New Conservative voices in Parliament
David Bexte | Aaron Gunn | Andrew Lawton | Matt Strauss
There are welcomed new voices in Parliament, recently elected MPs who will bring reasoned arguments and a refreshing clarity of thought in expressing Conservative principles and points of view to parliamentary debates.
Through the first week of the new session, first-time elected MPs rise in the House of Commons to give their maiden speeches. These speeches often share the member’s core beliefs and concerns and their motivation for wishing to be an elected representative. In the last few days, four Conservative MPs turned heads with their inaugural comments. By George Journal is providing short excerpts from their addresses as well as links to the parliamentary transcript – the Hansard – where the MPs’ full remarks are recorded.
So, take note; here are four new voices espousing conservative principles.
Matt Strauss (MP for Kitchener-Hespeler, Ontario)
“One may think that I am being overwrought and seeing the ghost of communism where it does not exist. However, I would note that we just spent 10 years with a prime minister who, when asked which government in the world he most admired, stated it was the basic dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party; a prime minister who released a statement lionizing brutal communist dictator Fidel Castro when he died; a prime minister whose answer to every social problem, dental care, child care, pharmacare, school lunch, climate change, etc., was always more socialism, more central planning, more top-down pronouncements and less freedom to make choices for ourselves and our families.
The zenith of all this top-down control came during the pandemic. The members opposite went full communism. They locked Canadians down in their homes. They ruined weddings, funerals, Easters, proms and Christmases. They closed the borders. They kept mothers from children and brothers from sisters. They deprived this House of its ancient rights, spent $600 billion of taxpayer money with no budget and doubled our national debt to pay healthy 16-year-olds to sit in their basements. Then, as now, they did all of this in the name of crisis management.
Physicians, professors and journalists who spoke out against these abuses were hunted down. They had their licences and their jobs threatened. I know this because it happened to me at Queen's University, where I taught. Jane Philpott herself, one of the only two cabinet ministers to speak truth to Justin Trudeau's power, informed me in her dean's office that the reason the administration had to harass me was that I “criticized the government”. That is a direct quote.
Of course, Prime Minister Trudeau and his commissars were immune from all of this. He could attend gatherings of greater than five if it suited his political purposes, like a George Floyd protest in Ottawa, and he did. The Liberals claimed unto themselves the power to censor the news, to violate free speech in the name of fighting misinformation, while they promoted misinformation. They gave luxurious contracts to their friends in academia to promote their misinformation and gave hundreds of millions of dollars to mainstream media to promote government narratives. These three institutions, government, media and the academy, have important roles in society to regulate each other. However, under the federal government's bribery scheme, they have ended up, like the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker out to sea, stewing in each other's bathwater.
When ordinary, everyday Canadians came here to Ottawa complaining that their charter rights to bodily autonomy, assembly and free movement were being violated, every member of the Liberal caucus voted to trample their rights further. They violated section 2 and section 8 of the charter in imposing the Emergencies Act. It is not me saying that, but Justice Mosley of the federal court. They trampled on the charter rights they claimed to revere, and then they laughed about it. The current Minister of Transport, in particular, laughed about it.
If we cannot speak truth to the Liberals' power, everything will continue to break. That is why I had to come here; I refuse to be a cog in their broken machine….”
Aaron Gunn (MP for North Island – Powell River, BC)
“Right now, in Canada in so many ways, it feels as if right side up is upside down and common sense no longer exists. That brings me to the cultural erosion that we have seen, the tearing down of statues, the erasing of our history.
I was in Victoria the day this corrosive ideology all began, when they toppled the monument to the man who built this country, without whom Canada would not even exist. The truth is that this country has so much to celebrate and so much to be proud of. We owe an infinite debt of gratitude to all those who came before us, like the prime ministers, both Liberal and Conservative, whose portraits are hanging just outside these chamber walls. They laid the foundation for what would become and for what still is the greatest country in the world. They laid the foundation by being bold, by being daring and by getting things done.
In the late 1800s, Canada was a small country divided by language and religion and surrounded by a larger and much more powerful neighbour to the south, yet in that historical context, we completed what many consider to be this country's greatest engineering and political feat: the Canadian Pacific Railway. Championed by Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, most do not know that the bulk of the work took just four years to complete through some of the most difficult and expansive terrain in the world, across the Canadian Shield and through the Canadian Rockies. It was the key to bringing my province, British Columbia, into Confederation.
Can members imagine, in the current political, regulatory and cultural climate of today, if we tried as a nation to undertake a similar feat? Instead of championing these kinds of nation-building projects, the government today seems to be actively plotting against them, but it does not have to be this way. Macdonald dreamed big, Sir Wilfrid Laurier dreamed big as well and we can dream big once again.
The truth is that the silver lining to this problem lies in its solution. We do not need the government to step up in any particular way. We just need the government to get out of the way and give this country back to those who built it, the people. That begins where this country draws its greatest sources of strength: the wealth of its resources and the ingenuity of its citizens. I intend to do my part to always be a voice for the hard-working citizens of my riding in this incredible country, to always be unapologetically proud to be Canadian and to always be guided, no matter what, by what is true and what is right, not by what is politically correct….”
Andrew Lawton (MP for Elgin-St.Thomas-London South, Ontario)
“… These are the stories that are etched on my heart as I enter this chamber. These are the stories that motivate the work I seek to do here as a member of Parliament. However, these struggles and these stories did not disappear on election day. These people are still out there. Their struggles are still out there and they deserve action. That is exactly why it is incumbent on us in this House to provide and deliver.
I got into politics to serve these people. I got into politics to serve these constituents. I also got into politics to make Canada a freer place. In the last decade, the Liberals have put freedom in their crosshairs in more ways than I could list in the time I have here.
The Liberals have tried, in their paternalistic fashion, to censor what Canadians see and say online. The Liberals have told parents how to raise their children. They profess to support press freedom while banning independent journalists from even reporting on them, something that is a fundamental charter right in this country.
The Liberals have threatened the charitable status of houses of worship and have at the same time turned a blind eye to rampant vandalism and the arson of churches. For some, turning a blind eye was not enough. They actively or tacitly condoned such actions. This is a party that has imposed Laurentian elite policies on communities that never asked for them and that I can tell members, having gone through this election, do not want them.
I am here to tell the Liberals that their assaults on freedom will not stand. I am putting them on notice right now. I am here because I love my country. Unlike the Prime Minister, who picks whichever passport is most convenient in a given moment, I actually love Canada. Canada is the only country I have ever called home. It is the only country that I have any desire to be a citizen of. It is an honour and a privilege to be a Canadian.
I have always been proud of my country. I have always stood for my country. Unlike Liberals, who wrap themselves in the flag when it is politically convenient, I am not a fair-weather patriot. We will always, on this side of the aisle, stand up for Canada, be proud in our Canadian identity and be proud of our country. This means being proud of the institutions of this place, being proud of our history, being proud of the people who built this country and standing for those who seek to celebrate and preserve Canada. That is what brings me here. That is what I will do as a member of Parliament….”
David Bexte (MP for Bow River, Alberta)
“The riding that sent me here is called Bow River. It is not just a place; it is a people, a home and a promise. Much like the people who rely on it, the Bow does not ask Ottawa's permission to flow. It carves through rocks, sustains life and cuts a path forward, whether or not anyone in this chamber notices. The Bow runs past oil wells that were shut down by people who have never set foot on a rig. It flows past farms that were taxed by bureaucrats who could not grow a weed. It flows past churches that were left to burn while politicians offer excuses instead of justice. The river flows past the homes of the veterans, seniors and families who have been forgotten by the system but not by me. The beautiful thing about the Bow is this: Even when the government grinds to a halt, it keeps flowing.
When politicians hostile to Alberta try to strangle our economy, the Bow River keeps flowing. When bureaucrats in glass towers write the rules that cripple our farms, it keeps flowing. When unelected judges rewrite our rules and call it progress, it keeps flowing. When they shut down our churches, our rigs and our rodeos, it keeps flowing. The Bow does not care about trendy acronyms or performative politics. It cares about feeding cattle, watering crops and quenching the thirst of a working land. It fuels an ecosystem and an economy, and it helps feed the world. It does not wait for permission. It flows where it needs to flow.
If it has not been clear, I am not just talking about the river. I am talking about the people, because just like the Bow River, we move with purpose, and we are done with waiting for the rest of the country to catch up. We do not need a national strategy; we need Ottawa to get out of the way. I ran to represent the people who built this country and who are now watching it be dismantled by people who do not understand it and, worse, do not even like it….
Let us be honest with Canadians. We do not need to renew the consensus on immigration, the one that has fuelled the Liberal political ambition for a decade. We need to rebuild this country for Canadians. We do not need to gaslight working families into accepting out-of-control immigration while wages stagnate, house prices explode and services collapse. We need to restore common sense and put Canadians first in their own country. We do not need more empty promises. We need paycheques we can raise a family on, homes we can actually afford and streets we feel safe walking down. We need less gatekeeping, less government and a whole lot more grit.
I come from the part of Canada that feeds the country and fuels its economy, so I will speak plainly. Where I come from, words matter, but work and deeds matter more. I am here to fight for the honest worker, the family farmer, the rig hand, the rancher, the welder, the widow, the worshipper and every kid who still believes this country can be worth something. I come to the House with one of the strongest mandates in the nation. I earned it by promising to rip this place down to the studs and start rebuilding a country we can recognize again…”
The final thought is a comment by MP Bexte
Bexte offers a straightforward observation that brings into focus for us the value in having articulate and genuine voices debating Conservative principles on the pressing issues presently seizing our country.
“Canadians are tired of being lectured. They are tired of being told everything is fine when they can see with their own eyes that it is not. This country has a proud and noble history. It was built by pioneers, sustained by families and defended by those willing to risk everything for the promise of freedom and prosperity. However, after a decade of mismanagement and division from the Liberal front bench, that promise is fading.”
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