Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech of my colleague from Charlesbourg. He talked a bit about how indigenous people did not see this as a solution. However, we know that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's call to action 32 recommends that minimum mandatory sentences be stopped. Therefore, I would like him to comment on the fact that the TRC has called for this. How can he s…
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Madam Speaker, there are things in this bill that I am very pleased to see and am very supportive of. I am wondering, though, if the member would agree that a useful next step would be to send this bill to committee, so the bill can be built up, amended and have things added to it, such as recommendations from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the Truth …
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague and congratulate him on the Grey Cup win in his community. However, by removing mandatory minimums instead of decriminalizing possession of small amounts of drugs being used for personal use, the Liberal government is taking half measures. It is not actually protecting people who are suffering from a medical condition. As we all know, addiction is …
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Mr. Speaker, the speech by my neighbour from St. Albert—Edmonton was very interesting to me. I will agree with him on many points he made, particularly around the fact that the Liberals have not done enough to stop the illegal importation of guns into this country. However, I did not hear a lot of solution building from his comments today, nor proposals on what would be done if the Conservatives w…
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Madam Speaker, my question is about urgency and being in a pandemic. The member mentioned that this needs to happen very quickly because we are in a pandemic, so he will not be surprised when I ask him why he feels it has taken the government 18 months to move forward with these 10 days of sick leave. The government has known since the very beginning, of course, that the New Democratic Party would…
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Madam Speaker, I admire my colleague's work in the House of Commons, and his commitment to human rights and to the rule of law. The member spoke about moving forward, looking forward, and solutions for the Afghan people. One of the situations that I am hearing about, which I am really quite concerned about, is that the anti-terrorist legislation that is in place is preventing organizations on the …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, that was not an answer. It certainly was not the answer we were looking for. The Liberals say they are proud of the actions delivering vaccines globally, but this is the government that pledged 200 million doses for countries in need by the end of next year and they have not even delivered 20% of that. This is the government that refuses to waive the vaccine patents to allow poor coun…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, we are seeing the impacts of climate change in Canada, from the recent floods and mudslides in British Columbia to the storms that have threatened Atlantic Canada and the wildfires, floods and droughts that have wrought havoc in Alberta. However, Albertans are actually facing two crises. One is the climate crisis and the other is the economic crisis. Albertans are caught between the n…
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Mr. Speaker, in the previous Parliament, there was obstruction, there was a deep disrespect from the government for the opposition in how our parliamentary processes would go forward. There is a need to have things put in place to protect our parliamentary roles as opposition to question the government, to demand documents from it, to work to hold the government to account. It is very important an…
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Mr. Speaker, what we need to look at with this is that it is not one or the other. It is not that we have this committee looking at what is happening and reflecting on the lessons. We need to learn from what happened in August of this year versus having some efforts by members in this place looking at the humanitarian assistance going to Afghanistan. Both of those things can happen at the same tim…
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Mr. Speaker, while I do think there is value in using our standing committees for many aspects of what is happening in Afghanistan right now, this committee is important because of the scale and scope of the challenges we see in Afghanistan. I also want to point out that the foreign affairs committee, prior to the Prime Minister calling an election in the summer, was not working terribly well. The…
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Vancouver East. This is my very first speech, so I hope you will humour me, Mr. Speaker, as I thank my constituents for once again allowing me the great privilege of standing in this place to represent them. I will tell members a bit about Edmonton Strathcona before I undertake my speech. Edmonton Strathcona is an incredible, amazing commu…
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Madam Speaker, I want to think about how we can work together and how we can work in a positive forward-looking way, but I have to call my colleague out on one of the comments he made today, that is, that nobody could have predicted what was going to happen in Afghanistan. I wrote to the minister in February and explained that this would happen. My colleagues in the NDP have written to the ministe…
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Madam Speaker, I was happy to hear from the leader of the official opposition that this motion today is not an opportunity to score points against a government that has very clearly not done a good job with Afghanistan over the last several months. In Afghanistan, half of the population is risking starvation, their health care systems have failed, and women and girls are at risk. In the spirit of …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the guaranteed income supplement is designed to help seniors living below the poverty line pay for rent, groceries and medications. Losing the GIS because they received the CERB they were entitled to means that the most vulnerable, the poorest seniors in every riding in this country, can no longer afford to get by. While Canadian seniors are losing their homes, the Liberal government …
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Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate the new member for winning his seat in the last election. I want to follow up on one of the questions that was asked by my colleague from Thunder Bay—Rainy River on the availability of health care workers. He spoke about his daughter, who is a paramedic, and I know that in Alberta there is a real shortage of paramedics. I have spoken to paramedics on the…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague's speech was such an honour to hear, but also it is such an honour for me to get to work with this member, who has worked so hard for working people across this country. He spoke about how the New Democrats have said 22 times in the House that we need 10 sick days for people. Can I ask the member why he thinks it has taken the Liberals so long to come through with that …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, health experts have told us that if countries like Canada do not work urgently to get vaccines to the world's most vulnerable populations, dangerous variants like omicron will continue to develop. The global impacts will be dire. More people will die and the COVID-19 nightmare will continue. Canadians want to get back to normal, but that will not happen unless everyone everywhere ha…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Mr. Speaker, my colleague will not be surprised by the question I am going to ask him today. I agree with him that there needed to be much more focus on agriculture within the throne speech, and I was very disappointed we did not see that, but I have spoken to people in his riding who are very concerned about the attacks on water in the very drought-prone area that would be the result of coal mini…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Madam Speaker, I give my colleague my sympathies for the loss that he described early in his speech. I also come from a province where oil and gas is, of course, very important to our economy. We are seeing very little investment in the oil and gas sector because we have not shown, in Canada, that we are doing what we can to take carbon out of the barrel. Does the member see a way that we could us…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-205, An Act to amend the Impact Assessment Act. Mr. Speaker, it is my great honour to stand today to table my bill, an act to amend the Impact Assessment Act. I want to thank the member for Edmonton Griesbach, my colleague in the NDP Alberta caucus, for agreeing to second this bill. I also want to thank the members for Victoria and South Okanagan—West Kootenay f…
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are outraged by the Liberal government's failure to protect our allies and the women, religious minorities and people who are most vulnerable in Afghanistan. Experts have stated that Afghanistan is now among the world's worst humanitarian crises. There are 23 million Afghans who are at risk of starving, but the UN World Food Programme has said that the government's response …
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Madam Speaker, one of the most important things we can do as members of Parliament is protect seniors in our communities and protect Canadians as we come out of the pandemic. In my community, seniors are being impacted by the clawback that the government has put on GIS payments for seniors. Members will know that these seniors are living in the poorest situations. They are the ones who are the mos…
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Mr. Speaker, I do have some concerns. The member spoke about not working when we are actually online. During the beginning of this pandemic, we did have to be online to work. It was very important. I am very proud to say that I attended 100% of the online sessions of this place. I do know that many of my Alberta colleagues did not. In fact, some of them attended none. I wonder if the member's actu…
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Mr. Speaker, I plan to be in the House every day that it sits, as long as my health is good enough to enable me to do so, and I plan to represent the constituents of Edmonton Strathcona as best as I can in person as often as I can. In the last Parliament, we were given assurances that the government would show up and that its members would be here, but often they were not, and as much as I appreci…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, congratulations to all the graduates from the many high schools in Edmonton Strathcona. We are always proud of high school graduates, but to the class of 2021, I want to give a particular shout-out. They are all incredible for working so hard and accomplishing so much this year. In the midst of a global pandemic, they have demonstrated their determination and completed their high scho…
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