Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, New Democrats want to build our economy and create family-sustaining jobs, but it must be done right. Today, the Liberals and the Conservatives are ramming Bill C-5 through Parliament with shockingly little debate or public input. This bill creates Henry VIII powers, letting the Prime Minister override laws by decree. It guts environmental protections, undermines workers and threatens…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-217, An Act to amend the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act and the Income Tax Act. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the post-secondary education financial assistance for persons with disabilities act. I wish to thank the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni for seconding this important piece of legislation. The bill would provide tuition-free post-secon…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-214, An Act respecting the development of a national renewable energy strategy. Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to introduce the national renewable energy strategy act. I thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for seconding the legislation and for all his work to protect our environment. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been …
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Mr. Speaker, during the last election, the Prime Minister said, “The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies...and military cooperation is over”. Yesterday, a leaked document revealed his government is willing to participate in Donald Trump's Golden Dome missile defence system. Former Liberal foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy called this…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I think the short answer is that this bill does very little, if anything, to address the homelessness issue in this country. It does give some targeted relief to someone who can afford to buy a home up to $1.5 million, but that is not going to address the tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of Canadians who are living homeless or couch surfing across this country, especially young peop…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is a true honour to rise today to deliver my first speech of the 45th Parliament. I do so with great humility and immense gratitude to the people of Vancouver Kingsway for once again placing their trust in me to represent them. I want to recognize all those who stepped forward as candidates in the last election. Their commitment to public service and to our democratic process is vi…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague asked an excellent question. I think I saw the carbon tax in this House reduced to what I would call nursery rhyme politics. It was used as an affordability issue, and most Canadians, frankly, were left underinformed about how the carbon tax worked and what its benefits and costs were. The truth is that this is where we are at right now. The carbon tax has been elimi…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, that was a thoughtful question. As I said in my speech, I think the climate crisis is the defining issue of our times. There are thousands of issues in politics, but some are existential, and the climate crisis is one of those. I think it is incumbent upon us as a Parliament to take effective measures that reduce Canada's carbon emissions in an effective way and meet the international…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honour the lives lost in the devastating attack at the Lapu-Lapu Day festival just six weeks ago in my riding of Vancouver Kingsway. Eleven innocent people were taken from us by the horrific act of violence that occurred as Filipino Canadians gathered to proudly celebrate their history, culture and achievements. To the loved ones of the victims, all who were affected a…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has examined the government's fiscal commitments, and he is warning that the numbers just do not add up. Among his troubling findings, the PBO says there is no way the Liberals can meet their spending targets without “severe cuts to the public service”. Federal services provide critical supports to Canadians across the country, which are especially nee…
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Mr. Speaker, it is with sincere and profound respect that New Democrats add our voices to honour the life and legacy of our colleague, the Hon. Marc Garneau, a trailblazer, a patriot, a devoted public servant and an exceptional human being. As Canada's first astronaut, Mr. Garneau soared beyond our world, embodying the spirit of exploration and the pursuit of knowledge. His historic journey inspir…
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Mr. Speaker, Canada's unemployment rate has surged to 6.9%, the highest in eight years outside of the pandemic. Alarmingly, youth unemployment is more than double that. Now The OECD is warning that Trump's trade war will cost Canada even more jobs this year. Canadians are worried about their futures. What immediate steps will the government take to bring the jobless rate down and protect Canadian …
Read full speech →First Session—45th Parliament
Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the New Democratic Party of Canada, I wish to offer most sincere congratulations on your election as Speaker of the House of Commons. Please accept our sincerest congratulations. I also wish to thank all those who ran for the position and to congratulate all returning and newly elected members of Parliament. We have a privileged position in the House. The role of the Spea…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' economic update failed to recognize the reality facing working Canadians. It failed to address the housing crisis. It failed to address the health care crisis. It failed to address the youth jobs crisis. Instead of fighting for Canadians, Liberals are fighting with themselves, and Conservatives only propose cuts that will hurt workers while big business gets tax breaks a…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for all of her work. She has been a crusading force in the House fighting for people with disabilities, including getting a meaningful Canada disability benefit. She continues to fight for that. In a word, I guess, the shorter list is to explain what the Conservative opposition has obtained for Canadians in the House, in this Parliament. The a…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, the housing crisis that we experienced in 2024 did not develop yesterday. It did not develop in the last five years. This has developed over decades of successive Conservative and Liberal governments, beginning in the early 1990s when the Liberals and Conservatives cut CMHC's investments in social housing in this country. That was the start of the long slide. That is why Canada toda…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, if we are speaking of latitude, in my 16 years in this place, I have never seen such latitude given to a government in presenting a fall economic statement, which was basically to table it outside, run for the hills and not be in the House to present the document. That is showing latitude to a government. In terms of the carbon tax, New Democrats have for many decades been very conc…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I will join issue with her on one thing, which is that we also believe the Prime Minister should resign. Our leader called for that very thing today. The New Democratic Party has 25 MPs in the House. My hon. colleague is a member of the Bloc Québécois and it has, I think, 33 seats. It has more seats than we do. What have the New Democrats accomplished in this Parliament since 2021? …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As the NDP finance critic, I have attended the lock-up, I have read the fall economic statement and I have gone to considerable lengths, along with my colleagues, to prepare the New Democrats' response to this. What I find patently unfair is that the government has chosen to release that document to the public at four o'clock. That document, a very thick bo…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I agree with a lot of what my hon. colleague said in terms of his description of how difficult it is for many Canadians. I do not know that I would say everything is broken, but I can say that a lot of people are broke. A lot of families are struggling. Fifty per cent of Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque, and one out of four parents is skipping meals to feed their children. …
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Madam Speaker, on the occasion of the 2024 fall economic statement, it is clear that Canada is at a crossroads. Many Canadians are struggling and uncertain about their and their families' futures. We are facing multiple, overlapping crises that require immediate and decisive action from the federal government, yet we are watching a Liberal government in complete disarray, out of ideas, flailing wi…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, the member raised the question of what we are voting for. I can give a little sample of what I and my New Democratic colleagues have voted for. We voted to bring dental care to nine million Canadians. We voted to bring diabetes medications and devices and contraceptives to 10 million Canadians. We voted to bring a school nutrition program to schools in this country. We voted to perm…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, I rise to honour one of Canada's finest public servants, our ambassador to Germany and former premier of British Columbia, the late John Horgan. Raised by a single mom, John overcame great challenges to rise to the highest levels of public office. His political career actually started in this place, staffing NDP MPs. In 1991, he left to assume important roles in the B.C. NDP governmen…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, I rise to honour one of Canada's finest public servants, our ambassador to Germany and former premier of British Columbia, the late John Horgan. Raised by a single mom, John overcame great challenges to rise to the highest levels of public office. His political career actually started in this place, staffing NDP MPs. In 1991, he left to assume important roles in the B.C. NDP governmen…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, today there are nearly one million Canadians under the age of 29 who are neither employed nor engaged in training. We have not seen a youth unemployment crisis this severe since the Conservatives were in power. According to Deloitte, this will cost our economy $18 billion over the next decade. Will the Liberals listen to New Democrats and set up a youth climate corps so young Canadian…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I agree very much with my hon. colleague that the misspending and conflicts of interest at SDTC should be of concern to every parliamentarian. I agree very much that there should be accountability and that the government should disclose the documents. My understanding is that, in his ruling, the Speaker ordered that this matter be referred to PROC, and then this House passed a motion …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I also had, coincidentally, an annual general meeting in Vancouver Kingsway this weekend. What I heard from the people who attended my meeting was just how desperately people are struggling right now. The figures back that up: 50% of Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque; one in four parents, according to the Salvation Army, are cutting down on their food intake so that they h…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, this morning, my hon. colleague spoke of the important duty of a government to disclose documents after Parliament has requested them. Of course, I agree with that very much. The member took the present government to task for not disclosing the documents that have been ordered by the House. He was in the House between 2011 and 2015, as was I, when the government of Stephen Harper wa…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this moment to say that I think my hon. colleague is the most powerful speaker in the entire House of Commons. One thing that is disturbing to me, listening to the speeches, is the disdain and the elitism I hear coming from the Conservatives. By talking about Pringles and cheese puffs, and by saying that this is insignificant and that it is chump change, it shows …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question for my colleague. How is helping struggling Quebeckers by sending them several hundred dollars at a very expensive time during the holiday season bad for Quebeckers or for Quebec?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, to say the words “Conservatives” and “labour” in the same sentence is an oxymoron. I have been in the House for 16 years and have watched the Conservatives vote every single time to order striking workers back to work. I have watched them oppose every single proposed minimum wage hike. I have watched them try to increase the retirement age from 65 to 67. If someone works in the House …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I serve with the hon. member on the finance committee, and I would think that someone on the finance committee would be quite careful with numbers. There was a majority Liberal government in this country from 2015 to 2019. Nobody was propping up the government; it was a majority government. The hon. member says “nine years”, but that is factually incorrect. I would not trust the membe…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I remember when the Conservatives were for tax cuts, but maybe it is because it is the Conservatives who brought in the GST that makes them so sensitive to cutting it. It is funny, my hon. colleague talked about pennies for cheese puffs, and he called it chump change. However, this is what the proposed GST cut will be on: children's clothing, footwear and diapers; children's car seats…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, calling parliamentarians “clowns” in this place is unparliamentary, and it is unbecoming of him. I would ask him to withdraw that comment immediately.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, millions of Canadians are struggling to make ends meet. We have a cost of living crisis and an economy that is seeing an ever-widening gap between the wealthy and the rest of us. A few stark facts bear this out. According to Statistics Canada, nearly half of Canadians report that rising prices are greatly affecting their ability to meet day-to-day expenses. Rent has increased by over …
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Mr. Speaker, I took the opportunity to review the CUSMA, which is the current trade agreement that was signed by the United States, Canada and Mexico on July 1, 2020. It says that CUSMA will expire in 2036 unless it is extended before that, and the parties agreed to review the treaty every six years. This means the first review of this treaty would come up in 2026, meaning that what the President-…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Mr. Speaker, obviously, Canada and the United States have a long, mutually beneficial and important relationship, but it is very important to note that President-elect Trump has the right to make economic policy in the United States; he does not have the right to make economic policy in Canada. If he is going to pursue unfair policies like slapping a 25% tariff on probably his closest and most loy…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Madam Speaker, Mr. Trump is apparently justifying this ridiculous assertion that Canada deserves 25% tariffs by talking about the border and also talking about Canada not hitting its defence targets. Last I checked, Canada determines, here in this chamber, and in this country, what our military spending is. It is not dictated by a foreign government. I have a twofold question. The other thing I wi…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Canadians need relief. While CEOs are raking in billions of dollars in profits, families are getting gouged on things like their heating and cellphone bills, and at the grocery store. The NDP has called on the Liberals to remove the GST on life's essentials to give Canadians a break. Instead the government responded with a partial version of what the NDP proposed. Liberals let people …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, it is a valid concern. I have read about the same concerns from police forces. It is unusual, in fact I think unprecedented, for Parliament to order documents to be delivered directly to a police force. Having said that, I am not sure it is illegal and I am not even sure it is necessarily impossible to do. Our police forces and the RCMP are used to executing subpoenas. They are used t…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, what a pleasure it is to work with my hon. colleague on the finance committee in a productive way. Tomorrow we are going to be voting on amendments to the upcoming budget. We will be taking all of the evidence and input that we heard from the stakeholders who came to the finance committee over the last two months and making suggestions to the government to make the Canadian economic c…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege and an honour to rise and speak on behalf of the great people of Vancouver Kingsway and to bring their voices, opinions and concerns to the floor of the seat of their national government. Having had the privilege of representing these great constituents for a number of years now, I have a very good sense of what their expectations are of members of the House. …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, the answer is simple: Both parties are wrong in this case. The Liberals should be producing the documents you have ordered and should not be redacting them. The New Democrats agree with our colleagues in the Conservative and Bloc parties when they say the government has to be forthright and produce the documents that will probably implicate it and be embarrassing for it. The documents…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that every opposition member elected to this place, especially in a minority Parliament, has a decision to make. They have to decide whether they are going to use their time and effort to attack, to destroy and to obtain nothing, or use their seat, voice and effort, roll up their sleeves and try to obtain benefits for Canadians. That is what I did and what the NDP di…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague gave a thoughtful speech. She talked a lot about “the foe”, and I am not sure from where, in her view, the foe emanates, but I want to focus and get her opinion on the foe from within. In this country, we have routinely seen the turnout for federal elections at about 60%. That seems to be the norm over successive elections. That means, and pardon my bad math, about…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-419, An Act to establish a national strategy for universal eye care. Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to introduce the national strategy for a universal eye care act, with thanks to the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley for seconding the bill. The legislation would mandate the development of a national strategy to support universal access to eye care, vision …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I had the privilege of being in the House from 2008 to 2015, when the Conservative government, under Prime Minister Harper, was here. In that time period, there were dozens of indigenous nations across this country that did not have access to clean drinking water, one of the primary elements of life. The government of the time sat and did nothing about that, so I do not think we sho…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I very much join with the member and share his deep concern about the need for absolute probity and respect for ethics in any cabinet, whether of the current government or any other government. My question for him is this. I find myself still confused. There was reference to “Randy” being involved in business decisions. The defence from the minister thus far is that it was not him, th…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, working and now middle-class families are cutting back on their groceries. They are getting less and getting gouged at the till by greedy CEOs. Liberals let this happen and are letting families down. Conservatives will cut and cost families even more. They will take away important services like dental care, costing families thousands of dollars a year. The NDP's tax-free essentials pl…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I agree with my hon. colleague that people are really struggling right now. In Vancouver Kingsway, people are having trouble paying their skyrocketing rent; they cannot afford a home, and they are living paycheque to paycheque. They are facing food insecurity. People need help. My colleague referred to one of her constituents, Stephanie. One of my constituents, a senior named Mary, …
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