Sheila Malcolmson

[Systemic Racism and Religious Discrimination, March 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I had the great pleasure and honour of representing Canada at the United Nations last week for a full week. The convention carries on this week as well. Women from around the globe are part of the annual convention on the status of women. This is the 61st year of the UN Commission on the Status of Women to end discrimination against women.

I was very glad to be included in the Minister of Status of Women's delegation. We were able to absorb a lot of the teachings from around the world. We heard, more than anything, in every single session, which were all focused on women's economic justice, what we can do as leaders in our countries to remove barriers to women's economic success. Every time the solutions of pay equity and child care kept coming up as ways to alleviate economic and domestic pressures on women and allow them to participate more fully in the economy.

We heard a lot about the disproportionate load of unpaid care that women tend to take on in families, whether it is early on looking after infants, or looking after aging parents near their end of life or helping with palliative care, or the in-between domestic housework, although certainly in Canada men are really stepping up on that front. We heard again and again from other countries that a significant piece of the economic problem for women is having to take part-time work so they can accommodate the in-between work.

We heard about the impact of political gender-based violence against elected women. There were a number of sessions on this. It was raised in question period in 2016, on the occasion when Sandra Jansen, a member of the Alberta legislative assembly stood in that House and in a very powerful way described the misogyny and sexism that she has faced in her job and particularly online.

During the course of the convention last week, the Inter-Parliamentary Union tabled a report, a global look at the kind of sexual violence women parliamentarians around the world face in the course of their public service. It was extremely troubling. Of the women parliamentarians from 39 countries who were surveyed, 41.8% have received extremely humiliating or sexually charged images of themselves through social media. Social media has become the primary place in which psychological violence is perpetrated against women parliamentarians.

The IPU also reported that 65% of women parliamentarians said that they had been subjected often to humiliating sexist remarks during their parliamentary term. This is a problem, of course, because we are trying to encourage more women to get into politics and government. Just two weeks ago, all the seats in the House, except for one, were filled by women who took the place of MPs. More women were in the House than had ever been in the entire history of Canada.

I would like to know from the government, following on our conversation from last year, what it is doing to protect women parliamentarians from this kind of political harassment that can affect their ability to serve the public.

[Operation UNIFIER, March 20th, 2017]

Mr. Chair, I would like to invite my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona to expand on some of his comments about the role of civil society.

In 2012, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress testified to the foreign affairs committee of this Parliament, saying:

Canada can help foster NGO sector development, especially groups working in the areas of human rights, education, and law reform, as a vibrant civil society is one of the best guarantors of Ukraine's long-term democratic evolution.

Could my colleague talk a little more about the role of civil society in supporting a strong democracy?

[Operation UNIFIER, March 20th, 2017]

Mr. Chair, the numbers of people impacted by the conflict in Ukraine are stunning, yet they have not been on the front pages of our newspapers. We have a lot of calamity in the world, but this has not been at the forefront. The numbers are shocking: there have been 10,000 civilian deaths since the start of the crisis, and 1.7 million people have been internally displaced by the conflict. UNICEF thinks one million children are in need of humanitarian assistance in Ukraine.

With Canada's international aid assistance at only 0.26% of gross national income this year, which is far below the United Nations target of 0.7% being targeted toward foreign aid, does the member agree that Canada should be increasing its funding for international assistance as a way to ameliorate the humanitarian impact of the conflict on the people in Ukraine and in other countries?

[Operation UNIFIER, March 20th, 2017]

Madam Chair, I share my colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke's concern about instability in the region being exacerbated by the illegal flow of light arms and weapons into the region. I would like to hear his comments about how the Arms Trade Treaty could shed some transparency on the situation, and what the Canadian government's responsibility is in relation to acceding to the Arms Trade Treaty.

[Indigenous Affairs, March 20th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the families of murdered and missing indigenous women and girls want justice, but they also want to be heard. Shockingly, the inquiry commission only lists 90 victims, and the government is refusing to provide additional names. The Native Women's Association of Canada has identified 4,000 victims, and we know that might be only the tip of the iceberg. With hearings scheduled in just eight weeks, is the government blocking information to the inquiry? Why is it not doing everything in its power so that all families can be heard?

[Veterans Affairs, March 20th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, Canada's veterans are not getting the support they deserve. I heard this loud and clear at the Nanaimo Legion 10 town hall earlier this month. Vets said that both past Conservative and Liberal governments are poisoning patriotism and the desire to serve our country. They said that dealing with Veterans Affairs with PTSD is like being given a jigsaw puzzle and turning out the lights.

These young vets want a navigator to help them manage the tangled bureaucracy of PTSD treatment and to make sure that no vet is discharged without medical benefits and a pension in place. They want the lifetime pension for wounded vets restored, as the Liberals promised. The Canadian Forces ombudsman reinforced this in withering testimony to the Senate on March 8, when he said that Canada is not living up to its bargain.

This week's Liberal budget must make this right. Our veterans deserve so much better.

[The Environment, March 10th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, international shipping interests are pushing for five huge commercial anchorages off the shores of Gabriola Island. This is causing great concern in the riding. This project has no local benefit. It threatens the community and the sensitive ecology of our coastline.

The Liberal government should not use Harper's environmental rules to assess this project. Will the transport minister reject the request for Gabriola bulk anchorages? It is bad for our local economy, bad for climate change, and there is no upside for Canada.

[The Environment, March 9th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister's representative, the parliamentary secretary, echoing back our shared commitment to find a solution to this, but I am very concerned that the headline is the prohibition of vessel abandonment.

Such laws exist already, and the government should be enforcing them. Owners are already responsible and liable. Boat owners can already be taken to court to remove a vessel. We have examples right now, such as the MV Farley Mowat in Shelburne. The feds went to court to force the owner to pay fines, and to be arrested or imprisoned. That is happening already. The problem is that we cannot fine an owner who himself is derelict, unable to pay. Part of the problem is the great financial insecurity of people who just cannot keep up their vessels anymore.

Also, we cannot fine an owner that we cannot find. Vessel registration is a mess. I really want to have the government's assurance that this is a priority, that it will fix vessel registration, and make every owner pay into a fund that would then be available to deal with vessels on an emergency basis so that it is not paid on the backs of taxpayers.

[The Environment, March 9th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I am once again standing in the House to talk about solutions to deal with Canada's long-standing problem of abandoned vessels in our marine environment.

The imperative we have talked about many times. There are hazards to navigation, visual pollution impacting tourism, a very strong threat of oil spills that can impact local jobs in the area of aquaculture, oil spill risks that can affect the marine environment and sensitive coastal ecology, and the fact that there is no government in Canada that will actually take ownership. This is a hole in jurisdiction that is recognized by all parties that we are working very hard to fix. It will make it easier for coastal communities if we do.

I also want to salute the patience and persistence of coastal communities. They have been trying ad hoc solutions one vessel at a time in the absence of the federal leadership that we are seeking. There are costs. I note it was picked up in the media just a few weeks ago, where a member of the legislative assembly in British Columbia, Andrew Weaver, who is the Green Party representative, quite improperly scolded the municipality of Oak Bay, saying that it should do what the municipality of Saanich has done. In fact, we cannot pit one community against the other.

His criticism also reveals a misunderstanding of the fact that if we leave this to the high-capacity municipalities to deal with issues in their own harbours, that squeezes problem vessels out into unincorporated areas or more remote regions, which is why, again and again, we have been calling for a comprehensive coast-wide solution to the problem of abandoned vessels.

Let us talk about solutions. My private member's bill, Bill C-219, proposes to make the Coast Guard the go-to agency on abandoned vessels. The men and women of the Coast Guard are already doing a good job. They are doing it off the side of their desk, but they do not have clear authority. My bill proposes to give them that authority, to make the Coast Guard the receiver of wrecks. We are also pushing very hard for full resources for the Coast Guard, so it can do that job as one of its central responsibilities, one that is well funded.

Other solutions that I have been proposing that the government supports are fibreglass recycling; finding new markets for these materials; boat amnesty, where people can bring in their boats; fixing vessel registration, which has really fallen into disrepair; and mechanisms to take a load off taxpayers, such as sending vessel registration funds to a fund, as Washington state has done, to deal with vessels on an emergency basis.

Just this past week, I sat down with some local community leaders. We are planning our presentation to the AVICC convention, which is a local government association that represents the Vancouver Island and Sunshine Coast local governments. On April 8 we are presenting together on solutions to deal with the abandoned vessel problem. This includes Ladysmith Mayor Aaron Stone, Stz'uminus Chief John Elliott, and one of the operators of the local marina, Rod Smith from Ladysmith Community Marina. They are asking what the details are of the coastal protection plan, and I am really hoping to be able to bring that to the convention April 8, so I can give some good news.

It was announced four months ago by the government that it is reopening a Coast Guard station in St. John's. I wish it was reopening the Comox Coast Guard station on my coast that the Liberal government closed. There were very few details otherwise, so I am hoping that the representative for the Minister of Transport can tell us when the legislation is coming, when the funding is going to be available to coastal communities, and what the specific mechanisms are that the government is proposing. I am concerned the only one that it has raised is criminalizing vessel abandonment, and I surely hope that is not a path the government is going to go down. We are looking for solutions on the ground.

[Status of Women, March 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, on International Women's Day, let us hear some good news from the government that will actually honour its commitment to the United Nations and implement a national action plan to end violence against women.

I still have not heard anything from the member that explains why the Liberals are not honouring their commitment. A federal strategy is very narrow. It does not get at the actions that the government committed to when it said it would do a national plan.

For months, we have been hearing heartbreaking testimony at the status of women committee about how this country is failing women.

There is disparity of access to service across the country. Some 500 women and children are turned away from shelters every night. There is no excuse for the government not living up to its United Nations commitment.

Why not a national plan?