- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Port Moody—Coquitlam
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $129,260.13
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, I am going to share my time with the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.
I am standing today as a woman in Parliament. Every time I enter this place, I am aware of how different my experiences in life are from those of the men who have tried to keep women out of this place for 100 years or more. My colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre, said it explicitly recently when she called out the Conservative Party's infringing on the status of women committee. The fact that the Conservatives recently chose to arbitrarily remove the respected chair of the committee not only disrespected the voices of women on the committee but also was symbolic of how the women in the House of Commons are often punished when their voice is too strong, by a system designed to benefit men in power.
As I was reading through the budget this year, it was with the lens of being a woman and how, for 100 years, our needs have been second, for example with respect to child care. I have often said in the House that the only reason I am standing here is the $5-a-day day care I had access to when I lived in Quebec. That fact allowed me to go back to school and become a programmer analyst. That allowed me to capitalize on opportunities in the new, digital economy of Y2K. I know how important affordable child care is for women, and I am so pleased to see in the budget, with investments in educators as well, that it is going to be a gateway of economic empowerment. That reality for women cannot be understated.
Child care is the second-largest payment for families after housing. I am incredibly grateful to the leader of the NDP and the member for Winnipeg Centre for finally forcing the government to enact affordable, quality child care in this country. The Liberals would not have done it on their own; they proved that over the past 25 years. It was 28 years ago that I benefited from the $5-a-day day care in Quebec. That is how long the rest of Canada has been waiting for accessible, affordable child care.
The Conservatives would not have offered this type of child care at all. In fact, the Conservatives would walk back any kind of public, affordable, accessible child care if they were ever to get into power. I never want to see that.
The budget is not an NDP budget, but there are clear examples of the difference between how the NDP uses its power for good to support people and how Conservatives continue, with their gut-and-cut ideologies, to hurt people. Conservatives have used their past powers to make their corporate friends even richer by instituting $60-billion corporate handouts, which I want to say the Liberals have continued to support, while they cut services for women, families, seniors and persons with disabilities. By contrast, the NDP, with only 24 MPs, forced the government to enhance the social safety net that lowers costs for Canadians by addressing affordability, health care, housing, climate and more.
With that in mind, I need to address right away the deficit of respect the Liberals have shown for persons with disabilities, as it relates to the Canada disability benefit outlined in the budget. What is in the budget is not the Canada disability benefit in reality or in spirit. The Liberal government never seems to run out of money for handouts to giant corporations and rich CEOs, but when it comes to the benefit promised to people living with disabilities suddenly the government offers only crumbs.
Offering only $200 a month through the Canada disability benefit, hidden behind an inaccessible and inequitable disability tax credit is not recoverable for the government. It is insulting, and the government needs to adhere to the NDP amendments to Bill C-22 and those that came from the Senate, to ensure that the benefit will lift persons with disabilities out of poverty.
The Liberal government threw aside the advice and the input of disability advocates. Its own policy advisory council had resignations over the Canada disability benefit criteria. It disregarded the legislation, and worst of all, it disregarded people with disabilities. It is shameful. The government was told that the use of the disability tax credit would create a barrier to access. It did not care; it did it anyway.
While the Liberals' inadequate Canada disability benefit is best understood as an insult, there are important items in the budget that we need to protect in order to significantly reduce the cost of living for persons with disabilities and to increase overall well-being. That includes the long-overdue protection for renters to stop them from losing their homes to speculators and renovictions.
The current government, and the Conservatives before it, let this country lose affordable housing at a rate of 11:1. The Conservatives and the Liberals are the architects of the reality we are living now, walking away from affordable housing investments for decades and shovelling money to developers gentrifying neighbourhoods with investments in condos 50 storeys high. They left persons with disabilities behind, leaving them with less accessible and less affordable housing.
In the budget, the NDP forced the government to create a rental protection fund, the housing accelerator fund, and a new rapid housing stream to build deeply affordable homes. It is only because of the NDP that we are having a revitalization of affordable and accessible homes in this country.
The NDP has also secured historic expansions to our universal health care system for persons with disabilities and all Canadians, a health care system that is under attack of privatization by Conservative premiers across this country. That cannot happen. Privatization of health care and long-term care is hurting Canadians, and the NDP will not stand for it. We will always push back on privatization of health care at the same time as we advance historic wins for Canadians, like the universal single-payer pharmacare and the transformative dental care program that thousands of children in Port Moody—Coquitlam have already benefited from. We stand against Conservative ideology that puts profits in the hands of CEOs off the backs of people who are just trying to stay healthy. I echo that statement for the Liberals who are standing by and letting it happen.
The NDP pharmacare program will start with life-saving, free diabetes medication and devices and free birth control for millions of Canadians. These are equity measures Canadians cannot risk losing to a Conservative government that courts incels for votes and disregards the voices of women.
With respect to persons with disabilities, the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research Institute at Queen's University wrote, in an article in 2020, “Canadians with disabilities may skip doses of medication or neglect to get their prescriptions filled because of the cost of prescription drugs.” The article also stated that pharmacare would “remove financial barriers to prescription drugs, and overcome inequities among Canadians for this important aspect of health care.”
The Conservatives have already acted on trying to prevent pharmacare for Canadians, which is a program that would save $3.5 billion on Canadians' medications and billions more on preventing unnecessary trips to hospitals and doctors' offices, and on ongoing care for preventative illness. Another important program the Conservatives do not support is the creation of a national school food program. It was in my riding that James Moore asked, “is it my job to feed my neighbour's child?”. Conservative James Moore said, “I don't think so.” My NDP colleagues and I believe it is our job to make sure no child goes to school hungry.
I am going to close by saying women have been ignored in the economy for a long time, and I note that the Liberals put the support of a care economy, which I agree with 100%, and the launching of a national caregiver strategy, which is amazing work by James Janeiro and others in the caregiving realm, under the chapter heading “Lifting Up Every Generation” rather than under economic growth—
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- Apr/15/24 5:10:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as a woman standing in Parliament, I can say that if there were more women in Parliament, if there were women in governments across the world, we would not be dealing with this. It was the Liberals who were lax, which I agree they are, and the Conservatives before them were also lax. Things that have to do with women and the human rights of women do not get the attention they deserve.
I raise my hands to all the brave and wonderful women who stood up for “women, life, freedom” and actually brought this to the table.
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- Apr/15/24 12:26:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for sharing her experience on International Women's Day this year and meeting women millwrights.
How are women in diverse genders, indigenous workers and workers with disabilities being economically harmed by the games and delays Conservatives are bringing both to the House and to committee with respect to the sustainable jobs act?
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- Dec/6/23 2:55:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in Canada, over half of women with disabilities are living on less than $10,000 a year. They cannot afford the medication they need, nutritious food or housing. Women with disabilities who are facing intimate partner violence cannot afford to get away or to move out of their homes.
The Liberals have failed these women. Will the Prime Minister stop endangering women with disabilities by releasing the Canada disability benefit now?
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- Dec/4/23 7:07:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have to follow up on something the member just said about wasting time.
During the four hours I was at committee, some of the speaking going on was really unfortunate. I have been around a long time. I am in my fifth decade, so I know what it is like to be silenced around a table of men who want to have their way. I do not appreciate the way this is being handled. We have totally forgotten that women are involved in sustainable jobs and in the next economy. We know they were left behind the first time around.
I would like to hear from the member when we will hear from some women about what is happening in the economy these days.
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Madam Speaker, historically, the voices of women in the economy have not been discussed in this House. We know the majority of energy workers are men, and we know that the impact of families not having employment is dire. It is dire for women. I have spoken to many women over the decades since I have been in the economy who have experienced domestic violence, marriage breakups, children living in poverty and children going to school with no food. Those are the impacts of not having work.
The fuel and oil industry is the economy of the past. The American clean-tech economy is on fire, exceeding all expectation. However, in Canada, Conservatives continue to block clean energy projects. Why do the Conservatives want Canadian families to suffer and not get involved in the future?
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- Sep/19/23 10:31:26 p.m.
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Madam Chair, as the member was asking me that question, I was thinking of all the mothers, grandmothers and all the women who have come to my office to talk about how their voices have been silenced across the globe. We know of the human rights infractions around women. This week is Gender Equality Week, I will mention. I think about the importance of standing up for human rights and of actually protecting our communities.
As a woman, I hear these stories and feel an obligation to protect our communities, and democracy is the way to do it. We do it with our votes and we do it with our pens. That is how we do it.
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Madam Speaker, the member very often raises the issue of EI, and I want to thank her for that.
My colleague from Winnipeg Centre, earlier today, raised the point that the supposed feminist government is not really looking after the issues of women. We know that, when EI was first formulated, the participation rate of women in the workforce was less than half of what it is today. The EI system was not built for women.
Can the member share some comments on why it is so important to get this modernized for women after seven years?
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Madam Speaker, as a woman standing in the House, who knows it took over 100 years to get anything close to representation of women's voices in the House, I am having a really difficult time with this debate tonight, and certainly with those last comments.
Users do not choose, when there are algorithms involved. I am a programmer analyst, and I can tell you that there have been marginalized voices for over 100 years in this country. If we do not do something to level the playing field, we are not going to see what people want to see. We are going to see what people have been told is the most important. Women's voices have been missing, indigenous voices have been missing, indigenous languages have been missing and we have not given space for those voices because too many white men have been taking advantage of the news, journalism and the arts. There are not even enough women in the arts, so I guess my question—
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives and the Liberals have been in government for decades. I would expect there is a clear framework of how the provincial government works with a federal government.
As a woman standing in the House of Commons, I would like to say that I would hope there will be much more information than what was shared at committee around gender equity in regard to this bill. I am very concerned the women in those households are going to have disproportionate negative impacts if the government does not get this right.
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- Oct/7/22 11:04:13 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the people of Port Moody—Coquitlam, Anmore and Belcarra are horrified and angry about the brutal murder of Mahsa Amini. Our community adds its voice to the women of the world who are protesting long-standing human rights abuses in Iran.
Women of Iran are standing up at great risk to their personal safety, with heinous consequences. This must stop. No Iranians should live in fear. They should have protections in Iran and in Canada too. However, many here do not feel safe because people associated with the IRGC visit and live in our communities and have not been sanctioned. That is a failing of the Liberal government.
The New Democrats stand with the women of Iran and wholly support the United Nations human rights commissioner's call for an independent investigation into Mahsa's death. We are holding the government to account to support women's rights in Iran and around the world.
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Mr. Speaker, as a woman standing here in the House, I am going to say there is a real problem with gender inequity in pay. There is a pay gap in this country that is long-lasting. These are inequalities that have brought us to this place. It has to do with the fact that we do not pay people enough. We exploit women and their work. We exploit immigrants and their work, and that is the problem. We need to raise salaries in this country.
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Mr. Speaker, many of man's laws have had some perverse outcomes, indeed. That is why it is material that all laws are informed in gender balance, both in their making and their adoption.
I spoke about this earlier on the gender front, and I worry about women over the age of 65 who have disproportionately less access to pensions, property and wealth due to past discriminations.
Could the member tell me if he recognizes how delays would affect women disproportionately?
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Madam Speaker, I have a gender question for the member. We know that women were limited in the work that they could do. There were only a few roles that were considered to be women's roles back in the thirties, the forties and the fifties. We know that wage gaps continue to be discriminatory. Getting a mortgage without a man as cosigner was not possible for many women in the 20th century.
My question to the member is about the GIS clawback. How did it affect women?
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