Madam Speaker, my heartfelt congratulations on your appointments.
Weykt.
It is a profound honour to rise in this honourable House for the first time and to be surrounded by colleagues. I look forward to what we can all get done. While at the end of the day we may agree to disagree on certain things, I look forward to working with everybody in the House for the betterment of all Canadians.
My parents came to Canada in 1952 and 1957, respectively, yet their son stands before you speaking to the House for the first time. It is not something that I will soon forget.
With that, to my colleagues in the House, I want to say:
[Member spoke in Italian]
[English]
That is about all the Italian I know.
First, I want to thank my wife, partner and best friend who is watching on CPAC, I hope: Odette Dempsey. I thank my children who have sacrificed so much. To the voters of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, I will do my best to earn and retain their trust. Thanks to my parents, Alba and Joe Caputo, and my sisters, Ellie Bradley and Rosie Caputo. Thanks as well to my staff who, by helping me, are helping Canadians: Stephanie Rennick, Michael Friesen, Anita Price, Brenda Thompson and Tracy Gilchrist.
I hope in this speech to speak to the wonderful people in Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo communities such as Savona, Clearwater, Barriere, Forest Grove, 100 Mile House, 108 Mile Ranch, 70 Mile House, Blue River, Vavenby, Clinton and Kamloops.
I would be remiss if I did not start my maiden speech with a point on reconciliation given that the thrust of our current discussions really started in my riding in May of this year. I was stunned to find out about the 215 previously undiscovered and unmarked graves. I can tell the House that I went to that monument and I wept like I had not wept before. It was with that in mind that my first phone call after the election was to Kukpi7 Casimir's office of the Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc, to recognize what had been discovered.
I am committed to reconciliation, both personally and as a member of Parliament. It was with that in mind that one of my first letters was an invitation to Pope Francis to visit Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
I will now recognize Mr. Speaker, congratulations on your appointment as well.
Reconciliation was touched on in the Speech from the Throne, and really embodies two components.
Moving forward with reconciliation, we are looking at righting past wrongs, but as the hon. Leader of the Opposition stated today, it is also about building economic prosperity to move forward. This is why I was so pleased to see a “by indigenous, for indigenous” component in the Conservative policy during the last election.
By my count, the word “veterans” only appeared once in the Speech from the Throne. Veterans are an area of passion for me. Freedom is not free. It is the work of veterans, some of whom stand over my shoulders here, that has entitled me to speak freely in the House, to live freely, to worship freely and to think freely, so I thank those veterans. Because of their sacrifices, we can be people who agree to disagree. My love, compassion and desire for the best for veterans was really solidified and meant so much when I was named shadow minister for Veterans Affairs. This is why it was such a significant honour in that role to spend a day with people from our local legion and Anavets. I look forward to working with the hon. Minister of Veterans Affairs to lower wait times and to address issues that are germane to that portfolio.
Prior to my election to the House, I was a Crown prosecutor and taught at our local law school. It is through that lens that I viewed the Speech from the Throne. On my reading, I did not see the word “victims” in the Speech from the Throne. Victims of crime are all across the country, and in my work as a prosecutor, I focused on the discrete area of Internet and sexual offences against children. It was not work that I enjoyed, but it was work that I found fulfilling. It is work that somebody has to do.
I had the privilege of working with people throughout my riding on this point, and hope to table a Private Member's Bill to speak about victims and recognize the harm done to victims of sexual offences. I implore the House, when it is the right time, to change the name of child pornography to child sex abuse material. Pornography implies consenting adults choosing to perform acts. Children do not do this. Children cannot consent. We need to call it what it is, and that is child sex abuse material. I hope to have the unanimous consent of the House when I do so.
Regarding those victims, I hope that we as a House and as a society can start thinking about these types of offences differently. For instance, the maximum sentence for break and enter, for robbery or taking something by force from somebody is life imprisonment, yet the maximum sentence for sexual assault of an adult is 10 years and of a child is 14 years. Stealing property by force has a higher maximum sentence than stealing somebody's sexual inviolability without consent. I will call on the House to change that.
I have been repeatedly contacted by people in my riding about crime. Downtown Kamloops has seen a significant change since the Zora decision on bail. The House has not responded to that decision. I am hearing from people in my riding, particularly on Victoria Street. I have met with people from business associations and other people who are just living in the area, and they want something done about the fact that our bail provisions, in their eyes, are simply not protecting Canadians.
I spoke earlier in my Standing Order 31 presentation about softwood lumber, and I call on the Liberal government to negotiate vigorously. I would have expected that a proactive, rather than a reactive, solution would have been taken so that one of our vital resources and one of our greatest elements of trade would have been protected.
With that, I wish to thank the students of Thompson Rivers University where I was teaching a sentencing course with the venerable Judge Koturbash. I am sorry I cannot be with them; however, I was called to the House, which is one of the greatest honours of my life.