Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise and deliver my first-ever speech in this place. I will begin with my congratulations to you on your re-election, and to all of the other 336 fellow members in the House, each of whom has a story that brought them to this chamber, a reason that led them to initially put their name on a ballot, and motivations for service that are as distinct as the diversity of our country.
If I may, I would like to take a moment to thank the people who have played such a major role in my own journey to this seat in the House, starting of course with the voters of Thornhill, a remarkable, thriving, growing community in the GTA. I thank the voters who elected me to be their Conservative member of Parliament for putting their trust in me. I would say to those who voted for one of my opponents that I have work to do to bring them onside.
In the meantime, I plan to be the best representative for our entire community because to look at Thornhill is to look at a community that represents so much of the future of Canada. It is a community that contains incredible diversity and families that have immigrated to Canada from all over the world, including the Lantsman family. I am the grandchild of a man who came to Canada and started one of the community's most iconic small businesses.
He came to Canada, to Thornhill, to ensure that his children and grandchildren would have a better life than the one of repression and poverty in Communist Russia. When my parents arrived here, they did not speak English. They learned to. They faced the sometimes direct and sometimes subtle bigotry of anti-Semitism, a hatred far older than our country, which is sadly tolerated by far too many far too close to this House. They persevered and taught their daughter how to persevere. That perseverance was tested during the last 18 months.
I lost my mother during this journey. I know that she is watching, and if anyone likes anything I say in this House at all, it will almost entirely because of her. My father was truly far ahead of his time. He never answered, “No, you can't do that.” He and my older brother are foundational to my success and embody the spirit of hard work and empathy in this country.
I have a chosen family that has been instrumental in my achievements, and most important, I have a partner who is eternally patient, unconditionally supportive and who I am absolutely nothing without.
I want to pay tribute to the remarkable team of volunteers who brought me to this seat. Everyone knows that it takes a village, but a political village of volunteers is a particularly remarkable place, starting of course with my predecessor for this seat, Peter Kent, who taught me so much about how to serve our community and the high standard that I need to strive for as its MP.
I also want to thank my incredible campaign team, each and every one of them helped and gave their time and trust to put me here. Many supported this journey long before I ever knew I would embark on it. That is the summary of the path that brought me here, but I want to use the rest of this time to talk about the road ahead.
I know, as do hon. members, that to serve in public office is both an honour and a privilege, but it is also not easy. We take on these challenges because all of us have causes that we champion and communities we are committed to serve. I know this chamber is supposed to be a place where we recognize and reconcile those differences because I worked on Parliament Hill long before I was elected to come here.
That is how representation and democracy is supposed to work, but I come here questioning if it is really working. At the time of Confederation, Canada had its democratic structure, but also its democratic deficiencies in how women, indigenous people, immigrant populations, religious minorities and others were often relegated to second-tier status, or worse, and denied the fundamental, political and social rights held by the elites.
Parliament back then was often a talking club, where political elites spent their time talking only to one another and very little time talking to the public, and still less time listening. While we have so much work to do, we have come a far way to correct these injustices. I am standing here today as a Jewish woman who identifies as LGBTQ, and it is hopefully indicative of that.
However, truly inclusive politics is not about who can collect the most identity politics baseball cards, though that is too often how elected politicians and their cliques approach this job. It is about solving the fundamental challenge that is our Parliament, that is our government, as this is still too often a bunch of elites talking to each other.
There is much missing from the discourse here. In fact, there was much missing from the throne speech. On the fight against climate change, many in this House, and those close to it, care only about how many tweets and endorsements they can get from single-issue activists and NGOs rather than a truly inclusive effort to fight this challenge.
When it comes to families that are stuck holding the bill for promises made and repeated, or displaced workers in the energy sector, whose future livelihoods are being sacrificed, the chattering classes are silent.
How about the million Canadians who are motivated by faith in public life? Many in politics, who so routinely embrace the hip social cause of the day, will also gleefully sign off on, what I see as, a deliberate attack that targets the faith of Canadians, including so many members around me, for the crime of daring to express their values in the public sphere.
How about the cause that is so foundational to me and my dream? That is the place of Jewish people in this country. Our country's commitment to human rights, diversity and respect quickly evaporates because some close to this House believe that not every minority deserves equal protection and respect. If I asked members how many Jews were elected to the House of Commons, remembering that we elect 300 at a time, over 44 Parliaments, what do they think that number would be? It is 38. I am number 38. That is fewer than one per Parliament, and nobody can ever tell me that Jewish voices are overrepresented in corridors of power.
If that were the case, it would not be socially acceptable for so many in official Ottawa to freely denigrate the Jewish people under the guise of criticising their homeland as part of some perverse social justice performance theatre. We have seen it. If this had been about indigenous people, the LGBTQ community, Canadians with disabilities or so many other groups, many would have impaled themselves on a microphone to grandstand the condemnation of such intolerance, but apparently the Middle East is complicated. However, the thing is, it is actually not that complicated.
There is a rising tide of anti-Semitism in this country, in my community and in all communities across the country, and it is not just rising out of some far-right-wing chat room on the Internet. It is rising out of faculty clubs, social justice organizations and too many government offices.
When there is an attack in Paris or London, it matters. It matters to how we set the rules, fund basic security and protect our citizens, but when terrorists launch rockets targeting civilians on the other side of the world, we can count on two things: politicians trying to play both sides and, the usual suspect in the social justice community, victim blaming.
It is not that complicated. There is right, and there is wrong. Self defence is right, and terrorism is wrong. It needs to be said. The mistake I will not make is believing that moral clarity will prevail because sadly it has not. Why cannot a Canadian born in Jerusalem, like those in my family, have that in their passport? Why is the world's sole Jewish state also the sole state that is told it cannot choose its own capital city? If that does not make members think, then maybe it should. Any responsibly thinking Conservative knows the capital is Jerusalem, and this country should say so.
A few years before I was born, Joe Clark promised to move the embassy to Jerusalem. I have been there. I know where it is. It is not there, and yes, this is not a partisan failure. This is Conservative and Liberal governments alike that have failed on the original promise. However, I am not going to be quiet about it, because where I come from, it is a matter of right and wrong, and it is not that complicated. I am a proud Canadian, a proud Conservative and a proud Jew, and it took a lot of work and a big fight for me to get here.
Now that I am here, this fight and this work does not end, and I will be unrelenting in holding the government to account whenever it chooses to expediently coddle the prejudiced instead of defending the principled, and when it excludes those who do not conveniently fit its narrative. However, in the same breath, I am prepared to work constructively across the aisle, should members be prepared to change their ways. I stand, a part of this caucus, because I believe that the best protector of my community is a Conservative government, but we cannot afford to wait until the next election, so I implore those who have a voice to take their concerns and the concerns of my community seriously and recognize that their past record is just not good enough.
If they ever choose to do so, they can count on allies from this side of the House, including from the member of Parliament for Thornhill.