Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on the intervention of the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, which I found it very strange. The Conservatives are talking about jobs and economic recovery. This bill exists because there are no jobs and there is no timeline for economic recovery. Therefore, I am not quite sure how he sees those as unrelated. My question for my hon. Conservative member and c…
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Mr. Speaker, it has been a devastating 12 months for Canadians, and it sounds like we are going to be in this for another seven months, if not longer. Three million Canadians remain out of work and remain on government support programs. We know that women’s workforce participation has been set back 30 years. As long as I have been alive, that is how much loss we have had as women in this country, …
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Mr. Speaker, I did not actually hear a plan for recovery for Canadian women. This week the Deputy Prime Minister and the Liberal government praised themselves for establishing a women's task force for recovery, an entire year after 1.5 million women lost their jobs in the onset of the pandemic. I will note that this task force has zero representation for women-dominated industries that were most i…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has presided over the largest decline of female workforce employment and has set us back 30 years. There are 500,000 women who remain out of work. In fact, 10 times as many men than women have re-entered the workforce during the pandemic and 100,000 women have stopped looking for work altogether because there are no opportunities available to them. It has been a yea…
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Madam Speaker, it certainly is nice to see Winnipeggers up today. I understand where the member is coming from. I really feel there is this loss of hope, this despair. People do not have a choice. They have no power. There is nothing they can do when their businesses are closing. There is nothing they can do when their children are depressed. They have no other options today. We are all powerless …
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Madam Speaker, I will note that the member did not dispute any of my claims or the claim that his Liberal government had not provided an end date or any hope or commitment for Canadians. I will refer him to the parents who tell me their little children are depressed, or the wives whose husbands have been laid off and whose self-confidence has plummeted to dangerous levels or the elderly who have b…
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Madam Speaker, when I was the critic for immigration, I saw the vast mistreatment and the lack of dignity for new immigrants and newcomers. Again, the Prime Minister and the Liberals have provided no strategy and no plan on how to reopen our economy, how to return to our free lives, other than vaccinations, maybe by September, and maybe that is when we will reopen. However, it has been a year. I f…
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Mr. Speaker, the public has just learned that in February a senior naval officer in the Canadian Armed Forces alerted the Liberal defence minister's office to an allegation of sexual misconduct against the chief of the defence staff, Art McDonald. In response, it is alleged that he was told to report his concern elsewhere. Since then, the senior naval officer has received anonymous phone calls thr…
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Madam Speaker, the hon. minister mentioned that she cannot stress enough the timely passage of this bill. I do hear her on that. She also mentioned there are labour market conditions her department has been monitoring since September, but likely before that, since the government instituted the CERB and the EI changes. The original bill was to provide that six months or 26 weeks of coverage, which …
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Madam Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to share my time with the hon. member for Carleton.
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Madam Speaker, today the House of Commons is debating Bill C-24. There are two key components of the legislation. First, the legislation would increase the maximum number of weeks available to workers through EI up to a maximum of 50 weeks for claims that are established between September 27, 2020, and September 25, 2021. This is up from 26 weeks, which was established in legislation passed by the…
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Mr. Speaker, young Canadians and their parents are growing increasingly concerned about the alarming decline of job opportunities as a result of the government's response to the pandemic. Experts are saying that it will be a decade before opportunities for our young people return to pre-pandemic levels. We know that in December 2020, 250,000 young people were out of work compared with the year pri…
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Madam Speaker, in his remarks, the hon. parliamentary secretary referenced the struggles that seniors have gone through from isolation during the pandemic. We have all heard from our constituents about this, and we know that 96% of fatalities from COVID-19 have been among those 60 and older. At the same time, his counterpart, the Minister of Seniors, has said in her remarks that the Liberal govern…
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Mr. Speaker, I really admire my colleague's public speaking abilities. They are fantastic. My question concerns, of course, her motion. I have a concern that research has not been done on the impact the top-up will have on low-income seniors who receive GIS. My concern is that this top-up to OAS may kick a number of seniors off the GIS, making them ineligible to receive it, or that there may be a …
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, today is Pink Shirt Day, a day to stand together against bullying. The pandemic has left millions of Canadians more isolated than ever, with many of us moving online to safely socialize. Unfortunately, bullying and harassment have also moved online, adding to the major mental health challenges already being faced by many Canadians, particularly children, during this difficult and unpr…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague spoke at length about the well-known and, frankly, growing concern of the disability community concerning this radical expansion of MAID. However, those concerns from Canada's disability community seemed to have been ignored by the Liberal government. The Minister of Justice, who is responsible for this bill, rarely seems to validate, answer or address those concerns at…
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Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciate the academic and legal vigour that my hon. colleague applies to his arguments. My question is about my colleague's personal beliefs. He mentioned that the government will expand or extend the Senate amendment of 18 months on review for mental illness to 24 months and then provide another year to consider whatever an expert panel recommends. Therefore, within three…
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Mr. Speaker, just before the holiday season, the Liberals sent over 440,000 letters to CERB recipients warning them that they might have to repay up to $14,000. This bad news came following the worst economic downturn in nearly a century. Talk about kicking someone when they are down. For months, Conservatives have been raising the alarm about poor communications on eligibility for CERB, but the L…
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Mr. Speaker, the fact remains that the Prime Minister is leaving thousands and thousands of Canadians behind. For example, those who are not eligible for EI are being directed to apply for the new CERB, the CRB. However, technical issues at the Canada Revenue Agency are resulting in automatic rejection of their applications. A Winnipeg couple with a newborn baby is dealing with this disaster and w…
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Madam Speaker, Manitoba is ramping up its plans to vaccinate 20,000 people per day by April. There are 13 vaccine super-sites opening up, as well as doctors' offices and local pharmacies, and all elderly in care homes have received their first dose. Provinces such as Manitoba are doing their part to ensure vaccines are delivered to people, but the province's efforts have been thwarted in part beca…
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Mr. Speaker, notable Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong has been sentenced to a year in prison for participating in peaceful protests. Three weeks ago, 53 lawmakers and pro-democracy activists were arrested for violating Hong Kong’s draconian national security law. The alarming threat from the Chinese Communist Party is escalating rapidly. Meanwhile we found out at the immigration commit…
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Mr. Speaker, Kherin Dimalanta is a live-in caregiver from the Philippines who is working for two doctors on the front lines of the COVID crisis in Ottawa. Sadly, Kherin was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease, and as a result, her immigration status has been put in limbo. The Liberals have been sitting on her humanitarian and compassionate application for a year. Without approval, she will be fo…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, Manitoba has just emerged from 11 weeks of code red restrictions that had all Manitobans staying at home and staying apart during the holidays. The ongoing lockdowns have put 5,600 Manitoba businesses at risk of permanently disappearing, and many have already closed, impacting thousands of workers who had good-paying, stable jobs. These last three months, and frankly the last year, ha…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the new College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants becoming the official regulator of immigration and citizenship consultants: (a) how will the college be funded; (b) what is the projected budget for the college for each of the next five years; (c) what specific powers or enforcement mechanisms will be available to the college; (d) what will be the organizational structure o…
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With regard to the government's position regarding the admissibility to Canada of individuals who have faced politically motivated charges in Hong Kong or China: (a) are foreigners convicted of politically motivated charges in Hong Kong or China barred from entry into Canada as a result of the politically motivated charges; (b) what directives have been issued, or measures taken, to ensure that bo…
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