Debates of Dec. 5th, 2024

Foreign Affairs and International Development

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, the NDP-Liberal government has passed a number of bills that have led to more violence against women.

How can the member support measures that have measurably decreased the quality of life of women and their safety in Canada since they signed their confidence and supply agreement with the Liberal government?

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, frankly, that is just not true. I would say that, last week, when I had members of my caucus in the House, the members of the Conservative Party came into the House after they had been drinking. I had women, indigenous people, racialized women in this place. They Conservative members heckled. They made this space a dangerous place for my colleagues to work.

They cannot—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Calgary Centre is rising on a point of order.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I think the member for Edmonton Strathcona just reiterated a mistruth in the House, and it is up to you to make sure she withdraws that comment.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I cannot attest to what the hon. member has indicated. There is a question of privilege on that. It has raised some disorder in the House, so I would ask members to please not make reference to members that way. I would also ask members to please be respectful of each other and to stick to the matter that is before the House.

The hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would say that, because of how the Conservatives behave time and time again, many women in the House feel that this is an unsafe work environment for women. I am among them.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I remember taking part in some of the meetings on this study at the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. What struck me was how religion was brought into the equation and how it skewed the debate on women's right to control their own bodies.

Is this not another argument for saying that it is absolutely essential to remember the importance of secularism in government, particularly so that religion does not get mixed in with women's rights?

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, when we were having those discussions in the foreign affairs committee, I agreed very much with my colleague that we need to look at this as an issue of health care access for women. It is an issue of making sure that women around the world have access to health care, and there is no role for faith in that conversation. Every single person, man, woman or child, should have access to the health care they require. This is a fundamental principle that New Democrats believe in. There is no argument for taking away an individual's rights to determine what is best for their bodies, for their families and for their lives.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, I raise my hands to the member for Edmonton Strathcona and thank her for all her advocacy on protecting women and girls across the world, in Canada and in the House.

There has been an alarming rollback of women's rights around the world. In my community of Port Moody—Coquitlam, it came right home to our families with the killing of Mahsa Amini. It was unbearable for thousands of Iranian Canadian women in my community who know first-hand the cruel Iranian regime that limited their freedoms and forced them to leave their homeland for safety. These women carry the deepest sorrow, yet their resolve continues. Their brave voices of resistance continue in Vancouver almost weekly.

While the world sits by doing nothing for these women, Ahoo Daryaei was recently punished for standing proud in her underwear on a campus in Iran to protest the mistreatment of women. She was labelled as sick and was taken to a psychiatric ward, her rights and dignity stripped because she is a woman, just as women have been stripped of their dignity for centuries. It is all rooted in misogyny.

In Palestine, women and children disproportionately are being killed to carry out a genocide. Palestinians are being treated as if their lives do not matter, and women and children have no defence. The world is failing them. Canada is failing them. In Afghanistan, women are not allowed to speak in public. They have been erased from public life.

There are more countries where women cannot receive the most basic of human rights. The list is long. One of the countries we never could have imagined is the United States. I never would have thought that in 2024, women would lose their right to basic health care just because of their sex, but it is happening. As women in the United States face increasing restrictions on their reproductive rights, including access to safe and legal abortions, Canada has an obligation to step forward as an ally to women and to advocate for women and diverse genders. No one would have predicted when the study was taking place and finalized that such discrimination would happen so close to us, just south of the border.

It is important for Canada to be prepared and to do its part to save lives. One of the most tangible ways Canada can help is by making it possible for U.S. women to access abortion services in Canada. This could include expanding the availability of abortion services, particularly in border communities, and ensuring that Canadian health care facilities can accommodate patients travelling from the U.S. The federal government could work with NGOs that could offer logistical assistance, travel coordination and financial aid to U.S. women and girls seeking care in Canada.

An absolute must is for Canada to leverage its position on the global stage to advocate for reproductive rights as human rights. Through international forums like the United Nations, Canada must work to pressure the U.S. to respect and protect these rights. These are the important conversations that the Prime Minister should also be having with the president-elect, who has bragged about overturning Roe v. Wade even though the overturning has proven to be dangerous to women and newborns. Maternal deaths have tripled in the States with an abortion ban, and infant mortality is up 7%. Over 700 more newborns have died since the Supreme Court overturned the life-saving legislation.

New Democrats stand up to say no to the attack on women's bodies and that it cannot make its way north to Canada. All of us must stand on guard, because a Conservative federal government would threaten women's access to safe and trauma-informed abortion. We know that the Liberals will not stop them; they are already failing Canadians by letting Conservative premiers cut access to abortion.

Under Conservative leadership, there have been relentless attempts to restrict reproductive rights, including by Conservatives in the House right now with private members' bills targeting abortion access. The Conservative leader has already used coded language to embolden anti-choice extremists while claiming to avoid the debate. Conservatives have shown they cannot be trusted to defend a woman's right to choose, nor can they be trusted to move toward more—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The member for Calgary Centre is rising on a point of order.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, in the House there are two official languages: English and French. I do not understand what the member means by “coded language”. If she could—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

That is a point of debate. When members stand on points of order, I would hope that they are going to quote which standing order they are rising on.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, Conservatives have shown they cannot be trusted to defend a woman's right to choose, nor can they be trusted to move forward toward more equity in health care for women and diverse genders. We saw this very recently when they voted against the NDP pharmacare bill that included access to free contraceptives. New Democrats will fight every day against regressive Conservatives and their hidden agenda to restrict women's access to life-saving health care.

I will now go back to the report on what Canada needs to continue to do to protect sexual and reproductive rights across the globe. Canada needs to “speak out clearly and consistently in global forums and bilateral discussions” on sexual and reproductive rights for women, and the government must release the “long-promised feminist foreign policy” that my colleague, the member from Edmonton Strathcona, referenced. Having a clear written document is important because, as she referenced, it sets out feminist policy guidelines, not just for international development but also for trade, immigration, diplomacy and consulate affairs work.

Canada can be a leader, a beacon of hope at a time when there is push-back on gender equality and the rights of women, diverse genders and girls. If the government does the work now to protect women's rights, more Canadian women and women across the globe will be safer.

Multiple witnesses in the study stressed to the committee that legal restrictions on abortion do not stop abortions from happening. Instead, these restrictions increase the proportion of abortions that are unsafe. Julia Anderson, one of the witnesses, stated the following: “The evidence is unanimous and clear that the restriction of abortion does not stop abortion; it only increases unsafe abortion, and it loses women's lives.”

Why is Canada not investing in abortion access here at home and abroad? The reality is that, despite what is known about the consequences of unsafe abortion, Canada allocated only less than $2 million in support of safe abortion services. Kelly Bowden, a witness in the study, noted that while the Government of Canada is naming access to safe abortions as part of a comprehensive package of care, it is not putting the money in that area just yet.

I will close out today by highlighting recommendation 9 from the report, which recommends Canada “scales-up its assistance for sexual and reproductive health and rights globally, the Government of Canada ensure it is fully supporting access to modern forms of contraception, safe and legal abortion services, and post-abortion care.” Canada must do this here, at home, just south of the border and across the globe.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was quite dismayed by the point of order from the member for Calgary Centre, talking about coded language. I will tell the House exactly what that language is. The coded part is when there are members of Parliament like the member for Peace River—Westlock, who went on a documentary and talked specifically about how he is organizing people within the Conservative caucus to become pro-life and to help move forward the ambitions to have a caucus that is pro-life and does not want to give women the right to choose.

Meanwhile, the Leader of the Opposition goes out and says, “Oh, I am pro-choice, no problem here.” However, his caucus behind him is forming to do exactly the opposite.

I am wondering whether the member could expand on her comments about where the Conservative Party of Canada in particular is on the issue.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, women across this country and across the globe and diverse genders in this country and across the globe are well used to the tactics of the Conservatives and to the right-wing ideology that women and diverse genders are not allowed to have access to health care. The Conservatives are limiting it in any way they can. We are very used to it. It does not surprise me that the Conservatives do not understand the debate, because they do not understand issues of women and diverse genders in this country.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Madam Speaker, I hope I do know a few things about women; I am one.

What is really interesting here, for anybody watching, is that this has happened for decades. There was an opposition motion today that was to stand up for Canadians who are using food banks in record high numbers. IPV, intimate partner violence, has escalated at exponential numbers and sexual assaults have increased 75% under the Prime Minister. Women have never been less safe in this country than under the Prime Minister, and that is a fact. Women cannot get into shelters; YWCA in Halifax has said that.

Today there was a motion that used the Leader of the Opposition's own words about the failures of the government. Ten million Canadians do not even have a doctor, so let us talk about health care, shall we? Why would the New Democrats interrupt a motion, when Canadians need help more than ever, to kibosh it and to prop the Prime Minister up while Canadians suffer and women are murdered in broad daylight under the government and that Leader of the Opposition?

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member shows why having a limited number of women represented in the House for almost 150 years perpetuates on the streets and in this country. Only Conservatives and Liberals have ever been in government federally in this country, and both parties have failed, over and over again, women and diverse genders by cutting back health care. The Conservatives are famous for cutting back health care; “health care cuts” is their middle name.

The NDP will always stand for health care and will always stand for women's rights.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Peterborough—Kawartha said “that Leader of the Opposition”. There is only one leader of the opposition, and it is—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am sorry. That is not a point of order; it is a point of debate.

I do want to remind members that if they are not being recognized and do not have the floor, they should wait to pose any questions or make any comments, and if members have already posed a question, they should also wait if they want to add to it.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Drummond.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, yesterday I tried to move a motion calling on the House of Commons to join the Bloc Québécois in denouncing the presence of a religious exemption in paragraph 319(3)(b) of the Criminal Code. This exemption permits hate speech under the guise of religious beliefs. However, the Conservatives and Liberals seem to be against the idea of repealing this Criminal Code provision and stopping people from using religion as an excuse to spread hate speech or calls for violence.

My colleague cited the situation with women in Iran and Afghanistan. I am very worried about the spreading influence of religious extremism, and I am afraid we are starting to see it even here in Quebec and Canada. It especially affects the most vulnerable members of our society, as well as women and women's rights. I would like to know what my colleague thinks of the growing presence of these influences and how they might affect certain politicians' thinking on issues like this.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am deeply concerned about the rollback of women's rights across the globe, and it was very difficult to get a conversation around women's rights on the table. Therefore today I am going to focus on health care because I believe that the member just raised some very important concerns. Health care is also being impacted by religious values, as the Conservatives are calling them.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development]

Madam Speaker, today I will be splitting my time with the member for Kingston and the Islands.

I want to start by thanking the member for Edmonton Strathcona for bringing up this vitally important issue and also for bringing up the fact that, for 18 hours, it was filibustered in committee by the Conservatives, because I think that says something.

People say that abortion rights are not up for discussion in Canada, and they ask why we are even talking about it. This is why we have to talk about it, because American women also did not think that abortion rights were up for discussion. We really thought that. For our mothers, our aunts and those who had to fight for those rights, we thought that the debate was over.

Now we look across, and at every opportunity, the Conservatives will avoid, at any measure, a vote on this issue, because they do not want to admit that there is a huge majority in that caucus who actually stand against a woman's right to choose. This is something I think every Canadian woman is extremely concerned about. As such, I thank the member for Edmonton Strathcona for that motion.

I would like to start with a personal story. There is a member of my family of that generation that had to fight for these rights, a close member of my family, who at one point found that she was pregnant with a child that was severely handicapped. When she first immigrated to Canada, she worked in a sector with a lot of severely handicapped people, and she was deeply religious, deeply Catholic. When she found herself pregnant, she thought and prayed very much about what the right thing to do was. After going through a process where she made that choice between herself and her faith, she had to go in front of three male doctors and defend her decision, and those doctors decided that she could not have an abortion.

This family member was despondent. She already had two young children, two girls, and she did not pass a psychological evaluation, because of the impact of being told, after she had prayed and come to this decision between herself and her husband, that she could not do it. Thankfully, there was a geneticist, a woman and doctor, who helped her and arranged for her to go to the United States, to Seattle, so that she could have autonomy over her own body and her own life choice.

That case was one of the cases in the Morgentaler decision, which overturned that draconian abortion law in this country that said a woman had to go in front of a panel of doctors, mostly men, to justify her decision and her autonomy. I am very proud of that woman, that family member of mine. I think that, because of her, women in this country have autonomy over our own bodies. I am so proud of her.

I do not want to have to redo this debate, but sadly, we do.

When it comes to the reason I ran, the moment I decided that I was going to run for office in this country, I was working internationally. I was working in Africa. I was working in other parts of the world. At one point, the regional coordinator for my project, which was about women in politics, was from sub-Saharan Africa, a young woman from Mali. All of a sudden, in 2010, which was in the Harper years, the government cut funding to any international organization, no matter what other good things it was doing, if it also provided abortion. The government did it with absolutely no warning. In the coordinator's country of Mali, a clinic that had been there for 40 years, which provided all kinds of health services, which she went to as a child and which that community benefited from, was suddenly closed, just because one of the things that clinic provided was abortion.

That coordinator got on Skype with me at that time in 2010, and she said, “You Canadian women are hypocrites.”

I was stunned. I sort of took a moment, and I asked, “Why would you say that?”

She said, “Because I went to Montreal and I studied at McGill. I know Canadian women have reproductive rights, but your government shut down a clinic in my village out of ideology. Now I know that Canadians think that it is not good enough for us African women to also have the same rights that you Canadian women have.”

I was ashamed. I was actually so ashamed at that moment to be Canadian and to have my government, at that time the Harper government, do this kind of thing, which was so harmful to so many people, that I decided I had to run for office. I did not win that 2011 election, but I won in 2015.

I fought hard the minute I was elected, alongside many women in this chamber, to get our feminist international assistance policy, FIAP, in place, and I was able to come full circle just a little while ago this January.

As a result of FIAP, as a result of the fact that we are putting $700 million a year into SRHR, that we are the number one donor to the UNFPA and that, when the Americans pulled back, we stepped up, I went to a clinic in Kinshasa, the country where I worked before I was elected. This clinic offers, among other things, safe abortion services. I met a young girl who was in her twenties. She told me that when she was 16 and she was raped, she had nowhere to go, but then she found out about this clinic.

It is because she was able to get a safe abortion in this clinic, she is now planning to go to medical school to become a doctor so that she can help other people. However, that young woman could have been dead, because 10% of maternal deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo are because of unsafe abortions. When we say that we do not want to provide abortion, we do not want to have SRHR or we do not want young women knowing their rights all over the world, we are killing women, because that is 10% of maternal deaths. We are saving lives with this policy by supporting SRHR.

I was so proud of those young women. There was a group of marginalized youth who sat in a circle with me and talked about what our funding for this clinic meant to them. It was the young girls, the teenagers, who were saying that they were talking to the traditional leaders. They are talking to the faith leaders, and they are explaining. One young woman said to me, “I understand my rights, and I want to make sure that every young woman understands her rights.” These strong, incredible young women are the future, the new leadership of Africa and of the world, and they are working side-by-side with the older generations to ensure that this is something that is accepted and understood.

This is not ideology. This is saving lives. This is giving rights. This is giving autonomy. This is ensuring that we have generations of young women who do not have to go through what my family member went through: the indignity and the injustice of being told, “No, you can't have an abortion.” That woman in my family still prays for that baby. She honestly says to this day, and I think she is watching, that she believes that the little baby, whom she named Jennifer, is in heaven thanking her for saving her from a life of pain.

Now, that might not be everyone's choice in this place. I know that there are so many babies born with severe disabilities who are loved, but that is not the point of this discussion. The point of this discussion is that this woman made her choice by her own conscience, and she was overruled. No woman should ever be in this position, whether here in Canada or in other parts of the world, when, after tremendous thought, and with whatever faith she might believe in or not, she comes to a choice about her own body. I will never accept it, and I will stand in the House to the very last day to make sure that nobody on that side is ever going to force a woman to carry a child to term that she does not want.

We are saving lives. This debate is absolutely 100% necessary. I thank the member for Edmonton Strathcona for giving us the opportunity to put our words on the record.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

During question period this Tuesday, I made a remark that I wish to withdraw.

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

Madam Speaker, the number of sexual assaults have increased. IPV, or intimate partner violence, has increased. For sextortion and rape, the numbers are outstandingly horrible. How can this member, after nine years, with numbers as horrible as they are, play into this procedural nonsense and the charades of the government? Canadians are catching on. Please speak to that.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!