- 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: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $141,604.97
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-338, National Indigenous Teachers Day Act.
She said: Mr. Speaker, today, during Indigenous History Month, it is my great privilege to table this very important piece of legislation, the national indigenous teachers day act, which would designate February 22 of each year as national indigenous teachers day.
I want to thank the member for Winnipeg Centre for seconding this bill, but perhaps more importantly, I want to thank and acknowledge Theodore Anton, a grade 11 student from Old Scona Academic high school in Edmonton Strathcona, for the idea to recognize and celebrate the vital contributions and perspectives in education that indigenous educators bring to our schools. Theodore is the winner of my Create Your Canada contest, and he is in Ottawa with his parents to help me present this bill.
I thank Theodore and all the amazing young people who submitted ideas to make Canada a better place for everyone. I urge my fellow parliamentarians to support this bill, as it would mark an important step on the path toward reconciliation.
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- May/12/22 11:29:38 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is my honour, as always, to speak in this place and share my thoughts. I want to start today by saying that I appreciate very much the incredible insight of my colleague from London—Fanshawe, so I will be splitting my time with her today.
This motion is very difficult for me, to be perfectly honest. I am going to spend the next few minutes talking about things that I am very supportive of with regard to this motion and things that I think are very problematic with it.
I want to thank my colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills for bringing this motion forward. I have great respect for the member. I think he is very knowledgeable and experienced. I have depended on his experience in the past.
I appreciate the portion of this motion that notes:
Canadians of Chinese descent have made immeasurable contributions to Canada
I think that is an important note we need to make. It also says:
the people of China are part of an ancient civilization that has contributed much to humanity
That is also an extremely important piece to this.
I support the idea of Parliament and members of this place spending more time looking at our relationship with China. We have seen very problematic things coming out of the China-Canada relationship. Many of them are very well known to all of the members of the House.
I have been listening to the debate this morning, and I have been hearing people say that this can happen at the foreign affairs committee. I am going to touch on this a bit later on, but I have to say that the foreign affairs committee has not been particularly good at getting things through when either the Conservatives or the Liberals do not want them to get through. I am going to touch on that later.
Just so members know, we have constraints within the foreign affairs committee because of the enormous amount of work we need to do, and also because there are tricks and whatnot being used within the foreign affairs committee to limit the amount of work we can do, by both the government and the opposition, to clarify.
The Canada-China committee would be an opportunity for us to look at those myriad issues that affect Canadians with regard to our relationship with China. I have met with many stakeholders and many constituents who are deeply concerned about that relationship. It is a vital relationship. We have an incredibly strong economic relationship with China that should have parliamentary oversight. However, we have serious concerns about what is happening with regard to human rights in China and other areas of the world. As someone who has spoken many times to Hong Kongers who are deeply alarmed and devastated by what has happened in Hong Kong, and as someone who has spoken to people in Taiwan who are quite worried, I know a lot is happening.
Consider the situation with the Uighurs. I was a member of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights that did the initial study on the genocide against the Uighur people. I heard the harrowing testimony from witnesses, experts and legal scholars on the genocide that is happening in China. That is very important as well. We were all seized by the hostage-taking of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, but they were not the only Canadians who have been held in detention. There are still Canadians being held in detention, and we need to find a way to work with China to have that situation resolved.
Even just recently, I was deeply concerned about the news I heard that our previous ambassador, Ambassador Barton, was able to take a very lucrative job with a mining company after meeting with that company as an employee of the Crown. After holding that highest of positions, he was able to translate it into a lucrative opportunity for himself. I know, because I did check with the Ethics Commissioner, that laws were not broken in that situation, but it certainly did not pass the smell test for me and I am sure for many other Canadians around the world.
There is a rationale for this committee. However, I have some serious concerns, and I think I share them with many members of the House. A lot of them stem from this question: Why should we single out China at this time? Knowing the scenario we are in and knowing there is a war after the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine, which is deeply troubling for all parliamentarians, the use of this motion to single out the issues we have with China is problematic for me.
I want to go through a few of the areas where we could also have committees.
I look at what is happening in Ethiopia. I look at what is happening to the Tigrayan people. It is devastating to see what is happening to the Tigrayan people. We have a Tigrayan diaspora, and it has reached out to me so many times to ask for help and ask for us to do more, so work needs to be done there as well.
I look at Yemen. My goodness. The Conservatives and the Liberals have sold arms to Saudi Arabia, which is fuelling the violence in Yemen to the point that Canada has been called out by the United Nations. Canada has been called out and shamed at the United Nations for fuelling a conflict. David Beasley from the World Food Programme has said it is the “worst place on earth”. Maybe we need to have a conversation about that. Maybe we need to have a conversation or committee about arms sales and where we are selling arms in this country.
We are also selling them to Israel. We have not, at the foreign affairs committee, looked at what is happening in the Middle East. Yesterday, we brought forward a motion in the House about a journalist who was murdered. He was shot and killed, and we condemn violence against journalists. However, the Conservatives did not allow that motion to go forward.
If we are so concerned about human rights abuses around the world, which members know is something that I deeply believe in, then protecting human rights is protecting human rights. Why does it only count in some situations? Why does it not count when it is a journalist attacked in the Middle East? Why does that not count, yet something happening to the Uighur people does? It is of course something we need to look at and study, but I do not understand how the Conservatives pick and choose. How do they cherry-pick human rights? Human rights are human rights, whether they happen in Canada or any other country in the world.
When I started, I talked about the foreign affairs committee. I agree with my colleague from the Bloc that the foreign affairs committee is extremely busy right now. Everyone in this House can appreciate the amount of work and effort that we are putting toward the conflict in Ukraine. It is seizing our attention and we are deeply engaged in that particular issue.
I see the need to have other opportunities to look at other conflicts. Maybe we need two foreign affairs committees, to be perfectly honest, because the world has changed. The world is a very difficult place at the moment. However, I want to reiterate that the foreign affairs committee has made choices in the past not to study things that are important. Members of that committee have made choices to filibuster, to delay and to use stall tactics so that we do not always meaningfully look at Canada's role in the world and the important role Canada could, should and used to play in the world. There is something to be discussed in that place as well.
I am going to spend the next several days really thinking about this motion. I am going to be talking to my constituents. I am going to be talking to stakeholders. I am going to be engaging with the community. I am going to be talking to my colleagues. We have to have a bigger conversation about how we want Canada's role in the world to be articulated and how we as parliamentarians want to move forward in this changing geopolitical climate.
I will end my remarks there. I look forward to questions from my colleagues.
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-260, An Act relating to cash contributions by Canada and to criteria and conditions in respect of post-secondary education.
She said: Mr. Speaker, it is my great privilege to table this bill on behalf of residents of Edmonton Strathcona and on behalf of all Canadians who recognize the value and importance of quality, accessible post-secondary education in this country. I want to thank my colleague, the member for Edmonton Griesbach, for seconding my bill today.
Post-secondary education is key to growing our economy and to positioning Canada as a knowledge leader in the 21st century. However, successive governments over the past two decades have failed to make post-secondary education a priority.
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