- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Peterborough—Kawartha
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $106,196.43
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be back in the House of Commons to speak on behalf of my constituents of Peterborough—Kawartha. I am very honoured to be supporting my colleague and friend from Battlefords—Lloydminster and her Bill C-318, which I will be speaking to today.
I am the critic for families, children and social development. Since being elected, I have had the opportunity to speak to thousands of people across the country. There is something that I hope everyone in the House knows, and that is that our children are in a mental health crisis. There is no doubt about it and there is no denying it. It is everywhere we go. The increase of neurodivergence and the increase in the needs of our children are increasing as the cost of living is increasing and putting stress on parents.
There are huge issues across this country in affordability, housing and mental health. It is a spider web, and none of it can be separated. None of it can be treated without the other. As happens so often in government, at all levels, it is hard to start. How do we fix such significant, giant problems?
For people who do not know, a private member's bill is when a member of the House, in this case it is my colleague from Battlefords—Lloydminster, puts forward a bill to pass through the House. It is a tangible item that we can all work together on in the House, across all party lines, to approve and make sure it happens. It is something that starts the ball rolling. It is a tiny thing that would change the crisis we are in.
What is this? It is a bill that pushes for adoptive and intended parents to have extended EI benefits. Many people do not know this, but adoptive and intended parents do not get the same EI benefits that other parents do. Why is that? I do not know the answer. It seems pretty silly when we say it out loud. It seems like a very common sense thing.
One in six families in Canada is suffering from infertility. That number is going up. There are 20,000 children across this country who are members of the state, which means they are not with a family. The majority of those kids are over 10 years old. Those first years of life are when the brain is developing, and anybody who has any neuroscience background knows that the brain is a little playdough that gets mapped. If children are not loved or attached, or are in an environment that is not safe, that is going to cause long-term issues. There might be mental health issues, addiction issues or trouble forming healthy relationships. These are all things that we have studied in the FEWO committee.
We have an equity bill that offers that same amount of EI benefits for adoptive and intended parents. It is a compassionate, common sense bill that I think could get support throughout the entire House.
I am going to go into some of the details. Up to 15 weeks of additional leave allows a parent to stay home to care for their child, bond and form healthy attachments within the critical first year of their life or placement in a family. Bill C-318 also recognizes the unique needs and complexities of attachment for adoptive families by better supporting healthy attachments, and it will of course help improve long-term outcomes and strengthen families.
Carolyn McLeod, a professor and chair of the department of philosophy at Western University, did a survey of 974 adoptive parents and found that 94% of these parents would find additional benefits very beneficial and roughly 75% said that they did not have enough time to bond with their children. She stated that a significant portion of them said that the current benefit system was a barrier to them adopting a sibling group or children with complex needs. They did not feel that they would have enough time with a child in those circumstances, so they simply did not choose to adopt a child in those circumstances.
Every child and youth needs time to adapt and adjust to their new family. Trust is the foundation for attachment. Many of these kids, as we said earlier, are over 10 and are going to desperately need that time. Every person deserves to belong to a family, feel safe and know that they have somebody who has their back.
The Liberal government has long promised to deliver 15 additional weeks of parental leave for adoptive families, but it has repeatedly failed to deliver on that promise. Back in 2019, the Prime Minister campaigned on fixing this problem; yet another broken promise.
Despite overseeing the file and being mandated to fix this problem for four years, the former minister of employment, workforce development and disability inclusion would not commit to providing the necessary royal recommendation for this bill. It was within her mandate as minister to introduce a 15-week leave for adoptive parents. Most recently, the former minister publicly alluded to a benefit for adoptive parents included in the 2023 budget, yet when the budget was delivered it was not there.
I will give a call to action for everyone watching at home, because sometimes it just sounds like there is a lot of talk in the House. People can directly message the minister and say that they need the minister to approve the royal recommendation, because if it does not happen, this bill dies. That is what needs to happen; that is what we are calling on today.
We have heard from all parties and they have given great speeches. I thank my colleagues from the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberal Party. They see the value in this bill. How can they not? However, there has to be action attached to the words or they are just empty promises.
I want to read for members a lovely story from Kyla Beswarick, who has gone through the process herself. She stated:
35 weeks is simply not enough time for a youth like me to feel comfortable with an entirely different family, let alone build trust with these unknown parental figures. I believe, we, who through no fault of our own, have experienced significant losses, deserve equal if not more time to heal and attach to our new family.
These are the stories we need to hear, and this is all members need to know to support my colleague's, the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster, bill today.
Canada is an outlier in not providing equal leave for all families. If we look at comparator countries such as Australia, New Zealand and U.K., we see that they all provide equal leave to these families. Moreover, it would not be a huge cost burden.
According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's estimate, the proposed new EI attachment benefit for adoptive and intended parents would cost $88 million over 2023-24 to 2027-28. When we look at fiscal responsibility, this is it. It is how money is spent. It is where it is directed. It is the return on investment. I would challenge anyone in the House to tell me what better return on investment there is than building healthy families, than teaching children that they are loved and supported, than helping parents not stress about being with their children when they need it most.
Again, I will leave with this. I call on the Minister of Employment and Workforce Development today to provide royal recommendation, because if he does not, the bill will die. I encourage every single member in the House to start off this session showing Canadians that we mean what we say and we say what mean, and that we care about children and families in our country.
I want to congratulate my colleague on Bill C-318. I thank everyone for supporting it.
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- Oct/20/22 8:50:17 p.m.
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Madam Chair, my hon. colleague has done so much work, and we definitely share similarities in how we feel about this.
There is a lack of political will. There is too much virtue signalling. He is absolutely right. There is an opportunity to do it and it is not being done. If we do not take care of our children, what are we saying to our country? I really agree fully with what my hon. colleague said.
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- Oct/20/22 8:44:19 p.m.
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Madam Chair, we cannot use names. I appreciate that.
My frustration lies in that, if the Prime Minister is not able to do more, then who is?
Who is able to do more, if at the highest level of our federal government, we cannot do more? There are two things that a leader needs to do: listen and act. There have been countless people coming here to committees. For years and decades, people have been telling us, parliamentarians, what is wrong. Why are we not listening? Why are we not acting. We need leadership.
I want to focus on the UNICEF report card, 2020 release. These are quotes from the report card:
...Canada is worlds apart from other rich countries in providing healthy, happy childhoods for every child. Canada ranks among the countries with the best economic, environmental and social conditions for growing up, but the poorest outcomes for children and youth....
Canada falls below average in more than half the measures of child well-being.
I also says, “Canada ranks lowest in child survival”, ranking 35 out of 38 in teen suicides, and 33 out of 38 in child violence, including homicide. The UNICEF report card rates Canada as not making progress relative to other rich countries. It says, “Canada has been making little to no progress in reducing child mortality, obesity or bullying” and “Canada has been falling backward in children’s sense of well-being” and in the quality of their close relationships.
It also says:
Canada is one of only a handful of countries...that have better economic, environmental and social conditions but worse child well-being....
Canada’s governments spend less on families and children than most wealthy countries.
If this does not disgust the House, I do not know what should. If we do not take care of our children, we do not have a future. How can our children be taken care of when the adults are not taken of? We have made so many strides in overcoming stigma. People are ready to go ask for help, but when they do, there is nothing there for them.
I am sorry. I adore the work my colleague has done on this file. He is so passionate about mental health, like so many people in the House are, but when our lead is mental health is health, that is 20 years behind where we should be. We know mental health is health. Why are we not transferring the $4.5 billion promised by the federal government to make a difference?
On the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health recommendations, listen and act. That is leadership. Listen to what they are asking. Take immediate steps to create a mental health transfer allocating permanent, ongoing federal funding for mental health services starting in budget 2023. This is consistent with the multi-year funding promised in the 2021 election platform. People are dying. What more is needed?
There is action we could take today, and I call on the government and everyone in the House. This is non-partisan. This impacts everyone of us. Make the difference today. We need leadership. We need to listen, and we need to act.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Battle River—Crowfoot.
As always, it is an honour and privilege to stand in the House of Commons to represent the constituents of Peterborough—Kawartha. Today, I rise to speak to Bill C-29, an act to provide for the establishment of a national council for reconciliation. With Truth and Reconciliation Day just two days away, this coming Friday, September 30, this is an important bill, and I take very seriously how delicate this conversation is for many people.
After six and a half years, this bill is the government's attempt to address the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action 53 through 56. These four calls to action include: call to action 53, to “establish a National Council for Reconciliation”; call to action 54, to “provide multi-year funding for the National Council for Reconciliation to ensure that it has the financial, human and technical resources required to conduct its work”; call to action 55, to provide annual reports to show progress on reconciliation; and call to action 56, to issue “an annual 'State of Aboriginal Peoples' report [to] outline the government's plans for advancing reconciliation.”
As I mentioned, this bill is long overdue, and although we will support a lot of what this bill is, there are serious amendments, serious discussion and serious overhaul that need to be considered. I will address that today in my speech.
If we are going to work toward meaningful reconciliation with indigenous people, a robust and inclusive response to calls to action 53 to 56 is needed. Unfortunately, this bill would not meet the target. We continue to have the same problems over and over, and that is that there is too much government in the way.
We often hear this saying, and I will be talking about it today in my speech. It is “FIBI”, or “for indigenous, by indigenous”. We need to trust indigenous and allow them to do what they are able to do because they know how to make the best decisions for them, not the government.
Section 8 of the bill has the creation of a not-for-profit corporation that would monitor and report the government's progress in its efforts for reconciliation with indigenous people. The council would not be an agent of His Majesty in the right of Canada, nor would it be governed by the Financial Administration Act. It portrays itself to be an independent body.
Here lies the first major concern we have with Bill C-29. How independent would this council be if the minister of crown-indigenous relations picked the board members. The bill stipulates that the first board of directors would be selected by the minister in collaboration with the transitional committee. This would mean that the minister of the day and their hand-picked transitional team would determine the council's future, which is expected to hold that same minister to account for its own failed record on reconciliation. This does not sound like meaningful reconciliation.
Call to action 54 calls on the government to provide multi-year funding for the national council. The government did this in budget 2019 by allocating $126.5 million, yet the act would not require any accountability for the expenditure of this money and not one financial report would need to be filed by the council.
This is a major problem. Accountability and transparency are seriously lacking in the government. That is the issue we have at the core here. There is no trust between indigenous peoples and the government. The idea that zero accountability and financial reporting on such an important file is just more of the same of what we expect from the Liberals.
We need to see where dollars are going so they are being best used on those who need it most and not on more red tape and a bloated bureaucracy that does nothing to help those across our country who need it most.
I see this often in the file of indigenous tourism, for example. We need to see that the dollars are going directly to the organization that needs the dollars, not through another organization, because then they are going to lose money. It makes no sense, and it is not a good, efficient use of the money when it has been targeted to help the people who need it most.
The most glaring issue with Bill C-29 is the lack of representation on the national council for reconciliation. The bill sets aside three seats for Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Métis National Council.
These are the three national organizations the Liberal government almost solely deals with regarding indigenous issues. However, this does not even scratch the surface concerning who needs to be at the table of a national council for reconciliation. We need advocates for women and girls, children, aboriginal business associations and native development offices. They all play an important role in reconciliation and deserve a seat at the table.
What about a voice for urban indigenous people? Just yesterday, I was having a conversation with Jaimee Gaunce, the director of policy at Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services, about urban indigenous individuals falling through the cracks when it comes to housing and so many benefits because they do not fit within the bureaucratic boxes when it comes to accessing funding that, as an indigenous person, they should have every right to. Someone who is indigenous is not suddenly non-indigenous when they choose to live off reserve, so why do they lose the support they should have every right to access just because they left the reserve? It is not right. This only perpetuates the goals of colonization that we are collectively trying to undo through truth and reconciliation.
If I did not take this opportunity to mention that this Friday is National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, I would not be doing justice standing here in the House. This day honours the children who never returned home and the survivors of residential schools as well as their families and communities. The reality is that we know now through science and data that trauma lasts seven generations. The last residential school was in 1997, I believe, which is in my time. My children come home from school and educate me more about what happened in our Canadian history than I was taught in my own school.
The reality is that we cannot have reconciliation without truth, and the truth is just starting to surface. These are challenging but critically essential conversations, and I urge everyone to read the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 calls to action, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
Every child matters. We will remember the children, their families and their communities, but it is time to stop talking and show solidarity through showing up and starting to have action. Bill C-29 needs more concrete amendments to ensure that the proper action is taken toward truth and reconciliation. It is long overdue to put a council in place with the right representation at the table. We need a plan that is by indigenous, for indigenous.
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