Parliamentary Speeches

Routine Proceedings

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to have the honour to present, on behalf of the international trade committee and in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on International Trade, entitled “Canada–United States Relationship and its Impacts on the Electric Vehicle, Softwood Lumber and Other Sectors”.

Routine Proceedings

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to present this petition, especially following the discussion by my colleague on his concurrence motion pertaining to things that many of us in the House care about and would like to see an end to. Canadian lawyer David Matas and former Canadian secretary of state for Asia-Pacific David Kilgour conducted an investigation and concluded that the Chinese regime and its age…

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge October 13 as World Sight Day, reminding my colleagues in the House and every Canadian about the importance of eye health. Unfortunately, we all take our eyesight for granted until it is often too late. There are 1.2 million Canadians who are currently blind or partially sighted and over eight million have an eye disease that puts them at risk for vision loss and…

Statements By Members

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to stand in solidarity with the people of Iran in the wake of the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, a beautiful 22-year-old woman who was arrested by the morality police on September 13. She was accused of violating the country’s strict codes on modest dress for women, and she was beaten to death while in detention. Mahsa’s killing sparked a nationwide uprising that is continu…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be back, glad to see you back in the chair here in the House and glad that we are getting on with the work that is important for all our constituents and for our country. I want to speak to Bill C-31. Just in case viewers have lost track given previous speakers, what we are actually focusing on in Bill C-31 is part 1, the dental benefit act, which would provide interim de…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his continued work in the House on behalf of all Canadians. The whole issue of investing in people is an important part. We are investing in Canadians; we are not investing somewhere else. We are reinvesting tax dollars to help people have a better quality of life. When I think of the $10-a-day child care and why I am a huge supporter of that progra…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely did not mean to offend the hon. member. I know her passion when she speaks in the House, and I quite often applaud it and agree with many of the comments. However, I am very proud of what our government has done when it comes to housing. We have invested billions and billions of dollars across Canada with our rapid housing initiative, but all these things take time. They …

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I will try to bring the temperature down a bit. We are here to debate and to discuss, but I do not want anyone to have a heart attack in the sense of trying to get a point across. The issue of housing—

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to answer my colleague's question. It is good to see him on the floor again. We have gone back and forth between us on a variety of issues. I believe in investing Canadians. All our money does not come out of mid air. It comes from Canadians. It comes from each and every one of us. It is what we do with that money that matters. Investing in Canadians and giving them back …

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, today I rise because I want to honour the memory of a very important friend and a member of the Humber River—Black Creek community, Sharon Lustig. It is with profound sadness that I recognize Sharon's passing on September 5. She was a devoted mother to Ellen and Joel, a caring grandmother to her grandchildren and a loving wife of the long-standing Humber River Riding Association presi…

Madam Speaker, it is truly an honour today to join the acknowledgements for Queen Elizabeth II. Before I make my brief comments, I want to acknowledge the tragedy in Saskatchewan and the loss of two police officers in the GTA in the last few days. What a tremendous loss that is for communities at large in both parts of our country. I stand today on behalf of the residents of Humber River—Black Cre…

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, today I want to acknowledge the tremendous work of representative Winston Wen-yi Chen, the tenth representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada since it was established in 1992. He is a friend of many parliamentarians. Representative Chen assumed his duties in Ottawa four years ago, and it has been a fruitful partnership ever since for both Canada and Taiwan. Repr…

Routine Proceedings

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 107(3), I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the liaison committee, entitled “Committee Activities and Expenditures: April 1, 2021 - March 31, 2022”. This report highlights the work and accomplishments of each committee, as well as detailing the budgets that fund the activities approved by committee members.

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, when it gets referred to committee in the immediate future, there will be an opportunity at the committee level to discuss all the options on the table, including the issue of buyback. Whatever we can do to get guns off the street is something I am very supportive of.

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I want to acknowledge the continued great work that the member is doing as a member of Parliament. I was very focused on so many people in my particular riding who have been asking for such a long period of time for more to be done to eliminate handguns in our communities. If we did an analysis, we would probably find that one in four is carrying a gun in my riding of Humber River—B…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, unfortunately, whatever happens to the south of us ends up being duplicated here in Canada, whether it is a month later, six months later or two years later. When we look at the killings and those mass shootings in the schools, when there are 19 babies killed, those were not done with a handgun. We have already banned some of those, but the handguns we are talking about are the ille…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I am very proud to rise in this House today, especially following my illustrious colleague, who never seems to run out of words and manages to fill the time slot all the time. I represent a riding that, like many others in a large urban centre like Toronto, has a tendency to have a lot of violence, and the majority of that violence is gun violence, so I am very pleased that Bill C-2…

Statements by Members

Madam Speaker, today I would like to honour the memory of a passionate teacher, a dedicated volunteer and a great community leader, Ms. Sothymalar Paramsothy. Ms. Paramsothy arrived in Canada, along with her two sons, as a refugee. Like most Tamils, she balanced several jobs to make ends meet as she integrated into a new place. A teacher by profession, she worked part time in Dufferin-Peel Catholi…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, we have put millions of dollars into the issues of addictions and mental health in the last several years. I think we are finally recognizing that arresting people and putting them in jail is not going to help. I was recently in Vancouver and was absolutely blown away by the number of people I saw living on the street, suffering from mental illness. The other day I was on King Edward …

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that Bill C-21 has been introduced and very soon we could be dealing with the issues of firearms. As I indicated earlier, anyone who uses firearms in any kind of circumstances should receive much more of a penalty, not less.

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely agree. Those are the areas we are trying to work in. When there is an imbalance and we look at the fact that 9% of people who are in prison are indigenous, we have to ask why and look at the root cause. I agree with my colleague completely. That is why I said, in response to the previous speaker, that we could be sitting down, quite possibly around this beautiful table, f…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the wonderful member for Lac-Saint-Louis. I am pleased to speak to Bill C-5. I have to reference the previous speaker's speech. All of us come to the House to make life better. We have different opinions on how we achieve that goal, but after listening to the previous speaker, so much of what is on this side of the House is on all sides of the House. W…

Routine Proceedings

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-284, An Act to establish a national strategy for eye care. Mr. Speaker, I am very happy today to have the opportunity to introduce this bill calling for a national strategy on eye care, something that, for many years, Canadians have been calling for, and something that the government has promised many times before that. I want to acknowledge that I am introducin…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, we are all doing what we are doing with the best of intentions, and in 2007, when mandatory minimums were introduced, many people thought they would really help to reduce crime and improve public safety. What we have seen is that they have done far more damage than good.

Statements By Members

Madam Speaker, the past two years have been difficult, fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, but none more so than for our health care professionals, who have been challenged both personally and professionally. Situated in the traditional lands of the Anishinabe, Humber River Hospital has cared for more COVID patients than many other hospitals in Toronto. It played a key role in keeping the northwest co…

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, it is with a heavy heart that I rise today in memory of a great man, Maulana Naseem Mahdi Sahid, a dear friend of mine for over 30 years. He left this world last week. Naseem was a loyal and trusting friend that I, my husband Sam and the rest of our family are honoured to have known. He was born in Pakistan, arriving in Canada in May of 1985 as head of the Canada Jamaat, and served as…

Routine Proceedings

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on International Trade, entitled “Main Estimates 2022-23: Vote 1 under Canadian Commercial Corporation, Vote 1 under Invest in Canada Hub”.

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise in the House today to welcome the Canada-Ukraine parliamentary program class of 2022 as it begins its first full week here in Ottawa. This program began in 1991 under the authority of the then Speaker of the House, John Allen Fraser, and happened every year until 2020, when it was put on hold due to COVID‑19. This year, we welcome back the program with the largest n…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, the member for Windsor West and I have been working together for I do not know how many years now. We very often have similar thoughts. I would be very interested to see what is in the bill. To find the opportunity to dedicate land as a national park is a wonderful idea. I look forward to seeing what is in the bill my hon. colleague has brought forward and to hopefully support it wi…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I do not want to be too blunt about it, but the reality is that the federal government passes millions and millions of dollars down to the provinces for health care and so on, but the provinces' priorities are not always the same priorities that we at the federal level maybe think they should be. On the issue of dental care, many of the provinces probably would have never got around…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to see you in the chair and pleased to be back in the House. I hope everybody had a restful period of time and we are all back here now. As I rise in the House today to speak to this year’s budget, I will be sharing my time with the member for Mississauga—Streetsville, a wonderful new member of Parliament we have here who is doing great things and who is great to work w…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I can say that over the last last two and a half years that we have been dealing with the pandemic, nothing has made me more proud of our government than the amount of help that we put out there for people who were losing their jobs or did not have jobs to go to any longer. With the monthly support they received and the help that we gave to businesses, the job numbers are now back u…

Routine Proceedings

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition, as my colleague did previously, on the issue of the terrible war that is happening in Ukraine. This petition was signed by thousands of Canadians and recognizes that the Russian Federation has launched an unprovoked war against the people of Ukraine and that the Russian Federation has committed multiple war crimes against the people of Ukraine. The …

Routine Proceedings

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 107(3), I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the liaison committee, entitled “Committee Activities and Expenditures: April 1, 2021 - December 31, 2021”. This report highlights the work and accomplishments of each committee, as well as detailing the budgets that fund the activities approved by the committee members.

Private Members' Business

Mr. Speaker, I am really pleased to stand and speak to the motion put forward by the hon. member for Etobicoke North. I listened to the previous speaker's comments about her mom being in a retirement home and the added expenses and so on. The whole core of the motion my colleague put forward is to talk about RRIFs and the fact that when someone is 71 years of age, they have to start taking out the…

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise in the House today in memory of a great Canadian who played a major role in fostering the beginnings of our relationship with Taiwan. Reverend George Leslie Mackay arrived in Tamsui in 1872 as a missionary, an educator and a medical practitioner. Reverend Mackay contributed greatly to education and public health in Taiwan. He founded the Oxford College, which i…

Statements By Members

Madam Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart, a feeling I am sure all of my fellow parliamentarians share. Twenty-seven days ago the people of Ukraine found themselves under siege from a foreign government, an escalation to a conflict they had already been facing for years due to a ruthless dictator who wishes to own them by any means necessary. This attack on democracy cannot and will not stand…

Orders of the Day

Mr. Speaker, if we had to wait another five or six days before we could start to remove the illegal protest and illegal blockage that is there, what kind of damage would that continue to do to Canada's reputation? Many of our small businesses deliver biscuits or other things. They are valuable businesses and they have anywhere from five or six to a dozen employees. They were feeling the strain. I …

Orders of the Day

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Etobicoke Centre. I stand with great sadness today to talk about the Emergencies Act because it is not something that any of us in this House, especially the Prime Minister, wanted to bring forward. We would not have if it were not absolutely necessary to do so. We need to look at the blockades that were going on last weekend at th…

Orders of the Day

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on the tone of his comments today. It would be a much better reflection on all of us if we continued to seek out the things that we can agree on and tried to solve some of these problems at the end of the day, not make them worse. Canadians are watching this debate. I watched events yesterday, as many of us did. With all of what I heard my colleague…

Orders of the Day

Madam Speaker, I have to say to my hon. colleague that much of his speech could have been written by any of us on this side. We all know that law and order are the fundamental backbone of our country. That is what we all want. However, the hon. member cannot say to me or to the rest of our colleagues that what is happening outside could simply be handled by some police officers shoving the protest…

Orders of the Day

Madam Speaker, I think this is out of order. We are talking about the Emergencies Act. We are not talking about an ethics report from some time ago.

Orders of the Day

Madam Speaker, I want to acknowledge the Province of Quebec and thank it for intervening and helping us with the illegal blockade we have outside. This is a national problem, and what is happening in Ottawa is not the only issue we are dealing with. We are dealing with issues from one part of the country to another, and that is why we need the Emergencies Act. I would like to know if my hon. colle…

Orders of the Day

Mr. Speaker, we have talked about trying to get through this pandemic and the difficulties many businesses are facing, so we cannot stand back and allow things to continue this way. Michael Kempa, a law professor and criminologist in Ottawa, was asked a few minutes ago if the Emergencies Act was really necessary. He said that it absolutely was, because without the Emergencies Measures Act being br…

Orders of the Day

Mr. Speaker, I think there are a ton of nice people outside who are protesting because this illegal protest brought out two years of frustrations. I could have been out there in the protest just as well as they could have. We are all fed up with this. We have all been through a difficult time, but we have to do what we have to do, and that is to respect each other. There are some extremists out th…

Orders of the Day

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her support and for her important question. This matters to all of us. It does not matter what party. This is an important piece of legislation that we are standing for and supporting. We all want to make sure that due process happens, which means that there will be a full investigation of what did happen and what went wrong. Clearly, we can see that right fro…

Orders of the Day

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I continue to be concerned about is the amount of violence that is happening throughout our country on different fronts for different reasons. Maybe some of it is the result of the pandemic and the stress on people. That is what I would like to think it is. Once we can get a bit further along with this pandemic, people will feel better. They will be calmer and t…

Statements By Members

Mr. Speaker, February is Black History Month. It is a time to learn about the histories and cultures of Black Canadians and how they have contributed to Canada. It is also a time to celebrate legacies left and legacies in progress. My riding of Humber River—Black Creek benefits greatly from the contributions of Black Canadians in the past and now. That is why I am happy to stand today and recogniz…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for asking that question and continuing to work with us to make a difference in the lives of many people. When we were able to give seniors throughout the country approximately $1,500 in these last two years as extra money to help them get through the difficulties, it was a huge help to many of the seniors I know in my riding of Humber River—Black C…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I am happy stand today to speak to Bill C-8 and join my many colleagues. I believe that together we are working to move our country forward and solve some of the problems we certainly have as a result of the pandemic. I do want to acknowledge the protesters who continue to be outside blocking the streets and disrupting the lives of many people here in the city of Ottawa. It is nothi…