House of Commons photo

Crucial Fact

  • Her favourite word was indigenous.

Last in Parliament January 2019, as NDP MP for Nanaimo—Ladysmith (B.C.)

Won her last election, in 2015, with 33% of the vote.

Statements in the House

The Budget April 5th, 2017

Mr. Speaker, I really wish the member opposite would not patronize members in the House. We are both doing our work for the first time. There is no need for the hon. member to belittle me for only having been elected for a year and a half just as he was.

Regarding the cut of the tax credit, if we were to look at #transittaxcredit, we would see all kinds of people describing, across the whole country, that if individuals bought a transit pass, they would be able to claim it against their income. Certainly, people in my community who were working at the hospital, who were back and forth on the ferry every day, were saving hundreds of dollars every year and more. In my region, the evidence does not support that this was a benefit for wealthy people riding on the bus. It is crazy.

There is no way around the member's argument. The affordable housing offer is not as rich as what the Liberals promised, and most of it is offered after the next election. It is extreme arrogance to make promises with taxpayers' money for a period in which the voters have not supported the government spending their money.

The Budget April 5th, 2017

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand on behalf of Nanaimo—Ladysmith and the New Democrats to speak about the hits and misses in the 2017 federal budget.

I will be splitting my time with the member of Parliament for Elmwood—Transcona.

On affordable housing, there is a huge built-up demand, a great need, both on pricing and on volume. There is only $20 million in affordable housing for 2017 and, reading the fine print, 90% of the money for housing will not go out the door until after the next election.

On home energy retrofits, we hear repeatedly that voters, homeowners, renovators, and small businesses want incentives to reduce emissions, enable households to save electricity, and get people to work doing these renovations. This is a good, local, sustainable job-creation exercise. The budget does not include any allowance for the home energy retrofit program.

For 15 years in my seat in local government before I was elected here, I have been advocating for federal leadership on abandoned vessels. There was a big announcement by the federal government in November, but there are zero dollars in this budget to deal with abandoned vessels. This weekend I am meeting with community leaders elected on Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia, the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities. They were hoping I would have some good news specifically about how we will be partnering and funding community work to remove the oil spill risks posed by abandoned vessels. There is zero in the budget for them.

The transit tax rebate is another disappointment in my region. It made the daily use of public transit a little more affordable for bus riders, but it also made public transit a little more affordable in ferry-dependent communities, such as the one that I represent, as well as Gabriola Island, where I live. Lots of commuters go back and forth every day. That was a way to help make ends meet and to accommodate the tremendously high, way-beyond-inflation, fare increases that have been brought in under the British Columbia Liberal Party over the last 14 years. Inflation, in some cases, is almost as high as 10%. That transit tax rebate program has been cut in this budget to save $170 million.

We say instead that if the government were really serious about closing tax loopholes, it would have kept its election promise and closed the CEO stock option loophole, which would have provided $750 million in revenue every year. Instead, inexplicably, yesterday in question period, the representative for the finance minister said that this tax rebate was used disproportionately by wealthy people. It boggles the mind, honestly. The transit tax rebate was cut to save $170 million on the backs of working people. It is extremely disappointing. It is not leadership and not walking the talk on either the middle class or climate change.

There was a huge need expressed for home care that I heard daily when knocking on doors throughout the federal election campaign. The Liberals promised $3 billion over four years. Instead, this budget commits $2.25 billion over four years. It is one year late and 25% short, and that again is on the backs of families.

For coastal communities, I really thought, given the government's election promises, that there would be commitments around salmon enhancement and the implementation of the Cohen commission recommendations, every single one of which the government said it would implement. There is nothing in the budget for salmon, which are at the foundation of indigenous communities on the original settlement pattern on the coast and which, in our modern economy, are so much at the root of tourism and commercial and recreational fisheries.

The opioid crisis has hit the community of Nanaimo particularly hard. There were more deaths per capita than anywhere else in British Columbia in the early part of this crisis, I think, because of drug dealers testing out this bad product and using my community as a test market. It is no fault of the community, but the community and our firefighters and first responders sure are taking the brunt of it.

This budget allocates $110 million to the entire drug and substance strategy over the next five years. The Conservatives had planned to spend $556 million on their anti-drug strategy over the same period, and honestly, it is a sad day when the Conservatives are spending more on drug treatment and the opioid emergency than the Liberals are. It is stunning, really.

As well, the budget fails to allocate a single dime in emergency funding for the opioid crisis, as my colleague, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, has pointed out. It is unacceptable. To think that the opioid crisis is over is not supported by the evidence. Let us say it that way. The crisis is getting worse, if anything, and there is nothing allocated. There is $14 million this year for the entire drug strategy across the whole country, whereas last year $16 million was spent by the federal government in B.C. and Alberta alone.

Regarding small business, again it is a big disappointment to see the government continuing to dishonour its election promise to lower the small business tax rate. Small businesses are our job generators and are a huge part of the Nanaimo—Ladysmith economy hub.

There is also nothing to reduce the unfair credit card merchant fees that gouge small businesses and raise costs for consumers.

As for people living with disabilities, the Liberals have once again ignored loud and clear calls to make the disability tax credit refundable to ensure that it provides the support that low-income individuals need.

Then we move to the gender budget. There were big headlines on this issue, and a lot of expectations were raised. In fact, the budget named dozens of barriers women face, but it did not actually implement very many solutions for them. The budget mentions the word “women” 274 times, but there is very little action taken.

With regard to murdered and missing indigenous women, no money is allocated in the 2017 budget for implementation of the inquiry's work. As for violence against women, the offer is $20 million a year over the next five years for federal services. This is only a little more than the government is committing to space exploration. NGOs had asked for $500 million a year, and some of that would go to the operators of domestic violence shelters, who, with no support from the current government, are doing very good work on the part of the country to shelter women and children escaping domestic violence.

For addressing pay equity, there are zero dollars. For child care, there are zero dollars last year and this year for any child care spaces. This is quite different from the New Democrat election promise of $1.2 billion in new investments that would have happened this year, which during the election campaign the Liberals said was too little and too slow. It is a head-shaker.

I like the idea of extending parental leave. That is good for families and it is good for women. However, the government did not commit any new dollars, so again only the wealthiest families, those who can afford to live on one-third of their salary, are able to take the full benefit.

Regarding unpaid care work, there is also a good general direction, but many female caregivers will not qualify, because they do not have a high enough income to qualify for this tax break. As well, the Liberals are delivering less than they promised in their platform.

We are also disappointed that the Liberals failed to use the budget opportunity to close the problem that we identified around the Canada pension plan expansion. Doing so would have helped women and people living with disabilities so that they would not be penalized.

Indigenous children, again, are left behind. There is just $155 million, to come into compliance with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. Again, it is such a betrayal of the government's promises that it does not specifically allocate money in this budget.

In closing, many Canadians are struggling with part-time and precarious employment, rising costs, and record debt, and they were hoping that this budget would lift them all up. Instead it looks like a tremendous amount of government spending without any effect on people on the ground, in their lives, this year, right now.

I urge the government to reconsider, to make its budget more generous and bring it more in line with its election promises.

The Budget April 4th, 2017

Mr. Speaker, I want to touch on a couple of the parental and family issues the member mentioned in her speech.

I give them credit for the new employment insurance caregiver benefit. That is something New Democrats also promised in the election, but we are discouraged that the Liberals are committing less than they campaigned on. I am pleased to see the extended parental leave, but I am discouraged that there is no new money for families. People would have to be pretty well off to live on one-third of their salaries for a year and a half. It would be nice if they could do it, but it is not a way to bring more people out of poverty.

The most disappointing part, and I would like to hear from the member on this, is that during the election campaign, Liberals said that the New Democrats' child care plan was inadequately funded. Had New Democrats had the honour of forming government, there would have been $1.2 billion for new child care spaces. In fact, last year's Liberal budget and this year's Liberal budget have zero for new child care spaces. Why?

The Budget April 4th, 2017

Mr. Speaker, I represent a community that felt the double hit of the cancellation of the public transit tax rebate. On the marine side, ferry fares have gone through the roof in my province over the last 12 years of a user pay philosophy around public transit. Commuters were able to apply for a 15% tax rebate. Public transit commuters also use buses and so on. The working poor who rely on this transit rebate are very disappointed. It is all over social media how many people are disappointed about this.

I would like to hear more from the member, from her local government leadership experience, on her perspective on whether the transit tax program was sufficiently communicated and what the government might have chosen to do to increase ridership and increase take-up of this tax rebate.

Taxation April 4th, 2017

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal budget removed an important transit rebate. In Nanaimo—Ladysmith, coastal ferry users were greatly aided by this tax credit. Given that the B.C. Liberals have hiked coastal ferry fares at over ten times the rate of inflation, the federal rebate cut the cost of daily ferry travel and helped make ends meet.

For a government that talks a lot about how it supports the middle class, this move does not make any sense. Will the Liberals reconsider and restore this important rebate?

The Environment April 3rd, 2017

Madam Speaker, I was asking about a permanent ban, not a moratorium, so I would like to hear more from the member about that. There is an abundance of science and an abundance of community requests. This would be absolutely in keeping with the government's commitments.

I would also like to know this from the member. We agree on the broad intention, but I really need to know the specifics. When is the government going to move beyond words and into action on these other items, such as oil spill response time and legislation to solve the abandoned vessel problem? When will the commitments of the oceans protection plan be enacted in law?

The Environment April 3rd, 2017

Madam Speaker, I have just pulled myself away from the Senate, a House which I do not usually get to be in. I heard Dr. Buffy Sainte-Marie talk about her vision for the country that we want together. She said, “We truly want to move our country forward.” It was a beautiful presentation and a great honour to be a member of Parliament and to hear words like those in these Houses.

I will pick up on some of the conversation we were having about four months ago about marine protection and how to move our country forward toward a sustainable way to protect our coastline and sensitive environments from oil spills, and a recent success story that I heard about in my own riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith. It was a fantastic presentation by local innovators.

In south Nanaimo, Ace Innovation Solutions is designing oil spill response equipment that might address some of the immediate needs we have when a small or large spill happens. It has a barge. It has a large extractor that floats, a small extractor that can fit inside a bilge tank, a very common source of oil spills on our coast, and also a portable unit that has a three-metre collapsible boom that can sit on a dock or on a boat and can pick up 500 litres of diesel per hour.

There was a very alarming spill that happened around one of the fish farms up in Echo Bay north of Vancouver Island. This was in the news about three weeks ago. The proponents of Ace Innovations said that their machine would have been able to act quickly and in a very responsive way without waiting for outside equipment if the fish farm had had this equipment on hand. Their machinery skims the surface of the ocean and picks up diesel, motor oil, gasoline, crude oil, and any other type of oil immediately.

It was very encouraging to see this small business finding innovative solutions. We very much hope that the federal government wants to partner with that business, work with it, and especially tighten the response times so that anybody who spills oil is required to have the equipment available to take fast action.

It has been five months since the oceans protection plan was announced by the government. I wish there were more we could point to that would show that our country is truly, actively moving forward.

We do not yet have a legislated tanker ban on the north coast. That was one of the announcements. We do not yet have more certainty around bitumen response. This is a sticky oil. When it hits the water, the Minister of Transport said in January it is not known what it does. In fact, there have been a number of studies that have said it may well sink. However, the minister was willing to approve the Kinder Morgan pipeline and its associated bitumen oil tankers in the absence of his having confidence that there was a way to clean it up, which is extremely worrying. We have not seen anything on abandoned vessels in the budget.

I would like to know from the minister's representative, what good news do we have to celebrate regarding actual changes on the ground that will help coastal communities prevent an oil spill?

Social Development April 3rd, 2017

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals continue to show just how out of touch they are with Canadian families. They say they are helping by making parental leave longer, but families will not receive any additional money, meaning that families with new babies would have to live on just one-third of their normal income.

What is the government's defence on why it fails to help low-income families? It is that wealthy parents need more support. That is unacceptable.

When will the government finally deliver on real change for everyday people and not just those at the top?

Status of Women March 23rd, 2017

Mr. Speaker, while the government's gender budget sounded good, the budget lacks real action for women: not a penny to legislate equal pay for work of equal value; not a cent for child care this year; zero new money for shelters for women fleeing violence; nothing to make birth control more affordable; and only a fraction of what is needed for a strategy to end violence against women. Once again, women are being asked to wait.

If gender equality really matters to the government, why were women shortchanged again?

Systemic Racism and Religious Discrimination March 21st, 2017

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's intervention. However, I did not hear anything about how to make women in this Parliament safe from sexual political harassment that will interfere with their jobs.

I also want to say as loudly as I can that although we are ringing the alarm on this kind of harassment, I am concerned that it will have a dampening effect on the enthusiasm of other women to volunteer for this work, to put themselves forward, young women in particular. At the United Nations, and on some of our Canadian panels, we heard ministers from Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Alberta, and Ontario all describe very personal experiences of being harassed in the job because of their gender.

The government voted down my colleague's bill, the member Burnaby South, which would have created incentives to elect more women. It voted down proportional representation, which would elect more women. Therefore, I would like to know the measures—