Tom Kmiec
Tomasz Kmiec is a Canadian politician who is the Member of Parliament for the riding of Calgary Shepard. He presently serves as the Conservative National Caucus Chair for Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.
Early life and education
Tom Kmiec was born in Gdańsk, Poland. His family emigrated to Canada and settled in Quebec. Kmiec was raised in Quebec and went through the French education system as part of the Bill 101 reforms. In 2005, he moved to Calgary. He is raising his three children, Maximillian, Jolie, and Enoch.Kmiec graduated from Concordia University in Montreal with a bachelor's degree in Political Science. He then received his master's degree in American Government with a concentration in Terrorism and Homeland Security from Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA.
Career
Kmiec started his career as an intern in the office of then Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, Stephen Harper. Kmiec has since worked for cabinet ministers federally and provincially in Alberta in portfolios including: finance, immigration, sustainable resource development, and national defense.Kmiec was elected in the 2015 Canadian federal election for the riding of Calgary Shepard. Kmiec has served on the Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations, the Foreign Affairs and International Development Committee, and the Finance Committee. The latter two represent the most senior committees in Parliament.
On September 18, 2017, Kmiec was moved from his role as Deputy Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs to the Deputy Shadow Minister for Finance. In this role, Kmiec was a strong voice for lower taxes, financial responsibility, and housing affordability.
Kmiec was named deputy critic for foreign affairs for the Conservative Party of Canada on October 16, 2016 in a shadow cabinet shuffle by Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose.
Prior to being elected as the MP for Calgary Shepard, Kmiec was the manager of policy and research with the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and worked for the Human Resources Institute of Alberta. This work received national coverage in the Globe and Mail and Maclean's magazine.
Kmiec is an advocate for the Kidney Foundation and served on the board of the southern Alberta chapter.
Pipelines and Energy Jobs
Since being elected in 2015, Kmiec has worked closely with Conservative caucus colleagues and interested parliamentarians from other parties to champion the construction of new pipelines by the private sector to get Canadian energy resources to new markets.
In the fall of 2016, Kmiec helped start the Alberta Jobs Taskforce in response to the growing energy jobs crisis in Alberta after unemployment reached 200,000
Later, on November 27, 2017, Kmiec became the first MP to ask for an emergency debate in Parliament on the energy sector job-loss in Alberta. In his request, he outlined his disappointment with the Liberal government's inaction on the Alberta recession.
On April 18, 2018, Kmiec moved a motion at Parliament's finance committee asking to set aside 4 meetings to understand the impact of the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline cancellation on Canada's economy and consider whether the federal government should use its constitutional powers to ensure that the pipeline is built. The Liberal MPs on the committee rejected the motion.
Supporting Canadians With Rare Diseases and Disabilities
Kmiec is a vocal supporter for improving the government's processes to ensure that all Canadians living with a disability or a rare disease receive the benefits they are entitled to.
On March 21, 2018, he tabled his first Private Member's Bill, Bill C-399 the Fairness for Persons with Disabilities Act, that aims to improve and expand access to the Disability Tax Credit.
The Fairness for Persons with Disabilities Act would reduce the time to qualify for the Disability Tax Credit from 14 to 10 hours, include calculation of dosage into time to qualify for the credit and add medical food and medical formula to qualifying for the tax credit.
On August 13, 2018, Kmiec’ s daughter, Lucy-Rose Evangeline Winfield Kmiec, died 39 days after her birth. Lucy-Rose was born with Trisomy 13, a rare chromosomal disorder also known as Patau Syndrome. Following her death, Kmiec shared an emotional tribute to his daughter in the House of Commons. “Her short life was energetic and eventful. It has made me realize that life is much more than prizes, certificates and public recognition. Her great success is the incredible warmth she brought to my family and how she's been able to mature her older siblings into responsible caretakers without a spoken word” Kmiec stated.
On December 3, 2018, Kmiec supported an amendment to the Budget Implementation Act that would have created a new 12-week bereavement leave for parents dealing with the death of a child. The Liberal MPs on Parliament's finance committee voted against creating this bereavement leave, and the amendment was defeated. Under the current law, fathers who lose a child are entitled to only five days of leave from work—three paid and two unpaid—while the wording regarding leave for mothers is vague and unclear. Kmiec remains committed to ensuring that parents who experience the loss of a child are allocated up to 12 weeks of bereavement leave.
Housing Affordability
Kmiec is an outspoken critic of barriers to housing affordability facing young Canadian families. He has been vocal in questioning the Liberal government's mortgage lending rules and increases to mortgage insurance fees charged by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Kmiec has repeatedly called for a full parliamentary review of the B-20 Mortgage Stress Test, that was introduced by the Liberal government in January 2018. He has published a series of articles on the topic and has moved two motions at Parliament's finance committee asking for a study of the mortgage lending rules. The Mortgage Stress Test is estimated to have prevented 100,000 Canadians from purchasing a home, slowed mortgage growth by nearly 12 percent, and will delete some 200,000 jobs from the economy by 2021.
Parliamentary Friends of the Kurds
Kmiec created the "Parliamentary Friends of the Kurds", a parliamentary group aimed at establishing dialogue between Canadian and Kurdish lawmakers and fostering positive relations between Canada and the Kurdistan Region. Kmiec, along with NDP MP Gord Johns and fellow Conservative MP Michael Cooper traveled to Washington DC in March 2016 to meet with officials from the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
Kmiec was the first Parliamentarian to unearth the Liberal government's $256 million pledge to the China-controlled Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which was hidden inside the Liberal government's 2017 omnibus budget, Bill C-63.
Kmiec criticized the Liberals’ decision to gift $256 million to the AIIB, which is funding the construction of three new energy pipelines in Asia while the Liberal government opposes and stalls the construction of energy pipelines in Canada. Kmiec called on the Liberal government to cancel Canada's participation in the AIIB through a series of motions at parliament's finance committee, but the Liberal MPs on the committee voted down the motions.
Human Rights and Religious Freedom
Kmiec is an active advocate for human rights and religious freedom around the world. He was a vocal supporter for Canada's Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act,'' created in response to the death lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was beaten to death in Russian custody.
In response to the religious persecution of Montagnards highlanders who practice De Ga Protestantism and Ha Mon Catholicism in Vietnam, Kmiec tabled a petition calling upon the Government of Canada to demand that the Vietnamese government stop its abusive policies against these groups. The petition further demanded that future trade agreements with Vietnam would be contingent on their adherence to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and that under the Sergei Magnitsky Act, sanctions would be applied against Colonel Vu Van Lau and Senior Lt. Colonel Pham Huu Truong.
Kmiec is also an advocate for Canada to support the minority Uyghur population in China's Xinjiang region, who are being targeted for their religious beliefs and detained in internment camps. In May 2019, Kmiec questioned the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board regarding their investments in two Chinese companies — Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. Ltd. and Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co. Ltd. — that are involved in the manufacturing of surveillance equipment used to repress Uyghurs in Western China. Kmiec has urged the CPPIB to divest their holdings in these companies.
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