- Member of Parliament
- Liberal
- Eglinton—Lawrence
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $83,797.98
- Government Page
- May/11/23 2:50:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I first want to thank my colleague from Surrey for his advocacy and hard work. I would also be remiss if I did not take a moment to express our condolences to OPP officer Sergeant Mueller's family. He died in a tragic incident last night. Our hearts and our thoughts go out to them.
We want to be sure that these sacrifices are not in vain. That is why we made an announcement earlier this week on providing $390 million for law enforcement across the country, which will help ensure we can prevent another tragedy like that from occurring again and keep Canadians safe from gun violence.
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- Mar/29/23 2:40:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague purports to care about victims. Where was she when there was an opportunity for her to support the $450 million invested in the CBSA to stop the illegal flow of guns into our country? Where was she, and the rest of the Conservative Party, when it came to supporting law enforcement with over $360 million? What did they do? They voted against it. Where was she when it came to the $250 million under the building safer communities fund to support vulnerable Canadians with mental health supports? They voted against it. I invite the Conservatives to get on board so we can protect our communities.
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- Mar/29/23 2:39:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to be clear that our hearts go out to every single victim who has been impacted by violent crime.
The Conservatives heckle. They speak a lot about common sense. I will tell them what common sense is. Common sense is not returning to the stale and failed policies that led to police cuts by Conservatives, which led to weakened borders as a result of the Conservative cuts, and that saw Conservatives give up on vulnerable Canadians, while this government continues to support them.
Drop the slogans. Let us focus on solutions. Let us do this work together so we can protect our communities.
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- Feb/13/23 3:02:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague will have seen that we are consulting with legal firearms owners. In fact, that is precisely what we have been doing throughout the course of Bill C-21 and will continue to do so, because we know that hunters, trappers and first nations are part of the Canadian social fabric.
More to the point, what we are targeting are those AR-15 style guns that have been used in some of the worst mass-shooting tragedies in this country's history. That is what we are after. We are also going to support the CBSA, which is stopping an increasing number of illegal firearms at our border. That is something that I hope my colleague would support. However, in order to do that, he actually has to vote for those appropriations, and the next time we do that, I hope he will.
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- Feb/13/23 2:42:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are doing that work. We are doing that work by introducing a national ban on assault-style rifles, which have been used in some of the worst mass killing shootings in this country's history. We are doing that work with Bill C-21, which would raise maximum sentences for hardened gun traffickers.
What is my colleague doing with regard to that bill? Her and her party have been filibustering it. They should stop doing that. They should study the bill. They should support our policies. They should also support the investments we have provided for law enforcement and for addressing the root causes of crime when it comes to the building safer communities fund. They voted against each and every one of those things. They should reverse course.
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- Feb/13/23 2:41:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I share my colleague's concern, which is precisely why a number of my colleagues and I have been in direct contact with the City of Toronto to make sure it is getting the support it needs when it comes to mental health, homelessness, poverty and other social determinants that lead to crime. We are also providing additional supports for law enforcement.
At each and every critical juncture when the Conservatives have had an opportunity to support these measures, what have they done? They have voted against. If they are serious about protecting our communities, they should support the policies of this government, because that is how we are going to better do that.
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- Feb/6/23 2:35:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I assure my colleague and all members in this chamber that we are introducing common-sense policies, like Bill C-75, that allow us to concentrate on the most serious offenders so we can protect our communities.
I would also point out to my Conservative colleagues that this government has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to support law enforcement and to address the root causes of crime so that we can stop it before it starts. What have the Conservatives done? In each of those instances, they have voted against.
If they are serious about taking crime seriously, they should get serious about supporting this government's policies.
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- Feb/2/23 11:12:50 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the short answer is yes. In fact, I have met with battered women's groups and shelters in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. We have met with municipal leadership there. I had the chance to meet with the new mayor. We are looking forward to being able to make, I hope in the not too distant future, some announcements around the building safer communities fund, which speaks to the core of our issue around prevention to address the systemic issues that have far too long plagued our justice system.
We need to ensure that we put an appropriate focus and emphasis on those who have been marginalized: women, members of the 2SLGBTQI community, indigenous peoples, racialized Canadians. That has to be part of this debate, and that is precisely what this government will do. Let us keep all Canadians safe.
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- Feb/2/23 11:10:25 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking my colleague and her party, the Bloc Québécois, for their co-operation on Bill C-21. I hope we will continue in that spirit so we can get this bill passed. It is just one pillar in a comprehensive strategy created on this side of the House to reduce gun violence.
The member asked me what else we plan to do, besides this bill, what other options are on the table, and what we plan to do about the border. Over the past two years, the federal government invested $450 million in a prevention strategy. Some of that money was invested in Quebec. As Minister of Public Safety, I went to Quebec and announced a $40-million investment, in partnership with the Quebec government and municipalities, to identify the root causes contributing to violence on the street.
There are plenty of opportunities for the government and Quebec to work together, including with the Bloc Québécois. I am always willing to work with my colleague.
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- Feb/2/23 11:08:02 a.m.
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First, Mr. Speaker, I wholeheartedly share my colleague's concern about the loss of Officer Pierzchala. I grieved with his family and the entire OPP community. That was the fifth in a series of months last year, and it was among the most difficult functions that I exercise in this office.
I assure the member, and I hope she takes it at face value, that I understand the trauma, the grief and the suffering that is being felt not only by the law enforcement communities but by communities right across the country, including indigenous and racialized communities that have been systematically marginalized as a result of policies whose design and intent was to do just that. That is wrong.
With regard to the member's specific question on bail reform, I hope she will have heard the Minister of Justice, and I will reiterate it, that we are in direct lines of communication with law enforcement. I have spoken to the president of the CACP. I have spoken to other senior leadership in law enforcement. We are going to sit down and look at those proposals very carefully in a specially convened meeting of federal, provincial and territorial partners. That is where the work will be done on the merits.
However, it is not the only thing we need to address. We also need to address the other preventive strategies that I discussed in my remarks as well.
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- Feb/2/23 10:56:47 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for the opportunity to have this important debate about bail reform. Before I come to the remarks that have been prepared for me in advance, I want to take a few moments to acknowledge the grief, trauma, loss and the sense of suffering being felt by communities across the country. I had the chance to visit with many communities, whether it was out west in Vancouver or out east in the Atlantic communities with the families and the victims in Portapique and Truro.
More recently, it was in Quebec City, with all the families and survivors at the commemoration of the sixth anniversary of the mosque shooting.
It is also in my hometown, where we are seeing a recent spate of violence in our public transit system. It is imperative that we have a thoughtful discussion based on a number of pillars. Yes, we need to take a look at our policies and our laws.
I want to commend the Minister of Justice for many of the reforms he has advanced to improve the administration of justice so that we can focus on serious offenders who do, in many instances, need to be separated from the community for protection. Also, I want to underline the work that he and our government are doing to address many of the systemic challenges that have led to overrepresentation in federal incarceration facilities, as well as provincially, when it comes to indigenous peoples and racialized Canadians. We cannot have these discussions in isolation.
I have grieved with families. I have grieved with the community of law enforcement officers who have lost five of their own. We owe it to them and to every single Canadian to make sure we are informing our discussion on the basis of principles that are underlined in the charter, but equally by the experiences of those who have suffered. It is in that spirit that I hope we can have this debate today.
My colleague, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, has spoken about an openness to receiving proposals with regard to the bail system. I have worked on the front lines of the criminal justice system. I have seen how these laws are applied in a very real, practical and tangible way. Even as we navigate the proposals being put forward by the various constituencies, including the law enforcement community, I hope all members will appreciate that there is no one cure-all for the challenges we face. We need to take a look at the entire suite of laws and policies, not only with regard to bail but also with regard to how we are tackling gun violence.
There is a bill currently being studied by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, Bill C-21, which would equip law enforcement with additional tools to tackle gun violence by raising maximum sentences against hard traffickers and by giving law enforcement additional surveillance tools to interdict the organized criminal networks that would seek to traffic illegally firearms that make their way into our country, potentially to be used in violent crime to terrorize our communities.
We also need to take a look at the other investments the government is making to support law enforcement in keeping our communities safe, including a $450-million allocation over the last few years for CBSA. That will enable law enforcement agencies to acquire the resources, the technology and the techniques that they need to build on the progress that they have made in the last two years where they have seized a record number of illegal firearms.
Beyond those investments, I do think it is important as well to talk about prevention. One of the challenges I find around the debate on public safety is that we place great emphasis on laws and policies. We talk about Bill C-21. We talk about the acts that have been passed, and led and shepherded by my colleague, the Minister of Justice. We talk about Bill C-75, which, by the way, was a piece of legislation aimed at addressing the systemic and chronic backlogs in our court system so we could focus on the most serious offenders who commit the most serious crimes and pose the most serious risk to public safety. That was the genesis of Bill C-75.
The purpose of Bill C‑75 was to reduce the case completion times.
To hear some colleagues from the Conservative Party mis-characterize that bill as catch-and-release legislation does a disservice to this debate. We do not need slogans; we need concrete solutions. I would submit to the chamber that this is precisely what the Minister of Justice and this government have been doing. I would also say the same thing with respect to Bill C-5.
We heard a colleague from the NDP point out that the last time the Conservative government had the reins of government, it introduced a number of policies that were reviewed and then struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada. We do not need a return to the failed policies and overreach, which detract and diminish from the independence of the judges to assess on the merits and based on the facts and circumstances of each offender who comes before them. What we need is a thoughtful, constitutional approach to this matter, and that was the point of Bill C-5. It was not to promote catch-and-release policies, which has been overly simplified and distilled. That may play well on YouTube or in social media, but, again, it does a disservice to the complexity of the challenges that are faced when it comes to keeping our community safe.
As we focus on laws and policies, we do not talk enough about the underlying root causes. We do not talk enough about the need to provide additional support for mental health care, homelessness and poverty. We do not talk enough about the need to provide additional skills, experience and confidence to those who are most at risk of being exposed to criminal elements, which I have seen across the country and in my own community.
When I had the chance to travel to James Smith Cree Nation and grieve with those families, community members told us that they knew their own, that they knew how to ensure they could take care of them and put them on the right footing. It is only through collaboration and partnership with those communities through initiatives like the building safer communities fund, a $250-million federal initiative that is administered out of Public Safety Canada, that we can start to address these challenges at the root cause so we can stop crime before it starts.
In the context of the debate we are having today, we need to put as much emphasis on looking at preventative strategies, which we can work together on to advance, to see crime come down. No matter which side of the debate we are on, no matter which party we belong, no matter which constituency we represent in the chamber, the one thing I am assured of is that all Canadians are unified behind the common cause of wanting to reduce gun crime, wanting to reduce any kind of violent crime, which may find its stem in the systemic challenges that I have discussed. We need to come together to have that debate and not resort to slogans, bumper stickers or any of the other catchy phrases that we heard in the to and fro of the heated debate in the chamber, but have an actual and thoughtful debate that is based on facts and constitutional principles. That is precisely what I hope we can do today.
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- Jan/30/23 3:09:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I assure my colleague and all members in this House that this government is paying attention to the situation in Toronto. This is why, without any hesitation or haste, I contacted the mayor to make sure that he knew that this government would be there to support the City of Toronto as we have done in the past with regard to law enforcement, as we have done in the past with regard to preventing crime, as in the $12-million announcement that we made last spring with the mayor, as we have done in the past with regard to our investments in Canada's summer jobs to support those young people who were at most risk.
That is the record of this government, and we will continue to build on it to protect all residents and all communities to keep them safe.
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- Jan/30/23 3:08:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am deeply concerned with the recent spike of violence on the TTC. I have spoken directly with Mayor Tory to express our unwavering support for him and the city.
Our government, in fact, has doubled down on support for law enforcement, violence prevention, mental health supports, and supports to address homelessness and poverty. Most recently, along with the mayor, I announced $12 million in funding to address many of the social determinants that can lead to violence through the building safer communities fund, a fund that the Conservatives voted against.
We will continue to work with the City of Toronto and all communities to keep our public transit safe.
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Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the answer is that the Conservatives are.
The reason is that we have been consistent all along in that we are not targeting law-abiding gun owners. We are not targeting guns that are commonly used for hunting. Rather, we are targeting guns that have been used in some of the worst mass shootings in this country's history, including at Polytechnique, where yesterday, the Prime Minister, a number of colleagues and I were able to grieve and stand in solidarity with those victims from Polytechnique.
I think we need to be united behind the cause of doing better in honour of the legacy of those victims, and that is precisely what Bill C-21 would do. It is high time for the Conservatives to reverse their position and support that bill.
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- Dec/7/22 2:25:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are doing precisely that, including some of the provisions within Bill C-21, which will give additional tools to police, including raising maximum sentences to go after hardened gun traffickers, and including $450 million to bolster resources for CBSA to allow it to build on the record number of illegal gun seizures.
Those were provisions the Conservatives either voted against or filibustered. If the Conservatives were serious about protecting our communities from gun violence, they would reverse their position and support these measures so we can go after the criminals who have been terrorizing our communities for far too long with guns.
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- Dec/2/22 11:44:02 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is very regrettable that today, Conservatives are resorting to personal attacks on me and on members of our side, in the government, who represent hunters.
More to the point, I have met with families who have lost loved ones to gun violence, and I do not know how we look any of them in the eye and not do the smart and sensible things we are doing right now, which is to get AR-15 style guns out of our communities, to stop illegal smuggling at our borders and to stop gun crime from occurring at every instance.
The Conservatives have filibustered and have gone with falsehoods when they should be supporting these initiatives.
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- Dec/2/22 11:42:46 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to set the remark aside, and I hope my colleague will apologize for it. It has no place in this chamber. We are trying to have a responsible debate about how to keep Canadians safe.
We will continue to go after AR-15 style guns, which have no place in our communities. We will continue to invest in stopping the illegal smuggling of guns at our borders. Those are initiatives that the Conservatives have voted against and they should reverse their position.
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- Dec/2/22 11:41:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, in fact, my colleague from the Conservative Party is wrong. We are not targeting hunters. I met members of the hunting community this morning to assure them that what we are going after are the AR-15 style firearms, which have been used in far too many mass casualties across the country. More than that, we have a plan to tackle illegal smuggling at the border by investing—
An hon. member: You're a liar.
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- Dec/1/22 2:23:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from the Conservative Party can continue to spread disinformation, but I will tell members very clearly that on this side of the House we are targeting those AR-15 style guns that have been used in mass casualties. This is part of a broader plan, a plan that will actually eradicate gun violence.
He talks about supporting CBSA. This government put $138 million into the CBSA to stop illegal smuggling. What did the Conservatives do? They voted against that. That is wrong. They should support frontline law enforcement so we can stop illegal smuggling of guns at our borders.
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- Dec/1/22 2:22:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I assure my colleague that we are going to work with the members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety with regard to this amendment, but, more important, our goal here is to target those assault-style rifles, those AR-15 style guns, which have been used in far too many casualties in Portapique, in Quebec and in Ontario, where most recently we saw two frontline police officers gunned down.
I do not know how anyone can look the families of the victims in the eye and say that we cannot do everything that is necessary to take these guns off our streets. These AR-15's have no place on our streets.
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