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Randall Garrison

Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
NDP

Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke
British Columbia
Voting Attendance: 66%
Expenses Last Quarter: $148,586.11

Government Page

Context: House Hansard - 305 - Apr/30/24

Mr. Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, NDP)

Apr/30/24 4:25:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened to the member's speech with great care, and I appreciate her concern for members of the community. I wonder whether she shares my concern that the level set in the budget for people with disabilities of a $200-a-month benefit is far too low and that it should be perhaps doubled, at least, before we proceed with the budget. We proposed this disability benefit almost four years ago, during the pandemic. At the time, we anticipated it would be set at a level to lift all people with disabilities out of poverty, and certainly the current rate would not do that.

107 words

Context: House Hansard - 152 - Feb/2/23

Mr. Randall Garrison

Feb/2/23 12:03:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is an interesting question. It is outside the scope of the Conservative motion, but it is important. However, I would back up a step and ask us to look at why people fail to meet their bail conditions. Seriously, most of the time it is because people have mental health, addiction and poverty problems. I cited the example in my speech of someone with a mental health problem who needed their supervisor on bail to actually contact them regularly to get them to those meetings. It was not because they were evil or deliberately breaking bail conditions; it was because their grasp on reality was sufficiently disturbed that they simply could not get it together to make those meetings. Oftentimes we also do things like say someone cannot go to an area of town. We would have a red zone, and part of one's bail conditions would be that one does not go there. It is unrealistic to ask somebody without a fixed address, when maybe all their friends and associates hang out on the streets in those areas, never to have contact with their support networks in their communities. As such, before we ask about that, I think we need to ask whether those are reasonable conditions and why people are breaking those conditions.

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Context: House Hansard - 67 - May/9/22

Mr. Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, NDP)

May/9/22 6:09:37 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the member for Richmond Hill's speech, and I noticed he did mention, in addition to seniors, people with disabilities. In the heart of the pandemic, the member for Elmwood—Transcona and I wrote to the minister, asking for the creation of a federal disability benefit to help lift all people with disabilities out of poverty, as a first step toward a guaranteed livable basic income. I wonder what is happening on the government side when it comes to providing that necessary income support for people with disabilities.

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Context: House Hansard - 57 - Apr/25/22

Mr. Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, NDP)

Apr/25/22 4:26:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Davenport for her speech, and I am going to pass over the irony of a government that just passed a new fossil fuel extraction project complaining, however justly, about the records of other governments. I am also going to pass over the fact that, when Liberals speak now about their budget, they tend to emphasize the things that are in the confidence and supply agreement that they forged with our party. I want to go to the question that I noticed the member did not talk about, and that is the fact that people with disabilities in this country continue to live in poverty. There is nothing in the budget to establish a universal income program at the federal level to lift people with disabilities out of poverty, or even to amend the disability tax credit to make it more accessible. Does the hon. member support this failure on the part of her government?

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Member of Parliament

Randall Garrison