Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague for her really excellent speech. It was pointed and it was factual. The member talked about people saying that we need to learn to live with the virus. A lot of countries have been quoted as saying, “Oh, look at how this country is living with the virus.” Today there was a graph put out by some of the health authorities globally that showed that Den…
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Mr. Speaker, that was an excellent speech. Everything the member said was true. It was factual. Everyone is talking about lifting vaccine mandates and getting back to taking care of ourselves, and we have seen—
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Mr. Speaker, it is very important to know what the plan of action is. A plan of action is not one that tries to second-guess a virus, which we cannot do because it has behaved very erratically, and viruses do that. The bottom line is to ask how many people we can prevent from getting this virus. We need to look at vaccination as a first step in a plan; the plan is vaccination. The next plan is to …
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Madam Chair, I am so excited to participate in this debate. I think my colleague just said it all. We talk about a crisis. A crisis sounds like something existential. This is real. In my province of British Columbia, 6.5 people a day are dying from preventable deaths. This is a mental health issue. This is a mental health problem, and there is a way to deal with it. We can talk about decriminaliza…
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Madam Chair, I will start by saying that we actually opened up safe injection sites, safe consumption sites, across this country, which were blocked and stopped for 10 years by the Conservative government. That is the first thing we did. Second, we made naloxone available, which can immediately save someone who is dying of an overdose and prevent them from dying. We have been giving access to drug…
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Madam Chair, decriminalization does have something to do with it. It removes the stigma. We are already moving forward with that as a federal government. We have asked attorneys general, federal and in every province, not to give criminal records to people who are using certain amounts. The City of Vancouver is willing to work on this. I am in support of it, but the thing that saves lives, which i…
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Mr. Speaker, Black History Month is a time to reflect on the many contributions the Black community has made throughout history to shape Canada into the nation we are today. We must empower Black voices and Black experiences to face the challenges that prevent them from contributing fully to a diverse, prosperous and inclusive Canada. This means taking action against systemic discrimination and an…
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Madam Chair, I have been listening with a great deal of interest to all of the speakers and I think I want to speak to constituents out there. We all understand the issue. We know the regional—
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Madam Chair, I am talking about the word “trust” here. We trusted a government that told us it would be going into Czechoslovakia and it would not do anything else, and then it moved to take over Europe. I do not know the bottom line of Putin's agenda, but I do know that he showed himself not to be trustworthy when he went into Crimea, when he armed his warships in the Baltic Sea, and when he thre…
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Madam Chair, I want to speak to Canadians out there and constituents, because I have noted that many of them have been asking why Canada is worrying about this country. It is so far away up there in Eastern Europe, why are we bothered? We are bothered because this is not just about us. It is not just about Ukraine. It is not just about NATO. It is not just about Europe. It is about the fact that o…
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Madam Chair, Canada is at the table with NATO playing the role that it can and that it is asked to play around that table. Canada is at the table with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which is made up of 57 nation-states. Canada is well respected and trusted at that table. These are the people who are talking about the steps to deal with Russia. These are the people who li…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Surrey—Newton. I ask my colleagues to spare a thought, or even a tiny tear, for my poor, beleaguered province of British Columbia. First there were heat waves in the summer, then there came fires, and it was only two months ago that we were able to deal with putting out those fires and repairing the damage after what went on. Now we face f…
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Madam Speaker, I think this is really important to the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. One of the most important things in our hospitals and our intensive care units is that the resources working in those areas were completely beleaguered by COVID and the heat waves. We now see what is happening with the floods. The important thing, as Theresa Tam, our chief public health officer, has said w…
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Madam Speaker, that was a question from a true British Columbian. There is an understanding of the problems that we face in British Columbia and an understanding of our culture and the iconic salmon. I think, in talking about indigenous communities, this government has stepped up and is working very closely with Minister Rankin in B.C., in getting water, food and medicines, and in protecting the i…
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Madam Speaker, that is an interesting question. I did speak about adaptation actually. I talked about protecting and preventing, putting back climate change to 1.5°C, and that we need to talk about it to get there. We need to therefore stop arguing about it, stop debating, and stop blocking it. Let us move forward to help it. I also wanted to say that it is little acts of kindness that are going o…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly respecting its participation at the 18th autumn meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, held in Marrakesh, Morocco, from October 4 to 6, 2019. Also, I pres…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, today, I honour the memory of Cornelia Oberlander, a renowned British Columbian landscape architect who passed away last month. At the age of 18, Cornelia and her family fled the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. She was one of the first women to study at Harvard's Graduate School of Design and continued to be a role model for women in a male-dominated field. Cornelia described her move to C…
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the New Democratic Party for bringing forward this topic on its opposition day. This is the kind of thing we need to do. We need to discuss this. We need to talk about it. We need to clarify and get to the truth of everything. I know my colleague, the Minister of Indigenous Services, just said that he could not put himself in the place of those families and children.…
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Madam Speaker, June is ALS awareness month, a time when the ALS Society of Canada raises awareness and funds for research and support for those who suffer from this tragic disease. About 3,000 Canadians are, at any one time, living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. This rapidly progressing neurological disorder can strike anyone, young or old, regardless of ag…
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Madam Speaker, absolutely. I think we need to give the assistance that is needed monetarily and in other ways, such as mental health, healing and support systems for families, to be able to go across the country and find out where there are other similar graves of lost children who never went home. We need to move forward to help. That is a thing we can do now, but I am speaking of some of the thi…
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Madam Speaker, I think it is interesting that we just talked about listening and heeding what people were saying. I did not say that. That is not what I said. I did not say that Parliament should not have a say in moving forward. I do think we have taken a long time, but we have taken the time that we were asked to take as we moved along with every single first nation clearly as they were ready to…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to present a petition signed by 1,885 people, with 645 signatures coming from my home province of British Columbia. The petition reads, “We, the undersigned, concerned citizens across Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to take the matter of investigating the shooting down of Ukrainian passenger Flight 752, whose passengers were mostly citizens and residents of Canada, t…
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Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe respecting its participation at the 20th winter meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, held by video conference from February 24 to 26, 2021.
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, over a year ago, Canada was hit with the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. Canadians faced daunting challenges, our government supported us and we banded together. Sadly, some chose to sow fear for partisan gains. Contrary to claims by the Conservative health critic, we received our first COVID-19 vaccines in 2020, not 2030, and all will have access to vaccines by September 2021. Canadians ne…
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Mr. Speaker, we know that human trafficking is a modern form of sexual slavery, which disproportionately affects women and girls as well as other vulnerable and marginalized persons. It is crucial that survivors of these crimes have access to support services, yet many do not know how or where to turn for help. Can the Minister of Public Safety inform the House of the resources our government has …
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Mr. Speaker, MS is the most common neurological disease affecting young Canadians. The incidence is three times higher among women. COVID-19 has amplified the income insecurity faced by women with disabilities. Diagnosed with MS in 2008, Michelle Hewitt shares how difficult it is to make ends meet. She says, “I regularly speak to women....no longer able to work [WITH] no avenues for income once th…
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Mr. Speaker, COVID-19 containment led to an increase in gender-based violence across the country. From the start of the pandemic, frontline organizations have struggled to meet the increased demand for services. I was glad to see that budget 2021 increased funding to support these groups, but to be effective in ending gender-based violence, we must consider men and boys. Can the Minister for Women…
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Madam Speaker, I am so proud to speak to this budget. The hon. member laid out the vision behind this budget extremely well, and I want to follow up on it. This is a historic budget, presented by Canada's first female finance minister. I am proud because I can see the fine hand of the Deputy Prime Minister in that budget. I can see her thinking and her vision, because it is a clear, logical, visio…
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Madam Speaker, this budget is not only about supporting the vulnerable, but it is also about being able to recognize where those supports are best used at the moment. It has been shown statistically that of seniors over 75, 10% are in the paid workforce right now. Most of them are disabled. They are suffering from long-term health problems, and so they really needed this extra support right now. I…
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Madam Speaker, I think what the hon. member does not remember is that in 2017, after the housing strategy had been gutted, this government put $40 billion over 10 years into housing, and since then we have topped that up. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation was brought back in the housing business, because it had been taken away by the Conservative government. We scrapped what was happenin…
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Madam Speaker, I think this member does not recognize that both pharmacare and child care are constitutionally provincial jurisdictions. In order to get to where we were under Paul Martin, we had negotiated a full child care and early learning program with all the provinces. We had also negotiated the Kelowna accord, and we had begun to work on a pharmacare strategy with the provinces at that time…
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Madam Chair, I think we could do that by providing shelters and places that are safe, such as safe houses, where women can go and be free from violence. Here I mean all women, not just women who suffer from domestic violence. I think that is the first thing we can do. However, as I said before, that is a band-aid. We need to now look at how we can deal with it, and I think we need to teach our chi…
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Madam Chair, no, I did not. I am sorry. I would like to say that I am sharing my time with the hon. member for Vancouver East. She is a champion for the cause of gender equality as well, so I am pleased to share my time with her. However, I wanted to say that it is the psychology that starts it all. For instance, when we sit around a boardroom table with male colleagues and say something, they pre…
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Madam Chair, I am so glad we are having this debate tonight. I think it has long been overdue. I heard a lot of people speak. All of them were passionate and really cared about what they were saying, but I want to make a statement: COVID did not cause violence against women. It exacerbated it and exposed it, but violence against women is pervasive. It has been rooted in history, tradition and cult…
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Madam Chair, I want to echo some of the things the hon. member for Vancouver East spoke about. I know that women in the sex trade have been given help by our government, by helping them with all of the things they could do. WISH has an overnight shelter now. It is not just a shelter, but a place where women in the sex trade can come. During COVID, women in the sex trade had no single means of supp…
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Madam Chair, absolutely. The Supreme Court ruled on it. With regard to the three areas that we have to decriminalize, we just have to do it. I speak to sex trade workers very regularly, about 50 of them, on Zoom. They really need to get help to find safe places to work, to live and to be protected.
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Madam Chair, I fully agree with the member. When we talk about intersectionality, we want to talk about all of the different types of women who are more susceptible, and seniors are susceptible. Financial violence against seniors by dependants, by their children or by someone they are sharing their home with, also disempowers them. It treats them with that kind of psychological violence that we ta…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to the attention of this House that COVID-19 is not a gender-neutral crisis. It has exposed an alarming rise in domestic and societal violence against women, especially ethnic, racial, and LGBTQ2+ minorities, nowhere more so than on social media platforms and nowhere more so than against women politicians and journalists. Globally, 41% of women MPs, and 52% in Europe, …
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Mr. Speaker, as a family physician, I know that gun violence is a public health issue that affects cities and small towns across Canada. Last month alone, there were three fatal gang shootings over three nights in Vancouver. We must end the gun violence and criminal activity. In 2019, we passed a bill expanding background checks for prospective gun buyers. Last year, we banned arms that were made …
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Mr. Speaker, B.C. is the western maritime province with strong links to the Asia-Pacific. We also have a unique, diverse and vibrant economy. Therefore, I welcome our government’s proposal to create the specific B.C. regional development agency. Could the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages tell the House more about our plan to implement this new B.C. regional development agenc…
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