- 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
- Government Page
- Feb/8/24 1:37:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will try to speak in French, but it is hard for me. I am sorry.
In Alberta, more specifically in Edmonton Strathcona, we have a fast-growing francophone community. In fact, Edmonton's French quarter is in my riding and the people there add so much to the city.
Does the member not think that we should focus on the objective of francophone immigration and adequate resources instead of targeting immigration levels?
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- May/11/23 5:18:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in Edmonton Strathcona, the number of francophone immigrants is increasing. We are very happy about that. These new francophone Canadians bring so much to our community. As the member knows, Edmonton Strathcona is the heart of the Franco-Albertan community. I would like to see more francophone immigration to my riding.
However, the Government of Canada has not met the francophone immigration target for years. Why is this?
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- Feb/1/23 7:38:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am here tonight because I am deeply concerned about the state of our immigration system in this country. I am overwhelmed by the horrific stories of people's lives being ruined because the government has failed to provide a service it is required to provide for people who are trying to come to Canada or who are trying to bring their loved ones to Canada.
I do not think anyone in this place is going to be surprised when I say that my office is dealing with non-stop stories about IRCC issues. Every single member of the House of Commons is getting non-stop calls about how our immigration system is failing to meet the needs of Canadians. It is failing to meet the needs of all those people who are trying to make Canada their home.
We have a government right now that is promising things. It promised to bring in “unlimited of this” and “40 of that.” It makes tons and tons of promises like “500,000 of this”.
The way I have described this in the past is that we have a goat track. Our immigration system right now is a goat track. Do not promise to buy me a Lamborghini when what one has is a goat track. The system is broken, and the government has an obligation to fix our immigration system.
The fact of the matter is that we have people who are trying to come to Canada to go to school. The question I asked the minister, and that I am bringing forward again today, is about students who want to study in universities in Canada. My goodness, we want these people to come to Canada. We want these people to study at our universities. Our universities need that tuition. Our country benefits from having these people come to our country, yet they cannot come because our immigration system is so broken.
This question was about students and their ability to come to Canada to study, but I need to take this opportunity to tell the House a little about some other folks. Yesterday, I was walking into the House of Commons. There was a man from Afghanistan who worked for the Canadian government. His family and his loved ones are still in Afghanistan. He cannot get them out. He was sobbing on the steps of the House of Commons because he is so worried his family will be murdered. It breaks my heart.
I have been working with members of every party in the House to bring female members of Parliament from Afghanistan to Canada and to safety. I woke up a week ago to news that one of those members of Parliament had been murdered, so I do not want to hear from the government that it is going to bring in 100,000, 20,000, or whatever the number of people is, because it is not fixing the immigration system. The problem, when it does not fix the immigration system, is that it ruins people's lives. It ruins our chance of having people come to be part of this beautiful country that is Canada.
I do not want to hear that the government is doing enough. I want to hear what it is going to do to fix the deeply broken immigration system in this country now.
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Mr. Speaker, I wanted to ask my hon. colleague about immigration because, of course, for a place like Edmonton, Alberta, immigration is a key component for ensuring that the vitality of the French language is able to be maintained.
In 2003, the government set an objective to maintain the demographic weight of francophones outside of Quebec and that was meant to ensure that 4.4% of immigration settled outside of Quebec in the rest of Canada and that they could speak French. We have never made the target. The government, in 20 years, has never reached that 4.4%. This bill has no catch-up clause.
What would the member say about the potential for adding in something to catch up for all of those years that we missed our target of 4.4% immigration?
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- Mar/29/22 12:30:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, of course I think it is important that we work as a team. It is something I called for in my speech. Canadians can be proud of the efforts that parliamentarians have taken to work collaboratively and together to find ways to move things forward, but my role is to hold the government to account when I feel it is not moving far enough and fast enough. That is certainly the case with the situation in immigration.
Our immigration system was deeply broken before we got into this situation. Every single one of the 338 members of Parliament in the House knows that we hear time and time again from our constituents about how the system was broken before this crisis. That is something we can all work together on going forward.
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