Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply  Mr. Speaker, over one million Canadian children live in poverty. There are 83,000 children in my home city of Toronto who go to school hungry. Some 550,000 households live below the poverty line. Poverty did not get a single mention in the throne speech. What will the government

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply  Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Scarborough Centre. I am humbled to stand in this great hall and give thanks to the people of Etobicoke North who have given me the greatest honour of my life. I promise to serve my community with humility and to the b

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply  Mr. Speaker, I will serve the member's parents to the best of my abilities. I cannot speak to the past on climate change. The Liberal Party did sign Kyoto. The environment and the economy are inextricably linked, as our platform made very clear in the last election, but we reall

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply  Mr. Speaker, as a former university professor in meteorology, climatology and climate change, and as the lead author for North America on the intergovernmental panel on climate change that won the Nobel Prize, I would like to know the hon. member's baseline for reducing greenhous

Persons with Disabilities  Mr. Speaker, today is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1982. The 2008 theme is "Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Dignity and justice for all of us". Approximately 10% of the world's popula

The Budget  Mr. Speaker, first I would ask the government how it can claim it is taking immediate action or that there will be little time for the money to trickle down, since we know that in September the government said there would be no recession and in October that there would be no defi

The Budget  Madam Speaker, in 2007 770,000 Canadians used food banks each month. Today one in nine Canadian children grows up in poverty. Research shows that for every dollar a country invests in giving children a good start in life, the country saves $7 in spending on health and other probl

Canada–EFTA Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act  Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for this thoughtful argument. The member mentioned that the procurement should be fair and should create jobs for Canada. What is the member's opinion regarding the recent contract for 1,300 military trucks to be filled by Navistar International in

The Budget  Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his discussion and particularly for his comments about women. In my riding 25% of families are headed by single parents, the vast majority of them women. I have two questions: what would the government's proposed agenda to remove women's righ

Agriculture  Mr. Speaker, crews began killing 60,000 turkeys at a farm in Abbotsford, British Columbia after the CFIA confirmed several of the birds had contracted an H5 avian influenza virus. Farms in the Fraser Valley also suffered avian flu outbreaks in 2004 and 2005. What specific steps

Situation in Sri Lanka  Mr. Speaker, over 50 years ago, an outstanding and remarkable Canadian, Lester Pearson, was honoured with the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize for his perseverance, success, vision and wisdom in creating a peacekeeping mission and the blueprint for the United Nation's now well recognized r

BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION ACT, 2009  Mr. Speaker, once again I am honoured and humbled to serve my beautiful community of Etobicoke North and raise the issues of my constituents in this, their House of Commons. Five women--Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Irene Parlby, Louise McKinney and Nellie McClung--conte

BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION ACT, 2009  Mr. Speaker, the first six months of this year saw Canada have the worst economic performance of the G8. In September, we were told that a recession would not be coming. In October, we were told that there would be no deficit. At the time of the economic statement, we were told

BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION ACT, 2009  Mr. Speaker, my riding is one of the most multicultural in the country. We rank fifth in terms of diversity. We also rank second of 308 ridings in terms of the percentage of people engaged in manufacturing. We have lost two companies in the last week. On the issue of women, almo

BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION ACT, 2009  Mr. Speaker, it is important to look at the World Economic Forum figures. We have dropped from 18th to 31st in this past year. This new legislation will not protect women. Women lose out at the bargaining table.