- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Port Moody—Coquitlam
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $129,260.13
- Government Page
- May/3/24 11:31:31 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, mouldy homes, no clean water, impassable roads and no Internet make up the reality of first nation, Inuit and Métis peoples in Canada under the Liberals and the Conservatives.
Indigenous communities have identified over $400 million in infrastructure needs because of historic underfunding, yet the Liberals have barely scratched the surface of this gap with the federal budget.
What is the Liberals' plan to correct their discriminatory funding choices?
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- Dec/5/23 1:34:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really wish I knew what the Liberal government was waiting for, especially as it relates to the Canada disability benefit, because we know that persons with disabilities are highly at risk.
I want to talk a little bit about indigenous communities as well and the lack of indigenous housing and infrastructure. My colleague from Nunavut has stood up many times to talk about the hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure gap around housing up in Nunavut and indigenous housing.
I want to talk about the 16 days of activism for gender-based violence. My colleague, the member for Nunavut, has talked about how this is so negatively impacting women who are in abusive homes and have nowhere to go.
This government has no excuse not to be investing in Canadians.
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- Oct/5/23 2:00:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, yesterday was the National Day of Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two Spirit People. In the spring, the NDP led the call to have the House declare the continued loss of indigenous women, girls, two-spirit and gender-diverse people as a Canada-wide emergency and to commit to providing immediate and substantial investment. This included the red dress alert.
Families and organizations such as Sisters in Spirit and the Native Women's Association are calling on the federal government to invest in this alert system to save lives. This is a matter of life and death. There is no more time to wait.
The NDP calls on the Liberal government to take this emergency seriously and immediately act on the call for a red dress alert.
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- Oct/4/23 2:23:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today is the National Day of Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit People.
In the spring, the NDP led the call for the House to declare the continued loss of indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people as a Canada-wide emergency and to commit to providing immediate and substantial investment. This included the red dress alert, which would activate the public's assistance whenever an indigenous woman, girl or two-spirit person goes missing.
Families and organizations such as Sisters in Spirit and the Native Women's Association are calling on the federal government to invest in this alert system to save lives. This is a matter of life and death. There is no more time to wait.
The Liberals have not done enough to protect precious lives. The government continues to fall behind in enacting the calls for justice for indigenous women, girls, two-spirit and gender-diverse people.
Today, the NDP calls on the Liberal government again to take this emergency seriously and immediately act on the call for a national red dress alert.
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- Jun/8/23 1:46:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really want to thank the member for bringing up the Trans Mountain expansion right now. It is going right through my riding. If someone were to drive anywhere in the Lower Mainland, they would see the trees down, the devastation, the streams that are being affected and even the devastation within the community as we build the pipeline. Right beside where the pipeline is being built in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, kids cannot go outside because of the air quality. I thank her so much for raising that.
I wanted to talk a bit about northern and indigenous communities in Quebec. I wonder if the member could share how these communities are being impacted right now and as the climate crisis rages on.
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- May/10/23 5:25:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for opening up the debate on this very important opportunity, as he just mentioned. I wanted to ask specifically about the indigenous funding and on reserve. The member mentioned in his speech that federally the opportunity to fund education for persons with disabilities is not as vast as it could be. I just wonder if he would not mind just sharing some of the things the federal government could be doing for indigenous children, and also, learning throughout a lifetime.
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- Apr/17/23 4:18:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise in the House to speak about murdered and missing indigenous women and girls in this country. This budget has put forward $20 million over four years to support safer communities, almost $100 million of ongoing help for indigenous families to access information and $20 million a year after that, $2.5 million over two years to support the National Family and Survivors Circle and more.
This budget is important to indigenous families. We know there is not enough, but there are good things in this budget to move forward on reconciliation. Do the Conservatives think this is not enough to support this budget?
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Madam Speaker, I am thinking about the resource extraction in our country and the lack of value added to some of the extraction that happens.
Does the member support the need for protections for indigenous communities, including of course indigenous women and girls, as we look at the expansion of resource extraction in Canada?
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Madam Speaker, the member mentioned resource extraction and expansion of that. Alongside that critical mineral expansion, is there a plan from the Liberal government to protect indigenous women and girls from exploitation and man camps and all of those things that come alongside resource extraction that have never been considered by the government in the past?
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Madam Speaker, before I begin discussing Bill C-30, I must stop to recognize that indigenous women and girls continue to be violated and marginalized at rates much higher than those in the general population.
Today is the National Day of Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. New Democrats add their voices to the collective call to bring an end to the injustices suffered by Canada's indigenous women and girls. I raise my hands to the members for Winnipeg Centre and Nunavut, who continue to advocate and bring understanding to this House of the causes of the systemic abuses that indigenous women and girls continue to experience and to hold the Liberal government accountable for its lack of action.
Bill C-30 is here at a very critical time for Canadians. There are too many struggling with the rising cost of living and the challenge of keeping rents paid and food in the fridge. The fact that there is a need for immediate financial support for millions of Canadians is not an accident. It is a result of bad Liberal and Conservative policies. Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have prioritized tax breaks and subsidies for the wealthiest in this country while intentionally eroding the social safety nets that support the well-being of the majority of Canadians. Poverty and homelessness are growing in this country, and they are a reality in every city and town.
While fossil fuel companies and big corporate grocery chains are bringing in billions of dollars in profits, people are falling further and further behind. It is far past time the Liberal government needs to close the long-standing tax loopholes for the superwealthy and finally make large corporations and the largest polluters pay their fair share. It is no secret that corporate greed is hurting Canadians, and it has only increased and magnified like so many other things during this pandemic. While the Liberals and Conservatives protect the profits of the wealthiest corporations, persons with disabilities, single moms, seniors and families on fixed and low incomes are not able to afford to purchase fresh fruit, cheese or meats. Some of the moms I have spoken to in Port Moody—Coquitlam are limiting their meals to one a day so that they can afford to feed their kids.
After too many years of consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments making decisions to put corporations above everyday people, our social safety net is eroded. The social safety net that supports the well-being of Canadians has been eroded to the point that we are here today trying to put patches of immediate support in place.
New Democrats are here to act on this immediate need. We are using our power to get the government to send financial support out to people with Bill C-30 and Bill C-31. I include Bill C-31 because the two bills are connected. They are both offering immediate investments in the well-being of people, investments that never would have come from the government without the pressure from New Democrats.
New Democrats will not stop fighting for people even after these immediate benefits kick in. We will continue to force the government to do the right thing and put people first. We will continue to stop fossil fuel subsidies from going to the largest polluters, close tax loopholes for the wealthiest, stop the exploitation of workers and get our health care system back on track. The health care system is broken. We see it in our communities every day. A broken health care system is hurting people. Nurses have worked tirelessly, as well as doctors and hospital staff, to the extent that they are burnt-out and people who are sick are not getting access to the care they need.
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- Mar/2/22 6:56:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby and I share a border and the constituents in our ridings have a lot of similar sentiments. I know that, in the riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, Anmore and Belcarra, many people were anxious and scared. They were feeling very uncomfortable with some of the symbols they were seeing, and they were worried about how this was going to potentially infect other communities in Canada and other trade corridors. I know that in B.C., we did experience shutdowns to our borders and trade corridors, all of it very, very difficult for folks to understand. That is why this committee is so important.
One of the things that has come up a lot in the last three weeks is the different treatment of indigenous land defenders and environmental activists who are actively trying to protect their land. There is such a difference in the treatment from law enforcement agencies. I wonder if the member could let people in my community know if they will get answers to that disparity.
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