Mr. Chair, I come to you today from the beautiful traditional territory of the Wolastoqiyik.
I will start by sharing my condolences for my neighbours in Nova Scotia, and indeed all Canadians. We are in mourning. I wish to send love and peace your way. Life is fragile and we have all been reminded how much we want to protect it.
I'd like to thank the technical teams behind our virtual meeting today, and the optimism and forward thinking of my colleagues that enabled this to happen. Obviously, we will experience some growing pains as we all get used to this, but I'm thankful for the opportunity to represent my constituents while practising the same physical distancing we expect them to adhere to.
I thank the Minister of Health for her speech today and for keeping us informed throughout this process.
I wish to also thank my fellow members for their hard work for Canadians. I know our teams have all been extremely busy helping constituents navigate this new reality as we, too, face it with our loved ones.
Our schedules, filled with events and gatherings, have been turned upside down, but we have been creative in finding ways to preserve the strong ties with our constituents. So far, my team has set up three national webinars and one community meeting, with many more to come.
Many people have been left behind as we deal with this pandemic. We are working very hard to make sure their voices are heard. I have witnessed more co-operation amongst my fellow members than I ever have. The adjustments made to the programs introduced have yielded results. Our work is not done, though. We must keep up our efforts to make things better for every segment of the population.
I also wish to express my gratitude to those across this country who have demonstrated such excellent leadership in the face of COVID-19. I'm thinking of indigenous leadership, community governance and friendship centres; the premiers and elected provincial and territorial representatives; as well as mayors and municipal councillors who have made tough decisions early on to keep us safe.
I'm thinking of the community leaders who have been serving Canadians. In my riding I think of the chamber of commerce that has been keeping its members up to date with accurate information on support for businesses, the teams at the Greener Village, the community kitchen and the Oromocto & Surrounding Area Food Bank who are doing incredible work, and the leadership at the Fredericton Community Foundation, which has already exceeded its goal by raising over $200,000 towards immediate relief.
There are so many examples in my riding, and I have no doubt that each and every hon. member here today has experienced the same thing in their own riding.
I am particularly thankful for the provincial leadership in my home province. We are thankful for our current numbers in New Brunswick. Quick thinking on the part of our education minister to shut down schools sent a message to New Brunswickers that this was something to take very seriously.
Wise leadership at the legislative assembly saw the appointment of an all-party cabinet committee to manage the province's response to COVID-19.
As we know, we are not out of the woods yet. We must continue to approach health and safety in a slow and steady manner. The fact that we now have the time and opportunity to plan out a recovery that is fair for all gives me hope.
In the required rush to get relief programs off the ground, to help as quickly as possible, the unintended consequence has been to leave people behind, exaggerating the marginality of already vulnerable groups of people, particularly women.
Our recovery plans will not need to be rushed in this way. We can direct our energy now to addressing the gaps created by CERB and CEBA, or the student relief program, which must include international students. We can make these changes while addressing the longer standing inequities faced by minimum wage and underemployed workers and those living on meagre government assistance programs.
We have heard a few phrases about COVID-19 again and again. Some ring truer than others. We are all in this together in Canada, but we're not all in the same boat. Some Canadians are barely floating on a piece of broken furniture. Some are sitting on an inflatable dinghy with a slowly leaking hole. Part of the learning curve of this pandemic experience is in evaluating our systems, and not all of them are going to get a passing grade.
There will need to be many phases to the reopening of our communities, and there will need to be many phases of retooling and readapting to our new reality. We cannot go back to the way it was before.
Nursing and special care homeworkers need to be valued and respected. They should not need to have multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet. We need to start compensating labour in an ethical way, starting by increasing the federal minimum wage floor. We need to recognize the value of work traditionally done by women. We are going to need to invest in the public sector. Increasing the client services within Service Canada and the CRA will be an obvious start. Those who are working in our oil-based resource economy are going to need support to participate in the transition that is already happening. The economy has left these workers behind. We cannot.
We need to recognize that our relationship with the planet and our relationship with indigenous communities go hand in hand. We need reconciliation, and we need to pair it with a respect for the natural world. We need to build a better, stronger, cleaner Canada that promotes health and fosters well-being.
In preparing my words for today, I sat and I thought, what do Canadians want to hear from us? What do we want to hear from each other? Well, we want answers. We want solutions. We want a road map to a post COVID-19 existence that is both free from the pandemic and prepared in the event of its reoccurrence, and we want the vision of that world to bring us hope that we can rectify some of the inequity that has long plagued our communities.
Canadians will want to know that we have learned from all of this. I hope we have learned that we need to be proactive with our health. A future with precautions is necessary. Preventative medicine, and even personal protective equipment, will have to be our priority across sectors.
I know we have learned the value of human contact. That's for sure. I consider now the trust of a handshake, or the warmth of a hug, and how important that is and how much I miss it.
We learned of the need for universal financial stability, the need for a livable income for all Canadians.
We have learned what essential work is, and we were forced to realize that we have undervalued and underfunded those jobs. We have learned that we can put partisanship aside to accomplish great things in record time.
I thank you all for that.
We have a choice now to turn the corner, to take these lessons and forge a new path forward, one that truly leaves no one behind, one that doesn't pit some of us against others, one that breeds love, respect and prosperity. That is the path that I choose.
I wish you all good health and the strength required to keep fighting this invisible enemy.
Go team Canada. Thank you. Welálin.