Carol Anstey

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has deep knowledge on this issue. One thing I often hear from constituents is about an attack on faith organizations by the Liberal government, and its response is, “Just trust us.” I am wondering if my colleague would like to speak to that and give a bit of context about why constituents may feel this way based on previous decisions made by the government.

Mr. Speaker, several religious faith-based organizations have spoken out about this piece of legislation. Inciting violence is already illegal, and faith teachings are spoken in love, not hatred. His question is precisely the reason the legislation needs to be walked back. It is because it can be taken out of context and people of faith understand that when pastors and teachers are speaking about [more]

Mr. Speaker, I will make a couple of comments. I was following the legislation very closely, and there are just a couple of things. When the amendment was passed, they did not consult with any faith groups or faith organizations. They did not call one witness. In addition, I will add that, if the member was listening to my speech, he would have heard me say that there are already laws in place. [more]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the member opposite's speech. I picked up on something he said about the many hours of consultation around the legislation. I am wondering if he could be very specific about the witnesses who were called in relation to the contentious amendment that we are discussing here today.

Mr. Speaker, this is exactly why we are pushing against the legislation. It is because there is a respect for this perspective about separation of church and state, and in this case, the government would be infringing on religious freedoms, which is actually our attempt to protect the church. The government is coming over into our lane and religious organizations are pushing back as a result, so [more]

C-9 Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in opposition to Billand, more particularly, to the deeply concerning and controversial Liberal-Bloc amendment that would remove the long-standing good-faith religious defence. This amendment would restrict freedom of expression and freedom of religion in Canada. My opposition to this legislation is not rooted in just my interpretation of this legislation; [more]

Quickly, because I'm running out of time, you diverted to Newfoundland and Labrador, and I wanted to ask about something specific to my riding. Gros Morne National Park, as you know, is in my riding. I have had a lot of people within the park reach out to me with respect to fire risk. We submitted an Order Paper question, and the information that came back was that Gros Morne National Park [more]

You're still not reaching the targets that your own government promised. It's a simple question: At what point does the conversation start to change to success actually being at the targets you've promised? It's a very simple question.

Thank you. Thank you to the witnesses for coming. I think you probably know the direction I'm going to go in with the Parks officials. Thank you for appearing. I'm pretty passionate about Newfoundland and Labrador, where I come from, and Gros Morne National Park. I wanted to dig into this a bit more, because I get an overwhelming number of inquiries about this. Do you think the $5,000 you're [more]

Minister, thank you for appearing. Canadians have watched your department reverse course or walk back decisions made by earlier Liberal environment ministers. Is fixing those mistakes now a regular part of your job?

For context, though, we invited you here a while back to talk about your mandate specifically. You didn't appear on that premise. Canadians are curious and we're curious as to whether your mandate is actually to reverse those policies that previous ministers put in place.