Maryam Monsef

[Telecommunications, October 22nd, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, let me correct the record. More fibre was put into the ground by our Liberal Prime Minister than the previous prime minister.

Every single day our entire team is seized by the challenges that rural Canadians and suburban Canadians experience without access to high-speed Internet and cell service. The investment announced with the Canada Infrastructure Bank will connect three-quarters more Canadians to this essential service, and we will have more to say soon.

[Telecommunications, October 22nd, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, is my hon. colleague suggesting that my team and I staying in touch with his is the wrong thing to do? Is my hon. colleague truly suggesting that a member of Parliament for a mixed rural-urban riding does not understand rural Canada? I urge him to put partisanship aside. Rural Canadians are counting on us and our entire government will be there for them.

[Women and Gender Equality, October 22nd, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, in Dorval, Lachine, Lasalle and across the country women have borne the greatest burdens of this pandemic on the front lines of our care systems, with work hours lost, with increases in unpaid care work and greater vulnerability to gender-based violence. We owe it to those who have come before us to protect their hard-won gains and work with the feminist movement every step of the way.

Our government will ensure that women are working, that they are safe and that their families are cared for. Indeed, it is Canada's only path to a full recovery.

[Telecommunications, October 19th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, as a member of Parliament for a mixed rural and urban riding, I am too familiar to the challenges that come without access to broadband and cell service. As a member of Parliament in this House over the past five years, I am proud that we have been able to connect four times as many households as our Conservative colleagues were able to in the 10 years they were in power.

We know this is an important part of Canada's economic recovery, and we will work hard to connect every Canadian household to this essential service.

[Telecommunications, October 9th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I would like to correct the record. Budget 2019 and the year 2019 were important for Canadians. We brought forward the first strategy to connect all Canadians to high-speed Internet, something that our hon. colleagues on the Conservative side of the House failed to do appropriately when they had 10 years to do it.

We have connected four times more households and invested to connect more than fourfold Canadian households and businesses to high-speed Internet in less than half the time. We are not done yet, and I hope our colleagues across the aisle will support our efforts to connect Canadians.

[Telecommunications, October 6th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, it has been a particularly difficult time for parents who have kids in school. I want to let my colleague know that, as per our conversation, I am committed to working with him to connect his communities. The universal broadband fund will be opening soon.

Under our plan, the number of households in Quebec that have been connected in the last five years is five times greater than the number of households in Quebec that were connected under the Conservatives' plan. We have done that in half the time. We are not done yet and I look forward to his support.

[Telecommunications, October 6th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak directly to David and others like him through you.

There are a million households that have access to high-speed Internet because of our government's investment. Over five years, we were able to deliver three times more connectivity to communities compared with the Conservatives' plan. We are not done yet. We have more work to do and we will connect every household to this essential service.

[Judges Act, October 2nd, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, let me first explain how we are moving forward on this issue. We have to engage men and boys. To see my male colleagues, inside and outside of the House, become part of the solution gives me hope that the length of progress moving forward will not be as painful and as slow as it has been because we have them standing with us.

I thank the hon. member, and in response to his question, let me talk about what rape culture is. Rape culture is a sociological concept for a setting in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality. Behaviours commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, slut shaming, sexual objectification, rape trivialization, denial of widespread rape, refusing to acknowledge the harm caused by sexual violence or some combination of these. It leads to a culture of impunity. The best description I have seen on how to understand rape culture is the 11th principle of consent, which shows how sexists attitudes, rape jokes and locker room banter move in severity across a spectrum and lead to the degrading and assaulting of victims and that culture of impunity. The trauma-informed and culturally sensitive training we are talking about is meant to ensure we dig deep into those norms and attitudes.

I will wrap up with this. Yes, we need to ensure everybody gets this training, but we have an obligation and an opportunity to lead by example. My Department of Women and Gender Equality is receiving anti-oppression and anti-racism training. I think we can lead by example as parliamentarians to seek such training as other institutions also do the same.

I thank all the judges who choose this line of work. It is difficult work. We appreciate and respect them, and we look forward to continuing to strengthen our justice system with them.

[Judges Act, October 2nd, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, my predecessor on this file is now the Minister of Health. She was ready to move forward with the national action plan. We previously sat really close to each other in the House of Commons, so we would talk about this.

She was horrified and I was surprised that the federal government, the Government of Canada, 150 years after Confederation, did not have a coordinated plan in the House to address and prevent gender-based violence. Before we leapt to a national plan, to get support from provinces and territories, which have been the lead on this file, we had to get our house in order. That is what the federal strategy to address and prevent gender-based violence is about. We have been implementing that.

For the first time since 1998, we brought back a survey on gender-based violence. We had stopped surveying that. We were able to increase support for front-line organizations more than five-fold and, of course, we are working with the very partners my colleague referred to.

The timeline is now. The work is happening now. We are moving forward now, and we are moving forward in tandem with the work being done with the calls to justice around the MMIWG inquiry.

I want to thank my colleague for her incredible work and her advocacy. The story I shared earlier was a story that happened in her backyard in London, and it is not a story unique to her backyard. Every two and a half days in our country, a woman is killed, not just assaulted, but killed. We have an opportunity in the wake of this awful mess that is COVID to honour the survivors who have come before us and do right by women, who clearly make our economy and our communities go round.

Enough is enough. We have an opportunity in this House of 338 members to do something.

[Judges Act, October 2nd, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for my colleague's strong advocacy. Her first speech in the House of Commons was on December 6, shortly after we all came together for this new Parliament, and I appreciate that.

The national action plan on gender-based violence is in the works. We have received agreement and principle to move forward with this from my honourable counterparts, and the provinces and territories. It is going to build on the existing work, while recognizing that the federal government does not have all the levers. In fact, the majority of the jurisdiction is with provinces and territories and, of course, with municipalities, which experience this on the ground.

My colleague knows that, for example, the issues around consent and sexual education are the purview of the provinces. I have been so encouraged that every single minister responsible for the status of women in every province and territory, regardless of partisan stripe, just like us in this House, sees this issue as one that is multipartisan in nature. It is an issue that has to be moved upon as we get closer and closer to the 50th anniversary of the tabling the report from the Royal Commission on the Status of Women.

I would love to speak with the member more on this. I welcome every colleague who cares about this issue to reach out to me. Together we can turn this into—