- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $114,314.06
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the previous member's speech. I never knew I was part of the government. I want to set the record straight, but I will also go a step further: We are not propping up the Liberals; we are using our leverage and bargaining power to force them to do things they never had the courage to do before.
I am pleased to rise to speak to a subject of tremendous importance to me and to all my colleagues in the NDP caucus. I am referring to the living conditions and quality of life of seniors in Montreal and across Quebec.
I congratulate and thank the member for Shefford for taking the initiative to introduce this bill, which will truly improve the lives of the people we represent and who are finding it very hard to make ends meet at the moment. Seniors are the population segment most affected by the rising cost of living because their incomes are stagnant. When someone's income is fixed or practically fixed and inflation is 7%, 8% or 10%, it shows and it hurts. We hear it a lot in our communities.
Saturday was the International Day of Older Persons. I was lucky enough to take part in a march in my riding of Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. It was organized by the Comité d'action pour la qualité de vie des aînés de La Petite‑Patrie, a group working to improve local seniors' quality of life, and it ended in Montcalm Park. Afterwards, a number of seniors, mostly women, took to the stage to speak to elected officials from various levels of government about their reality and the fact that they face extremely difficult, impossible choices. They talked about the cost of food, housing, rent, home adaptations, health care, medication and many other things.
Seniors live on a fixed income that does not change, or barely changes, which results in poverty. If they do not have the good fortune of receiving income from a private pension plan and possibly from the defined benefit pension plan that enhances old age security, they are entitled to the guaranteed income supplement if they are poor enough. However, even then, the situation remains extremely difficult.
It is a travesty that a country as rich as ours, a G7 country where the average per capita income is so high, is abandoning these generations of Quebeckers who built modern-day Quebec, the generation of people like Lesage, Lévesque, Parizeau, Bourassa. Today, these people are sometimes stuck in long-term care facilities, in private residences that cost an arm and a leg, where there are no services and they are isolated. As a progressive and a social democrat, this breaks my heart. I do not want to live in a society that looks the other way and allows this to happen.
I want to take this opportunity to speak on behalf of the women who addressed a crowd of hundreds in La Petite‑Patrie on Saturday. I will share with the House their demands, which line up with the bill. There are seven demands and they are not very long.
First, they are calling for real home support, because that can make a big difference in a person's life, especially if they are isolated or have unfortunately lost their spouse.
There is currently more than a two-year wait to receive home care. Seniors want to age in their own homes, with their memories, and they need more help and support to do that. One thing that must be done is to ensure the quality and continuity of care, as well as to increase and protect funding, which currently accounts for an insufficient proportion of the budget envelope.
I see that as a perfectly legitimate, noble and understandable demand.
I would also like to commend the work of Dr. Réjean Hébert, who has spent years tackling the issue of home care, which is obviously related to health transfers in Quebec. We need to think about the priorities we want to set as a society to be able to take care of seniors in their own homes in order to have an impact on their quality of life.
Home care would also help relieve the pressure on hospitals. Why would a senior go to the emergency department when they could stay at home and be cared for by a nurse, social worker or personal support worker and avoid the endless lineups?
The second demand is better access to health care, again on the health theme.
Access to basic health care is still difficult, despite the fact that some services have returned to the [local community service centres]. Unfortunately, spots open up at a snail's pace, which forces seniors to travel outside their own neighbourhoods for simple blood tests. The wait for a new family doctor is very long, and it is unacceptable for a person aged 70 or more to be on a waiting list for several months [and sometimes even several years].
Again, this comes back to funding our public health care system. Access to basic services, tests or examinations can sometimes be very distressing and time-consuming for everyone. It is even more important for our seniors.
The third demand has a more human dimension. It is about being cared for with dignity. Seniors want “a doctor who takes the time to listen to their patients”. They want to be more than just a number. Health care is not a factory. Seniors are calling for the following:
To be treated with respect. Respect for the person's physical integrity. The right to end their days in dignity and respect. Better training for health care workers and first responders on proper treatment and compassion.
Once again, more training is needed. Health care workers also need to take a more humane approach where they are not always running from one patient to another, or one client to another, to use the current terminology.
There are still four more demands. The next has to do with 50,000 new social housing units.
The wait time for social housing is getting longer and longer. As a result, many seniors have to pay exorbitant amounts for rent because they are still waiting for a subsidized apartment. Access to housing should be a right, and Quebec needs to invest in buying or building new social housing units to meet the demand.
Once again, the federal government can collaborate. Today, we are paying the price for the years of disinvestment in social housing and housing co-operatives by the Liberals and the Conservatives. The situation is disastrous for everyone, including seniors.
Another demand is for an increase in old age pensions. The text reads as follows:
Senior women represent the poorest segment of Quebec's population. They should never have to choose between putting food on the table or being able to get to a doctor's appointment.
That is the reality. These are the agonizing choices that many seniors, including women, are facing right now.
This brings me to the heart of the bill before us today. For some ridiculous and absolutely inexplicable reason, the Liberals decided to increase old age security for people aged 75 and over, but they did absolutely nothing for people aged 65 to 74.
We have never seen this kind of discrimination or distinction before. People aged 65 to 74 have the same growing needs, and they are dealing with the same inflation, the same cost of living and the same housing crisis. Why would they have fewer needs than people aged 75 and over? Did the government just want to save money, so they decided that those individuals needed to find part-time work, which is a little harder for those aged 75 and over to do? To me, that is serious.
The Conservatives sought to raise the retirement age to 77, and now the Liberals are kind of playing the same game. They are telling people aged 65 and over that they need to take care of themselves because they have a little more autonomy and that the government will only take care of people aged 75 and over. I think that position is incoherent and really hard on our seniors aged 65 and over, who are suffering as a result.
Lots of people came to talk to me about this on Saturday in La Petite‑Patrie. These individuals were experiencing this injustice and they asked me how I could explain it. I could not explain it. I would like to hear the members of the Liberal party in the House explain it. The NDP feels it is totally unacceptable to create two classes of seniors in our country.
There are lots of things we can do to help seniors. We need a universal public pharmacare program. I said universal and public, not a hybrid system. A lot of people are still falling through the cracks in the Quebec system. This plan is a step in the right direction when the alternative is nothing at all, but that is not what others, including Quebec unions or the Union des consommateurs, are calling for.
Seniors also need access to dental care. I am very proud that the NDP is forcing the Liberal government to make sure that, starting early next year, people 65 and over who earn less than $70,000 a year, which includes the vast majority, will have access to dental care. The dentist will send the bill directly to the federal government. This will improve the health and finances of all our seniors in Quebec.
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- Feb/16/23 4:43:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague if he recognizes that the cuts to the health care system that were started by the Conservatives and continued by the Liberal government have created the conditions for privatization. Pretty words are nice and all, but the Liberals are responsible for continuing with the Conservative cuts to health care.
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- Feb/16/23 4:27:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals are not great when it comes to climate change and the environment, but they are awesome at recycling. Of the $196 billion they announced, 75% was money that had already been announced. That is not much, considering what the provinces need.
Does my colleague realize that no matter what nice things she says about health workers and professionals, that will not make a significant difference and will not really fix the system she and her party helped break?
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- Feb/6/23 2:27:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our health care system is in crisis as result of cuts by the Conservatives and Liberals.
Although the Prime Minister promised to strengthen our public system, he is confusing innovation and privatization. He is more than a little off the mark. Profit has no place in any discussion about people's health. We need to invest in our universal public health care system now more than ever. More money in the private sector means more health care workers not working in the public sector.
When will the Prime Minister understand that privatizing health care is not innovation, but rather a step backwards?
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- Dec/8/22 2:27:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, while sick children are suffering and our children's hospitals are overflowing, the Prime Minister is trying to blend into the background. Worried parents are filling the waiting rooms with their little ones, but this Prime Minister is nowhere to be found. People are looking for him, but no one can find him. This is not the time to play “Where's Waldo”.
At Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal, at the Centre mère-enfant Soleil in Quebec City and everywhere else, the crisis is reaching unprecedented levels. Our public system needs help. There is nothing scarier for a parent than having a sick child. Why is the health of our children not a priority for this Prime Minister?
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- Dec/5/22 2:46:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in Quebec, pediatric emergency rooms continue to be overwhelmed. Occupancy is 150% in some hospitals. In pediatric care units, every overflow bed is full. The Centre mère-enfant in Quebec City was forced to postpone an extraordinary number of surgeries. Among the hospitalized children are the very young, under two, who are having respiratory problems. The situation is getting worse by the day.
What are the Liberals doing to help care for our children?
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- Nov/4/22 11:30:00 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the NDP knows that governments need to be there to help people, especially in tough times. Families across this country are struggling. Everything costs more because of the greed of the wealthiest.
In health care, emergency rooms are overflowing. People are waiting endless hours for care. The Liberals admit that we are heading into a recession, but they have not fixed the EI system. Times are tough and the Liberals are clearly not doing enough.
Why are the Liberals turning their backs on families in need?
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Madam Speaker, there are some things about the budget that we do not like either, namely, the oil subsidy increases.
However, there are also some worthwhile things in there that will help people in a meaningful way, things like funding for dental care and for children, youth, seniors, the poor and the middle class.
Does my colleague not agree that his constituents will benefit from these social measures?
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's speech on the interest of the people of our nation in taking care of the people of Quebec. As he said, the NDP agrees with allowing Quebec to opt out of new federal programs with financial compensation.
The problem with his bill is that he also wants to exempt Quebec from its obligation to honour the five principles of medicare.
Does my colleague realize that his bill opens the door to privatizing our health care system?
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- Apr/28/22 2:30:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Quebeckers have made a clear choice. They want a universal public pharmacare plan. An overwhelming majority, specifically 73%, of those surveyed in Quebec are in favour of such a plan.
Why is that? Because they know they are paying too much for their prescription drugs, and the cost continues to rise. People know that a universal plan will lower drug prices and improve their health. For Quebeckers and Canadians, the question is no longer how, but when this will happen.
Will the government answer this call and come up with a solution to bring in a pharmacare plan?
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- Apr/25/22 1:15:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.
One of the most popular NDP proposals during the last election campaign was that people should have access to dental care, meaning that the government should foot the bill.
What does my colleague say to people in his riding who do not have the means or are too poor to afford a dentist? What does he tell them about the fact that his party is opposed to the poorest and the middle class having access to government-paid dental care?
I do not want to hear him simply say that it is too expensive, when two weeks ago, he was in favour of tripling spending for the Canadian military.
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- Dec/3/21 12:38:05 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-3
Madam Speaker, this is my first speech in this 44th Parliament. As many of my colleagues have done, I want to take a moment to extend my sincere thanks to the people of Rosemont—La Petite‑Patrie for the confidence they have placed in me to represent them in this institution and to be their voice in the House. It truly is an immense honour to do so for a fourth time. I never thought I would last this long in this Parliament, but I will continue to serve with passion, drive and enthusiasm, to represent the progressive values and principles of the people of Rosemont—La Petite‑Patrie.
The House is debating Bill C‑3 today, and I must say that my NDP colleagues and I are extremely pleased to be able to rise in this place and discuss one of the two issues in the bill: the proposal to provide 10 days of paid sick leave for federally regulated workers.
Why are we so happy about this? It is because the NDP has been asking for it for two years, from the start of the pandemic. We are now in the midst of the fourth wave, and it seems like it will never end. There may be a fifth wave, based on what we are seeing in Europe and Africa with the omicron variant.
The NDP has been insisting for at least 18 months that we must give workers 10 days of paid sick leave. In 2020, the leader of the NDP spoke about this 22 times in the House. He asked the Liberals 22 times when this was coming and why they were not taking action, and he reminded them that this change was needed in order to protect people, institutions and our communities. However, the government only kicked the can down the road. It remained evasive, saying that this measure was not needed and that it was doing something else.
Then, in the middle of an election campaign this fall, the Liberals decided that the NDP had had a good idea and that they would act on it. After dragging their feet all through 2020 and 2021, after calling a pointless and costly election, and after waiting two months to recall the House, the Liberals threw together this bill at the last minute and now want to push it through.
The 10 days of sick leave is a protection for workers that the NDP has been calling for for a long time. The Liberals were a bit late to the game, but they finally saw the light, had a road to Damascus moment, had a revelation. This is a good thing and a victory for the NDP, which has been calling for this for months, for nearly two years.
I would still like to take a minute or two to talk about the context of this pandemic. Let us go back to March 2020. I remember that time very clearly. We were hearing about what was happening in Wuhan, China, where it all started. Then, we watched as the virus spread like wildfire around the entire planet.
At one point, the governments decided to shut everything down because things had become too dangerous. People were told not to go to work if they did not have to. They were told not to go out, not to see anyone, and to stay at home because it was too risky. They were told to wear masks and wash their hands. The economy was put on pause, something that has never happened before and I hope will never happen again.
I live near Saint‑Laurent Boulevard in Montreal. I no longer heard any cars going by, but I could hear birds singing, which never happens on that street. That shows how society just shut down all of a sudden and became paralyzed.
Sick people who had a cough or a fever but did not want to miss a day of work had to make an impossible choice if they did not have sick leave. I am referring to people who were allowed to go to work because they had essential jobs in the supply chain, the food sector or health care.
That had a major impact on everyone, on families. It was definitely a collective trauma. I hope we are past it now. I hope that we are heading in the right direction and that, together, we will be able to move on to the next step.
In a crisis, people die. People suffer. Thousands of people died. Tens of thousands of people were infected, and thousands overcame the disease. However, some people will experience serious, long-lasting effects for the rest of their lives. This shows how society was and continues to be shaken to its very foundation.
This crisis was revealing. I want to talk about two different aspects of it.
The first is the fragility of our health care system. We are very proud of our accessible, universal public health care system, but we have noted some major shortcomings. For example, our long-term care homes were not ready. The working conditions of health care workers were sometimes not good enough to convince employees to continue working and to come to work. We saw how ill-prepared and ill-equipped we were.
We did not learn any lessons from the SARS epidemic in 2003. The recommendations made at the time were not implemented. We therefore found ourselves with no vaccines and no gloves, masks or personal protective equipment. We saw how vulnerable that left us. Our health care system was undermined. I hope that we have learned from this pandemic, so that we will be able to deal with the next one. Let us be clear. We are trying to get out of this pandemic as quickly as possible, but in the years to come, there will inevitably be another one. That is why it is so unfortunate that, under successive Liberal and Conservative governments, we lost all our national vaccine production capacity. The NDP has proposed creating a Crown corporation, if necessary. That way, if the private sector is not interested, we will at least have the collective public capacity to produce vaccines to treat people.
Our health care system was fragile. There were problems with working conditions, staffing and preparedness. We have collectively been dropping the ball for years.
The second aspect is our social safety net. Earlier, I spoke about the holes in the health care system. The holes in our social safety net are more like abysses or craters. We quickly realized that the current EI system was leaving many people with nothing when businesses closed, people were asked to stay home, jobs were lost and things were falling apart.
The EI system already excluded 60% of workers. This means that of all the workers who pay EI premiums, more than half do not have access to benefits when they lose their job. That is unbelievable. It is pretty much the dream of any private insurer that does not want to pay. EI is a public tool that we collectively implemented in order to help people who lose their jobs and fall on hard times. However, it is just not working.
As I explained earlier, it was even worse with the pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis. People who contributed to EI were not able to access it, and on top of that, others who did not contribute, such as contract workers, self-employed workers and freelancers, had nothing. That is why the NDP demanded that the government provide direct assistance to offset the gaps in this deeply flawed program. We demanded that the Liberal government increase the Canada emergency response benefit from $1,000 to $2,000 a month, so that people could safely pay their rent and grocery bills. What the Liberals had originally proposed was not enough. We then wanted to expand the benefit to people who might still have been getting a small contract or a couple of hours of work here and there, so that it would cover freelancers and self-employed workers, who had been excluded from CERB. We made it so that people could work and earn up to $1,000 while receiving CERB. We also took action to help students, who had been completely forgotten.
We saw that our social safety net was not good enough and that many people did not have sick leave. I want to emphasize this, because, in the context of a pandemic, sick days are a solution to a public health problem. Sick leave is a social benefit. It benefits the worker. Workers benefit personally from being able to stay home and rest instead of going to work sick, and it is better that way. Everyone wants that.
If someone unfortunately does not have access to paid sick leave and they cannot afford to take a day or two off work because their budget is too tight and they have bills to pay, they are sometimes faced with an impossible choice. They have to choose between buying groceries and staying home to take care of themselves. If they choose to stay home to rest, they might not be able to pay their rent at the end of the month.
It is not just that person's health at stake, but the health of everyone, because we are in the midst of a pandemic. If that person has symptoms of COVID-19, if they are coughing or have a fever and they go to work anyway, they might spread the virus to the other people in their workplace.
Personal sick leave therefore become a tool and a collective method of self-defence. This is a public health issue. Sick leave lets people make rational decisions and protect others, including their family, neighbours, community and co-workers.
While I deplore the fact that the Liberals dragged their feet and took so long to come up with this concrete proposal, I am pleased to see that we can take a leadership role, take a step in the right direction and perhaps encourage some other provinces to adopt similar mechanisms, so that all workers can eventually be protected.
Let us talk about those mechanisms. We see room for improvement. Bill C-3 can be improved. I would even say that it must be improved. That is why it is really important that there be a parliamentary committee that studies the bill one day where we will be able to discuss, debate and propose amendments.
In this version of the bill, people have to work one calendar month to be entitled to one sick day. After five months, they will be entitled to five sick days, and so on.
I see two problems with that. The first is the notion of calendar months. For example, someone hired on February 6 would not get their first paid sick day until April. That person will not have worked every day in February, so they have to wait until they have worked the whole month of March to get their first paid sick day, which they can put in their leave bank. That means they would have to wait six or seven weeks to get that first paid sick day. Why not go with a certain number of days worked consecutively, regardless of the hiring date or start date? Why not base it on an actual month and not make people wait six or seven weeks? I think that is the first thing we need to fix.
The second thing that needs fixing is the bank of 10 days of sick leave. It was people in the health care sector who talked to us about it, including representatives I met with this week from an organization called the Decent Work and Health Network. They are concerned that a new employee has to wait until they bank enough days of sick leave before they can stay home sick. It can take a while to accumulate enough days. According to a U.S. study these representatives cited, it takes at least six days of sick leave for the leave to become truly accessible. That is when the person can really take them, or even dares to take them. It was reported that people with at least six days of sick leave banked take sick leave more than people who have banked only a day or two.
We need to explore the possibility of having a minimum number of days available from the start, before the banking process begins to reach 10 days of sick leave. I think that is something the parliamentary committee could do.
We are talking about technicalities, but they can make a big difference in people's lives. When people get sick, one day is rarely enough. The Decent Work and Health Network also talks about a survey that found that the median duration of leave for influenza is four days. If someone has only a day or two of leave banked, it may not be enough.
With regard to the mechanisms, I would also like to talk about how the employer is allowed to ask the employee to provide a medical certificate for a day of paid leave. For just one day of leave, the employer could require the employee to consult a physician in order to obtain a medical certificate justifying the absence. I believe that it is important to show good faith and to trust employees. Allowing this type of mechanism implies a presumption that abuse and fraud will take place. Is a doctor's note needed for just one day of leave, as opposed to four or five?
We need to ask ourselves this question because this mechanism could be a barrier. A person who suffers from gastroenteritis and who cannot go to work for a day could be asked for a medical certificate two weeks later. This complicates things. Not only will they have to take one day of leave, but they will have to make a doctor's appointment two weeks later to ask for a medical certificate.
That will clog up the health care system. The doctor we met with who was part of the group I mentioned told us that he had better things to do than sign papers for someone who took one or two sick days. His job is to treat people who are sick right now, not to prove, after the fact, that someone was previously sick. Furthermore, this group did a survey and found that the requirement to provide a medical certificate for taking a sick day was an impediment for 82% of workers. That is a lot.
This requirement outweighs the benefits of paid sick leave. It may seem silly, but the NDP believes that we cannot ignore that this is an obstacle for 80% of workers. This is something we need to take into account.
I want to move on from talking about the first part of the bill to the second part of Bill C‑3, which would amend the Criminal Code. Under Bill C‑3, threatening or intimidating health care workers or impeding them from entering their places of work, such as hospitals and clinics, would become aggravating factors. The bill would allow for harsher punishments to combat these forms of intimidation.
Unfortunately, over the past two years and especially in the past year, some very aggressive people who are against science, public health and vaccines have acted in a disgraceful manner. They intimidated and threatened health professionals who were going to hospitals to take care of our parents, grandparents, children and neighbours. It is mind-boggling. The NDP agrees that we need to implement a measure to address that issue. We said during the election campaign that we needed to take steps to protect health professionals. This is a major problem, and we cannot let people intimidate and threaten the workers who take care of us. That does not make any sense. We need to take steps to protect them, so this change to the Criminal Code is a good thing.
That being said, we must not infringe on these same workers' right to use pressure tactics when they are on strike as part of a collective bargaining process, for example. I think we need to take that into account and be very vigilant. In any case, the NDP will stay vigilant, in order to preserve the right to picket and strike as part of a labour dispute.
The NDP stands up for workers. We want to stand up for them so that they do not have rocks thrown at them by anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists. However, we also want to protect workers' rights so that when they are on strike because of a labour dispute, they can express themselves, demonstrate and make their demands and the reason for the labour dispute known.
That aspect is very important to the NDP. We agree with the principle of the bill, but we must be sure not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We need to ensure that the right to picket and the right to demonstrate are protected in the event of a labour dispute or strike. For the NDP, this will be very important to see.
I thank the members for their attention, and I am ready to take questions.
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