Government Orders
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…
Read full speech →Government Orders
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 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 …
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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…
Read full speech →Government Orders
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, 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 …
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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, 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…
Read full speech →Government Orders
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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