Iqra Khalid

[Business of Supply, June 17th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to help the member understand the impact of the words of this motion and how it impacts the minister's respect. The motion states “that the Minister of National Defence has clearly lost the respect of members of the Canadian Armed Forces, including those at the highest ranks” and then lists a number of reasons.

The member spoke about leadership and accountability. I would argue that leadership is about listening. We are here to serve Canadians, and the way we can serve Canadians, including those who serve in our armed forces, is to listen in a non-partisan way instead of playing these kinds of political games. The way we can serve them is to sit down, listen in a non-partisan way, understand what the issues are and put our heads together and actually find those solutions. I challenge the member to do that.

[Business of Supply, June 17th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Kingston and the Islands.

I want to rise in the House today to speak about the Minister of National Defence in light of this very unfair opposition motion. I want to talk about who he is as a person and what he has done to serve Canada alongside so many others.

Like so many of our friends and neighbours, the Minister of National Defence came here as an immigrant. His mother came to our country in the hopes of building a better life for the minister and his sister. His parents left India because Canada was a place where they believed they could find the opportunity and that success. They left behind their family and their community.

This story is likely familiar to you, Mr. Speaker, and to many others here in this House. It is a story of countless immigrant families from across this country. It is a story of sacrifice. Unlike the Leader of the Opposition, the Minister of National Defence's father was not a politician who served for almost two decades in the provincial Legislature. Instead, the Minister of National Defence stood beside his mother as a child in the blueberry, raspberry and strawberry fields, from Richmond to Abbotsford in British Columbia. He would wake up at 5:00 a.m. and join his mother and his sister, packed in a van with 30 other field labourers, for a long day of work.

It was in these fields where the Minister of National Defence realized that racism could be met with deadly consequences. As the minister said last year in an interview with CTV, one of his co-workers, a man in his 20s, did not show up to work one day.

Later on, we found out that it was actually an attack based on race – and he was killed.

The minister has spoken many times of his experience with racism. He has worked his entire life to end this discrimination. Unlike the Leader of the Opposition, the Minister of National Defence had to work in a country that was hostile, is still hostile, to Black and brown bodies. It is a fight that he has had to endure his whole life. It is a fight that he continues to endure.

In fact, the Leader of the Opposition and many others from the opposition still do not bother to pronounce the minister's name correctly. Maybe I will take a moment to say that the minister is “Sajjan,” which means honourable, respectable in Punjabi. For over six years, the Leader of the Opposition and the members opposite have had the opportunity to learn how to pronounce his name, and they have chosen not to. People who are visible minorities know what this is. These are microaggressions, and they are not mistakes. These microaggressions are racism, pure and simple.

The Minister of National Defence has devoted his life to service, service to his community, service to Vancouver and service to Canada. He served over a decade as an officer in the Vancouver police force, working in the riding that he represents today, Vancouver South. He fought against the scourge of organized crime and drug trafficking, protecting the community that he still serves and protects today.

Like thousands of other Canadians, he put up his hand and served this country in the Canadian Armed Forces. While he served in uniform, he experienced discrimination there as well. Let me quote again from the minister's interview with CTV.

I remember one person…saying to me “I let you join my military.” Just that position of power and privilege that he was throwing in my face, it just upset me so much.

Despite the racism that he has faced, he still served. He served in Bosnia. He served three tours of duty in Afghanistan.

He has been awarded numerous military medals for his service, including the Order of Military Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Canadian Forces' Decoration, the South-West Asia Service Medal, the General Campaign Star, the commendation medal, the NATO service medal and the Canadian Peacekeeping Service Medal. Now, the opposition has the audacity to question his service by bringing up questions about the Minister of National Defence's service in Afghanistan.

Why do we not hear from the people who actually worked with him in Afghanistan, like Colonel Chris Vernon, chief of staff to the Coalition Task Force Headquarters who led Operation Medusa? He stated:

[The minister] was a major player in the design team that put together Operation Medusa. He was able to put together an intelligence picture of the Taliban and the tribal dynamics west of Kandahar, without which we probably wouldn't have been able to mount Operation Medusa. So that's what he did. Pretty significant stuff.

Why do we not hear from Major-General David Fraser, then head of NATO regional. He described the minister as having “remarkable personal courage...often working in the face of the enemy to collect data and confirm his suspicions, and placing himself almost daily in situations of grave personal risk.” He also went on to say, “I must say that [the Minister of National Defence] is one of the most remarkable people I have worked with, and his contribution to the success of the mission and the safety of Canadian soldiers was nothing short of remarkable.”

The opposition members sit there and continue to question the minister's commitment and his service record. That is shameful. They question his work as the Minister of National Defence.

Why do we not take into account the opinion of David Perry, a senior military analyst at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute? He said, about the minister, “In terms of actual results that have been delivered for defence since he's been a minister: on that front I think it's pretty fair to say that he's done very well.” He went on to add that, “Under [his] time as defence minister the government has committed to spending more money on the military in real dollars than at any time since the Korean War.”

This opposition day motion is very troubling. It ignores the fact of the minister's service to his community, to Vancouver and to our country. I know and Canadians know that, time and again, the minister has stepped up and served his country. Despite the opposition's attempts, Canadians will remember this motion as exactly what it is: a petty, personal attack on Canada's first Minister of National Defence of colour. It is an attempt by the Conservative members to whitewash the actions the Minister of National Defence has taken to support those who serve Canada each and every day.

The members have heard my colleagues speak of our investments into the Canadian Armed Forces after a decade of darkness because of the cuts from the Harper Conservative government. Members have heard my colleagues speak of our commitment to building a more inclusive and diverse Canadian Armed Forces, and they have heard my colleagues speak about our commitment to building a Canadian Armed Forces that is free from sexual harassment and assault.

The Conservatives might stand up and say they have been champions for women and for minorities. Nothing can be further from the truth. When the Leader of the Opposition had an opportunity to stand with our friends and neighbours in the Muslim community—

[Business of Supply, June 17th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for sharing his life story and his birth date. I was born a couple of decades after he was, but I can assure him I share those same sentiments about how much our Canadian Armed Forces have continued to support us, to work for the safety of Canada and Canadians here and abroad.

I want to pick up on one point the member talked about. He said we cannot afford to demoralize the military. I wonder what these polarizing motions do to the morale of our Canadian Armed Forces, those women and men in uniform who are working so hard to protect our country. How does he think it makes them feel when we are questioning the integrity of the men and women who have served?

We are playing partisan games to prevent any combined and collaborative action that could address the very real issues that exist within the Canadian Armed Forces.

[Extension of Sitting Hours in June, June 10th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, the member spoke about the paralyzing of Parliament due to points of orders being raised, which really stop debate on issues important to Quebeckers. On that note, I will give my condolences to the member with respect to another femicide that happened in Quebec very recently. We are hearing about women in Quebec who are the victims of domestic abuse, almost every week.

When the member hears the Conservatives raising all of those points of order, when he hears that debate is being halted in this House, preventing the good work that individual Canadians really need our government to do, how does he feel about that? How does he—

[Committees of the House, June 10th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I really was paying attention to the member's speech, and he talked about how this House does not belong to us. He said that it belongs to the people who trusted us to come here, represent them and do the work that they require us to do to move this country forward.

Therefore, why is the member's party preventing legislation that would provide support to local businesses in Canada and to workers here in Canada? Why has his party been voting consistently against providing that support to Canadians?

[Committees of the House, June 10th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I did not really understand what the member had to say, especially with the hon. parliamentary secretary's question about the Conservative campaign commitments with respect to decreasing foreign aid. With what the member is saying right now, there seems to be a kind of duplicity.

Can the member clarify for us if he believes that Canada needs to provide more aid or not, based on his party's platform?

[Extension of Sitting Hours in June, June 9th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, we have all been sent here by our constituents, Canadians across the country, to do the work that we promised them we would do through our campaign platforms. That is part of the democratic process.

How does the member think Canadians across the country feel, whether in the western provinces, in the Atlantic provinces or in the agriculture sector, when they see members wasting time in the House, giggling and laughing, and trying to delay more and more as they pretend they are confused about votes and try to delay the important work that we as a minority government have to do together in a co-operative way?

[Women and Gender Equality, June 2nd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, it is 2021, yet there are still those who would debate a woman's right to choose what happens to her own body. Today we will be voting on a Conservative MP's bill, Bill C-233, which is yet another attempt to police women's bodies. It is an attack on women's autonomy over their bodies by the Conservatives.

Canadian women need to know. Will the Prime Minister stand against Bill C-233 and stand up for women's rights across our country?

[Gender-Based Violence, April 27th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, violence in the home is an unfortunate reality for too many women in Canada, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made it more frequent and more severe. There has been much focus from our government to tackle this tragic issue: having an emergency debate in the House, my tabling of a report with recommendations by the justice committee, and budget 2021 investments in combatting gender-based violence.

In my city, Peel police, under the leadership of Chief Nishan Duraiappah, has joined forces with Safe Centre of Peel and social service agencies to create a 50-officer strong intimate partner violence unit, offering greater support for survivors through a trauma-informed approach and aiming to reduce rates of violence. Collaborative initiatives like this are milestones in the right direction to combat intimate partner violence.

I thank the women and men of Peel police and Chief Duraiappah for their leadership in building safe communities.

[Committees of the House, April 27th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights entitled “The Shadow Pandemic: Stopping Coercive and Controlling Behaviour in Intimate Relationships”.