SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 321 - May/30/24

May/30/24 12:33:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, young people are struggling, and they are worried about their future. They are worried about both the climate crisis and the cost-of-living crisis. I wish the Conservatives had put forward a motion today that would tackle that to ensure that young people are not going to face ecosystem collapse, their food systems threatened and disaster responses overwhelmed. I wish they had put forward a motion that would tackle the housing crisis. Unfortunately, all we get from the Conservatives is more propping up of oil and gas CEOs, rich real estate investors, big pharmaceutical companies and the big grocery stores. They continue to have the back of the richest Canadians—

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Context: House Hansard - 321 - May/30/24

Ms. Laurel Collins (Victoria, NDP)

May/30/24 1:53:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I wanted to ask the member about the mental health crisis of young people who are concerned about the climate crisis. Climate anxiety is at an all-time high. When young people are seeing communities evacuated because of wildfires, multi-year droughts, heat domes that kill hundreds of people and extreme flooding, they are worried about right now and they are worried about their future. Can the member speak to young people and tell them why the Conservatives have no climate plan?

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Context: House Hansard - 321 - May/30/24

Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ)

May/30/24 2:44:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, financial resources are a key aspect of our integration capacity. However, it is hard to ask people to learn French when they cannot even manage to feed themselves. In Drummondville alone, the food bank has seen a 97% increase in use this year. It has to turn people away. That increase includes asylum seekers and foreign workers. A disappointed immigrant told the organization, “I didn't think it would be like this in Canada”. He is right. Will the minister finally take action and understand that exceeding integration capacity means being responsible for a humanitarian crisis?

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Context: House Hansard - 321 - May/30/24

Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

May/30/24 2:50:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, 523 people in Toronto died last year from toxic drugs, and still the Liberals rejected the City of Toronto's request to take a health-based approach to tackling this crisis without offering any other solutions. Then there are the Conservatives, who keep yelling out harmful disinformation and attacking real people. People are dying, and Canada needs to take a compassionate approach: treatment, housing and health care. Will the minister reconsider Toronto's proposal to tackle this crisis and save lives?

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Context: House Hansard - 321 - May/30/24

Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

May/30/24 4:51:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's speech, but here we are in the middle of a climate crisis, and what does the government do? It had a successful program, the greener homes program, that employed many tradespeople and enabled people to reduce their energy needs and their carbon footprint. People were able to take autonomy in their own homes to come up with a cleaner energy future and be part of that story. It is still out of reach for many Canadians, as many Canadians need heat pumps and cannot access them, but this government killed that program, which was hugely successful. Is my colleague, whom I have worked with many times on climate-related issues, going to be working with her government to bring that program back and actually expand it so that all Canadians can access it and help tackle this climate crisis?

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Context: House Hansard - 321 - May/31/24

Mr. Yasir Naqvi (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, Lib.)

May/31/24 12:41:46 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me wish you a happy birthday. I am sure you will get some quality time with your family. We remain deeply concerned about the overdose crisis and its impact on individuals, friends, families and communities across the country. In fact, Canadians are concerned about the crisis. Every loss of life is tragic. It is not a partisan issue; it is a health care issue. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the crisis. A complex health and social issue requires a multi-faceted response. This is why we continue to support provinces and territories to build up their health services so they are available when people need them. Building on significant investments made in the full continuum of services to address the crisis since 2017, as well as significant increases in health funding for provinces and territories, budget 2024 announced $150 million over three years to support municipalities and indigenous communities to rapidly access funds to mobilize efforts and address their urgent needs to save lives now. The overdose crisis is bigger than any one government or organization. It will take the collective efforts of everyone, including provinces, territories, indigenous leaders, professional and regulatory bodies and health care providers, to stop the needless harm and deaths of Canadians and address the many other costs of substance abuse. Substance use and addiction are health issues and not criminal ones, as I said earlier. People need care, not jail. Our government has been committed to various approaches that divert people who use drugs from the criminal justice system to appropriate health and social services whenever possible. For example, in August 2020, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada issued guidelines directing that alternatives to prosecution should be considered for personal possession offences, except when there are serious aggravating circumstances. In addition, as of November 2022, police and prosecutors are legally required to consider alternatives to laying charges or prosecuting individuals for drug possession, such as diversion to treatment, a warning or taking no further action. This means that individuals can avoid being criminalized and can get the help they need to address underlying issues, recognizing that substance use is primarily a health and social issue. We have also invested in prevention. Youth are more vulnerable to substance-related harm and are more likely than adults to engage in risk-taking behaviours, such as substance use, for a variety of reasons, including the stage in brain development and need for social inclusion. Further, earlier and more frequent exposure to substance use is leading to greater risk of harm. Through budget 2023, we committed $20.2 million for a new youth substance-use prevention program to support communities across Canada to build capacity to implement and adapt the Icelandic Prevention Model to Canada. This internationally recognized model focuses on building strong and healthy communities, instead of targeting individual behaviour. It has been shown to be effective in decreasing long-term substance use among youth. In conclusion, we are committed to continuing to work to find solutions to this ever-evolving crisis. This will require having youth try innovative actions, monitoring them closely and following the data in order to find what works. We cannot arrest our way out of the crisis. Our response needs to be compassionate and grounded in prevention, harm reduction, treatment, recovery and, of course, enforcement.

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