up, my childhood home backed onto a ravine. It sat near the end of a long street, with no houses for the first few hundred metres. In the winter, I would get off the bus in the dark and walk that stretch home alone. As a teenager, every sound felt sharp and every shadow felt close, because I knew, thanks to the nightly news, that there was a man out there attacking girls like me. They called him the “Scarborough Rapist.” I lived in North York, but the ravines are all connected. I was terrified, even as I tried not to show it. I learned to be careful, to hurry home, to put my key between my fingers, to watch behind me and to never assume that I was safe. Paul Bernardo never touched me. I never met him. However, he was truly one of the monsters of my childhood. His heinous crimes destroyed families and changed the way a generation of girls moved through the world. He taught us fear before we even had the words to explain it. If my heart rate goes up and if my stomach tightens when I think of Paul Bernardo in a medium-security prison, I cannot imagine how the families of the young women and girls he raped, tortured and murdered feel about it. For them, this is not an abstract fear. It is a gaping wound that never closes. Today, I rise in strong support of Bill C-232, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, brought forward by my hon. colleague, the member for Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake. This bill is clear, modest and necessary. It says that when an offender has been found by a court to be a dangerous offender or when an offender has been convicted of more than one first-degree murder, that person will be classified as maximum security and will remain in a maximum-security penitentiary or a maximum-security area of the penitentiary. This should not be controversial. In fact, most Canadians I speak to are shocked to learn that it is not already the law. It would have been, except that in 2019, these Liberals passed Bill C-83, which legally requires Correctional Service Canada to place an inmate in the penitentiary that provides the least restrictive environment for that person. While CSC can consider the offender’s current institutional behaviour, escape risk, public safety risk if they escape and program participation, it cannot ask whether an offender’s crimes are so monstrous that maximum security should be permanent. If the offender behaves in prison, they are assessed as manageable. If officials conclude they do not currently need maximum control, they can be reclassified. That is how a person can commit the most horrific crimes imaginable and still be moved down to medium security. CSC did not violate the law when it moved Paul Bernardo to medium security. Following public outrage over Mr. Bernardo’s transfer, a review concluded the transfer was sound, and followed both law and policy. That means that law and policy are the problem here. We have to be honest about what prison behaviour can and cannot tell us. Often, the most dangerous offenders are not dangerous because they cannot control themselves; they are dangerous because they can. They can be patient, they can be charming and they can follow rules when it benefits them. We have heard all of this at committee. A clean institutional record does not erase sadism, predation or the court’s finding that a person is a dangerous offender, but it can get the move to medium security. For victims’ families, this is unbearable. These families sit through trials, they hear the evidence, they mourn daughters, sisters and friends, and they learn how they were tortured, raped and killed. They live with a life sentence of grief. They cannot unhear what they hear in those courtrooms. Then they learn that the offender has been moved to a lower-security institution, because the focus has shifted from the horror of the offence to the offender’s current institutional score. That is not justice, as most Canadians understand it. Let us be clear about what maximum security means here. It is not about revenge, and it is not cruelty or a rejection of basic human rights. It is a recognition that some offenders have crossed a line so grave that public safety, public confidence and respect for victims demand it. A dangerous offender designation is one of the most serious findings a Canadian court can make. It is reserved for offenders who have shown a pattern of serious violence, sexual violence or conduct so brutal that they pose an ongoing threat to the public. Likewise, first-degree murder is planned and deliberate, and it falls into the most serious categories of homicide known in our laws. A person convicted of more than one first-degree murder has not made a tragic mistake. That person has taken multiple lives with intent. Bill C-232 would draw an important line that says dangerous offenders and offenders convicted of more than one first-degree murder must be assigned a maximum-security classification and they must be confined in a maximum-security penitentiary or a maximum-security area of a penitentiary. It would ensure that these offenders are not eligible for unescorted temporary absences. This bill would clearly tell Correctional Service Canada that for a very narrow class of the worst offenders, including household names such as Bernardo, Magnotta and Smich, maximum security is not optional; it is mandatory. Since being elected, I have spent more time than I ever thought I would with grieving families. I am stunned by the scope and scale of violence against women and girls in this country. I had no idea of the extent to which the Liberal government had tipped the scales in favour of offenders, leaving victims and their families to be traumatized and retraumatized. I am against telling women and girls, or their families, that the people who terrorized them, hunted them, raped them or murdered them can one day be managed in a less restrictive environment because enough time has passed or they are playing well with others behind bars. I want to thank the member for Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake for bringing this bill forward. He has done something important. He has taken the outrage that Canadians feel over cases like those of Bernardo, Magnotta and Smich, who, to the best of my knowledge, all remain in medium-security correctional environments today, and turned it into a practical, legal response. That is what we were sent here to do. Just this weekend, while at home, I met with a woman who spoke to me about violence, fear and the need for leaders to take domestic violence and violence against children and women seriously. I made her a promise that I would stand up in this place, use my voice and not allow these issues to be softened, buried or explained away by bureaucratic language and fancy legal concepts. Today, by supporting Bill C-232, I am keeping that promise, because violence against women is not an abstraction and violence against children is not a talking point. These are wounds carried by families, communities and survivors who need to know that people in this place are prepared to act. Bill C-232 would not undo the evil committed by Bernardo, Smich, Magnotta and others, whose names Canadians invoke with horror, nor would it bring back Leslie Mahaffy, Kristen French, Laura Babcock, Tim Bosma, Jun Lin or any other victim, but it would say that some crimes are so grave and some offenders are so dangerous that maximum security means maximum security. It would also say to every woman, parent, survivor and grieving family watching this debate that their fear is not irrational, their grief is not forgotten and their Parliament has a duty to stand with them. I urge every member of the House to support Bill C-232.”

In response to a question from Kevin Lamoureux

“The other member does not understand what is happening in British Columbia or my community. My community needs more affordable housing, not just regular market housing.”

“Mr. Speaker, the member from the other side goes back to the question before and suggests that I was being insulting, when someone was trying to tell me that my community does not need mid-market housing and below, and that we are just fine with market housing. I am sorry, but that is another member who does not understand what is going on in British Columbia or in my riding.”

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