Bill C-14 (Historical)

COVID-19 Emergency Response Act, No. 2

A second Act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19

Part 1 amends the Income Tax Act to introduce an emergency wage subsidy as part of the response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Part 2 amends Part IV.‍1 of the Financial Administration Act to provide that certain provisions of that Act, as enacted by the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act, cease to have effect on the day after September 30, 2020.

COVID-19 Emergency Response Act, No. 2

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a cousin who is a PSW. I have certainly heard from a lot of them in my riding as well, and from local bus drivers with the London Transit Commission. They are really concerned that for some of their clients, those in wheelchairs and with disabilities, they have to get really close to them in order to strap them in. Last week one of our LTC drivers tested positive for COVID-19, so my thoughts are with him and his family.

I have had a lot of conversations with those front-line workers. Again, I am optimistic, after having heard from the Minister of Employment today, that those people who are applying for more of the services they need, more of these emergency benefits, as long as they are doing it in good faith, will not be penalized in any way and will receive the supports they need.

The New Democrats will always be pushing for a lot more to ensure that people are protected and receive the supports they need.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I believe my colleague spoke earlier about the difficulties being experienced by small and medium-sized businesses in his riding and across the country.

What can the federal government do to help them pay their rent since about 70% of them will likely be unable to pay their commercial rent on May 1?

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard from so many businesses that are really concerned. They do not want to take out a loan or be behind the eight ball more than they already are, so looking at rent freezes is absolutely vital to helping those small and medium-sized enterprises. In my riding and across the country these businesses provide, I think, 95% or at least over 90% of the jobs in our community. We have to support them. We have to go further.

I am very hopeful the government will continue to go forward with those propositions that the NDP is putting forward.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to emphasize the severity of the crisis that we are all experiencing. Neither we nor our parents have ever seen its like. The only comparable situation seems to be the Spanish flu, which hit just over a century ago.

Tens of thousands of people are getting sick, thousands of people are being hospitalized and many people are dying. Scientists are saying that we are relatively fortunate that the mortality rate of COVID-19 is not higher or it would be truly catastrophic. However, we are all going through this situation together and we have no idea when we will see the end of it.

Canada's Parliament has been suspended. When it is recalled, only 10% of members are in attendance. There is a lot of uncertainty about the future. People are struggling in all of our communities. They are suffering and having trouble paying their rent and buying groceries, as I just said. Some experience anxiety and a great deal of stress. Community groups are telling us that there has been a resurgence in mental health problems that may have been resolved in the past but that are coming back because of a lack of resources.

Given that everyone is being asked to stay home, there are also terrible situations of domestic violence, and women are the primary victims. Home is not always the safest place. On the contrary, it is sometimes the most dangerous.

This situation is forcing us to do things differently, to be creative, to think outside the box, as they say, and to work together in a way that we have never managed to do in the past.

This reminds me of something our former leader, the late Jack Layton, said. He used to always tell us we had to work together. Now it is becoming clear that we are capable of working together as parliamentarians.

I want to take 15 seconds to thank a number of government ministers for their availability, their quick responses, their willingness to listen and their openness to suggestions from the NDP, the Bloc Québécois, the Green Party and the Conservatives. Some of our proposals were accepted. Everyone wants to be constructive and come up with solutions to help people. Of course, we will always suggest doing more, but I have seen more open-mindedness and willingness to listen than ever before, and I wanted to emphasize that.

We have heard this a lot in the media over the past few weeks, but I too want to thank all our workers in the health care system: the doctors, nurses, orderlies, paramedics. They are doing tremendous work on the front lines. They are taking risks to save lives and take care of people. I tip my hat to them.

I also want to thank all the municipal employees, bus drivers, the people who keep our cities in operation. Thank you very much for a job well done. We need you in order to keep going.

Obviously, I want to thank the agricultural sector, the entire supply chain for our grocery stores and convenience stores. They are vital to allowing us to get through this crisis together.

I would like to take a step back and look at the crisis. We can already learn some lessons. Some observations can be made after just a few weeks, while our economy is in turmoil and many people are going through a tough time. I think the crisis reveals two things. First, inequality kills. Second, we need social programs and public services. We see it. After years of financial capitalism and neo-liberalism and austerity measures, people have become more vulnerable. In times of crisis such as this, the most vulnerable are more likely to fall ill, and they are also more likely to die.

Not so long ago, my colleague from London—Fanshawe noted that the inequalities in our society are such that half of all families are $200 away from insolvency. That means that our wealth redistribution mechanism is completely inadequate. Canada's big six banks made $46 billion in profits last year and there are still people who keep their money in tax havens.

People become vulnerable when we are not able to provide good care for people who have mental health or addiction problems. These people then end up homeless and on the street. When a crisis like this happens, they are the first to suffer. They are not on the streets because of chance or fate.

These people end up in these situations because of political and economic choices. This morning, an article in La Presse reported that COVID-19 had a higher than average mortality rate among African-American communities in the U.S. because these communities have long lived in poverty and in unsafe conditions that are associated with an increase in respiratory problems, heart problems and diabetes. People with these conditions who contract the virus are at higher risk of death. That is another example that poverty kills during a pandemic.

There is another example people will understand, and this is something the NDP tries to talk about as often as possible, because it is a major concern for some of our colleagues. I am talking about first nations, whose members are extremely vulnerable under these circumstances. They lack health and social services at the best of times. As the NDP leader said a little earlier today, when the nearest ventilator is a plane ride away, that puts people in a vulnerable position. When people do not have clean water, they cannot follow handwashing guidelines. When housing is a problem because homes in many indigenous communities are overcrowded, physical distancing guidelines just do not work. If the virus ever reaches those communities, the death toll could be staggering.

The reason things are so bad is that we have left them to fester for decades. We have a history of colonial treatment of first nations, and we need to recognize that. We must seize the opportunity afforded by this crisis to own that history and not make the same mistakes again.

I was talking earlier about the second thing that this crisis has made clear, and that is the importance of having a social safety net, universal social programs, a system that ensures that no one is left behind or falls through the cracks. I think we can get started on that. Of course we have to get through this crisis. We need to take care of people and find masks, gloves and everything else, but we have to come to the conclusion that a guaranteed income supplement might not be such a bad idea. It might helps us absorb the costs collectively when a crisis occurs, whether it is a social, health or economic crisis or even all three at once, as is currently the case.

We need to have a robust social safety net and universal social programs, and there must be oversight of the care provided, especially to seniors. In Quebec and Canada we are very proud to have a public and universal health care system. Imagine the situation for Americans. People without any insurance cannot go to the hospital because they are afraid of getting an exorbitant bill. We would be in a much tougher situation today.

Nevertheless, the private sector has been left to carve out its own leeway and space with regard to delivering certain services. Another example is very revealing. It is a shocking story that came out this morning about a private long-term care home in Dorval. Because of low wages and poor working conditions, the employees simply stopped going to work. Dozens of elderly residents were totally abandoned. The public health directorate of Montreal had to take over running the care home after residents suffered agonizing ordeals. That is the consequence of the political decision to let the private sector take over certain health care services. Maybe that should not even be the case, and that is something we should think about. Now is the perfect time to think about it, in fact. Residents who died were left in their beds, while others lay on the floor where they had fallen, dehydrated and starving. They had not received care or services in days. We need to collectively ensure that this never happens again.

People are saying that they cannot wait until things get back to normal. As progressives, we say that going back to normal is not the solution, because normality was part of the problem. We need to seize this opportunity to fundamentally change things in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of neo-liberal austerity and public service cutbacks. We need to ensure that the people providing services get good working conditions. Forget about going back to normal. We can do better. Everything will be okay, and we are going to do better.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Seniors]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his speech. I think he delivered an historic speech.

From the very beginning, we have committed to full collaboration. We have talked about the before, during and after.

Would my colleague opposite agree that, when it comes time for the “after”, we will need to continue this strong collaboration among all parties in the House of Commons?

We will need it to get through this crisis, to be better and to prepare properly for the future.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question.

I was wondering whether what he was really asking was that I turn down the volume during question period from now on.

Individually and collectively, we need to learn from this crisis in order to make better decisions for what happens next. There are good ideas coming from all political parties. We have to be able to recognize that.

What matters most is that we can take care of Canadians and ensure prosperity. We need to do things differently to avoid repeating past mistakes.

I very much appreciated my colleague's comments.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his fine, heartfelt speech.

He talked about inequality. He also referred to something that I see as a problem and that is the huge profits that banks are making and the use of tax havens. In order to reduce inequality during this crisis, the government is going to inject huge amounts of cash into the banking system. It might even buy troubled assets to help the banks.

Does my colleague believe that, in return, the big banks should contribute by putting an end to their lawful use of tax havens to avoid paying taxes in Canada?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent suggestion.

Sometimes there is a completely indecent accrual of profit and capital, while there are people living in poverty who do not have the bare minimum they need to survive.

It is a give and take. If the government helps banks to prevent too much bankruptcy and job loss, then I think that the banks should stop coming up with ways to send their profits and their CEOs' money to tax havens so that they do not have to pay taxes in Canada. We need that money to pay for the social safety net that we were talking about earlier.

I think that any assistance, particularly for large industries like that one and the oil and gas industry, should come with conditions so that we all come out on top in the end.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. I completely agree with him.

Perhaps he will agree with me that neo-liberalism's time has passed.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that statement carries a lot of historic weight.

I hope that we will have the wisdom to come to the same conclusion. Taking an exclusively neo-liberal approach erodes a society, a community.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-14, A second Act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19, be read the second time and referred to a committee of the whole.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, what a wonderful note on which to rise to speak today, to see the paragraph that I was initially so pleased to see in the unanimous consent motion, and the government will implement measures without delay. It is much improved through our work unanimously. I want to thank the NDP for taking the lead in making sure that benefits are going to people where there had been gaps. Clearly the Minister of Employment and the Minister of Finance have been working hard to try to address gaps.

Before I get too far into discussing what we have done here today and what we have been doing as parliamentarians, I do want to pause and on behalf of the Green Party of Canada, thank all of the essential workers: the front-line workers, particularly those in the health care professions, including our doctors, our nurses, our first responders and our personal care workers who go into senior homes. There are so many people right now without whom we could not self-isolate in safety. We could not practise our social distancing without truck drivers who make sure there is food on the shelves, and the workers in our grocery stores who make sure that the shelves are stocked. There are efforts to stop hoarding and make sure that we look out for each other.

Essential workers in this context include some people that we often do not stop to celebrate. They tend to be the lower-paid workers. In this moment, I just want to express on behalf of all of us again, our deep gratitude. It is particularly concerning that we are not ensuring that these people are protected. PPE, personal protective equipment, which is now on the tip of our tongues, was not something we talked about.

We should have learned lessons from SARS. I worked with Sheela Basrur and I love her. The work on SARS and the commissions at the time warned us that we would need to be ready for another pandemic and that we should not let these supplies run low. I am not going to play a blame game. It is human nature. The farther we got away from the SARS pandemic, the less we went to check how much was stored on our shelves. Do we have enough N95 masks? Do we have enough gowns and gloves? Are we protecting our front-line workers enough?

We still have a crisis. There are still places, people, hospitals and senior care homes that are crying out for this protective equipment. They are crying out as we gather here. I thank them for what they are doing. We do it every day at home. I go out on my balcony on Second Street in Sidney. I know my neighbours are at home because all around me I can hear them banging on pots and pans. The streets of my community, Sidney by the Sea, are empty, but at 7 p.m., there are people in the marina blowing their boat horns and banging their pots and pans. I just want to thank all the health care workers across Canada.

I also want to thank my caucus members. I would split my time if I could, but the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith is in Nanaimo—Ladysmith and the hon. member for Fredericton is in Fredericton. She is still self-isolating from her last trip to Ottawa and New Brunswick rules require that she stay put. The hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith was not able to make the trip. I am enormously grateful to be here.

While I am expressing gratitude, I want to thank the hon. Minister of Employment for giving me a lift. I also have to thank the leader of the official opposition, because I think it was more or less his plane. It is a new term for me: We “plane-pooled”. We went from Fredericton to Victoria to Regina, which is not a regularly scheduled thing.

I was glad that Jill and the kids could come along too. It was a family event as we made our way here. I am so grateful. I booked all my commercial flights and I have to say I feel so privileged and so grateful. It was a special feeling to know a government plane was going to pick me up. I did not expect it, but I have to say I was semi-terrified about the transits I was going to have to make through four airports. I have a lot of reasons for being grateful.

With that, I want to turn to the legislation. We are working hard as MPs. I know every single member of government is working hard, and I include in that the civil servants.

I am used to working seven days a week, but I am not used to getting an email back from staff at the civil servant level from the western diversification office when I write about a routine grant that has a 30-day window. It is because people are working at home, civil servants too, and I thank them. I know they are working Saturdays and Sundays, because they answer my emails on Saturdays and Sundays. This is an extraordinary time.

I am not sure how others in this place will feel about it, but I want to say publicly that I think we are eventually going to need the Emergencies Act. I know that the premiers said no, but I think we are eventually going to wish we had had it in place.

The public welfare portion of the Emergencies Act is not the War Measures Act of old. I read it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and thought that it is what legislation to deal with an emergency looks like when it is not written by people in the middle of an emergency. It is thoughtful: It does not suspend our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it does not send the army in anywhere and it respects provincial jurisdiction and the use of provincial police forces.

I will give members one example that is in my heart right now.

In the community I represent, Saanich—Gulf Islands, the Gulf Islands are being inundated with visitors who are coming in by ferry, even though BC Ferries has told people not to come unless their trip is essential. These small communities are really feeling it. The grocery store shelves empty out with people from urban areas coming to visit. I know it is happening in cottage country. I am sure the Muskokas are experiencing the same thing, with people getting out of the city and going to their cottage. However, the health care systems and services in these more remote rural communities cannot handle the kind of inundation of people that is happening now.

I want to flag for my colleagues here the way the Emergencies Act works. It can be invoked; it does not need new legislation. It can be invoked by Governor in Council, but when Parliament is in recess, it must be recalled within seven days to discuss and debate it.

In an ideal world, just as a precaution, I would have liked us to discuss and debate it today while we are here so that we have it in our back pocket if we need it. I am not certain that at some point in the coming weeks we will not wish we had it to make sure that we had a national priority system for the distribution of ventilators and N95 masks, or that we did not have the capacity to say that we need to stop people from going into these smaller communities that cannot handle an influx of population right now.

This brings me to the bill we have in front of us. I think it is time to think about transformational change. The hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie was pointing this out a moment ago. We are doing things now in real time so fast that those of us who have been parliamentarians for a while would not have been able to imagine that government could roll out these programs so fast. It is an extraordinary tribute to hard work, thinking outside the box and being liberated from some constraints, because the pandemic of COVID-19 is a bigger threat than anything we have faced in the short term.

I make the parenthetical comment that the climate crisis is still a larger threat to human civilization than this pandemic, but this has caused civil servants, ministers and opposition members to think in different ways. This has caused our Conservative friends, like the member for Carleton on conference calls we have had, to be the voice that asks, “What about the small credit unions? What about helping the small credit unions, not just the big ones?” I thought to myself that we should not ever make assumptions about people. I did not think that was something the member for Carleton would say, but sure enough, he did. There is concern for all of us, and the basic needs of all have risen to the top. As I said earlier today, this experience has shown us that life is more important than money.

That is a truly fundamental lesson in a culture that normally protects the economy above all else.

Now we know that we have to protect our economy and rebuild it, but not at the cost of human lives. We know what is important.

In looking at this, I hope that we can agree at some point that a guaranteed livable income is what the country needs. As other members have mentioned, in normal times not everybody can pay their bills. In normal times, kids who should be able to go to university cannot afford it. In normal times, too many people fall between the cracks. We can fix those cracks. We can fix those gaps.

The Green Party of Canada has, way before I was involved with it, stood for a guaranteed living income.

We need a guaranteed minimum income to allow everyone to live sustainably.

I hope we will come back to this. For now we have Bill C-13. It went quite far toward looking at gaps, but we recognize that they remained. That is why we are back for Bill C-14.

I am pleased to see the wage subsidy increased to 75%. I am pleased to see the tweaking around definitions of what is an eligible employee to make sure that we do not accidentally create a one-day mistake. I am pleased to see the changes around eligible entities and, of course, around the qualifying periods. This makes the whole program much more accessible to more companies and employers that are able to give that wage subsidy.

However, it does not deal with every situation, not even still. If one thing is shown by trying to come up with legislation to meet every circumstance and fill every gap the way we are doing it, it is that one size will not fit all.

This is true even when talking about senior homes. I received an email today from Meadowlane, a seniors home on Salt Spring Island. It is run as an independent living facility, so it is not within the health authorities. It has additional costs but is a not-for-profit society, so how does it handle these additional costs? It does not have deep pockets. Obviously costs are going up. The workers are stretched. The home needs to buy more masks and more gowns, and it does not have a revenue deduction because people are still in the home. Not every circumstance fits yet to our best efforts in this place.

Similarly, I have talked to venture capital businesses. They have the venture capital and are on the verge of a breakthrough, but the BDC venture capital model is not working for them because their venture capital comes from firms that are not in the recognized group within the BDC plan. We need some flexibility there too. We need to be able to say to businesses that if they are on the verge of really taking off, we should not be restricting where they get their money.

Speaking of money, I want to pick up on a point made by the hon. member for Burnaby South earlier today, which is about the banks. The Minister of Finance has clearly been exerting maximum diplomacy on the banks, getting them to say that they will let people have a longer time to pay their mortgages, but the six big banks are misusing his good faith. I will put it that way. They are not so profitable for nothing. Last year's profit of the six big banks in Canada came to $46 billion. It is 10 years in a row now that they have made more money year over year, and we can see why. They are saying to people that they do not have to pay their mortgage for a while, but when they pay it the banks are going to get them.

This is not team Canada. This is not the spirit we want to see. I think it is about time that the large banks were taxed at a higher level. We tax our big banks less than other countries in the G7 do. Why? I guess we like them. I am not sure they like us.

I would love to see the Minister of Finance convene by conference call all of the country's credit unions and ask them what they are capable of doing. What would they be able to do to help the small businesses in this country avoid bankruptcy? What would they be able to do to get them money up front that was not a loan so they could pay their rent and not go under due to the fixed costs of business?

I grew up in my family business as a kid. Through my twenties I waitressed and cooked in my family restaurant on the Cabot Trail, which was a seasonal business. I think about my parents and if this had hit us then. I do not know what we would have done. We would have had 35 seasonal employees that we could not hire. We would have been wondering if we should open or not and what the heck to do with all the things we had to pay for no matter what. That is what I am hearing from businesses in my riding now.

Someone emailed me the other day, and the email just about broke my heart. I will not give any biographical details, but the writer described himself as a 250-pound man covered in tattoos. He said that morning he went to the bathroom and shut the door so his kids would not hear him crying. He has businesses that cannot open right now and he has no way to pay the rent on them. Despite all of his life savings, he is already indebted. Small businesses are going to need more than what we have here.

I am encouraged because the unanimous consent motion does speak to short-term support measures for Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises that will be partially non-refundable. We have to work on how much is “partially”. We have to do way more. If we want to get out of this, which we do, as a country with businesses that run in the black, we cannot let them go into deeper debt. They will not go into deeper debt; I know they will not. They are already telling me that if they take out a $40,000 loan without interest, they will not be able to pay it back and will then go bankrupt later. This is a real concern and is coming from the heart.

There are other issues that matter to us across this country. We know one size does not fit all in any category.

Before my time is elapsed, I want to thank everyone in the government and the provincial governments and particularly our public health officers, from Dr. Theresa Tam to Dr. Bonnie Henry in B.C. to, back again across this country, Dr. Strang in Nova Scotia. These guys are now our daily friends on TV. We see them more than we see those we used to watch on TV. We now know who we can look to for advice. We can look to those public civil servants whose job is public health. I am enormously grateful to all of them, because as every Canadian has witnessed, they are also working around the clock.

It is now clear that these are extraordinary circumstances. We must find solutions together. We must continue to work together. As members of Parliament, we must find ways to work virtually. I do not know how that will be possible, but I know that things that once seemed impossible are possible.

I mentioned earlier that Doug Ford says the Deputy Prime Minister is his therapist. This kind of thing would not have been considered possible a short time ago. We need to work together.

On behalf of the Green Party caucus, I give my word that we will do whatever we can. We have been forwarding advice, complaints, ideas and worries to a listening ear, and for that we are grateful. In this crisis, which does not at this point have a clear end in sight, we need to be able to say to every one of our constituents and to every Canadian, permanent resident and foreign student, for whom I am very worried, that if they are living in Canada we have their backs. If they feel that no one is there for them right now, they should not worry. I want them to reach out to us and tell us what they need. We will fight for them.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member, my fellow British Columbian, for her presentation.

She mentioned at the front end of her speech that she supports having the Emergencies Act activated. Again, that has never been done. Usually it was only done when a province or territory was unable or unwilling to deal with a crisis.

From speaking to most of my constituents, I think they would all say that in British Columbia things are happening well. In fact, maybe some people would say that the gaps right now are being addressed by the federal government in the way it has handled our borders, particularly at the airports. Both Premier Kenney and Premier Horgan have sent their officials because they do not trust that the federal government has done its job. In fact, maybe they would like a reverse Emergencies Act: Rather than the federal government taking over a provincial situation, the provincial government could take over a federal situation.

Could the member please tell us where these gaps are that she sees in British Columbia?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the example I just gave, and it is top of the news around the clock at home in B.C. right now, is the influx of people on B.C. ferries. Is that a provincial issue? Should John Horgan have sent the RCMP to stop people from boarding ferries? It seems to us that there are still gaps. The Emergencies Act, if nothing else, is about making sure that gaps are dealt with, and that there is a national set of directives. Right now, we have different provincial directives, depending on where one lives, of when to self-isolate or whether to wear a mask. I do not want to make too much of it, because I think we are pulling together quite well, but in this instance the Salt Spring Island Harbour Authority reached out to me and said that they want to be able to say that they are not taking any tourist vessels in Ganges Harbour this weekend, and asked where they can get the authorities to do that. Those should be federal, because it is Transport Canada, but it is hard to find the rules and the regulations.

In British Columbia right now, I also do not think the work camps should be open for Site C or for Coastal natural gas. There are COVID-19 cases coming out of those work camps, and that exemption has been allowed by the provincial government.

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands has spoken about the really unprecedented collaboration among all members of this House in addressing the challenge that all Canadians face. I want to take this opportunity to thank her colleague, the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, for his support in our work with the United States. He pointed out directly to me the essential role that a pulp mill in his riding plays in supplying the U.S. medical equipment supply chain. Thanks to him, I got in touch with the CEO of that pulp mill, Levi Sampson, and that conversation proved to be very helpful in our conversations with our American neighbours.

I thank the Greens, and particularly the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith for being so involved and so helpful.