Charlie Angus

[Budget Implementation Act, 2024, No. 1, May 21st, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, it is really important to be able to move legislation so that we can actually get something done. Canadians expect us to get something done here.

One of my concerns is that, in dealing with the issue of a national food program, a school nutrition program, if this passes, it is going to rob the Conservatives of their ability to stand up in the House. This morning, we heard the member for Peterborough going on about how concerned she was that children were not eating, although we have offered a national school program. She said that that it was just bureaucracy. That is what they think of feeding children; they called it “bureaucracy”.

I would like to ask the hon. member, the minister, about this. We are the only G7 country without a national nutrition program for school children, yet we have the Conservatives trying to block this. They are gaslighting people, and they actually claim that children are going hungry, while they will not let a program to feed children go ahead.

[Committees of the House, May 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I remember that in 2018-19 the ethics committee, working across party lines, was attempting to bring forward to the House language to protect privacy rights in light of the Cambridge Analytica breach. One of the key elements that we had was the right not to be tracked. When my daughter goes on the Internet, why are they tracking her? Why is that phone tracking us? The ability to say no, to limit the amount of information, did not happen.

Then we had Clearview AI stealing people's images and selling them. The Privacy Commissioner stepped into the breach at that point, and yet he said that the Liberal government's privacy legislation at the time would undermine his ability to hold companies like Clearview to account.

Now we have AI. What we were dealing with in 2018 is like dealing with stagecoach robberies, given the speed of the ability to take information, to take our lives and to move them in ways we could not even conceive of, yet the Liberals are still puttering along with legislation. They have put it into what should be two separate bills that are really thought through. We are trying to just deal with one single bill.

I want to ask my hon. colleague what he thinks the danger to Canadian privacy is, with regard to the failure of the government to address the privacy rights of citizens and the right to privacy as a fundamental right.

[Committees of the House, May 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, one of the great things Canada had in terms of fighting for privacy rights was the role of the Privacy Commissioner. We know it was the Privacy Commissioner, following a letter of complaint I actually sent in, who identified that what Clearview AI was doing was illegal. The taking of people's images in public spaces and selling those images was such a breach of privacy rights, yet when the Liberals brought forward their privacy legislation, the Privacy Commissioner told us that his ability to take on bad actors like Clearview AI would actually be undermined.

Knowing the power AI has to scrape data and knowing how wide open our data, including facial images, personal information and geo-tracking, is being taken, I would like to ask the member about the importance of having fundamental principles in privacy, including the right not to be tracked, not to be followed and not to have our faces taken by corporate interests.

[Committees of the House, May 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it is fascinating to hear Conservatives talk about children going hungry and that Canadians cannot afford to feed their families. I hear this from the Conservatives all the time.

However, that member stood up and voted against a national school food program for children. Canada is the only country in the G7 without a school lunch program, a food program. This would be a solution, but Conservatives do not believe in solutions. Conservatives believe in trying to gaslight the entire nation on this.

I would like to ask the hon. member why she voted against it, and why she supports a leader whose chief of staff has set up a shell company for lobbying, six of whose employees are lobbying for Loblaw, the people who are making record profits while our families cannot afford to eat.

[Climate Change, May 9th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the latest reports show that emissions from big oil and gas are up yet again, quelle surprise, and now Imperial Oil is announcing a massive increase in production, thanks to the government's $34-billion freebie known as the TMX pipeline. That will be 900,000 barrels a day of unrefined bitumen emissions threatening coastal indigenous communities. However, the government's going to go one step further and exclude greenhouse gas emissions from environmental assessments.

Will the environment minister just admit that his promise at COP26 for an emissions cap was just a publicity stunt?

[Business of Supply, May 9th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, the opioid crisis has devastated the James Bay region. We have had states of emergency declared. We have also had states of emergency declared on the health crisis and the suicide crisis. All the pillars of good health are essential.

I want to ask the minister about her decision to walk away from the Weeneebayko hospital. There have been 20 years of negotiations to have proper integrated health care in James Bay. I have spoken with Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler. I have spoken with Grand Chief Leo Friday. I have spoken with the national chief. They are all asking how the Liberal government could walk away from this project, which has been so many years in the making, to ensure we do not have third-class health care for the Cree people of James Bay.

[Canada—Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, May 2nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, New Democrats worked long and hard to make sure that this project for Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia got off the ground, because we need to get serious about the renewable sector.

What worries me is that the rest of the world is moving much faster. Our main competitor is the United States. There is one project in Rhode Island where 250,000 homes will get energy, and the Vineyard project is 400,000 homes. The Europeans are moving, and China is leaving everybody in the dust, and yet the ITCs, the input tax credits promised by the government in 2023, are still not out there. I am talking to people in the industry, the mining industry in particular, who are looking to go stateside.

We cannot build this new economy without kick-starting the ITC credits that are needed. When are they going to come out? We cannot leave our regions behind.

[Health, April 30th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, for decades, people in James Bay have struggled to overcome the systemically racist underfunding of health services. Every region deserves proper hospital services. We were finally on the verge of having a proper hospital built in the Weeneebayko health region, but now, at the eleventh hour, the Liberals have walked away. Even Doug Ford is bringing the province to the table.

Will the minister explain why she made the health authority jump through so many hoops, only to tell it that the Liberals had no intention of funding this badly needed project?

[Homelessness, April 30th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the homelessness crisis in northern Ontario has become a social disaster.

Municipalities, agencies and health care systems are stretched to the breaking point, yet the government is telling frontline agencies to get ready for massive cuts. The Reaching Home program is an essential lifeline for northern communities, yet the government has told Cochrane District, which includes Timmins, to get ready for a 52% cut in funding. Sault Ste. Marie faces a 60% cut, while Sudbury and Nipissing will get whacked with a 70% cut. This will devastate our region and leave vulnerable people at serious risk.

In budget 2024, the Liberals bragged about how much money they would invest in housing and the homeless. Nice words will not keep people safe. In northern Ontario the government is ignoring calls from municipalities for clarity. This is not good enough.

People in the north are asking their Liberal MPs a simple question: Will they fight to reverse these cuts and ensure that more funding is brought to the table to fight the nightmare of homelessness in northern Ontario?

[Pharmacare Act, April 16th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, certainly New Democrats support investments in pharmacare. We support the national dental care plan, which is bitterly opposed by the lobbyists in the Conservative ranks.

We have to look at larger issues of health care. I want to speak about indigenous health care, particularly children's health care. The government has spent millions of dollars fighting against the implementation of Jordan's principle at the Human Rights Tribunal, yet we still see, time after time, the government refusing to pay in a timely manner for children who need treatment in all manner of areas. We have therapists who simply cannot keep the lights on because the federal government refuses to pay.

Does the member not understand that these are obligations that were ordered by the Human Rights Tribunal, and that if we are going to provide health care, it has to be done in a timely manner for the vulnerable indigenous children covered under Jordan's principle?