- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Courtenay—Alberni
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $148,159.67
- Government Page
- May/30/24 12:07:05 a.m.
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Madam Chair, we know that housing is integral in supporting people with substance use disorder. The government announced $250 million for emergency funding in the budget. That could create tiny homes in communities like Port Alberni and we could trust the province to support wraparound supports and the city to provide land. How quickly can the government get that money out the door? It is an urgent situation, an emergency.
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- May/7/24 5:17:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is the chair at the Standing Committee on Health, and I really want to commend him for the important work he does there. It is a difficult committee to be running these days, especially with the toxic drug crisis study we are doing.
My colleague is also a coastal MP and he knows how important the ghost gear fund is to coastal people for removing polystyrene or plastic pollution. Ghost gear is about 70% of the plastics we find in our oceans. We have the longest coastline in the world. We just hosted the INC-4 and what do we do in this budget? The government removed the funding for the ghost gear fund.
Will my colleague be going back to the minister and demanding that the government reinstate this world-class program?
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- May/7/24 1:22:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to read a quote from Carla Lewis. She is the chair of the First Peoples' Cultural Council in British Columbia. She cites:
Generations of oppressive and assimilationist federal and provincial policies have aimed to wipe out First Nations languages. Through dedication and hard work, our people have fought for language rights to keep our languages alive. But many of our languages have few speakers left and most fluent speakers are elderly. Our languages hold our culture, history and ways of being. We can’t over-emphasize the urgency of the situation...
She is referring to the fact that last year the FPCC received $43.3 million in federal funding. This year in the budget, it is expected to receive only half of the funding. This is putting language learning at risk, despite the fact that we have seen a 20% increase in the number of people who are learning their language. It is also following the federal Indigenous Languages Act, Bill C-91, which Tla-o-qui-aht—
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- May/7/24 11:48:22 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this morning, I met with nurse Crystal Edwards, who is the director of the women and children’s and mental health programs at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, as well as Dr. Justin Jagger, who is the chair of pediatrics at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, and Children's Healthcare Canada. We talked about the children and youth crisis regarding physical and mental health in Canada and how band-aid solutions will not measurably improve child health care systems or children's health outcomes. They are calling on the federal government to take a leadership role in resolving this crisis by declaring children's health and well-being a national priority.
I worked with my colleague from Yukon, as he was part of the negotiations, to create the youth mental health fund. It is historic, and it is a step toward parity between mental and physical health. However, they are also calling on the government to create and implement a national children's strategy that would include targets and timelines to improve children's health outcomes, the establishment of a chief children's health officer and the creation of a dedicated funding envelope to ensure a robust maternal child and youth health research agenda.
Does my colleague support those asks from Children's Healthcare Canada?
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- May/6/24 2:46:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, every minute, two garbage trucks' worth of plastic are dumped into the world's oceans.
Canada has the longest coastline in the world, and plastic and industrial waste are choking the shoreline, making its way into our food and harming vital ecosystems. However, the Liberals' solution is to cancel the ghost gear fund, which creates local jobs, and removes plastic and marine debris from our waters.
The government says that it cares about the environment, but it refuses to act to protect it. Will the Liberals immediately restore this funding, so we can continue to clean up our coasts?
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- Apr/10/24 3:14:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first nations in B.C. have suffered enormous loss throughout their 200-year history of colonization, including the devastating loss of language and culture. Although nations continue to make tremendous progress revitalizing their languages, the Liberals' new formula on funding means a 60% cut to language programs in B.C. Preserving and revitalizing indigenous languages is an essential step to reconciliation.
Will the government remember its most important relationship with first nations and act with urgency to ensure sustained and long-term funding for language programs in British Columbia?
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- Feb/27/24 12:13:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I was going to say, what is embarrassing is that the Conservatives continue to protect their friends at Deloitte, including their former leadership candidate, Peter MacKay, and, just like the Liberals, they do not want to talk about it. They are both corporate-controlled parties.
They are trying to mislead us again. Those votes were about allocating $4.6 billion for COVID rapid tests and vaccines. They were about millions of dollars for a national child care program and funding for affordable homes and women's shelters.
It is no surprise that the Conservatives voted against those things, because that is what Conservatives do. They cut and gut the services people rely on.
We will not take any lessons from the Conservatives, who gave over $7 million in contracts to the former owners of GC Strategies. They also created the Phoenix disaster, which was supposed to save taxpayers $80 million but cost us $3.5 billion.
We have been fighting since the beginning to get to the bottom of the ArriveCAN scandal and to reduce the use of wealthy private consultants. We will not stop, and not just on ArriveCAN and not just on CBSA.
We need to look at the whole of government. We need an investigation into all of the outsourcing, something that is being blocked by the Conservatives, a Conservative-led committee, a Conservative chair who will not allow this motion to come back so that we can look at the whole picture. They do not want to look there.
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- Feb/7/24 3:16:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians spend over a billion dollars out of their own pockets on mental health services every year. With the cost of everything only going up, Canadians are making a difficult choice. Do they put food on the table or get the therapy they need?
The Liberals promised $4.5 billion in mental health funding, but they are still well over a billion dollars short, even with the bilateral agreements.
Our communities need support. It cannot be left to Conservative premiers. Will the Prime Minister commit to delivering direct mental health funding to community-based mental health organizations in the upcoming budget?
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- Dec/11/23 7:53:28 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I want to thank my colleague.
The member talked about consultation and right now, Indigenous Services Canada, or ISC, has been changing funding formulas for education without even talking to the nations that are impacted, so it is hard for them to continue doing their programming with new formulas. It has a huge impact on children, of course.
On ISC engagement with indigenous communities, first nations, Inuit and Métis people, does the member agree that it should be an absolute requirement to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before changing any funding formulas in all areas of service delivery?
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- Dec/11/23 7:20:09 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, over the last 20 years, Indigenous Services Canada has cut tribal council funding in half. This is under both the Harper Conservative government and the current government. These severe cutbacks have had a huge impact on critical services to the nations in my riding. The Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council and AFN have been asking for increases in funding via motions, letters and meetings. They have been literally begging for the government to increase funding. This is impacting children, youth and elders in our communities.
When does Indigenous Services Canada intend to finally increase tribal council funding and bring it back to the level it was 20 years ago?
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- Jun/14/23 3:11:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my riding is cut in half. Highway 4 has been closed for over a week because of wildfires. With the closure, local food banks are suffering, as people are trapped. This is impacting people who were already struggling with food insecurity. They are worried, and many do not know where their next meal will come from.
Will the federal government provide emergency funding to local food banks, small businesses and the community and provide emergency unemployment insurance to help people who are cut off by the wildfires?
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague knows, as a former municipal councillor himself, just as I am a former municipal councillor for Tofino, that municipalities shoulder a large majority of services and costs. However, they only collect 8% of the overall tax revenue.
The government just made a retroactive agreement with the RCMP to ensure that they get paid more. We know that our frontline law enforcement deserves to be paid more, and they deserve better training, especially de-escalation training. We also need to ensure they get supports when they are injured, especially with PTSD.
However, the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities just met in the member's former hometown of Nanaimo. They were unanimous that the federal government needs to support local governments after the downloading of this retroactive funding. Unlike federal and provincial governments, which can run deficits, municipal governments have to run a balanced budget.
Will the federal government get back to the table with FCM and local governments to make sure they are not eating the costs of a deal they negotiated without consulting local governments?
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- Apr/18/23 11:02:46 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, one thing we have heard loud and clear from many anti-poverty advocates in our country is that there is a need for a national school lunch food program. Lush Valley, an organization in my riding that supports local food growers to get food to people who have low incomes and challenges getting food, has been pushing for this program.
In 2018, the World Health Organization cited that one in five children in Canada is at risk of going to school hungry. That is not acceptable. We have been calling for the federal government to step in and fund a national school food program. We need federal funding, and school lunches could help take the pressure off of families right now.
Will my colleague speak to this important need? When will the government answer the call to action so children are not living in poverty, and so they get the best start in life?
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- Mar/30/23 12:08:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a young woman, Saffron Bisiker, a grade 12 student in Qualicum Beach in my riding, just launched the first-ever Qualicum Beach Film Festival a couple of weeks ago, and she did it to support local creators and contributors. Our MLA, Adam Walker, was there from Parksville-Qualicum, and he cited that there is $18 million being spent in the film sector just in Qualicum Beach and that area, and how important that is.
We have been hearing for many years from our local broadcasters, creators and cultural workers that they have been suffering from unfair competition from the big web giants. That is why, as New Democrats, we have been calling for an end to this unfair system for years. It is why this bill is a good first step to even the playing field.
The Liberal government has delayed this reform for many years, which has resulted in lost jobs and revenue for cultural workers. Why has the government allowed companies like Netflix to avoid paying their fair share of funding for our Canadian cultural content for so long? It is so important for people like Saffron who want a career in film to ensure that we are investing in Canadian content, in Canadian producers and curators. I just want to know why the government has taken so long to address this important need.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about supports for people with mental health issues. One group we have not talked about is public safety personnel. This is definitely not partisan; it is about us both coming from rural communities. That includes border services, corrections services, firefighters, operational intelligence personnel, paramedics, police, public safety communications and search and rescue personnel. Half those individuals experience some sort of mental disorder in their career in their lifetime and one in 10 will actually consider death by suicide.
These professionals and their families have remained decades behind. We know about the military and veterans with regard to supports for their well-being, and we are just scratching the surface in addressing their considerable mental health needs. Their core funding comes from the Canadian Institute for Public Safety Research and Treatment and concludes on March 31, just six weeks from now. Without a renewed commitment on that funding, it will end.
Maybe my colleague can speak about some of those public safety personnel in his riding who have suffered through PTSD or some trauma and how important it is we get the proper resources to support them, especially those heroes who have put their lives on the line and the sacrifices they made, as we know coming from rural Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and privilege today to have an opportunity to rise to speak to Bill C-32 on the fall economic statement. We know people are struggling. The cost of goods and inflation are skyrocketing. The rising interest rates are having a huge impact on people's budgets and to families in our communities, especially in my riding of Courtenay—Alberni.
We are pleased to see some of the things that are in this budget, such as the Canada recovery dividend and the elimination of interest on student loans, which is something that we have been fighting to get for a very long time. We believe there is a lot more the fall economic statement should have offered and did not offer. I am going to speak to that as well.
We know that while people are struggling, there are many big corporations that are having record profits. Whether it is oil and gas, the big banks, or Loblaws and the others of three big grocery store chains, they have had record profits.
We would have welcomed a windfall tax, but we did see there was a small 1.5% tax on banks and insurers that have profits over $100 million. We would have liked to see that expanded to include those other sectors that are having windfall profits right now.
The government could have used that money to eliminate the GST on home heating or could have gotten rid of the surcharge on Canada Post being implemented right now. During this holiday season, that is having a huge impact on small businesses. Natalie Weekes, a friend of mine, just wrote me about that. As well, consumers are trying to get presents to their families.
Members have heard me speak about mental health and the disastrous effects of the government not implementing a mental health transfer. It promised $875 million of new money that it has not spent so far to date, and that is creating backlogs in our health care system.
Members have heard me talk about the substance use assistance program, with the Liberals only funding 14% of the applications that are coming in when we know there is a toxic drug crisis happening.
Members have heard me speak many times about the need for co-op housing. As someone who grew up in co-op housing, I know how critically important it is to have safe, secure housing. When the Liberals got out of the national housing strategy in the early nineties, they were developing and building 25,000 units a year. They are now building a measly 6,500 units, and we are in a housing crisis.
We know the free market will not solve the crisis, and 10% of our housing in the seventies and eighties was non-market housing. We are now below 4%. Europe is at 30%. It understands that housing is not just a commodity, which is the way it is being treated here. It is a critical for people to have a safe, secure home.
Members have heard me speak about those many issues. One area and one group that we do not talk enough about are our first responders. We have a crisis there too with our volunteer firefighters, our search and rescue volunteers and the people who are out there day in, day out. They work jobs, and they are doing this as a volunteer job.
They go out in the rural communities where I live and where many of my colleagues live. We all know the value of those first responders and the sacrifices they make to make sure we are safe. This week, we have the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs here, and they are lobbying right now.
I am going to read a quote from an op-ed by Chief Ken McMullen and Chief Tina Saryeddine that was in the Hill Times this morning. They said, “The climate crisis, health-care crisis, and personnel shortages in Canada's fire departments are converging, causing increasing strain on Canada's fire-fighting capacity.”
They continued, “This year, 629 fire departments [are] providing services to 24 million Canadians”. They have seen the number of firefighters drop from what was 156,000 to 126,000. Their crisis is a labour market shortage and attraction. We know the inflation crisis is impacting everybody, but it is impacting volunteer firefighters too.
I tabled a bill, Bill C-201, calling for the federal government to increase the tax credit for those who volunteer over 200 hours from $3,000 to $10,000. They would basically get $450 in their pocket if they did 200 hours today, and that would expand to over $1,200 if we went for the $10,000 amount.
The cost to the coffers right now in Canada is $10 million to support all of these volunteer firefighters right across the country and that includes 8,000 search and rescue volunteers. That are a lot of people who would be impacted. I know it does not sound like a lot, but I will provide an example.
The Qualicum Beach fire chief, Peter Cornell, who is in a recruitment drive right now, just like almost every volunteer fire department in this country, said that it would be a game changer. He said it would be so important and would help keep those firefighters in the community, making sure that they meet their requirements and their hours.
That is not why they do it. We know why they do it. They do it to protect us and because they love their communities. Also, not only do they put their lives on the line, but also they put in time for training. This would also help small communities and take the pressure off them.
We know that volunteerism is decreasing and volunteer fire departments in my riding, from Ucluelet, Tofino, Beaver Creek, Cherry Creek, Sproat Lake, Errington, Coombs, Cumberland, Parksville, Qualicum, Bowser, Denman Island, Hornby Island, Lasqueti Island and Cumberland, just to name a few in my riding, tell us that this is a big deal, and it is important. I wanted to raise that because far too often our heros fall through the cracks.
I hope the government will listen to this pitch today because it is something first responders have said will make a difference. I know it is not in the fall economic statement, but I hope the government will consider it for the upcoming budget. I have many quotes from many of the fire chiefs, but I do not think we have time for me to go into all of them.
Another thing is that the FCM has their reps here from British Columbia with respect to climate adaptation, and we know the government just made an announcement. They welcomed the release of Canada's national adaptation strategy just two weeks ago and the news of a one-time transfer of $530 million to the green municipal fund.
From my riding I have Will Cole-Hamilton, who is a councillor for the City of Courtenay, and Daniel Arbour, who is a local area director from Hornby Islands. They are here calling on the government to increase that. They cite that it is going to be $25 billion in losses relative to a stable climate scenario because of the impact on climate emergencies. They want to be partners but they say that it is going to cost $5.3 billion per year in shared costs to ensure that they can avoid the worst impacts of climate change. I wanted to raise that because they are here and they are calling for that.
Another small thing that just does not get talked about is seaweed. The Speaker is from the coast and knows how important seaweed is. It is a great opportunity for economic development, but the current wait time in B.C. for an aquaculture licence is three to five years.
The government could have helped support fast-tracking that. It is just too long for B.C. businesses and farmers to build a thriving seaweed enterprise and sector that would compete with the global sector, so the renewing of these licences is too slow. They need DFO to ensure that its staff are there to so we can move this forward.
This is not just important to the ecosystems and coastal communities, but to indigenous communities as well, so it is a really incredible opportunity for both the environment and the economy. Many indigenous nations are looking at seaweed as an opportunity for economic development, but they need to make sure this is moving forward. It is a great opportunity, which I wanted to flag here.
In my riding right now we have aging infrastructure. In Port Alberni, our pool is aging. Parksville wants a new pool. Out on the west coast in Tofino, Ucluelet, Ahousaht, Tla-o-qui-aht, Yuu-cluth-aht, Toquaht and Hesquiaht, they want to build a pool out at the Long Beach Airport. However, the investing in Canada infrastructure program and British Columbia partnership is tapped out right now, so they want to see the government replenish that because we know how important it is to live, work and play in our communities. Also, when we have recreation facilities, that lowers our health care costs. It is good for tourism in a place like the west coast, especially in my riding, which everybody should come to visit because it will change their life. It is a great place. These facilities desperately need funds so they can advance this. It is really good for people who have been injured in the workplace so they can rehabilitate themselves.
Therefore, I urge the government side to look at and consider these things. They were missing in this fall economic statement, and I have not had an opportunity to raise these really important asks from our riding of Courtenay—Alberni.
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Madam Speaker, Chief Ken Watts waamiiš from Tseshaht First Nation, one of the Nuu-chah-nulth nations, has been advocating for funding directly to first nations, to enable their museums to repatriate artifacts and honour their culture. There is lore and there are stories and oral histories in those intellectual artifacts.
Could the member speak about how important it is to get those resources to those nations as part of reconciliation?
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate my colleague's work on this and his long-standing work in this area. He talked about the national cost-sharing program for historic places. It is my understanding that, for 2023-24, the Liberal government has only budgeted $2 million to this program, yet the environment committee, back in 2017, recommended $10 million. McLean Mill is in Port Alberni, which is in my riding, and it is cash poor. It is relying on the City of Port Alberni's taxpayer base to fund that really important historic site.
Can my colleague speak about increased funding to support sites like the McLean Mill?
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Mr. Speaker, I asked him to consult with the Nuu-chah-nulth in my riding to measure how they are doing. I invite the members, really with an olive branch, to come and meet with the Nuu-chah-nulth people.
Now, there are some good things happening. Just two weeks ago, the B.C. government, working with the Huu-ay-aht First Nations, announced the creation of the Oomiiqsu mother's centre. It is creating a safe and culturally appropriate home. It is an indigenous-led model of care for women who are trying to keep their families together, who are leaving abuse, facing mental health and addiction disorders, or who are living in poverty and trauma. However, there is still no federal money. I hope that the government will live up to the council's recommendations and deliver funding.
Will the government work with the Province of British Columbia and ensure that we are delivering on that first call to action and make it a priority?
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- Nov/14/22 3:09:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals said they would ensure that mental health care would be treated as a full and equal part of Canada's universal public health care system. They promised to fund mental health supports.
However, that funding is again nowhere to be found in the fall economic statement. With rising costs and long wait-lists, struggling Canadians have been left with nowhere to turn but crowded emergency rooms. Today, the Canadian Mental Health Association called on the government to stop delaying and to deliver its promised mental health transfer.
When will the Liberals finally follow through on their promises and deliver the help that Canadians desperately need?
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