Chrystia Freeland

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, November 27th, 2014]

With regard to government funding, for each fiscal year since 2007-2008 inclusive: (a) what are the details of all grants, contributions, and loans to any organization, body, or group in the electoral district of Toronto Centre, providing for each (i) the name of the recipient, (ii) the location of the recipient, indicating the municipality, (iii) the date, (iv) the amount, (v) the department or agency providing it, (vi) the program under which the grant, contribution, or loan was made, (vii) the nature or purpose; and (b) for each grant, contribution and loan identified in (a), was a press release issued to announce it and, if so, what is the (i) date, (ii) headline, (iii) file number of the press release?

[Holodomor, November 19th, 2014]

When I awoke

Before the dawn, amid their sleep I heard

My sons ...weep and ask

For bread.

Mr. Speaker, that is Dante's description of hell. That hell of starving children is what Stalin and his regime created in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933. This Holodomor was a deliberate genocide, designed to break the Ukrainian nation and to impose collectivization on a farming society renowned for its industriousness and powerful sense of community. One of the horrors of the Holodomor was that Moscow flatly denied its murderous campaign. Far too many people, for far too long, believed that lie.

Walter Duranty, The New York Times journalist who won a Pulitzer prize for his reporting from the Soviet Union, wrote:

Conditions are bad, but there is no famine.... But—to put it brutally—you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.

Today, we are again hearing Orwellian doublespeak from a Kremlin that has invaded Ukraine. That makes its doubly important for the House to recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide and to remember its victims. Vichna im pamiat.

[Employment, November 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, many young Canadians have given up looking for full-time work in the face of stagnant wages and a dire job market. According to the Canadian Federation of Students, 300,000 young Canadians are actually working for free. When we add together discouraged young job seekers who are forced to work part time and unpaid interns, we get an unemployment and underemployment rate of almost 28%. That is shameful.

Why does the government have no plan for our lost generation of young Canadians?

[Taxation, November 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, according to the Bank of Canada, 200,000 young Canadians cannot get work. The situation is so dire, economists are joking that our central bank is following a grim new indicator: the kids living in their parents' basements index. In fact, it is so hard to get a job today that young people are being advised to work for free. This is our lost generation.

How can the government justify giving a tax break to wealthy boomers, while leaving Canada's young adults behind?

[Taxation, November 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the Governor of the Bank of Canada warns that we are facing a low or zero-growth jobs recovery. He said that over 900,000 Canadians are trapped in part-time jobs and 200,000 young Canadians cannot get work at all. Governor Poloz is “pretty sure these kids have not taken early retirement”. He said that we need policies such as investment in infrastructure to boost growth.

Why is the government hamstringing its own capacity to act with an income splitting plan that offers no benefit to 86% of Canadians?

[Taxation, November 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am using my big girl voice.

There are a lot of amazing kids in Canada, and their parents are proud of them, but very few of those parents are paid $180,000 a year, as the parliamentary secretary is.

How can he justify a policy which helps his family, but leaves behind 86% of Canadians?

[Taxation, November 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, in an email last week referring to the Conservative plan for income splitting, the member for Durham said, “As a father of two amazing young children, I cannot tell you how excited I am.”

There are a lot of proud parents of amazing kids in Canada, but very few—

[Questions on the Order Paper, October 29th, 2014]

With regard to negotiations in relation to the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with the European Union: since January 1, 2012, what are the costs incurred in relation to travel by government officials from the current Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, as well as the former Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, to (a) Brussels, Belgium, or (b) any other European jurisdictions for meetings about the CETA, broken down by (i) department, (ii) individual, (iii) itemized expenses?

[Employment Insurance, October 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the minister's talking points, the Parliamentary Budget Officer's numbers do not lie. The story they tell is that the government's EI tax credit will cost taxpayers $550 million to create a paltry 800 jobs, at a ridiculous cost of $700,000 per position.

Economists warn that this flawed measure also creates a perverse incentive to reduce employment. Why will the government not scrap this wasteful plan and instead adopt the Liberal policy, which would create a substantial number of jobs for Canadians?

[Brain Tumour Awareness Month, October 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, October is Brain Tumour Awareness Month in Canada.

Brain tumours are an indiscriminate form of cancer, and increasingly one of the most deadly. In the last decade, the mortality rate for a child diagnosed with a brain tumour has surpassed all other forms of childhood cancer. There is no clear explanation why.

One reason we cannot answer this question is that there is no central system in Canada that tracks brain tumour statistics.

Seven years ago, in this House, a motion was passed that called for the creation of a national registry to count and classify every brain tumour in the country, but a registry has not been created. Shockingly, Canadian doctors and researchers must rely on statistics from the United States to estimate incidence rates in Canada. Without this data, provinces and territories are unable to properly judge who needs care, resulting in unequal access to drugs and treatment for patients. We can and must do better.