Government Orders
Madam Chair, Canada has been facing a housing crisis for years. That is why, in 2017, we implemented the first—
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I will quickly provide two examples. The first is the Canada child benefit, which continues to be increased in line with the cost of living and lifts nearly 400,000 children out of poverty every month. The second is the increase to the old age security pension. I know that he is less interested in that than his other colleague, but it is one—
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, that is a great question. I have a colleague who already considers himself a senior at the age of 60. I think he is still in good shape, at least physically—
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, all seniors are entitled to the measures I mentioned earlier. The indexation based on the increase in the cost of living applies to all seniors. It is for old age security—
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I am happy to hear a mention of the election, since I did not see anything in the Conservatives' platform on—
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, in our platform, the age is 65 for the increase in the guaranteed income supplement—
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, it is a little more complicated, because our platform included numerous measures for seniors. It is obviously a little more straightforward if we look at—
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, my colleague said earlier that people are already seniors at age 60. It is more a state of mind. I do not think—
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, we have already gone over this many times in earlier answers. I obviously do not have enough time to repeat what has been said. We spoke about the Canada child benefit, the guaranteed income supplement, old age security, the increases that are already in place and the ones that were announced during the election campaign.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I visited the member's beautiful riding of Kingston and the Islands some time ago and was able to taste the beauty of the riding's landscape, its people and their hospitality. The member is right. Canadians have been informed, but also misinformed over the crisis, informed by the incredible input of experts and scientists. Many of them were little known prior to the crisis. Now, not o…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, these are great percentages. Talking about everyone of all ages in Canada, approximately 80% of the population has received at least one dose and 76% of the population has received two doses, making us again a leader in the world when it comes to vaccination.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I was not aware of the term “liberty caucus”, but I find that to be a strange caucus and a strange way of thinking about liberty. The liberty to transmit the virus to others and to infect a community is an unusual definition of liberty and I would take the liberty to signal that yes, the member for Calgary Nose Hill has a right to her views, but she did say not long ago that Canadians…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, that is indeed quite a funny story, because we have been leading the world concerning vaccination for many, many months. I am sorry to say that I have heard that perhaps the last to be vaccinated in Canada, and perhaps not before 2030, would be some of our Conservative MP friends.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I am very pleased that I am asked a question about housing. There is too little time to describe the loads of measures that we have put into place that have helped, in many respects, one million Canadians since the start of the national housing strategy in 2017.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I mentioned a million Canadians. There were 530,000 Canadians lifted out of housing need because of the measures that we put into place. There are 300,000 homes being renovated and 150,000 new homes to be constructed with just one of those programs, and there are many more things to come.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, the example of Edmonton is a very good one. It gives me the opportunity to talk about the $4-billion housing accelerator fund. These are dollars that we look forward to investing with municipalities to help them build new homes.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I am pleased to answer this question on child care investments and the Canada child benefit. It is very important support to families. Through the housing investments—
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I just spoke about families. I am going to speak briefly about seniors and the increases in the OAS and the GIS, along with the indexation of those pensions and benefits—
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, through 150,000 jobs created just a few days ago, we are now at 106% of jobs back to our country following COVID-19.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, the answer is a $30-billion investment in day care. This is great for gender equality. This is great for job creation. This is great for child development. This is great for poverty reduction.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, an example from my province is a $6-billion transfer to Quebec, which has had a great day care system. It is not perfect, but it is going to lead to an additional 38,000 spaces for our children and therefore 38,000 more parents available for jobs.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, that is an excellent point. We also need to have more people come into our great country. We need to have more support for those who want to retrain themselves and get the skills they need for the new economy. We need more women in the workforce and greater access to child care.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, it is true: Nine million Canadians received CERB during the crisis. That is close to 20,000 people in her riding who were able to pay for food for their children and themselves.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I think we are all mindful of the tremendous difficulties that families, seniors and workers went through during the COVID‑19 crisis. I am sorry to say that the solution the member for Carleton proposed at the start of the pandemic was to cut taxes for the richest individuals in Canada.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, not only did we act very quickly, but we did not do what the member for Carleton suggested, which was to cut taxes for the wealthiest Canadians.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, had we followed the advice of the member for Carleton, we would have ended up not in a recession but in a depression.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, therefore, we would not have ended up where we are now with more jobs than we had prior to COVID‑19 and with more jobs relative to many other countries, including our southern neighbour.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I know the member is really well-intentioned and I commend her for her goodwill and concern. That being said, the advice we got from her colleague, the member for Carleton, was very different from what we followed when it came to helping seniors during the COVID‑19 crisis.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, the member is right. There were very important supports for Canadians with disabilities. We know they were adversely affected by the crisis.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I would like to thank the member for Surrey Centre for his advocacy and his strong mastery of the file. He is an incredibly engaged and informed person. I would like to tell everyone listening that NACI did provide some strong recommendations around boosters, that people 50 years of age and older should receive a booster dose and that those who are between the ages of 18 and 50 should…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, there are two key answers, which the member knows really well. First, there is the ACT, the access to COVID-19 tools, that we have invested in from the very start of COVID-19 and a $2.5-billion increase in our international development assistance because of COVID-19. Second, the member also mentioned the 200-million dose commitment we made to the rest of the world. That is five times …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, there are three things. First, we have reminded Canadians of the importance of being vaccinated. Second, we remind Canadians that we also need to keep following the public health advice, of which we are very knowledgeable now. The third thing is that we put into place some quick measures at our borders to limit the import of the variant from outside of Canada.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, that is an outstanding question, and it gives me the opportunity to let Canadians know that this was a collaborative effort. There was $25 billion direct to provinces and territories, and another $30 billion of in-kind investment in vaccines, testing, PPE and other tools. Finally, obviously, there was the incredible collaboration on the economic side in order to protect the economic h…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I thank the member for the important question. We have said in the campaign platform that we will be putting into place a legal change to make clear to all of our partners that these rights are important in 2021 in order to protect the rights of everyone, including, obviously, those of women.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, that was part of our $65-billion support for the health needs of Canadians, including long-term care, home care, digital care, primary care and, as the member mentioned, mental health care. Mental health has been severely affected by the crisis, and we have to look after the mental health of Canadians.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, we have an immensely great centre called the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. I am not from Winnipeg, but I know how proud people from Manitoba and all Canadians are of that particular lab. It has been extremely forthcoming and often ahead of other nations when it comes to designing tests and procedures to protect Canadians from COVID-19. We can be very proud of the work …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I thank my colleague for the question. I appreciate her. This is part of the national pharmacare challenge, to find a way to reduce the cost of and increase access to drugs, for rare diseases in particular. In this context, we have announced that we will develop a strategy to combat rare diseases with an annual investment of $500 million in the coming years.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I did not mention it, but I am very pleased that my colleague is now the parliamentary secretary to my colleague, the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. Taking care of our health care workers helps them take care of us and those who need it. With the $55 billion in investments that the Canadian government has made in the context of COVID‑19, we have been able to support these w…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, my colleague is right to bring it up. For some time now, an average of about 20 people a day have died due to the opioid crisis across the country. That is almost the same number of people who are dying from COVID-19 at present. The crisis has been growing for years. Fortunately, there are ways to deal with this crisis and to treat people, including through supervised injection sites.…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, that is a very timely question, because, as the member should know, we implemented a national housing strategy in 2017 with the goal, and the intended result, of ending homelessness across Canada by—
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, 15 million Canadians have been helped through the crisis, either through the wage subsidy, CERB or other tools, including helping seniors directly, so 15 million Canadians were able to make ends meet.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, the new President of the Treasury Board is fortunate to have a very well-informed and experienced critique, and the member knows there are two types of votes, legislative votes and these votes we are talking about now. The legislative votes were the votes needed to have the wage subsidy.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I should remind the member that a molecular test is not a rapid test, and a rapid test is not the same as being vaccinated.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the $2.5 billion is not for vaccines. It is for additional investments to help other countries not only receive and manage, but also administer those vaccines.
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for giving me the opportunity to speak to this issue. He knows as well as I do how important it is, with the new omicron variant, to protect people's health and safety. He knows very well that these measures take some time to implement. By the way, I would like to thank all our partners, including our airport partners. I would like to thank public health, obviousl…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, this gives me the opportunity to say hello to and congratulate my colleague since we have not spoken since his election. I also commend him for his concern for the health and safety of Canadians during these very troublesome times. We are getting the right things done quickly. We are quickly putting measures in place. People know that the border measures changed a few days ago and tha…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the reference to the upcoming holidays is indeed a good one. People know that, over the next few weeks, things are going to change. People are going to be interacting more indoors. I think that Canadians, and Quebeckers in particular, understand the importance of following public health guidance in uncertain times. I think that people have so far made the right choices and will contin…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, there is obviously value in working internationally together to set up these efforts, and that includes working with the WTO, including on the TRIPS waiver. With this, something has been done for a large number of months now.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Chair, I am obviously very happy to answer that question, because I was just talking to my provincial and territorial colleagues about that issue a few days ago. We will talk again tomorrow about how we are going to get out of the COVID-19 pandemic and the new variant crisis together. We have worked together a lot over the past 20 months. This has demonstrated the strength of federalism and,…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, would be more than capable of answering that question and could probably do a better job of it than I can. First of all, I will say that it is an extremely important question. We know that ending this pandemic anywhere means ending it everywhere. That is why we have been working so hard with our international partners since the very begin…
Read full speech →