Niki Ashton

[Business of Supply, May 30th, 2016]

Madam Chair, again on the issue of employment, particularly precarious employment, I wonder if the minister could tell us how many Canadians are stuck in unpaid internships across the country.

[Business of Supply, May 30th, 2016]

Madam Chair, the answer to that would be $1.2 billion. While we are aware, we are also expecting concrete answers from the minister, which unfortunately we are not quite getting here tonight.

I wonder why the government has not used the EI account surplus to extend benefits to unemployed Canadians.

[Business of Supply, May 30th, 2016]

Madam Chair, we find the fact that only four in ten Canadians can access EI to be wholly unacceptable. I wonder if the minister could tell us what is the expected annual surplus in the EI account for this year.

[Business of Supply, May 30th, 2016]

Madam Chair, the answer to that would be only 546,000 Canadians are able to access EI benefits, a figure that is entirely inadequate given that the EI fund belongs workers and those who need it when they fall on hard times. I wonder if the minister believes that less than four in ten unemployed Canadians being able to access EI is an acceptable figure.

[Business of Supply, May 30th, 2016]

Madam Chair, the answer is that almost 1.4 million Canadians are unemployed, and more than 900,000 work involuntarily part-time.

Moving to the issue of employment insurance, could the minister tell us how many Canadians are currently able to access EI benefits?

[Business of Supply, May 30th, 2016]

Madam Chair, we certainly hope so. This is a main priority for the NDP, fighting for the $15 federal minimum wage.

Moving to the issue of unemployment, I would like to ask the minister how many Canadians are unemployed and how many are working in involuntary part-time positions.

[Business of Supply, May 30th, 2016]

Madam Chair, I will begin by focusing a question on the issue of employment.

The minimum wage has become a symbol of the minimum threshold for dignity. The states of New York and California both plan to adopt this minimum wage in the next few years.

In the interest of equity and fairness, will the minister raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour?

[Tamil Heritage Month, May 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in this House in support of the motion. My colleague from Hamilton Mountain also conveyed the support of the NDP on this important motion.

Certainly, as someone who is the daughter of immigrants, I understand well what it means to be both a proud Canadian and to be connected to my heritage and to my community, as one would say, here in Canada. In my case, that is the Greek community, a community to which I am proud to belong.

As I pointed out in the House before, I am also someone who understands how important it is to maintain that connection to our heritage. That is really what today's motion is about, the need to recognize that whether it is for Tamil-Canadians who immigrated to Canada, or their children or their grandchildren who were born and raised in Canada, the recognition that our Parliament would give a time to honour who they are, to honour their language, their culture, is obviously an important message.

Many of us in this House share that same sentiment vis-a-vis other communities as well, and the need to support immigrant communities, linguistic diversity, and cultural programming for ethnic communities or multicultural communities in the country.

While the federal government has played a role on this front, we have seen that in some cases there has been a penchant to go for the symbolic rather than the substantive. The resources have not always been there in terms of making sure that our language schools are supported, that our cultural programming is supported, that festivals are supported that celebrate our multicultural identity. That is something I certainly hope the government will take seriously in terms of its budgetary commitment.

As someone whose first language is neither English nor French, I know how important it is to make sure there is government funding in order for second and third-generation kids, and whoever, to learn their mother tongue. By supporting that kind of work, supporting our diverse communities on that front, we build a stronger sense of what it is to be Canadian.

As I stand here in support of Motion No. 24, I also send a message that it is important that we move from supporting only the symbolic to also recognizing that there is a government role in terms of funding commitments. There is a government role in terms of partnering, including with our provinces, our multicultural organizations, our community centres, in order to make sure we are building the diversity that we are all so very proud of.

As I pointed out, while my heritage may not be Tamil in this case, I certainly recognize the importance of the contributions of the Tamil community, the contributions of immigrant communities to Canada, the contributions of the children and the grandchildren of immigrants to our country, and that we build a stronger Canada when we support diversity, both in the case of Motion No. 24 and legislation of this kind.

It is a real honour to rise in this House and speak to this motion. Certainly I would also add that this allows for more conversations in terms of how we can be supporting communities.

Another area, I should note, that is a very important issue for many immigrant communities, many ethnic communities in Canada, is immigration. Yesterday, in fact, I was in Toronto, and I had the opportunity to visit with a number of young racialized youth, in Scarborough in particular. We had very good conversations about the challenges they face. A number of them were born and raised in Canada to immigrant parents. Some were born overseas and grew up in Canada, and many of them shared their challenges.

One of the challenges that also came up in our discussions was the desire to improve our immigration system whereby families could more easily access family reunification. We know that under previous Liberal and Conservative governments there were significant cuts in the area of family sponsorship and family reunification.

I should note at this juncture that I am very proud of my home province of Manitoba. Thanks to the work of the NDP government, we were able to develop a very robust provincial nominee program that allowed for us to welcome immigrants to our province in a very sincere way. It ensured that people were supported when they came, that families could come together, and that people were able to access language programming and services, as well as job opportunities. This was at a period of time when unfortunately we saw the federal government moving further and further away from family reunification in the context of immigration.

This is a huge issue in many communities across Canada. It is an issue that, sadly, we have yet to see the government act on. While there have been important commitments and certainly important action when it comes to dealing with the refugee crisis and welcoming many Syrian families to Canada, we have also been very outspoken in the NDP that there needs to be that same kind of compassion shown when it comes to our immigration system. We hope the government will take that seriously.

In the spirit of building a more diverse country, let it not just be about the statements of support. Let it be about action, including supporting family reunification in our immigration system when it comes to language training. Also, let it be about offering support, as the federal government used to do in a much bigger way, to communities that want to ensure their languages continue and that their kids and grandkids can still be connected to who they are and their identity. Also, let it be about support for community centres.

I want to acknowledge that there have been instances where the federal government has played a key role, including contributing funds to building the Greek community centre in my province of Winnipeg, which I hold very dear. The federal government stepped up, worked with our provincial government, adding to the many charitable donations made by Greek Canadians in my province, and was able to construct a beautiful community centre of which we are all very proud.

When it comes to cultural communities, that commitment to infrastructure is critical. It is part of how we should see the need to support immigrant communities. I hope, in going forward, we look at the symbolic. However, it is also very important to look at the substantive and where the government and all of us can work with our communities to build a stronger and more diverse country of which we can all be proud.

[Temporary Foreign Workers, May 20th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, this week, we heard more stories of the appalling abuse of temporary foreign workers: people treated like slaves, paid $2 an hour, having their health care taken away, and deported when they are injured on the job.

It is hard to believe that this is Canada in 2016. While the minister has called this exploitation unacceptable, what we have not seen from the government is a commitment to hearing from migrant workers directly and a plan of action to end the abuse.

When will the government and the minister step up and take action to end the exploitation taking place under her watch?

[Privilege, May 18th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, in my colleague's comments, he referred to what happened here as being unacceptable anywhere. I would ask him to speak to just how unacceptable it was, what took place in the House.

We as parliamentarians are counted on to come forward with policy and legislation when it comes to harassment, bullying, ensuring safe work places, fighting violence against women and fighting sexual violence. What took place here in the House was physical violence. We know, and outside, that people would call what happened here assault.

When we are talking about something as serious as what took place in the House, would anyone in the House, or anyone across the country, find that kind of conduct, not just by a prime minister but of anyone, acceptable?