moved for leave to introduce Bill C-369, An Act respecting Christian Heritage Month.
She said: Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise to introduce this bill, which seeks to make December Christian heritage month.
Canada is a country that celebrates all faiths. We have Sikh Heritage Month, Hindu Heritage Month, Muslim history month, Jewish Heritage Month and so many more. It is only fair and right that we have a Christian heritage month, since there are 19.6 million Christians in Canada according to the last census.
What better month to pick than December? It starts with the season of Advent, the lighting of the hope candle, the lighting of the love candle and the lighting of the peace candle and joy candle, and culminates in the lighting of the Christ candle as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ at Christmas, the saviour of the world.
We heard the Bloc speak last week about the importance of Christmas in Quebec. We heard the Prime Minister talk about the importance of Christmas to all Canadians. I hope all my colleagues will join me in supporting this private member's bill to make December Christian heritage month.
Merry Christmas.
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- Dec/4/23 1:36:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned that the member opposite who just spoke is not taking seriously that members were not allowed to speak at committee, and that the committee chair ignored the whole situation. That is why it had to be brought here to the House.
Hopefully we can come to a quick resolution. Perhaps the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan could table all the different examples for your review, sir.
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- Dec/4/23 1:27:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have had continual interruptions and harassment from the member for Timmins—James Bay while we are trying to talk about a serious question of privilege.
I am beginning to think that my privilege to listen to the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan is being infringed.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-295, an act to amend the Criminal Code, to make sure it is a criminal offence when owners and managers of long-term care facilities fail to provide the necessities of life to residents within them.
We have an aging population. One is six in Canada will be one in four in just a couple of years. We all have members in our families, such as mothers and fathers, who are aging. I am aging. We are all going to need long-term care. The Conservative Party absolutely agrees that we have to protect the most vulnerable, and this bill is a good start. It would make sure the necessities of life are provided. However, the bill does not necessarily go far enough.
I am going to take up the theme of the pyramid of needs. We know that in the pyramid of needs, food, shelter, clothing and security are at the bottom, and this bill would address those necessities. We all heard stories of people who were left in their own excrement, did not have enough water or were dehydrated and of the lack of food during the pandemic, but what about their emotional and mental well-being? More needs to be done there.
My mother died in long-term care, and the children had to choose who would go in. That is not fair or compassionate, so there is more to be done with the bill. We also saw, even after science showed that those who were vaccinated could get and transmit COVID the same as the unvaccinated, that people were discriminated against and not allowed to visit their loved ones, even with reasonable accommodation.
Let us think about what happened during the pandemic. I received so many calls at my office from people who were trapped on one side of the border and could not visit their loved ones who were dying in long-term care facilities. There was no compassionate exemption made. I applied many times, but usually the length of time it took to get approval meant the person had already died. It is tragic when somebody is alone and vulnerable without even one family member there.
I can remember that when my mother died in long-term care, I had to hold up an iPad so that my brother, sister and all the people who were not able to see her could say goodbye. After 95 years of a well-lived life, it was very sad. Then there was the whole issue of funerals. The number of people was limited and people were not allowed to go to them. That was also very sad. The bill takes a good first step to address some of these things.
At committee, I was pleased to see that some amendments were accepted, one being that the definition of “managers” was not specific enough. We want to make sure that all facilities, whether private or public, have standards of care. That is another issue that was not addressed. There are differences in the standards of care across provinces and types of facilities. I was lucky that my mother was at Albany Retirement Village in Petrolia. It did a wonderful job of taking care of her, although many times I had to stand at the window to say hello to her during the pandemic.
The other thing this bill would allow is for judges to consider this an aggravating factor in offences involving volunteer activities or somebody in a position of trust or authority. That is a good thing.
I thank the member for Vancouver Centre, who is a doctor herself. We are all aging, and she has brought these concerns before the House. It sounds to me like this is the moment when all parties are agreeing that, yes, we need to do something and it needs to be an enforceable criminal offence. We have a lot of laws in the country, but we do not necessarily spend a lot of time enforcing those laws. In this case, it is so important. These are vulnerable people who, in many cases, like if they have dementia, do not have the acumen to fight for themselves. We need to be the ones to put measures in place so those looking out for them are dealt with.
I would say, as a woman, this is also a gendered issue. We know that 85% of the people who are in long-term care facilities are women. We also know that 86% of the workers and volunteers in these facilities are women. We need to provide protections for those who give care and for those who are being cared for. We need to make sure that we are not just meeting the base level of the pyramid when it comes to their emotional and mental health needs.
We know that isolation caused huge issues during the pandemic not just among people in long-term care facilities, but even in the general populace. One in five people ended up with mental health issues coming out of the pandemic. The suicide rate was up immensely. Violence was up immensely, at 32% for the people in this age demographic of long-term care. Of course, we have seen a huge rise in crime across the country, a 39% increase. Therefore, addressing all levels of people's well-being will be important and this bill does not go that far.
I would argue that, in the future, people need to remember the lessons learned from the pandemic. It did not really help when we kept individuals away from seeing their loved ones and let others in because, at the end of the day, we let 90% of the people do what they wanted and the 10% who were unvaccinated could not, yet the science showed that both could transmit COVID. I think the reasonable accommodations of masking and personal protective equipment would have really addressed a lot of the loneliness, the agony of watching loved ones die, or not being able to get to loved ones who were dying, which was very serious.
The other thing I would say is that long-term care facilities have been studied over and again. There was a report at the health committee in 2018, when I was there, that talked about standards of care and the number of individuals needed per resident, which is not the same for all residents, for example, those who have dementia compared to those who are at a high-functioning level. Therefore, we certainly need to look at best practices in the country and adopt some kind of minimum standard of care with respect to the number of caregivers and the amount of time provided. We hear a lot about how many minutes of care residents will get a day. Clearly, we cannot tell human beings that they have had their seven minutes for the day and that is it, that is all; we need to be more compassionate than that.
While I am happy to see this bill and think it is a great first step, I would like to see us go further. I think the government has a huge opportunity, as it reflects on what happened during the pandemic with the violation of people's rights and freedoms, not just for those in long-term care facilities, but also the seven million Canadians who were prevented from leaving their country for three years, to do a thorough review and come back with policies that will address not only the basic needs of people, but their mental health needs and the emotional supports they need. Obviously, it is one step at a time.
I am happy to say that we will support this legislation and look forward to doing more things to protect our seniors, who are the most vulnerable in society.
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- Nov/29/23 5:57:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his very good speech.
There is a slaughterhouse capacity problem here in Ontario and Quebec. The Liberals have done nothing to improve the situation. What are the most important recommendations, solutions, measures or anything else for improving this situation?
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- Nov/29/23 5:33:47 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-9
Madam Speaker, I see the parliamentary secretary is troubled that we are not talking about the Senate's bill, Bill S-9, on weapons of mass destruction, even though that was not a Liberal campaign promise.
Would he not agree that, with two million people using a food bank every day and one in five families eating less food because they cannot afford it, it is more important for this House to be looking at solutions on how to address food insecurity, such as with this motion?
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- Nov/29/23 3:29:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think it is important that we are consistent in the way that we apply the rules in the House. During Statements by Members, one of the members opposite accused all of the Conservatives of being complicit with the Russians, which we know is not factual since we have all been banned from Russia.
When one of our members had to withdraw a comment, he also had to apologize. I respect that you asked the member to withdraw the comment, but I did not hear the apology, and I would give the member opposite the chance to do it now.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for highlighting the importance of getting Bill C-234 across the line. Could she once again explain to the members opposite how the carbon tax escalates the cost of food throughout the supply chain?
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- Nov/27/23 1:58:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned that the government's legislation only covers federally regulated private organizations. If we want to make sure that replacement workers are not brought in, then why does it not apply to the public sector employees the federal government is in charge of, as well as the contracts they are signing with companies such as Stellantis, which is going to bring in 1,600 foreign workers?
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- Nov/27/23 1:52:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, there have been lots of discussions on how we need to treat one another civilly. We should not be referring to one another with unparliamentary names. I would suggest that that is what that was, and I would ask the member to withdraw the comment.
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- Nov/24/23 1:07:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first let us clarify the record on the Liberals' record with Ukraine. The Liberals sent a turbine to Russia to help Putin fund his war machine. They invited a Nazi to the House of Commons when the President of Ukraine was here. They voted against our motion to give Ukraine the weapons it was asking for, and we just found out today that the Liberals are allowing Canada to sell land-mine detonators to Russia.
With respect to the subject of replacement workers, in 2016, legislation of a similar nature was brought and the Liberals voted against it. Why is there a flip-flop? Is it because the Liberals see that they are plummeting in the polls with the union workers, or is it to try to bolster a shaky relationship with their NDP coalition partners?
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- Nov/24/23 12:01:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is not the way it happened. It was the Conservatives who called for the investigation at committee. It was the Conservatives who got the Auditor General and the Ethics Commissioner to start an investigation.
Now, we want a whistle-blower to come to committee and talk about who got rich, and they are being silenced by the NDP-Liberal government.
What is the government hiding?
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- Nov/24/23 12:00:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this week, the NDP-Liberal government blocked a Conservative motion to have a whistle-blower testify at the ethics committee about the billion-dollar green slush fund scandal.
After eight years under the Prime Minister, there has been scandal after scandal. It is easy to see that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. Facing an Auditor General's investigation and an Ethics Commissioner's investigation, the CEO and the Liberals' hand-picked board chair resigned in disgrace.
Now the government is blocking a whistle-blower from testifying. What is it trying to hide?
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- Nov/24/23 10:54:13 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have been saying that they are standing up for unions by banning replacement workers. If it is such a good idea, why are they not doing the same thing with their own federal public sector union employees?
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- Nov/23/23 1:59:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague talked about housing and she mentioned the accelerator fund. I wonder if she is aware that the fund has been closed since August 18 of this year, so there is no further money coming forward and no further money announced until 2025-26.
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- Nov/22/23 4:30:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have some concerns with the legislation.
I was involved in the chemical industry and the nuclear industry. In strike situations, it can be unsafe to not have replacement workers or some people to come in to keep the facility running correctly.
I noticed that in the legislation, the federal unions are not included. Why is there a difference between what they want to impose on federally operated unions and on the public sector unions? Could the minister address these concerns?
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Mr. Speaker, I share a love of horses with the member opposite, but I have heard some concerns from individuals who need to transport their horses for equestrian events. These are show ponies and that sort of thing. They are concerned that if people are critical of how horses are transported today, they may be incorporated eventually into this bill.
Could he provide some comment for them?
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- Nov/2/23 4:08:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there was a lot of talk about hypocrisy in this debate, but maybe the member opposite could help me understand something.
For eight long years, we have been listening to the Liberals try to justify a carbon tax based on driving people to lower their carbon footprint, but then they take the tax off heavy oil and continue to punish people who are using lower-carbon fuels like propane, natural gas or electricity. Could the member help me understand this ridiculous policy the Liberals have come forward with?
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As we know, the Speaker issued guidelines to try to improve decorum in the House that says we are not to question the honesty of members in the House.
When talking about batteries, I provided the statistic from the Bureau of Transportation that said 3.5% of hybrid and electric vehicles have battery fires.
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Mr. Speaker, there has been a long history of the Liberal government making poor decisions by allowing Chinese Communist state-owned operations to take over operations. I will start with one, Anbang. Members will remember that then minister Navdeep Bains bought health care for seniors in B.C. It was a total disaster thereafter, and during the pandemic, the B.C. government had to step in and take over. For that reason, we do not need one individual making a decision on whether there should be a security review.
Does the member agree with the Conservative amendment that it would be better to have the Governor in Council or all cabinet members weigh in on those kinds of decisions?
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