Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, frankly, when I speak to my constituents, what they really want me to do is work with other parties to get supports for them, to do the work together to get things done. They do not actually want to see us fighting with each other in the House of Commons. They want to see us making sure things happen, such as dental care. “Dental care” is all I need to say about that. There is one o…
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Madam Speaker, I do believe I spoke quite extensively during my speech about how Bill C-41 has failed women and girls in Afghanistan. I also spoke about the low ODA, or official development assistance, and how that has failed. One thing I would also bring up is that we debated this in June. This is an issue the Conservatives are simply bringing up because they want to distract from what the House …
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Madam Speaker, I do appreciate that some things have been done. Under Stephen Harper, there was an initiative called the Muskoka initiative, which did have some good pieces to it, but it took out any support for reproductive health care anywhere else in the world. It happened at a time when that was also being done in the United States, so all of a sudden there was very little aid being given for …
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Madam Speaker, on the same point of order, I want to make sure it is very clear on the record that the Conservative Party of Canada filibustered a study in the foreign affairs committee for 16 weeks so that it would not have to study women's reproductive rights. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan—
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, yes, it is pretty baffling that Conservatives would have voted against international development and foreign affairs. They voted against the support for gender equity work that was being proposed. All of these things are a clear indication to me that this is simply an attempt to weaponize debate in the House. As a tool to do that, they are using the pain and suffering of women and g…
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Madam Speaker, if the Conservative Party does not understand the difference between Russia invading and occupying Ukraine and Palestine being occupied, I do not know what to say. I do not know how to help the member. He may need to do a bit more reading and research if he is going to be the critic for international development. That is an absurd question to ask.
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Madam Speaker, it is always interesting to listen to my colleague and hear his thoughts. We are in this place right now having this debate. We were not told that this was coming. This has been a bit of a surprise for us. We are trying to think of ways that we could help the people of Afghanistan. I do not think there is a single person in this place who does not think that we should do everything …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, frankly, I was on the foreign affairs committee when that witness came, so I can be very clear on that, certainly. I want to talk about international humanitarian law. We were talking about the fact that international humanitarian law means that Bill C-41 was bad legislation that was unnecessary. Sometimes we forget in this place how important it is that Canada apply international l…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, multiple times we have allowed the Conservatives to bring forward a motion on the carbon tax in this place. Many of them have stood and said in the House today that this is the number one thing they are hearing from their constituents. I have been thinking about this a lot today, and the number one issue that constituents are reaching out to me about right now is dental care, bar no…
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Madam Speaker, I have just joined the debate for the last few minutes, listening to my colleague speak, and I heard my friend from southern Alberta, the province I am from, speaking about irrigation and the need for it. I have to say that the carbon levy is supposed to be part of a more comprehensive climate change strategy. I, like the member from Medicine Hat, will question whether this has been…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, I am a proud Albertan. My grandfather, Bert McCoy, was a pioneer in oil and gas. My father, my brother and my husband all worked in the oil and gas sector. While I am a proud Albertan, I am very concerned about our uncertain future. Albertans need a sustainable future with a healthy environment and a diversified economy, but in order to achieve this, we need federal leadership and sup…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, this weekend, violence between Israel and Hamas resumed. More Palestinian children and humanitarian workers have been killed in Netanyahu's bombardment, and there are still many people being held hostage by Hamas. Doctors Without Borders convoys in Gaza were attacked and destroyed, and aid trucks have been blocked. This is not eliminating Hamas; this is destroying an entire population…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I am so delighted to be standing here today speaking to the bill from the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay. I want to start by saying how proud I am to be his colleague in the House. He is one of the nicest parliamentarians in this place, if not the nicest. I think if we asked members from any party, they would agree with me on that statement. He is also such an unbelievable …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the NDP agrees to apply the vote, and we will be voting yes.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the NDP agrees to apply the vote, and we will be voting yes.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the New Democratic Party has agreed to apply the vote, and we will be voting no.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for bringing forward the motion. Of course, as a member of the New Democratic Party, I can echo much of the concern that he has expressed. We are very worried about this and the precedent that this has set. We are supportive of this going to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for further examination. Could the member comment briefl…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Thornhill for bringing forward this legislation. It is very commendable. I think everyone in the House recognizes the part about bringing Canadians home as being so important. My one worry with this bill is this. I certainly hope we can address at committee, when it goes there after second reading, the idea of incentivizing PR, the monetary incen…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Thornhill for introducing Bill C-353. At a time when Canadians and people around the world are concerned about cases of hostage-taking and arbitrary detention, we are all desperate to see action in having people returned who have been taken hostage. The member for Thornhill spoke about the brutal, horrific hostage-taking by the terrorist organiza…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on taking a seat in the House. One of the things that the member spoke about today was the idea that over the last eight years, Canada has become diminished on the world stage. I would say that while it is true that Canada is diminished on the world stage, it is not something that happened just in the last eight years. In fact, the cuts that we saw to offic…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is a new member, as am I, of the international development caucus, and I enjoy working with him very much on that work. I have a couple of things. First of all, he talked about the need for Canada to play a bigger role in the world so that our allies share intelligence with us. However, I cannot help but point out that the leader of his party, who is hoping to be the…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her intervention in the House today. Through the work she has done on this file and how eloquently she speaks, I have learned a great deal from her on this issue. We have heard criticisms that domestic abuse is already covered within the criminal justice system. However, this particular piece of legislation is so important because it does take it…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I believe if you seek it you will find unanimous consent from the House for the following motion: We need a ceasefire in Gaza and we also need all hostages returned.
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, every single Canadian deserves to have health care when they need it, public, universally accessible health care, but Conservative leader Danielle Smith just got caught trying to make health care more chaotic and more bureaucratic. She is not hiring more health care workers, not treating health care workers with respect and leaving the door wide open for more privatization. Does that …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I would just like to make one quick comment to my colleague on his speech. It was very interesting. When he talks about the wrong messages being sent, I have to say that, as an Albertan, hearing a minister from the Maritimes, the Atlantic provinces, say that if they would elect more Liberals they would get more support was very painful for my constituents. It was very difficult for …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, every time the member stands up in the House, I learn so much from him and so much about the ways that the New Democrats are working very hard to make sure the affordability crisis and the climate crisis are both dealt with. We talk a lot about how the Conservatives are in the pockets of big oil and gas. One thing that I find very shocking in Alberta is that we lost 1,500 jobs at th…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the implementation of Bill C-41, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts: (a) what is the status of the required guidance for applicants to the authorization regime established by Bill C-41, including (i) which departments and agencies, and specifically which directorates, sectors, and branches, have been involved in drafting guidance for…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, more than 400 Canadians are trapped in Gaza, including Ahmed Alheluo of Edmonton, who is recovering from surgery and unable to transport himself. First, he was told by Canadian authorities to stay where he is, then to evacuate to Rafah, then to stay put again as Canadians may not be allowed to cross into Egypt. While the government ignores calls for a ceasefire, Ahmed is struggling to…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I do want to follow up on the question that was just asked by the Bloc. As the member is a member of the Conservative Party representing Quebec, I am curious how he feels about the fact that his party continues to support big oil and gas companies. We know that five of the biggest oil and gas companies made $38 billion in combined profits last year, but when we asked whether they sh…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I am confused. We have heard the opposition talk about the fact that the Alberta NDP has been pushing back against what the government has done, yet the Alberta NDP put forward an emergency motion in our legislature that said that the legislative assembly recognized that carbon dioxide emissions contributed to a changing climate. They talked about wildfires, evacuations and extreme we…
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Madam Speaker, many people may be surprised to know that my riding includes the French Quarter in Edmonton. It has a huge francophone community. I know that this member will not be surprised because he has helped me practise my French many times, and I have told him all about my community. For me, the biggest strength we have is that there are communities across the country that are francophone, a…
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Mr. Speaker, as grocery prices continue to be sky high, 1,500 students, faculty, staff and alumni are relying on the campus food bank every week at the University of Alberta. The demand has quadrupled over the past two years. The Liberals are nicely asking CEOs to lower prices, and that obviously is not working. The Conservatives are fine with those CEOs getting richer while students and workers a…
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Mr. Speaker, leaked emails from Global Affairs Canada reveal that the government has no plan for over 400 Canadians desperately trying to flee Gaza, as well as hundreds more in the West Bank. In Gaza, they have no food, they have no water and the hospitals are crumbling. The minister and the Prime Minister have no answers for Canadians, and they refuse to call for an end to Israel's siege and for …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, my colleague brought forward Bill C-245, and it was a way of fixing the infrastructure bank. What we have seen, time and time again, with the government is that it is very good at coming forward with these big projects, big words, big announcements and proposals, such as the red dress alert, announcements on housing and the core ombudsperson, which I know she knows quite a lot about. …
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Mr. Speaker, I have to say that it feels a little like the Liberals are saying they are good enough because they are not as bad as the Conservatives, which often seems to be the case in this place. Unfortunately, during the study, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that there was a shortfall in spending. He even came back a second time and stated that we were $19 million off the timeline the Li…
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Madam Speaker, I agree with him on many of those things. My background is in international development, and I will say that going to communities and going to provinces and telling them what they need is not a good practice. Municipalities should have the ability to have more control over the infrastructure projects. We also, as the NDP, brought forward a supplementary response to the committee rep…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, people need affordable homes now. Canadians are exhausted with Conservative and Liberal governments making big announcements while families cannot afford homes. Tens of thousands are on waiting lists. They are sleeping in their cars, in tents and in sleeping bags on the streets in Edmonton, and it is snowing and freezing today. The Conservative plan is to help their rich developers, a…
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Madam Speaker, the member, in his intervention today, spoke about the CPP. Polls show that Albertans are overwhelmingly opposed to the plan by Danielle Smith to introduce the APP, the Alberta pension plan. We know that the leader of the official opposition has said he does not support the Alberta pension plan. Albertans deserve to know how their members of Parliament stand on this. I do not suppor…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, the world is a dangerous place for women. In the DRC, women are facing the world's highest rates of sexual and gender-based violence. MSF reports that sexual violence now is a public health emergency in the Central African Republic. In Afghanistan and Iran, women's rights are non-existent. In Canada, women who speak up are attacked, not just in politics but also in journalism, on soci…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, in March of this year, I actually travelled to Ukraine. I wanted to meet with government officials. I wanted to see what was happening on the ground in Kyiv and Irpin. When I met with government representatives and when I met with parliamentarians from Ukraine, one of the things they wanted was support from Canada to help rebuild their country. They wanted us to be working with them t…
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Mr. Speaker, 1994 was significantly before my time, so I will focus a little bit more on the more recent 2014 free trade agreement that Harper and the Conservatives signed with China. I do not think many Canadians know that it was signed and that we gave up so much of our rights and that we, in fact, made it so much harder for workers in our country because of that. There are still clauses within …
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke about how important this agreement is, and there is a lot in it that I will be speaking about later this evening, but this trade agreement, I understood, was negotiated and completed in April. Therefore, if this is such important legislation, and I believe it is, why did it take the government so long to bring it forward and then to bring it forward to the House, wh…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I am of course very proud to be the member of Parliament for Edmonton Strathcona. Today, we are talking about the free trade agreement with Ukraine. As every member of the House knows, we are an immense ally of Ukraine. Canada was the first western country to recognize Ukraine's independence in 1991, and, of course, Canada is home to the third-largest population of Ukrainians in the w…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, since October 7, Israelis have not been able to mourn their dead in peace. Every day we are learning more about the sickening and horrifying brutality of Hamas and the Hamas terrorist attacks. We mourn the loss of so many bright lights, including so many people who were working for peace. We want to see the hostages come home now. Only a few miles away from where Hamas committed these…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I have one very short question and then one that is a bit longer. The first question is this: What on earth is the difference between a humanitarian pause and a ceasefire? Stop dropping bombs on kids. That is the same thing. Why can the government not use the word “ceasefire”? Why can the government not say what so many people in our country have been urging it to say: “ceasefire”? We…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, this is a little more broad than perhaps what he was looking for with his question, but I would say that, in fact, Canada's foreign policy has tilted very heavily toward trade, to the detriment of diplomacy, peacekeeping, security, development, all of these other pieces. I think the problem is that our foreign policy has to be built as a table. We need all of those legs for it to be e…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Canada has supported international justice efforts in response to the wars in Ukraine and Syria, but has refused to support international court investigations in Israel and Palestine. The parties in this conflict and the victims of this conflict need to know that violations of international law will be prosecuted. This includes terror attacks and collective punishment. International l…
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Mr. Speaker, we are all shocked by the brutality, the kidnappings and the targeting of civilians, including the elderly and children, by Hamas militants. Now the region is spiralling. Thousands of innocent Palestinians and Israelis have been killed in a conflict that they are not responsible for. Today, we learned that a fifth Canadian was murdered, and we know more Canadians are among the captive…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, we have heard that there are about 150 Canadians in Gaza right now. We also know that the hostages who have been seized by the terrorist organization Hamas are in Gaza right now. We also know that 50% of the population in Gaza are children, who have had nothing whatsoever to do with the horrific crimes committed by Hamas. Does this member believe that those people, those Canadian citi…
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are profoundly alarmed by what we are witnessing in Gaza. The UN has said that nearly half of Gaza's people have been forced to flee from their homes and that morgues are overflowing. This is a humanitarian crisis of extreme proportions. It took almost a week for the minister to start paying attention to the impact of this war on Palestinians, even though thousands of people…
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