“The Liberals are bringing up past spending to distract from the real issue. The Prime Minister said we should buy Canadian first. Instead, the government is giving a contract to an American company when a Canadian non-profit could do the work. The government needs to answer for this.”

“Madam Speaker, the Liberals are once again trying to deflect by bringing up a matter concerning the security expenditures incurred by the then prime minister, Mr. Harper. The fundamental issue is what the Prime Minister himself said: buy Canadian first and foremost. In this case, however, a contract is being awarded to an American company, even though a not-for-profit corporation, the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires, can do the work. That is what they should be answering for, instead of trying to distract from the issue.”

“The Prime Minister says we should buy Canadian, but the government just gave a $12-million contract to an American company instead of a Canadian one. We need clear rules and strict oversight so government buying actually supports Canadian workers.”

“Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from the Bloc for her excellent question. This sort of ties in with industrial benefits. In defence procurement, for example, there is often a requirement that a certain percentage of the work be carried out by Canadian industry. We can all agree that $80,000 is roughly the average salary of a federal employee. It is not a large amount of money, but the decision itself is important. What does not sit right, what simply does not make sense, is awarding a $12-million contract to an American company instead of to the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires. Generally speaking, when the Prime Minister says we must prioritize buying Canadian, the government’s procurement policies should reflect that commitment. Of course, abuses must be prevented. That is why clear rules and rigorous oversight are essential. So far, we have seen nothing but lip service.”

“The Prime Minister promised to buy Canadian, but he broke that promise. Just before Remembrance Day, his government gave a contract to an American company instead of a Canadian non-profit run by veterans. I want to know why ministers cannot keep their own promises.”

“Madam Speaker, I would like my colleague to answer a very simple question. What are the ministers good for? We have a Prime Minister who made a big promise. He said we were going to buy Canadian. That was the big promise. He said we were going to be our own best customer, yet now we see that, on such an important issue, at a time as important as the month of November, just a few days before Remembrance Day, the Prime Minister is not keeping his word and is awarding a contract to an American company rather than to a non-profit organization made up of veterans. What kind of message are the ministers sending to Canadians when they cannot even keep and uphold the Prime Minister’s promises?”

“The Prime Minister promised to buy Canadian goods and stand up to the Americans. Instead, the government is doing the opposite. Ministers have done nothing to change the purchasing rules to match that promise.”

“Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question. Indeed, what message does that send? It sends a highly negative message when a Prime Minister solemnly declares that we are going to fight the Americans, fight Donald Trump and buy Canadian, only for the government to do the exact opposite of what he said. My colleague is right to wonder what the ministers are doing. What has the Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement done to change the rules and bring them in line with the Prime Minister’s direction? In fact, absolutely nothing has been done. Again, all we get are words, words and more words. In fact, the reality is completely at odds with what the Prime Minister has called for.”

“I want the House to vote for this motion. The government took a 12-million-dollar security contract away from Canadian veterans and gave it to an American company to save less than one percent. The Prime Minister promises to buy Canadian and stand up to the United States, but he does the opposite and has failed to end American tariffs on our goods. We must use our energy, minerals, and military to get a fair trade deal and put Canada first.”

“Madam Speaker, we are here today to put Canada first, as a remarkable group of Canadians did in 1925, almost 100 years ago exactly, when they came together to form the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires, an organization that hired First World War veterans to do what they have always done best: protect their fellow Canadians. A century later, the Commissionaires is still the largest non-governmental employer of veterans anywhere in Canada. It protects our public servants, and for years, it protected the offices of the Canada Revenue Agency. By every account, the agency was happy and satisfied with its exceptional work. Then on June 16 of this year, under the Prime Minister, the CRA handed the nearly $12-million contract to Universal Protection Service, a subsidiary of Allied Universal, an American security giant with ties to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation program, otherwise known as ICE. How much did Canadians save by elbowing out of this contract our veterans and giving it to the American parent company? It was a measly $80,000, less than 1% of the contract value. Obviously, when we take into account the taxes the commissionaires would have paid on their salaries back to the Canadian government, that amount is probably eliminated altogether. This is not a one-year deal. It runs for two years and can be extended five more after that, for a total of seven. That is seven years that our veterans could be shut out of this important work. The head of the Commissionaires for the Great Lakes said that he had never seen a contract this size change hands on such a slender difference when the client was happy with the work of the Commissionaires. Here is the part that should make every member of the House stop and think. The government’s own tender said, “This solicitation is open only to Canadian suppliers.” If it was only open to Canadian suppliers, how is it that an American-owned subsidiary got the deal? The answer is that the government’s so-called buy Canadian rules allow any foreign company to simply open a Canadian address in order to compete for Canadian-based work. As long as someone has a post office box, they can be from anywhere in the world and get a job paid for by Canadian tax dollars. The commissionaires themselves were shocked. One said, “Any foreign company can set up an office in Canada” and, in the words of this commissionaire, “poof”, the entire contracting rule goes up in smoke. To use another metaphor, it is maple-washing when an American giant with a Canadian mailing address counts the same as a 100-year-old charity, the largest employer in the country of Canadian veterans. Do members remember when the Prime Minister said only a few months ago that Canada is “at war” with the United States? Now he is hiring them to protect our tax office. That is not exactly the thing to do. This is not an accident. The contradictions are a pattern. On the U.S.-Canada file, the Prime Minister says one thing and does exactly the opposite. It is all an illusion for his political benefit. He is all talk and no results. He is out of touch while Canadians, in particular Canadian veterans, are out of money. Let us go through the list of these contradictions. He promised a buy Canadian policy, and then he increased the amount spent on American firms by 55%, to a total of $7.8 billion, of which the betrayal of the Commissionaires is just one example. In January, he told the world that we are in a “rupture, not a transition” with the U.S. Then he went on to say that our ties with the Americans had become our biggest weakness. Days later, he said that Canada and the U.S. would be “stronger together”. He warned against a world of fortresses in his Davos speech. Then he gave another speech where he said that he was in favour of something called “Fortress North America”. He said that “integration” had become “subordination”. Then he wanted more integration to, in his words, “make America great again”. In the election, he promised that if the Americans put tariffs on us, he would respond with dollar-for-dollar tariffs. He said that Canadians were in no mood for any concessions. Two months later, he admitted that his government had already moved off of dollar-for-dollar tariffs, and then quietly, he dropped reciprocal tariffs altogether. His energy minister said that energy was the best leverage we had in our negotiations for a deal. A week later, the Prime Minister said that resources were not leverage at all. At the summer 2025 G7 conference, he promised a deal within the coming 30 days. He missed that deadline, and almost a year and a half later, there is still no deal and there are still no wins. On the Gordie Howe bridge, the Prime Minister said he had secured a deal to ensure that no tariff revenues would go to the United States until all of Canada’s debt to build the bridge was repaid. After all, we had built the entire thing with our money. Then it came out that in fact the Americans were getting half of the net tolls from day one, not waiting until we paid off the enormous debts we incurred to build the bridge. Last week, the Prime Minister said that he was willing to wait until there was a new president before we get a deal. To be clear, that means two and a half more years of American tariffs killing Canadian jobs. How out of touch was that? However, worry not, because less than 72 hours later, he put out a tweet saying that he had called the president and restarted formal talks for a mutually beneficial trade deal in the coming weeks. We hope he is serious this time. We hope this is for real, but forgive us if we hesitate to pop the champagne until we see the actual results. It is an incredible reversal to say in the span of three days that he is willing to wait two and a half years without a deal and then say that he is kicking off negotiations to complete talks in the next several weeks. The Prime Minister has a phrase for this. He calls it “the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.” He was right about this phrase. He just did not realize that he was describing himself, because after all the speeches, all the slogans and all the deadlines, where are the results he promised? His single biggest promise in the last election was that he would deliver a great deal with the U.S, he would handle Donald Trump and he would negotiate a win. There is still no deal, still no tariff relief and still no results. Our economy has flatlined, 110,000 jobs have been lost in two months, there is a 9% increase in food bank demand, homebuilding is down rather than doubled, as the Prime Minister promised, and Canadian veterans have been pushed aside so an American company could guard our tax office. The Prime Minister will do anything to keep us distracted from his costly failures here at home. That is not leadership. It is political theatre. We do not need more grandstanding over the next month and a half from the Prime Minister. We need him to actually get the deal he promised. We as Conservatives have laid out a clear plan on how to get that deal. It starts with using the leverage we have. We have the things that Americans need. We have 10 of the 12 NATO-defined defence minerals right beneath our feet. Let us unlock their production and put them in strategic storage facilities, along with a new above-ground oil reserve that we can provide tariff-free to allies on a right-of-first-refusal basis to incentivize them to remove their tariffs. Let us align with our key trading partner to combat China’s abuse of our country. Let us use our massive military buildup and our willingness to take on more responsibility protecting our share of the continent as further leverage to get the tariff-free deal that we want. None of this should stop us from solving the problems we have here at home. Our youth need jobs and homes. Our families need affordable food. Our economy needs homegrown growth. Criminals need to go to jail. Drugs need to come off our street. Government spending must fall, and we must ultimately deliver for the people. All of these things are in our hands. The Prime Minister likes to say that we want to be masters of our own destiny. We could not agree more, but we cannot be a master of our own destiny if we are constantly making excuses about what we cannot achieve. There is no tweet from the U.S. president that can stop us from fixing our problems here at home. Let us save Canadians money, save their jobs, keep them safe, fix broken immigration and, most of all, put Canada first. Putting Canada first means putting our veterans first and voting for this motion.”

“The Prime Minister got no results at his European summit. No European countries approved our trade deal, none agreed to buy our beef and pork, and none promised to drop their planned carbon tax on Canadian goods. Conservatives support trade and NATO, but we will not pay taxes to Europe, follow their laws, or take their migration rules. We will put Canada first.”

“Madam Speaker, we could not agree more, and that is why we are so disappointed that the Prime Minister got absolutely zero results at his grand summit last week. Zero European countries signed on to ratify the free trade agreement we already have with the EU. Zero of them opened trade to Canadian beef and pork, and there was not one commitment to cancel the planned carbon tariff that that continent is threatening to impose on the already besieged Canadian industry. Instead, we have a Prime Minister negotiating that in secret, potentially putting our sovereignty at risk. Our message on that is clear. Yes, we want to trade with Europe, and yes, we want to honour our NATO commitment, but we will never support Canadians paying taxes to the EU, following EU laws or accepting EU-style migration. We have our problems to fix here at home, and Conservatives will put Canada first to fix them.”

“We do not want subsidies or bailouts for oil companies or any other industry. The oil industry already makes a lot of money on its own. The government should just cut taxes, get rid of bad rules, and let businesses build and invest.”

“Madam Speaker, I do not know how many times I have to say this. We are not proposing subsidies for oil companies. That has never been our position, because the oil industry is extremely profitable on its own. The government just needs to cut red tape and federal taxes so that private investors, private sector workers and private companies can build projects and develop our resources. I am going to say exactly the same thing in English that I said in French, because I want to make it clear that we do not say one thing in one language and the opposite in the other. We do not think there need to be bailouts, handouts and carve-outs for any industry, including the oil and gas industry. Instead, we believe in getting the government out of the way and off the backs of all industries. Oil and gas is wildly profitable on its own. The government just needs to get out of the way, repeal the antidevelopment laws and taxes, and let builders build, investors invest and workers work.”

“The government gave a $12-million security contract to an American company instead of the Commissionaires, who employ Canadian veterans. The Liberals took away the veterans' first-choice right for these contracts and will not say why. I want to know if the Leader of the Opposition is as upset about this as I am.”

“Madam Speaker, I would like to remind all Canadians that the reason the CRA was able to issue this $12-million contract to a U.S. company is that the Liberal government removed the right of first refusal to the Commissionaires for security contracts, which had been in place since 1945. When I asked the Liberals, in this chamber, why they did it, they refused to answer the question. Considering the Commissionaires is the largest not-for-profit employer of Canadian veterans in Canada, is the Leader of the Opposition as frustrated as I am with this affront to our Canadian veterans?”

“The government should give security contracts to the Commissionaires first. That group is the largest employer of Canadian veterans. It is wrong that the government gave this work to a big foreign company instead.”

“Madam Speaker, first of all, speaking of Canadian veterans, we should take a moment to thank the hon. member for his distinguished service to the Canadian Armed Forces. Yes, I do share his frustration. There is a reason many, if not all, of the government departments have had a right of first refusal arrangement with the Commissionaires, and that was so they could focus on protecting our buildings and public servants rather than on fighting back lobbyists for large multinational corporations that are trying to steal the work. We wanted the commissionaires to have job security, and that was the reason for the right of first refusal. The fact that the government has not honoured that in this particular case is really a disgrace. If there is one case where putting Canada first was most necessary, it is for the single largest employer of Canadian veterans.”

“The government gave a security contract to a company instead of the Commissionaires. That only happened because the government ended an old rule that gave the Commissionaires first choice. The government will not explain why. The other company employs about 12 veterans, while the Commissionaires employs over 4,000. I want the member to explain why the rule changed and which company helps veterans more.”

“Madam Speaker, my question to the member, and he seems to be fairly informed, has two parts. First, the only reason CRA was able to issue this contract to a company other than Commissionaires was that Veterans Affairs removed the right of first refusal to Commissionaires, a policy that has been in place since 1945. The government refused to answer a question about that when I asked during question period. Maybe the member now knows why. Second, I just want to clarify that, during his statement, the member said, I believe, that Allied Universal has maybe 12 Canadian veterans currently employed by the company. I point out that Commissionaires has over 4,000 Canadian veterans. Which one does he think would actually provide more employment opportunity, especially for older Canadian veterans?”