44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 5, 2023 11:00AM
- Jun/5/23 4:06:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was a scam all along, and Conservatives knew it from the beginning. The Liberals and the NDP sold this carbon tax as something that would fix the environment, and the higher it went, the better the environment would get. The weather would get better. They also said that Canadians would get more back in their pockets than what they would pay into the scam in the first place. Were they wrong? Boy, were they wrong. The Conservatives were right all along.
Now the Liberals and the NDP have nowhere to hide. This was a scam that made the cost of gas, groceries and home heating even more expensive. Remember that at first they sold it as a levy? They said it would be a levy for your Chevy. They said that the more one drove, the more one would have to pay, so maybe people would change their habits. Boy, was that wrong.
It does not take a government economist to see that Canadians were sold a bill of goods. The PBO says that low-income Canadians were hit the hardest by this scam. We are already seeing Canadians suffering today because the Liberal-NDP government spent and put Canadians further into debt than all governments before them combined. It made inflation go up.
We have seen 1.5 million Canadians visiting a food bank in a single month. We have seen one in five Canadians skipping meals in this country. One in four Canadians today are having to borrow money from their friends and family just to put food on their table, and now more and more Canadians who are being driven to food banks are asking for medical assistance in dying because they are hungry. This is the state of Canada today under the Liberal-NDP government.
When my family and I came here, we came here to live the Canadian dream. Under the Liberals and their costly coalition partners of the NDP, that Canadian dream is dead. Canadians are working harder than ever before, sometimes two or three jobs, and they are not getting anything back in return. They are paying higher taxes than ever before because the government continues to spend. It continues to break its promises. It promised a balanced budget in 2015. It said it would balance the budget, and by 2019, there would be no more deficit spending. It is 2023, and it still continues to break that promise. It is breaking that promise on the backs of hard-working, struggling Canadian families.
There are these continued failed experiments, such as carbon tax number 1, and now they are introducing another one, carbon tax scam number 2. That does not have any phony rebates with it. The first carbon tax scam is going to cost each and every Canadian household an average of $1,500. The second scam is going to cost every single Canadian household on average $537. That is more than $2,000 on the backs of hard-working Canadian families.
I talk to newcomers to this country all the time, and they have the same complaint. They ask us, “Why did we leave the country we came here from? We came to Canada looking for a better future. We were promised a lot. We were promised a better future. We were promised a safer future. We were promised that we could get ahead with the more work that we put in.” Now they feel like they were scammed.
They come here working harder than ever. At the end of the day, they have a Liberal-NDP government working against them and their hard work, so much so that now one in five newcomers are thinking about packing up and leaving this country. Most are only living here for about two years. They cannot afford the cost of living, and they have a government that is dead set on making sure that they take more from these newcomers than Canadians. With their carbon tax scam 1, they told Canadians they would get more back in their pockets. They promised, “We'll take some money from you, and we promise to give you more back.” Conservatives did not believe that in the first place. We knew it was a scam all along.
In my home province of Alberta, Albertans will be paying $2,500 more into this scam than what they get back. In Ontario, it is almost $2,000. This carbon tax scam was not as advertised from day one. Thank God the Parliamentary Budget Officer exposed the truth and the scam behind what the Liberals were selling for years. Do members remember when they promised that it would not go over $50 a tonne? They broke right through that promise, like they did when they said they would balance the budget.
More Canadians are finding it harder to eat and heat their homes. We hear about seniors having to cover themselves with blankets during the wintertime just so they do not have to pay the high heating bills they keep getting every single month. Heating bills have almost doubled across this country. Why? It is because the climate zealot, ideologically based Liberal-NDP government blocked and stopped any energy projects from being built in this country. They could have helped not only lower the price of energy in this country, but lower the cost of the fuel to heat our homes, of goods and even of food. However, the government continues to block them over and again. Why? It is because it wants to look woke. It seems like the more the Liberals go woke, the more Canadians go broke.
We have an environment minister who, as far as I know, is the only one in this House who has worn handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit at the same time. He is dead set on making sure our energy costs are the highest in the entire world. Not everyone has the luxury of having transit close to them or being able to ride a bike everywhere they go. We have hard-working Albertans and people who live in northern parts of Canada who have no other choice than to drive pickup trucks. What are the Liberals doing? They are punishing the people who are trying to make this country better, the people who are literally building this country with their hands and putting in hard work to make Canada the best place in the world. What is the government set on doing? It is punishing them. It is punishing our seniors and each and every worker in this country.
It is sad that newcomers to this country are not seeing the same opportunities that my family and I saw. We did not come from a really great background. We struggled for many years. There was a deal back then that Canada had: If someone put in the work, they would get something in return. However, with the government, the harder people work, the more they pay and the more they will be punished. Never before in my life have I seen people who used to volunteer their time and donate their money to food banks standing in those food bank lines themselves. That is the sad state of this country after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government.
It is sad to see people who do not want to stay in Canada and help contribute anymore because they do not see the point in that. Some people have risked their lives and have left everything behind to come to this country, and now they want to pack up and leave and take their talent, energy and entrepreneurial spirit because the government continues to attack them and make everything more expensive.
That is why the Conservatives will bring in a common-sense plan, cancel both these carbon tax scams and solve the problem using technology and not taxes.
With that, I move:
That the debate be now adjourned.
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- Jun/5/23 5:05:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, speaking of elections, let me congratulate Alberta and all Albertans for electing another UCP Conservative majority that once again rejected the Liberal-NDP government, including the job-killing carbon tax, the inflationary carbon tax—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Jun/5/23 5:06:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am just as excited as they all are that Albertans rejected the same failed carbon tax the Liberal-NDP government keeps boasting about. I congratulate Albertans, Danielle Smith and the UCP majority government—
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- Jun/5/23 5:07:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let me just start off by reminding the member that Edmonton is in Alberta and that Albertans overwhelmingly selected a majority Conservative government, rejecting the same carbon tax that we are debating right now.
He wants to talk about disrespect. We can talk about the one in five Canadians who is skipping meals and the 1.5 million people who are visiting food banks because that party is making food, groceries, home heating and fuel more and more expensive with the failed carbon tax. We cannot call that party an opposition party anymore, because it is part of the government.
It has failed to hit a single emissions reduction target, yet it is making things worse for those struggling Canadians and putting more tax on the backs of Canadian families.
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- Jun/5/23 7:33:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is simple. The member is from Alberta. We will cut what Albertans voted for. We will cut the carbon tax.
In 2019, Albertans overwhelmingly voted in the Conservative government. Its number one priority, and first bill, was to cut the carbon tax. Once again, last week, we saw Albertans overwhelmingly support and vote in a Conservative government that is against the Liberal-NDP failed carbon tax scam.
To the member for Alberta, we are going to stand with Albertans and axe the carbon tax, just as they asked for when they voted in the UCP government and gave it that mandate.
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- Jun/5/23 8:13:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the truth hurts. When Canadians speak truth to Conservatives, we know what the reaction is. Albertans in Edmonton and Calgary certainly spoke truth to Conservatives earlier last week, and I think we are seeing that reflected in the falling poll numbers as well for the Conservatives.
The Conservatives would stop affordable housing from being built. After we have seen decades of both the terrible Harper regime refusing to build affordable housing and the Liberal government refusing to build affordable housing, the NDP is forcing the government to actually do that, and the Conservative response is to block it. They do not want affordable housing for Canadians, as they might be able to have a roof over their heads and they might be able to back to school or work. A whole bunch of things could happen from that, and Conservatives somehow find that this is something they do not want to see.
The NDP forced investments in health care, and members will recall it is the terrible Harper regime, that dismal decade of 10 awful years that Canadians had to survive, that actually cut the health care funding in the first place, so the NDP is fixing what the Harper regime and Conservatives broke. What we have in the bill—
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- Jun/5/23 8:48:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it felt like there was some dishonesty in the member's speech. He started out speaking about the dishonesty of the Liberal government, but then he spoke about how this was almost an omnibus bill at the end, as if the Harper government was not renowned for its omnibus bills. He spoke about how we should have learned from history, but in World War II, one of the things that we saw was the massive investment in our communities and in our infrastructure, so I want to ask him about what he would cut.
However, what actually caught my ear the most was when he was talking about pensions, about Canadian pensions. I am sure he knows where I am going with this. We just finished an election in Alberta, and the United Conservative Party, the UCP, in Alberta, was running on the idea of taking Albertans out of the Canadian pension plan and using that money for its own means.
Since the member does not agree with the Canadian pension plan being used by the government, would he say that what Danielle Smith is proposing in Alberta would be equally wrong?
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- Jun/5/23 9:09:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it has been an interesting debate tonight. There were a couple of things that I heard from the Liberals and the NDP, one of which I expected to hear a lot about and one which I did not.
What I did not expect was a couple of NDP members doing victory laps over the Alberta election results time and time again. As I watched the election results, I was struck by the fact that a Conservative government, having gone through a pandemic and a leadership change, unsurprisingly lost a couple of percentage points and formed a strong majority government.
The NDP may want to celebrate the fact that it gained about nine percentage points at the expense of the Alberta party, but hopefully all of us can hope for the very best for the Danielle Smith government in Alberta, because that would be really good for Albertans across the board. I, for one, congratulate that government and hope that it succeeds on behalf of all Albertans over the next four years of its very strong mandate.
What I expected to hear and have heard a lot of today, over and over again, is Liberal fearmongering about cuts that some potential Conservative government might threaten or initiate or whatever the case might be. It caused me to look back at history. It is important to look at where there have been cuts, because maybe we can learn from situations in the past when we have seen actual cuts. I had to go back a long way to find real cuts to health spending, social services spending, education spending and the transfers that fund those things.
I went back to 1993, 1994 and 1995, when we saw cuts at the very start of a newly elected Liberal government, but then it was astonishing to see the cut that occurred in 1995-96. In the 1995-96 Liberal budget, $18.4 billion was spent on health care, social services and education, and then in 1996-97, the very next year, we went from $18.4 billion to $14.7 billion, a reduction of almost $4 billion in important transfers for health, social services, education and those kinds of things. The next year, 1997-98, we went from $14.7 billion to $12.5 billion in those transfers.
I mention those figures because, as a result of the spending during the reign of a fiscally incompetent Trudeau government, a government that ran 14 deficits in 15 years while it was in power, we saw a crisis in energy, a crisis in housing and a crisis in inflation. I do not know if that sounds familiar to anybody around here. There were 14 deficits in 15 years in the 1970s and 1980s, and that led to these devastating cuts in 1996-97 and 1997-98, going from $18.4 billion for health, social services and education to $12.5 billion two years later. That was a Liberal government dealing with the devastating effects a generation after another Liberal government, a Trudeau government, had absolutely zero idea of what to do to run an economy.
I fear that we are in the same boat now. We have heard Liberal speaker after Liberal speaker get up and ask how Conservatives can vote against this thing, and they will cherry-pick one thing, or be against this other thing. All of the things they talk about sound great, but I hearken back to the debate on May 1 in the House of Commons, and one comment, though there were many comments like this, struck me. The comment was in response to a question during question period from a Conservative member of Parliament. The Liberal finance minister, talking about the grocery rebate, said, “The grocery rebate is going to deliver support to 11 million low-income Canadians who need it.” How have we come to a place in 2023 when the finance minister is bragging about the fact that we have 11 million low-income Canadians who need support to buy groceries? How are we at that place in 2023?
We look at the government's own budget documents and we take a look at the numbers in these documents and we think about those important transfers we are talking about and other programs. The Canada health transfer is set to be, in 2023-24, $49.4 billion. Do members know that the projected cost to service the debt will be in the same year? It is $43.9 billion, so because of the fiscal incompetence, and there is no other way to say it, of the government that has been in power for eight years, we are going to spend as much in interest as we are going to spend on health care in this country as a federal government. There is no other way to say it: That is absolute incompetence.
When we take a look at the Liberal budget, one of the things that strike me is that they cut their deal with the NDP, and we hear the NDP talk about the different things that they were able to negotiate into this Liberal budget, but I will tell members one thing that was negotiated out of the Liberal budget.
This is the state of where we are. We in this place oftentimes can agree that there are certain things that need our attention. We might have different ideas on how we address those things, but we can agree there are certain things that require attention. One thing that we all agreed on during the last election campaign was the fact that there is a mental health crisis in this country. We all had different platform ideas that we put forward. We ran an election. Canadians looked at those promises we made, because we make promises in election campaigns, and I would think Canadians would expect us to keep those promises. Admittedly, we made promises that were different from those of the Liberals and the NDP on mental health, but we all had substantial promises in there.
The Liberals promised, on page 75 of their election platform, very clearly in a black-and-white five-year costed layout of their election platform, a $4.5-billion investment in mental health called the “Canada Mental Health Transfer”. That was something the Liberals promised. Every Liberal in this House went to doors during the election campaign and promised things to Canadians, many of whom would have been struggling with their mental health, especially as we were still in the midst of a pandemic. We were moving hopefully toward the end of it, but at that point in time people were obviously very significantly affected.
Canadians struggling with their mental health had a Liberal member of Parliament or a Liberal candidate go to their door and promise they were going to spend $4.5 billion on a Canada mental health transfer.
What happened next? Immediately the Liberals signed their deal with the NDP. No NDP member has actually yet taken credit for negotiating this out of their agreement, but clearly it must have been something that the NDP said. They must have said that they wanted to put NDP priorities on the agenda instead of the Canada mental health transfer. No one has talked about why that was negotiated out, but it is very clear that the Liberals have decided that this promise they made is no longer important and that there are other priorities, or, if it is still important to them, that they have come to a point where the fiscal situation is so bad that it was in their cabinet meetings.
I do not know if the leader of the NDP is in the Liberal cabinet meetings or if the House leader of the NDP is, but the Liberals had to go into these cabinet meetings. They had to have conversations and say that things are really tough here and that they had decided to fund some program, one of the many programs they are listing, but they were no longer going to be able to afford this thing they promised on page 75 in their election platform.
I do not know what those conversations looked like; all I know from taking a look at the budget we are debating tonight and from taking a look at the numbers we are talking about tonight is that we are going to be in a situation where Liberal governments and this coalition, however long it lasts, are going to be having conversations like that, because they have come to a point where life is just not only unaffordable for Canadians but unaffordable for the government.
It becomes unsustainable at some point. It is just like when we were dealing with the results of Trudeau Liberal incompetence in the mid-nineties because the Trudeau government of the seventies and eighties had run up all of those deficits over all of those years. I fear we are going to be in the same situation moving forward. During questions and comments, I hope some Liberal will rise up and explain that maybe my concerns are somehow misplaced. Hopefully there will be some explanation and some understanding tonight of the situation we are in.
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- Jun/5/23 9:25:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, of course, it always a delight to stand in this place representing the incredible constituents of Edmonton Strathcona.
This is the first day I have been in the House since the Alberta election, and I did want to send my congratulations to Rachel Notley. Of course, it was not the outcome we wanted, but I think it is important for all of us in this place to recognize the significant wins in Alberta. In Alberta, we elected the very first Black woman as an MLA. We elected the very first indigenous woman as an MLA. We elected members in Sherwood Park. We elected members in every seat in Edmonton and in so many more seats in Calgary. Almost every urban seat in Alberta went to the NDP, including seats that had been held by ministers and that flipped over to the NDP. It is something I think Rachel Notley, and all Albertans, should be extremely proud of.
There are things on which we have more work to do. I am not very proud of the fact that Albertans elected a member who compared trans children to feces. I am not very proud that a Conservative with those views was elected. It is appalling and disgusting during Pride month. However, there is work to do, and we will continue to do that work. However, this is not actually why I am here tonight, but I did want to raise that, because, frankly, some of those things are indicative of the changing political landscape in Alberta and the belief of Albertans in the importance of taking care of each other, and I think that is very important.
What we are actually here to talk about is the budget implementation act, and I want to talk a little bit about why this is so important and why I am supporting it. This is not a perfect piece of legislation. This is not a perfect budget. This is not the budget I would have written. However, I am so proud to be part of the New Democratic Party, which pushed for some of the things that are in this budget, and I am going to outline a few of those things.
In Edmonton Strathcona and across the country, families are struggling with the cost of life, with affordability. We cannot go into grocery stores and communities and talk to people on their doorsteps without them telling us about how difficult this is, how challenging it is for them, how difficult it is buy food, to pay their rent, to find housing, to be able to pay for their lives and to be able to thrive in their communities.
As a parliamentarian, my primary job is actually to make life better for Canadians and my constituents and to find ways to support them. I cannot tell members how proud I am that dental care is something that Canadians are going to have access to when the bill is passed, and not just for children, but for everyone under 18, people living with disabilities and seniors. Oh my goodness, seniors in this country will have access to dental care, which is something that should have been in place decades ago. However, I am just so proud that I get to be part of the New Democratic Party, which pushed for this happen in 2023.
We have talked about the GST rebate in the House, which is that added help that so many families need. I will agree with other members who have raised this; I would like us to live in a country where that is not necessary, but right now, the reality is that there are Canadians who need that extra help, who need that extra piece to get them through. If we can provide that support to Canadians at this moment, when affordability is so challenging, why would we not do that?
On urban, rural and northern indigenous housing, I learned so much from my colleague from Iqaluit, the member for Nunavut. She is such a champion in the House, and she is a person who speaks so strongly for her constituents. She has made it very clear that there is not enough money for the need in northern indigenous communities. However, I will say that this budget implementation act is important, and it is important that New Democrats recognize it and recognize that our job is going to be to continue to push the government to do more, continue to push the government to make sure that rural, urban and northern indigenous communities have the funding they need for adequate housing. We would not accept less in any other communities, and we should not accept it in indigenous communities.
I am proud of what we have done for students. Do members know what I am really proud of? I am proud that there is legislation that will prevent scabs from being used by corporations. That is important. That is important for workers, so that workers know that they can actually work, that they can actually negotiate, that they can go to the negotiation table with their employers and get a fair deal. That is vital to workers. It is in the bill, and I am so proud of the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his work on making sure this happened.
Of course, there are many things in this bill, but the other thing I am extremely proud of is the investment in a future-facing economy. The member for Timmins—James Bay has done so much work, but, more importantly, workers in Alberta have done so much work. Workers in Alberta have been calling for this investment in them. I have said this many times in this place. I come from a line of oil and gas workers. My dad was a trucker and my dad worked in the oil fields. He worked in Alaska and in Alberta. My brothers work in the oil and gas sector. My husband works in the oil and gas sector. I recognize what that sector has done for Canada. I also speak to people in my constituency. They want assurances that there is a future for them, for their children and for their families, and that there are going to be jobs for them, that there is going to be a place for them in a futures economy. If we do not have investment in Alberta, that is not going to happen. I am thrilled that this is here. I am thrilled that this is being led by Alberta workers.
I will finish today by saying how ashamed I am of some other members of the House from Alberta, how ashamed I am that some of the members have done everything they can to stop the processes of this Parliament going forward. The leader of the official opposition has benefited from a publicly funded health and dental care plan for over 20 years. Every one of us in the House benefits from dental care and a health care plan, but the Leader of the Opposition started today by proclaiming that he will use every procedural trick in the book to stop hard-working families from accessing desperately needed dental care. That is shameful, when seniors, people living with disabilities and children, his children, have access to dental care, and when he has access to dental care. The 25 New Democrats in this place have done more for Canadians in this Parliament than the 115 Conservatives have. I would ask them to tell me one thing they have delivered for Canadians, one thing they have been able to deliver. All they do is come here and obstruct.
I, for one, want to work to make this country better for Canadians. I want to make sure this world is better for everyone, so when I come to this place, I look around this room and think of who I can work with. How can I get things done? What can I do to make sure that life is better for my constituents? That is my job. That is why I come here. Every member of this 25-member caucus does that. That is why Canadians are getting dental care. That is why Canadians are getting housing support. That is why Canadians are getting the grocery rebate. It is not because the Conservatives are throwing shenanigans all over the place; it is not because they are making a mockery of Parliament. We are allowing things to get done, and I am so proud of that.
We talked about Harper a lot tonight, and I will say again that he did tell people when he was going to cut things. He did tell us when he was going to destroy our social safety net. The current opposition refuses to tell us when it is going to do that.
I will say it again: This bill is not perfect. There are things I would like to change in this bill, but there are more than enough things in this bill that are going to help Canadians, help with the affordability crisis and help people who are struggling in our country right now.
I will come into this place every single day ready to work and to do more and more to get the help for Canadians, and I certainly hope the Conservatives stop their shenanigans and get on board.
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- Jun/5/23 10:16:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, through you to many of my fellow Albertans, what has been happening in the month of May and what continues to happen across our province is truly devastating. The wildfires, the smoke, the devastation and the loss will be with those families for a long time. I know we will never be able to truly rebuild to the point at which they remember where they have those cultural heirlooms, where they have the things that they raised their children with, where they have the mementos from each of those monuments in their life that they can cherish and keep with them, which are now reduced to ash.
We are with those families. We will do everything in our power to make sure they can rebuild. That is why New Democrats and I are steadfast in our support of indigenous communities that have been hit the hardest by these fires.
I want to extend my personal thanks as well to the many men, women, non-binary and diverse folks who serve in our firefighting teams right across the country, but particularly in Alberta right now, who are risking their lives so that community members can save what they can. They are risking their lives to make sure that children may have a place to go back to. They are risking their lives to make sure that communities stay intact. They are certainly unsung heroes, heroes who go home day after day, covered in ash, who may not hear the thanks and gratitude from families like my own and families I visit.
In 2003, my family endured a wildfire in the northeast part of the province of Alberta. At that time I was just a child, living with my family. In just a short time, a 30-minute wind was able to bring in a fire so large that no crew could even get to it. It brought down forests; it brought down power lines; it stopped roads, and it stopped services. We were stranded. I was alone and I was scared. Me, my mum, my dad and my sister were alone, cut off from all roads, with fallen trees on either side of us. We thought surely this would be it. My dad and my mum prayed.
My dad did what he could. His father had built a barn, and he looked after that barn. Inside that barn were saddles, handmade and passed on from generation to generation, from horse whisperers in my family to some of the best rodeo clowns our province had to offer. That history was reduced, burned to ash while my father was reduced to tears.
I remember being evacuated in the arms of a firefighter. He took me in his hands, and without question I could feel his compassion and his need to save us. He put me in a car, put an oxygen mask on my mouth and told me to close my eyes. He told me to sing a song. “Three times,” he said, “and you'll be okay.”
Two songs in, I realized finally we were escaping the smoke. Although I had left my family behind, I knew that my mother and my father were going to be okay because people like him were with them, like the firefighters who are with our communities right now. For them, I want to thank the firefighters.
The reality is that it is ongoing and it is still happening today. Whether it is wildfires on the east coast or right across the Prairies, we are seeing the devastation of families like my own who have to go through this. I know that pain of not being able to get back what we once had, but I also know the joy of being able to return home with all of our lives, with the things we cherished most of all, which was each other.
When I went and journeyed just weeks ago to the East Prairie Métis Settlement, a community of which over 80% was reduced to ash, people greeted me with smiles. They greeted me with the kind of generosity and the kind of love that only a community that has withstood the worst could have. East Prairie Métis Settlement is a community of resilient, hard-working, remarkable individuals. When they received that call to evacuate early one morning in early May, they sprang into action. Just four hours is what it took for the entire community to evacuate, in a community that had only one entrance and one exit. That was because of the coordination of the community, not because of any extra help they got. It was because the community knew that this was not a matter of if; it was a matter of when.
The forests in northern Alberta have been sick. On top of that, people have had to suffer gruelling and dangerous temperatures. We used to have a saying, and I am sure many members are familiar with it: April showers bring May flowers. However, there have been no showers; this has resulted in one of the most devastating fires in the history of our province.
When I met with the council of the East Prairie Métis Settlement, its members pleaded with me. They said that in the heat of an Alberta election, they did not receive any support. They looked to the federal government, and they were stonewalled with jurisdiction. They sought support from local municipalities, but they had no resources left to offer.
This community had nothing left, but its members gave it their all. Although they lost over 14 homes, and 80% of the community burned, they saved 20%. That is an immense feat for a group of volunteers, a group of experts who hold within them the traditional knowledge necessary to continue to keep our communities safe.
They are called “wildland firefighters”, and it took only 14 of them to save the remainder of the community. This is the same group of firefighters we sent to Quebec, Ontario and right across the globe. Their skills, their understanding of forests and the traditional knowledge they carry are needed now more than ever.
I spoke to East Prairie survivors. I was there the day the evacuation order was lifted, and they took me into their community. What I witnessed was truly devastating.
I went with families, and it was an amazing moment for some of them. They saw their houses standing. They even saw their dogs, covered in ash but still protecting their land. They were holding their ground as if it were their last stand. They did it as they waited for their humans to come home. That is the kind of love that animals have a power to demonstrate and one that humans often hold back on. It is one I hope we never relent.
I spoke to some of those who lost their homes. A survivor, the oldest elder in the community, came up to me and said that once she got on that bus to go home, it felt like she was going back home as she did the day she left the residential school. She said the fear she had in her heart, and of not knowing what she was going back to, triggered her, and she wept. She found that although there was nothing left of her home, there was so much left of her community. She provided her strength, leadership and kindness to the children, mothers and those who were truly in pain. She offered them smiles, condolences and love, even though she had lost so much. I am truly inspired by that.
That is a story I wanted to share with all my colleagues, because people like this exist in their communities, too. They are worth protecting and investing in; we need to ensure that this climate catastrophe does not continue to wreck their lives.
I know they exist. They had only one ask. They said that as many families as returned home, there was the same number that could not return, because they did not have anywhere to go. They said that $900,000 is all it is going to take to ensure that all of those who lost their homes have temporary housing until they can rebuild.
We need courage, and we must demonstrate the kind of love we have for Canadians in our hearts. This must materialize as the programs and supports that people who are in need right now need the most. I beg this chamber and my colleagues to truly use the compassion they often speak so much about and turn it into action. The people of East Prairie, Paddle Prairie and Peavine deserve that. The people right across this country who are affected by the wildfires deserve that.
Those wildfires continue to rage every single day, and they are doing it right now, as we speak. I know it is late in the day for us, but those firefighters are going to be working even harder than we are tonight. They are going to be going all night, and they are going to be doing it with the risk of not returning home. I ask that we all keep them in our hearts and in our prayers tonight as they continue to battle raging wildfires across our country, in hopes that help truly comes from this place.
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