Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association is calling for an additional $4 billion per year over two years in the national housing co-investment fund. The funds must be used to build truly affordable housing, targeting core need, with rents no more than 30% of total income. The government must inject additional dollars into the program and lift the arbitrary $25,000-per-unit cap o…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Motion No. 59 regarding a federal framework on housing for individuals with non-visible disabilities. I would like to thank the member for London West for putting forward this motion, which speaks to a very important issue. The motion states that the government should work with stakeholders in upholding a federal framework to improve access to …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the $4.3 billion announced for Indigenous housing in budget 2022, broken down by federal electoral district: what are the details of all projects that received funding, including the (i) name of the project, (ii) number of housing units built, (iii) number of housing units under construction, (iv) total number of units approved, (v) total amount of funding received?
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, on November 22, 2022, I asked the Liberal government if it would finally stop treating housing like a stock market and ensure every Canadian has access to safe, affordable and adequate housing as a basic human right. The Liberals talk a good game when it comes to solving the housing crisis, but they have failed to act. Costs remain out of control and the homelessness crisis continue…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, over the course of the pandemic, the independent music sector has seen its revenue decline by $233 million, and musicians' revenues have fallen by 79%. Canadian production saw an average decrease of 12.4% per year between January 2017 and December 2020. In digital media, royalties paid to Canadian creators were three times lower than those for traditional media uses. In 2020, one in…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, today is International Women’s Day. As people struggle with the high cost of living, the poverty rate for single moms is the highest among all family types. The Vancouver School Food Network and Coalition for Healthy School Food are calling on the Liberal government for a funded national school food program in budget 2023. Rising food costs and greedflation have put an enormous strain…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, today we are debating Bill S-211, which claims to fight against forced labour and child labour in supply chains. There is no question that global supply chains continue to be tainted with forced labour and child labour. Millions of people around the world experience conditions of modern slavery. Horrifically, this includes young children who, too often, harvest the food we eat and m…
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Madam Speaker, Oxfam Canada, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch want to hold companies accountable for their actions and to allow victims of human rights and environmental harm the statutory rights to bring a civil lawsuit against those companies. This bill does not do that. The NDP tried to move six amendments at committee to make that change. The government members and the committee me…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, New Democrats pushed the Liberals to deliver a one-time $500 housing benefit to low-income renters, but now the Liberals are saying that people on income assistance or disability assistance, whose rent is paid directly to landlords, are not eligible. They are among the most vulnerable in our community. We are in the middle of a housing crisis, and families are struggling to afford to …
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Mr. Speaker, on the issue of protecting Canadian workers or ensuring that they are at the forefront for investments, Conservatives have a long record of prioritizing foreign investors over Canadian workers. Does the member think that protecting Canadian jobs and workers should be at the forefront of any decision on the net benefit of a foreign investment in Canada?
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, each year on February 14, family members, survivors and allies gather to honour missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and 2S+ people. This Valentine's Day marked the 32nd annual memorial march. It has been over three years since the final report on the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry was tabled. As another year passes, the crisis facing the missing an…
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Mr. Speaker, the Harper government increased the threshold above which a foreign takeover of a Canadian firm is reviewed, from $300 million to a billion. Does the member stand by that decision or will he support reducing the current threshold to zero, so that every prospective transaction for either state-owned or state-controlled enterprises triggers a review?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the hon. member referenced in her speech the importance of getting more health care workers into our system. In immigration, in fact, there are a number of nurses who have come to Canada, many of them as caregivers. They have written all the exams and passed them to become health care workers, for example nurses, in the system. The only thing preventing them from doing that job is t…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out that, with regard to the housing project that the parliamentary secretary mentions, for example, on East Hastings in my riding, just so the member knows, that project was approved by the city back in 2018. It is now 2023 and likely, probably, maybe next year we will see the project finally deliver housing. It has taken that long to actually get that housing do…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I note the condescending comments that my colleague shared about my speech. It is not passion that I speak about. This is about our health care system and how it impacts Canadians. The member should know, and if he does not know, he should look it up, that the courts have made a clear decision that going toward private health care is a violation of the Canada Health Act. Going in th…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, when it comes to addressing the homelessness and housing crisis, the Liberals would be hard pressed to do any worse. The Auditor General's report on chronic homelessness found that the federal government does not even know whether the national housing strategy is working to prevent and reduce chronic homelessness, yet they have spent billions to develop unaffordable housing. On Novemb…
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Madam Speaker, let us look at the whole picture. The member should know what was happening during that period with the federal government. It was a Conservative government. With the Liberals and the Conservatives, it is the same old story; they are about the same. They starve provinces of federal health care transfer dollars, so people are forced to try to make ends meet. What we need to do, of co…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the member knows very well that what we are talking about is for-profit health care. He knows very well why I cited the example of the Cambie clinic. What Dr. Brian Day wanted to do was expand surgery, for example, and charge people tens of thousands of dollars to access surgery. In that process, he was going to raid health care workers in the public system to staff that approach. T…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I am delighted to debate this very important motion. We are talking about health care and health care delivery. One of the things that Canadians cherish is our universal public health care system. I will tell members a story of my own history. Our family immigrated here to Canada. At that time, when my parents got the green light to come to Canada, they also got the green light to g…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, indigenous peoples are overrepresented in the homeless population. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that it would require $27.5 billion to close this housing gap. The Liberals' allocation of $300 million over five years is a drop in the bucket. While the NDP forced the Liberals to roll this out over two years for urgent need, more needs to be done. The National Urban, Rural, and …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, first off, the member is wrong. There is no coalition government. The NDP is not part of the Liberals. We have a supply and confidence agreement, but we do not sit in cabinet. We are not there at that table. If it were an NDP government, we would have different policies; that is for sure. On the issue around the climate crisis, I think the member did not hear what I said. I invite him…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is simply wrong to have immigration detention for people who pose no security risk to Canadians or have no serious criminality issues. There is no reason for that. In the case I mentioned earlier, CBSA's own document, which was obtained by the CBC, said that he posed no risk. He posed zero risk to Canadians. As a result of the detention, he lost his job, he lost his apartment and h…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, under the Liberal government's watch, thousands of innocent refugees and migrants are being locked up in prisons, treated like criminals, simply for seeking safety and a better life in Canada. On November 14, 2022, I asked the government whether it would stop incarcerating migrants and asylum seekers in provincial jails, as has been called for by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Interna…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, to correct the member, if he actually paid attention to my speech, he would have heard me say that I was actually quoting the UN Secretary-General. That said, we do believe we need to tackle the climate crisis. There is no question about it. We have been calling on the government to take exactly those actions and make the biggest polluters pay their fair share, yet the Liberals contin…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague raises exactly the right point about the real impact for people. In my riding, and particularly in the Downtown Eastside, people can actually suffocate and die when there is a heat dome like that. In the SROs they are living in, there is basically no air circulating. That is why people took to the streets. If people want a solution, we need an investment in housing as a b…
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Madam Speaker, of course we are under siege with the climate crisis. In British Columbia we experience extreme weather from fires to floods. Lives were lost and there have been damages of untold millions of dollars. What is needed is not the solution the Conservatives are proposing, to not address the climate crisis through carbon pricing. What we need is for the government to take on big oil. The…
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Madam Speaker, I happy to enter this debate today. There is no question that people are struggling to pay for the rising cost of living on groceries, housing and energy. Just name it and they are struggling, while billionaires and big corporations are getting richer than ever. Big oil companies and CEOs are getting wealthier off the backs of Canadians, who are struggling with the rising cost of li…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, under the Liberal government, the cost of rent for Canadians has gone up 60%. Liberals are letting corporate landlords rip off Canadian families by jacking up rent when they bring in a new tenant. To let corporations and speculators turn our housing market into a casino for the ultrawealthy is wrong. The Liberals have turned their backs on renters. When are the Liberals going to crack…
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Mr. Speaker, I was glad to hear that the minister wants to engage in addressing the causes of crime. In my riding of Vancouver East, and particularly in the Downtown Eastside, we have a major homelessness crisis. We have people with mental health issues who cannot get mental health supports. We have people with an addiction issue who cannot get support or treatment on demand. People are dying in t…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the special immigration measures for Afghan nationals: (a) broken down by current country of residence and stream (people who assisted the government of Canada, humanitarian, extended family of former interpreters, and the special program to sponsor Afghan refugees without UNHCR status) and the year of the application, (i) how many applicants have been assigned a unique client ident…
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With regard to the National Housing Co-Investment fund (NHCF), for projects with conditional commitments and finalized agreements, broken down by province, stream (new construction, revitalization) and stage (conditional commitment, finalized agreement and finalized agreement with construction completed): (a) what is the number of units that (i) do not charge rent, (ii) charge rent up to 80 percen…
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With regard to Indigenous housing: (a) what is the total amount of the $4.3 billion for the Indigenous Community Infrastructure Fund announced in budget 2022 that has been committed to support housing (i) in First Nations on reserves, (ii) in Self-Governing and Modern Treaty Holder First Nations communities, (iii) in Inuit communities, (iv) in Métis communities, (v) as part of an urban, rural and …
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With regard to the Housing Support Program in British Columbia, formerly known as the New Approach for Housing Support program, broken down by community and fiscal year since 2015-16: (a) how much funding was requested through the program; (b) how much funding was delivered through the program; and (c) what is the total number of new homes built with contributions from the program?
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, today we are debating Motion No. 62, a motion that focuses on the human rights abuses and genocide being carried out against Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims by the government of the People's Republic of China. I would first like to thank my colleague, the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard, for his important motion. All parliamentarians must stand firm in defence of fundamental human r…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the minister says assigning immigration applications to agents who are no longer working at IRCC is ordinary process and part of inventory management. That means the Liberals are deliberately assigning applications to officers knowing that they do not work there anymore. Close to 60,000 applicants have been in a state of limbo, some for as long as 15 years, unable to move forward with…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her work at both the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development and the Special Committee on the Canada–People’s Republic of China Relationship. There are multiple levels or areas where this issue can be brought up. With respect to this motion, the content related to it and the human rights issue for Tibetans, could this be brought u…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I know we are not supposed to reference whether or not a member is in the House. However, I noticed you referenced that the member had left the chamber just now. Is that proper?
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, today we are debating Motion No. 63, a motion that focuses on anti-Asian racism and discrimination. I would like to first acknowledge and thank some of the organizations that are doing incredible work to support the Asian communities in fighting against anti-Asian racism. They are groups like Yarrow Intergenerational Society for Justice, Hua Foundation, the Metro Toronto Chinese and S…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, the member was absolutely correct to say that anti-Asian racism is on the rise. It began with COVID, but it has not abated since COVID. In my own personal experience, four generations of my family have experienced overt racism as well as covert racism. Things got so bad that it is extremely hurtful. With respect to this motion, the issue is this: Why did the member not include a repor…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Bank of Canada's interest rate was hiked yet again. Interest rates have already fuelled the high cost of rent, and this will just make it worse. Canadians are now facing a nearly 12% rent hike. In Vancouver, a one-bedroom apartment costs over $2,576, more than a 17% increase from last year. The NDP has always said that the $500 housing benefit is not enough. Will the go…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, that is correct. It is about clarifying the rules of the House to see whether we are allowed to reference members by name.
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, the government member is shouting things at me and is still calling “shame” as though I have no rights in the House. I was duly elected to the House, and just like anyone else, I can get up and ask for clarity from the Speaker, as I have done. There is—
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that the government member takes offence to the fact that I have a point of order to get clarity on the rules of the House. It is my right to do that. He says it is not my right to do so, so I demand that he retract that comment and apologize.
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, then it is okay to reference that the member for Scarborough North just left the chamber.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I have to say that there is no question in my mind that it is colonialism that is the root cause of this. There is no question that governments and the successive governments allow for the genocide to continue, which is also the ongoing problem of the situation. When everybody in the House got up to say that they hear the families, they see them and hear them, well then, I ask them to…
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Madam Chair, as we continue to talk about this, which the government is doing, people are dying and lives are being lost. The violence taking place is real. When we say we need to do this work, what we need the government to do is put actions to words. I want to see in the budget real, significant investments, and want the government to spend those investments, not just to put them on paper and no…
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Mr. Speaker, one of the issues that would be very important in addressing the safety of indigenous women and girls is access to housing. The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls actually mentioned housing over 200 times, yet Canada still does not have an urban, rural and northern, for indigenous, by indigenous housing strategy despite the government promising it ov…
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Mr. Speaker, I find it horrendous to hear the member say how much work the Liberals have done in this regard. The member must have missed the response from indigenous leaders on the failure of the action plan to implement the 231 calls for justice. The member must have missed the fact that again and again the government missed its timeline. Consequently, we see in our communities the lives that ar…
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Madam Chair, I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre, for her passion, her belief, her strength and her heart in speaking out for the families and for justice for indigenous peoples from coast to coast to coast. I come from Vancouver East, and in my riding, we too have devastating situations of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. We also experienced a situat…
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