Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to thank the people of Etobicoke North, the community where I was born and raised. I want the community to know that I loved being in the constituency office almost every day this summer. I want the people to know that I loved being at their beautiful celebrations during the week and on weekends, sometimes attending 10 events on a weekend. I want to thank them for coming to our annual community barbecue. There were 1,200 of us and it was a wonderful party because we shared and met new friends.
From my daily work in our constituency office this summer I know that people need jobs, and I have worked hard to get them jobs. In fact, I obtained funding for a completing the circle program, a $500,000 jobs program in our community in remembrance of Loyan Gilao, a young Somali Canadian man, a York University student with a bright future, who was shot and killed in 2005. Eight years later we still do not know Loyan's killer. We now have 50 deaths of young Somali Canadian men.
In 2012, six of 33 Toronto shooting victims were Somali Canadian men. Our community is asking that the government investigate these deaths through the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, develop federal-provincial job programs, particularly with the RCMP, and examine witness protection.
There was not a day this summer that I did not have a student, a graduate, a parent or even a grandparent come asking for help to find a job. They came and continued to come because we do help them find jobs. I personally review and edit resumés late into the night, sometimes doing two and three drafts. We get our people into job programs. We follow up with them to make sure their jobs searches are going in the right direction, and while they search, we help them with food and clothing and whatever other supports they might need.
At critical times I have personally bought medicine. We had a lady looking for help who was in agony due to an ear infection that had raged for three weeks. She had pus and blood running down her face. The sad reality is that she could not afford antibiotics because she could not find a job. How many more stories like hers are there?
I had a university graduate who came in to get help after being out of school and out of work for two years. I have numerous disappointed graduate students, international doctors and teachers who could not find work. I had grandparents who came on behalf of their grandchildren, the first in the family to graduate university and college, asking why they had fled their country of origin to come to Canada, the land of promise, so their children could have educations. Now they have educations and they still do not have jobs.
It was particularly hard to hear from service providers that federal funding was being cut from job and training programs in our Etobicoke North community. My community depends on these job programs. We cannot afford to have them shut down. That is why I contacted the minister's office, and I hope that this will be rectified.
What I was looking for first and foremost in the budget was real help for the people of Etobicoke North for jobs. Instead, we have 308 pages with 472 separate clauses amending more than 50 different pieces of legislation. Yet again, another anti-democratic omnibus bill meant to limit debate and ram through as much unrelated legislation as the government can get through Parliament.
The legislation fails to address the very real challenges faced by the middle class and those seeking to enter it. It does little to help the economy create jobs. In fact, the so-called job creation measures in the bill are just a continuation of the status quo, which simply is not good enough. Moreover, it does little to help young Canadians find jobs at a time of persistently high youth unemployment and underemployment. The reality is that there are still 224,000 fewer jobs for our youth than before the recession.
As the critic for Status of Women for our party, I was disappointed to see virtually nothing for women. In response to the throne speech, one of my young constituents simply asked, “Do women and girls even register with this government?”
Her question prompted me to think about what a throne speech and a budget bill might have looked like if it actually addressed the challenges Canadian women face. Perhaps such a throne speech would have recognized, in silent prayer and reflection, the 600 murdered and missing aboriginal women—mothers, aunts, cousins, and sisters stolen from our communities and taken from Canada—and made a commitment to an inquiry with real recommendations to end the violence.
Perhaps Bill C-4 would have begun to address the remaining inequalities women face and would have begun to build brighter futures for our families, our communities, and our country. After almost 100 years of women's advocacy, this would mean eliminating the gender wage gap at last. Its eradication would be an economic imperative, as the wage gap hurts our families and hurts our economy. In fact, the Royal Bank of Canada has shown that the lost income potential of women in Canada because of the wage gap is a staggering $126 billion a year.
A healthy and robust Canadian economy needs women's contributions, and it is government's job to remove the obstacles that appear at all stages of women's lives that keep them from realizing their full potential.
A lack of child care, an enormous issue in my riding of Etobicoke North, holds women back. It is one of our country's great unsolved issues. It is time to fix Canada's broken child care promises and fix a system that is failing Canadians.
By the end of this fiscal year, the government will have spent about $17.5 billion on the universal child care benefit. Has the benefit helped more parents stay at home with their children, affected the severe shortage of child care, or made child care more affordable? Astoundingly, the government cannot answer these questions.
Our government should ensure that when each of our daughters leaves college, university, or a trades school, she will make the same wage as the young man sitting next to her. This would mean that she would have the same opportunity to buy a home, raise a family, and save for retirement. She would have enough money to leave an unhealthy relationship if she needed to, without being trapped and dependent upon a partner who hurts her, as often happened in past generations.
Where is the promise and sustainable funding to develop the national strategy to end violence against women and girls, violence that forces 100,000 women and children from their homes into shelters each year, carries an incalculable human toll, and costs Canadian society billions? Where is the apology to our aboriginal peoples for the loss of their children, Canada's children, and an inquiry into the missing and murdered aboriginal women with the promise to listen, nation to nation, and together develop real recommendations that we would implement together to end the violence?
The news that the Minister of Health plans to make ending family violence a major theme of her tenure is welcome. The Canadian Medical Association president wants to ensure that resources are put in place, and that the minister's efforts turn into a national strategy.
For the people of Etobicoke North and for women across Canada, Bill C-4 offers very little. My constituents need better and deserve better.
The government needs to recognize that pay equity, child care, and ending violence against women are key economic issues, and it must become a champion for women.
