Mr. Speaker, congratulations again. It is always interesting to see different people sitting in the chair, and I think your French is very good. I am probably learning and picking up a few words from you as you proceed.
This is my first opportunity to stand in the 44th Parliament. I am not sure if this is my ninth time or my 10th time here, but it has been quite a few times. I have to thank the people of Humber River—Black Creek.
I have a very interesting riding. I am next to Etobicoke North and just up from York Centre, which are all ridings that have tremendous challenges. A lot of new immigrants who come to Toronto and region end up in these particular communities, so naturally, their needs are enormous. There are new immigrants trying to settle and so on, and then along came the pandemic. We really had our hands full trying to deal with all of that.
Before I go too far, I must do what my other colleagues have done and thank my husband of many years. I am not going to say how many years that is either, but it is many years. Sam is the one who loves politics in the family, much more than me, and he is very engaged in everything that goes on here in the House and in the community. Then I have my daughters, Cathy and Deanna; my son, Saverio; and my sign chairman, my wonderful son-in-law, Graziano. Without him, it would have been really difficult to get through this year.
While we are here, spending the amount of time we spend here in the House, we have to rely on our constituency staff because that is where it all happens. We can make policies, do all kinds of things, yell at each other and all of that, but the real work happens in our constituency offices.
I have been blessed over many years to have had fabulous staff, dedicated people. My staff are Amy, Albert, Juan, Abby, Mitch, Patrick and of course, my dear friend Mary Anne, who was a campaign manager for me in my very first election in 1989 for city council, and she is still there with us. Without having those kind of people around, I do not believe I would have been here the amount of years I have been. Everyone is committed, and I want to sincerely thank all of them for their commitment, not just to me, but to the people of Humber River—Black Creek. This is about caring for people who live in Humber River—Black Creek, recognizing their needs are enormous and looking to see what we can do for them.
Some of the volunteers who came out in this past election are Lena Muto, Lucia Catania, Mr. Tran, Alicia, James, Grant, Syam and Nero. The list could go on, but I tried to pull out just a few to give an example of the diversity of the volunteers who came out in the riding.
The pandemic hit, and like everywhere else across the country, the ridings were devastated. I never thought in our lifetime that we would end up having to deal with a pandemic, and many people did not understand half of what was going on, but the community mobilized very, very quickly. We had people delivering food. Wherever we found out that there was a family in distress, we made a point of getting to them, communing with them and supplying them with food or even toilet paper. Whatever they needed, we tried to find it to help them out.
When our government started with the various programs, it was an absolute life saver for thousands and thousands of people who live in Humber River—Black Creek who needed the support. They had no way to pay their rent, and with the rent subsidy program, they were able to get their rent paid. With the CERB, they were able to help get bills paid and put food on the table.
I am immensely grateful to our government for what it did and for those programs, and they went all the way across the country. It does not matter what party someone is in or anything else. The people needed help, and we all worked together to make sure that help was going to be given to them in various different programs.
There were many phone calls that we would have with the ministers, and questions for them where we identified a particular problem in an industry, or this group or that group, and immediately a program would be created. We know this is not always easy.
Government does not turn on a dime, but with respect to the pandemic it had to turn on not only a dime, but a penny, because it had to create programs to get money out there to help people, such as seniors, children, families and many other people.
The Humber River Hospital mobilized, along with the Black Creek Community Health Centre, to try to reach the people who were reluctant to get vaccines. We had a very high proportion of people who did not want to get vaccinated. Between the Humber River Hospital and the Black Creek Community Health Centre, they literally went to the lobbies of apartment buildings, educated the residents as to why it was important to get vaccinated and would then administer the vaccines. That happened a lot to try to get our numbers up into a higher rate.
Of course, we also had the school issue, with children in schools and those who were home. The TDSB and the Catholic board were able to get iPads for many of the children to be able to work from home and also paid for the Internet in order to be able to educate the children. I have to say that the work the school trustee for the Catholic Toronto District School Board, Ida Li Preti, and the public school board trustee, Chris Mammoliti, did was unbelievable to try to protect families and children as much as possible. In fact, last weekend and this week, there are 12 schools that are open and providing vaccines, which was organized between the two school boards to make sure those children are getting vaccinated. However, in all of those lineups on the weekend, there were a lot of parents and other people who were not vaccinated either. It was not just children in those lineups, so we are continuing to push to make sure we are educating people to understand the importance of vaccines.
I need to recognize the Jamaican Canadian Association, the Belka Enrichment Centre, the Jane and Finch Boys and Girls Clubs, the Afri-Can FoodBasket and Kitchen24 as examples of organizations that helped to deliver food and hot meals to many of the people who were struggling in the riding.
I will move on to Bill C-2 and the small businesses that still need help. I am very pleased to see Bill C-2. It is so important. I will tell the House about Islington Travel Agencies on Islington Avenue. I believe it has been there for 35 years. It is owned by a sole proprietor who is a woman. She used to have six people working for her. She has been trying to carry the business forward by herself. She gets some help, but she owns the building, so it creates other problems with respect to some of these different programs.
I believe Bill C-2 will really target the tourism and travel industry. When we talk about what we have to do to get through this pandemic and get over it, and unfortunately it looks like we are heading for another challenging issue, we need to give people the confidence that they can travel, go to restaurants or go out and feel safe, but wear their mask if necessary. Unfortunately, I see far too many restaurants with very few people in them. People are still very intimidated regarding any exposure they might have. Dolcini's is another business that without the help of the government would no longer be in business today. It used to provide beautiful sweets to the major hotels and banquet halls in the city. Once those businesses were no longer functioning, it no longer had a business to serve. It has managed, little by little, with the help of the government, to be able to move forward.
All of these different companies are so grateful, as am l, for what the government has done. I hope we can pass Bill C-2, get it to the finance committee and ask the questions that are necessary to make it better and stronger. From here, I hope we will move into the economic recovery that we all want to see.
