Tamara Jansen

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to present a petition today concerning Bill C-6.

The petitioners recognize the need for a ban on harmful, degrading and coercive practices that seek to force people to change their sexual orientation. They also recognize, however, that the definition of conversion therapy used in Bill C-6 is not used by any medical body in the world and it is so imprecise that it will lead to the prohibition of forms of counselling that reduce unwanted sexual behaviour.

I am sure my colleagues can understand the damaging implications of this, and I remind them that committee witnesses testified that types of counselling this bill would ban actually saved their lives.

Madam Speaker, I am so glad that my colleague invoked the words of the prophet Micah, so I am going to invoke the words of the Apostle Matthew, who stated:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.

I have had so many people reach out to me in regard to this bill. Charlotte, a young woman in Calgary, was involved in lesbian activity. She struggled with self-worth and depression. She reached a point in her life when she did not want to continue with her lesbian activity, and her parents supported her choice and helped her find a counsellor who helped her process the feelings. She said:

Because of the counselling, I had a deep sense of love and acceptance. It was not harmful, coercive or abusive in any way.... If you enact the proposed bill, you're banning the exact support that I desperately needed at that time in my life. If this bill is to be truly inclusive, include people like me.

Why will the government not respond to—

Madam Speaker, from what I can see, Bill C-14 is designed to allow the government to operate without a budget by giving itself huge new borrowing increases. The Liberals assure us they have our backs over and over ad nauseam, while every new COVID support program keeps rolling out with major flaws. So many programs gave much more money than necessary to those who did not need it, so much that the finance minister had to start calling her overpayments “preloaded stimulus”. When we look at part 7, which would increase the borrowing authority with an astronomical hike, the Liberals are asking us to just trust they will do a better job going forward.

I would like to ask the member why, for instance, the new HASCAP is such a failure at helping the highly affected sectors it was designed to help. The government had a year to make something that works, and yet highly affected sector businesses are being denied loans because they cannot provide a revenue projection when they are closed. Why does every program fail so badly?

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise today to present a petition from people across the country who have serious concerns about Bill C-6. The petitioners recognize that the overarching definition of conversion therapy used in Bill C-6 will end up causing harm to some of the very people the bill intends to protect.

At the justice committee, members of the LGBTQ community have called the forms of counselling this bill will ban life-saving. They believe it is important to recognize that the definition used by the government in this bill is not used by any medical body anywhere on earth. The petitioners want to see harmful, degrading and coercive practices band.

Let us make sure we get this right by fixing the definition and avoid causing collateral harm to Canadians who would benefit from forms of counselling that may be unintentionally targeted by this bill.

Madam Speaker, my colleague gave a very exciting presentation. I have to say, as a farmer, I know how important it is to produce without causing harm and also how important it is to be good stewards of our precious planet that we are living on. It is of paramount importance.

New Canadian technologies that help reduce our impact on the environment are super exciting, so can my colleague share with us new innovations that Canadians are bringing to the table?

Madam Speaker, it appears that Bill C-14 is specifically designed so that the government would be able to operate without tabling a budget, which seems to be how it seems to keep working.

We have watching unhinged borrowing by the Liberals, which the finance minister described as pre-loaded stimulus, to cover up the fact that COVID support programs by far overpaid those who did not even need the help.

Part 7 of Bill C-14 is an alarming blank cheque for the Liberals. Does my colleague believe that the government has the capacity to lead us out of this economic disaster without unnecessary new levels of debt?

Mr. Speaker, we have been watching unhinged borrowing by the Liberals, which the finance minister has described as pre-loaded stimulus to cover up the fact that COVID support programs by far overpaid those who did not even need the help. Part 7 of Bill C-14 is an alarming black Amex card for the Liberals.

Does the member believe that Canadians should be concerned about the undisciplined spending that just seems to keep happening?

Mr. Speaker, the member spoke much about part 7 and, as always, the devil is in the details. Part 7, the Borrowing Authority Act, would increase the amount of borrowing by an astronomical figure, but with a qualifier. In the Financial Administration Act, in paragraph 46.1, the wording permits the government to borrow any amount to pay back debt, and Canadians are very concerned that this is just a blank cheque.

Please tell us how you expect Canadians to believe you are not going to just continue spending on things we should not be spending on.

Madam Speaker, does the member have any explanation as to why the HASCAP, a program that took forever to happen and was supposed to support those in highly affected industries, is yet again another massive failure? Why on earth would the government allow banks to deny HASCAP loans to small businesses because they cannot provide a revenue statement? How can they provide a revenue projection when they have no certainty they can reopen in 2021, due to the pathetic vaccine rollout? How can this program be so dysfunctional yet again?