Thank you, Madam Chair.
I also want to take the opportunity, as my colleague Mr. Lawton did, to publicly congratulate you on your election as chair of this amazing committee, where generally, more often than not, we take a collaborative approach to deal with the pressing, ongoing issues that are concerning to Canadians. This certainly is such an area.
I want to thank the two witnesses for their attendance today and their participation in this study.
We as parliamentarians can walk and chew gum at the same time, and we often do that very well as we navigate a myriad of policies and government bills but, most importantly, private members' bills. The fact is that this is a private member's bill.
At this time, Madam Chair, I'd like to move my motion that I presented and filed on Thursday June 4, 2026. I'm prepared to read it out and to speak to this motion at this time. I move that:
The committee consider Bill S-233, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (assault against persons who provide health services and first responders) on or before Monday, June 15, 2026, provided that the House and Senate sponsors of the bill be invited to testify along with any other witnesses deemed relevant by committee members and that following the testimony, the committee immediately proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of the bill, and the chair only be authorized to adjourn the meeting after clause-by-clause consideration of the bill is completed.
In essence, this is a bill, just like the bill before the committee today, that never ought to be a partisan issue. To reflect the non-partisan aspect of this bill, one needs only to take a look at the history of the bill.
The bill originated in the Senate, and it passed all three levels in the Senate. It moved over to the House of Commons. At second reading, it passed unanimously with every single member of the House of Commons agreeing to swift passage, in essence getting it to the justice committee as soon as possible. There were 332 yeas and zero nays, and there were eight paired members for a total of 332 members participating.
We all believe it's non-partisan. We all believe that greater protections should be afforded to all health care workers and to frontline officers. We also have to reflect upon what we knew long before the pandemic hit, but it was even more pronounced during and following the pandemic, that there is a rising level of violence against our frontline workers.
This, Madam Chair, is extremely personal to me because my spouse is a frontline worker. She is a registered nurse. She's about to celebrate 30 years in her profession. I remember vividly how many times, during the pandemic, because she was an essential service worker at that point, she was abused and ridiculed. She heard sexist remarks being made to her, and she was spat at on numerous occasions. There were too many times to count, but I could see it on her face and I could tell by her demeanor that this wasn't the profession that she signed up for almost 30 years ago.
Where is this violence coming from? Some people thought it was maybe an origin and a by-product of the pandemic and society essentially shutting down, and the anger that people had during that time, but that anger has continued following the end of the pandemic.
What's more concerning—and I have a lot of literature that I'm going to share with this committee right now—is that for every nurse, for every doctor and for every other health care professional or paramedic who actually has the courage to come forward and report this to their supervisor or to the administration of the workplace environment, or ultimately report this to the police, for every one of those individuals, there are dozens of individuals who basically shut up and put up with this abuse.
In my view, that is an absolute shame, because those who study to become a professional, those who wish to become part of the medical profession and those who want to take part in performing first responder duties do that essentially as a call to service. I have a call to service. My spouse has a call to service. We all have calls to service, but those who serve the public should never be expected to carry with them the licence to be abused. That's certainly something that I wasn't taught as a parliamentarian—