Debates of Nov. 25th, 2024

Small Business

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Minister of Small Business]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge for his tireless advocacy. I am glad to say that, thanks to our government, Canadians across Canada will get a GST tax break from December 14 to February 15. Restaurants Canada indicated, “This is a big win for the restaurant industry.... [It] restores some much-needed hope in the industry and we are optimistic it will translate to increased spending at local restaurants across the country.” This could mean a boost of up to 5%, or close to $1 billion, in additional revenue. This tax break helps restaurants and small businesses across the country, so let us support local.

Public Safety

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Winnipeg law enforcement community is reeling from a violent incident last night in which an officer was stabbed in the neck. Thankfully, he is in stable condition, but this is the reality faced by our brave police officers every single day. In fact, in Toronto, 637 police officers have been injured on the job just this year alone.

It is no wonder when there has been a 50% rise in violent crime, with 200,000 additional violent crime incidents each year compared to 2015. When are the Liberals going to finally wake up, support our police and do something about this?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what our government does. It supports police doing dangerous and difficult work across the country.

I was briefed on the incident in Winnipeg. I share the hon. member's relief that the officer is expected to recover. These are exactly the kinds of incidents that should make all members of the House support, in a non-partisan way, the important work that police forces do in every corner of the country.

We have reversed Conservative cuts to border services and the RCMP. We support local and provincial police. We will continue to do exactly that.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government often blames the provincial courts, for example, for the crime wave we are seeing across this country. Of course, the provincial courts are governed by the law, and the Liberals changed the law with Bill C-75, which made bail the default for repeat violent offenders.

The results are clear: There has been a 116% increase of gun crime in Canada and a 50% increase of violent crime since 2015 under the Liberals' watch; furthermore, there are 200,000 additional violent crime incidents each year. How many more people are going to have to get hurt before they realize that their policies have caused all this destruction?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of points of clarification.

First of all, bail reform was asked for 18 months ago. We delivered bail reform. Subsequently, we asked provinces, including the member opposite's province, to provide us with data and information. In fact, the province of Manitoba has supplied us with that information. They are working diligently to improve the number of police officers and the number of Crowns, to think about how JPs are trained and to ensure detention facilities are available to receive individuals.

We are not seeing that across the country. We are certainly not seeing that in the province of Ontario. That is where the complementary piece of the administration of justice at the provincial level needs to happen.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the Liberal-NDP government, crime is up. Soft-on-crime policies, such as their catch-and-release bail failures, have led to a 50% increase in violent crime. Last night, a police officer in Winnipeg was stabbed in the throat; thankfully, that officer is in stable condition.

However, this situation should never have happened in the first place. The Liberal hug-a-thug approach to crime is making an already dangerous job increasingly unsafe and more challenging. How many more police officers and victims must suffer before the Liberals start prioritizing public safety?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate my support for what the Winnipeg police officers do and what every police officer does around this country to keep all of our communities safe. That is the first point.

The second point that I want to reiterate is that we are actually seeing declining numbers of law enforcement officers in municipalities right around the country. I can speak most directly to my own town of Toronto. There are currently 700 fewer officers on the beat in Toronto than there were when the Minister of Defence was the chief of police.

We need to ensure that municipalities and provinces are stepping up to complement the work we are doing with the Criminal Code to keep our communities safe. That means officers, Crowns, JPs and detention facilities.

Families, Children and Social Development

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, school food programs are growing in Ontario. With our new agreement with the Ontario government, the national school food program will now support kids in Newmarket—Aurora and across Ontario with healthy meals, building a foundation for their well-being and success.

Can the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development share how this program is helping families save money and make sure that kids receive nutritious meals?

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Minister of Families]

Mr. Speaker, I have great news. Last week, Ontario signed on. This school year, more than 160,000 kids will receive food at school here in Ontario thanks to the national school food program.

This will save an average family of four about $800 in groceries. The president of the Ontario Public School Boards' Association said that “this funding will have a tremendous impact on school communities and family budgets”.

We are helping kids in school, while the Conservatives would cut this—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

The hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.

Air Transportation

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, every day it is more clear that the Liberals' air passenger regulations are letting people down. Now we learn the Canadian Transportation Agency is creeping around online forums trying to catch air passengers who are sharing their experiences.

On the one side, we have the rich airlines backed by the best lawyers and lobbyists. On the other side, Canadian families are struggling to navigate the government's botched complaint process.

Will the minister immediately stop government online surveillance of Canadian air passengers?

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, our government was the first to protect the rights of passengers, starting in 2019. The air passenger protection regulations are there to protect passengers and their families. We expect all airlines to follow these rules.

We are going to be relentless in working with the airlines to ensure, once again, that they are looking after their passengers as well as the families of those passengers.

Persons with Disabilities

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with $4.7 billion, the government could have cut chronic homelessness across the country in half and had $1.2 billion to spare. Instead, it wants to throw it at a pre-election vote-buying scheme right out of Doug Ford's playbook. Worst of all, like always, people with disabilities unable to work and already living in poverty are left out entirely.

Do people with disabilities mean so little to the government that it is not even trying to buy their votes anymore?

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Minister of Diversity]

Mr. Speaker, no other government has done more to support seniors and persons with disabilities than this Liberal government, whether it is through a dental care program that is going to help nine million Canadians, or the Canada disability benefit or by increasing seniors' pensions. The GST-HST tax break is yet another measure to support Canadian families. Our working Canadians rebate is going to support more than 18 million working Canadians who get that $250 cheque in April. This is good news. Let us get it done.

Presence in Gallery

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

I wish to draw the attention of members to the presence in the gallery of the 2024 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Impact Award winners.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

Government Response to Petitions

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, today will be an interesting day. Pursuant to Standing Order 36(8)(a), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 14 petitions. These returns will be tabled in an electronic format.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

[Marci Ien, Liberal, Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth]

Mr. Speaker, today, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, we pause to reflect on the devastating issue of gender-based violence and its impact on individuals, families and communities right across Canada.

Everyone deserves to live free from violence, yet many people across the country experience it every single day because of their gender, gender expression, gender identity or how others perceive them. This is more than a violation of human rights; it is a painful reality that no one should have to face.

While anyone can become a victim of gender-based violence, data shows the most vulnerable groups include indigenous women and girls; Black and racialized women; immigrant and refugee women; 2SLGBTQI+ people; women with disabilities; and women living in northern, rural and remote communities.

Gender-based violence has had devastating impacts on individuals for far too long, hurting not just individuals but families and entire communities in Canada. For instance, 44% of women in Canada have experienced intimate partner violence at least once since the age of 15. In 2023, 187 women and girls in Canada were victims of gender-related homicide; that is one woman every two days. These are more than statistics; these are real women, women in our community, our colleagues, our sisters, mothers, daughters, each one deserving of justice and a life free from violence.

In recognition of this, we launched the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, commemorating 33 years of dedicated efforts to end gender-based violence in all its forms.

The 16 days of activism against gender-based violence was started by activists at the inaugural Women's Global Leadership Institute in 1991. Since then, the campaign has called on all Canadians to recognize and call out violence when they see it, to speak up and take action against it. However, there is still so much work ahead of us.

Today, we stand in solidarity with victims and survivors of gender-based violence and their families, and we commit to doing better.

In response, our government launched the federal, provincial and territorial national action plan to end gender-based violence in 2022. This 10-year plan is backed by a $525 million investment to support provinces and territories in addressing this critical issue. Agreements are in place with each province and territory to help them tackle their specific challenges and priorities, based on the five key areas of the national action plan.

Later this year, the first annual national progress report will be published. It will demonstrate the impacts that these investments have made under the national action plan to end gender-based violence.

In 2017, the Government of Canada launched “It’s Time: Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence.” Since its launch, the government has invested more than $800 million and $44 million annually for the following years. This includes $55 million for indigenous women and 2SLGBTQI+ organizations to offer gender-based violence prevention programs and $30 million for crisis hotlines to help manage the increased call volumes during the pandemic and prevent further escalation of gender-based violence.

Collaboration in the fight against gender-based violence goes beyond any single department or organization; it calls on all of us to step up.

This year, Indigenous Services Canada worked in collaboration with indigenous peoples and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to commit funding for the construction and operation of 19 emergency shelters and 16 transitional homes across Canada.

Justice Canada is supporting survivors by strengthening Canada's bail regime to better address intimate partner violence and by improving the law on publication bans.

Public Safety is strengthening Canada's response to human trafficking through the renewal of the national strategy to combat human trafficking.

The onus to fight gender-based violence cannot just fall on one government or one department. We are taking a holistic whole-of-government approach to address this issue. It is on all of us to prevent gender-based violence from happening.

That is why this year's theme for the 16 days of activism is “Come Together, Act Now”. It highlights how crucial everyone's involvement is in changing the social norms, attitudes and behaviours that contribute to gender-based violence. True change is only possible when we unite. That is why coming together and acting now is so important. It is not just about today, but about creating generational change that will last for years to come.

It is only possible by continuing to work across all levels of government and with community organizations that will take real action and tackle gender-based violence at its core. We owe it to every victim and survivor to bring them justice, to speak up and take action against gender-based violence in all its forms.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one woman or girl is killed every single day in our country. That is inexcusable.

We just heard the minister deliver a speech in the House praising her government's efforts to combat gender-based violence. I cannot believe that the minister would have the audacity to deliver this speech after all the things the Prime Minister has done to harm women and make life more dangerous for women and girls. The Liberals must make new ministers check in their shame when they get sworn into cabinet.

The Prime Minister has deliberately implemented a criminals' first agenda, which has directly led to a dramatic increase in violence against women. Despite the desperate pleas from already marginalized voices of women, survivors, victims and their families, he just doubles down. In his ideological pursuit of progressive catchphrases and clout chasing from international organizations in Strasbourg and Brussels, the Prime Minister has caused the meteoric rise of the epidemic that is gender-based violence through policies that place rapists and murderers above victims and survivors.

It is no coincidence that before the Liberals took office in 2015, rates of police-reported family violence and intimate partner violence was on the decline. Under the Liberals government, there have been alarmingly higher rates. This is verified by the government's own data.

Since the Prime Minister's famous “It's 2015” quip on the steps of Rideau Hall, where he touted that his would be a feminist government, the rate of female victimization for intimate partner violence has increased by 18.75%. Now, in 2024, total sexual assaults have increased by 74%.; total sexual violations against children, up 118%; forcible confinement or kidnapping, up 10%; indecent harassing communication, up 86%; and trafficking in persons, up 83%.

In addition, Liberal Bill C-5 repealed the previous Conservative government's ban on house arrest for the following offences: section 144, prison breach; section 264, criminal harassment; and section 271, sexual assault. The list goes on.

The Liberal Prime Minister is a fake feminist. The government needs to own it, admit its failures and let the law enforcement agencies enforce laws and put the scum of society behind bars. The government brought in legislation that repealed mandatory minimum sentences for gun-related offences and removed the former Harper government's ban on house arrest for rapists, kidnappers and human traffickers, allowing them to be put back on the streets to re-terrorize and revictimize the very people we are supposed to protect.

The Prime Minister has not only been an architect of a systemic coddling of violent criminals through his own legislation, he has instructed his caucus in both the Liberal and NDP to vote down common-sense legislation like Bill C-325, which would have reversed its own short-sighted decision to put literal rapists and traffickers behind a TV instead of behind bars.

It is not just the Prime Minister's soft-on-crime approach that has hurt women. Canadian women are bearing the brunt of the Prime Minister's poor economic and fiscal decisions. Canadian families paid $700 more for groceries this year than they did last year. The carbon tax is driving up the cost of goods and services, disproportionately affecting women and children. One in five children are now living in poverty. There have been two million visits to a food bank in a single month.

Activism alone will not stop intimate partner violence and gender-based violence. We need strong leaders who will fix the broken bail systems, keep dangerous and violent offenders away from their victims and work with the provinces to fix the backlogged justice system instead of blaming them for a system that the federal government helped create.

The refusal of the Prime Minister to take legitimate action against gender-based violence can charitably be interpreted in only two ways: Either the Prime Minister does not know how bad the situation is or he does know and he does not care. Neither is acceptable and shows a complete dereliction of compassion and responsibility for our most vulnerable.

For the Prime Minister to act like this, for the minister to stand in the House and suggest otherwise is nonsense and disrespectful to survivors, victims and their families. It was not like this before he was elected and it will not be like this after he is gone. Canada is done with the woke, fake, feminist Prime Minister. He should call an election.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today, the House of Commons started sitting at 11 a.m., as it does every Monday. Every Monday at 11 a.m., the Speaker of the House leaves his office and walks in a solemn parade to open the House so we can start the week's work. It is currently 3:30 p.m. The House has been open for four and a half hours now. That is not very long, but it was enough time for the Conservatives to paralyze the work of the House a little bit longer, for oral question period and for a ministerial statement. In this short amount of time, four and a half hours, 28 women were killed by a loved one, a partner or a family member. Somewhere in the world, 28 women have been killed since we started sitting at 11 o'clock this morning. It is like this all the time: an endless tally of murdered women.

That is civilization in 2024.

We are talking about flights to Mars, artificial intelligence and self-driving cars, and yet we cannot put an end to violence. Women are being bombed to death in Mariupol and Gaza. They are being killed on the streets of Bucha, raped, tortured and murdered on kibbutzim or taken hostage. These women are the spoils of war, the primary civilian victims of the atrocities committed during these international conflicts.

Is that what civilization looks like in 2024? Is that humanity?

Today, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, we can only conclude that, sadly, we are still a long way from our goal of ending femicide and all forms of violence against women. Female circumcision still occurs here in Canada. Sophia Koukoui's report on female genital mutilation and cutting in Canada speaks for itself. Her report includes the account of a 37-year-old woman who said:

There are also people who want to practice [female genital mutilation and cutting] here in Canada. It's something we don't talk about, but that's the reality.... One woman told me “you know, my husband sent the daughters to Africa. They were circumcised.” We don't talk about it, but a lot of girls here aren't protected.

In Quebec, in 2023, La Presse ran a story about a young girl in day care who was the victim of circumcision, and there is every reason to believe that this was not an isolated incident. No one talks about it. No one talks about honour-based violence or forced marriage, and no one talks about human trafficking in this country or about forced prostitution. Silence is more comfortable. This issue is being swept under the rug.

We have a collective responsibility to stop gender-based violence. I repeat: It is a collective responsibility. This is not a battle that women should have to fight alone. It has to be everyone's responsibility. We are not fighting separate battles. Women need men. Men need women. It has to be a vast global effort.

If we can send people into space and compose new Beatles songs using AI, then we should be able to work together to put a stop to violence.

In order to accomplish that, we have to be able to talk to each other. Here at home, we are seeing a rise in masculinists, so-called alpha males. The number of men who think like Andrew Tate is growing, and our young men, even our young boys, are being radicalized. We cannot stop that if we do not communicate.

Rather than judge each other, we need to talk to each other, listen to each other, and engage in dialogue. We need to explain our points of view. In an egalitarian society like ours, there is nothing normal about reverting to male domination and female submission. We need to fix this, but we have to do so in good faith.

It can start here. Can members stop accusing everyone who wants tighter gun control of going after hunters? We all know that it is nonsense, but once again, partisanship takes precedence over the common good. We have to stop that. We need to talk to each other and genuinely look for ways to end all forms of violence against women, because while the parties here stubbornly argue and play partisan politics, the death toll keeps rising.

I cannot help but think about the fact that, during my brief speech, a woman just died somewhere in the world at the hands of a loved one.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, today we rise on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women's 16 days of action. I honour all survivors of gender-based violence and frontline advocates, who know all too well the urgency of ending this ongoing crisis. Violence against women, girls and gender-diverse people is reprehensible, is shameful and remains all too common today.

As experts point out, gender-based violence is an epidemic in our country. As many as 44% of women who have been in an intimate relationship have experienced some form of intimate partner violence. During this year alone, at least 137 women and girls were killed because of their gender. This violence disproportionately impacts young women and girls, members of the LGBTQ2S+ community, BIPOC folks, indigenous women and the disability community, and let us not forget the rising hate against trans women in this country. Indigenous women and gender-diverse people are more likely to experience intimate partner violence, intimate partner homicide, sexual assault and harassment. Among transgender and gender-diverse people, the rate of violence experienced is as high as 59%.

We need to go beyond partisanship and not use tit-for-tat arguments when we are talking about ending gender-based violence. Political games are resulting in the lives of so many across Canada. We must work together, across party lines, in unity to end the crisis of gender-based violence. This is not a partisan issue; it is a human rights issue that all parties and all levels of government need to come together to meaningfully address.

When it comes to possible solutions to this epidemic, we are not in the dark. Through the hard work of survivors, family members, advocates and researchers, several reports and publications have laid out concrete steps that all leaders, all civil society in fact, can take to stop gender-based violence. This includes the 231 calls for justice from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, the Mass Casualty Commission report and the Renfrew County inquest, to name just a few. We have the research for what is needed.

What we need is real political will and accountability mechanisms to ensure governments commit to solutions and do not marginalize the safety of women, girls and gender-diverse people any longer. We need accountability. For example, it is worth noting that while the national inquiry tabled its final report in 2019, in 2024 the Assembly of First Nations found that only two of the 231 calls for justice had been fully implemented, something that National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak called “unacceptable”. This is why it is so important to fulfill call for justice 1.7: create a national indigenous and human rights ombudsperson and establish a national indigenous and human rights tribunal. It is for similar reasons that women's groups are calling for the establishment of an independent gender-based violence commissioner to halt this epidemic.

We cannot stand by and hope leaders fulfill their obligations to end gender-based violence without being held accountable. We cannot accept any more empty gestures while lives are at risk and women, girls and gender-diverse people continue to die. Consequences of not addressing the crisis are not worth any more suffering. We need real results because we know what the consequence will be if there is no action.

We have seen an alarming rise of dangerous misogynistic hate among extremist groups, producing the same type of rhetoric that inspired the mass femicide at École Polytechnique in 1989. We have also experienced a growth in hateful anti-immigration, which leaders are now capitulating to, when we know newcomers and refugees are especially vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. This type of hate has no place in our society and it is critical that every leader take part in condemning and combatting it to prevent violent tragedies from occurring. We need far-reaching solutions for a far-reaching crisis, but beyond this, ending this epidemic means providing material support to combat violence. It is essential that we appreciate the weight of this epidemic and that we do not settle for half measures taken out of convenience.

According to a recent report by Women's Shelters Canada, over the past year, women have increasingly been forced to leave shelter spaces and been placed in positions of housing insecurity, often being compelled to move back in with an abusive partner. Seriously addressing violence means expanding shelter spaces and building affordable housing with rent geared to income so survivors of violence have safe living spaces to inhabit when they leave abusers. It means supporting the national inquiry's call for justice 4.5, a guaranteed livable basic income to ensure women and girls and gender-diverse people are economically secure and are not vulnerable to economic abuse. It means providing long-term, sustainable funding to frontline women's organizations that are best placed to alleviate violence. An epidemic as widespread as this one requires far-reaching responses.

On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, I call on all my colleagues to join the fight to ensure that everybody enjoys the right to safety and freedom from violence.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I request unanimous consent, as the only woman leader in the House of Commons, for the opportunity to join in the round of ministerial speeches on this day to end violence against women and gender-based violence.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank all my colleagues in the House of Commons, because it is a great honour to rise today.

The members who have spoken today are women. I want to thank our minister, as well as the member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington, the member for Shefford and the member for Winnipeg Centre.

It is an honour to work in this place with members who are also feminists and who always stand up for women's rights, but also boys' and men's rights.

We as a society are recognizing that violence, and hatred that breeds violence, has no place in our society, yet it is taking root in ways we could not have imagined.

Today is the day for the elimination of violence, but it is the first of the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, which run from November 25 to December 10.

It may be coincidental, but the anniversary of the terrible tragedy at École Polytechnique also falls within those days.

December 6 falls in the midst of 16 days of activism, which is a global movement to act together against violence against women. We know, as we stand every year to condemn violence against women, that not a single party or partisan in this place would not agree that we must end violence against women. I know everyone in this place stands together on that. We have very strong recommendations from the Mass Casualty Commission on the biggest single mass murder in this country, which took place in Portapique, Nova Scotia, and its environs. It called out intimate partner violence as one of the roots of the violence that spread to kill many others who had nothing to do in an intimate way with the killer, except that he ended their lives. Intimate partner violence is on the rise and we see it.

We also see the recommendations and calls for justice for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and the two-spirit plus community. The recommendations of that inquiry are not yet implemented. We see it every single day. In the time since August 15, 2021, we have seen the Government of Afghanistan, the Taliban, shift to declaring war on its own women. They run in fear, not allowed to go to school, not allowed to show themselves, not allowed to serve as members of Parliament.

I want to thank the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre for particularly mentioning the violence against trans women, the increased hate, and the online social media algorithms that spike rage-farming against women, trans women and indigenous women. We end up feeling less safe now than we were 15 to 20 years ago. We now feel more victimized, more targeted than ever before. It is not political; it is a cultural and global phenomenon. We saw it in the U.S. election. We must not see it take root in Canada.

I thank my colleagues, particularly colleagues in the Conservative Party, for giving me unanimous consent. I was not sure I would have it until the moment I stood. I thank them from the bottom of my heart, because we need to stand unanimously in this place without partisanship to say we stand together and act together. We need to see better training in our police forces. We need to see more action to follow through on all the calls for justice for indigenous women and girls. That means immediate help after a violent assault, immediate support for victims of sexual violence and immediate support for the bill before us now to end the coercive control of women and girls in their own homes. We are united.

Today we all stand together, as women, as members of Parliament, as Canadian men and women, to protect the rights of women, the rights of our daughters and granddaughters.

I thank all my colleagues.