- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- North Island—Powell River
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $145,542.18
- Government Page
- Nov/9/23 2:50:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when women were invited into all military operations in 1989 and submarine services in 2001, they entered an environment not made for them. Trailblazers, these women endured through discrimination and lack of support, and the physical and mental outcomes they dealt with were not documented. Now, as veterans, they are often underserved because of the lack of documentation.
When will the government honour servicewomen and make it right?
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- Nov/6/23 3:15:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, women veterans will be attending commemoration services this week. Many of them will be asked if the medals they are wearing belonged to their husband, or their son or their father. Too often, they feel invisible and diminished when they should feel acknowledged and respected for their service. This must change.
Will the minister commit today to ensuring the participation of women veterans in Remembrance Day commemorations this year?
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- Nov/6/23 2:13:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as we enter Veterans' Week, I want to take this opportunity to thank the members, past and present, for their dedicated service. We know both from history and today that the cost of conflict is far too high. All too often, we, as Canadians, think of their service during this time of year, rather than recognizing it every day. After years of working for both serving members and veterans, I understand that the dedication to service is high. Their thoughts always focus on the “us” rather than the “I”.
This year, I am particularly thinking of service women and veterans who are women. I know they have served and that those realities, both past and present, are all too often left invisible. They participate in Remembrance Day services wearing their medals and civilian gear, and are asked, “Are those your father's, husband's or son's medals?”
This year, let Canadians recommit to seeing veterans, all of them, and to acknowledging and appreciating their service. I thank all the women who have served or are serving. I see them. Lest we forget.
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- May/15/23 2:51:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, women veterans feel invisible. The Liberal government does not hear their experiences, stories or pain. Virtually no research is being funded about military women's health issues, including mental health. While New Democrats welcome the recently announced mood and anxiety treatment guidelines, the unique challenges of female veterans must be considered.
Will the minister commit, today, to including women veterans in creating these guidelines so that women who bravely served our country could finally be seen?
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- Mar/27/23 3:09:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Veterans Affairs has been clawing back pensions from women RCMP veterans. These women experienced extreme brutality while protecting our country, and the government is denying what they are owed as directed by the Merlo Davidson lawsuit.
The New Democrats have been calling for these clawbacks to stop and, after months, finally the minister agrees. These women deserve action.
Will the minister apologize to these women, stop the clawback and reimburse the money they are rightfully owed from their pensions?
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- Mar/7/23 3:19:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for decades, women in the RCMP suffered a shocking amount of sexual harassment and discrimination. Now Veterans Affairs is clawing back their disability pensions. Months ago, following the Merlo Davidson lawsuit, the ombud recommended the clawbacks stop. However, the minister has done nothing. He is making these women who served their country suffer all over again. When will he fix this and make it right?
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Madam Speaker, in my riding we are really struggling to find health care providers. One of the things that we have heard loud and clear as the biggest challenge is child care, and a lot of people in the health care industry are women.
I am wondering if the member could speak a little about the impact this could have on women to open doors for them to enter the workforce and the very clear example we have seen in Quebec.
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Madam Speaker, first I want to acknowledge the people of this territory, the Anishinabe, for letting us continue to work here. We know that the history is not a good one, but here we are on their territory making the laws of this country.
I also want to take this opportunity to honour all the missing and murdered indigenous women across this country. We know, as we see what has happened in Winnipeg, this raw wound has been ripped open yet again. We know so many people around this country are suffering. I want to recognize and honour the hard work they are doing every moment in surviving this history, surviving this reality now and what that means. Everywhere we go in this country is indigenous land. It is a very special relationship between the first people of that land and the land itself.
I remember years ago speaking with late elder Ellen White from Snuneymuxw. I am so honoured she took the time that she did with me. I expressed my concern about the fact that colonization was continuing to happen, that so much culture was lost due to smallpox, the outlawing of traditional practices, residential schools, day schools and the continued apprehension of indigenous children today. She told me that much of the knowledge was saved, protected and hidden to keep it safe and that everything that was lost came back in the children who were born. They were the carriers of knowledge from the spirit world, so that nothing was ever really lost. That had a really significant impact on me.
When I look at Bill S-219, a bill to make January 4 national ribbon skirt day, it makes me think of how, in spite of everything, in spite of such a targeted effort to destroy the first peoples of this land, they are still here. It makes me think of how the children keep bringing things back to our communities in so many ways. Indigenous children carry inside them this beautiful spirit that will not bend in the face of discrimination, hate or shaming. Therefore, when we think specifically about this day, we have to think about Isabella Kulak who, at 10 years old, inspired a movement based on the pride she had in herself, in her family and in her culture by wearing a ribbon skirt to school.
From the Cote First Nation in Saskatchewan, she wore her ribbon skirt to a formal event at her school. Sadly, an educational assistant made fun of her. Why any adult would feel the need to make a child feel small I can just never understand. The pain perpetrated on children's bodies and spirits over history has never made any sense to me. Indigenous children, for far too many generations, have continued to experience this pain and suffering, and collectively in this place we must all fight to make it stop.
However, this did not prevent Isabella from having her own sense of pride in her family or her family's determination to support her. This moment of shaming was made into something powerful and beautiful. In solidarity, women and men wearing their ribbon skirts and shirts walked Isabella to school in January, and people from around the globe began to post ribbon skirt photos in her name.
I remember my Granny Minnie, from Stellat'en First Nation, who went to Lejac residential school, used to always say to me, “We are still here.” I remember as a child not understanding what that meant. I just knew that we were here. As I got older and learned about the history and what that meant for my granny, I understood that what she meant was that, no matter what happened, we just found a way to survive in those communities. I have such deep respect for that. I often tell people, when they express pity for indigenous communities, that I hope they have compassion but that I hope they recognize how powerfully strong indigenous peoples are because they are still here.
I want to recognize those moments of solidarity, moments when we stand with indigenous children, hold them up and keep them strong in the face of so many challenges. We know that the support for Isabella became much bigger than her community and spread across Canada. Her love for culture, family and community made her famous, and that is beautiful.
I am in support of this bill because pride of first nations, Inuit and Métis culture is part of the restoration of communities that have experienced genocide in this country, but it is also a significant part of Canada becoming a much better and stronger country.
I cannot help but think of my son, Henry. He comes from Homalco First Nation, Coast Salish Nation. Those people always wore cedar. I remember when he was a young person, he worked with an incredible, powerful weaver, Shyanne Watters. He made himself a cedar hat. It was not made in the traditional way; he actually made a cedar top hat. It is beautiful, and it has a very important place in our house. As he got older, he would wear it to high school on their fancy Fridays. Every fancy Friday, he would wear a suit or a vest and his cedar top hat. I watched him walk with pride into his school, and was really moved that it was part of his reality and his identity, and he was not going to hide it.
There is no doubt in our children, there is no core doubt in them about who they are and where they come from. We have to continue to fight for that to be a reality for all indigenous children. They know where their territory is under their feet, and I am so proud of them.
Honouring national ribbon skirt day on January 4 is important, and I look forward to supporting this bill.
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- Dec/7/22 8:00:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as a white woman who has raised indigenous children and has indigenous grandchildren, I always think about the day one has to tell their children and grandchildren how to be safe in a world that really wants to destroy them. I think that is a hard part of the reality of indigenous communities. They have to make those decisions.
When their granddaughters go to bigger cities, they have to make sure that all the aunties and uncles are watching them to keep them safe because they are that afraid. Then we get that call and we know what that means, not only for our own family but for our whole community in a country that continues to perpetrate genocide upon these beautiful precious bodies that we need home with us.
I think of my cousin Jeannine and her good friend Carla, who bring indigenous women together, and they bead. They bead earrings and monuments for indigenous women. They are called the Lil' Red Dress group. Do the members know what they do? They sell all of those so that they can put up signs when indigenous women and girls go missing. They fundraise to save the lives and to call for help because no one else will do it.
I am wondering if the leader could talk to us about how wrong it is to have indigenous people fundraising to save their families when the government does nothing.
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Madam Speaker, I always do my best to read people's minds. However, my response is simply that this is more than sad. This is an everyday reality for indigenous communities across this country. Until it is an everyday reality for every Canadian in this country, it is not going to stop.
I hope this government will actually get the resources into pockets and that we will also assist in searching for the bodies of these young people, of these women and girls. That is what we need to do, and I hope that the government does it.
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- Nov/30/22 2:18:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it was just over 30 years ago that women were first allowed to participate in all military workplace settings, including combat by land, sea and air.
How these environments impact their fertility and pregnancy, and even the epigenetics of their offspring, remains largely medically unknown. Many military members delay their pregnancies to support their military careers, but then some find themselves with PTSD upon release and facing a lack of health care providers familiar with PTSD treatments and medications that are safe to continue when pregnant or breastfeeding.
Perinatal and mental health services for veterans and military women appears in three mandate letters for the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, and the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, but nothing is moving forward. I challenge those ministers to get to work on this important issue. Military and veteran women deserve to have equitable research and knowledge about the risks of the unique workplace exposures possible from the military.
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- May/4/22 11:22:03 p.m.
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Madam Chair, as we sit here in this place, and we talk about indigenous women and girls and the realities that they face, and how many of them go missing or are murdered, I think of the many constituents I have in my riding who tell me the reality they face every day because they do not know, in one case for 35 years, where their sisters are. They just always have that haunting sort of history in their mind: What happened? Is she okay? Is she dead somewhere? How do we find her?
We are here in this place. We have calls to action. We know the pathway that we need to take. What we need to see is for the government to actually invest resources into that pathway so that we can move forward and so that, finally, indigenous women and girls can be valued the way they should be.
Could this member talk about how important it is to actually see those resources so the actions can happen, and so that the women do not have to have this experience anymore?
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- May/4/22 10:59:10 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I know that my granny went to residential school in Lejac from the age of four to 16. Unfortunately, when she was 16, the nuns arranged for a marriage for her and she was married to a 50-year-old white man.
When he passed away not too long after, of course, she was rejected by the family and lost her status and was not able to go home.
When I think about the history of Canada and how unsafe it makes indigenous women and girls, I am wondering this. Could the member talk about how this history continues to repeat itself?
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- May/4/22 10:35:09 p.m.
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Madam Chair, in my riding of North Island—Powell River, a couple of indigenous women have gathered many indigenous women together to bead red dress earrings and pins. What they do is fundraise so they can support families that have lost indigenous women and girls. They fundraise so they can put up billboards of missing indigenous women and girls so that people know the faces of those who are lost from their families forever.
Can the member speak about how important it is that we not ask people to be charitable in this, but ask government to be responsible for the actions it takes in making sure that we find these women and girls?
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