The Member of Parliament for Provencher is disappointed in the last bill that made it through the House of Commons on Thursday.
    
The first session of the 44th Parliament ended Thursday afternoon and Ted Falk says the Liberal/ NDP coalition pushed through Bill C-21, which would strengthen gun laws in Canada. Falk says the "firearms community" is disappointed with this legislation. 

"It makes it more difficult for law-abiding Canadians to acquire and use firearms in a lawful way," suggests Falk. "And it really doesn't address the overarching problem of criminality with guns or guns being smuggled in."

Falk says Bill C-21 will likely find its way into the Senate by about mid-September when Parliament resumes.

Meanwhile, Falk says over the last few months, the focus of Parliamentarians has been the rising cost of living and very high inflation that Canadians are dealing with from coast to coast. Canada's inflation rate is now at 7.7 percent, its highest total in about 40 years. 

"That is something that the government needs to look at seriously and to address," he says. 

Falk suggests the Liberals think that throwing money at a problem, fixes it. He notes in actuality, printing more money at a time like this only exacerbates the problem. 

"The Bank of Canada together with the government is going to have to look at curbing that and keeping life affordable for Canadians," he adds.

Another issue that dominated discussion during this session, was the Russian invasion of Ukraine, says Falk. He notes Canada is providing assistance to refugees coming out of Ukraine, primarily women and children. Falk says Canada is opening its doors and facilitating travel to our country for refugees. He says Canada is also providing both humanitarian aid and military assistance to push back the Russians. 

"That was something that the House was very united on," notes Falk. "That Russia's invasion on Ukraine was illegal and all parties agreed that we needed to step up and do our part to provide Ukraine with the assistance that we were able to."

Falk says this session also saw a change in leadership within the Conservative party and had the Liberal government invoke the Emergencies Act in an attempt to end the trucker convoy.

Falk says one of the positives from this last session is that the polls seem to be showing that his Conservatives have been a very effective opposition in Ottawa. 

"Certainly under the leadership of Candice Bergen, our party has really come together and been an effective opposition," he notes. "We've held the Liberal/ NDP government to account and I just think that we're making good progress from that perspective."

Since the start of the session, most COVID-19 restrictions and mandates have been lifted in Canada. Falk says the one exception is the rules on international travel. However, he says conversations he has been part of in Ottawa this week would lead him to believe that more restrictions will be relaxed.

"Although I wish I could say that they are all going to be removed, I didn't get that sense that they would be all removed any time in the near future," he notes. "Although I'm hoping that they will."

Falk says Canada has been under some form of lockdowns or restrictions for too long, noting each province and territory removed their restrictions considerably sooner than Canada. Falk says he is anxious to see federal employees get back to work, noting there has been a tremendous backlog in processing passports. He notes only about 40,000 passports are being processed each month, which is about half of what it was before the pandemic.

Now that the House has broken for summer, Falk says he looks forward to filling his schedule with fairs and festivals again. 

"People are very excited to be out and about to see their friends and neighbours around, it's just a great time," he notes. "And I'm looking forward to participating in more of that this summer."