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Member of the Joint Interparliamentary Council Whip of the New Democratic Party Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees

Heather McPherson

  • 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
Context: House Hansard - 210 - Jun/9/23
Ms. Heather McPherson
  • Jun/9/23 1:18:03 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-41 
Mr. Speaker, this comment goes back to what I was saying before. As much as I think all of us in this place want to get aid to the people of Afghanistan as fast as possible, and I honestly believe that all of us in this place want that, the difficulty of being a lawmaker is that we have to look at the long-term implications of the laws we put forward. What happens if this means there are women and girls in other countries who do not get the support they need because we put legislation in place and because another government chooses to weaponize it? It is a real concern. I appreciate the work the member has done in Afghanistan. I want to give a huge shout-out to an organization, Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, which continues to do everything it can to help women and girls in Afghanistan at a time of great personal risk. One thing we should all continue to think about as we think about Bill C-41 is that the organizations that represent Canada around the world, the CSOs and NGOs, the organizations doing this important work, are heroes. They really do need to be acknowledged in this place.
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Context: House Hansard - 190 - May/3/23
Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP)
Madam Speaker, as always, it is a delight to stand in this place and represent the great people of Edmonton Strathcona. Today we are talking about Bill C-316, an act to amend the Department of Canadian Heritage Act regarding the court challenges program. Basically what this bill would do is amend the Heritage Act to require that the Minister of Canadian Heritage maintain the court challenges program, making sure that this is now in legislation, so that if any future government wanted to cut this program, it would have to do it through legislation. Of course, it would not be a perfect protection for this program, but it would be a good start. It really does make me think about all of the different policies I would like to see protected that have been put in place by various governments. I am going to come back to that as we go forward. Some people in the House today have said that this is bad legislation and is not something that should be in place, and they have expressed what I would consider some pretty faux outrage about this particular bill. I want to highlight that there are a number of people who believe in the court challenges program, very notable groups that actually think this court challenges program needs to be put into legislation and also needs to be protected and expanded. The New Democratic Party has been calling for an expansion of this. There is very little money that is allocated to this. It is a very small fraction, a drop in the bucket, compared to what we spend on the justice department. We would like to see this expanded. We are not alone. The people who would also like to see this program expanded are people like Cindy Blackstock and other advocates within the indigenous communities. Legal organizations, including the Women's Legal Education & Action Fund, or LEAF, would love to see this program expanded and put into legislation so that it is protected. Even more notably, the Canadian Bar Association supports the court challenges program. There are people around this country who are leaders on this and who have asked for this program to be maintained and expanded. It is something that all parliamentarians need to consider. Very few of us are experts in the fields in which we produce legislation, so we take advice from experts. I would say, when we are looking at the justice system, that the Canadian Bar Association, Cindy Blackstock and others would be excellent examples of experts we should be listening to. There are several reasons why this program is so important, but one of the ones that mean the most to me is that it levels the playing field. It allows Canadian citizens to have access to justice. Often, those Canadian citizens who are least likely to be able access justice are marginalized Canadians. They are women, indigenous people and members of the LGBTQ2+ community. For the people who are often disproportionately impacted by the justice system in a negative way, this helps level the playing field. I strongly support the program. We could work on making the bill stronger. Certainly, I would like to see the government commit to better funding. We have been calling for stronger funding for this program for some time, so we would like to see that. I want to talk a little tonight about some of the other things that I think we should be putting into legislation. We are all lawmakers in this place. As I was preparing the notes for my speech this evening, I was thinking about how important it is that we put things into legislation to protect them, protect them from potential future governments that do not share the values of ensuring that there is a level playing field within the justice system for Canadians. The first thing that came to my mind is my Bill, C-205, which is actually about the Impact Assessment Act. I was very happy, because Minister Wilkinson—
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