Sheila Malcolmson

[Taxation, September 20th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, we still have heard no evidence from the government on the basis which it decided this was not an effective way to help affordability and help people want to ride public transit. The prospect of spending on public transit 11 years out does nothing for the people who right now need that rebate to help them ride the transit to get to work. The middle-class tax cuts that the government keeps talking about did not affect the most low-income people in my community or across the country. Therefore, it is very hard to hear this. There is a good intention, but there is no implementation.

My colleague, the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, had an online petition. Thousands of people signed it, saying that public transit helps local air quality, commuters, jobs, and the environment.

Why did the government proceed, and do this mean-spirited cancellation of the tax rebate?

[Taxation, September 20th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, in June, the New Democrats made a final appeal to the finance minister to maintain the public transit tax credit. This used to be an incentive to encourage ridership.

In the last federal budget, the government announced that the tax credit would be killed on June 30. It was extremely disappointing that after all the opposition from seniors, students, poor workers, and single moms, the government still decided to go ahead and abolish the tax credit. That is not leadership and that is not walking the talk on either the middle class or on climate change.

That transit tax rebate made the daily use of public transit a bit more affordable in my community. In our community of Nanaimo—Ladysmith, there was a double hit of the cancellation of this tax rebate: bus riders were the obvious one, but also ferry-dependent communities, such as Gabriola Island, where I live.

Lots of commuters go back and forth every day. People in my community who work at the hospital, who are back and forth on the ferry every day, were saving hundreds of dollars a year, and more. In my region the evidence does not support the government's assertion back in the spring that this was a benefit for wealthy people riding the bus. Middle-class families and low-income individuals are the ones who are paying the price of this cancellation.

In 2018, 1.5 million Canadians will see an increase in their federal income tax because of the cancellation of the public transit tax rebate. The public transit users, obviously not the wealthiest people in Canada, were getting back, collectively, $250 million a year. Now each individual person will pay, on average, $150 to $200 more in federal taxes. That will affect seniors, students, the working poor, and single moms. It is a transit tax rebate that used to be open to everyone across the country. It was one of the things that used to give people who would ride public transit a bit of a break.

Reducing accessibility to public transit while everyone is just struggling to get by runs counter to the fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Clearly, the government does not walk its talk on either public transit or affordability. Therefore, if the government is really serious about fighting climate change and defending the middle class, why did it proceed with the cancellation of the public transit tax credit?

[Petitions, September 20th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, to solve the long-standing problem of abandoned vessels on three of Canada's coasts, I proposed legislation, Bill C-352,, calling on the federal government to legislate a solution to this long-standing problem. Petitioners from Gabriola Island, Vancouver, Cowichan Bay, Duncan, Nanaimo, Ladysmith and Chemainus all urge the government to work together with the provinces and local coastal communities to identify the Coast Guard as the point of first responsibility in responding to abandoned vessels so they will not create oil spills and threaten maritime jobs and economies. They also call for innovative solutions around recycling and product stewardship that would create salvage markets for these problem vessels.

[Social Development, September 19th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I suggest that the extended parental leave provisions would have had more of an impact on Canadian families, and Canadian women in particular, if the Liberals had added more money into the fund. In this case, people are now allowed to have parental leave living on just one-third of their salary. It really only benefits the wealthiest Canadians.

I also draw the minister's attention to a lot of the testimony we had from a huge range of witnesses at the status of women committee, that reiterated again and again that the EI system, because it is based on the number of hours worked, is discriminatory to women who work on a shorter-term basis. Again, we call on the government to implement a true feminist agenda by legislating pay equity; by making affordable child care universal so that when people get the child tax benefit they have somewhere to spend it; and to introduce the promised legislation to allow domestic violence leave for women in the workforce. We need to legislate to show that we care.

[Social Development, September 19th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I am following up on a discussion with the minister upon the announcement, with great pride, of the new parental leave provisions. My question, at least six months ago now, was when is the government going to implement legislative measures that would actually help women and families on the ground. This was a measure that appeared to be targeted more at wealthy parents needing extra parental leave. It was a disappointment that it did not actually put more money in the pockets of young families.

Today, I tabled an interim report arising from evidence we have been hearing throughout this year at the status of women committee on the imperative to close the legislative gap, for the federal government to do everything it can to remove barriers to women's economic success and bring economic justice for women.

We heard a lot of testimony at the committee that described a cycle that young families get into, and young women in particular. Not being able to find affordable child care, a family will have to make a decision about which parent will drop out of the workforce to accommodate that new family pressure, and because we still do not have federal pay equity legislation, it tends to be the female parent who is the one who earns the lower wage. Plus, women traditionally continue to do a disproportionate share of unpaid care. Therefore, it is the woman who drops out of the workforce, generally. When she re-enters the workforce, she is more likely to take on part-time and precarious work, for which there is no social safety net around employment insurance. We still do not have employment insurance that is designed for the shorter periods of work that part-time positions have. We certainly know in Canada, with the loss of good manufacturing jobs and full-time positions, there has been a real movement toward short-term contracts and precarious work. It particularly affects young women and young people generally.

Then we see later in life that, because they have been lower wage earners throughout their careers, women are more likely to retire with fewer savings. Especially if their marriage ends, they are particularly vulnerable to potentially retiring in poverty.

This is illustrated in my own riding. I heard this summer that at the Samaritan House, which is run by a wonderful group doing very hard work in Nanaimo, 50% of the homeless women at their shelter are now over the age of 50. These homeless shelters are designed around bunk beds. The women cannot climb into them.

In my own family, my sister Claire had to leave Toronto because, for her and her husband, child care was more expensive than their rent. We have heard these stories again and again.

I ask again to the government: what is it going to do with its legislative power in the House to remove those barriers to women's economic prosperity? If you are really a feminist government, please walk the talk.

[Petitions, September 19th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I stand once again with many signatories in coastal communities who call for the federal government to legislate a solution to the long-standing problem of abandoned vessels on all three of Canada's coasts. Bill C-352 is my legislation that we are calling on Parliament to adopt, in the absence of the government proposing its own legislative remedy. It would designate the Coast Guard as one-stop shopping and the first responsible agency. It would work with local governments and provinces to create incentives for people turning in their abandoned vessels, therefore preventing the pollution and oil spill risks; and it would also work with local salvage companies to work on the products' stewardship and fibreglass recycling, which might be one of the nuts we can crack around getting a solution.

If the government were to accede to this motion, it would be in very good company. We have resolutions of support from local governments from Vancouver Island in the west to the island of Newfoundland in the east. Next week, the Union of BC Municipalities executive is recommending to its convention of local governments that they also endorse my legislation to solve the abandoned vessel problem.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 18th, 2017]

With regard to federal spending in the constituency of Nanaimo—Ladysmith in fiscal years 2015-16 and 2016-17: (a) what grants, loans, contributions and contracts were awarded by the government, broken down by (i) department and agency, (ii) municipality, (iii) name of recipient, (iv) amount received, (v) program under which expenditure was allocated, (vi) date; and (b) for the Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program, between the program’s launch on January 1, 2015, and May 29, 2017, (i) which proposals from the constituency have been submitted, (ii) which proposals from the constituency have been approved?

[Indigenous Affairs, September 18th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women got more bad news this weekend. Maclean's reports that out of the $5 million spent by the inquiry, $2 million was taken completely by Privy Council Office bureaucracy, yet families needing extra help with travel and counselling for the inquiry are told that there is not enough for them. Can this really be true? Are the Liberals really spending 40% of the inquiry's budget on bureaucracy?

[Gender Equality Week Act, June 21st, 2017]

Madam Speaker, 50 years ago this year, the Royal Commission on the Status of Women exposed widespread discrimination against women in Canada. Fifty years later, that promise of equality is still not realized.

Liberal and Conservative governments have ignored the commission's recommendations, and successive Liberal and Conservative governments have cut social spending. That has had a direct impact on women's equality. Since 1995, Canada has dropped from first on the UN gender equality list to 25. How long will the Liberal government fail to rectify 50 years of women's inequality?

I will not argue with gender equality week, which is the subject of the debate here, Bill C-309. The government has set a good tone. It has put a lot of women MPs on its front bench. I laud it for that. The Prime Minister talks a good talk on feminism. The tone change is welcome. What we are pushing for is action to match the feminist rhetoric.

Despite the Prime Minister's good words about gender equality, he has failed to act in the year and a half the government has been in power, and the United Nations is calling him on it. The United Nations committee to end discrimination against women told Canada in November to get to work on legal aid, abortion access, pay equity, child care, and indigenous women's safety. The list went on and on. This is a big list and it is a big deal. The UN only digs into countries' commitments around their pledge to end discrimination against women every five years, and this is an important road map for the government to follow.

The government says it cares about the United Nations, says it cares about women, yet the United Nations says that the Liberal government is failing to act.

In February, we saw hundreds of women's groups and human rights and labour organizations calling on the Prime Minister to heed the United Nations' demand and step up for women's equality. The month before, in January, thousands of Canadians marched for women's rights. New Democrats stood with them, but there were no Liberal cabinet ministers I am aware of, although they might have been there. All of us were urging the government to get to work, use the tools it has at hand, use the majority it has, uphold its election commitments, uphold human rights, and make gender equality a reality for all women.

New Democrats have very specific actions in mind, and many of them have been long in the making, but the Liberal government has failed to translate these words into action. We would have wanted to see the government voting for my colleague from Burnaby South's private member's bill, the gender equity act. It had a very specific mechanism that could have moved this Parliament beyond having just roughly 25% women as members.

Canada ranks very low on the world index around the proportion of women. The increments are suggested by Equal Voice, an NGO committed to increasing women's representation in elected positions. They say that at this rate, it is going to take 89 years to reach gender equality in the House. A specific tool would have been helpful, but the government voted against it. In fact, the sponsor of this private member's bill, which purports to represent gender equality, also voted against that bill. The government did not propose its own alternative solution, which was discouraging.

Second, along with the United Nations committee to end discrimination against women, we have been urging the government to adopt a national strategy to end violence against women. That is the commitment Canada made to the United Nations. The government says that it is going to do a much narrower federal strategy instead, which will focus on data collection and internal government operations. That is not the commitment that it made internationally, which was to a national strategy that would exercise federal leadership to coordinate provincial, territorial, and municipal responses around social services and policing so that women in different corners in the country would have equivalent access to justice and equivalent expectation of safety.

Again, that is something that the government still has not done.

A third action that would make a big difference to women on the ground would be to legislate pay equity. I was very glad to have the government support a motion the New Democrats and I brought to the House in February 2016. It agreed to add pay equity to its commitments to Canada. The all-party committee recommended a year ago that by June 2017 legislation be tabled in the House. The government is now saying maybe late 2018. There is no rationale for that. Not a single witness recommended anything later than June 2017. Women have been asked to wait more than long enough, and there is no rationale for ragging the puck on pay equity. It is, honestly, an international embarrassment. We are way behind the mark on this.

A fourth action that would make a real difference to women on the ground would be ensuring no woman or child is every turned away from a domestic violence shelter when they need it. About 500 women and children are turned away every night from domestic violence shelters in Canada. Imagine the danger they would have to feel themselves to be in for them to gather their children, leave their family home, and ask for help. It would be embarrassing, and scary to conger up that courage, and then to be turned away, being told there is no room at the inn. That is heartbreaking.

For indigenous women, we keep hearing again and again that domestic violence shelters on reserve are 100% a federal responsibility. Its commitment is to build five shelters over the next five years. That is just a single digit, while the organization Pauktuutit tells us 70% of Inuit women have no access to any domestic violence shelter anywhere. That is something that would make a difference to people's lives on the ground right now.

We could also support the proposal submitted by my colleague from London—Fanshawe regarding free prescription birth control. It could be included in a pharmacare program. It is very expensive for women, young women especially. Birth control access is a vital part of women's economy, and ability to control their family planning, so they can fully participate in the workforce. The costs of family planning fall disproportionately to women, and real action on this would make a difference.

However, the private member's bill we have before us is simply to celebrate gender equality week. We had urged at committee to tie the enactment of the bill to such a time as pay equity is implemented, then maybe we would have something to celebrate. When I made that proposal, the sponsor said the bill is more intended to give citizens an opportunity to protest for gender equality, to put pressure on the government, to which I said, “This government says it is a feminist government and the Prime Minister is a feminist prime minister, and therefore we do not need to protest. For goodness' sake, women have had decades of practising their protesting, and I really do not think they need to be given any more opportunities.”

Therefore, because no one should ever vote against something as motherhood as this, I am going to support it, and so are my fellow New Democrats. We voted for it at every stage, but let us put those good intentions into action. Let us move beyond these celebratory, emblematic gestures by the government and its members, and let us do the hard work of legislating, so that when this enlightened, feminist government is no longer in power, there will be a legislative framework that the women of Canada can count on to make sure whoever is in power and whatever their intentions, gender equality is guaranteed for women now and in generations to come.

[Petitions, June 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I present petitions on behalf of many people in Nanaimo, B.C. The petitioners argue that the prohibition of cannabis has criminalized millions of Canadians, and that cannabis has the potential to provide medicine, food, and fibre.

The petitioners ask that Parliament remove marijuana possession from the Criminal Code, end police raids against dispensaries, for those with criminal records for personal possession grant full pardon and amnesty, and release prisoners now serving time. I urge the government to so act.