Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be back in this chamber and I want to start by thanking my constituents in Parkdale—High Park for returning me for the second time to this chamber. It is an honour and a privilege to serve them, one I do not take lightly.
I also thank the most important people in my life in terms of getting me to where I am today, the people who gave me guidance as a young child and then as a young man: my parents, Lou and Sul Virani. My dad just celebrated his 78th birthday this past Saturday. I thank my sister Shakufe. My immediate family has been a rock of support through all of this.
I will confess that it has been a little more troubling and difficult for my youngest son this go-round. In 2015, he was one year old and did not have much conscious memory of what transpired then. This go-round, he was five and missed his dad a great deal during the election, as did my eight-year-old son. However, it is for them that I do this work and for children around the country that we all do this work. It is important to keep them in mind. I love Zakir and Nitin very much. I am not wearing a shirt with cufflinks today, but I have the cufflinks with their initials on them in my pocket, as I always do on important occasions.
The most important person is obviously my significant other, my wife Suchita, who has been a rock of support. We do not come from a political family, but she has, nevertheless, been steadfast and by my side constantly throughout this entire endeavour, even to the point of pulling the vote on election day this past year, which was a first for her. I thank my wife Suchita. I love her dearly. I thank her for allowing me to do what I do, serving this country and my riding.
We have just had the Speech from the Throne, which contains a series of initiatives the government is pursuing. I want to highlight six of them. Members will recollect from the previous Parliament that I remain a litigator who likes to stay organized in his prepared comments.
My first point is climate action. We know that climate action is urgent. The country heard about it during the course of the campaign and prior to it. We know we need to take bold action, and we have taken the steps toward that bold action. However, I am going to highlight one important thing because it dovetails with the message sent to us by constituents right around the country: what they are looking for in returning a minority Parliament is more co-operation, and there is no monopoly on a good idea. We need to take best practices from across the aisle, across the country and around the world and implement them as best practices here in Canada.
I will point to one. We have taken some very bold action with our carbon price in our plan to phase out coal and our initiatives in the just transition. One thing we need to do was not contained in our platform but the platform of a party opposite, the NDP. It talked about a climate accountability mechanism that government would report to. That is exactly the kind of mechanism that is worth studying. I was at COP24 last year in Katowice, and that is the model that is used in Britain that was championed at COP24. I brought that idea back to Parliament and immediately started talking about it. I am glad to see it in the platforms of other parties. It is the kind of idea that we need to take up, because there is nothing more pressing than addressing climate change as an initiative.
My second point from the throne speech is that affordability rang true throughout the country. This is not only germane to my riding, or the city of Toronto or urban centres; this rings true regardless of where one is, from region to region, rural to urban. I would point to a very important commitment in the throne speech that was reiterated when the throne speech was read, which is that the very first act we will be taking as a government is to reduce the taxation burden on low- and middle-income Canadians. How are we doing that? We are increasing the basic personal exemption.
Again, it is not a partisan issue, but I will point out a subtle difference that lays bare the difference between the two major parties in this chamber. Conservatives presented the same idea and would have had it universally applicable. Liberals said it is a great idea, but we are going to make it applicable to everyone, except for the top 1%. Why? It is because we fundamentally believe in targeting our measures toward those who need it the most.
We were criticized in the past, perhaps fairly, for having a middle-class tax cut that applied to people earning between $42,000 and $85,000 roughly, if I remember correctly from the last Parliament. People said, rightfully, that low-income people need taxation relief as much as anyone else. We are delivering that in this campaign platform and with this first initiative. That subtle difference, by ensuring that the benefit goes to those who need it the most and not those who do not need it, is what definitely identifies us as a centrist Liberal Party attempting to address the needs of the most vulnerable.
The third point I want to touch on is housing. Housing is critical. The issue I heard time and time again when I knocked on doors during the last campaign was housing. Whether it was support for housing, affordable rental housing or the ability for people to buy their first homes, people are feeling the pinch. They are feeling squeezed out of the housing market.
It is incumbent upon all of us to address that pinch clearly and vigorously. We are doing just that with a $55-billion plan that is 12 years deep to address housing.
The campaign is over. It is time to implement those policies, starting with the Canada housing benefit, which will be a portable benefit so that a person is not attached to a particular apartment or unit. People take that benefit with them wherever they move in a riding, in a city or around the country.
The fourth important theme is critical. It is gun control. I want to talk about this a little bit, because when we speak about gun control, we are speaking about the needs of all Canadians. This need not be a rural/urban issue.
I was so excited to get going on the throne speech that I neglected to mention that I would be splitting my time with the hon. member for Vaughan—Woodbridge. I congratulate him on his return to the House.
With respect to gun control, this past Friday was a noted anniversary. It was the 30th anniversary of the Montreal massacre.
I remember that time 30 years ago very clearly, because my sister was a young student at McGill University. Since she was in Montreal at the time, many people called to make sure Shakufe was okay, that she was safe. We knew she was okay, because she had let us know. We were lucky; our family was lucky.
There are 14 families who were changed forever that evening. What troubles me is that sometimes people think that while Jacinda Ardern has done really well on gun control, hot on the heels of a brutal massacre in New Zealand, we do not need to wait for another massacre to act. We have had our share of troubles. We continue to have our share of troubles, such as 30 years ago in Montreal and on January 29, 2017, in Quebec City.
We have had incidents of people being slaughtered through guns that are used only for the purposes of mass killing. Those are not hunting rifles; those are not legitimately pursued weapons; those are weapons that have no place in Canadian society. We made a bold commitment to get rid of military-style assault weapons. That was reiterated in the throne speech and I am determined to ensure that we see that through its course, and see it through quickly.
However, it does not just stop there. As a Toronto member of Parliament, I believe firmly in the need for gun control. Yes, there are many facets that contribute to the gun problem and to violence in cities like mine. There are gang problems and there are border control problems, but part of the problem is also the availability of readily accessible handguns that serve no place in a city like Toronto, or in many of our urban centres and centres otherwise.
This issue impacts our communities, including our racialized communities. It affects mental health and those who pass on by suicide. It dovetails with domestic violence, particularly violence perpetrated against women. We will address all of those issues by addressing the nub of the issue, which is gun control.
The fifth theme that I want to touch on is indigenous reconciliation. I was very proud to see that reiterated again in the speech, as it needs to be. This will take seven generations to resolve. We made gigantic progress in the last Parliament, in terms of addressing monetary needs, boil water advisories, child welfare legislation and the Indigenous Languages Act, which I was very privileged to work on as the parliamentary secretary to the then minister of heritage. What I learned on that file is that, notwithstanding my own background on equity issues and on fighting discrimination, we will get nowhere in this country in rectifying all sorts of other issues that deal with inequality unless we address the core and foundational issue, which is 400 years of colonialism and racism fomented against indigenous people.
The sixth theme I wanted to talk about is pharmacare. In an effort to reach across the aisle, we have heard about this from many different parties in this House. The time is now to address the lacuna in our current situation of policy. In the entire OECD, we stand alone as the only country that supports medical care and not medicine with publicly financed support. That is a minority of one that I personally do not want to be in and I know the colleagues opposite share that view.
Exploring dental care is another fine suggestion that was brought forward in the NDP campaign platform. It was mentioned in the throne speech and I believe it is worth exploring.
Mr. Speaker, you know that I came to this chamber as a human rights and constitutional lawyer. You know, because we served together, that I came here as a refugee from Uganda and that I have taken advantage of the opportunities that were provided to me in this fine country and I have worked to make it better. We have made great strides over the last four years, but there is so much more work to be done.
I just want to finish on this note and say four things that I thought about after getting re-elected, which I would commit to myself, my constituents and this chamber.
The first is to continue to speak out about what I have always believed in: fighting discrimination, promoting equality and making Canada more inclusive for all.
The second is to continue to champion human rights, both here and abroad, at every opportunity that presents itself.
The third is to ensure that housing is not a fanciful ideal, but is something that manifests for people in my community.
Finally, the fourth is to ensure that we will always work harder, faster and more ambitiously on climate change because climate change is the most pressing issue of our time.
In a spirit of co-operation and collegiality, I offer congratulations to all the new members and returning members to this House. I hope to work with all members collaboratively to better this nation and this Parliament.