Linda Duncan

[Job Losses in the Energy Sector, February 8th, 2017]

Mr. Chair, we know about the crisis in Alberta. We know that the crisis across Canada is rising unemployment, but surely, I can put the question to my colleagues.

I am hearing from Albertans, including oil sands workers. They are fed up with the boom and bust oil economy.

I am saying this in all seriousness, I am hearing this from constituents. Is it not time that we stopped relying on the up and down price of oil and started to move to real investments, to a diversified economy, including a diversified energy economy?

[Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Awards, February 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to recognize the presence on the Hill today of pre-eminent Canadians who are this year's recipients of Canada's top research awards.

It is my particular honour to recognize Edmonton Strathcona constituent, Dr. Darren Grant, Canada research chair in astroparticle physics at the University of Alberta. He is receiving the E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship award. This award will support his continued world-leading research at IceCube, the world's largest particle detector. Located at the South Pole, it records nearly massless subatomic particles called neutrinos by mining deep, ancient, pure, glacier ice. I am told the study of these contributes to the knowledge of how the universe evolved.

I invite all members of the House to join me in a round of applause for Dr. Grant and all of the award winners.

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments about supporting the middle class. The concern that I share with my colleagues is about those who aspire to be in the middle class.

The member's government put out a trial balloon saying it might think about taxing medical and dental benefits. There are a lot of Canadians who do not even have basic access to medical services or dental services, particularly a lot of our first nation communities. Her government promised that it would deliver on the promise so that there would be comparable services for indigenous families and children, and it broke that promise.

We cannot take the word of the Liberals on the promises of electoral reform. They already broke their promises about basic services to indigenous families. What else can we expect the government might be bringing forward? Will it or will it not be taxing the services? Will it or will it not be finally delivering on the opportunity for equal access to basic dental and medical services?

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2017]

Madam Speaker, it is very interesting that the Conservative Party is now standing to oppose this proposal to impose a tax when the leader of the member's party, the leader of the official opposition, actually commissioned an advisory panel on health care in June 2014, and that panel recommended this very measure. Has there been a change of heart in whose advice the Conservative Party is now listening to?

Could the member please explain the change in course, all of a sudden?

[U.S. Decision Regarding Travel Ban, January 31st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague from the Liberal Party to again respond to the question my colleague from Alberta raised.

There is a very clear action that the Government of Canada could take. It has been called for time after time by Canadians in the streets. We have made the very formal request tonight here in the emergency debate. Under the safe third country agreement, there is a provision whereby Canada has the opportunity to simply suspend, for the time period of this executive order, the provision of that agreement to the United States, so those who may be stranded in the United States of America as refugees have the opportunity to claim asylum in Canada.

Could the member please respond to that specific request? Does she not think that when we draft those agreements, we think ahead to the occasion when the situation might break down and the United States could do the same to us? Does the member not think this would be the reasonable thing to do, at least in this interim period?

[Natural Resources, January 31st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the government campaigned on the promise to immediately restore public voices in the assessment and approval of resource projects. It committed that only communities can grant permission for these projects, yet 15 months after taking office, the Liberals have approved pipelines, LNG plants, and major dams using Stephen Harper's retrograde process.

How many more resource projects will the Liberals approve using the Conservatives' failed process?

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, January 31st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member for Edmonton Centre supporting the bill brought forward by his government. However, I have a question for him.

Our party has a long-standing call for his minister, who has the powers under the Emergency Act, to declare this a public emergency. The member is aware, as I and my city are, of the crisis we are facing with deaths from opioid addiction.

Will the member support our call for a declaration of an emergency so the minister can demand more funds be made available, and to at least have temporary injection sites? More than 87 organizations in Edmonton are desperately calling for immediate action, not for waiting until the bill finally passes through the House and Senate.

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, January 31st, 2017]

Madam Speaker, what is stunning to me is that the member appears to be saying that he agrees that we are facing an opioid epidemic.

We have been told by the minister that there has been an 80% increase in deaths from overdose since 2015. There have been huge increases in deaths from overdose in my city alone.

More than 87 organizations that work with the homeless, the HIV-infected, and the addicted came forward to oppose the legislation of the member's government. They said that safe injection sites were proven to decrease overdose, death, injury and risk behaviour, that access to health care for the marginalized increased, that it saved health care costs, and that it decreased open drug use and publicly discarded equipment.

Therefore, given the member supports the fact that there is an opioid epidemic, will he support our call for a national public emergency to be declared so federal resources will be made available immediately, and at least temporary safe injection sites?

[Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, December 13th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, there are Ukrainian Canadians right across this country and they have contributed considerably given the way that they were originally treated and have gone beyond that. A Ukrainian Canadian became the premier of my province of Alberta. Many have served as cabinet ministers and now a number serve as members of Parliament in this place.

The Ukrainian community in Edmonton has raised substantial funds to support the people who are fighting in eastern Ukraine to get back their liberty and have spoken up on behalf of the Tatars. They have also spoken up for the benefit of Ukrainians so that they can develop a true democracy and their families back in the old country can benefit from the economic development that they hope will come soon.

[Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, December 13th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, yes, the signing of a trade deal, as I mentioned, would send a message that Canada has faith in Ukraine and wants to encourage greater Canadian investment. However, it does not go far enough.

Canada previously has given some level of aid to Ukraine to develop its institutions, including at the local level, and to work toward engaging Ukrainians who have not had a lot of experience with democracy.

It is our obligation, in entering into this trade agreement, to make sure that Ukrainians themselves, not the oligarchs, benefit from any trade with Canada.

I encourage the Government of Canada to increase that level of investment and work with the brilliant interns who have served us so well here in Parliament.