SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 102 - Sep/26/22

Sep/26/22 7:11:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let me first of all extend my gratitude to the member opposite. I know his community has been directly hit and he has been actively trying to help his constituents. I have offered my assistance to him. I am available if he needs any information. I know that just this morning, the Prime Minister and I, along with the member for Ottawa South, visited Hydro Ottawa crews that were going to Truro, Nova Scotia, to his community, to help. I hope that will have an impact. The Canadian Red Cross is a national organization. It has a very strong partnership with the Government of Canada. It has demonstrated a capacity to deal with large-scale events, like the one we are facing right now, and help a large number of people. That is why it is important that we work with it so that support can be provided right away to those who are impacted. Of course, local community organizations play a very important role and are part of the recovery effort, but at this moment we need to make sure that people are safe as quickly as possible and that power is restored. They have comfort centres available, and food and shelter also.

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All Topics

Context: House Hansard - 102 - Sep/26/22

Mr. Adam van Koeverden (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and to the Minister of Sport, Lib.)

Sep/26/22 11:18:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague knows quite a lot about international development and I look forward to our next chat in the elevator on this topic. I did want to highlight, because I had the opportunity to visit the Red Cross in Nova Scotia this summer, its extensive network of community-level contacts and relationships. The type of rapid response that these donations will rely on are those relationships and the ease of access with which community-level groups, such as the one the member highlighted, the Knights of Columbus, that might be doing something at a community level, would be able to contact their local Red Cross. That said, the member also highlighted, which is off topic a bit, some of the international aid. The Humanitarian Coalition, as he is probably aware, is actually a coalition of 12 organizations that are quite diverse, but I take his comments under advisement, which I think are worth considering. I would ask the member if he could explain how his constituents out in Alberta might be supportive of this important restoration effort.

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Context: House Hansard - 102 - Sep/26/22

Mr. Garnett Genuis

Sep/26/22 11:19:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to underline that nothing in my speech was to take away from the great work that the Red Cross is doing in eastern Canada or in other parts of the world. Of course, it does have partnerships with local organizations, and I hope it will do its best to engage some of those local organizations. However, fundamentally, it does not change the point that there are many other worthy organizations that are not getting this matching support and, essentially, it puts the Red Cross in the position of being the disbursers of public money, which is a role that we would normally conceive of as being the government's. We should work to provide that support in the form of matching to all of the organizations that are doing good work, not because the organizations being matched are not worthy of it but because there are other organizations that are worthy of it as well. I know my constituents will be actively involved in this relief effort and I would like to see all of the donations that my constituents make matched, regardless of the organizations they give to.

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