Iqra Khalid

[Committees of the House, November 5th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights about the main estimates, 2020-21, and its third report about the supplementary estimates (B), 2020-21.

Our committee has considered the estimates referred by the House and reports the same.

[Committees of the House, October 30th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in relation to Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Judges Act and the Criminal Code.

The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House of Commons, with amendments.

[Public Safety, October 21st, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, online hate is an ever-increasing and pervasive threat that has dangerous implications. We have seen racism simmer and rise. We have seen members of this House face the consequences. We have lost too many lives to despicable acts of violence in Canada and globally. We need concrete action.

Can the Prime Minister please inform the House about our progress in addressing the Christchurch call to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online?

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, October 6th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, this year has been hard for many of my constituents who have been separated from their loved ones due to this pandemic and border closures. Can the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship please update the House on how our government plans to reunite them while also maintaining the safety of Canadians because of COVID-19?

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

Mr. Speaker, I was talking to the chief of police in Peel region. Chief Duraiappah outlined for me how much there has been an increase in domestic violence and gender-based violence within the home over this pandemic. It has really exposed vulnerabilities within our communities and within our society, and our government recognizes that.

Just on Friday, we made a massive announcement of $50 million. We have created a whole strategy to combat gender-based violence. Over this pandemic, we have invested over $50 million to ensure that shelters are able to take in that increased capacity and to remain operational.

The reality is that gender-based violence is systemic and it has to be a fulsome and wholesome approach in how we combat it and how we eliminate it from our communities and society. In the meantime, we are making those important investments to continue to support women at their most vulnerable by having support for shelters.

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

Mr. Speaker, I offer my sincerest condolences to the member for the loss of her sister. COVID-19 has impacted tens of thousands of lives across the country. She is absolutely right: Seniors do matter. We are making sure that we prioritize the work to make sure that seniors are placed at the forefront, that their vulnerabilities are not exploited.

Through the Speech from the Throne, we are ensuring that we would increase those payments to seniors. We would create new benefits such as the disability benefit that will impact seniors.

We have made, over the past number of months, investments such as making a one-time payment through old age security and GIS to seniors to cover their extra costs during this pandemic. We have made historic announcements in my riding to administer, through the United Way, programs targeted toward supporting vulnerable seniors in the Peel region and indeed all across Canada.

The reality is—

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

Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, I am very proud of the work our government has done to support Canadians during this pandemic. The member's remarks have shown quite clearly how out of touch he is with the reality Canadians have experienced. The wage subsidy saved tens of thousands of jobs. The CERB kept the lights on in the homes of millions of Canadians. We have done that work. We have made sure that Canadians have been supported throughout this pandemic and we are going to continue to ensure that women are kept at the forefront and all Canadians have the support that they expect from a government that takes equality of opportunity into account, regardless of gender and any intersectional barriers we have.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak to the Speech from the Throne and how it will impact the realities of Canadian lives today and in the future.

A few weeks ago, I had a really heart-wrenching conversation with a constituent who outlined her struggles. She is a single mom, a personal support worker and a mother of three children. She and thousands more like her have been faced with the challenge of a lifetime. While this pandemic has taken its toll on every Canadian, it has taken a bigger toll on women.

Women have bravely served on the front lines of this crisis. They make up 92% of our nurses and 81% of all workers in the Canadian health care and social assistance sector. One in every three jobs held by a woman is deemed essential. That also means that women are putting themselves at risk.

A study in July by the Middlesex-London Health Unit shows that women comprise approximately 59% of those infected with COVID-19 compared to 41% male. Women have also been on the front lines at home, taking care of children who have been away from school, aging parents or ill parents. That means time away from work. They have been the first to be let go from jobs. They make less money than their counterparts. We have seen an increase in gender-based violence in the home.

Therefore, it makes me very proud to see the gender lens being applied to the Speech from the Throne and on the economic recovery plan proposed by our government. Equality must begin with our highest offices, which is why we appointed Canada's first gender-balanced cabinet. We expanded the women and gender equality into a full federal department and implemented gender-based analysis to ensure that our policies and programs took that lived experience of women into account.

We made a commitment five years ago that our government would be a feminist government and we followed through on that commitment, with historic measures to protect women's rights and provide opportunities for women to succeed in every corner of our society. However, COVID-19 has had the worst kind of impact on women, personally and professionally. If we are not careful, if we do not prioritize supporting women, the incredible progress that we have made over these past years will be set back by this pandemic, and it already has been.

At the onset of this crisis, we recognized how COVID-19 would impact Canadian lives and we took swift action to provide support for families, workers and businesses through tailored programs to suit their needs while they tried to keep themselves safe from COVID-19. Programs such as CERB kept the lights on in homes. The Canada emergency business account and the Canada emergency wage subsidy helped small businesses survive. Mortgages were able to be deferred. We worked with Canadians at every turn, listened to their feedback and enhanced these programs at every opportunity. We recognized how this pandemic was uniquely impacting women and we took action to help.

When Canadians stayed home to protect themselves and each other from COVID-19, it unfortunately also created an environment where those facing gender-based and domestic violence were isolated with their abusers. The Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses saw increased crisis calls in 20% of its shelters and police services across the country saw increased police reports of domestic violence. During the pandemic, we were able to support local organizations in my neck of the woods, in Mississauga, like Interim Place and Nisa Homes so we could keep providing those essential services to vulnerable women in my riding.

I am glad that our government stepped in early to deliver combined $50 million investments through Women's Shelters Canada and indigenous organizations to provide these centres with the means to continue operating.

Moving ahead with our recovery, we have accelerated our investments in shelters and transitional houses to better protect those fleeing domestic violence. We continue to build on our strategy to end gender-based violence with a national action plan.

Over the last five years, we reversed harmful cuts to women's organizations and made historic investments to create opportunities for women to thrive and achieve success. A major part of supporting women's success is through empowered entrepreneurship. Through programs such as the women entrepreneurship strategy, we have invested in female-led and female-owned businesses.

A couple of young women in my riding run an organization called Welo. We were able to support them to scale up their business. Having the opportunity to go and see their business, I saw first-hand the kind of impact this strategy has had on women all across the country.

During this pandemic, businesses have suffered significantly. A lot of small businesses are owned and run by women, and those businesses have been struggling to the point of bankruptcy. This is why our government committed to advancing the women entrepreneurship strategy to better support women to grow their businesses. It is estimated that 62% of the jobs lost at the onset of this pandemic were held by women. Our government recognizes child care has been and continues to be a major barrier for participation of women in the workforce.

Fifty years ago, the Royal Commission on the Status of Women outlined that child care services were a necessity for women's social and economic equality. We know that child care is an issue that disproportionately impacts women and has been instrumental for women to enter the workforce. With the restart of our economy, mothers will face difficulties as they return to work unless they have safe, affordable and accessible child care on which to depend. When half our population is held back, it creates ripple effects that continue to impact single-parent households and those households that rely on two incomes to make ends meet.

From day one, our government recognized that child care was an economic imperative. We worked with the provinces and territories to create bilateral child care agreements and committed to spending $7.5 billion over 11 years. Since 2015, that investment has created 400,000 affordable child care spaces, targeted for families in need, and thousands of jobs for early childhood educators.

We know this pandemic has put those jobs and that incredible progress at risk. That is why, when our government committed $19 billion through the safe restart agreement, we ensured that child care was included as a key priority. Through this agreement, we invested $625 million for Canada's child care sector. Combined with agreements under the multilateral early learning and child care framework, the Government of Canada will invest almost $1.2 billion to support child care in 2020 and 2021. That is a 67% increase over the next highest year in history.

This pandemic has changed much, but not our commitment to equality of opportunity for women. We are a feminist government, and that has remained at the core of our response to this crisis. Even now we continue to break down barriers as we appointed the first woman in our history to serve as Canada's finance minister.

There is a reason this crisis has been called a “she-cession”, and a full economic recovery is not possible without a “she-covery".

[Justice, October 1st, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, in February, our government tabled Bill C-7 to comply with a Quebec Superior Court ruling, which ordered changes to Canada's medical assistance in dying law. However, due to the pandemic, our government was granted an extension until December 2020 to comply with this order.

Could the Minister of Justice please update the House on our government's plan to comply with the Truchon decision and to respect the court-imposed deadline?

[Ruth Bader Ginsburg, September 24th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, September 18 was a dark day that mourned the loss of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Although she was a petite woman, she established herself as a giant on whose shoulders we stand.

As a law professor, lawyer, judge and justice, she basically created the legal concept of gender discrimination and then set about challenging that discrimination in all of its forms. She is gone, but her legacy, the opportunities she created, the rights she fought for and the status quo she changed will live on.

This week we celebrate gender equality in Canada and I can think of no better time to recognize Justice Ginsburg's legacy. As she said in her own words, “As society sees what women can do, as women see what women can do, there will be more women out there doing things, and we'll all be better off for it.”

May her memory be a blessing.