Public Service Labour Relations Act  Mr. Speaker, I find the remarks of the hon. President of the Treasury Board interesting, because on one hand he says we do not want to impose something different on the RCMP than other unions have, and that was in response to the official opposition proposal and, on the other han

Justice  Mr. Speaker, during the election, the Liberals promised to add gender identity to the human rights code and to the hate crimes section of the Criminal Code. In February, the Minister of Justice told us that she would introduce legislation to protect gender identity and gender e

Criminal Code  Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the member on his very thoughtful speech today, and thank him for the work that he did on the Special Joint Committee on Physician-Assisted Dying along with the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot on behalf of our caucus. The committee was so abl

Southern Resident Killer Whales  Madam Speaker, I rise once again today to call for action to save the southern resident killer whales. These whales have great spiritual significance for first nations. They are an icon for Vancouver Island and an important part of our local tourism economy. Despite the recent

Public Safety  Mr. Speaker, 10 years ago the NDP passed a motion calling on the government to establish a compensation fund for fallen firefighters. The Liberals again promised this fund during the election, yet the Prime Minister spoke to firefighters yesterday and failed to act on the public

National Defence  Mr. Speaker, last week Canadians were alarmed to discover that the Liberals' defence review included consideration of privatizing search and rescue. Now we have learned the Liberals are also reconsidering Canada's participation in the Star Wars missile defence scheme. I have a

Bullying  Mr. Speaker, today marks the day of pink, a day to raise awareness about bullying and a day to stand up to call for an end to bullying. New Democrats wear pink today to stand collectively with the victims to say no to homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, classism, ableism,

Search and Rescue  We have now learned that the Liberal government is looking at privatizing search and rescue as part of the defence review. This was an idea that was first raised by the Conservatives five years ago, and finally abandoned only after a public outcry. At that time, the current Minis

National Defence  Mr. Speaker, the National Defence military foreign service instructions define a combat mission as, “where the use or threatened use of force, including lethal force, is...[used] to accomplish a mission”. Yesterday, Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff admitted that, in the Liber

Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL  Mr. Speaker, earlier the member for Scarborough—Guildwood suggested that at this late hour of the debate maybe we need a little comparison. For New Democrats who think we would be more effective in cutting off the flow of funds, arms, and foreign fighters to ISIS, I look at the

Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL  Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the member from Niagara Falls and the other Conservatives. It is certainly quite clear that on this motion, they object to withdrawing the Canadian fighters, although one could argue that we are still very much involved in bombing, becau

National Defence  Mr. Speaker, let us go through this one more time. Last year the Liberals complained about the former prime minister's tinkering with the definition of combat missions. Back then, the man who is now the Prime Minister's senior foreign policy adviser said that the Iraq mission wa

Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL  Mr. Speaker, I think it is a cul-de-sac we have run into. We are clearly in a combat zone where Canadian troops are at the front lines. They will inevitably be drawn into what most people would call combat. Rather than spend a lot of time debating whether it is or is not combat

Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL  Mr. Speaker, I am not sure the member listened all that carefully to what we have been saying on this side of the House, because we support the government's initiatives to provide aid to refugees and humanitarian assistance to prevent the collapse of surrounding countries. We hav

Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL  Mr. Speaker, of course, the obvious answer to that is something that I talked about in my speech and New Democrats have talked about again and again. The first step is to sign the Arms Trade Treaty, which the Conservatives refused to do with some spurious excuse that it affected