House of Commons Hansard #348 of the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was documents.
Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with DisabilitiesCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings
Liberal
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes
It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings at this time and put forthwith the question on the motion now before the House.
If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with DisabilitiesCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Madam Speaker, in accordance with Standing Order 45(8), I request that the recorded division be deferred until Monday, October 7, following the time provided for Oral Questions.
Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with DisabilitiesCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings
Liberal
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes
Accordingly, the recorded division stands deferred until Monday, October 7, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Madam Speaker, the first petition I am going to table today is about the environment. Scientific assessments have shown that environmental crises are ramping up. I am talking about climate change, the collapse of biodiversity, pollution, resource depletion and the most severe long-term form of environmental damage, ecocide.
Domestic ecocide legislation has been proposed in Brazil, Scotland, Chile, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and other countries, and the European Union recently agreed to include comparable crimes in its revised Environmental Crime Directive.
The petitioners are calling for ecocide to be added to the crimes recognized in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and for this Parliament to publicly declare its support for the recognition of the international crime of ecocide.
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Madam Speaker, the second petition I would like to present has to do with women and parental leave under the Employment Insurance Act.
Under this act, women, who are already at a disadvantage in the labour market due to injustices and inequity, are still the ones to assume more family responsibilities. It is women who take nearly all the weeks of parental leave following the birth of a child. However, under the act, as currently written, if they lose their job during or very shortly after maternity leave, they are denied regular employment insurance benefits.
This inequity affects some 3,000 women a year. It would be fairly easy to fix by amending the Employment Insurance Act so that the benchmark is extended over a longer period of time to ensure that these individuals, the vast majority of them women, are not penalized by the current legislation. That is what the hundreds of people who signed this petition are calling for.
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to present a petition on behalf of constituents.
I rise for the 47th time on behalf of the people of Swan River, Manitoba, to present a petition on the rising rate of crime. The community of Swan River is overwhelmed by the extreme levels of crime because of the Liberal government's soft-on-crime laws, such as Bill C-5 and Bill C-75.
Jail has become a revolving door of repeat offenders, as Bill C-75 allows violent offenders to be in jail in the morning and back on the street the same day, and Bill C-5 allows criminals to serve their sentences from home. The people of Swan River see crime in the streets every day, and that is why they are calling for jail, not bail, for violent, repeat offenders.
The people of Swan River demand that the Liberal government repeal its soft-on-crime policies that directly threaten their livelihoods and their community. I support the good people of Swan River.
Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Hope, BC
Madam Speaker, I have three petitions I would like to table today.
The first calls upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, the protecting young persons from exposure to pornography act.
Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Hope, BC
Madam Speaker, the second petition calls on the Government of Canada to make each province and territory that receives a social transfer payment from the federal government accountable for how it spends the money and how much the disabled people receive each month, and make them accountable for making sure that the people intended to receive this money get their fair share and that it is not being spent on something other than social programs.
Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Hope, BC
Madam Speaker, finally, the third petition calls upon the Government of Canada to stop the expansion of medical assistance in dying to those with mental illness.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise on behalf of my constituents of Saanich—Gulf Islands who are deeply concerned about the perilous state of old-growth forests throughout British Columbia. In fact, of the high-productivity old-growth forests of British Columbia, only 2.7% remain; of that 2.7%, petitioners point out that 75% is slated for logging.
The petitioners recognize the close relationship between the indigenous peoples of British Columbia, particularly of Vancouver Island, and the old-growth forests, the close connection for many that is traditionally ceremonial, spiritual and, in fact, for harvesting and subsistence lifestyles.
The petitioners therefore call on the government to work with the provinces and first nations to halt old-growth logging throughout these endangered ecosystems; to fund the protection of old growth in collaboration with indigenous peoples, particularly noting the climate benefits of maintaining old growth; to support value-added initiatives for forests, particularly by banning the export of raw logs; and to end the practice of using whole trees in wood pellet biofuel production.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to present a number of petitions to the House today.
In the first petition, the petitioners, of their own accord, have noted that after nine years, it is clear that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost, the crime or the corruption.
The petitioners further note that the failed Prime Minister and his failed NDP-Liberal government have increased the cost of everything and failed to take responsibility for their failures and that crime, chaos, drugs and disorder are filling our streets due to the failed policies of the Prime Minister and his NDP-Liberal government.
Therefore, these petitioners call on the Government of Canada to axe the tax, build the homes, fix—
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Madam Speaker, on a point of order. The rules are clear that members cannot read the petition. The member is clearly reading the petition.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes
We definitely have that rule. I am sorry; I was distracted.
The member could give us a brief summary of the petition.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, I do understand this is a sensitive matter for members of the government.
Just to summarize, this petition is asking the House to axe the tax, build the homes, fix—
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
That is what it says, Madam Speaker: axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. It further calls for an immediate vote of non-confidence in the government and for a carbon tax election.
I will commend the petition to the House for consideration. I assure members it was a non-partisan association of citizens in my riding that put the petition together.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, my next petition is in support of an excellent private member's bill that I put forward, Bill C-257.
The petitioners ask the House to recognize that political discrimination is a serious problem in this country, and that our human rights legislation provides protection for people from various kinds of discrimination but does not protect people from discrimination on the basis of political views or activity. The petitioners note that Bill C-257 would make that simple change, to protect people from discrimination on the basis of their political views.
The petitioners call on the House to support Bill C-257 and, further, to defend the rights of Canadians to peacefully express their political opinions.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, the next petition I am tabling in the House deals with policies of the government with respect to natural health products.
The petitioners are opposed to changes that have been made by the government. They are supportive of a private member's bill by my colleague from Red Deer—Lacombe that would seek to restore the freedoms that existed previously.
The petitioners note that Liberals are threatening access to natural health products through new rules that would mean higher costs and fewer products available on store shelves. They call on the Government of Canada to reverse the changes that were made in the last Liberal budget with respect to natural health products.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, I am tabling a petition in support of Bill S-210, the protecting young persons from exposure to pornography act.
The petitioners note that sexually explicit material, including demeaning and violent sexual material, can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons. A significant portion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age verification technology.
The petitioners also note that online age verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of a user without in any way breaching their privacy rights. These recommendations have been made by stakeholders in a 2017 study presented to the Standing Committee on Health and are reflected in Bill S-210.
Therefore, the petitioners call upon the House to adopt Bill S-210 as quickly as possible.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, the next petition deals with proposals we have seen for the legalization of euthanasia for children in Canada. In particular, petitioners note a proposal from Louis Roy of the Quebec college of physicians and surgeons. It is a recommendation to allow euthanasia for “babies from birth to one year of age”.
Obviously, this would take place without the consent of the individuals being killed. Petitioners are deeply troubled by and opposed to this proposal. They believe the killing of children is always wrong and call on the Government of Canada to block any attempt to legalize euthanasia for minors.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, the next petition I am tabling deals with the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. The petitioners note that Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline that consists of meditation exercises and moral teaching based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.
The petition outlines the history of persecution against Falun Gong practitioners as well as the work done by various eminent Canadians in bringing attention to this issue and how their leadership led to the passage of a private member's bill finally banning any Canadian complicity in forced organ harvesting and trafficking.
Petitioners call for stronger measures from Parliament and from the government to respond to the horrific ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. They want to see the House pass a resolution to establish measures to stop the Chinese Communist regime's crimes of systemically murdering Falun Gong practitioners for their organs, and to publicly call for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, the next petition responds to a proposal from the last Liberal platform to apply political criteria, ideological criteria, to the charitable status determination process. In particular, the Liberal platform in the last election proposed to deny charitable status to organizations that have convictions about abortion that the Liberal Party views as dishonest.
Petitioners note that this proposal would jeopardize the charitable status of hospitals, houses of worship, schools, homeless shelters and other charitable organizations that do work widely recognized to be good work, simply because of the personal convictions of the organization and those involved in it.
Petitioners say this would involve the creation of a values test associated with charitable status, similar to what we saw applied by the government to the Canada summer jobs program. Petitioners believe that charities and other non-profit organizations should not be discriminated against on the basis of their political views or religious values and should not be subject to a politicized values test, and that all Canadians have a right under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to freedom of expression without discrimination.
Petitioners therefore call on the House of Commons to protect and preserve the application of charitable status on a politically and ideologically neutral basis without discrimination, and further, they want to see the House affirm the right of Canadians to freedom of expression.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, the next petition I am tabling deals with the human rights situation in Eritrea, as well as political interference in Canadian affairs that petitioners say is the result of actions and decisions by the Eritrean government. This is a lengthy petition, but I will summarize it. Petitioners note that Eritrea has been ruled by an authoritarian, brutal dictator under a totalitarian system for the last 30 years without a constitution and with no elections, no parliament, no freedom of the press, and no freedom of movement and association; that Eritreans continue to flee indefinite military conscription and religious persecution; that about 30% of Eritrea's population has fled to escape from severe human rights violations; and that those who do flee are still subject to potential violence and intimidation when they have left.
Petitioners note as well that many human rights activists have started working to ensure that community events organized as proxies for the Eritrean embassy are recognized for what they are. They raise concern about Eritrean foreign interference as well as the Eritrean dictator's overt alignment with Vladimir Putin and his assistance of the Russian government with its advancement of its strategic goals in Africa.
Petitioners therefore call on the Government of Canada to engage Eritrean political and human rights activists and pro-democracy groups to take a leadership role among western allies to challenge the Eritrean dictator's malicious actions, including his collaboration with Vladimir Putin.
They call for an investigation into Eritrean foreign interference in Canada and enforcement of Canada's asylum laws against supporters of the regime, and they also highlight a number of political prisoners whose names I have listed before. I do not think I have time to read them off today, but a number of political prisoners, including Dawit Isaac and 11 imprisoned—
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes
We are done with petitions.
Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Madam Speaker, I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand at this time, please.