- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Joint Interparliamentary Council
Whip of the New Democratic Party
Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
- NDP
- Edmonton Strathcona
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $141,604.97
- Government Page
- Mar/20/24 10:22:52 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, my colleague spoke about the terrible decision made by the current government on the sanctions waiver for the turbine. For me, that was a horrible decision that was made by the government. In fact, it was me that called for an emergency debate in the summer, so that we could actually look at that issue and examine that quite closely. That was something that the Government of Ukraine had asked for.
Of course, the Government of Ukraine, President Zelenskyy, has also asked for the Parliament of Canada to pass the free trade agreement. We just heard his answer on the free trade agreement, but during his speech he also talked about the need to rebuild Ukraine. One of my deep worries that I have right now is that the government has cut development assistance and the money that we use to help our allies around the world. The government has indicated that it will be cutting further. The implications for Ukraine are quite dire, but the implications for other countries around the world are also dire.
I know that my colleague knows an awful lot about international development. Does he agree with his leader, who has made it quite clear that he wants to cut foreign aid even further? In fact, other members of his party have said that they would like to take the Government of Canada out of the United Nations. These are not serious foreign policy places to be. As a member of the opposition who wants to be the government, I am quite concerned when I hear things like that from his leader.
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- Mar/19/24 12:36:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today, the leader of the official opposition brings up the idea that he is interested in Canadians and he is interested in making life more affordable for Canadians, but we know that he voted against a national school program. We know he voted against our motion to take GST off of home heating. He voted against dental care. He voted against child care. Even yesterday, shockingly, he voted against getting humanitarian aid to Palestinians who are starving to death.
He does not care about Canadians. He does not care about people around the world. He has already said he would cut foreign aid. He has already said that he would cut all of these programs that make life more affordable for people. He is a one-trick pony with nothing to offer Canadians and Canadians know that.
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- Dec/11/23 5:14:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do appreciate that some things have been done. Under Stephen Harper, there was an initiative called the Muskoka initiative, which did have some good pieces to it, but it took out any support for reproductive health care anywhere else in the world. It happened at a time when that was also being done in the United States, so all of a sudden there was very little aid being given for women's reproductive health around the world.
I worked in Uganda at one point in a small village. The person I shared lodging with was a doctor who was working with women who had struggled with their pregnancies, were pregnant, were seeking reproductive health care or were seeking abortion. The fact that funding was cut meant tens of thousands of women around the world would have died. They would have died without that support.
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Madam Speaker, it is always interesting to listen to my colleague and hear his thoughts. We are in this place right now having this debate. We were not told that this was coming. This has been a bit of a surprise for us. We are trying to think of ways that we could help the people of Afghanistan. I do not think there is a single person in this place who does not think that we should do everything we possibly can, particularly for the women and girls of Afghanistan.
I have to say, though, that I have the list here of the votes that we had over the 30-some hours that we stayed in the House voting because the Conservative Party thought that was a useful thing to do. While they are here telling us that it is vitally important that we support Afghanistan, three times for millions of dollars they voted against supporting international development and foreign affairs efforts. On one hand they are taking away the money that people in Afghanistan need. In Afghanistan right now, we have people who are severely food insecure, who need help, yet we have the Liberals with Bill C-41 making it very difficult to deliver that aid, and we have the Conservatives literally voting to stop it. In fact, they ran in the last election on cutting foreign aid by 25%. How do—
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- Oct/16/23 10:18:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague cares deeply about his constituents and the community.
Like him, I have been hearing horrific tales and stories about people. The mother of one of my colleagues was speaking Urdu, and my colleague had to tell her mom to stop speaking that and to go home, because she was so worried there would be violence perpetrated against her. The entire Jewish community is afraid. The entire Palestinian community is afraid. I am deeply worried that there is going to be an increase in violence in this country, that we are going to see an increase in hate crimes and that people are going to get harmed.
I wonder if the member could talk about how he sees his government taking action on this and what can be done to protect people.
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- Sep/19/23 8:08:48 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, we are hearing from diaspora communities that they are afraid. They are afraid of violence being perpetrated against them and their loved ones.
The threat against this particular individual was known, yet this individual still lost his life, was still murdered. I am just wondering what the government can do to reassure members of the diaspora community. What can the government do to make Canadians feel safe again in their homes, in their communities and in their places of faith?
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- Jun/9/23 1:15:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is the difficult challenge that we found this sector in. This is in fact exactly where we are at, with millions of people who are dying and millions of people who are at risk. There are also principles of humanitarian development and humanitarian aid that are core principles under which we need to do this work and this bill pits those two things against each other. That is the problem. This bill actually is offering, like I said, crumbs to the sector in saying they are not going to get what they want or what they need, the people of Afghanistan are not going to get what they want or what they need, but here is something. They either have to take this or they have to wait another two years for anything, if anything ever comes forward.
It is not really a fair choice to give to the sector. It is not really a fair choice to give to any of us in this place to give us such flawed legislation, knowing that people's lives are on the line and we either have to choose to support a terrible bill being brought forward by the government or let people die. It is an impossible choice and the implications are that down the road this could have impacts on other populations. This could mean other people could die because of the criminalization of development.
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Madam Speaker, a fundamental part of humanitarian law is that humanitarian assistance is protected and not a target. This is part of international humanitarian law for a very important reason: Even in the worst human situations, we need to ensure that humanitarian aid can be delivered. Even with the worst state actors, we need to make sure humanitarian aid can be delivered.
When this legislation goes into place, the way it could weaponize humanitarian aid is so dangerous to the organizations that are already putting themselves in danger and the volunteers who are already putting themselves at risk.
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Madam Speaker, I have a couple of things to say.
First of all, my colleague referred to Ukrainian refugees, but I am not sure if he perhaps failed to understand that the government does not list them as refugees, so they are not given the protection that refugees should have in our community.
The other thing he talked about is Afghan refugees. I have to tell him that I was in my office during the last constituency week talking to interpreters who have had their families and co-workers left behind by this government. I have talked to interpreters who supported our military, who supported our country, who have been left behind.
Yes, absolutely, I will say that we have been able to bring many people here from Afghanistan and from Ukraine, but I will not say that we have done a good job of it, that we have not left behind people to whom we had deep obligations. That is not anything to do with Bill C-41, which is an entirely different thing.
If we are not going to bring people out of their country so they can survive a genocidal terrorist regime in their own country, I do have to tell the member that humanitarian aid is the support we can give them.
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- Feb/9/23 3:10:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, relief efforts in Turkey and Syria will need far more support in the coming weeks. Canadian partners are stepping up to help, but they need more support. So far, the government has only announced a matching fund for the Red Cross, not for the Humanitarian Coalition. The Humanitarian Coalition is a group of 12 Canadian leading international aid agencies that have vast experience in the region, and they are on the ground right now.
Will the government fix the matching fund to make sure that these Canadian organizations can deliver help to those who are displaced, grieving and deeply suffering right now?
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- Oct/18/22 12:57:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his intervention.
The member spoke about the slowness with which the supplies and weapons have been delivered to Russia. However, on June 28 of this year, the Prime Minister promised $75 million to help with humanitarian aid going to Ukraine. Unfortunately, none of that, as of September 1, had even been earmarked, let alone distributed.
I am wondering if the member has any questions or concerns as well about the fact that humanitarian aid that this government has promised to the Ukrainian people has not even been delivered, considering that winter is coming and they are in dire need of that support.
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- Jun/16/22 9:31:06 p.m.
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Madam Chair, my colleague and I worked together very well on the ALS caucus, and I enjoyed working with him on that very much.
I want to talk about the aid levels Canada is contributing. I do not think anyone in this place will be surprised by that.
Under the present government, we are currently at 0.3%. Many people would think the Liberal government, especially with what we heard from the Prime Minister in 2015, would have contributed more, but in fact our highest overseas development assistance came under Joe Clark, when he was the foreign affairs minister, and the Conservative government. We did not get to our target, but we did get to 0.5%. I will say that the Conservative Party of Joe Clark is definitely not the Conservative Party we have now, which ran in 2019 with a massive cut to ODA.
When can we expect the Liberal government to live up to the very low standards the Conservative government has set with regard to development assistance?
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- Jun/16/22 7:16:25 p.m.
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Madam Chair, this is a very important debate, and I am glad to see people in the House contributing to it.
One of the big issues I have is that, in foreign affairs and international development, Canada has not contributed its fair share of food security funding for a long time. Right now, we are set at $250 million a year. That is about where we have been through past Conservative and Liberal governments. One of the things the sector is asking for is that food aid be indexed to the price of food so that when it goes up, our contribution goes up.
I am wondering if the member believes that indexing our commitments for food security would be appropriate.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to echo my Conservative colleague's interest in Bill S-216 and how important that is. The question I have today for the member is regarding foreign aid.
We did see an $8-billion investment in our military. One of the things that I have mentioned in the House is that an increase in military aid is tied to an increase in humanitarian aid, because war is a failure of development and it is a failure of humanitarian action.
Would he be supportive of a call to tie our amount spent on defence to our amount spent on humanitarian aid?
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- Apr/8/22 11:14:54 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to take this moment to acknowledge and thank the people of Edmonton, who are stepping up to support Ukraine and the Ukrainians fleeing Putin's horrible war.
The Ukrainian Canadian Congress of Alberta, along with the Ukrainian Canadian Social Services, the Ukrainian National Federation and the Ukrainian Women's Organization are helping families settle in Edmonton.
The kids at St. Matthew Ukrainian bilingual school have collected an entire classroom full of essential items for Ukrainian refugees in our city.
The Kalyna Kids child care program, a program that focuses on Ukrainian bilingual education, is offering free child care for new community members in Edmonton.
The Canadian Polish Congress of Alberta hosted a concert in support of Ukraine on March 27 and raised $20,000.
Belarusians in Edmonton are standing with Ukraine. They are hosting a fundraiser today at this very moment at the Bountiful Farmers' Market in Edmonton to buy first aid kits and medical supplies for Ukraine.
My thanks go to these amazing people and everyone in Edmonton who is standing with Ukraine.
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- Mar/29/22 12:33:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am sorry, but I will answer in English.
Absolutely we have been moving too slowly. This has been on the horizon for some time. Even long before the invasion, we were calling for more supports to be put in place. Canada has to contribute more to humanitarian aid. We have to do more, but let us take as a silver lining Canadians' interest in reaching out and supporting Ukraine right now.
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- Feb/17/22 3:10:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, 1.5 million Ukrainians have been displaced from their homes since Russia invaded in 2014. Now, as Russia amasses troops and armaments and threatens further invasion, the Ukrainian people need Canada more than ever. There is a looming humanitarian disaster in Ukraine, and thousands of Ukrainians are seeking refuge in Canada.
We saw this government fail to protect Afghans. We cannot let this happen again. Will the minister uphold Canada's responsibility to Ukrainians? Will the minister ensure humanitarian aid and better support for those Ukrainians who are fleeing violence?
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