SoVote

Mr. Matt Jeneroux (Edmonton Riverbend, CPC)

Feb/1/22 11:54:19 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will not be ceding any time back to that member. It is an honour to stand in this place. I do not believe I have to split my time, but perhaps somebody could confirm that. I will continue on. It is an honour to speak to the Speech from the Throne and to also spend some time sharing the election, sharing the number of volunteer hours and taking that opportunity to thank so many. I will just read a few names into the record. We had a very active core team, many of whom have been with me through five elections. I regret that I have not been able to mention a lot of their names in this place until today. They are Andrew Marklund, Bruce Foy, Bruce McLaughlin, Bryan Kim and his whole team, Deanna and Jason Bischoff, Elizabeth Hughes, Erin Allin and her wonderful partner Connor, Ivonne Martinez, James and Amanda Kadavil and their two lovely boys, John Whitmore, Karamveer Lalh, who is our EDA president, Mazhar Butt, who did a tremendous job of handling our CFO duties, Michelle Chen, Nancy Bishay, and Bieri Beretti, Norman Lorrain who did our signs, Pat Maru who sat at the front desk, Sami Alam, Scott Reith, Shaina and Bill Anderson, Sia Saffa, my good buddy Sohail Quadri, Varun Chandrasekar, and of course Vera Fedor, whom we could not have run the election without. She consistently shows up at our front office again and again, and it means the world to me to have a friend like her. Those are the volunteers. From a family perspective, none of us is able to be in this place without our family. I was able to celebrate my 13-year-old little girl. She turned into a teenager right before my eyes. I have been doing this for 10 years now. I feel she has grown up with me, either on the campaign trail or at public events. Lily Jeneroux means the world to me. I was happy to be home to see her, even briefly, before she became a teenager to join her other sister in the teen years. I have two girls in their teen years, and that is all I have to say about that. Molly Jeneroux is 14. I am hearing that I am a brave guy from the other side of the House. I will leave the comments at that. For them to put in these 10 years with me makes me think about how much this job impacts them in their lives, in their school and with their friends. With everything we have had to do to get me to Ottawa, and then often leaving on Sundays and not coming back until later in the week, I miss a lot of opportunities at home to see them. It is certainly something that we all have to weigh every time we run in an election. To me, they are the real motivation for continuing to do this job: It is to make this country a better place for them. If having two teenage daughters was not enough, I also have a two-year-old son. Actually, this Saturday he will be entering his terrible twos. I am not sure how I planned having teenage daughters and a two-year-old son, but he has really been through some of the darkest days of COVID. He has really been able to shine a light in our home. I see so much hope in little baby Hugh, who is not so much a baby anymore. I am fascinated by just watching him carry on about his day, playing with his cars and trucks. It is really neat to revisit fatherhood in a different form, all over again. Then, of course, there is my amazing spouse, Elizabeth Clement. She is a surgeon. She spends a lot of time in the hospital and on call. Our lives often diverge, but when we are able to we coordinate our schedules. I find she is busier than I am in a lot of ways. She is certainly someone I admire. I am so lucky to be able to spend my life with her. Sometimes I think she forgets I am a member of Parliament, because she is so busy saving lives on her end. I think she often looks at me and wonders, “How many lives did you save today?” I like to think I have saved lives, but she is truly the one who is great in our family. Those thanks aside, I want to talk about three things that I think are important and have been working on and, having been elected for just over six years now, want to continue to advocate. As members know, we are inundated with many ideas and many people bring up many different things that they think we should be working on, so to really dive into those things that we think are important takes a lot of focus and concentration. The first thing is the Father's Day on Parliament Hill event that we do for men's mental health every year. The NDP member for Courtenay—Alberni has been a real champion with me on that, as well as the member for Richmond Hill from the government side. Between the three of us, we have found a unique friendship in being able to address this issue that I think connects with so many Canadians and make it a non-partisan issue. We were able to raise awareness for the many men who are suffering from suicidal thoughts and those who have been impacted by postpartum depression after the birth of a baby. Every time we do the event in June on Father's Day, my inbox gets filled with mail from people who are sharing their stories about what our event has meant to them. We are now going into our fifth year. I have not connected with the member for Courtenay—Alberni about it and may be shocking him in the House now, but obviously we will do the event again. I would love it to be in person as we have done in the past, as we have done the last two as virtual events. Going into the fifth year of doing this with our partners in the Mental Health Commission of Canada and the Movember Foundation, we have been able to move the needle to stamp out the stigma for men to talk about suicide, because 80% of men die by suicide, and we are seeing those high numbers in really young men, men under the age of 40 in a lot of cases. The importance of this event makes it something that I will continue to work on in this Parliament. I hope to continue to stamp out that stigma and allow men to continue to talk about their feelings, to be that modern man in a lot of ways and not be afraid to address the suicidal thoughts in their lives. The second thing I would love to address is that a really good friend of mine, Jakob Guziak, a little boy I have come to know quite well, was diagnosed with SCID, which is severe combined immunodeficiency, just 10 days after his birth. SCID causes an inability to fight off most types of infections, including bacterial, viral and fungal infections. Jacob needs some gene therapy support, and there is a gene therapy out there that could significantly impact Jakob's life, but it costs $2 million. His mother Andrea and father Kamil have been absolutely dedicated to getting him that help. Again, every chance I get, I will support them and fight alongside them to push for that therapy so that he can get the support he needs. Lastly, we had a very historic moment in the last Parliament when we passed a bill for compassionate bereavement leave, thanks to a lot of members' help from the other side and the NDP. We had some champions for this legislation, which was great, but we need one more step. We need the provinces to adopt the legislation so that bereavement leave is consistent across the provinces and not just for federal agencies and commissions. I will commit to continue to work to get the provinces on board so that everybody can receive compassionate bereavement leave if they so desire. On that note, it is a privilege to stand in this place and an honour to share this place with so many hon. members. I know it gets heated from time to time, but I find that there are a lot of friendships to be made across the aisle if we take the opportunity to reach out and talk to some of our colleagues.

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Context: House Hansard - 21 - Feb/1/22

Mr. Matt Jeneroux

Feb/1/22 12:05:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I could probably use a few tips from the member as I embark on this. The member has become a good friend. In the Canada-U.K. committee, he glossed over it, but under his leadership as the chair, we have actually been able to do some pretty neat things and have been able to bring a lot of us together to push for certain initiatives. He should take credit for a lot of that work. To the member's point, I was elected provincially before I came here, and it seems more and more of that cross-jurisdictional conversation is happening, whether it is municipal, provincial or federal, about the federal government's role in housing, mental health and long-term care. There seems to be a desire from the general public to have that conversation at this national level. It is something I welcome. I think there is opportunity to show leadership, whether one is in the official opposition or in government, on a lot of those conversations. Mental health is a very key conversation, because it is not jurisdictionally bound. It is a conversation we should all be having.

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Context: House Hansard - 21 - Feb/1/22

Mr. Matt Jeneroux

Feb/1/22 12:08:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I was hoping that the hon. member would be joining me once again. I am looking forward to getting other members to also address it in the House and I am glad he will be supporting our event again this year. The member is right. This is something he is incredibly passionate about, and it is an honour to be able to call him a friend. We have been able to bridge a lot of those conversations, as they do not need to be partisan. We can get some really good work done, and I think we saw that during the vote for the national hotline in the motion by the member for Timmins—James Bay. Ultimately, if we can work together in Parliament on things like mental health, there is nothing we cannot do in this Parliament.

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