Sheila Malcolmson

[Housing, April 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, when we first started this conversation in December, these details had not been revealed. I am very glad that the parliamentary secretary is able to describe the very ambitious program that is outlined for the next two years. We look forward to working with community partners to actually get results on the ground.

We lost a lot of ground over the last decade. Hopes are very high and the need is very strong. We look forward to working with all community partners, all levels of government. I will reaffirm again and again that a roof is a right and our communities benefit when our senior partners support such community work.

[Housing, April 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am taking up the conversation we were having about affordable housing back in December. I want to reiterate how affordable housing helps everything. It helps every kid get the best start. It helps support local business and the local economy. It helps human health. It helps shelter from domestic violence.

Over the years the NDP has proposed a number of legislative measures to support affordable housing. Examples of these measures include adopting a national housing strategy, ensuring investment in social and co-operative housing, renovations of existing housing stock, building new housing units, and funding community-based initiatives to combat homelessness.

I want to talk with the government about some of the specifics on how it may be able to follow some of those initiatives, but I want to describe two community projects in my town of Nanaimo, just to give a sense of what kind of support we are looking for.

In Nanaimo, a new supportive housing facility is opening in May. This the Boundary Crescent facility. It is being operated by three community groups: the Vancouver Island Mental Health Society; the Nanaimo Affordable Housing Society, which does such good work in our community for so many people; and Haven Society, which provides emergency shelter for victims of family violence, women and children especially.

The Boundary Crescent facility was built with funding from the province and the City of Nanaimo and it will help homeless men and women transition from life on the streets. It has a strong emphasis on serving women who have struggled with chronic homelessness.

However, we have heard that this facility, as welcome as it is, barely scratches the surface of the need for supportive housing for women with children and for affordable housing in our community. We need the federal government at the table working with indigenous communities, provinces, and local partners.

Here is another great example. Nanaimo Aboriginal Centre is proposing a 25-unit affordable housing complex on Nanaimo's Bowen Road. It is a community-led project for urban aboriginal students and families. It is the first family-focused affordable housing project funded and built in Nanaimo since 1999. That describes how starved community organizations have been of affordable housing funding.

The City of Nanaimo has committed the land and will waive property taxes. The Regional District of Nanaimo has committed funding, and great news came just today: BC Housing has announced that it is going to support some of the funding around feasibility study work and initial construction. This is the first passive energy house in western Canada, so it has a zero energy environmental footprint as well. It is something we are really proud of.

These two community examples really illustrate how much community partners need partners. I am urging the government to describe to us what specific support such projects can expect in this year as they are building and opening. Because existing affordable housing needs federal support, I am also hoping that the government can describe what specific action it is taking this year to preserve the funding to resurrect expiring housing agreements, without which—

[Pay Equity, April 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, women in Ontario work for 15.5 months to earn what a man earns in one year.

Yesterday was equal pay day in Ontario. Women, on average, worked for free so far this year, until today.

Canada ranks badly when it comes to the gender pay gap. It is bad for poverty. It is not just.

In February, Liberals agreed with the NDP motion to finally implement pay equity. I am proud of our NDP team's approach to implementing women's equality.

The Liberals can be proud of 2004's pay equity task force report. It lays out a clear path to legislate equal pay for work of equal value. It should have been implemented 12 years ago. It would have made a big difference.

Today, on equal pay day, let us make actions speak louder than words.

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, April 18th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, this is an interesting rolling out of history. Just a few years ago the Liberals of the day, when they were the third party, were extremely critical of the Conservative government for not upholding the legislation which was a term of privatization of taxpayer assets, a commitment to protect Canadian jobs in place as a trade, as a term for that privatization. Just a few years ago, the third party was very critical of the Conservative government for not taking stronger action.

We now have legislation before the House that looks like a very clear reversal of that position. We are seeing a very strong protection of the corporate interests and not seeing the proposed legislation standing up for local good-paying jobs that are guaranteed to stay in Canada.

I am curious about what my Conservative colleague feels about this story now that the narrative has turned around.

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, April 18th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, to the New Democrats, the government's proposal on Air Canada maintenance looks as though it would protect corporate interests and not workers' interests. The government's proposal sanctions Air Canada's violation of its commitments to workers. It was a promise of the Air Canada privatization that jobs would be protected from outsourcing to foreign markets.

Through you, Madam Speaker, I ask, with Industry Canada pointing to staggering export of aerospace jobs to Asia-Pacific countries, how will the government keep jobs here at home in Canada?

[The Environment, April 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, we need a national plan, not a ship-by-ship approach, and not more talking.

While the sinking tug that my colleague referred to was removed, it was towed to Ladysmith Harbour, along with dozens of other derelict vessels.

Last year, NDP MP Jean Crowder introduced the kind of comprehensive coast-wide solution that this country needs. Last year, the Liberal Party supported it, including the Prime Minister.

Why the delay? Will the government adopt our bill and finally deal with abandoned vessels?

[Abandoned Vessels, April 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, over 400 abandoned vessels pollute Canada's coasts, and Ladysmith has more than anywhere.

To make things even worse, the vessel Silver King from my neighbour's riding was towed this week into Ladysmith harbour in my riding.

The last time the government towed an abandoned vessel into Ladysmith, it sat there for four years. It never left. The vessel Viki Lyne II has been rusting in the harbour ever since, and 13,000 litres of oil on board risks jobs in shellfish and tourism.

A Coast Guard report says it is sure to sink, yet there it sits.

The NDP has proposed a comprehensive coast-wide solution to this long-standing problem, and I urge the government to immediately remove the Viki Lyne II. Do not wait for it to sink to take action.

[Situation in Indigenous Communities, April 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the dialogue in the House tonight and for all the people watching at home, especially to the front-line workers who are supporting Attawapiskat and other communities in great peril. They are doing hard work.

I would like to urge my fellow colleagues to give as much hope as we can to the people supporting us and the people supporting these communities. We will do our full work and use the full extent of the powers that we have in the House.

Things that come to mind are upholding our international human rights obligations, as my colleague has so beautifully put it; funding first nation children, as is our great responsibility and absolutely their right; reconciling with residential schools survivors, not fighting them in court; stopping litigating against first nations that argue quite rightly rights and titles. We have to stop interfering. As legislators, we have to start working together.

I urge all members of the House to do everything we can to do the work that the people in our home communities elected us to do, and that is to make change on the ground for people every day. I urge my colleagues to stand with me in that important task.

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, March 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to stand with other New Democrats in support of the general direction of this proposed legislation. I commend the court for giving the direction, and I commend the government for taking it up. As far as it goes, we are in support, and we want to talk about it in committee.

The members opposite support improved workplace safety and finding a resolution to the unresolved issue of sexual harassment complaints by members of the RCMP to the RCMP commissioner. It is a very high profile issue that is unresolved, and the process is not working. Also, there are unresolved issues of workplace safety in relation to rural officers in particular. Both in Mayerthorpe and Moncton, there was terrible loss of life of RCMP members, and there are remaining issues as to the extent they were protected.

These men and women stand up for us, and we should stand up for them. Therefore, will the members opposite support the inclusion in the collective bargaining process of the workplace safety issues of sexual harassment and member safety? It seems at this point that these are excluded, and this is the perfect time to include them as a collective bargaining matter.

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, March 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on my earlier concerns about officer safety.

The fact that officers work alone in rural areas is a workplace safety issue that may well benefit from being included in collective bargaining. Sexual harassment is another workplace safety issue that apparently is not included in collective bargaining, but which is now thankfully being extended to the RCMP. I am curious as to whether the member can inform us if this was an issue that was discussed during the online consultation he had cited, and whether it specifically excluded, and whether he can he give any more rationale as to why this is not something that is a matter for collective bargaining for police officers within the RCMP.