Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Scarborough Centre.
I am humbled to stand in this great hall and give thanks to the people of Etobicoke North who have given me the greatest honour of my life. I promise to serve my community with humility and to the best of my ability, as the Hon. Roy Cullen did before me. Beautiful, historical, proud Etobicoke, this is the community in which I was born and raised and in which I choose to live today.
In the 1830s John Rowntree welcomed his family to Canada with a dream of a new life, a new beginning and a real hope for the future. Ever since, Etobicoke North has welcomed people from around the world, and today it is a microcosm of the world. Here we celebrate Caribana, a celebration of Caribbean culture, Diwali, the festival of lights, and Eid, the festival of sacrifice. Here we celebrate in our churches, gurdwaras, mosques and in our beautiful Mandir, a gift to our community and to all of Canada.
We are proudly one of the most multicultural ridings in all of the country. I invite everyone to experience our diversity, gifts and richness. We rank fifth out of 308 Canadian ridings in terms of the 74% of people who are first generation Canadian born into Assyrian, Italian, Indian and Somalian communities.
Sadly, however, we do have our challenges. Almost 20% of residents are not yet citizens. They face family reunification challenges and language and job barriers. Almost 25% of our families are headed by single parents who often work two jobs just to put food on the table. Almost 20% of the riding is engaged in manufacturing, the second highest percentage for the entire country. In stark contrast, only 5% is engaged in management. We need real investment in our families and in communities, particularly during this economic slowdown.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development predicts that Canada will have the second slowest rate of growth in the industrialized world. The economy must be our number one priority and we should ensure that the money starts flowing right away. We must invest in infrastructure and manufacturing to keep Canada's economic lifeblood running, to keep people employed and to protect the savings of seniors.
At the same time, we must protect our most vulnerable citizens, the 550,000 Toronto households that live below the poverty line. It is therefore prudent that we draw a lesson from the corporate world, namely, that social and environmental initiatives reap profits.
We must invest in our families as spending on our children is a sure thing. Canadian researchers calculate a 2:1 economic and social return for every dollar invested in children. American researchers find a 3:1 or 4:1 return for low-income families.
As the former vice-chair of the Toronto Foundation for Student Success, I know the face of poverty in Canada's largest city. I have seen first-hand children who gobble down breakfast because they have not eaten since lunch the day before. Investment in our families has large economic payoffs.
Targeted measures with clear return on investment include early childhood care and education, secondary school programs for students at risk of dropping out, increased access to university education and better foreign credential recognition.
I am tired of meeting doctors, engineers and university professors who are dying to work in their chosen fields but who are instead driving taxis and working in call centres. I am particularly discouraged as new Canadians offer direct links to global markets, and we have such a shortage of doctors, particularly in family medicine and geriatrics, that we simply cannot afford to marginalize any of our citizens.
We must also invest in the health of our seniors. There will be 7.5 million Canadians over the age of 65 by 2025, and population aging has tremendous implications for Canada. Most elderly people will not be able to pay even a fraction of the health care costs they incur, as the average hospital stay is $7,000 and does not include cardiac or emergency care. Keeping our seniors healthy, independent and mobile and preventing and postponing disease are two of the biggest challenges we face.
As one last health point, the World Health Organization predicts that a pandemic of influenza is inevitable if not imminent, and that it will cause 2.7 to 7.4 million deaths worldwide. The economic costs are estimated at 5% of world GDP, or $3 trillion.
We must also invest in violence reduction. We can no longer accept the status quo, the human and economic cost of children killing children or violence against families. Each assault causes unspeakable grief to families, creates instability in communities, obstructs the development of business centres and reduces trust in government. Each assault costs the economy.
Gun violence is estimated to cost $155 billion in the United States alone each year, and the lifetime medical cost to victims is $37,000 to $42,000. Responding to violence diverts billions away from education, health care and social security.
Preventive measures show a good return on investment, often by several orders of magnitude. Interventions that target juvenile offenders often result in economic benefits that are more than 30 times greater than the corresponding costs.
Finally, we must invest in the environment. Reducing greenhouse gases, pollution and waste saves our planet, saves lives and banks money. We can no longer ignore climate change. It is real, it is happening now, and it may be the defining issue of our generation.
By 2100, which is within our children's lifetime, winter temperatures will soar in the Canadian north, glaciers will recede, and permafrost will melt. Scientists predict major economic, environmental and social costs. Estimating these costs is notoriously difficult, but a group of insurance companies recently put the cost at $300 billion per year.
Scientists also predict co-benefits of reduced greenhouse gas emissions in the form of 5,000 fewer premature deaths across the country, as well as in savings of $1 billion in connection with emergency room visits, hospital admissions and lost working days in Ontario alone.
In closing, I promise to champion the families of my beloved Etobicoke North and to fight hard for their issues. I promise to fight hard for Canada. I love this country.
Each time I cross the border or touch down in a plane arriving from abroad, I feel the tremendous joy of coming home. When I lived away from this country, I heard my anthem and was beckoned home.