Government Orders
Madam Chair, will the minister waive the refugee determination requirements for Afghan refugees as the government has done for the Syrian refugee initiative?
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Madam Chair, I hope that does not take away from my time allocation.
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Madam Chair, I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Nunavut. I will be asking questions of the minister without preamble. Will the minister waive the refugee determination requirements for Afghan refugees as the government has done for the Syrian refugee initiative?
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, food bank use in Canada climbed 20% with the pandemic and topped 1.3 million monthly visits. It is the largest increase since the 2008 recession. With the clawback of the GIS and the Canada child benefit, and the elimination of COVID emergency benefits, food banks face further increases in demand. Food banks alone do not solve hunger. They are a symptom of the root problem of poverty.…
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Madam Speaker, I met with an individual who told me this situation. They have family members in Afghanistan who worked for the previous government in the area of biometrics. After the Taliban took over, it visited workers in those departments and tried to force them to give them access to that biometrics information. It wanted to see both who was in the system, so as to target them, and those who …
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Madam Speaker, my question for the parliamentary secretary is this. Would the government be willing to waive the refugee determination requirement for Afghan refugees, as it has done under the Syrian refugee initiative?
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Madam Speaker, some of the messages the member read out are not dissimilar to the ones I have received. The messages from IRCC and GAC in response really shocked me, because essentially they were stock answers that told people to please go away. They did not provide a resolution or an approach for how they could get to safety. Many people who received documentation from the government were not rec…
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Madam Speaker, I believe we all want to help the Afghans who have been stranded and need to get to safety. There are some measures the Canadian government can undertake, including, for example, waiving the refugee determination requirement, so that people who cannot access the UNHCR offices would be able to get refugee status to get to safety. Another measure would be waiving the requirements for …
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Madam Speaker, I would like to extend a big thanks to all the military men and women here in Canada who put their lives at risk every day to protect us. With respect to the Afghan mission and the people left behind, we are in a situation where many people are in desperate straits. However, there are a number of measures the government can take to address this issue. I wonder whether the Conservati…
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Madam Speaker, the truth of the matter is that this problem has been escalated between successive governments. The Harper administration, from 2009 to 2011, did offer an immigration stream for Afghan interpreters. However, with that program there were very specific requirements. First, they had to have served 12 months before they could qualify for that measure, and second, it applied only if they…
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Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely costing lives, because people cannot get to safety. The government made an announcement saying it would bring 40,000 refugees from Afghanistan, knowing that the refugee determination process does not enable them to get to safety and knowing they cannot get the documentation to get to safety. All of that is just words. It is meaningless and costing lives.
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Mr. Speaker, given this is my first full speech in the House, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the people of Vancouver East for sending me back here, to bring their voices to the House of Commons. I often look at this place as this place of the people and it is absolutely essential for us to do our jobs and bring our constituents' voices here, represent their needs and drive change. W…
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Mr. Speaker, I am a little more than fairly interested in the refugee file. I am deeply interested in the refugee file, because that is what we need to do. Humanitarian action is required. On the issue of a special committee, the advantage of a special committee is that it would bring a number of different departments and ministries together to get the job done, because so far it is not working. T…
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Mr. Speaker, I have to say that action from the Canadian government to support people and get them to safety is absolutely essential and urgent. It is not premature. In fact I would argue that it is late in the day for us to get going on this. This should have been done before the election. It should have been done even with the prior administration. The Conservatives created a program from 2009 t…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, my riding of Vancouver East has the third largest urban indigenous community in the country. We also had the largest homeless encampment in this country. That encampment has now been taken down, but people are still homeless on the streets and I see tents everywhere. The winter months are here; it is wet and it is cold. The most glaring omission from the national housing strategy wa…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I am sorry, but the fact is that the Liberal government has promised this for four years and it has not delivered. It is not even in the throne speech. He mentioned the need for a “for indigenous, by indigenous” urban, rural and northern housing strategy. The measures that the minister mentioned just now will not provide support to indigenous peoples in core need. That is the realit…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, the Liberal government has failed to meet even one-tenth of the commitment of protecting Afghan refugees. The Liberals' continued insistence on layers of red tape has left tens of thousands of Afghans fleeing the Taliban unable to get to safety. With each passing day, Afghan collaborators, human rights advocates, judges, women and girls face heightened risks. Will the Liberals simpl…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member on his maiden speech. He talked a lot about co-op housing and calls himself a co-op housing kid. I am delighted to hear that. The situation with housing is this. The CMHC used to deliver co-op and social housing and was really good at it, but this was gutted because in 1993 the federal Liberal government cancelled the national affordable housing program. As a…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Madam Speaker, the government recognizes there is a great need in terms of health emergencies. Right now, we have an overdose crisis in my riding of Vancouver East. More people are dying from overdoses than they are dying from the pandemic. Will the member work with the NDP and support our call to decriminalize and ensure that there is a safe supply so we can save lives?
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for his maiden speech. He spoke passionately about sexual crimes. Here in Canada, sadly, the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls' situation is not getting any better. I still recall the time when the Harper administration actually said that it was not a Canadian problem but, rather, that it is an Indian problem. Now we have the inquiry. The Libera…
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Madam Speaker, another issue that has surfaced in my riding of Vancouver East concerns start-up businesses. They have been excluded from pandemic support and many of them are struggling. We now have an opportunity before us with Bill C-2 to make changes so that start-up companies can get the support they need to survive the pandemic. Would the Conservatives support such a change?
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Mr. Speaker, the member spoke about the importance of reconciliation and the need for action with regard to the TRC and the calls for justice by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, as per the constituents from her community. In the throne speech there was no mention of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's recommendations, and no mention of the calls for …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, in Vancouver, nearly 40% of the unhoused are indigenous peoples. For the last four years, the Liberal government has claimed that it is working on a “for indigenous, by indigenous” urban, rural and northern housing strategy. So far, there has been no progress and it did not even bother to mention it in the throne speech. This glaring omission is a disgrace given the urgent need and it…
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Madam Speaker, on the clawback of the GIS for seniors, the impact is detrimental. I have met seniors who have now been evicted and rendered homeless, and the government still is not taking any action. Some 83,000 seniors will be impacted. Very specifically, would the member support the call for the government to eliminate the clawback for seniors who received the CERB or the CRB during the pandemi…
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Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to this debate for hours and my colleague, the member for Elmwood—Transcona, perhaps made the best speech of the day. He has touched on all of the issues. One thing that has not really been a highlight in the discussion here is leadership, and what our role is to show leadership to the public to say how we can work together and support each other to beat this thi…
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Mr. Speaker, I note that the member actually did not answer the question about how many Conservative members have gotten some sort of medical exemption. That is as an aside, but I want to bring this debate back to the issue at hand, which is about health. The reality is that we are still in the fourth wave and COVID is still very active in communities. The other clear health measure is that if a p…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Madam Speaker, I think we have all listened very carefully to the details he has offered around the situation with which his constituents are faced. He can be assured that the New Democrats will work with him and with the government to ensure they get the help they need. Being from British Columbia, I will ensure that all British Columbians get the help they need. On that note, the government has …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, in addition to the emergency debate about what is going on in British Columbia with the climate crisis, I would like to request that you consider granting an emergency debate on the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. As we know, the election was called on August 15, the very day on which the Afghanistan government collapsed. As a result, many people have been put at risk under the Ta…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Madam Speaker, the member mentioned the need for housing and he is absolutely correct. In the most recent throne speech, I was dismayed that the Liberal government did not even mention anything about the urgent need for a for-indigenous, by-indigenous urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy. I wonder if the member could comment on that and what his views are. Do we need one or do we …
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Madam Speaker, congratulations to you. The member said the government is on track to meeting net-zero targets. The reality is this. I will remind him that the current government has missed every single target to date. We are in fact not on track. The reason we have the climate emergency we are faced with in British Columbia today is exactly because successive governments have failed to take the cl…
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