Youth Voluntary Service  Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to recognize and thank the member for Davenport, the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, the member for Churchill, and other members who spoke very eloquently about my initiative. I would also like to recognize the members from the government sid

Democratic Republic of the Congo  Mr. Speaker, today, a hundred Congolese women are visiting Parliament. The war in the Congo has been called a war on women. During the civil war, tens of thousands of women—mothers, daughters and grandmothers—have been systematically raped. One year ago, the UN asked Canada to ta

Youth  Mr. Speaker, young Canadians have been hit harder than anyone by this recession. In fact, nearly half of all Canadians who have lost their jobs are under 25. Yet Canada needs these young people to build a brighter, more prosperous future for us all. How can this government justi

Youth  Mr. Speaker, despite all the nice words, because of this recession students across our country found it extremely difficult to find summer jobs to help pay for their education. In fact, youth unemployment is at 20%, more than twice the national average. I met with a group of stu

Youth  Mr. Speaker, under these Conservatives, our young people are once again being ignored. Even though young people make up more than 37% of the population, only 0.04% of the economic action plan funds are being invested in youth programs. Moreover, you can count on the fingers of on

Youth  Mr. Speaker, if the member opposite wants to talk about programs, let us talk about what little the Conservatives did when we did an analysis of all youth skills linked program announcements from January to August and found that 75% of the announcements landed in Conservative hel

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Toronto Centre. “That this House has lost confidence in the government”. This is not something that is said lightly. It is something the Liberal Party is saying after serious thought, after consulting with Canadia

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I can understand where my hon. colleague from Gatineau is coming from, because he can see that the Liberal Party is popular in Quebec. People are interested in what we have to offer. They want us back in government. If he wants to talk about the past, he should try

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I am pleased to see all those clippings about how strong the Canadian banking system is and would like to remind the hon. member that it was his leader who fought hardest and said that we should be more like Citibank in this country and that we needed to unite our

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I would like to point out that when the hon. minister was asking for ideas, my suggestion to bring forward a conversation about youth and service in this House was shot down by the Conservative Party. On the other issue, I would like to respond to every Conservati

Bill C-311--Climate Change Accountability Act  Madam Speaker, I am glad to hear the member opposite talk about the robust and rigorous plan that the Conservative government has put forward. My question then is why the Conservatives are opposed to this motion to simply separate Bill C-311 to look at one section that they woul

Bill C-311--Climate Change Accountability Act  Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the member for Lac-Saint-Louis. For the past four years, the Conservative government has been saying all kinds of nice things and making all kinds of promises about the environment, and for the past four years, the Liberal Part

Bill C-311--Climate Change Accountability Act  Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member. He raised a few points that I could completely take issue with, but I will focus instead on his question. Quebec, which indeed has some great solutions for environmental problems—and I must congratulate the Charest government for bringing

Bill C-311--Climate Change Accountability Act  I will take advantage of this moment, Madam Speaker, to remind the hon. members opposite that the Liberal Party in the 2008 election, in which I was elected, had an ambitious plan regarding the environment. It was not universally accepted and we find ourselves in opposition becau

Health  Mr. Speaker, last July, two thirds of Canadians were planning to get vaccinated against H1N1, but now only half of them are planning to get vaccinated. And the figures are worse with respect to youth. A mere 36% of young adults are considering getting vaccinated, and that percent