Transgender Day of Remembrance  Mr. Speaker, today I rise to mark the Transgender Day of Remembrance and call attention to the 368 trans and gender diverse people who were murdered this past year and the more than 3,000 killed over the last decade worldwide. While Canada has explicitly recognized trans and gen

Foreign Affairs  Mr. Speaker, a year ago, in Vancouver, the defence minister made modest promises to recommit Canada to UN peacekeeping. However, last weekend the minister announced that the only concrete part of that promise that he actually kept, providing Canadian medevac support for the UN mi

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Edmonton Strathcona. Let me begin by acknowledging that the House formally acknowledged the genocide against the Yazidis in October of 2016. The Yazidis are an ethnic group of over 700,000 people, mostly in northern I

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for pointing out something I did not intend to do, which was confuse those who are resettled with refugees. However, I still think those two are a category as opposed to economic migrants and family reunification cases. His c

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, one of the points I did not have time to get to this evening, but certainly one of the biggest challenges for all refugees, is affordable housing, whether they are refugee claimants or resettled. One of the strong points of what the government has done is that it ha

Petitions  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present e-petition 1743. This petition has more than the 500 required signatures, and Canadians who have signed it call on the Government of Canada to request that the Chinese government grant Canadian journalists free access to Tibet, that the Chines

Petitions  Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to present e-petition no. 1589, originally sponsored by former Burnaby South MP Kennedy Stewart. This petition was sparked by the failure of the Government of Canada to end the unscientific one-year ban on blood donations by men who have

Health  Mr. Speaker, the number of Canadians being infected with HIV is once again rising rapidly among young gay men and has reached epidemic proportions in indigenous communities, yet the Liberals have cut funding to many front-line HIV agencies and have failed to increase access to te

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise for the first time in this new chamber. It is always a privilege to sit here. I will get to my question to the Conservative member in just a second. There is also the whole question of how we pay for the things we need in our so

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I always think it is interesting when the Conservatives, who express their concerns about the influence of foreign money and politics, then turn around and cite the Fraser Institute, which receives enormous donations from the Koch brothers in the United States. Howev

National Defence Act  moved for leave to introduce Bill C-426, An Act to amend the National Defence Act (maiming or injuring self or another). Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a bill that aims to remove a significant barrier to members of the Canadian Forces receiving the mental health assistan

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I want to say just a little bit about the situation in my riding, where a third of people are tenants and over 40% of those tenants spend more than a third of their income on rent each month. In the last year, we saw an average of an 8% increase in rent in the comm

Resignation of Member  Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of my party to join the member for Milton and, I am sure, all members of this House of Commons to thank the member for Kings—Hants for his 22 years of service: service to his constituents in Kings—Hants, service to the people of Nova Scotia, se

Divorce Act  Madam Speaker, this is the first time I have risen with the Minister of Justice in his seat as the minister. I would like to congratulate him on his appointment, but it is disappointing that on his first bill, there is a time allocation motion. The member for Calgary Shepard an

National Defence  Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Forces continue to lose more than one member per month to death by suicide, yet one of the barriers to serving members getting the help that they need is the fact that self-harm remains a disciplinary offence in the military code of conduct. Since the