- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- North Island—Powell River
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $145,542.18
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, the member spoke about specific aspects of the budget that tie back into helping rural and remote communities attract doctors and nurses by extending an offer to lessen debt for nurses. I appreciate that.
I come from a riding with communities like Port Hardy, which, an article just came out saying, is again going to have to shut down the emergency room during the day. Right now, the emergency room is open only during the day, not during the evening or the night. People have to leave their community and drive far away to get emergency services. It is the same on Cormorant Island.
Does the member think it would be important for the government to step up and make sure there are ties to small, rural communities struggling in this country in terms of health care, to get them a bit extra to get through this time? I know that, in B.C., the provincial government has stepped up, but it needs more resources to address this huge crisis.
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- Apr/17/23 2:15:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in my riding of North Island—Powell River, every community I serve is in desperate need of housing. The top three reasons for housing insecurity are a lack of affordable rents or mortgages, low wages and housing in major need of repair with no resources to fix it. Indigenous people are four times as likely to be unhoused.
People with core housing needs in my riding are single-income families; those who live on a fixed income, such as seniors and persons living with disabilities; lone-parent households; and indigenous households. This issue requires a real partner in the federal government, and our region is simply not seeing that.
My constituents have ideas, such as redesigning the reaching home program's rural and remote funding stream. My communities have sent meaningful and thoughtful feedback. I urge the government to listen to it; prioritize rural, remote and indigenous communities; define affordability based on local realities, not market values; invest in non-market housing; and make capital investments into the upkeep of aging properties to keep people housed.
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- Dec/6/22 7:25:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am very concerned to hear again “Let us have a round table” and “Let us have a conversation.” We need action in our communities.
Rural and remote health care is hurting because of many specific challenges. I am happy to inform the member that finding a family doctor is getting harder and harder. Accessing walk-in clinics is harder. Waiting too long for much-needed surgery in rural and remote communities is a long-term challenge. There is delay in medical test results and other medical services due to a lack of medical personnel. It is harder to attract people to rural and remote communities. This needs to be addressed in a more profound way.
Having to travel very long distances outside of the community to access regular and specialized medical services is very hard on families. Seniors waiting for long-term care are often in the hospital because they cannot get into a long-term care facility. There is a complete lack of mental health services that are comprehensive and support people in my riding. So, I am—
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Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I felt was really missing in this fall economic statement was a serious and comprehensive investment in housing, specifically for smaller, rural and remote communities.
A few weeks ago, I was a part of a big dialogue in my region where the Campbell River Community Foundation and the Campbell River and District Coalition To End Homelessness brought together stakeholders from the whole region. Some of my smallest communities have a very specific need, and they have people who are living in substandard housing or they are out on the streets. When there is a population of 1,300 people to 4,000 people, one does not want to see that.
Could this member talk about the need for rural and remote communities to actually have funding resources and for the federal government to finally get into the game?
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- Dec/2/22 11:27:10 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the situation in our ERs is a disaster. People cannot get treatment or care when they need it. In my riding, the ERs at the hospitals in Port Hardy and Port McNeill have been forced to close regularly. Yesterday, a person even collapsed at the Port Hardy ER. They had gone for help and found it closed.
For years, the Liberals have underfunded health care and Canadians are now not able to even access it. When will the government act on the health care staffing crisis in rural communities and increase the Canada health transfer?
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Madam Speaker, I am very happy to be here to speak to Bill C-235, an act respecting the building of a green economy in the Prairies. I want to thank the member for Winnipeg South Centre for bringing this forward.
As a person who lives on the coast, I do not have the experience of living in the prairie region. However, I do connect to this very important issue, because I live and have grown up in more rural and remote communities. I recognize that when one lives in those environments, there is a very different way of being in the world.
We are a lot more connected to our communities. We often have a harder time getting to other places. I really appreciated the member talking about flying places and then having to wait many hours. I know when I come here, often I get to fly to one part of the country and then wait a few hours before I can get to this part of the country.
That is just the reality that we experience. It is something we all know we need to do better, especially when we are thinking about how we are going to make sure those spaces are more accessible. We think about making sure they are part of our communities across the planet and across this country, and they have an economic viability. That can sometimes be a challenge for more rural and remote communities.
This bill talks a lot about how to bring people together to talk about how we can see more of a green economy. It is something I really believe in. When we stand in a place like this, where we collectively represent the whole country, the stories from each region are unique, yet there is a common ground, especially when we talk about rural and remote communities.
We know they often go through a cycle of boom and bust. One moment it is going well, the economy is strong and people are doing well, but then it changes quickly. It is these communities that have built this country. Their resources and people have given so much in taxes and resources to this country, and often a lot of urban centres are built on the labour of more rural and remote communities. They are not included in a way that is meaningful.
In the last Parliament, I was happy to table Motion No. 53 on the principles for a sustainable and equitable future. It talked specifically about having solutions locally that looked at what the resources were, what our skill set was and how we were going to make ourselves more sustainable in rural communities. Then we can have a more stable economy but also address the issue of climate change, because we are in an emergency and things are changing very rapidly.
I can argue at a later date about what I think the government is doing, because I have to say, quite frankly, it is not moving in the direction I would like to see it move. We are pushing really hard to get some of those actions. When it comes to emissions and addressing climate change, we have a lot more proactive work to do.
Part of that conversation has to be looking at these communities in the Prairies, looking at rural and remote parts of Canada and asking what is sustainable in those communities. What are the skill sets in those communities? How do we bring people together? That is what this bill is about. How do we bring all those different voices together to make sure there are meaningful solutions going forward?
In my last job, I worked with newcomers to Canada. One of the things I found interesting was the amount of research that has happened in Canada and across the whole planet on how to create the best solutions. It is said again and again that with more diversity at the table and with more people with different opinions at the table, it can actually be worked through. It takes longer. There is no doubt.
When we are trying to figure out how to get from one place to another, and we have a lot of people around a table with differing opinions, it is going to take longer to get to that. The research has proven repeatedly that once we get there, even though it takes longer, the other side of that is a lot more coordinated, the solutions are a lot more innovative and they are long-lasting.
It is something we should be looking at and addressing, and that is what my motion talked about. How do we bring people together? How do we have a regional approach? When we look at what is happening in our environment, when we look at the challenges and concerns around stable employment, how do we not fight against each other? We need to come together and create solutions that are going to make sense and make sure there are good jobs in our region, but also address the climate crisis in a meaningful way.
We have to do that work. We have to do it with an urgency, so I appreciated the member talking about making that timeline shorter.
In his speech, the member said that the pace of change is too slow. I agree. When we are looking at the challenges that we are facing today, we cannot wait. We cannot sit here in this place and have big discussions. We need to give resources to local regions and communities and say to them that they are the experts in their area, that they tell us the criteria and the next steps they are going to take.
The NDP will be supporting this because I think it is important to look at those solutions, to look at local responses and to look at regional responses. They can profoundly make a difference.
When I look at my area, a lot of things are being ripped out of the earth, in one way or another. They are being shipped off to somewhere else, often outside of the country, to be changed into something, which is sent back to us and then we buy it. I am really concerned about that.
When I think about local solutions and when I look at the environmental crisis that we are in, we need to see more value-added production in our communities and in our regions. This is something that I think the bill will touch on. I hope that every person in this place will take it under consideration. If we do not start seeing more production with our own resources in our own country, we are going to continue to see wealth being here for a short time but it will not stay here permanently.
Last Friday, I was in Campbell River. A lot of people came together to talk about the housing crisis we are experiencing right now. Of course, inside of that issue, like every issue across the country, the climate crisis was brought up, how people without homes are having to live on the streets and what that means when we are having incredibly unpredictable weather and how we deal with these issues. We also talked about the vulnerability of seniors who live in our region. Our region usually does not get very hot but we are seeing this huge increase in heat, and then, during the winter, there is the very high cost of energy for people to stay warm and what that means for folks.
I think of Cortes Island, a small community in my riding, which is two ferry rides away from where I live. That community is working together. They are actually fundraising, as they have a high level of poverty in their senior population, so that they can all have heat pumps. The community itself is recognizing this huge challenge and they are collectively working together to deal with the climate crisis and also honour and respect the seniors in their communities by trying to find a solution.
In closing, we have to recognize the dynamic approach of our smaller communities. We have to work with them so that they have more opportunities. We have to understand that while the federal government has a very important role, sometimes its important role is to make sure that the resources are there so that the local communities can do the work that needs to be done.
I cannot say enough about that. When I look at economic development and when I look at addressing the climate crisis, we need to see those communities recognized, honoured and listened to. Sometimes bringing them together is really going to make a long-term difference, so that we can get to a solution that we can sustain.
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- Oct/31/22 3:06:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last week, a North Island resident told me she is scared for the safety of her family because of the Port Hardy Hospital emergency room closures. There is not enough staff to keep it open. This is a crisis. Canadians cannot access public health care. Rural communities have been left behind by underfunding for health care by both Conservative and Liberal governments.
Will the government finally listen to the pleas of British Columbians for more federal funding for public health care?
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