Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for South Shore—St. Margaret's.
I am extremely humbled and honoured to stand here as the first member for Scarborough—Rouge Park. I want to thank my constituents for entrusting me to represent them. I want to congratulate all of my colleagues for their election or re-election, and I wish to congratulate you, Madam Speaker, on your selection as Assistant Deputy Speaker. I am committed to working collaboratively with all members in this room for the betterment of the country. I am proud to speak in support of the Speech from the Throne.
Scarborough—Rouge Park is one six ridings in the former city of Scarborough, now part of the city of Toronto. We have one of the most diverse communities in all of Canada.
Permit me to take hon. members through some of the priorities of my riding and the region. We are blessed with the best that nature has to offer, with the Rouge River, a new national park, the Toronto Zoo, Highland Creek, and the Scarborough waterfront, all offering some of the most beautiful landscapes in the GTA.
The Rouge Park is at the heart of my riding. It is a life's work for many individuals and groups. Our government is committed to bringing the full potential of the park to life. I am excited that the Prime Minister has, in his mandate letter to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, asked my colleague to work with the Ontario government to enhance the country's first urban national park, including improved legislation to protect the important ecosystem and to guide how the park will be managed.
I am very confidant that we can all come together to build a national park in our region that will reflect the needs and aspirations of the community and leave a legacy for future generations.
Scarborough, like many suburban regions in our country, needs infrastructure. Starting next year, the co-op agreement for the 12 co-ops that exist in our riding will be expiring. We have over 900 families living in co-ops. We need to ensure that we work for the co-ops to have stable, predictable funding.
The previous government ignored the much needed infrastructure of our community. We could not find a better time to invest in infrastructure. We have historically low interest rates. We need proper infrastructure to create much needed jobs and to attract employers, and we have inherited an economy in need of a boost. This is why our government will invest to build much needed infrastructure.
In Scarborough—Rouge Park, we need to upgrade our housing for veterans, and transportation to allow families to spend more time with each other than on the road, and community centres for youth and seniors, and co-op housing for our seniors.
Youth are an integral part of the riding. I am proud to represent an area with a large youth population. The Malvern and Danzig communities are great, vibrant places where youth thrive when given the right opportunities. Our youth need the right support. They need to stay in school and have increased employment opportunities and feel like they are part of the community. Our youth employment strategy will be essential to ensure that youth are able to develop the right skills at the right age to prepare them for the jobs of the future.
We need to create jobs and opportunities in Scarborough—Rouge Park. To this end, I am excited that the Rotary Club of Scarborough has undertaken a new Scarborough revitalization project. As part of the project, the Scarborough Business Association was inaugurated earlier this year. It is my hope that this association will be the centre of business and industry development in Scarborough and will lead to much needed job creation. I look forward to working with my colleagues to advance the issues in my riding.
I am deeply disturbed by the continuous stigmatization of refugees, both in the House and outside. We have, in recent times, defined refugees as terrorists, burdens, and undesirables. We demonize them. We fail to understand and empathize with human suffering and humanitarian crisis.
Today, as we gather in the House, refugees from Syria are preparing to come to Canada and call this their new home. The hopes and aspirations of these Canadians are no different from the generations of refugees that came before and, I suspect, will be similar to those who will come after.
Canada welcomes our newest refugees with open arms, the same way we welcomed the Afghanis, the Kosovars, the Somalis, the Tamils, the Vietnamese, the Ismalis, and so on.
Some of us in the House were refugees ourselves at one point, and like all those who came before, are proud to give back to this country. Our Minister of Democratic Institutions, our Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, and a good friend representing the riding of York South—Weston are just such examples of this contribution.
I want to share with the House my story. I am a proud Tamil Canadian who came here as a refugee from Sri Lanka. The Tamil people are a persecuted nation. Over 100,000 Tamils have died in a bloody war. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has found that war crimes and crimes against humanity took place in Sri Lanka in the last phase of the war. Tamils are seeking justice, an international independent criminal investigation into war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
Although the war ended in 2009, peace has evaded the island. There are reported cases of sexual violence; the military occupies land traditionally owned by Tamils; and Tamil political prisoners are lingering in jails, in some cases for decades. It is in this context that people fled, seeking a safe, secure place to raise their family.
In 2010, I had the opportunity to meet some of the Tamil refugees who came on the MV Sun Sea. I met countless men, women, and children. I will never forget the story of one of those women. In the last days of the war, she was hiding in a bunker with her husband and three children. She went to get water for her family. As she left the bunker, a shell hit and destroyed her life. Her three young children and her husband vanished in seconds. This mother had the courage to get on a ship with strangers, risking her life so that she could put her life back together. This is one refugee experience.
Canadians are doing the right thing to protect and give new life to 25,000 Syrians. We are focusing on getting the most vulnerable from the millions of prospective refugees currently in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. I wish to note on the record the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, for working diligently to process and assist the millions of refugees. Canada's commitment to give an additional $100 million to UNHCR is welcome as the agency deals with one of the largest migrations in recent history. We will need to do more.
Finally, Canada is a shining example to the world of tolerance, equality, justice, and human rights. We are leading by example by bringing in and integrating refugees from Syria. In fact, over the course of our history many different peoples have called Canada home. We have built a just society that in many ways is the envy of the world.
Yet, in this just society there is great injustice. We have collectively failed our indigenous, Inuit, and Métis peoples. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission report has many stories of survivors. I encourage members to look at some of those stories. Our government has accepted the recommendations of the TRC by Justice Murray Sinclair. The recommendations, if fully implemented, would set a new way forward.
One of the recommendations in the report calls for an inquiry into murdered and missing aboriginal women and girls. Imagine a major Canadian metropolis, be it Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal or Halifax. Now imagine if 1,200 people went missing from any one of those cities within a span of 40 years. Then imagine 1,200 cases were unresolved. Can members imagine the outrage in those cities. How do we as Canadians accept 1,200 murdered and missing aboriginal women and girls in 40 years? Where do we even start addressing this issue?
I am proud that our government has committed to beginning this process of obtaining justice for the families. Our Prime Minister has demonstrated much-needed leadership on this issue. I am proud that our government will outline the mandate for an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls. The healing needs to start, but it cannot truly begin without a full understanding of the different parts that have led to this tragedy. This House, this Parliament, this time, we can reset the direction of our first peoples.
I wish to conclude by acknowledging that we are on the traditional lands of the Algonquin people and today, collectively in this House, we stand at the foot of history as we direct a new course, nation to nation, between Canada and its indigenous, Inuit, and Métis people.