44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 2, 2023 10:00AM
- May/2/23 5:03:11 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I respect my hon. colleague greatly, as he knows, but I have to challenge the relevance. He has gone on now for almost five minutes and has not mentioned housing once.
33 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/2/23 5:23:06 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, the problem we have on this side is this. I will reiterate what our hon. colleague from Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies brought up earlier on. When he had the minister and the officials before committee, he asked the minister how many houses had been built in the Yukon and how many houses had been built in the Northwest Territories. The minister could not answer that and neither could the officials. Then, we had our hon. colleague from the NDP, the member of Parliament for Nunavut, give a powerful message yesterday, saying that the lack of housing and the lack of action by the government in developing affordable housing in our most marginalized communities are keeping some of our most marginalized indigenous women and families in very dangerous situations.
The government has had eight years to follow through with it. Why should we wait and see, and trust that it will do it now? It has been eight years, and the government has done nothing.
170 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/2/23 5:43:37 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I request a recorded vote please.
8 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
moved that Bill C-321, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (assaults against health care professionals and first responders), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
30 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I am truly honoured and humbled to rise in this House to speak to my private member's bill, Bill C-321. However, before I go further, I want to send, which I think I do for all parliamentarians, heartfelt condolences and well wishes to the friends, families and colleagues of the two firefighters missing in the Charlevoix region, who were doing what firefighters do: putting themselves in the line of danger. It appears that they were swept away by the floods in that region, so all of our thoughts and prayers are going out to those families.
Bill C-321 would amend the Criminal Code to require courts to consider that when a victim of an assault is a health care professional, a health care worker or a first responder, it is an aggravating circumstance for the purpose of sentencing. In preparing for delivering this speech, I agonized over what I was going to say. How do I adequately convey the messages, convey the pain, convey the fear and convey the stories that I have heard from the nurses, paramedics, first responders, police officers and firefighters who have written to me and shared with me their personal stories of violence, assault and terror?
When did it become acceptable to punch or kick a nurse when they are administering care? This is a real question. Nurses have the highest rates of violence in our nation. Ninety-two per cent of nurses have indicated they have experienced a form of violence in their workplace. They live in fear. Two-thirds of those nurses have said they have considered quitting.
Firefighters, police officers, correctional officers, nurses and doctors put on their uniforms each and every day to serve us and our families. They do so knowing they are going to experience human tragedy. They do so knowing and expecting that they are going to face violence. They mend our wounds. They bandage our cuts. They heal our hearts. Firefighters run into burning buildings. Police officers run toward bullets and run toward danger when others run away. They hold our hand when we take our last breath. Who protects them?
For the past few months, Canadians have been horrified to see the increasing rates of violence against our first responders, our nurses and our health care workers. This is splashed across our social media and splashed across our news feeds, and we cannot escape it. We are becoming desensitized to it. In the last number of months, 10 police officers have been killed, ambushed. Shaelyn Yang in Vancouver was an RCMP officer delivering life-saving naloxone care when she was viciously stabbed and killed.
Police, paramedics, ambulance attendants, nurses to some extent, and health care workers go into these domestic scenes to save people's lives and care for Canadians in their most trying times. Those scenes in those moments are very dangerous. They live in fear.
Just a month ago, Canadians were shocked to learn of the ambush of two Edmonton police officers as they responded to a domestic 911 call. They did not have a chance. I fear I will not do their words justice.
The motivation for this bill was a message sent to me two years ago through Facebook. It was from a paramedic who relayed to me a story of how she attended a call with her partner in a domestic scene. While they were attending to the victim, a family member of the victim picked up the paramedic and threw her down a flight of stairs, and then proceeded to stomp on her and break her ankles. She was thrown down a flight of stairs. How, as a society, have we fallen so far that this is normal, that we allow this?
A paramedic wrote to me to explain that she was sexually assaulted by a patient in the back of her ambulance. She pressed charges, yet that perpetrator was out less than two days later, and less than three weeks later was back in that paramedic's ambulance again. We have fallen. I do not understand.
Since the beginning of the year, there have been reports of paramedics who have been shot at with pellet guns, threatened with machetes and stabbed with needles. The day-to-day physical and verbal abuse that they endure is growing. It is time we sent a message. There are 338 members of Parliament in this House. It is time that we sent a message to our health care workers, to our first responders and to our public safety personnel that we have their backs. We need to send a message.
This violence leads to fear. It leads to compassion fatigue. It leads to morale and recruitment issues. Currently, there is a group of nine applicants going through the RCMP depot right now. Why would someone want to become a police officer? Why would someone want to be a firefighter, a paramedic or a nurse, when they know this is what they are going to face? What protection is there for them?
Some 92% of nurses have experienced physical violence in the course of their jobs. Our health care workers and our first responders are ready to answer the call without hesitation. We dial 911, and they come running without hesitation. If we show up in an emergency ward, they are there to help us or our loved ones in our time of need, yet because they are there, they put themselves in a vulnerable setting. They can be walking by and get punched in the face or kicked on the floor. Who helps them? Oftentimes they are left alone with no one to attend to them.
They need to know that someone has their back. Unfortunately, while providing this essential care to our communities, our frontline heroes are being assaulted. They are being belittled and forced to confront a growing epidemic of violence against them. The statistics are alarming. They are not made up. Those workplaces, simply put, are not safe. When did violence in a workplace ever become the norm?
A recent internal survey by Region of Peel paramedics said that 97.5% of medics have all experienced physical and verbal abuse, forms of intimidation. Eighty per cent have been physically assaulted. Sixty per cent have been sexually assaulted. The International Association of Fire Fighters reported growing rates of acts of violence when responding to structural fires and reported acts of violence during medical calls. What are we doing to help those who help us?
A firefighter was punched while rescuing people from a burning building and a nurse was thrown down while she was administering care in a hospital emergency room. There is nothing enshrined in Canadian law that deters violence against them. The sole purpose of Bill C-321 is to provide those who serve us, those who protect us, protection.
Whether they are a nurse, a personal care worker, a paramedic, a firefighter, a correctional officer or a psychiatric nurse who is performing their duties, they are facing increasing rates of violence, and we need them to know they are cherished and that someone has their back. We need them to know there is someone fighting for them. We as parliamentarians are fighting for them. That violence being perpetrated against them is unacceptable, and we will not stand for it. We will stand against it.
Our health care workers and first responders should know and be assured that if they are attacked, there is a legal mechanism in place, and that the perpetrator will be tried and convicted with the full force of our Canadian legal system.
As it exists today, many of the health care workers and first responders who are assaulted while performing their duties do not get support from the legal system. Often they are told it is part of their job. They are told that it is part of their job description. It is a culture we are fighting to change. Getting abused at work is never acceptable.
The response to tabling this bill has been overwhelming. Hundreds, if not thousands, of paramedics, firefighters, police officers and nurses have written to us to share their stories. Nobody wants to get involved when this happens. Everybody stands by the wayside and just watches. That is unacceptable. It is unacceptable in society that we sit and watch that. When did it become okay to hunt RCMP, to hunt police officers or to hunt paramedics?
The stories are horrific and heartbreaking. I honestly could spend the next year sharing the stories that we have heard. At the natural resources committee on March 10, Carmen Santoro, senior executive of Eastern Canada's International Association of Fire Fighters, testified before the committee and said this:
Before I close, while I have the floor, I want to say that I've been a firefighter for 37 years. For most of it, I was a supervisor or a captain. What a lot of people don't realize is that we are one of the few professions that do not have the right to refuse unsafe work.
They do not have the right to refuse dangerous work. He continued, “Every emergency scene is unsafe work, and we rely on all of you,” parliamentarians, “to include safety measures,” and for us to consider their safety. Let that sink in. They do not have the right to refuse dangerous work.
If a simple assault charge was enough of a deterrent, this debate would be irrelevant, but clearly there is nothing right now that is acting as a deterrent for the increasing rates of violence experienced by health care workers and first responders. That is why the International Association of Fire Fighters has come out and supported this. The Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, the Paramedic Association of Canada, the Ambulance Paramedics of British Columbia, the Ontario Paramedic Association, the Paramedic Chiefs of Canada, the Manitoba Association of Fire Chiefs, the Saskatoon Paramedic Association, and the British Columbia's Nurses' Union have all lent their support for this legislation.
It is obvious there is a need for this because there are so many provincial, national and international organizations that have come on board. Big city mayors are talking about the increasing rates of violence and the need for deterrence. We need to do more as parliamentarians.
This is not the first time this has been brought up in this House. It was studied at the health committee in 2019. Its recommendation was that the Government of Canada amend the Criminal Code to require a court to consider the fact that if the victim of assault is a health care service sector worker, that be an aggravating circumstance for the purposes of sentencing. That is exactly what Bill C-321 does.
Members know the work I have done in this House with respect to our first responders, and those who serve our country and our community. I carry a challenge coin with me all the time to remind me of the sacrifices they make. These brave men and women put their uniforms on, and they fight each and every day. They get up each and every day knowing they are going to face dangerous circumstances and their lives are going to be put in jeopardy. They live in fear.
We always talk about honouring them. I think there is no greater honour for the hundreds of thousands of public service workers, health care workers and public safety personnel than to pass Bill C-321. That is truly honouring their service.
1932 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I would agree with my hon. colleague. Definitely, people are angry. People are frustrated. The rates of violence against our frontline heroes have been increasing in recent years and we must put a stop to it. That is why it is so important that we work together, collaboratively, and pass Bill C-321.
55 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague and I have talked about this. I agree. It was a mistake on my part at drafting. I should have had “health care worker” to encompass all of those who work in the health care setting. Also, during the work of my bill, Bill C-211, we came to the understanding that there was no definition of “first responder”, but we used “public safety personnel”.
I would work with my hon. colleague to make those amendments.
87 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, the why is very simply that message I received from the paramedic who wrote to me telling me about the assault that happened to her, as well as the work that we have done through Bill C-211, the people we have lost who were first responders, who were health care workers, who we lost to suicide.
This contributes to post-traumatic stress disorder. It contributes to compassion fatigue and burnout. It contributes to those just fearing for their lives when they go to work. Sometimes, there is no way out. They see no way out but to end their lives.
I live and work every day to make sure that we are breaking the stigma and doing whatever we can to protect those who protect us and fight for those who fight for us.
137 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
