Tamara Jansen

[Income Tax Act, November 6th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my hon. colleague could tell me if I am understanding him correctly.

We were not able to get this done properly the first time, we were told, because it was provincial. Now, suddenly, we can do it federally, and is that because the wife of the man in charge of MCAP actually wanted to make sure it went through his organization?

[Business of Supply, November 3rd, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, in a pandemic, people should not be getting a phone call from the CRA saying that they have 10 days to cough up the paperwork. We need to protect small businesses right now. We need to help them stay in business. The last thing they need is a call from the CRA.

[Business of Supply, November 3rd, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps my hon. colleague could first of all take a look at the motion we have here today. All of the things the member mentioned, which supposedly came from the NDP, have been our suggestions.

Conservatives work hard to make sure that everybody is taken care of in the small business world because without our small businesses, we are nowhere.

[Business of Supply, November 3rd, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree with my hon. colleague more. There are still many start-ups and small businesses that are falling through the cracks. That is why the motion is asking for more flexibility.

We need to make sure that, when we get on the other side of this pandemic, we still have small businesses that are actually functioning.

[Business of Supply, November 3rd, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, the fact that the hon. member did not find anything of value in my speech shows how little of a connection Liberals actually have with business people.

What I said comes from the heart because I live it, and many people in my riding are living it. I am meeting them. I am visiting with them. We needed CERB because of what the government has been doing.

Now I am begging the government to find a plan. We need the Liberal government to find us a plan to get us out of here, not just band-aid solutions.

[Business of Supply, November 3rd, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, during this pandemic a great divide has been perpetrated on the nation by the Liberal government, a schism of enormous proportions. Over the last seven months, we have seen certain kinds of good, hard-working Canadians be dealt blow after blow, while other kinds of Canadians were handed cheques and assistance at every turn. No injustice was too much for one bunch and no perk was too generous for the other.

As the government began to impose lockdowns and restrictions across the country, it treated Canadians like two different classes of people: the good and the bad, the honest and the cheat, the employee and the employer.

This distinction is no new thing for the government. For years the Prime Minister has been going after small businesses calling them tax cheats, suggesting they are all hiding their ill-gotten gains by taking advantage of loopholes in the system, buying equipment as a tax writeoff or hoarding money and calling it a rainy day fund. I will tax that, said Mr. Morneau. If people have a family business and want to sell the farm to their son, the government plans to make them pay over 80% of the sale price in taxes if they want to pass it on to the next generation, because everyone knows that, for the current Liberal government, passing a farm from father to son is clearly a tax dodge if ever there was one.

What happens in a pandemic when a government sees small business as the enemy of the proletariat and itself as the saviour? We see financial support programs that discourage going back to work while punishing the big bad barber, brew pub or banquet hall around the corner. Let us take the restaurant and hospitality industry as an example.

In my riding there are hundreds of unique and exciting establishments gathered in every neighbourhood. Shiraz Grill on a one-way street in Langley serves up Persian and Italian food. It is delicious. Right across the street is Viva Mexico where one can have a truly authentic Mexican experience. A little closer to the Willowbrook mall, people can experience the taste of Thailand at the Naka Bistro. Further down the Fraser Highway is the ever-popular Dublin Crossing, where people can eat their fill of bangers and mash while tapping their toes to a live band of Irish rovers.

Every one of those restaurants I just mentioned is owned and operated by a hard-working entrepreneur, the majority of whom are new Canadians who have brought the colour of their culture to our communities, along with jobs and economic prosperity for us all. They took on great risks and responsibilities in their quest to create a new and better life for themselves in Canada. Little did they know that their new country now has a government that punishes risk-takers and job creators like themselves.

When their doors were closed in early March, they just buckled down and pivoted to takeout. Owners and their families worked long hours to get food to our homes in a safe way. While their wait and kitchen staff stayed home on CERB, they called their nieces and nephews, their aunts and uncles to please help with the cooking and cleaning or owners would lose their dream.

Seven months in, the entire sector teeters on the brink of extinction. After the restaurant industry invested $750 million of its own money to train staff, enforce social distancing, implement health checks and adapt for contactless delivery and curbside pickup, they continue to live under the constant threat of lockdowns and further restrictions. The government has offered them almost no help besides a wage subsidy that disproportionately helps some businesses while being useless to others, or rent subsidies that were impossible to access until our current motion forced the government to improve it.

Now the Liberals have instructed CRA to start aggressively auditing any business that applied for the wage subsidy. If people made a mistake in their calculations, they will be charged a penalty of 275% of the amount they claimed. If the Prime Minister had been charged a 275% penalty for his illegal quarter-million dollar trip to the Aga Khan's island, he would owe almost three quarters of a million dollars. What did he actually pay in fines and penalties? He paid a measly $500.

The Liberal government has declared war on our small businesses, the backbone of our economy. Mom and Pop shops across this country are the target of sustained attacks that do not appear to be ending any time soon. The government has exhausted all credible excuses to explain away its continued failure to answer the call of Canada's small business owners. For months my opposition colleagues and business leaders across Canada have identified serious problems with the COVID-19 relief programs, which have allowed too many small businesses to fall through the cracks.

The government keeps claiming that it creates jobs in this country. The government does not create jobs. Canadian entrepreneurs do. If this Liberal government does not begin to understand that concept, our economy is going to be decimated. One can only rob Peter to pay Paul for so long. For every small business forced into receivership, we lose the jobs and revenues those businesses create.

Canadians were told that a prorogued Parliament would give time for a quality restart plan to be corrected, and they believed that. However, what did the Liberals come back with after six weeks of a shuttered Parliament? Nothing, nada, bubkes. The government promised to come back to this session with a plan. Where is the plan? How do I tell the businesses in my riding that the support they need is going to lapse without new legislation? Where is the plan to improve the programs that have not worked for so many businesses? Where is the sector-specific support for airlines, travel and tourism, agriculture, energy, any of it?

We constantly hear how hard this government has been working for Canadians, but from where I am sitting, Canadian businessmen are getting a lump of coal in their stockings for Christmas.

Honestly, we need to get to actual work here. The finance committee should be conducting pre-budget consultations right now. We should be hearing from Canada's business leaders about what they need during this economic crisis. Instead, the Prime Minister sends his MPs to filibuster the committee, talking out the clock to avoid releasing WE scandal documents. Machiavelli, Aristotle, Plato, all the philosophers are dragged by their hair into our meeting to justify the Liberal cover-up.

There is a very serious crisis happening in our country. Many small business owners are not sleeping at night. They are absolutely desperate, and no one is listening. They are begging and pleading for this government to make a plan, an actual plan, not just a band-aid solution. I have met with them face to face. I have seen the anxiety and agony in the eyes of men and women who have poured their whole heart and soul into a dance studio, coffee shop, travel agency, hair salon, chiropractic clinic, pharmacy, restaurant or clothing boutique. The list is endless. They are under extreme stress, and it comes out in the form of migraine headaches, rashes all over their bodies and even heart attacks. Their stress comes from a government that does not have a plan, so they cannot make a plan either. Entrepreneurs will find solutions. They just need to know where they stand. Give them clarity and they will figure out the rest.

The scorecard shows that our country has spent the most of all G7 countries, yet has the worst economic performance. There is no one else to blame for this disaster except the Liberals. They keep throwing money at programs that are nothing more than band-aid solutions. We need to get our economy moving again, but since the government seems incapable of stopping the bleeding, let us at least make sure that whatever band-aid solutions we apply actually work. The government is working hard to turn Canada into a benefit-based economy with no end in sight, while making it more and more impossible for businesses to find workers.

We need to show leadership here and give businesses clarity and equitable treatment. Right now, every level of government is knocking on the federal government's door demanding compliance to rules that have not even been written. With workers' compensation, Health Canada, bylaw officers and police, there is a never-ending stream of busybody bureaucrats that are making things up as they go. Health officials are even encouraging Canadians to report on their neighbours for perceived infractions.

Have we lost our minds? Do we really want a police state? I recognize that these bureaucracies are not the federal jurisdiction, but it is this government's lack of leadership and transparency that is causing so much confusion.

At first, we were told masks do not work. Now we are told something completely different: Wear one. In the beginning, the virus did not spread from person to person, and now we cannot even have our own children over for coffee. The message has been godawful. Half of Canadians are scared to death and do not believe a word the government is saying. Why are rapid at-home tests not in the hands of Canadians? Why is this government not doing that and making it a top priority?

Let us strategically target our efforts on protecting the vulnerable while allowing the healthy to safely get back to business. Why, after seven months, is our tracking and tracing failing so miserably? We need to focus on getting things back up and running, and not on scaring our country to death.

[Criminal Code, October 27th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, a recent statement was penned and signed by over 800 physicians in Canada in response to Bill C-7. Only 25 people are required to sign a petition for it to be recognized, so when a document is presented with 800 signatures from experts in a relevant field, the House should pay close attention to what that document says. Let me read—

[Criminal Code, October 27th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to present my maiden speech to advocate on behalf of those who cannot advocate for themselves. It is truly a privilege to be a voice for them. Some of them will even be voices from beyond the grave.

I call on my colleagues today to truly stop a moment and hear the cri de coeur from those who are still among us and from those calling to use from the next life. They should take a moment to listen to what we here in the House have done to destroy the value of their lives, to exclude them from society and to encourage them to exit the stage rather than wait for the curtain to fall once the final act is finished.

I will begin by introducing members to Roger Foley. As a young man, Roger was a musician and creator. He loved life, and it showed. However, in his early thirties, Roger was diagnosed with cerebellar ataxia, a debilitating disease that has stolen away his physical abilities one function at a time. Roger is now completely reliant on care providers for every necessity of life.

In the summer of 2018, after almost dying from a life-threatening case of food poisoning he contracted in long-term care, Roger was trying desperately to access funding for patient-directed care to hire and train his own consistent caregiver in his own home, as opposed to living in a hospital or in long-term care with rotating staff who do not understand his specific care needs. Members may remember Roger as the man who recorded his caregivers offering him euthanasia as an easy way out of his suffering. As we heard in the recording, the nurse says, “You don’t have to do it in some dramatic manner. You can apply for assisted—you know.” The nurse could not even bring himself to utter the word “euthanasia”, yet there he was, against Canadian law and all moral and ethical standards, offering a desperate man an easy way out. It was problem solved. However, Roger is a fighter, and even though he was overwhelmingly desperate, Roger decided he wanted to fight this injustice on behalf of himself and all our vulnerable brothers and sisters.

Roger's path intersected with mine early this year at the beginning of my time on the health committee. In preparation for a study on palliative care in Canada and a review of the euthanasia regime, issues that I thought would soon be on the table for discussion, I reached out to him and his lawyer for his perspective as someone within the system. I finally had a chance to speak via telephone with Roger while he was in Victoria Hospital in a private ward getting good care. While not in his preferred setting of his own home, I found him to be very open and engaging. His knowledge of the issue of euthanasia and the danger it posed for the vulnerable was enlightening. Just before we hung up that night, I said to Roger, “I wish you were on the committee because you are so much more equipped to speak to this issue than I am,” and we agreed to speak again soon.

Then COVID-19 hit, and Roger Foley's world changed completely. Roger was repeatedly transferred between units where there was little room for lift equipment and insufficient staffing for his specialized care. Living at the mercy of care attendants who are pressed for time was agonizingly difficult. Roger has very little in his life that is in his own control, but one thing he can do is swallow when offered food, with a certain technique. His head needs to be tipped at just the right angle, and the spoon needs to be offered in just the right way. For Roger, the ability to swallow affords him a feeling of independence. It may seem like a little thing to us, but to Roger it means a whole lot.

When the hospital wanted to feed him with a feeding tube to minimize the care hours required, his mental health took a turn for the worse. On May 15, Roger's brother filed a complaint with the ombudsman on Roger's behalf, yet things just got worse. Roger was suddenly informed that he would be transferred to the long-term care facility that had led to his original food poisoning and hospitalization. Understandably, Roger refused the transfer, begging instead, if not allowed self-directed care, to go back to his original unit, where staff knew him and his needs well. The hospital ignored his request, insisting that it was not safe for him because of COVID and that he needed to transfer.

The night before the transfer was to take place, Roger became completely desperate. He had not been sleeping, due to his fear and anxiety of being transferred. He became so distressed that he told his caregivers that he would throw himself off the gurney if they tried to transfer him the following morning. With no hope of help in sight, Roger reached out to his brother. His brother reached out to his lawyer. His lawyer reached out to me.

That evening we spent three hours on a conference call with Roger, encouraging him to be positive, to keep up the faith and to stay the course on behalf of those in the disabled community who would not have his strength and courage. All the while, I was attempting to contact the hospital administrators on another phone to beg them to back down and to warn them that Roger was possibly suicidal and needed them to reconsider for his mental health's sake.

Suddenly, I could hear on the phone in the room with Roger a new voice. The voice introduced herself as the hospital's mental health personnel, there to administer the 10-question suicide checklist on Roger. She began with her first question, attempting to gauge his distress level. Roger told her that he had no intention of answering her questions, since it was her and her bosses' fault he was in so much distress. She tried over and over, and he refused until she finally left the room in a huff.

The House heard me right; the mental health professional was so annoyed that Roger refused to answer her suicide checklist, she left the room and never returned. I was absolutely dumbfounded on the other side of the line, sitting helpless in my office in Langley. All these able-bodied health care professionals were able to leave the room freely. Everyone could could leave as they pleased, except Roger. Roger was trapped.

When we finally got some assurances that a trusted doctor would come and talk to Roger, and it encouraged him to try to rest, I hung up the phone, I had no idea what was going to happen in the morning. I was helpless, but not nearly as helpless as Roger. I can tell members that it was with great relief in the morning that Roger had indeed received an intervention through a trusted doctor and was getting proper care and nutrition. However, this event was a life changer for me. It dawned on me that without the help of his lawyer, who stayed on the phone with us the entire time, Roger's story may have ended quite differently. I wondered how many others in the country are at risk under this new MAID regime. How many vulnerable disabled are offered euthanasia when they are at their weakest? I made it my mission to find out.

What did I find out? I found out that Roger's case is by no means an isolated case. We can see this sort of abuse happening across the country. Take, for example, Jonathan Marchand: 43 years old, suffering from muscular dystrophy and living confined to bed in a nursing home in Quebec. He produced a video from his hospital room which he released on YouTube in response to living in long-term care during the pandemic. Jonathan states “Increasingly, euthanasia is offered as a solution to institutionalization. The idea is if you don't want to go into a long-term facility and die a slow death, then we are going to help you kill yourself. And those ideas are based on false assumptions about people with disabilities - like our lives are not worth living, that it's better to be dead than to have a disability - but it's not true!” He says that he decided that he would not go ahead with euthanasia, but would fight to get out of that place. Jonathan said, “In a world where there will be no empathy for people who need more help, it would be terrible. It would be something out of the nightmare of the Third Reich.”

Bill C-7 is an absolute nightmare that is facing disabled Canadians. Many are already afraid to go to hospital for fear they will be treated differently from the able-bodied. With the implementation of MAID in 2015, the community braced itself for the slippery slope ahead. Everyone said they were just overreacting. They said that safeguards were in place and euthanasia was meant to be safe and rare. We jump to 2020, and here we are racing down the hill at breakneck speed. In consultation with the disabled community, they have expressed firm opposition to this bill.

They explain that with the wording of Bill C-7, the Liberal government is proposing to set up two lines. Line one is for the able-bodied, who, in times of extreme distress, will be offered suicide prevention. Line two is for the disabled, who, in moments of weakness that they all endure as life ebbs and flows, will be offered assisted suicide, because their lives are not worth living, they are told. Add to all that the fact that current safeguards have already been proven completely ineffective. There is a complete lack of accountability structures to ensure abuses do not occur, and yet we are being asked to loosen restrictions even more. Where is the palliative care that was promised? Where is the review that was supposed to have happened? What are the Liberals afraid of finding out? Is it that in actual fact MAID has led to coercive deaths across our country, which go on undetected daily?

I stand here on behalf of all those who cry out for compassion and dignity as they travel a very tough road filled with complex care needs and physical ailments that require far more from us as a society. I stand here as the voice of Roger in Toronto, Jonathan in Quebec, Raymond Bourbonnais, Candice Lewis, Sean Tagert, Archie Rolland and so many more who we may never know.

“Lean on me.” That is what I want all of us to say here in this House—

[Criminal Code, October 27th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleagues have been saying over and over how unfounded our concerns are regarding the purposeful ambiguity of the bill's wording. We have been urging the Liberals for months to fix the definition by adding the wording on the justice website, which is much more detailed. It turns out that recently the justice website wording was changed and a single word was added. The word “affirm” is now there.

I hate to seem like a conspiracy theorist, but why was that word suddenly added? Why would they change the justice website and not the actual bill? If this is all on the up and up as they claim, why not change the bill instead of the website?

[Criminal Code, October 26th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, Colette, a young woman in Lethbridge, Alberta, reached out. She is a young teenager, an ordinary girl from a traditional home. Her life was turned upside-down when she was gang-raped and became addicted to hard-core porn. She has said in testimony, “Being a traditional kind of girl, I rejected the bisexual feelings and non-heterosexual behaviours that my brain suggested I ought to act on.”

Since the incident, however, she suffered from sex addiction. One day, Colette made the decision to go find therapy at her local university to help reduce the feelings she was experiencing after the trauma and porn use. She said that this counselling, along with a sex addiction support group that she attended, saved her life as suicidal thoughts and despair began to affect her deeply.

What would a bill like Bill C-6 do to support the systems Colette had sought out and would the member opposite be willing to ensure that the bill is far more clear as to what is being covered? Many legal minds have been suggesting that the bill is just not clear enough—