Debates of May 30th, 2024

Mental Health and Addictions

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, 523 people in Toronto died last year from toxic drugs, and still the Liberals rejected the City of Toronto's request to take a health-based approach to tackling this crisis without offering any other solutions. Then there are the Conservatives, who keep yelling out harmful disinformation and attacking real people. People are dying, and Canada needs to take a compassionate approach: treatment, housing and health care.

Will the minister reconsider Toronto's proposal to tackle this crisis and save lives?

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Mr. Speaker, we are guided by the lens of public health and public safety. We refused the Toronto Public Health request because it did not adequately protect public health and maintain public safety. We follow science. We listen to families, doctors and people with lived and living experience because we know what works: a full continuum of support, from prevention and harm reduction to treatment.

Women and Gender Equality

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if I believe in something, I defend it. Our government firmly believes in a woman's right to choose, which is why we are unwavering in our defence of abortion rights in Parliament and in our communities.

Conservative caucus members demonize abortion and would rather ban it from Canada. The Leader of the Opposition outright refuses to defend abortion. Why is he so silent? Canadians have a right to know where their leaders stand on abortion.

Can the Minister of Justice please let us know the government's position?

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

Mr. Speaker, on this day in 1990, members of Parliament passed a Conservative bill that would sentence doctors to jail for providing abortions. Thankfully, that bill died in the Senate.

Abortion is health care. Canadian women should always have access to abortion. Recognizing this constitutional right to abortion, Liberal Bill C-75 removed abortion from our Criminal Code entirely in 2019. That is the exact same bill the Conservative leader keeps promising to repeal.

While Conservatives speak at anti-abortion rallies and venerate American restrictions on abortion, this Liberal government will always stand up for women's rights.

Housing

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in Ville-Marie, where the mayor of Montreal was elected, it takes 540 days to get a building permit.

What is more, the Bloc Québécois voted against the bill to build housing. That is called incompetence. It is absolutely ridiculous that this Liberal-Bloc government is not demanding that the cities speed up housing construction.

Why is the Prime Minister rejecting common sense and still protecting the incompetence of the mayors who support him?

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Minister of Tourism and Minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to go over some math concepts today.

There is a basic concept in math called magnitude. The number one is smaller than the number ten. Therefore, six is smaller than thousands. One plan is much greater than zero plans.

The only thing the party across the way wants to do is make cuts to infrastructure and insult mayors. That builds zero housing units.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, after nine years of this government that is not worth the cost, the CMHC is saying that Canada needs 5.8 million housing units to address the housing affordability crisis.

This Liberal-Bloc government is building fewer homes than in the 1970s. It is truly scandalous.

The Conservative act to build homes and not bureaucracy is a logical solution. Why is the Prime Minister protecting the incompetence of Liberal mayors instead of building housing?

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Minister of Tourism and Minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, I think my Conservative friends really need to learn some math.

Zero is a lot less than 179 agreements with municipalities across the country, 200,000 is less than 240,000, and zero housing units is still zero.

Their plan is zero. That simply does not work.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Quebeckers are paying the price for this Prime Minister's nine years in power. The housing crisis is hitting them hard.

In Ville-Marie, the mayor of Montreal's administration takes 540 days to get a building permit. That is quite a number: 540 days. Given the unrelenting housing crisis, that is sheer incompetence.

Quebeckers are suffering, yet the Bloc Québécois is voting in favour of $500 billion in spending and against common-sense solutions to this crisis.

Can the Liberal-Bloc government get down to business and help build housing in Montreal and across Quebec, once and for all?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Minister of Public Services and Procurement]

Mr. Speaker, today we are talking about math. There is one small number that is easy to forget because it is so small: six.

Six is the number of affordable housing units that the Conservative leader, the champion insult-hurler, built from coast to coast to coast during his tenure as housing minister. He built six small housing units. In contrast, the Government of Canada funded the construction of 134 affordable housing units over the past few months in the riding of my colleague who spoke moments ago.

Nevertheless, the insult-hurler-in-chief continues to insult Quebec municipalities.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, nine is more than six. For nine years, under this Prime Minister, more and more Quebeckers have been living on the streets because of the lack of affordable housing across Canada.

The Liberal-Bloc government has doubled the cost of rent. In Montreal alone, it takes two years to get a building permit on a good day. Once again, the incompetence is on full display. Quebeckers need solutions, yet the Bloc Québécois voted against our Conservative leader's affordable housing plan.

Can the Liberal-Bloc government help Canadians across Canada once and for all by helping to build housing?

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Minister of Tourism and Minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, let us put the math aside and steer the discussion to something they love to talk about: common sense.

Building a house involves certain essentials called infrastructure, like water, electricity, sidewalks and roads. However, one of the areas that Conservatives want to cut back on is infrastructure, which municipalities need so they can build housing.

Again, there is plan one, which provides for three million housing units, and plan zero, which provides for zero housing.

Justice

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Quebec's justice minister informed us in March that there had been 109 stays of proceedings for unreasonable delays in Quebec alone last year.

How can we expect the public to have confidence in our justice system when the course of justice is being impeded? We have been sounding the alarm for years now about this government's careless attitude when it comes to appointing judges. There is still a shortage of nearly 60 judges, and it is a recurring problem.

Does the Minister of Justice think it is acceptable for trials to be cancelled because he did not bother to appoint judges?

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not accept the Bloc Québécois member's question.

I have appointed judges to the bench at the fastest rate in Canadian history. Some 113 judges were appointed in my first 10 months. However, there is always more to do. We are in the process of getting it done.

With regard to delays in the criminal justice system, we have invested $700 million to improve access to legal aid, which will help speed up trials.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is obviously in favour of holding trials within a reasonable time, but when people charged with murder or other crimes against the person escape justice due to the backlog in our courts, we are not on board.

The minister's statistics aside, releasing violent, dangerous people because there happens to be a shortage of judges has serious consequences on public safety and trust in the justice system.

Will the minister support our bill so that people accused of violent crimes will no longer be released simply because the courts ran out of time to try them?

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

Mr. Speaker, just to be clear, the bill that the Bloc Québécois tabled today proposes using the notwithstanding clause under section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The opposition leader opened the floodgates last month when he stated that he would use the notwithstanding clause to trample on the rights and freedoms guaranteed under the charter.

Now we see another federal party deciding that the charter is optional. Nevertheless, our government will always protect the rights and freedoms guaranteed under the charter.

Mental Health and Addictions

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Mr. Speaker, earlier today in the health committee, we heard powerful testimony from indigenous leader Earl Thiessen, executive director of Oxford House, who said that safe supply was akin to pharmaceutical colonialization.

Will the Prime Minister listen to indigenous leaders, like Earl, and put an immediate end to this dangerous government drug trafficking program?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to recognize that there is not one perspective on the best way forward to this toxic drug supply that is facing the country. That is why this government is focused on providing tools that meet the needs of communities. In fact, if communities are not comfortable with safe supply, then they are not using safe supply. To allege that this approach writ large across the country would not have detrimental effects is false.

We, on this side, are focused on saving the lives of our friends' children, and we will continue to do that.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, last night, the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions said that the Prime Minister's deadly experiment of hard drug legalization in B.C. was a success. After nine years of the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister, drug overdose deaths are up 380% in B.C.

The minister refused to rule out expanding the drug legalization in Toronto, or Montreal or anywhere else in Canada. The message is clear: The NDP-Liberal government will import death, disorder, crime and chaos caused by this deadly experiment.

Why will the Prime Minister not abandon his deadly hard drug policies?

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Mr. Speaker, what we have been hearing from the Conservative side is dehumanizing. They are basically saying that we need to clean up the streets because these people are a bother.

On this side of the House, we are here to help people who use drugs. They did not choose to become addicts. They did not wake up one morning and say that they were going to start using drugs. The important thing is to give them a range of options so that they can find their way forward and overcome their addiction, which is not a criminal law problem. It is a mental health problem.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions doubled down and said that her deadly experiment of legalizing hard drugs in British Columbia was a success. For the minister, success means a 380% increase in the number of drug-related deaths.

In 2023, the mayor of Montreal reiterated her radical request to legalize hard drugs like heroin and crack. This morning in committee, Montreal's regional director of public health very clearly said “yes” to replicating the B.C. model, even though it has been a dismal failure.

Can the minister reassure Quebeckers and tell them that she will never replicate her hard drug experiment in Montreal?

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

Before recognizing the hon. parliamentary secretary, I would like to encourage all members to refrain from speaking until they are recognized by the Chair. I am speaking primarily to the member for Courtenay—Alberni, who had the privilege of asking a question.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Mr. Speaker, I also happen to sit on the Standing Committee on Health. In recent meetings, we heard what my colleague from the other side just said. We also heard that we need to have a whole range of options, because there is more than one way of getting off drugs.

We need many options, strategies and initiatives that could potentially suit everyone. That is the direction we are heading in. With respect to the application for exemption, we have not received one from Montreal yet. If that happens, we will do what we need to do.

The Environment

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, taxing climate change, reducing emissions and moving to a low-carbon future is a top priority for Canadians and for our Liberal government. We are implementing an aggressive climate action plan while trying to keep costs down for Canadians.

We recently learned that the PBO has agreed to do a revised analysis on his report on the costs of carbon pricing to Canadians, as he acknowledged some errors in the original analysis.

Could the Minister of Environment update the House on the benefits of the Canada carbon rebate to Canadians and comment on the PBO's recent publication?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, on April 17, put an update on his website, saying that the last estimate he had done was based on faulty premises. We thank the PBO for doing that. In fact, it confirms what we have known all along and what economists and independent organizations in the country are saying, which is that eight out of 10 Canadians are better off with the federal pricing on carbon. It helps fight climate change. It helps Canadians with affordability. We thank the PBO for doing that.