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Bonita Zarrillo

Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
NDP

Port Moody—Coquitlam
British Columbia
Voting Attendance: 68%
Expenses Last Quarter: $129,260.13

Government Page

Context: House Hansard - 316 - May/23/24

Ms. Bonita Zarrillo (Port Moody—Coquitlam, NDP)

May/23/24 5:56:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Shefford for all the work she does to protect exploited women and persons in Canada. I really appreciate all of the hard work she does. New Democrats are supportive of measures that help victims receive justice through the justice system. This is why we wanted this bill to go to committee for study. The study was very important, and I believe that all members are committed to better laws that can truly protect people from human trafficking. This is one of the fastest-growing crimes in Canada, and it disproportionately affects women and girls. We heard from other speakers today that, in 97% of detected crimes, the victims of human trafficking were women and girls. As the member for Shefford said, a quarter of them are under the age of 18. This is children being exploited. It is a serious problem, and it must end. What we heard in committee and in the study is that the bill, as it stood, would not provide more resources for targeting trafficking units and for law enforcement, and it would not make the struggle against trafficking more effective. In addition, changing the legal definition could have unintended consequences, particularly for sex workers. We heard that in committee. My colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke received a petition from more than 60 organizations asking us not to proceed with this bill without further consultation, and members of the House know that the bill reported back to the House reflected that. The Conservatives, though, are now ignoring important community input, which is usually a Liberal tactic, I will say, and are attempting to put back in the bill exactly what the justice committee took out of it. That approach is not helping victims. If the Conservatives want to protect trafficked victims, they need to start pushing for actions that would help address trafficking crime. This must be the goal, and it must be the goal for Canada. We must do this. Casting a broad net, as the original bill did, risks the mistake of defining all sex work as trafficking and missing actual cases of trafficking. When we think about young girls, children, we need to make sure that we can get at every case of trafficking. I will close by reiterating that additional enforcement resources are needed now, and additional services for survivors are needed now. These resource investments would have greater impact on reducing trafficking than any legislative change that would come from the bill.

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Context: House Hansard - 241 - Oct/27/23

Ms. Bonita Zarrillo

Oct/27/23 1:15:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, certainly, a noise pollution caucus is a good idea. As it relates to airlines, I think we would get a lot of community input from that. I just want to highlight simply the amount of and increase in cargo traffic. We now live in a society where people want things delivered to them from across the world in a day. This means that more air traffic needs to be flying around. In B.C. alone, we are shipping crab and cherries overseas more and more because we can get such a great price for them. They go by air. We are just in for more and more noise pollution as it relates to air traffic. I think we need, as the member said, to get a caucus together to advance some of these new regulations.

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Context: House Hansard - 222 - Sep/21/23

Ms. Bonita Zarrillo (Port Moody—Coquitlam, NDP)

Sep/21/23 1:22:25 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-33

Mr. Speaker, I am going to follow up on comments made by my colleague. I cannot believe that this speech was about the board and the focus of the board. Right now, what we are in need of is some management of the traffic in the port. The operations in the water need management. I was out on a port tour this summer in Vancouver, and it is the Wild West of port traffic. No one body has authority over that, and it certainly is not the boards or elected municipal politicians who are going to manage it. This is a serious problem. This is a safety, transparency and equity problem. How is this bill going to increase equity, increase safety and improve governance at the ports?

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Member of Parliament

Bonita Zarrillo