Tracey Ramsey

[Status of Women, March 20th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge the many women who have reached out to me and my NDP colleagues from coast to coast to coast. These women are appalled by the Prime Minister's treatment of the first indigenous woman to serve as Attorney General.

The former attorney general stood up to the most powerful man in Canada, the Prime Minister, who was asking her to do something wrong. She did not change her mind and she lost her job because of it. Now she is being silenced and cannot tell her full story. Unfortunately far too many women can relate.

Women know what it is like to fight twice as hard to prove themselves and have their decisions disrespected by men desperate to hold on to power and eager to let women take the blame for their actions instead of accepting responsibility.

Canadian women are watching. They see the difference between people calling themselves a feminist and actively working to support women, not control them.

I am a proud New Democrat, and we value the contributions of women in this place. We will always work to amplify their voices. We will never suppress them.

[Privilege, March 19th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on the question of privilege that was brought up by the MP for Milton.

I was at committee today for the incident that has been raised by my colleague in the House. I am also very concerned about the violation, the intentional breach that was accurately described here as what happened today in committee.

I have heard what my colleague has just stated and would like the opportunity to come back tomorrow to speak to the question.

[Justice, March 19th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, two senior cabinet ministers, the chief adviser and the most senior public servant in the country have resigned. The Liberals want us to think there is nothing to see here. The Ethics Commissioner's duties are limited and investigating political interference is not part of his job. Now that Liberal MPs have shut down the study of the justice committee, the only choice left is an independent public inquiry. Canadians want the truth. They deserve better than this.

Will the Prime Minister allow an independent public inquiry into the interference scandal at his office, yes or no?

[Justice, March 19th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, this morning the Liberal MPs on the justice committee shut down the study over the PMO's interference scandal for good. Their message was clear. The Liberals do not believe that Canadians deserve to know what happened. Are they serious?

The NDP strongly believes that Canadians deserve the truth. The former attorney general wants to reappear before the committee and speak her full truth. The Prime Minister is refusing to let this happen. The only way we will ever know the truth is through an independent public inquiry. Will the Prime Minister launch one now, yes or no?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, March 18th, 2019]

With regard to housing investments and housing assets held by the government: (a) how much federal funding has been spent in Essex on housing over the period of 1995 to 2017, broken down by year; (b) how much federal funding is scheduled to be spent on housing in Essex over the period of 2015 to 2019, broken down by year; (c) how much federal funding has been invested in cooperative housing in Essex over the period of 1995 to 2017, broken down by year; (d) how much federal funding is scheduled to be invested in cooperative housing in Essex over the period of 2015 to 2019, broken down by year; (e) how many physical housing units were owned by the government in Essex over the period of 1995 to 2017, broken down by year; (f) how many physical housing units owned by the government are scheduled to be constructed in Essex over the period of 2015 to 2019, broken down by year; and (g) what government buildings and lands have been identified in Essex as surplus and available for affordable housing developments?

[Justice, March 18th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, last week at the justice committee emergency meeting, Liberal MPs shut down debate on the PMO's interference scandal. Tomorrow, Liberals intend to hold a meeting out of the public eye, behind closed doors. They keep telling Canadians there is nothing to see here, that it is just procedural. The fact is that the former attorney general wants to tell her whole truth, but the Prime Minister refuses to let Canadians hear it. This is a deliberate obstruction of justice.

Canadians deserve the truth. Will the Prime Minister do the right thing and allow the former attorney general to speak her whole truth for Canadians to hear, yes or no?

[Employment, February 28th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, on that side no one is standing up for women. While Canadians are fighting for their jobs, the Prime Minister has been busy pressuring the former attorney general to break the law for his rich corporate friends. Imagine if the PMO put all those efforts into standing up for working people. Instead, he invested time and energy into pressuring the former AG to change her mind to help his rich corporate friends.

This is about the choices the Liberals make. They will not fight for GM auto workers. They will not fight for steel and aluminum jobs and they failed Sears pensioners. Why will the Liberals not just admit that the middle class and those working hard to join it just do not matter to them?

[Pharmacare, February 26th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, too many people skip the medicine they need because the prices are too high. All Canadians deserve coverage, but instead, the Liberals are cooking up a half-baked plan that leaves workers out. Do the Liberals not know that employer coverage is not what it used to be? Corporations have been rolling back benefits for working people, leaving them with not only less coverage but often with no coverage for the drugs they need.

Canadians want a comprehensive, universal, single-payer pharmacare plan that covers everyone equally. Why are the Liberals refusing to listen?

[Canadian Heritage, February 25th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, as we speak, there is a conversation happening across our country about how critical independent media is. The fact of the matter is that papers are closing. We have had papers that are over a century old close. We have had hundreds of reporters, hundreds of journalists, lose their jobs. We need urgent action.

To be quite honest, the initiatives that the Liberals brought forward are not enough on their own to get us back to the place where we were. I recognize that things are shifting, media workers and journalists recognize that, but there are some concrete steps that need to be taken by the government.

One is tax incentives for Canadian advertisers to keep their media spends within Canada. Two is that the web giants pay their fair share. Why do they continue to get a free pass? Yes, we have shifted onto these platforms, but they need to pay their fair share. Three is matching the financial contributions that cable TV companies have made to the Canada Media Fund.

These are three critical important steps that the government could take in the upcoming budget.

[Canadian Heritage, February 25th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to follow up on a question I posed for the Minister of Canadian Heritage about journalists and media workers who were here in Ottawa at the time with a clear message to the Liberals: Journalism is in a crisis.

Government inaction is why newspapers and media outlets are closing and why journalists are losing their jobs. We all know there is so much that can be done to save local news and the government has the regulatory tools necessary to support journalists and media workers. It just needs to use them. One of those tools is the ability to have web giants such as Netflix, Facebook and Google pay their fair share in Canada. They are exempt from Canadian content contributions and this is causing a long, slow drain on the resources that are necessary to keep our local news strong and supported.

In fact, 80% of the advertising has migrated over to these digital platforms and this type of advertising has taken significant revenues out of the pockets of our local journalists and reporters and the ability for the ad buys in traditional media to support the very important work that they do. Other countries have taken the necessary steps to have these web giants pay their fair share when operating in their countries, including in the European Union, in Sweden and recently in New Zealand. Why have we not taken these same steps here in Canada?

We also need to keep our small-market newspapers strong. I represent small towns in my beautiful riding of Essex and I know how hard our local reporters are working. I would like to give a special shout-out to some of those who I see out working extremely hard all around the county: Shelby Wye at the Harrow News; Sylene Argent at the Essex Free Press; Matt Weingarden at the Lakeshore News; Ron Giofu at the River Town Times in Amherstburg; Nelson Santos at the Kingsville Reporter, who is also the mayor of Kingsville; and the LaSalle Post.

The Windsor Star also serves our area, but extreme cuts have left it with a skeleton of the once-vibrant newsroom it had. I know many reporters, like the brilliant Julie Kotsis-Wilder, who have watched their paper become a shadow of what it once was due to these cuts. That creates tremendous pressure on journalists because it is very difficult for them to do their work when there is so much pressure for them to produce content. We are starting to see that stories are not able to be told because there simply are not the reporters there to go out and cover those stories.

CBC Windsor and CTV Windsor also have reporters who are running around our county trying to tell all of our stories, radio reporters, like Adelle Loiselle at Blackburn News and Rob Hindi at AM800, just to name a few. The stories they tell are the stories of our lives and so important to keep our communities connected and thriving. In particular in rural ridings, this is very critical. Often we have that large hub of news media in the nearest city, but for small towns this is the way they stay connected. They see what each other's children are doing. They talk about the important things that are happening in the town. The five municipalities I represent, extremely active municipalities, need their stories to be told and they need people to be able to access them.

It is becoming more and more difficult to tell these stories when the web giants are getting massive advertising dollars and a free ride on our system. I want to quote Jake Moore, who is the Unifor media chair. He was here in Ottawa at that time. He said:

It’s time for the government to address the massive shift in advertising and subscription revenues now going to American media tech giants such as Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google, while Canada’s cultural sector suffers....

Internet companies in Canada should be matching the financial contributions that cable TV companies make to the Canada Media Fund and the independent local TV news fund. New Democrats will continue to stand up for media, for workers and for journalists at a time when free press could not be more critical. When will the Liberals get the courage needed to act?