- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Port Moody—Coquitlam
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $129,260.13
- Government Page
- Nov/9/23 3:15:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are abandoning caregivers again. They promised to make the Canada caregiver credit refundable, yet people are still waiting. We are in an affordability crisis. Unpaid carers are struggling to keep up with the cost of living. Meanwhile, the Liberals are missing in action. Caregivers deserve better.
Will the Liberals finally live up to their promise and immediately deliver the refundable tax credit?
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- Oct/26/23 2:14:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, October 29 is the International Day of Care and Support.
The collective prejudice against care workers because of gender and race has resulted in a shared belief that care work is unskilled work and, therefore, does not deserve adequate compensation. This is wrong. The federal government must step up and end this discrimination. It is time for the government to improve the working conditions of nurses, child care workers, care aides, teachers' aides, teachers, long-term care workers and all care workers across this country.
The NDP calls on the government to create a robust, gender-responsive, disability-inclusive and age-sensitive care strategy for Canada.
International Day of Care and Support is a time to recognize a caregiver in our lives and the amazing work done by unions across the country who are fighting to protect the rights of care workers.
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- Apr/21/23 11:46:51 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, unpaid caregivers in this country take care of children, aging parents and loved ones. They do an incredible amount of unpaid labour. In the finance minister's mandate letter, the government has promised to provide a refundable Canada caregiver credit, but the Liberals failed to deliver it in the last budget.
Families rely on caregivers, who receive so little compensation. Why are the Liberals so quick to move mountains for their rich buddies but not to support caregivers who care for their loved ones?
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- Mar/20/23 3:14:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, caregivers are at a breaking point as the Liberal government fails to solve the health care crisis. This is putting increased pressure on families to care for their loved ones.
The important job of caring for parents, grandparents and children is most often left up to women, and this work is unpaid. The government can support caregivers by immediately making the Canada caregiver credit a refundable tax benefit to put money back into the pockets of people.
Why is the government delaying this benefit for those who care for their loved ones?
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- Mar/9/23 2:49:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the majority of care workers are women. They look after our loved ones in long-term care, in hospitals and in child care centres, yet these essential workers do not receive the respect they deserve. Many care workers still have precarious immigration status, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. They deserve status now.
Will the Liberals finally grant permanent resident status to these migrant workers who are already contributing so much to society?
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- Feb/16/23 11:58:59 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree on the progressive policies in Quebec. I have said many times in the House that I benefited from the very first $5-a-day child care when I lived in Quebec in 1998, but I also want to point to when I had my second child in Quebec in 2003. At that point in time, C. difficile was in the hospitals. I did not get a meal delivered to my room because there was not enough staff. I needed to rely on my spouse to ensure I was fed during the two days I was in the hospital.
When we look at the long-term care outcomes and the deaths through COVID in Quebec, these are the realities about which we are talking. This is about a lack of staff, a lack of funding to have adequate staff, and reliance on the free market is no way to fix these problems.
Does the Bloc agree that we need to have an all-hands-on-deck fight to ensure we have the human resources in the health care system across our country?
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- Feb/16/23 10:48:25 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is talk about that in the study on the labour shortage in the care economy. About 15 years ago when I was living in Quebec, I was at a dinner and there were conversations around the table then. We knew 15 years ago that there were not enough spots and placements. That is a serious issue. The Liberal government has the opportunity to start working with those organizations and with the provincial and territorial organizations to lift that.
I want to point out, though, that we have known this was happening. People were sitting around tables talking about this 15 years ago and the Liberal government and the Conservative government before it did nothing about it.
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- Feb/16/23 10:35:34 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the pandemic was hard on Canadians. It was particularly difficult for health care workers, including nurses, doctors, personal support workers, long-term care workers, maintenance staff, and so many others.
For three years, they have been on the front lines of this pandemic with no relief in sight. The government called them heroes, but those accolades have not been backed up with tangible investments in pay, working conditions or mental health supports. It is absolutely unacceptable that investments in mental health have not come to frontline workers, including health care workers, when the Liberal government is sitting on $4.5 billion of unspent mental health dollars. I remind the government that this needs to change.
Today, we are talking about the privatization of health care in Canada. The Liberals' recent health care negotiations with the provinces have not produced change or protections. The solutions that Canadians were expecting to hear to improving their access to care in this country did not come to fruition. Canadians did not hear of plans to address the staffing shortages of doctors or nurses.
As Tim Guest, the CEO of the Canadian Nurses Association, said, “While CNA is encouraged by the federal government’s commitment to prioritizing health-care workers, the need for a pan-Canadian health human resource (HHR) strategy and urgent action to address critical nursing shortages were not clearly addressed.”
The current Liberal government must address the human resource crisis in the care system in Canada immediately. The Prime Minister has an opportunity to make things better for Canadians by working with the provinces and territories to hire and rebuild the public health system and its human resource sector. Alternatively, he can continue to make the crisis worse by funding for-profit schemes that will poach staff from hospitals and the public health care system that all Canadians rely on.
I remind the Liberal government that allowing for-profit care to take over Canada's health care system is not only a contravention of the Canada Health Act, but also a costly project for Canadians, both in dollars and in lives, as the hon. member mentioned earlier. We have only to look at the catastrophic outcomes in private long-term care during the pandemic to see that.
The courts are also warning us of the folly of private health care. The Supreme Court of British Columbia looked at the impact of private, paid health care in its 2020 ruling on the Cambie case and found that “...the introduction of duplicative private healthcare would lead to increased costs and diversion of human resources, which would be contrary to the purpose of the provisions to preserve and ensure the sustainability of the universal public healthcare system.”
This decision was upheld by the B.C. Court of Appeal in 2022. In its ruling, the justice found that suppressing all private care is necessary to ensure that access to medically necessary care is based on need and not on ability to pay.
It also stated, “The introduction of even small scale duplicative private healthcare would create a second tier of preferential healthcare for those with the means to either acquire private insurance or pay out-of-pocket once their benchmark was exceeded.”
That is worrisome. No Canadian should have to fight for equal care in this country, but that is exactly what privatization, for-profit care, does.
It is not just me saying this. It is the law of the land saying it. This is why it is imperative that the new bilateral health agreements result in thousands of new publicly funded health care workers to fix and support a growing sector of our economy, the care economy, where one in five Canadians already works. If the federal government cannot facilitate this in the agreements, they will be a failure.
The current nursing shortage has certainly proven that a lack of human resources in care is past critical levels. I will mention again that it is affecting the mental health care of caregivers.
Dr. Katherine Smart, the former president of the Canadian Medical Association, said:
What we're learning is more than alarming. It's potentially catastrophic.
Time is of the essence. More than a quarter of practising physicians claim low rates of overall mental health. Recent figures show that 20% of front-line health care workers have thought about suicide. A crushing 6% have planned an attempt.
A crushing 6% have attempted suicide, and we know that it has happened. The Liberals need to get to work to assist in solving the shortage of doctors and nurses in this country.
As the leader of the NDP pointed out, when the Prime Minister took office, there was a shortage of 5,800 nurses. Things are now five times worse.
Dr. Smart said that over 50% of physicians and medical learners reported high levels of burnout, compared to prepandemic levels of 30%. Moreover, nearly half of physicians reported that they would likely reduce their clinical hours. Canadians cannot afford any more reductions in access to doctors.
With that in mind, I am going to take a moment to highlight, for the Liberal government, news from the labour shortage study out of HUMA this year. The report holds critical testimony outlining solutions that would improve working conditions for health care workers, attract and retain health care workers, and allow for a pan-Canadian human resource plan.
These solutions come from health care professionals who know the problems in the system. I would note that not one of the solutions presented in the study was to jeopardize the public health care system by introducing private, for-profit care. Here are eight of the recommendations.
First, “work with the provinces, territories and other stakeholders to promote the alignment of educational and training opportunities in health care and other care economy sectors...”.
Second, “in collaboration with the provinces and territories, expand training and upskilling capacity for high demand industries, skilled workers, the care economy [and] health care workers...”.
Third, “work with the provinces and territories to remove barriers to labour mobility in the health care sector, including through the interprovincial/territorial coordination of regulation and licensing requirements.”
Fourth, “support access to care in rural and remote communities by providing further incentives for in-demand health care professionals to work in these communities, including through tuition assistance, loan forgiveness, or tax benefits...”.
Fifth, “consider offering additional permanent residency pathways to temporary foreign workers with in-demand skills or experience, including in the care economy...”.
Sixth, “review the Foreign Credential Recognition Program with a view to determining how it can better support efficient foreign credential recognition for internationally trained health care professionals.”
Seventh, “review compensation and benefits for care economy workers under its jurisdiction with a view to ensuring decent work and a regionally competitive wage; and further, that it work with the provinces and territories to improve working conditions for other workers in the care economy (including but not limited to migrant workers, and those in non-standard employment) and provide adequate compensation, basic health benefits, paid sick days, and workload management.”
Eighth, “consider establishing a national Care Economy Commission to develop, implement and monitor any workforce planning strategies for the care economy, including a centralized health care human resources strategy...”.
These are the real solutions to the health care crisis. These are the real solutions that would benefit people over corporate profits, and these are the real avenues to solving the human resource challenges in health care.
I am going to quote Michael Villeneuve, the former chief executive officer of the Canadian Nurses Association, who said:
Canada needs targeted federal funding to help health care systems train, retain, recruit and improve education and working conditions...The federal government has an important convenor and coordinator role to play. It needs to work together with provinces and territories on both short- and long-term strategies. Maintaining the status quo cannot be an option.
In closing, at the same time that the Canada health system is on the verge of collapse, workers are burning out, fatigued and taking early retirement. More federal investments are needed.
As economist Armine Yalnizyan has been saying loudly, labour needs are set to rise due to an aging population. She says, “...there is no more pressing labour market issue than how we prepare the Care Economy for the decades of population aging ahead...”
The federal government needs to take on this challenge and stop wasting time on for-profit corporations and privatization-hungry premiers trying to breach the Canada Health Act that belongs to all Canadians.
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- Feb/10/23 11:29:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, nurses and health care workers are run off their feet, exhausted and burning out. They are mainly women, disproportionately racialized women, yet they have never been paid fairly. This discrimination is wrong and the Liberals let it worsen over the last seven years. Our nurses and health care workers are underpaid and undervalued. They deserve better wages, better working conditions and respect.
Why does the Liberals' health care offer to provinces not include real funding for raises to finally give care economy workers the respect they deserve?
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- Feb/6/23 3:28:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, entitled “Labour Shortages, Working Conditions and the Care Economy”.
Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.
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Madam Speaker, the pandemic has been difficult for Canadians, and it has been especially difficult for frontline workers: nurses, physicians, long-term care workers, cleaners, retail staff, transit workers and others. They have been there for us throughout this pandemic, but the government has not been there for them. For three years, they have been on the front lines with no relief in sight.
The government called them heroes, but this accolade has not been backed up with tangible investments in their pay, working conditions or mental health supports. It is absolutely unacceptable that investments in mental health have not come to frontline workers while the Liberal government sits on $4.5 billion of unspent mental health funding. That needs to change.
As the premiers arrive this week for health care negotiations, I think about the workers who are part of the growing care economy. This includes nurses, who are disproportionately women, especially immigrant women. They have been underpaid and undervalued for decades because of gender discrimination.
Now is the time for the federal government to step up and end that discrimination and to do the work required to improve the working conditions of nurses across this country. As Linda Silas of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions has long said, it is past time to address, with actions, the dire shortage of nurses in this country.
With that in mind, I highlight for the Liberal government a study that has been going on in the HUMA committee for nearly a year on labour shortages. Its imminent report will hold critical testimony that outlines solutions to improve working conditions for health care workers and to attract and retain more nurses. It was informed by unions across the country that understand first-hand this critical problem. The government must listen to them and act with urgency.
Action is not something we see much of from the Liberal government, and it is one of the shortcomings of Bill C-293. Bill C-293 represents an unacceptable attempt to provide the illusion of action, accountability and oversight with respect to Canada's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It will not actually achieve it. What is really needed is what the NDP and the member for Vancouver Kingsway have called for throughout this pandemic: “a root-to-branch, independent, penetrating and comprehensive review of Canada's COVID-19 preparedness and response.”
An advisory committee approach, as proposed in Bill C-293, has not shown great results. The proof is in the fact that even after the SARS advisory committee recommendations, Canada was ill-prepared for COVID-19.
Some good things did come out of the National Advisory Committee on SARS, like the initial emergency stockpile of PPE. However, as mentioned today, it was proven to be not properly maintained, given the millions of N95 masks that had expired and needed to be destroyed when the pandemic began. As COVID-19 hit, workers did not have the PPE supplies they needed in order to stay safe.
A May 2021 report from the AG confirmed that negligent management of Canada's emergency stockpile resulted in shortages of PPE for essential workers. Serious issues with the stockpile had been raised for more than a decade, and the Public Health Agency of Canada, with its specific mandate to plan and coordinate a national response to infectious diseases, was reported to have limited public health and emergency response management expertise in its own agency. How is it that PHAC did not have the required expertise to manage PPE stocks?
This lack of internal expertise played out in other ways too. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, the supply of essential medicines became a critical need, but Canada had walked away from investing in biomanufacturing capacity in this country decades earlier.
Fast-forward to March 2021, when the lack of domestic production capacity of vaccines was a problem for the Canadian government. In response to the insecurity of adequate supply for Canadians, a federal COVID-19 vaccine task force was formed to seek out high-potential Canadian candidates for the manufacturing of vaccines.
Of course, the first thing the Liberals did was outsource because the knowledge of Canadian companies with capabilities did not already exist within Health Canada. Deloitte was contracted, and at least one potential candidate was identified, Biolyse Pharma, which, as per John Fulton's testimony at INDU committee, was “several years into the construction of a biologics manufacturing centre”.
Biolyse could repurpose its facility for vaccine production with an investment from the federal government for as little as $4 million, yet the lack of government expertise, response and political will did not make this happen. I will mention at this point that this is the same for the TRIPS waiver.
I want to take a moment to recognize the hon. member for Oakville, the Minister of National Defence. Her skill and determination in securing life-saving vaccines for Canadians after initial government missteps should never be forgotten.
Going back to PPE, at the beginning of the pandemic, Canadian manufacturers stepped up with production. Companies like Novo Textiles in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam invested quickly to retool their facilities and take up the government's request for critical PPE. However, even though Novo Textiles and other members of CAPPEM made investments to ramp up production, the government did not come through with timely certifications or purchase orders to support these heroic initiatives.
To add insult to injury, it took a motion from an opposition party in this House two years into the pandemic to get the federal government to even purchase Canadian PPE for the Hill and federal staff. In this very place, there were no Canadian-made masks until 2022.
It seems that it is not a lack of government-created and government-chosen advisory board members, consultants and plans that is missing. It is the ramping up of internal expertise and the political will to act that is needed. That is why the New Democrats call on the federal government and cabinet to launch an independent public inquiry into Canada's COVID–19 response under the Inquiries Act without delay. As I mentioned earlier, my colleague from Vancouver—Kingsway has been calling for a comprehensive review of Canada's COVID–19 preparedness and response throughout this pandemic. It is the only way to have accountability and adequate preparedness and prevention management going forward.
Canadians want and deserve that too. According to an April 2022 poll from Research Co., 66% of Canadians support holding a public inquiry into the way the COVID–19 pandemic was managed by the federal government.
Last week, the director general of the World Health Organization noted the third anniversary of the declaration of the COVID pandemic and said that it continues to constitute a public health emergency of international concern. This pandemic is not over, and the Liberals can no longer hold off on an independent inquiry into their handling of it. They must act now.
Although we are in a better position now than we were during the peak of the omicron transmission one year ago, this pandemic is not over. We cannot get complacent. Surveillance and genetic sequencing have declined globally, making it more difficult to track known variants and detect new ones.
At the same time, Canadian health systems are on the verge of collapse. Frontline workers have been heroic, yet it has resulted in burnout, fatigue and early retirements. As we work through this reality, more federal investments are needed in health care and nurses. There needs to be respect for women in the care economy, because they have always been the true backbone of the economy.
The current nursing shortage has certainly proved that the Liberals need to take the work of solving the nursing shortage seriously and take action. The Prime Minister must not let down nurses as the premiers arrive this week. The Liberal government has a responsibility to be part of the solution and to act on the health care crisis, which has been exasperated by COVID–19.
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Mr. Speaker, before I go further, I want to take a moment to recognize that gender equality is still a daily fight and that this fight is deadly right now for women in Iran.
In a bloodthirsty dictatorship, women are at the front line of unspeakable abuses. They are being killed, raped and brutalized just because they are women. This needs to end, and the Canadian government must do more to end the killing.
While fear and killing escalate in Iran, for the Canadian women who are here and who have in the past applied to have their families come here to be with them, those visas have been rejected by the government. While visas are being granted for people bringing into this country enormous amounts of money, money launderers, women who have desperately wanted their parents and grandparents to come and visit and support them have had the door closed.
For the Liberal government, it appears that money talks and that entry into Canada is a pay-to-play system. This is wrong and it needs to be corrected. That correction involves more resources to IRCC
Wait times for IRCC are absolutely unacceptable. When it comes to the super visa process, it reflects a lack of compassion and understanding by the government of the importance of family reunification.
In my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, I have met too many young families that have not been able to overcome the barriers that the Liberal government puts in front of them to have their parents come and visit. Too many families in my community have had to go through an illness, a birth, a death, a marriage, a breakup and many other life events alone, because the government is without compassion and has not invested enough resources into the immigration programs. The lack of investment and the lack of compassion and understanding by the government manifests in stress and anxiety for families.
I want to share a few real situations that have caused undue financial and emotional stress in my community. More often than not, it is women who get hurt.
The first example I have is a community person who reached out to say that she had applied for a visa on June 24th for her mother to come and visit. The writer says, “I have given birth to her first grandchild and we were hoping to have her here with us to assist us with our first child. Having an additional set of experienced hands would be so helpful to me during this time, as my husband is back to work full time.”
The second person from my community said, “I have applied for my mom's super visa on Nov 08, 2021. I haven't received any response from IRCC on my mom's application. It's been five years and five months that I haven't seen my mom due to my schooling. I recently got engaged and want to get married this year and want my mom to be here.”
Last, this person wrote, “My mother and I came to Canada about three years ago and became refugees. Our refugee acceptance came in September 2020 and we are permanent residents now. We haven’t seen my father for over 3 years and my mom is getting depression and anxiety since her husband can’t be with her in this tough time.”
These stories highlight how imperative this super visa program is to the lives of Canadians. Although the bill before us seeks to enhance the current process by addressing the high costs with respect to insurance coverage and extending the period in which parents and grandparents can come to Canada, the government must address the lack of resources in IRCC.
There is no doubt in the minds of the New Democrats that ensuring family reunification for parents and grandparents is a laudable goal. It is a goal we support. We want to see this measure come to fruition. Let us reduce the costs of family reunification with loved ones and make it not something a person needs to buy into, but something that is accessible and something that we all honour and respect.
The NDP has always seen family reunification as a pivotal component of Canada's immigration system. All families want to be reunited with their loved ones, and they should not have to go through such hardships to be with their parents or grandparents.
Research has shown that when a family network includes parents and grandparents, it makes the settlement and integration process much easier for newcomers. It also confirms the essential role parents and grandparents play in supporting the healthy development of youth.
Families are particularly important in the maintenance of the well-being of racialized communities, members of the disability community and women.
Women and immigrant women are the core of the care economy in Canada. One in four jobs in Canada is a care job. With the current labour shortages in our country and the crushing weight of an overburdened health care system, immigration will continue to be a necessity to bring more workers into Canada.
Care is already a sector disproportionately represented by women and immigrant women who deserve to have a family support network to support them and their work.
HUMA recently studied labour shortages in the care economy and witnesses asked how they could be expected to attract and retain workers in this highly gendered occupation when the industry discriminated against them. The exploitation of care workers needs to stop. We must make every care job a good job and that includes reunification of the families of these workers.
A high proportion of immigrant women work in care. They provide the professional and emotional support patients need, yet they have no extended family support to help them with looking after their own children when this super visa becomes a barrier.
Witnesses told us during the HUMA study that their situations would greatly improve if they were able to bring family to Canada: better mental supports, child care supports and more security in their communities.
Canada will continue to rely on immigration in the coming years and a good, strong family reunification program will play a significant role in attracting, retaining and integrating immigrants who contribute to our success as a country, particularly as we work to through COVID-19.
When parents and grandparents come to Canada through family reunification, they contribute to the economy. They support the family, allowing parents to get out into the workforce, and they can help with child care. They help with the growth of children by teaching them their cultural and family history, language and more. All of that contributes to building a healthy, happy and multicultural Canada, one of which we are very proud.
With that in mind, I will reiterate that the NDP wants the government to lift the cap on parents and grandparents reunification so all those family members can seek permanent residence status in Canada in an expeditious way.
Of course, the NDP supports the super visa extension. It is a welcomed change that is a stepping stone to a more compassionate family reunification law.
In addition to the points I have already made, it is also essential that we bring back the appeals process for the parents and grandparents stream. As the member for Vancouver East has said many times in the House, she had a family that was rejected for the program in its third year of meeting the onerous financial requirements because it went on maternity leave for one month. As a result of that, the family's income dipped and its dream of reuniting with their parents vanished. This is wrong. An appeals process with some ability to provide flexibility would have accommodated that temporary change in circumstances.
Ultimately, our immigration system is in need of repair and the NDP would like to see long-term change. In the meantime, the measures in this bill would help people, and that is something the NDP supports.
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We have all heard the heartbreaking stories in our communities of those who have gone to the hospital for help and have not been able to make it in time or have decided not to go at all with fatal consequences. The government must invest in care workers immediately and increase the health care transfers the provinces have been calling for.
One in five people in this country work in the care economy, and those professionals, personal care workers, nurses and doctors have been exploited. That exploitation comes from discrimination. Gender discrimination has kept wages low in nursing. Nurses, teachers and child care workers are all disproportionately women. The government has not invested in their wages or their pensions, yet it expects them to carry the burden of an overloaded and underfunded economy and underfunded system.
The care economy is underpinned by the exploitation of immigrants as well. More often they are women without secured status. This is unacceptable. Immigrants deserve better. They deserve investment and support. New Democrats will continue to force the government to respect the workers in the care economy by paying them properly, giving immigrant care workers immediate permanent status and giving long-term care workers the protection they deserve with legislation.
We need workers in this country. Labour shortages are happening in every industry. This is a real problem that the government has not brought any solutions to yet. When we think about the labour force, we know that unaffordable housing is exasperating this problem. Workers cannot afford to live where they work. The Conservatives under the Mulroney government and then the Liberals under Chrétien axed housing programs in this country. In fact, the Liberals outright cancelled the national affordable housing program in 1993. That was almost 30 years ago. That is why we have a housing crisis before us.
Bill C-31 has a $500 housing subsidy that is coming for renters. This is a small, good gesture. This housing benefit is a one-time $500 payment to Canadians who qualify. Specifically, it will help families who earn a net income of less than $35,000 a year. There are many people in Canada who earn less than $35,000 a year in this environment. That is 1.8 million Canadians. This renters' benefit will make a real difference at this critical time.
Financialization of housing needs to be addressed immediately. It is contributing to unaffordability. The Conservatives will say that they are there for people on housing, but they do not talk about the need for affordable housing and the right kind of housing. This is not just a supply issue. One in five Canadians are paying more than 30% of their total income for their housing and that is not sustainable. At the same time, for every new unit of affordable rental housing, 15 units are being lost. There are 15 units lost for every new one, and we wonder why we are seeing homelessness on our streets. This is affecting the most marginalized people in the country, pushing them every day to the brink, to a tent pitched in a street.
As the NDP disability critic, I hear from the disability community of the realities of not being able to make ends meet with skyrocketing housing costs and the threat of displacement every day. Food costs are also becoming unmanageable. As they wait for movement on the Canada disability benefit, they are falling further and further behind. Bill C-22 needs to come back to the House immediately so that the long-term support that persons living with disabilities deserve, and should be legislated, can be passed in the House.
Almost one million persons with disabilities are living in poverty. It is a disgrace. It will only take the will of the Liberals and Conservatives, who could have supported the unanimous consent motion from the member for Kitchener Centre last week, to fast-track this benefit. The New Democrats are ready to do so.
Coming back to the cost of food, in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, a disproportionate number of food bank and food rescue recipients are persons with disabilities, and more children are becoming food insecure. Too many schools are having to feed the children of our communities. We are in a country full of natural resources and with a new bursting aspiration to make batteries for electric vehicles, yet we are not investing in food. If it were not for the not-for-profit sector, even more Canadians would be hungry right now.
Failed policies to give to the rich while taking away social safety nets, such as affordable housing, are hurting people in this country. A beacon of the Canadian social safety net is our health care plan. Thanks to the New Democrats, that finally includes a historical dental care plan, which is a profound and long-lasting benefit for millions of Canadians and will be transformational for generations to come. We have heard many times while discussing Bill C-31 that the number one surgery for kids in hospitals is for tooth decay. How is it possible in Canada that kids need to go to the hospital to be put to sleep to deal with their dental care?
With the heavy lifting of the New Democrats, the Liberals have finally taken the first steps to true universal health care by adding long-awaited dental care. It should not have taken this long, and the New Democrats will hold the current government to account for a full rollout to every Canadian who needs it.
I will take a moment here to speak about persons with disabilities and their dental care. There was a woman in my riding who was on disability benefits and had coverage for dental care. However, the clinic she was going to was charging $20 per visit, and she could not go for her second visit because she did not have the $20. It is not acceptable that this is the situation we are putting too many Canadians in.
We know that 35% of Canadians lack proper dental insurance, and that number jumps to 50% when we talk about low-income Canadians. There are seven million Canadians who avoid going to the dentist because of costs. It is shameful and something that has to change. Canada's most vulnerable face the highest rates of dental decay and disease and have the worst dental care. The New Democrats are going to change that. We will not give up until all Canadians have access to the dental care they need. This is health care, and we need to start with kids.
Lastly, when it comes to getting immediate support to Canadians, the New Democrats led the way on Bill C-30, which would double the GST credit. This rebate should have come a lot sooner. In fact, for over six months, the NDP has been calling on the government to double the GST credit. We have relentlessly pushed for this, and now we know that 11 million Canadians who need it the most would get some financial relief, likely before the end of this year. People in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam are asking when they can get it. They are desperately in need of any kind of financial support in these times.
Because of successive Conservative and Liberal governments, we do not have social safety nets to keep people in homes, keep food in the fridge or keep people healthy in this country. With much pressure on the Liberal government from the NDP, and with no help from the Conservatives, the House is in a position to make lives just a tiny bit better for people by providing these very small income supports immediately. New Democrats will always put people first, but the Liberal government needs to start making real investments in people and their well-being in Canada.
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- Jun/22/22 5:41:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the COVID pandemic has exposed long-standing issues affecting long-term care. In response to what the country now knows about the shortcomings, it is the duty of the government to work with the provinces and territories to improve seniors’ living conditions as well as workers’ conditions in long-term care, to be more equitable across this country.
As a New Democrat, I am happy to say that we have used our power to secure a commitment from the federal government, through the confidence and supply agreement, to bring in a safe long-term care act that would ensure seniors receive the care they deserve, no matter in what province or which long-term care home they live. This long-overdue legislation must be implemented without delay, and I thank the member for Avalon for introducing this motion, which takes another step forward in speeding up the necessary action to protect seniors and the workers who care for them.
I would like to thank all the workers who have supported seniors throughout this pandemic and who support seniors every day in this country. I offer my heartfelt gratitude to every single worker who did double duty as a caregiver and an emotional supporter when families could not visit or hug their loved ones for months on end during this pandemic. When family support was not available, every care worker stepped up to fill that gap.
I will also take a moment to recognize Frank, a long-term care resident and loved dad and uncle who finds himself again in lockdown as we work through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Care workers have a special constitution, a moral connection to their clients and skills that deserve great respect. Their work is hard, stressful and both physically and emotionally taxing. This is why the working conditions and pay of long-term care workers need to improve as we work to improve long-term care itself.
COVID-19 magnified the unequal and under-resourced long-term care system across Canada, and the lack of accountability, especially in privatized care. This lack of accountability is due to lax enforcement of standards and regulations. For example, a CBC investigation revealed that 85% of long-term care homes in Ontario had routinely violated health care standards for decades, with near total impunity.
Let me be clear that there is no fault on the workers here, who give their all in a system that is undervalued by the government. Decades of underinvestment and under-regulation have resulted in short-staffed institutions and underpaid workers. Inadequate wages have forced care workers to take on long hours and to work at multiple care homes just to make ends meet. That practice serves neither workers nor seniors and must change.
Deeply troubling in this country is the move to privatize long-term care, where corporations are focused on profits rather than the care of the people they are supposed to serve. Long-term care is medical care, but it is not covered under our universal, not-for-profit health care system in Canada, and because long-term care lies outside the Canada Health Act, too many care homes are run first and foremost for profit.
Privatization of long-term care does not work for seniors and does not work for the workers either. Decades of research have demonstrated that long-term care homes that run on a for-profit basis tend to have lower staffing levels, more verified complaints and more transfers to hospitals.
In addition, during the pandemic, many for-profit operators paid out millions in bonuses to CEOs and dividends while accepting subsidies from the government and neglecting the residents under their care. While those CEOs were taking home bonuses, workers in long-term care had to work multiple jobs to pay rent and keep food on the table. During COVID-19, they were getting sick and injured and their mental health suffered.
We must recognize and value the essential labour of those who take care of us. Crucial policy actions need to include better and faster recognition for credentials received outside Canada for care workers, higher wages, paid sick days, accessible and affordable child care, and mental health supports. Let us also include dental care and pharmacare.
In recent testimony out of the HUMA committee on long-term care, Katherine Scott of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives told us that women represent 75% of workers in care occupations and have lower average employment income than their male counterparts. In 2015, a female care worker earned an average of 81% of a male care worker’s wage.
Naomi Lightman told the HUMA committee, “we know that the process of transferring credentials needs to be accelerated. It needs to be faster, it needs to be easier and it needs to be more affordable.” She said that many immigrant women who work in the care sector are sending remittances to their home countries and are working multiple part-time jobs just to make ends meet to support their families. She also said the current process does not allow them the time or the financial means needed to do the upgrading the government requires.
How can we expect to attract and retain workers in this highly gendered occupation when the industry discriminates against them? The exploitation of care workers needs to stop. We must make every care job a good job, to protect seniors and workers across the country.
In a HUMA study on seniors, we were told that staffing levels in long-term care facilities also need to improve. Care homes are having trouble hiring more staff. This is no surprise given that these facilities are known for low wages and difficult working conditions. The Liberals must act immediately to ensure both seniors and their care workers get the dignity they deserve.
Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have failed our care workers. As a result, the current government has also failed our seniors. It has not legislated improved standards in long-term care, has not ensured workers are paid adequately and has not respected the skill and importance of care work. Instead, it continues to let the market erode our long-term care. As it embraces the profit-driven model, it turns a blind eye to the inadequate care for seniors and the exploitation of workers.
The NDP will work relentlessly to change that. Profit has no place in the care of seniors, just as it has no place anywhere in our primary health care system. We must continue to work collaboratively with seniors, their families, caregivers, not-for-profit and public care providers and provincial and territorial governments to develop national standards for long-term care, which must include accountability mechanisms and data collection measuring outcomes, as well as funding.
All people in Canada deserve to live in dignity, with their human rights upheld and protected. It is my expectation that the government live up to its commitments and act quickly and boldly to fix the deteriorating conditions in long-term care, not just for the residents of Port Moody—Coquitlam, Anmore and Belcarra, but for everyone across Canada. It must also stop the exploitation of care workers immediately.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for speaking about health.
One in five people in this country works in the care economy. Those health care workers and care workers are being exploited in this country. They are immigrants, more often women without secured status; seniors caring for seniors in long-term care homes without, in too many cases, proper PPE, adequate linens or lifting equipment; and nurses, who were not even mentioned in the budget speech. They deserve better.
When will the government respect the women in the care economy by paying them properly, give immigrant care workers immediate permanent status, and give long-term care workers the protection they deserve with legislation?
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- Feb/7/22 11:44:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for shining a light on the voices that have not yet been heard tonight. Do members know who else has not been heard? It is the nurses and health care workers the member just spoke of, who are working in hospitals tonight caring for people. I raise my hands to the health care workers and nurses experiencing violence on their way to work. I see them and offer them all of my gratitude and that of the people of Port Moody—Coquitlam.
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