Tracey Ramsey

[International Trade, December 12th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the problem is that the Liberals have been promising this since 1997. It is now 2018. In every single election, the Liberals have had a promise in their platform to implement a pharmacare program across our country, and every single time, including in 2015, they have broken that promise. Canadians no longer believe the Liberals when they say they are going to implement pharmacare in this country. How many times can Canadians be fooled by the government and, basically, the untruths being told, as if there were some culture of caring by the Liberals about Canadians who are struggling to afford their medication?

Once again, we are studying this. The member speaks about the money we are spending to once again study this. How much money have we spent to study something when there already is a plan? We have studied this issue over and over again. There is a wide consensus across the country on what needs to happen. The problem is that the Liberal government has failed to act on those recommendations.

Once again, we see that in 2019 there will be another carrot dangled in front of vulnerable and sick Canadians who cannot afford their medication. Once again, there will be a Liberal promise of a pharmacare plan that will never see the light of day. Now we see them spending money on pipelines and different things that are not improving the lives of everyday Canadians.

Again, I ask, why is the Liberal government not being honest with Canadians and saying that it will not implement pharmacare?

[International Trade, December 12th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to bring back to debate a question I had posed prior to us signing onto the new USMCA or the new NAFTA as it is being called. At the time, we did not know what was happening in the negotiations. They were quite contentious, as Canadians know, but we were hearing about U.S. proposals that would lead to higher drug costs for Canadians.

We also were talking about the expectation Canadians had that Liberals would defend good jobs in the new NAFTA. Of course, we know now that the steel and aluminum tariffs remain on the table. This has left tens of thousand of Canadians, steel and aluminum workers and small businesses across our country in a very precarious position. It is a true failure of the Liberal government to not have achieved the removal of these tariffs and to protect those jobs.

Now we find ourselves in a very odd space where we have signed onto the agreement and we have no leverage with the United States to remove these tariffs. Communities across my region of southwestern Ontario, Essex in particular, are extremely hard hit because of these tariffs and the underlying ecosystem they support with respect to the automotive and manufacturing sectors that flourish and are really a key driver not just of the economy in Ontario but of the entirety of Canada. This is a complete failure of the Liberal government to have left these tariffs and jobs in jeopardy.

Tonight I want to focus my comments on what at that time we knew as being a leak, that there was a proposal that would lead to higher drug costs for Canadians and for public drug plans. We now know that is the case. It is ironic that I rise today on the exact day the protocol replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement with the agreement between Canada and the United States of America and the united Mexican states was brought to the House by the parliamentary secretary. Through this document, we now know Canadians will pay a higher cost for medication.

The question really is this. Why would the Liberals sign us on to an agreement that would cost Canadians more for drugs, life-saving drugs, drugs that make lives more comfortable every day. People who suffer from chronic conditions are making very difficult choices about whether to pay their bills or their medication.

At the time, the response I received from the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs was, “Mr. Speaker, I know how proud Canadians are of our public health care system and we are going to defend it.” We now know that to be completely false. The Liberals did not defend the cost of medications in the new trade agreement, and we have left Canadians to pay the cost of that. There is a health cost to that. There is a mental health cost to that.

Canadians widely want to see us have a pharmacare plan, which continues to be studied and never implemented by any government in the country to the great detriment of the health of our citizens. This is a sweetheart deal for big pharma. This is the Liberals letting Canadians know that they will stand up for big pharmaceutical companies and they will not stand up for Canadians.

Why did the Liberals agree to these provisions that would increase the costs of medications for Canadians? I am hopeful the response will not be a canned response, talking about the deal itself. I want to specifically hear why the Liberals have made it more expensive, in signing this deal, for Canadians to afford their medication?

[Labour, December 12th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, in 2015, the Liberals masqueraded as progressives, trying to convince labour they cared.

While GM has decided to close its plant in Oshawa, the Liberals are nowhere to be seen in the fight to keep these jobs in Canada. When postal workers were fighting for better working conditions, the Liberals, like the Conservatives before them, legislated them back to work. The Liberals did nothing to remove Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs, which are costing jobs.

The year 2018 has been defined by the Liberals betraying Canadian workers. Why will the Liberals not admit what Canadians see clearly; that the government has never had their backs?

[International Trade, December 11th, 2018]

Through you, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is trampling on collective bargaining rights.

The Liberal government refused to award a billion-dollar contract to Canada's Bombardier to build new VIA Rail trains. Instead they awarded the contract to a German California-based company, Siemens. Why? It is because the Liberals know that using Canadian companies for procurement can get us sued by the EU under the investor-state provisions in CETA. When the Liberals called CETA a gold standard in trade, Canadians had no idea that meant giving away their jobs to foreign companies.

Why do the Liberals and Conservatives keep signing us on to trade deals that hand good-paying Canadian jobs to other countries?

[International Trade, December 11th, 2018]

You forgot to add that you trampled on their charter rights. This—

[Opioid Crisis in Canada, December 10th, 2018]

Mr. Chair, I too have met with mothers in my office and with some children who they have been able to bring back from the brink but constantly have a watchful eye on. These are mothers who are looking for a way to be part of the solution and are desperately asking for urgent help from the government. Ten thousand people have died of opioid addiction in our country.

I do appreciate the member bringing up the issue of SARS.

I want to raise another emergency situation that we acted on and that was the H1N1 flu virus. In 2009, we had 428 deaths and we called a national public health emergency in our country that triggered mobilized centres working 24 hours a day, seven days a week for weeks. That stopped the deaths and put us back on a pathway to health.

New Democrats are not alone in calling for a national public health emergency in this country and we are doing so because the government is not doing enough. We in the House cannot pat ourselves on the back and say we are doing everything within our power. The government has the ability to call for a national public health emergency today and start to turn this conversation into one where we are saving people.

Could the member speak to what that would look like in her riding of Edmonton Strathcona and to the mothers that she has met with? What would it mean to hear the government respond in that urgent way?

[Opioid Crisis in Canada, December 10th, 2018]

Madam Chair, the B.C. government has launched an investigation into whether criminal charges are warranted against the companies that are producing the opioids.

It really is something that I think the Trudeau government has been ignoring, that it needs to follow through on. We have to talk about the role that opioid manufacturers play in marketing these products to Canadians. It is time for the Liberals to launch a federal investigation to determine whether or not there should be criminal charges.

Does the member support the idea, and would he pursue this with the minister and the government to bring those charges at a federal level against the manufacturers of opioids?

[Opioid Crisis in Canada, December 10th, 2018]

Madam Chair, I want to thank the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway for his work on this critical issue. It is an emergency issue.

I listened to the health minister earlier. She said that the government is doing everything it can across the country as though there were overdose prevention sites and safe injection sites in every community.

In my community of Windsor-Essex, there are none. Our community is having a raging debate right now about whether or not to have one. On the weekend of November 10 and 11 of this year, we had five overdoses in a 24-hour period. Four people died and one person survived. This is an emergency but we cannot even get a site because there is no funding for it.

As the member said, if the government used its powers under the Emergencies Act to declare a national public health emergency, it would help communities like mine in Windsor-Essex that simply have nothing at this point. We are relying on volunteers and medical professionals who are afraid of losing their licences.

I wonder if the member could please comment on how declaring this an emergency would help communities like mine in Windsor-Essex.

[Petitions, December 10th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on the protection of the western basin of Lake Erie.

The petitioners point out that the western basin of Lake Erie is home to Carolinian flora and fauna, migrating and passive birds, butterflies and marine ecosystems that need to be managed for sustainable use while protecting the area for future generations.

The petitioners point out that conservation and protection practices need to be managed due to the high use of this area.

The petitioners also point out that on June 30, 1997, the national parks directorate of Parks Canada, run through the heritage resource centre at the University of Waterloo, identified this region as a candidate for a national marine conservation area as an outstanding natural area with historic Canadian significance and encourage public appreciation, awareness, understanding and enjoyment of the area.

The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to undertake an updated feasibility study.

[International Trade, December 10th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, this Prime Minister does not have a clue about the uncertainty our workers are facing. Just yesterday he admitted that steel and aluminum tariffs need to go, but what is confusing is why he still went ahead and signed the new NAFTA. The reason, according to the Prime Minister, is to make investors and big businesses happy. These are the Liberals' true colours: standing up for the richest corporations and failing to stand up for our workers. Worse, they have no strategy to remove these tariffs. They just want to wait and see. Do Liberals not understand that every day these tariffs remain is another day when jobs are threatened?