House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2021, with 43% of the vote.
Canada Labour Code November 27th, 2023
Madam Speaker, I wonder whether the hon. member shares with me my confidence that the new bill would do a better job than those in both British Columbia and Quebec, in that it attempts to address the question that is important in areas where the federal government has jurisdiction of remote work, especially in telecommunications.
I wonder whether she shares the optimism that the bill would help address the use of replacement workers working from home.
Canada Labour Code November 27th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member shares with me my enthusiasm for this new legislation in that it has something that Quebec and British Columbia both lack, which is attention to the fact that, with the rise of remote work, there is often no longer a physical picket line to cross, so this new legislation that we are bringing forward would be an improvement over both Quebec and British Columbia in that it anticipates strikebreaking could be done through remote work.
Canada Labour Code November 27th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy these sessions in the House, where the Conservatives and the Liberals compete over who is the worst at things. Whether it is the worst at supporting Ukraine, or the worst at supporting housing or the worst friends of workers, it is nice to hear that debate between the two of them.
I have a very serious question. The Conservatives like to talk about powerful paycheques, and we know what made powerful paycheque, the trade union movement. It was the trade union movement that raised wages. It was the trade union movement that set the standards for leave, including parental leave and sick leave, and even weekends. It was the trade union movement that set standards for occupational health and safety.
Does that mean, if the Conservatives really are the friends of workers and better friends than the Liberals, that they are going to be supporting this legislation in order to make paycheques more powerful?
Emergency Preparedness November 22nd, 2023
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. With respect, I think if you examine the proceedings today, you will see that the point of order raised by the member for Winnipeg Centre is about the use of the term “crazy”, referring to someone's mental health as a pejorative.
It does not matter who it is applied to in this House. Her point of order was about the use of that term as a pejorative. I think you, Mr. Speaker, may have inadvertently confirmed that negative term in your ruling.
I would like the Speaker to examine those records, because I think we need to make sure that in this House, we respect all those Canadians who are struggling with mental health issues and not use mental health as a pejorative in this House.
Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023 November 20th, 2023
Madam Speaker, experts have told us that the last 12 months were the warmest 12 months on this planet in 125,000 years.
Are the Conservatives seriously telling us today that the reason they are not moving ahead on implementing this free trade agreement is because it makes reference to climate change?
Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023 November 20th, 2023
Madam Speaker, once again, we have heard another speech from the Conservatives, who spend a lot of time talking about things other than Ukraine and the assertion that they do support Ukraine, but at the same time they are delaying the implementation of this free trade agreement.
When the member says that he did not utter the word “woke”, we clearly heard the member for Cumberland—Colchester talking in opposition at committee to this trade agreement because it includes references to fighting climate change. What is the real agenda of the Conservatives in slowing down this agreement and supporting Ukraine? It is just not clear to me today in the House that their support for Ukraine is one hundred per cent.
Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023 November 20th, 2023
Madam Speaker, I must admit that it is refreshing to hear a speaker this afternoon who has actually stated his position on the bill that is before the House.
Does the member have any observations on why the Conservatives seem to want to talk about anything this afternoon other than the bill that is before the House and declaring our support for Ukraine by supporting the improved free trade agreement?
Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023 November 20th, 2023
Madam Speaker, that is a bit of a peculiar answer to a very straightforward question. In fact, if we all do support Ukraine and free trade for Ukraine, then it is a bit hard to understand why the Conservatives are putting up speaker after speaker who will not say clearly that they are going to support the free trade agreement. In fact, a recent speaker said there were limits to the Conservatives' support for Ukraine.
Either we do support Ukraine, support this agreement and get on with it, or we do not.
Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023 November 20th, 2023
Madam Speaker, of course, I am very much a supporter of free trade with Ukraine and anything else we can do to help a democracy stand up against an invasion of its territory.
I am a little concerned by the Conservatives saying that their support for Ukraine is unequivocal and then saying that it has limits, and that they seem concerned about the cost. There seems to be a bit of a contradiction in the speech, saying there is unequivocal support and then saying that we have to know how much it costs before that support is unequivocal.
I know that the government and New Democrats certainly stand with Ukraine. We do not want to offer any hope to Russia that we are somehow going to abandon Ukraine, which I am afraid the member's speech did toward the end.
Court Challenges Program Act November 8th, 2023
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of Bill C-316 at second reading. This is a bill that would amend the Department of Canadian Heritage Act to require the minister of heritage to maintain the court challenges program. In other words, it would simply take an existing program and entrench it in legislation.
Why do we have to have something to entrench an existing program in legislation? It is because the Conservatives, twice before, have eliminated the court challenges program. I do not necessarily believe there will be a future Conservative government, but the fear is that a future government would be able, in the absence of this legislation, to simply eliminate this program without coming back to Parliament. Therefore, this is an important change.
As always, the Liberals have done the minimum here. There are some other things we could have done to support the court challenges program. As a Parliament, we could expand its mandate because, right now, it is severely limited to only minority language rights and equality rights under section 15. There have been many calls from the legal community to expand the mandate of this program so it could apply to other cases where, frankly, the government has not taken leadership in protecting rights but where people lack the resources to bring these cases themselves. Court challenges can take years. They can cost literally hundreds of thousands of dollars.
What this program does is level the legal playing field for those who want to defend their rights against the government or against abuse by others in Canadian society. This program has been in existence, off and on, for 30 years, but it has played a very important role in helping defend women's rights, indigenous rights and the rights of other marginalized Canadians, so it is important that we make sure this program endures.
The program was created in 1978 on the issue of minority language rights. When the Charter was adopted, it was expanded just a tiny bit to add equality rights. The program was cancelled by the Conservatives in 1992 before being brought back by the Liberals in 1994, only to be cut again by the Conservatives in 2006. Then we had a big gap. In 2015, both the Liberals and the New Democrats campaigned to restore the program. The justice committee, in 2017, recommended not only that this be entrenched in law, but also that the mandate be expanded. That part is missing from this bill, but in 2018, the program was restarted.
Let me give some examples of kinds of things this program has done. It financed the case that resulted in ending discrimination related to access to what we used to call “maternity benefits” under what was then the UI act. It helped establish what is now known as the rape shield law, which prevents the accused from using the sexual history of a sexual assault complainant as a defence.
The program funded the cases that resulted in restricting access to victims' personal records, such as counselling records, in sexual assault cases. Again, this ruling would not have happened otherwise because women who have been the victims of sexual assault do not have the resources to bring forward this kind of case and fight it through court. Therefore, the Women's Legal Education & Action Fund, LEAF, applied to the program and received funding, which resulted in this very important decision.
One more example is that sex-based discrimination under the Employment Insurance Act for part-time employees who are women was ended as a result of the case. Again, it was brought by LEAF with funding from the court challenges program. We have a very strong history of defence of women's rights.
There are a couple more cases I could provide, but a favourite of mine, as a gay man, is Egan v. Canada in 1995, where two gay men who had been in an intimate relationship for 30 years were denied old age security benefits because they did not fit the definition of a spouse. There was a case, this time by the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto, taken to court to say that this was unfair because they had been a couple and Egan had paid into these benefits, including to old age security, Canada pension and things like that. This established equal spousal rights in the time before equal marriage.
In one last case, Daniels v. Canada in 2016, it was established that the status of Métis and non-status Indians under the Indian Act were protected. This was brought by the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, who, again, did not have great resources to spend literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers.
What is really clear is that there is broad support in the legal community for this program, including and especially in the advocacy of the Canadian Bar Association. There are certain precedents, as I mentioned, about the mandate not being broad enough. Cindy Blackstock and certain disability advocates have demonstrated why we need to expand that mandate so that cases of people with disabilities and of aboriginal women could more easily get into court.
I am going to take a minute to talk about recent events, which I think point to upcoming challenges to the rights of the 2SLGBTQI+ community and particularly to those of transgender and gender-diverse Canadians, who are among the most marginalized Canadians and those with the fewest resources.
Hate crimes against what I like to call the queer community, in reclaiming language, are up. They are up shockingly high. The official figures of those reported to the police show a 64% increase in one year in hate crimes directed against the community. Hate crime data from the police does not actually separate out crimes against trans folks, but a sampling that has been done by academics found that, first of all, hate crimes against the queer community, and particularly the trans community, are more likely to be violent. In the case of gender-diverse people, 80% of hate crimes involve violence. This is where government policies, particularly of certain provincial governments, are fuelling the hate, which has direct results of violence in the community.
I want to talk about the anti-trans school policies in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick for just a minute, because I think the trans and gender-diverse communities are going to want to make sure there is a court challenge to these policies. Without a program like the court challenges program, this would not happen. In August, Saskatchewan announced policy changes requiring parental consent for trans students under the age of 16 to be called by their chosen name and pronoun at school. We do not ask parents whether “William” can be “Billy”, but somehow when it comes to trans kids and their identity, we are creating in Saskatchewan a special bar to using names and pronouns that reinforce the student's identity. The policy was quickly challenged by the University of Regina's pride centre. After a hearing, an injunction was granted that paused the implementation of the policy. The same day, Premier Scott Moe announced he would invoke the notwithstanding clause, and he called an emergency session of the Saskatchewan legislature to enact Bill 137, which amends the education act and includes the notwithstanding clause.
A government used what was really the nuclear option in law to take away rights from kids. It falls into the category of what I would call the spillover of American rhetoric into Canadian politics. It talks about parental rights instead of what we have in Canadian law of parental responsibilities and children's rights. Parents have a responsibility to nurture their kids and to affirm their kids. We know that school peers who use their chosen name and pronouns experienced 71% fewer signs of severe depression, a 34% decrease in reported thoughts of suicide and a 65% decrease in suicide attempts. Therefore, this is a policy that causes great harm. The government could do more to provide leadership in fighting this rising tide of hate, in particular by implementing the 29 recommendations in the white paper on trans rights tabled last June. In fact, e-petition 4666 went up today, asking it to do just that.
In conclusion, New Democrats support Bill C-316, even though we would like to see more from the government to support the court challenges program. It is still important to entrench the program in law in order to make it harder for any future government to eliminate the program. As I said, the court challenges program could use an expanded mandate to be able to fund cases beyond minority language rights and section 15. The program could use increased funding to ensure that it can fulfill its purpose in levelling the playing field on rights in the courts, so that not just those who are already rich and privileged can defend their rights and seek fairness in the courts. Even in the absence of these further improvements, we hope to see expeditious passage of the bill through all its remaining stages.