44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 14, 2022 02:00PM
- Dec/14/22 2:33:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have a crisis in our health care system that is impacting children. Children are suffering. The Prime Minister says that because of an impasse with the premiers, he cannot do anything. I want to remind the Prime Minister that he promised, in the last election, to hire 7,500 more nurses and doctors. It is a promise that, if it was kept, would absolutely help in dealing with this crisis.
My question is this: Did he mean what he said?
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- Dec/14/22 2:33:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have all heard from across the country how Canadians need access to family doctors, how Canadians need access to better mental health services more quickly and how Canadians need to see shortened wait times and an end to surgery backlogs. That is exactly what we are committed to.
We have been working with the provinces. Our health minister has been directly engaged with his counterparts over the past many months to ensure that, as we invest more in health care across this country, we are delivering results and outcomes that Canadians can count on.
That is what Canadians want. That is what we are going to be delivering.
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- Dec/14/22 2:34:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when I am Prime Minister, I will keep my promises.
Another promise—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Dec/14/22 2:34:32 p.m.
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Order. I know everybody is excited that Christmas is coming. It is a week and a half or two weeks away. I would ask everybody to calm down and take a deep breath.
The hon. member for Burnaby South.
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- Dec/14/22 2:35:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for the folks over here, when I am Prime Minister, I will keep my promises, absolutely.
There is another promise that the Prime Minister made that would certainly help the crisis in our health care system. He promised a guaranteed—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Dec/14/22 2:35:44 p.m.
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Order.
The hon. member for Burnaby South. We will try one more time.
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- Dec/14/22 2:36:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we know there are some people in this chamber who like the number three, so when I am Prime Minister, I will keep my promises.
There is another promise the Prime Minister made that would certainly help in this health care crisis. He promised a guaranteed wage of at least $25 an hour for long-term care workers. This would help free up spaces in the hospitals so that seniors could go into long-term care homes and get the proper respect and treatment that they need.
Did the Prime Minister mean what he said, or was he hoping that a fight with the provinces would mean that he would not have to deliver on this promise either?
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- Dec/14/22 2:36:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as we demonstrated through the depths of the pandemic, the federal government is going to step up and is going to continue to step up to support Canadians and to support the essential frontline workers. While all of us take a little time away from our work with our families and communities, they are going to continue to work long hours in hospitals and in seniors care homes. We are going to continue to work with the provinces in terms of making sure that wages are raised for our frontline workers.
The federal government will be there to do its part. We need to make sure we are recognizing those people who are heroes day in and day out and who care for our most vulnerable.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister sent out his public safety minister today, we thought to back down on his hunting rifle ban. Instead, he gave a rambling endorsement of the same policy. He announced that his rural MPs from across the country, including rural Newfoundland, support the ban on hunting rifles. The Prime Minister has tried to deny that he is banning those rifles, even though first nations have said so, his experts have said so and his own caucus members have said so.
Will he stand in the House today, really look us in the eye and tell us that there are no hunting rifles on his banned list?
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Mr. Speaker, we made a commitment to Canadians a number of years ago to ban assault-style weapons from this country. There is no place for guns designed to kill the largest number of people as quickly as possible in this country. That is why we are moving forward with an amendment that ensures assault-style weapons are banned not only in the past, not only in the present but also in the future.
We are going to carefully work with hunters, farmers, caucus members and all parliamentarians from rural areas to ensure we get that list right. All Canadians want to see less gun violence in this country, and that is what we are going to deliver.
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Mr. Speaker, that is not what he is doing. He is banning firearms that, in many cases, are not even semi-automatic. These are firearms that have to be re-chambered every single time. They are deliberately created for hunting and sustenance.
The Assembly of First Nations has unanimously spoken against this ban on hunting rifles, as have numerous experts and now members of his own caucus. They all agree that his ban does not target weapons that are designed to kill people. It targets weapons that are for the legitimate Canadian tradition of hunting.
Will he announce he is backing down from attacking our hunters today?
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Mr. Speaker, we have heard clear concerns from first nations, Métis and Inuit partners. Our intent with this legislation is to target guns designed for the battlefield and not the ones commonly used for hunting. As I have mentioned, the Minister of Public Safety is taking the time to get this right, and that means consulting with partners to make sure we are not capturing weapons we should not be.
Part of that process is showing up to meet with indigenous leaders. That is something the leader of the official opposition failed to do last week when he had an opportunity to sit down with AFN chiefs.
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Mr. Speaker, I have been meeting with first nations leaders from across the country, and they have been unanimous in their desire to protect their millennia-old tradition of hunting. That requires, in the modern sense, the use of hunting rifles. The Prime Minister's government has tabled 300 pages of banned hunting rifles before a Canadian parliamentary committee. He is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, targeting the legitimate hunting tools of rural people and first nations.
Why does he not put that money into securing our borders and fighting crime instead?
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Mr. Speaker, the government that the Leader of the Opposition was a part of, before we took office in 2015, cut close to a billion dollars from our border services and police services across the country.
We, on the contrary, have been investing to restore that funding, even as we move forward with close to a billion dollars for keeping our communities safer. We also have invested massively in our border protection. We ensured, for example, that last year we were able to collect double the number of illegal firearms trying to cross our borders than the year before.
We will continue to protect our borders. We will continue to protect Canadians. We will continue to move on gun control.
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Mr. Speaker, there is no question that his policies are more expensive than our policies, but they have delivered poorer results. Today violent crime is 32% higher than when he took office and that includes a massive increase in gang violence.
The head of the Toronto Police Service said that 82% of the firearms that are used in crime in Canada's biggest city come smuggled in from the United States of America. They are not brought here by hunters from Cape Breton or rural Alberta.
Once and for all, will the Prime Minister stop wasting money on hunters and go after the real criminals instead?
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Mr. Speaker, the last Conservative government, of which its leader was a key part, slashed nearly a billion dollars from our police and our borders. We are building back that capacity. We have invested nearly a billion dollars to end gun violence and keep guns out of the hands of criminals since 2018 alone. That includes another $137 million for the CBSA in the fall economic statement to fight gun smuggling and trafficking, and it is working.
We doubled the number of guns interdicted at the border last year, as compared to the year before.
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- Dec/14/22 2:43:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, again, they are going after the innocent people rather than the real problem.
I will move on to the heroes who protect our country and go to Veterans Affairs to get the services to which they are entitled. The government is now racking up an embarrassing and shameful record of having recommended medical assistance in dying. At least half a dozen veterans now report that they have been advised that medical assistance in dying might be the best solution for them.
Can the Prime Minister, having had time now, tell us exactly how many veterans have had it recommended to them that their lives come to an end?
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- Dec/14/22 2:43:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I have said a number of times, this is absolutely unacceptable. Veterans Affairs Canada is taking serious measures to ensure not only that this never happens again but that any Veterans Affairs officers who have been making those recommendations irresponsibly, and on their own, no longer are in a position to make those.
I will highlight that we have invested over $10 billion in support for our veterans after 10 years of the previous Conservative government nickel-and-diming them and using them for photo ops. We will continue to support our veterans and respect the work they have done.
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- Dec/14/22 2:44:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is from the Prime Minister who said that veterans are asking for more than he can give. This is from the first prime minister who has ever presided over a Veterans Affairs department and who recommends that the heroes who served our country should get medical assistance in dying instead of being given a good life, the one they have earned. One former soldier, a current veteran, said that the policy is triple D: delay, deny and dead veterans.
The question is very specific. How many veterans have been given the recommendation that they should go to medical assistance in dying? Give the number, please.
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- Dec/14/22 2:45:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, even one would be too many. That is why we condemn, in the strongest terms, anyone who has recommended that to our veterans. Our veterans have lived a life of service and deserve the utmost quality of care from our governments. That is why we invested $10 billion after the previous government chose to shutter Veterans Affairs offices across the country and nickel and dime veterans every chance it could get.
We respect our veterans, which is why we are taking seriously the reports that this unacceptable behaviour happened within Veterans Affairs. Our veterans deserve the very best and that is what we will continue to give them.
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