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Here’s what MP Leona Alleslev said in the House of Commons as she crossed the floor to join the Official Opposition

Published

6 years ago

8 minute read

Statement in the House of Commons – September 17, 2018

LEONA ALLESLEV · MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2018

When I became an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force, I swore an oath to give my life for Queen and Country – to serve and defend Canada, and the values for which it stands.
A country, its sovereignty, and values are fragile. Vigilance in defending our nation’s freedom, and service to country, is who I am at my core.
When I left the military, I hung up my uniform, but I never “unswore” my oath. And now I serve Canadians by representing the people of Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill as their Member of Parliament.
I am deeply concerned for the future of our country. After 3 years of hope and hard work, I find myself asking:
“Am I doing everything I can to serve my country and work for real change for Canadians?”
Canadians expect – and deserve – nothing less. The citizens of my riding, and all Canadians, need a government that delivers foundational change for the things that matter.
The world has changed dramatically in the last three years. We find ourselves in a time of unprecedented global instability. We are seeing fundamental shifts in the global economy, while trade relationships, international agreements, and defence structures are under threat. Canada faces a perfect storm of serious challenges at home and abroad.
Here at home, we see large amounts of capital investment leaving Canada while tax structures, federal infrastructure problems and politics prevent us from getting goods to market, deter companies from expanding and undermine our competitiveness. For the first time in many years, Canadians don’t believe that tomorrow will be better than today and that their children’s future will be than theirs.
This is not a strong economy.
Beyond our borders, our position remains vastly diminished. Our foreign policy is disconnected from our trade relationships and our ability to deliver on our defence commitments is undermined by politics.
And on the world stage Canada has yet to rise to the occasion. The world has changed, and Canada must change with it. We don’t have the luxury of time.
We must recognize that foreign policy, trade, defence, and our economy all depend on each other and can’t be viewed separately.
As a former Air Force Officer, a global business consultant at IBM, an aircraft manufacturing manager at Bombardier, and a small business owner. I understand the role and impact of government actions on Canada’s economy.
To have a strong economy and a strong country we need strong Federal leadership to rebuild our nation’s foundations; tax reform, employment reform, federal infrastructure, a comprehensive foreign policy, and a modernized military to reassure our allies and defend Canada’s interests at home and abroad.
Our parliamentary system consists of political parties. However, political parties are only made up of the people who are in them at the time and must also be judged by what the country needs at the time. Today, we find ourselves at a tipping point in our country’s history.
It’s my duty to stand and be counted. Our country is at risk. My attempts to raise my concerns with this government were met with silence.
The government must be challenged openly and publicly. But for me to publicly criticize the government as a Liberal, would undermine the government and, according to my code of conduct, be dishonourable.
After careful and deliberate consideration, I must withdraw from the government benches to take my seat among the ranks of my Conservative colleagues and join Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition whose role it is to challenge and hold the government to account.
Le gouvernement doit être défié ouvertement et publiquement. Mais, pour moi, critiquer le gouvernement comme libérale, minerait le gouvernement, et serait un déshonneur selon mon code de conduite.
Après une réflexion délibérée et attentive, je dois quitter les banquettes du gouvernement, pour prendre place parmi mes collègues conservateurs et joindre la Loyale Opposition de Sa Majesté dont le rôle est de contester et demander des comptes au gouvernement.
The Leader of Her Majesty’s opposition is committed to delivering foundational changes to strengthen Canada’s economy, and a comprehensive foreign and defence policy that ensures our global competitiveness and security.
I look forward to working with my Conservative colleagues who are unafraid to do the real work to tackle the priorities of our time.
To my Liberal colleagues, I want to thank them for the opportunity to work with them and for their friendship. But my oath is to country, not party, and my sacred obligation is to serve my
constituents. I look forward to working with my Liberal colleagues, across the aisle, to shape the future of the country for all Canadians.
To my constituents, I want to re-assure them that I am the same person today that they elected on October 19, 2015. I believe in a strong, ethical Federal Government that unites us as Canadians. To achieve what they demand of me, I must change political parties.
I must do what is right, not what is easy.
I ask the citizens of Aurora Oak Ridges Richmond Hill to continue to hold me to account as I serve them and work as part of a new team focused on the fundamental challenges facing our riding and our nation.
And to all Canadians across this country – I say:
Challenge your Member of Parliament.
Demand that they work for you to strengthen our country’s foundations, foreign policy and global security.
Do not accept the status quo.
This is a time in our nation’s history where we must act with urgency. We must all, have the courage to do what is right not what is easy.
Our country is at stake.
Thank you.

Leona
Leona Alleslev, M.P.

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Worst kept secret—red tape strangling Canada’s economy

Published on February 22, 2025

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From the Fraser Institute

By Matthew Lau

In the past nine years, business investment in Canada has fallen while increasing more than 30 per cent in the U.S. on a real per-person basis. Workers in Canada now receive barely half as much new capital per worker than in the U.S.

According to a new Statistics Canada report, government regulation has grown over the years and it’s hurting Canada’s economy. The report, which uses a regulatory burden measure devised by KPMG and Transport Canada, shows government regulatory requirements increased 2.1 per cent annually from 2006 to 2021, with the effect of reducing the business sector’s GDP, employment, labour productivity and investment.

Specifically, the growth in regulation over these years cut business-sector investment by an estimated nine per cent and “reduced business start-ups and business dynamism,” cut GDP in the business sector by 1.7 percentage points, cut employment growth by 1.3 percentage points, and labour productivity by 0.4 percentage points.

While the report only covered regulatory growth through 2021, in the past four years an avalanche of new regulations has made the already existing problem of overregulation worse.

The Trudeau government in particular has intensified its regulatory assault on the extraction sector with a greenhouse gas emissions cap, new fuel regulations and new methane emissions regulations. In the last few years, federal diktats and expansions of bureaucratic control have swept the auto industry, child care, supermarkets and many other sectors.

Again, the negative results are evident. Over the past nine years, Canada’s cumulative real growth in per-person GDP (an indicator of incomes and living standards) has been a paltry 1.7 per cent and trending downward, compared to 18.6 per cent and trending upward in the United States. Put differently, if the Canadian economy had tracked with the U.S. economy over the past nine years, average incomes in Canada would be much higher today.

Also in the past nine years, business investment in Canada has fallen while increasing more than 30 per cent in the U.S. on a real per-person basis. Workers in Canada now receive barely half as much new capital per worker than in the U.S., and only about two-thirds as much new capital (on average) as workers in other developed countries.

Consequently, Canada is mired in an economic growth crisis—a fact that even the Trudeau government does not deny. “We have more work to do,” said Anita Anand, then-president of the Treasury Board, last August, “to examine the causes of low productivity levels.” The Statistics Canada report, if nothing else, confirms what economists and the business community already knew—the regulatory burden is much of the problem.

Of course, regulation is not the only factor hurting Canada’s economy. Higher federal carbon taxes, higher payroll taxes and higher top marginal income tax rates are also weakening Canada’s productivity, GDP, business investment and entrepreneurship.

Finally, while the Statistics Canada report shows significant economic costs of regulation, the authors note that their estimate of the effect of regulatory accumulation on GDP is “much smaller” than the effect estimated in an American study published several years ago in the Review of Economic Dynamics. In other words, the negative effects of regulation in Canada may be even higher than StatsCan suggests.

Whether Statistics Canada has underestimated the economic costs of regulation or not, one thing is clear: reducing regulation and reversing the policy course of recent years would help get Canada out of its current economic rut. The country is effectively in a recession even if, as a result of rapid population growth fuelled by record levels of immigration, the GDP statistics do not meet the technical definition of a recession.

With dismal GDP and business investment numbers, a turnaround—both in policy and outcomes—can’t come quickly enough for Canadians.

Matthew Lau

Adjunct Scholar, Fraser Institute
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Indigenous

Trudeau gov’t to halt funds for ‘unmarked graves’ search after millions spent, no bodies found

Published on February 21, 2025

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According to the committee tasked with searching for ‘unmarked burials’ at residential schools, the Government of Canada has denied its request for further funding.

The Canadian federal government will be halting funding to a committee tasked with searching for “unmarked burials” near former residential schools after zero graves were discovered and millions of taxpayer dollars spent.

In a statement released last week, the National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials said it was “extremely disappointed to learn that the Government of Canada has decided to discontinue funding to support their work to help Indigenous communities in their efforts to identify, locate and commemorate missing children.” 

NAC urged “the federal government to reconsider” its funding cuts to the committee, which is co-administered by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and the federal Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, that was struck in 2021. 

The reality of the situation is that since the NAC was struck not one body has been located on lands associated with former government-funded and mandated residential schools, many of which were run by Catholic and Anglican churches in Canada.  

In fact, Canada’s Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations had already confirmed it spent millions searching for “unmarked graves” at a now-closed residential school, but that the search has turned up no human remains. 

The initial funds budgeted in 2022 to aid in “locating burial sites linked to former Residential Schools” were already set to expire in 2025, with some $216.5 million having been spent.  

A total of $7.9 million granted for fieldwork has resulted in no human remains having been found to date.  

In 2021 and 2022, the mainstream media ran with inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some of the schools.  

As a result of the claims, since the spring of 2021, 112 churches, most of them Catholic, many of them on indigenous lands that serve the local population, have been burned to the ground, vandalized, or defiled in Canada. 

The Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation was more or less the reason there was a large international outcry in 2021 when it claimed it had found 215 “unmarked graves” of kids at the Kamloops Residential School. The claims of remains, however, were not backed by physical evidence but were rather disturbances in the soil picked up by ground-penetrating radar.   

The First Nation now has changed its claim of 215 graves to 200 “potential burials.”   

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau as recently as June again falsely stated that “unmarked graves” were discovered at former residential schools.  

Canadian indigenous residential schools, while run by both the Catholic Church and other Christian churches, were mandated and set up by the federal government and ran from the late 19th century until the last school closed in 1996.     

While there were indeed some Catholics who committed serious abuses against native children, the unproved “mass graves” narrative has led to widespread anti-Catholic sentiment since 2021.  

While some children did die at the once-mandatory boarding schools, evidence has revealed that many of the children tragically passed away because of unsanitary conditions due to the federal government, not the Catholic Church, failing to properly fund the system.     

In October of 2024, retired Manitoba judge Brian Giesbrecht said Canadians are being “deliberately deceived by their own government” after blasting the Trudeau government for “actively pursuing” a policy that blames the Catholic Church for the unfounded “deaths and secret burials” of Indigenous children. 

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