Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, one of the most difficult times I spent was on the door step of a women who was a senior. She was unable to afford her medicine. She was making a decision on whether to buy food or fill her prescription. No one should have to deal with this in Canada. We know that over 30% of single women over 65 are living in poverty. Is my colleague concerned that this agreement, like CETA before, m…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege today to rise and table a petition on behalf of residents from the Alberni Valley. The petitioners cite that Health Canada has an open file to license a Walmart-sized medical marijuana facility directly across the street from Kackaamin, a first nations family trauma and addictions healing centre. The centre is doing important work around our shared history of colonia…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, one thing we have heard about are the challenges created by the current medical assistance in dying legislation with the requirement for final consent at the time the assistance is rendered. We know that this requirement often forces those who are already assessed and approved for medical assistance in dying to make a cruel choice when faced with the possible loss of competence that…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, before I get started, on behalf of the federal NDP and as the critic for small business and tourism, I want to acknowledge a huge loss. I believe that all parliamentarians will agree that we lost a wonderful leader in the tourism sector: Charlotte Bell, who was the CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. She was an incredible champion for tourism businesses and the tourism …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, absolutely, and I know tourism is such an important part of the economic makeup where he is in the Shuswap and Okanagan. I also thank my colleague for his constant advocacy for the wild Pacific salmon. The member nailed it. When it comes to tourism businesses, we need tax credits first to help them get through the costs associated with testing. That is absolutely critical. As well, …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, these are the types of niche businesses, like festivals and events, for example, that are being left out. The wage subsidy is not going to get them through this; the CEBA loan certainly is not enough; and the rent program does not help them, and borrowing a bunch more money is not going to cut it. They are not going to be able to do that; they cannot absorb it. They need liquidity t…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, that is a fabulous question. I think about the HASCAP program, for example, which is not designed like the CEBA loan. With the CEBA loan, obviously, applicants get the $60,000 loan and only have to repay $40,000. If they pay back the rest, they get $20,000 towards the losses they have incurred. We need that in the HASCAP program and the bigger programs, otherwise these lodges and bu…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, that is a good question. My colleague and many colleagues from across political parties have been part of the effort to work with the United States, as members of the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group. He and I would be part of the group from the Pacific Northwest. We do not have a lot of integration. We need more integration. Obviously, ensuring that vaccines are here …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, that is a great question, and I want to thank my colleague, because she has been talking a lot about this issue, and especially about how women are being impacted. We talked about the importance of child care and the importance of that as part of a “she-covery”. We talked about those travel agents, and I am really glad she brought up travel agents, because the government keeps talki…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, as new Democrats, we also recognize China's mass detention, forced labour, surveillance and population control measures that have been directed against the Uighurs and Turkic Muslims fit the definition of genocide and we support an immediate, independent investigation. The Liberal government needs to act in concert with other countries and international organizations to put pressure…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, my colleague talked a lot about human rights and the government's record on human rights. I am thinking about here at home. Yesterday, I asked the Prime Minister to explain why the Liberals did nothing when the Department of Fisheries and Oceans knew that violence against Mi'kmaq fishers was likely, and he deflected. He said that he condemned and regretted the actions of a few in No…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to talk about the importance of affordable child care, not just in my riding but across Canada. This is related to a question that I raised in the House of Commons around the need for a national, universal, affordable and accessible child care program that is also a quality program to be developed here in Canada. We have been hearing, for 50 years, from t…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, while it is encouraging to hear my colleague talk about the importance of building a child care program, what we do not want to see is a program that is rolled out over decades. We have heard this talk for six years. I do not want to go back; as he said, let us move forward. However, what we need is an actual commitment from my colleague that he is willing and that his government is g…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, an APTN report showed us that the government knew that violence against the Sipekne'katik Nation was likely to happen before they launched their moderate livelihood fishery, and yet the Liberals did nothing. They allowed lives to be threatened, and only showed concern after these acts of terror took place. This is textbook systemic racism, and indigenous fishers do not need more symbo…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, it is a huge honour and privilege to rise on Bill C-220, sponsored by the member for Edmonton Riverbend, which would amend the Labour Code regarding compassionate care leave. I want to thank the member for Edmonton Riverbend for his long-standing fight for bereavement leave in his home province of Alberta. I have worked with him on issues relating to men's mental health, and it is nic…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-264, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (volunteer firefighting and search and rescue volunteer services). Mr. Speaker, volunteer firefighters account for 83% of Canada's total firefighting essential first responder calls. In addition, 8,000 essential search and rescue volunteers respond to thousands of incidents every year. I am proud today to rise and present …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is a real privilege to table e-petition 2846, signed by over 2,655 Canadians. The petitioners cite that volunteer firefighters account for 83% of Canada’s total firefighting essential first responders. In addition, 8,000 essential search and rescue volunteers respond to thousands of incidents every year. Currently, the tax code allows volunteer firefighters and search and rescue vo…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, we keep hearing about young people, especially students, who are struggling right now. There is a new campaign called “knock out interest”, led by 39 student unions across the country, representing 725,000 students. They say that charging interest on student loans forces those who need those loans to pay more for their education than those who can afford to pay tuition up front. Cle…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege and an honour to rise today to talk about the economic statement. Members have heard me speak a lot about wild salmon and small business, but affordable housing is also something that is dear to my heart. We know that for many Canadians, finding affordable housing was a crisis well before this pandemic, and this crisis has just made things even worse. In my riding, f…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, we are coming out of a crisis. The government has announced 3,000 units for the whole country through the rapid housing initiative, but we need over 300,000. That is less than 1%. It is about 300 units for B.C. There is an application in from Port Alberni. The government was supposed to announce all the details of who the lucky recipients were and which communities had been selected b…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. Complex situations require complex care. People living with mental health issues and addiction need more than housing. The member is absolutely right. They need treatment centres, with therapeutic supports, so that they can move forward and get the support they need to live a healthy life. In B.C., the previous Liberal government closed down places like …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Timmins—James Bay has been fighting the same fight for the most marginalized people who do not have a safe, secure place to live and need the supports to move forward. We have been hearing from the Liberal government for five years about its robust investments in its national housing strategy, yet we have not seen it. I am in Port Alberni where we have the same situa…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, there is one thing I want to pivot to, a subject we have not touched on. We know that CBC Marketplace has just outlined that over nine million Canadians right now have low credit ratings and are going to alternative lenders, who are charging outrageous rates of interest, between 30% and 50%. People are caught in that trap. Someone identified it as being in a hamster wheel. It is absol…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, we know that pre-pandemic, one in five Canadians was not going to see the dentist regularly, and 6.5 million Canadians had no dental coverage at all. The expectation is that two million more Canadians will lose their benefits because of COVID-19 and the economic impact of it. We spend about $246 billion a year on health care. The NDP plan to cover all families that have incomes of $…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I asked a question earlier of a Conservative colleague of the member who is speaking right now. I talked about the nine million Canadians who have had to go to predatory alternative lenders who are charging between 30% and 50% annually in interest, despite the Bank of Canada's base rate of less than 1%. The response from the member was that we needed to create better paying jobs. I …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, we have heard the new president, President Biden, talk about a buy America strategy. We have heard that in the U.K. they have a COVID recovery strategy that implements the United Nations sustainable development goals of 2030 when it comes to procurement. In fact, every dollar they spend has a strategic social, economic and workforce impact that is analyzed as to how it will play out…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, for months we have been hearing from the government that it is going to be there for the transportation industry and the aerospace sector, and it keeps talking about delivering a plan. It has been saying this since the spring. We have not seen it roll out a plan to ensure, as part of COVID recovery and getting through the recovery, that it is going to help protect workers. Whether t…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, many in this country are away from their loved ones, so before I get started, I note that today is my oldest daughter's 21st birthday. She is on the other side of the country, but I wish Maddie a happy 21st birthday and give her lots of love from everyone here at home. It is always an honour to rise on behalf of the federal NDP to fight for small business. We know that small business …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am honoured today to table e-petition 2830, sponsored by Colleen Hele-Cardinal. She is the co-founder of the Sixties Scoop Network. She launched this e-petition to call for a national apology for the harmful decades-long practice of scooping up indigenous children and adopting them out. The petition is for the Prime Minister, and she cites that the sixties scoop refers to a practice…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed that I have to come back here to talk about the plight of Wayward Distillery in Courtenay, as well as Dave, the owner, and his employees. They are true heroes. They stepped up to help Canadians. They basically pivoted their distillery to supply hand sanitizer at the height of the pandemic back in late March and early April. They supplied hand sanitizer to keep local …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Jackie, a constituent of mine in Port Alberni, is self-employed and her home-based business has struggled since the beginning of the pandemic. Jackie applied for the CERB because she was told she could. She used the help to pay bills and support her family because she did not qualify for any small business supports. The Liberals are now telling Jackie she needs to pay the CERB back. M…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, we all want Canada to have a good, mutually beneficial trade agreement and relationship with the U.K. This transitional deal was penned with hardly any public consultation or parliamentary involvement. We do not want this to be the final agreement between our two countries. We want a deal that has a far better process for negotiating the successor agreement. A new agreement should n…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague and friend. We talked and worked together to fix the rent program, although we were disappointed it was not backdated. There are gaps. We know that start-ups have been left out. We were concerned about the CERB clawback and the businesses that could go under as a result of that. Dave is still not able to access these programs, because he did the right thin…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, initially the NDP opposed CETA and we had many concerns, whether the investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms or the increased cost of drugs that patent protection for pharmaceutical companies would create. One thing we know is that CETA is widely understood to put upward pressure on the cost of pharmaceutical drugs. Why are the Liberals entrenching these same provisions in yet …
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, it is a real honour to be rising today in the home of the Nuu-chah-nulth people on the unceded traditional territory of the Hupacasath and shíshálh people. I am here, rising again to talk about plastics and the impact of plastics choking our ocean and the species that live in our marine economy. As someone from a coastal community, I can tell the House first-hand the impact it is havi…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I will start at the beginning. I want to thank my hon. colleague. We have worked together on a number of issues, including the commercial rent program. We were glad to see the Liberals fix the broken program, but we were also disappointed that they did not backdate it. We know there are gaps in the programs for start-ups and there is a CERB clawback. There are people like Dave who hel…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I was talking to Jackie Ryan, who owns Jacqueline's Aesthetics in Port Alberni. She is a constituent of mine. She is self-employed, and her home-based business has struggled immensely since the beginning of the pandemic. First she closed her doors to protect public health. Now she is down 50% because people are afraid to get out into the community. Jackie, like many other Canadians,…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, before the pandemic, over one million Canadians had been injured in the workplace. We know that when someone is injured in the workplace, every day that goes by without them getting accommodation from their employer means it is harder and harder for them to return to work. Right now there is a lack of support and training to scale up workers in return to work disability management. …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, as we know, small businesses in the tourism and hospitality sectors, have been hit extremely hard by the pandemic. The impact of COVID-19 on these sectors has been devastating. Many are now facing closure, and the Canadian economy could see hundreds of thousands of jobs lost by the end of February. In November, the Liberals announced help through their HASCAP. However, here we are a…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, we are hearing that small businesses and consumers are being crippled by credit card fees. When it comes to interchange fees, we are paying some of the highest interchange fees in the world. In fact, the Liberals have committed to moving credit card companies to a voluntary rate of 1.4%, whereas Europe legislated a cap of 0.3% and Australia, 0.5%. In the 42nd Parliament, Bill C-236 wa…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I really want to thank my colleague for raising this very important issue about start-ups being ineligible for the government's emergency relief programs. I raised this very issue with the Minister of Small Business on Friday. We have many businesses in our riding that have not been eligible and whose owners have invested a tremendous amount of their life savings to open a business or…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, there were many things my colleague said in his speech that I was interested in, but one thing that he did not talk about is the wild salmon emergency in British Columbia. We just had the lowest return of wild Pacific sockeye salmon in the largest salmon-bearing river in the world. This is after last year, which was then the lowest return. We did not hear anything in the fall economic…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I sat on the veterans affairs committee with the member, and I genuinely miss working with her on that committee. We are nine years out to meet our Paris climate commitment, and the government has done very little to support farmers and encourage them to reduce emissions, move toward alternative energy and improve nitrogen management. I wrote a letter in support of Farmers for Climate…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on small businesses and workers across Canada, especially on those workers in the tourism, hospitality and events industries. For these industries, a return to normal is still years away. If a small business closes in a rural riding like mine, not only does a family lose its sole source of income, but the effect is felt across the whole community.…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on small businesses and workers across Canada, especially on workers in the tourism, hospitality and events industries. If a small business closes in a rural riding like mine, not only does the family lose their sole source of income, but the effect is felt across the whole community. Based on data from the Coalition of Hardest Hit Businesses, alm…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As you know, I had technical problems during my statement, so I request, and hope to receive from my colleagues, unanimous consent to redo my statement.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for talking about mental health and addiction. I was with my new friend Mark, who has had his own recovery journey of living with addictions. He lived at a therapeutic treatment centre, long-term care that gave him the complex supports he needed. I joined Mark on Sunday morning because there were 38 people sleeping in doorways in Port Alberni. They have …
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Madam Speaker, does the member not agree that transparency and clear communication are essential for addressing the vaccine hesitancy in Canada, and that it is critical that we share information and get as much information as we can out to the public?
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Madam Speaker, tonight I was talking to a friend of mine who is an infectious disease specialist. He is concerned not only about the progress of the rollout of the vaccinations but also about the volume of international travel that is taking place, and he said that these issues actually intersect. He stated that not only do we need to limit entry of the virus into Canada but that we also especiall…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Madam Speaker, I mentioned earlier that I was talking to a friend who is an infectious disease specialist. He is really concerned about the volume of unnecessary international travel that is happening, especially as we have new variants of the virus out there right now, the South African virus and the U.K. virus, which are spreading more quickly and are deadlier. He said that it is critical that a…
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