- Member of Parliament
- Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence
- Liberal
- Surrey Centre
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $147,142.20
- Government Page
- Apr/29/24 5:29:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not think this government has any contempt for the province of Quebec. If anything, I think Quebec has been treated extremely well in this budget. There will be more homes built in the province of Quebec than have ever been built before, more assistance to the cities that have joined this program to build more homes, and more infrastructure dollars to build thousands more homes in Quebec.
I think the residents of Quebec are going to be overwhelmed with this budget and the number of homes it will be able to unlock in their jurisdiction to keep the costs of housing down.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to participate in the debate on this historic legislation. Bill C-35, if passed, would indeed make history.
People may be asking why we are doing this now. Why is the Government of Canada embarking on this ambitious plan to build a Canada-wide child care system? There is no doubt that there are many other important issues to take on, and let me say that we will be better able to handle them if we make sure that women can fully participate in the workforce. Indeed, the United Nations sustainable development goal no. 5 states:
Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.
We cannot have gender equality if women are prevented from participating in the workforce. Let me share the story of a woman, a mother to a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old. She thanked us for the child care agreement. She said it was not going to impact her because her children were too old, but that she hopes that other women will not have to make the same choices she did. She was a spouse in a lower-income household. Putting her children into child care would have cost more than her take-home pay after taxes at the end of each month.
She stayed at home with the kids, and has been out of the workforce for over a decade. She said it was okay, but also said that she imagines what could have been, had she not had to make that decision. For her, it really was not a choice. It was something she had to do for her family's finances. That is why we are doing this. As that woman's story illustrates, affordable child care means mothers can enter, return or remain in the labour market, if they wish to do so. They could also go further in education or open up businesses.
Why now? In September 1970, more than 50 years ago, the Royal Commission on the Status of Women recommended early learning and child care legislation, saying:
We recommend that the federal government immediately take steps to enter into agreement with the provinces leading to the adoption of a national Day-Care Act under which federal funds would be made available on a cost-sharing basis for the building and running of day-care centres meeting specified minimum standards....make similar arrangements for the Yukon and Northwest Territories.
So why now, at long last? The pandemic moved things along, so to speak. As the Deputy Prime Minister said in her April 2021 budget speech, COVID brutally exposed something women have long known: without child care, parents, usually mothers, cannot work.
The closing of our schools and day cares during the height of the pandemic drove women's participation in the labour force down to its lowest level in more than two decades. This is part of the disproportionate impact that COVID-19 has had on women. The crisis has been described as a “she-cession”. The Government of Canada does not want the legacy of the pandemic to be one of rolling back the clock on women's participation in the workforce, nor one of backtracking on the social and political gains women and allies have fought so hard to secure.
There is broad consensus from all parts of society that the time is now. Private sector, social sector and labour leaders agree that child care is a vital part of our social infrastructure and one that was weakened by the pandemic. That is why we committed to this program in the 2020 Speech from the Throne. That is why, in budget 2021, the Deputy Prime Minister spoke of this smart feminist economic policy and pledged up to $30 billion over five years to build this child care system across Canada.
That is why we have Bill C-35 before us today. The bill echoes the recommendations made over 50 years ago in the royal commission's report. It sets out our vision for a Canada-wide early learning and child care system. It sets out our commitment to maintaining long-term funding. Finally, it creates the National Advisory Council on Early Learning and Child Care.
We have a bold goal. By March 2026, parents across the country should have access to high-quality early learning and child care for an average of $10 a day. This is because Canada is a country that believes in investing in its future. We are standing on the shoulders of the commissioners who penned the 1970 report. We are standing on the shoulders of the visionary leaders in Quebec who enacted legislation in 1997 that created a day care system similar to what we are rolling out country-wide.
At the time, women's labour force participation with young children in Quebec was more than two percentage points lower than in the rest of Canada. In 2022, it was five points higher than the rest of Canada. Women in Quebec have some of the highest labour market participation rates in the world.
In most countries around the world, the debate is no longer whether gender equality is an important objective or not, but how best to achieve it. I think that Bill C-35 is part of the “how”. It is part of the solution that will lead us to greater gender equality by supporting mothers in reaching their full economic potential. Furthermore, Canada's job gains, compared to when COVID-19 first hit, have outperformed almost all of our G7 peers, supported by an expanding workforce. The government's investment in early learning and child care is helping more women fully participate in the workforce.
The labour force participation rate for women aged 25 to 54 years has reached a record high of nearly 86%, compared to just 77% in the U.S. At the same time, a record high of 80% of Canadians, aged 15 to 64 years, are now participating in the workforce, reflecting broad-based gains in employment opportunities across demographic groups.
Making full use of the skills and talents of Canadians is a key driver of a stronger economy. It helps to address labour market shortages and increases the rate at which the economy can grow, without generating inflationary pressures. These are encouraging signs. Now we just need to pass this proposed bill so that a Canada-wide early learning and child care system can become entrenched in Canadian law and a part of our social safety net, something to make us all proud.
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Madam Speaker, Canadians elected me to represent my riding and to represent the interests of Canada. Unlike the members of the Bloc, who are only interested in their province and only if it helps them, our responsibility in the House is to make sure that all Canadians get the care they need.
The Canada dental benefit is there for all Canadians, and it will be there. If members from Quebec feel that there are some issues that would impact them differently from the rest of Canada, they are more than welcome to submit them.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in the debate today on Bill C-21, an act to amend certain acts and to make certain consequential amendments concerning firearms. This is a very important issue for the majority of Canadians, and it is particularly important for my constituency, where public safety was recently identified as a top area of concern for our community.
All levels of government and numerous dedicated organizations in my riding of Surrey Centre have been working for many years to address gun violence and gang-related violence. Rates of gun violence have continued to rise since 2009, and violent offences that involve guns have increased by 81%. With so much news content from the United States available to Canadians, we hear daily reports of shootings in the United States. We do not want this constant exposure to desensitize us to the horrific, unspeakable tragedies that come from gun violence. As we know, Canada is not immune to that violence.
Too many communities across the country have grieved the loss of loved ones. École Polytechnique, Moncton, the mosque shooting in Quebec City, and Nova Scotia are only a few of many examples of violent acts with firearms that have occurred in Canada. These examples do not even cover the number of individuals who face gun violence on a regular basis due to domestic or intimate partner violence or gang-related activity.
According to Statistics Canada, there has been a notable increase in firearm-related violent crime across many rural areas in the country, and 47% of Canadians reported feeling that gun violence posed a serious threat to their communities. This includes my own community of Surrey Centre. Earlier this year, the RCMP in Surrey reported that, in a six-day span, there had been four incidents of shots fired in the city.
From my days in high school, I saw hundreds of young boys and men shot and killed for petty disputes and turf wars. Others will recall the innocent victims of gun violence who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Paul Bennett, a nurse and hockey coach, was killed outside his home in Surrey. Chris Mohan was shot for simply being on the same floor as a gangland hit. Bikramdeep Randhawa, a correctional officer, was killed outside of a McDonald's in another case of mistaken identity. These are all on top of hundreds of women killed in cases of domestic or intimate partner violence, including Maple Batalia, a young woman studying at Simon Fraser University, who was killed on campus by a jealous ex-boyfriend.
This is far too regular an occurrence and it puts our communities at risk of being caught in the crossfire. It is clear we need to do more to address gun violence in our communities. Canadians deserve to feel safe in their communities, homes, schools and workplaces, and we do not want to wait for another tragedy to occur in Canada before we take strong action to address that violence.
We know that reducing access to firearms reduces the amount of gun violence. It is simple. Other countries around the world have essentially eliminated gun violence in their countries by enacting tougher laws. Scotland, Australia and New Zealand are all examples of this.
In 1996, a deadly shooting at Dunblane Primary School in Scotland killed 16 students and a teacher and injured 15 others. The following year, the U.K. Parliament banned private ownership of most handguns as well as semi-automatic weapons, and required mandatory registration for shotgun owners. The reforms required owners of permitted firearms to pass a strict licence process, which involves interviews and home visits by local police who have the authority to deny approval of permits if they deem the would-be owner a potential risk to public safety. In the last decade, there have only been three homicides by gun violence in the United Kingdom. There has never been another school shooting.
Also in 1996, in a shooting at a café in Port Arthur, Australia, a man opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle. He killed 35 people and wounded another 28. Australia's then new prime minister, John Howard, who had taken office only six weeks prior to the tragedy, led a sweeping nationwide reform on guns following the incident. Australia's National Firearms Agreement restricted legal ownership of firearms in Australia. It established a registry of all guns owned in the country, among other measures. It required a permit for all new firearms purchases, as well as a flat-out ban on certain kinds of guns, such as automatic and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns.
Similar to our own government's plan, the Australian government has established a mandatory buyback of legal and illegal guns resulting in 650,000 formerly legally owned guns being peacefully seized. The average firearm suicide rate in Australia, in the seven years after the bill, declined by 57% compared with the seven years prior. The average firearm homicide rate went down by nearly 42%. Between 1978 and 1995, 13 mass shootings occurred in the country. In the years since those mass shootings, Australians brought in sweeping gun reform, and since 1995 there has only been one mass shooting.
New Zealand has traditionally had a high gun ownership rate, but tight restrictions and low rates of gun violence. In less than the two weeks after a far right extremist killed 50 people at a mosque in 2019, authorities in New Zealand announced a ban on military-style semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines, like those the attacker had used. They also created a buyback program, as well as a special commission to explore broader issues around the accessibility of weapons and the role of social media.
Gun ownership in Canada is the fifth highest in the world. The countries I have mentioned, Scotland, Australia and New Zealand, are like Canada in that they all have a strong culture of guns. Despite this, they have successfully reduced the number of gun-related incidents and saved countless lives through comprehensive reforms and policies that address the complexity of gun violence.
The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security recently tabled a report entitled, “A Path Forward: Reducing Gun and Gang Violence in Canada”. The committee heard from 50 witnesses who echoed the same message: Gun violence is a complex issue that will take more than one program or policy to fix. The committee heard that it will take a multi-faceted and comprehensive approach that includes all levels of government, indigenous peoples, grassroots organizations, law enforcement and social services. It will require research, collection of data, and preventative and intervention measures.
Our government is committed to addressing gun violence, and we will continue to take action in an effort to mitigate the senseless tragedies that occur at the hands of firearms, and this legislation is the next step.
For those who say illegal guns smuggled across the border are the ones that we should be concerned about, they should have spoken up when the Harper Conservatives cut CBSA staff by 30%, or when they disbanded and defunded the major organized crime unit in the RCMP that investigated cross-border smuggling. How were they silent then? Are they silent now, when it comes to reducing gun violence? The story is the same.
We re-funded the CBSA and the RCMP, and the proof is in the pudding, with gun seizures at the border being double last year from the year prior.
Our plan to address gun violence will address this complexity. Bill C-21 will establish a national freeze on handguns; establish red flag and yellow flag laws; expand licence revocation; combat firearms smuggling and trafficking, notably by increasing the maximum penalty; and prohibit mid-velocity replica airguns.
This plan is about the survivors and about communities across Canada from coast to coast to coast, which are too often touched by gun violence. Canadians told us they wanted to see more action, more quickly, and we are doing that through our commitment to do more.
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- Feb/28/22 11:31:14 a.m.
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Absolutely, Mr. Speaker, it is very important that the system be fair, and that we have people from both official languages who are applying to come into Canada to work be able to get that temporary foreign worker permit status and get a pathway to immigration.
That is why I have added, in my motion, francophonie populations even outside of Quebec. The reason I say “outside of Quebec” is because Quebec has its will to govern and accept immigrants according to the way it wants. I would like other pockets, such as in Edmonton and on the Lower Mainland, where there are significant francophone populations, also to have the ability to have workers come from that. I hope that those high-refusal rates are turned around and changed for the better.
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- Feb/28/22 11:13:43 a.m.
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moved:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should develop and publicly release within 120 days following the adoption of this motion a comprehensive plan to expand pathways to permanent residency for temporary foreign workers, including international students, with significant Canadian work experience in sectors with persistent labour shortages, and such plan should incorporate the following elements:
(a) amending eligibility criteria under economic immigration programs to give more weight to significant in-Canada work experience and expand the eligible occupational categories and work experience at various skills levels;
(b) examining evidence and data gathered from recent programs such as Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident Pathway, Atlantic Immigration Program (AIP), Rural and Northern Immigration Program (RNIP), and Agri-Food Pilot, and Provincial Nominee Process (PNP);
(c) incorporating data on labour market and skills shortages to align policy on immigrant-selection with persistent labour gaps;
(d) assessing ways to increase geographic distribution of immigration and encourage immigrant retention in smaller communities, as well as increase Francophone immigration outside Quebec;
(e) identifying mechanisms for ensuring flexibility in immigration-selection tools to react quicker to changes in labour market needs and regional economic priorities; and
(f) specifically considering occupations and essential sectors that are underrepresented in current economic immigration programs, such as health services, agriculture, manufacturing, service industry, trades, and transportation.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak to members today regarding my private member's motion, Motion No. 44, on expanded pathways to permanent residency for temporary foreign workers.
I have to say that it came as quite a surprise to be chosen first overall in the private members’ business lottery last fall. In fact, I was in the government lobby when the member of Parliament for Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne came in and said I was number one. Then everyone under the sun started yelling and calling my family to tell them that I won the lottery. Anyhow, my wife is still waiting for the cheque to arrive and I think she will be waiting for some time.
I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to all those individuals and organizations that reached out and shared their important ideas for possible bills and motions with me. I did not take this decision lightly, and I hope that this motion will make a meaningful impact in the lives of families and communities, not just in Surrey Centre, but across the country from coast to coast to coast.
Motion No. 44 would address ongoing challenges with our immigration system, filling critical gaps in our labour market by creating more accessible pathways to permanent residency for temporary foreign workers. Since I was elected in 2015, a constant theme in my office has been seeing employers in need of employees. Employers from a wide variety of sectors, including agriculture, transportation, manufacturing and more, are desperate for employees to fill persistent gaps in our labour market.
I wanted to do something that helps the Canadian economy and our small and medium-sized businesses fill employment gaps and live up to Canada’s reputation as a country with a nation-building immigration policy. The goal of our immigration system is to support economic growth by bringing people to Canada.
Canada’s population is aging and domestically we have a low birth rate. Some estimate that by 2030 our population growth will come exclusively from immigration. We are already seeing evidence of this with statistics from 2018 and 2019, which show that immigration was responsible for the employment growth across the country. Currently, immigration accounts for almost 100% of Canada’s labour force growth and 75% of Canada’s population growth, which is mostly in the economic category.
One thing is clear from my experience as a member of Parliament over the last six years: Canada needs workers and Canada needs immigration. By making permanent residency more accessible to more individuals who have devoted time and energy and made sacrifices for the benefit of our communities and our economy, we will help our country flourish and grow.
Our government, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and IRCC work hard to address the challenges faced in our immigration system. With the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, those challenges were exacerbated. However, despite the difficulties we faced and continue to face in this pandemic and rapidly changing world, we have seen improvements and increases in our immigration numbers.
Last December, IRCC announced that we had surpassed our target of welcoming 401,000 immigrants or new permanent residents in 2021 as part of the 2021–23 immigration levels plan. This is the highest number of newcomers welcomed to Canada, surpassing the previous record set in 1913.
What is the temporary foreign worker program? I am sure most members in this chamber are very familiar with the temporary foreign worker program through work in their constituency offices. The temporary foreign worker program is an important and essential part of Canada’s immigration system. It allows Canadian employers to open temporary jobs to foreign workers when Canadians are unable to fill the positions.
My constituency office in Surrey Centre receives a staggering number of these files each year. My team estimates that we work on an average of 250 to 300 temporary worker files annually. Many of these requests are from local businesses and employers who are desperate to fill persistent labour shortages in our community.
Employers wishing to hire temporary foreign workers go through a rigorous process of completing a labour market impact assessment, also known as an LMIA, to find out the potential impact that temporary foreign workers would have on the Canadian labour market. The LMIA consists of assessing the regional and occupational labour market information and the employers’ efforts to recruit and advertise for the position, as well as working conditions, wages, labour shortages and the transfer of skills and knowledge to Canada.
Canada approved 550,000 temporary foreign worker applications in 2017. Despite this seemly large number of individuals coming to Canada each year as TFWs, it is not enough, and we need to do more to find employees to fill job vacancies.
According to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration’s June 2021 report, “Immigration Programs to Meet Labour Market Needs”, there are several sectors and regions in Canada experiencing labour shortages. Immigration policy, as it stands, is not meeting the needs of the labour market. Health services, agriculture, manufacturing, service industries, trades and transportation are particularly vulnerable to being under-represented in our current economic immigration programs.
The COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the beginning months, exposed the delicate nature of our temporary foreign worker programs. Thousands of TFWs stepped up to make sure our seniors received care, trucks kept moving, grocery stores were stocked and restaurants stayed open. Many faced delays renewing their permits. They were uncertain of their status and uncertain if they would remain employed. However, they remained steadfast and helped to keep our country moving and functioning.
In its report, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration urged IRCC to make more accessible pathways to permanent residence available in order to prevent the abuse of foreign workers with the precarious status of out-of-status individuals.
Temporary foreign workers are hard-working individuals. They face the risk of exploitation and challenging work environments, and are important contributors to the communities they live in. Unfortunately, for all the risk they face, and the hard work and sacrifices they make for our community and economy, they do not receive adequate reward for their efforts, in my opinion.
Another persistent obstacle faced by temporary foreign workers and their employers includes the need to renew every two years. This means that employers and workers have to go through the process frequently. Employers must make new LMIA applications and advertise extensively. Once they receive approval, which can take months, they have to get the employees to apply for new work permits, which takes months again, adding to uncertainty and stress as many TFWs do not know if they have medical benefits or whether their children can attend school until their approvals are processed. This process is repeated several times, as those who this motion wishes to address have no pathway to permanent residency.
TFWs also face challenges to qualify for permanent residency. Despite their valuable contributions to our communities and economy, and great employment records over a number of years working in this country, obstacles like a lack of higher education and low language testing scores put TFWs at a disadvantage. This can be more frustrating for temporary foreign workers and their families as their language and skills are sufficient for the work they do, but not enough to grant them permanent residency. They may have working language skills, but not a high enough IELTS score. They may have a class one driver’s licence to drive long-haul trucking, but only a grade 12 education and therefore may not meet the requisite point score. Imagine the frustration of both the employee and employer when a person is good enough to do a job, but not good enough to become a permanent resident of this country.
Many of the industries I have mentioned today fall under NOC levels C and D. This is the national occupational classification system, which classifies jobs based on the type of job duties and the work a person does. NOC level C jobs are intermediate jobs that usually require high school and/or job-specific training, such as long-haul truck drivers or food and beverage servers. Level D consists of labour jobs that usually give on-the-job training, such as fruit pickers, cleaning staff and oil field workers.
NOC levels C and D provide some options for pathways to permanent residency. During the pandemic, our government introduced the temporary residence to permanent residence, TR to PR, pathways. These were created to help admit immigrants during the pandemic. Alternatively, NOC level C and D recipients can apply through the provincial nominee program, which allows Canadian provinces and territories to create their own immigration programs tailored to their economic and population growth strategies. There are also a variety of other regional and industry-specific programs, such as the agri-food pilot and the rural and northern immigration pilot program.
These pathways exist, but we need to do more. We need to add immigration programs that are going to meet our present and future economic needs. Thinking about the pandemic and the challenges Canada faced to get workers into the agriculture industry in the early months, we need to work towards creating a more agile immigration system that can respond quickly to changing situations.
When we look more closely at individual industries, such as the agriculture industry, for example, we can see the real strain that labour shortages are creating. This year, I saw blueberry farmers who normally hand-picked a large portion of their berries forced to machine-pick their crops as there was a huge shortage of farm workers.
Similarly, the heat wave that swooped over B.C. ripened cherries from southern B.C. to the Okanagan at exactly the same time, causing a massive labour pinch. Everyone needed workers at the exact same time. Processors had to increase their workforce due to the increased demand, however with COVID travel restrictions, it became difficult to get much-needed workers in a timely manner.
The agri-food pilot was introduced more than three years ago. To be eligible, individuals require at least 12 months of full-time, non-seasonal Canadian work experience in an eligible occupation and an English or French language proficiency of at least a CLB level 4, as well as a high school education.
The agri-food industry is more than just food production. It includes all aspects of getting food from the field to our tables, and includes delivery and sales, which are a big part of this $111 billion a year industry. This is more than 6% of Canada’s GDP. It also creates 2.3 million jobs.
Keeping all of this in mind, with my private member’s motion No. M-44, expanded pathways to permanent residency for temporary foreign workers, I am asking that should this motion be adopted, our government develop and publicly release a comprehensive plan to expand pathways to permanent residency for temporary foreign workers within 120 days. This should include international students with significant work experience in sectors with persistent labour shortages.
I ask that the eligibility criteria be amended under the economic immigration programs to give more weight to significant in-Canada work experience and expand the eligible occupational categories and work experience at various levels. I am also asking that language requirements be relaxed. These workers have been able to conduct their work in a manner satisfactory to their employers and Canadian workplace safety standards; therefore, they should be considered sufficient to be permanent residents of Canada.
This plan should also examine evidence and data gathered from recent programs such as TRPR, the Atlantic immigration program, the rural and northern immigration pilot, the agri-food pilot and the provincial nominee program. It should also incorporate this data on labour markets and skills shortages to align policy on immigrant selection with persistent labour gaps. These programs and data will provide important region- and industry-specific data to align policy with the diverse needs across our country to ensure appropriate geographic distribution of immigration and encourage immigrant retention in smaller communities. We are a country of not only geographic diversity but also linguistic diversity. This plan should also find ways to increase francophone immigration across Canada.
While we continue to upgrade our immigration system, we have a lot of work to do keep up with the demand. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed shortcomings in our ability to adapt quickly to the rapidly changing world. That is why identifying mechanisms for ensuring flexibility in our immigration selection tools to react more quickly to labour market needs and regional economic priorities is important.
Finally, I am asking for our government to consider specific occupations and essential sectors that are under-represented in the current economic immigration programs, such as health services, agriculture, manufacturing, the service industry, trades and transportation.
We know the growth and stability of our communities and economy rely on the work and dedication of immigrants coming to this country. We need to continue to create mechanisms in our systems to ensure that Canada is an attractive and accessible place for temporary foreign workers to call home.
I hope I can count on members' support for Motion No. M-44, expanded pathways to permanent residency for temporary foreign workers. I look forward to the remainder of the debate today.
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