Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Jonquière.
I am incredibly proud to rise in the House to speak to our opposition day motion, an NDP motion that makes it clear that the Liberal government has been governing in the interests of its rich friends at the expense of working Canadians, at the expense of Canadians who are struggling day-in and day-out.
Our motion touches on a number of key points and provides a clear contrast as to how the Liberals have looked out for their rich friends rather than Canadians. I also want to outline the last part of our opposition day motion that demands action. We say that at the very least the government should recover the $12 million given to Loblaws for fridges and reinvest it to the benefit of working Canadians and their families.
We are here in the House today demanding action on behalf of Canadians. I want to touch on two main themes coming out of this opposition day motion. The first is the misplaced priorities of the Liberal government. The second is the way in which the government is greenwashing its agenda, pretending that it is taking on climate change when in fact it is not.
We heard Liberal members of Parliament today, and in weeks and months prior, talk about their defence of middle-class Canadians. The title of their most recent budget touched on their defence of middle-class Canadians. I welcome them to speak to Canadians where I am from in northern Manitoba, to hear how their lives have become more challenging in the last few years, yes, under the previous Harper government but also under the current government.
My region has seen sustained job loss. My home town of Thompson has lost 600 jobs in the last few months. In a community of 13,000 people, that figure is devastating. All of those jobs were in the value-added sector of mining in our community. They are the best middle-class jobs that women and men have done for decades, jobs that are integrally linked to processing the wealth that belongs to the people in our region and our province.
Unfortunately, both the previous Harper government and the current Liberal government did not stand in defence of those jobs. The previous government was all too happy to ensure the foreign ownership of the company that existed in our area was without any protection for jobs. Fast forward a few years later, we were sold out and the current Liberal government was nowhere to be found to mitigate the kind of damage we have gone through.
Flin Flon, another proud mining town, has also experienced great instability. Hudson's Bay most recently talked about the impending major job losses in that region. The labour movement in that part of our region is fighting hard to try to find solutions for workers. Unfortunately, once again, the current federal government is nowhere to be found.
We are also seeing major issues with respect to chronic high unemployment in first nations across our region. I want to touch on that point particularly because it is repeatedly overlooked in the government's rhetoric with respect to the middle class. The reality is that so many indigenous communities in our country are struggling in third world living conditions. Many people can only aspire to attain that middle-class lifestyle. However, as a result of chronic underfunding, systemic racism and generally an overall disrespect of indigenous rights, too many indigenous peoples in our region and across the country live below or around the poverty line.
To bring it back to this opposition day motion, I did talk about the government's misplaced priorities, in particular, this gift of $12 million to Loblaws, a large, successful company, owned by the second richest Canadian, to buy fridges ostensibly to take on climate change when communities, especially indigenous communities, are struggling on the frontline of climate change right now.
In fact, when I raised it in the House, it was on the heels of asking a very poignant question on behalf of people in Lac Brochet, one of the farthest-north communities in my region. When I visited there a few weeks ago, I was told by elders and leaders that they were deeply concerned that the caribou herds had moved further north because of climate change. That means their community, which has relied on the caribou since time immemorial, is struggling because caribou are their way of life. They wanted some financial support from the federal government to support a community hunt. They also talked about the need for immediate, urgent action to take on climate change.
I brought that issue back to the House of Commons. The government dismissed the demand I made on behalf of the people of Lac Brochet. A few short days later, to great fanfare, unfortunately the Minister of Environment and Climate Change announced that the government would be giving the famous $12 million to Loblaws to fight climate change. There is no money for Lac Brochet and no leadership on climate change for first nations and other Canadians, but there is all the money for some of the richest Canadians to greenwash their corporate agenda and the government's governing agenda.
What we are going through in our region is nothing short of a crisis in different ways. Repeatedly, when I go on the road when I am visiting in community after community, people tell me they feel abandoned by the federal government. I was just on the east side of Lake Winnipeg a couple of days ago, People were hopeful about the statements that were made by the Prime Minister. He talked about a new way of working with first nations. He committed to reconciliation and to working with first nations on a nation-to-nation relationship. Many people have seen almost nothing change in their daily reality.
It is no secret to many in the House that one of the biggest issues facing first nations and the on-reserve reality is a housing crisis. I visited Poplar River last week. I was told that there was a need for 80 to 100 homes. In Berens River, there is an average of seven to 10 people living in every house. The young man who works on housing made it very clear that the current housing that existed was not adequate for most families because it had mould and required major renovations. He asked where the federal government was.
While we hear a federal government that has, in rhetoric, a commitment to first nations, the reality on the ground is very different. It continues to govern in such a way that first nations people struggle, that people in resource-dependent areas struggle, for example where I come from, and repeatedly the federal government is nowhere to be found.
I will finish on the major question that we also ask through our opposition motion, which is the government's lack of action on climate change. I say this not just knowing the reality of our north where we live with climate change every day, but also in the Ottawa region where so many people are struggling right now to fight rising water levels.
I was moved by some powerful words of a young woman across the ocean. She is shaking people up and showing leadership on climate change. Most important, she is calling for leaders to do something about it.
Greta Thunberg, a 16 year old from Sweden, recently spoke to British parliamentarians. She talked about how she, “was fortunate to be born in a time and place where everyone told us to dream big.” She went on to say:
Now we probably don’t even have a future any more.
Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money. It was stolen from us every time you said that the sky was the limit, and that you only live once.
Young people like Greta and young people and young indigenous people in our country are making the connection between the misplaced priorities of governments like the Liberal government to benefit its rich friends at the expense of so many Canadians and at the expense of truly showing leadership on climate change.
I am proud of the kind of leadership that we in the NDP are showing, not just today through this opposition motion but every day, in calling for urgent action on climate change, in making it clear that it is everyday Canadians who need and deserve a government on their side.
