Hedy Fry

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 5th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I think it is interesting to talk about prevention. I do not think anyone could have prevented COVID-19 from occurring, but what we could have done was prevent it from being a pandemic. It might have been contained within any one country. Now we know that we have to do that. Now we have to strengthen the World Health Organization so that we can be warned early when there are pandemics. Now we can prevent it by investing in poor countries so they can have health care systems and health care infrastructure, and so they can have access to vaccines and medications, so they can contain epidemics before they become pandemics. That is how we prevent it.

This government, since this pandemic, has been distributing money to every single province, as I said earlier on, 87¢ on the dollar to help provinces cope. Yet, what we have seen is a mishmash of each province having very different outcomes and very different protections. We need to look at—

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 5th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, that is such a cynical question. It is not about bribing Canadians. We can borrow from ourselves, and if the member read The Globe and Mail this weekend, the Governor of the Bank of Canada was saying that we cannot take half measures right now. Also, we are borrowing at 0.25%. We are one of only two countries in the world with an international AAA rating, and we have the credit to be able to help Canadians.

I would ask my hon. colleague, if we do not help Canadians, who will?

We are the government. We are responsible for assisting Canadians in a crisis and in a time of need, just as we did in World War II. This is that kind of crisis.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 5th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Etobicoke North.

I am proud to speak to the Speech from the Throne. A Speech from the Throne gives us an opportunity to reset our clock, to say that the things we talked about before the election are not valid anymore, because this thing called COVID-19, this pandemic, began to take us off track. All of the old economic and social systems, etc. that we had are not working anymore. We are in a new world and we have to do something about it. I think we expected that COVID-19 would not last and we would be out of it now. We now are braced for a second tsunami of COVID-19, which we hear globally that it will be worse than the first.

With this Speech from the Throne, we reset new systems because the old ones left a lot of people very vulnerable as well as let a lot of people down.

The first thing in the Speech from the Throne was that this government decided that if we did not do something to contain the spread of COVID-19, whatever we did for businesses, individuals or jobs would not be sustainable and could not be permanent because COVID would be there. COVID-19 does not give a fig about jobs. It does not care about boundaries. It does not care what province or territory people are in. It is a global pandemic.

We decided to talk about how we would help Canadians, workers, individuals, families and business owners through the second wave. Because we have a AAA rating, being the only country in the world besides Germany to have that, we can borrow from ourselves at 0.25%, so Canadians and business owners do not have to borrow from the banks at 5%, or use their credit cards at 19%, or even remortgage their homes so they can carry on during this pandemic.

We talked about how we expanded. We brought back new support systems. CERB has now been taken over by a new CRB. People will be moved into EI seamlessly so they can be supported. Interestingly enough, individuals who are self-employed or in the gig economy were not covered by EI before but now they will be.

We looked at how we would support seniors who had fallen between the cracks in the old system. A lot of the system is about innovation and WiFi and many seniors are too poor to afford that, at least they are in my riding. We have looked at how we can help them get more financial stability during this difficult time because they were afraid they would be kicked out of the places where they live.

We looked at people who were very vulnerable, the homeless and people who have substance use disorders, and how we could help them. We brought in an emergency rapid response fund. Homelessness increases our susceptibility to COVID, so we want to get rapid money for those who have no place to live to get them into shelters and other places to live. This is the kind of thing we are doing.

It is not a rehash of what was happening. If anybody understood what was going on, they would realize that this is about helping to protect people and looking at how we diminish the spread of COVID. We have put money into protective equipment. We have millions for testing and tracking. We have given $2.2 billion to provinces to make it okay for kids to go to school and be safe.

That is all provincial jurisdiction that we are putting money into: housing, homelessness, schools. We do not care. We are the Government of Canada. We want to help all Canadians. We are not discriminating against what province they come from. That is what we are doing in this Speech from the Throne.

We are there. We have vaccines now lined up, millions of vaccines so every Canadian, no matter how poor, no matter how rich, no matter what they do will be able to have access to a vaccine. We have upgraded the tracking and testing mechanisms and sent more money to the provinces so they will be able to test and track quicker and to move forward. We have now just got a new test that is for quick testing. We are always guided by science as we look at how to protect people against COVID, against the spread and against spreading it to each other, etc.

People complain about it, but we are looking at a national standard for long-term care homes. The COVID does not care if we live in one province or another. The provinces think it is okay for the federal government to contribute 87¢ on every dollar to provinces to help them make decisions in their jurisdictions.

This is not about interfering with the provinces. This is about recognizing the reality of a pandemic and a virus that does not care. We have moved forward on all of that. Then we talked about how, in the interim, we were going to try to support businesses. We have extended the Canadian wage subsidy and we have expanded it until next summer. We are working on the details of some of the things businesses told us did not work for them. We are trying to deal with that.

We are looking at how to help the tourism industry, which is stranded. The industry used the CEWS, and that is there for them until next summer so businesses can at least be sustained and look at how they can transform into the new economy through innovation. They are going to have to do business differently now. The government is here to help them with all the things they need in terms of innovating for business, in terms of Wi-Fi, looking at schools and how we are able to do things differently to keep citizens safe. This is part of a plan. This is not business as usual.

This is the worst crisis we have had since the Second World War. In fact, all of the things we put in place after the Second World War to sustain Canadians economically, socially and culturally have not been upgraded for 50 years. They are not valid anymore. They are not working anymore.

We now have to look at how to reinvent the wheel by looking at what other countries are doing. We are putting money into innovation so we can have far more companies shift from what they were doing to new, innovative jobs. We are going to be helping young people connect with their first jobs, because some of them cannot find jobs in this new environment. We are looking at how we rescale and train people for the current economy.

This is a forward-thinking document. The economy is always something we have to keep resilient and sustainable. We are saying that we have to do it differently, because the old ways do not work anymore. COVID-19 has exposed all of the cracks in our system. We needed a Speech from the Throne to make sure that we did not just cover those cracks, but filled them in so people would not fall into them anymore.

This is saying that yes, people need to get jobs. Yes, we have to look at the economy. Yes, we need to protect people from illness. Yes, we have to strengthen the health system, which we talked about. We have to look at how mental health fits into the Canada Health Act, and how people access pharmaceuticals when they need them. We are working on all of those tranches at once, so that people do not fall between the cracks.

What is also important to remember, when we start talking about provincial jurisdiction and what we have not been doing, is that we are dealing with a pandemic. All over the world people are suffering. We have also decided it is time for us to step up and help countries around the world so they can develop health care systems, access vaccines and have the equipment needed to test and track.

We are sharing and building alliances with like-minded countries because we can no longer talk about our country alone. We have to talk about how we work with other countries to strengthen the global economy. We have to look at how we fight a pandemic together, and how we shift and change. This is not the first pandemic. Speaking as a physician, it is not going to be the last. If we do not want to have more pandemics, we need to make sure that when diseases start around the world, they remain as epidemics and that countries are able to cope with them.

We need to look at how we trade differently. We need to look at human rights. We need to look at rising fascism around the world and right-wing extremist governments that are denying human rights to people. We have to look outward, as well as inward. COVID-19 does not really care what country one lives in, what borders are between provinces or whose jurisdiction it is. I do not know that COVID ever read the Constitution.

We are here as a federal government responsible for all Canadians and remembering that it is our duty to make sure nobody falls between the cracks, whether because of the health system, which needs to be there to support them, or because of the economy. We are focusing on job creation and new ways of building an economy. If one reads the Speech from the Throne, one would find out that is exactly what we are doing and what we need to do now.

It might be a time for us to sit down and stop talking about partisan politics. All of us need to do what countries around the world are doing. Countries around the world are saying, let us get together and look at how we work together to prevent this from happening. This is a global problem. We might want to say this is a Canadian problem. Let us all come together—

[WISH Drop-In Centre, October 5th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, the first wave of COVID-19 exposed deep gaps in our social infrastructure and let us see the desperation of our most vulnerable, such as sex trade workers. Many cannot claim benefits like CERB because the work they do is criminal. They cannot pay rent. They face an increased amount of societal violence, are at risk in shelters and are stigmatized by many.

I shout out to an organization in Vancouver named WISH, which provides a safe, non-judgmental place for sex trade workers facing gender-based violence, giving them shelter, food and respite and helping them gain workforce skills if they wish to exit the trade. WISH recently opened the first overnight shelter in Canada for street workers. Last week, its executive director Mebrat Beyene won the YWCA Women of Distinction Award for non-profits.

Brava WISH. Keep defending the vulnerable and speaking out for the voiceless.

[Robert H. Lee, February 24th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, today I stand to pay tribute to Robert H. Lee, a remarkable British Columbian who passed away last week. Bob was born in Vancouver, the son of immigrants, and a stellar example of the qualities that many immigrants bring to Canada: hard work and a philosophy of giving back. He graduated from business school at the University of B.C. and became a successful realtor, community builder and very generous philanthropist.

As chancellor of UBC, he created the UBC Properties Trust, making use of university lands to gain over $1.7 billion to fund UBC in perpetuity. The Robert H. Lee Graduate School, the UBC alumni centre, the Robert and Lily Lee Community Health Centre and the Burrard YMCA are named after him and his family.

Bob was a son of Vancouver who looked beyond himself and recognized the value of helping others. He was an exemplary human, and his legacy will continue to enrich us all.

[Female Genital Mutilation, February 6th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, today is the international day for the elimination of female genital mutilation. FGM/C is a violation of human rights, affecting more than 200 million women and girls worldwide.

In 1997 the Liberal government criminalized FGM in Canada. Now we are engaging with other nations, donors, UN organizations and civil society to take action to eliminate FGM globally. Canada has co-sponsored the African Union's UN General Assembly resolution entitled “Intensifying global efforts for the elimination of female genital mutilation”. We currently fund projects in Benin, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Iraq through community-based education and awareness campaigns.

More needs to be done. Ending FGM requires governments to act with legislation to protect the human rights of women and girls, with policies that empower them and, most importantly, in this year of Beijing+25, to remember that women's rights are human rights.

[Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act, January 30th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, the important thing is that this is the first cheque. Many farmers are having trouble filling out the forms and getting access. I thank the member for bringing that to our attention. We will be able to look at how we could make that process easier and how we could modify the process to make it very user friendly for farmers.

This is not one cheque and then farmers are going to be dropped into a hole in the ground. We are going to continue to reimburse our farmers and help them to sustain themselves because we have had to give up some things in the dairy sector.

Supply management per se—

[Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act, January 30th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, this is a really key part when we talk about sovereignty. This is a key part of who Canada is, our identity, our sovereignty. We have strong cultural institutions that are very different from those in the United States.

The member is absolutely right. I remember in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Hollywood used to push back against any kind of filmmaking here, and yet everybody wanted to come here because there were excellent opportunities to have good locations that could pass for any forest, any mountain, anywhere in the world. At the same time, we had very good camera people, producers, directors and writers. That was a very important fight we took up in late 1998 that would have allowed us to get there. We had to do that while constantly facing pressure.

To put this into our negotiations on CUSMA and to know that we can keep this strong sense of Canadian identity is very important. Canadian cultural industries, as I said before, represent a $57-billion industry in this country, and that does not even count film. I am proud that we were able to achieve that, especially because B.C. is ground zero for all the best things that are being done in film.

[Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act, January 30th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, no, it does not. We are always going to have a dispute over softwood lumber with the United States because it has softwood lumber producers as well. In British Columbia this is important to all of us, with 145,000 jobs coming out of the softwood lumber sector.

The important thing is that we are not going to have to go to the WTO every five or six years only to have the United States ignore the WTO ruling. We have won on every one of the rulings. However, if we now have a clear process, a clear dispute resolution mechanism, then as we win those they will be enforceable. We will not be tracking around for seven to 10 years trying to negotiate softwood lumber. That is important.

[Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act, January 30th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, as members well know, since August 2017 when we were told that NAFTA was going to go by the board and we would have to start thinking about how we would renegotiate, a lot of things were put out there as, “this is not going to happen anymore”. Therefore, since August 2017 and until we were able to ratify this and sign on to the new CUSMA, we have done a great deal of work, and Canada did that work.

One of the things we need to talk about, because anyone could find loopholes in this deal, is that any deal or negotiation means that no one side is going to get everything it wants. There is a bit of give-and-take here in order to get this and keep this.

We had a very strong set of negotiators. I want to point out that our negotiators were not just our Minister of Foreign Affairs, our Prime Minister and our bureaucrats. We brought labour and industries to the table. We brought Canadians and farmers and people who had a vested interest in this to our table. We all began to talk about what the most important things were for us to get when we were at the table.

Having negotiated for the doctors in British Columbia on occasion, I can tell you that we have to go in and say, “We are not going to budge on this.” We knew what we wanted, and we dug our heels in, and that was decided on by the team of people who were negotiating with us. We all realized what we had to give up, and we all decided what was strong.

This deal is better in many ways than the old NAFTA. That is because the team decided on what was most important. We must not forget that we have maintained privileged access to the U.S., which is our largest trading partner. We do 76% of our trade with the United States, so that was an important thing.

We have heard people talk about sovereignty. It is said that Canada's sovereignty went by the board. One of the things that is very clear, and what we dug our heels on and retained, is what is indeed sovereignty for Canada.

We managed to keep control over our key cultural sector. Canada is different culturally from the United States, and we know that. We see a huge $54-billion cultural industry in Canada, which has created about 650,000 jobs across this country, with 75,000 of those being in Quebec alone. Because Quebec is distinct in language and culture, we have been able to maintain sovereign control over that part of who we are as Canadians, and that is important to remember.

We also kept true to some of the more important things: our values, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Our values are very clear in terms of what we stand for as Canadians. Gender equality, LGBTQ rights and minority rights were negotiated and kept strong. We have strong and enforceable language on all of those things, which we did not have in the old NAFTA.

When people say we gave up our cultural sovereignty, etc., we did not. We kept the things that were vital to us. I want to remind everybody that those decisions were not just made by the government. They were made by a team of everyone coming together who decided that these are the things we are going to fight for and we are not going to give up on. We got most of those things.

We have heard about the cultural sector that we have protected. In my province of British Columbia, the film industry is massive. In fact, the number one special effects globally come out of British Columbia. We were able to keep that moving and growing. This is important when we talk about jobs and the people who are benefiting.

Looking at British Columbia, we have heard a lot of talk about softwood lumber and the forestry sector, but we did something very important. We managed to keep a very strong and enforceable dispute resolution mechanism when it comes to looking at things like softwood lumber.

Supply management was something that we were promised by the United States. The U.S. said it was going to take it away from us. We have kept it, so supply management is no longer on the table for debate. How we get better deals for all our dairy products, etc., is an ongoing negotiation and we need to look at how we move forward.

In British Columbia, where 77% of our agricultural exports go to the United States, we have managed to keep that. We have managed also to allow our farmers access to Mexico, which we did not have extremely good access to. Now we have broadened our market within Canada.

Again, for those of you who have long memories, we used to have to go to the WTO on softwood lumber every time. We struggled for years debating it and going to the WTO, and the United States ignored us. Now, we have enforceable and strong dispute resolution mechanisms, so we do not have to spend a lot of time dealing with what we know is going to come up. Everyone is still going to try to deal with protectionism, but we have ways now of fighting that very clearly.

For me, there are a lot of important things in this agreement. One of the things that is key to being Canadian is medicare, our public health care system, which has not been touched. Our ability to maintain, change and deal with our public health care system in the way we have always done is sacrosanct, and it is still there. When we talk about sovereignty, we talk about that as being sovereign. We are bringing in pharmacare. Our government is working on this.

The ability to bring down, from 10 years to eight years, our biologics information and data and put that out for generics means we are going to get cheaper drugs, especially for expensive drugs like biologics.

There are some really important things that do not have to do only with trade but with maintaining who we are as Canadians, what we stand for and what we think is important. This agreement would enhance our ability to continue our health care, especially when health care and Obamacare have been under great threat by the United States. We know that we can keep what we have, and we see how important that is.

Again, we have enforcement language on environmental standards in forestry and our agricultural sector. We have also maintained our plastics ban and all those kinds of environmental issues that Canada has acted on. We are talking with a country that does not believe in global warming, but we have still managed to keep intact our own ability to deal with it.

Our oceans protection plan, which protects species at risk in our oceans and which our government brought forward with $1.5 billion, remains intact. We have an agreement to help to look at how our whales and turtles are under threat, and how we need to maintain and sustain those threatened species.

Also, we would look at fishing and compare stocks to see if overfishing is harming our ability in British Columbia to maintain ordinary stocks of fish, such as salmon. Therefore, while we have endangered species, we also have ordinary fishing species to look at and how overfishing would impact maintaining some of those stocks, which is extremely important.

When we look at labour, we have the ability to enforce the fact that there are going to be strong standards around labour. For instance, in the United States, discrimination based on sexual orientation is no longer there. In Mexico, we had seen a strong push-back against unions and labour rights. We have that in there. It is there and it is enforceable. We also have very strong dispute resolution mechanisms to deal with a country that would deny these labour rights. We have moved forward on a whole lot of things that we did not have before.

One of the important things to remember is that this agreement is very good for my province in terms of the fact that 50% of all the lumber that goes to the United States comes out of British Columbia. It is important for us, and these clear dispute resolution mechanisms are going to stop us from running back and forth as we did in the old days with the WTO.

In closing, I am sure that every one of us in the House, including me, could pick holes in this agreement. Of course there are going to be things we wish we could have had, such as everything we wanted when we went to the table. However, if members have ever negotiated before, they would know that when we go to the table, we go with 100 items, but will go to bat and dig our heels in on 50 of them, because we have to give some up to get some. This is what happened.

This is a great deal. It is a better deal than we ever had. I hope all members in the House will recognize it and think of Canadians, our economy and the jobs that will come out of it, and ratify this agreement.