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View Anthony Rota Profile
Lib. (ON)
Pursuant to subsection 28(9) of the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons, Appendix I to the Standing Orders, the hon. member for Don Valley East, who is the subject of a report of the Ethics Commissioner previously tabled in the House, has the right to make a statement. The member shall not speak for more than 20 minutes and there will be no period of questions and comments.
I now invite the hon. member for Don Valley East to address the House.
View Yasmin Ratansi Profile
Ind. (ON)
View Yasmin Ratansi Profile
2021-06-22 15:33 [p.8985]
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to comment on the recently released report of the Ethics Commissioner. My intention is not to comment on his conclusion and recommendations, but rather to help put the situation in context.
The past many months have been difficult, to say the least, for me and my family. They have indeed been a struggle, and I am grateful to family, friends, colleagues and individual Canadians who have supported me through this ordeal.
I would like to thank the thousands of supporters who have believed in me and encouraged me to stay strong. I would also like to thank the various multi-faith groups and ecumenical groups that I have worked with, the constituents of Don Valley East and the numerous well-wishers for their support. As well, I would like to thank the senators and MPs who have stood by me and guided me.
As I read through the report, something very obvious jumped out at me. It gave me reason to pause. With the encouragement of many Muslim scholars and ecumenical friends, I have decided to speak in the House.
The Ethics Commissioner's report states, “Ms. Khatri was not considered a family member for the purposes of the Code.” He says the evidence gathered is that “Ms. Khatri is in fact her foster sister", and that Ms. Khatri is neither my biological nor adopted sister.
He further goes on to state:
Ms. Ratansi did not appear to have furthered her own private interests or those of a member of her family since the Code does not include siblings in its definition of “family members.”
She submits that the documentary evidence provided shows that there is no legal bond between her and Ms. Khatri, including for the purposes of the By-law...[and the] relationship falls outside the applicable definitions in the Code and the By-law as presently worded.
Further on he states that the code is ambiguous and that “as a principle of natural justice, the applicable provisions should be given their narrow meaning.” He also states:
...if the provisions defining ‘immediate family’ are not clear and unequivocal, then any ambiguity should be resolved in favour of the person who is the subject of the inquiry.
I accept Ms. Ratansi’s...claim, as well as her argument that Ms. Khatri, as her foster sister, may not legally be considered as her sister or, by the same token, qualify as a member of her “immediate family” within the meaning of the By-law.
However, since I refer to Ms. Khatri as a sister in keeping with Islamic cultural practices and my father's personal wishes, he concludes that, despite all evidence to the contrary, she is a sister.
Many Muslim scholars, my interfaith community and members of the Muslim community have called me and asked me to provide some reference to Islamic practices.
What does Islam teach about the treatment of orphans?
Calling someone a “brother” or “sister” is a dignified way of referring to other Muslims who are not related, especially when dealing with orphans. My moral and ethical conduct is underpinned by these Islamic values and practices, and as such, I believe that when we house an orphan or a guest of any denomination, that human being is accorded the same dignity and treatment as that of a brother or sister and is addressed as such. This is particularly important in the case of orphans. It maintains their dignity and avoids social taboos.
Anyone who has interacted with Muslims knows that one is referred to as a sister or a brother as part of Islamic ethos. Therefore, my supporters felt that, within the current context of Islamophobia and a misunderstanding of Islam, I should provide some insight into Islamic norms.
The community members have also proposed that decision-makers at different levels of Parliament be sensitized to the culture, traditions and ethos of Islam, which, as an Abrahamic faith, is not well understood. I hope the information I impart will enable people to make informed decisions in the future.
To help understand how important it was for my father to inculcate the Islamic ethos, I will quote some Hadiths, or sayings, of the holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. He said, “The best house among the Muslims is one which contains an orphan who is well treated. The worst house among the Muslims is one which contains an orphan who is badly treated.”
The prophet goes on to say, “One who looks after the orphan, whether he is his relative or not, he and I would be together in paradise like this”, and he brought his index finger and middle fingers together.
I found similar sentiments being expressed in the Old Testament and the New Testament saying that God has mandated that caring for the orphan be an important act of charity and a holy duty.
In Islam, an orphaned child has a very important place. There are multiple verses of the noble Quran where the almighty Allah talks about treating orphans. One has to look at chapter 2, Surah Al-Baqarah; chapter 4, Surah An-Nisa; and chapter 17, Surah Al-Isra, where Allah enjoins upon believers to be kind to the orphan and look after them as their own children, to be a merciful father toward the orphan, and to be good to orphans and never treat them harshly.
In societies in which the values of the Quran are not observed, this concept may be foreign. It is therefore important to appreciate how Muslims view the treatment of orphans. Believers take the issue of the treatment of orphans very seriously as Allah prohibits subjecting orphans to harsh treatment and condemns those who mistreat them.
My late father instilled in us these very important Islamic values, including treating every human being as a brother or sister in faith or in humanity, showing compassion, always maintaining the dignity of another human being, and ensuring that we strive to improve the situation in life of orphans and bring them up as decent individuals. This is who I am. I will not demean anyone's dignity.
Calling Ms. Khatri a sister is a privilege that I cherish and that Islam has taught me. I would never give these Islamic principles up, no matter the misinformation, the slander and the media circus. Despite Ms. Khatri's agreeing to provide the Ethics Commissioner with proof of her relationship to me, I would like to personally apologize to her for the indignity this particular incident has caused her.
As for those who slander, there are many verses in the Quran and in all Abrahamic traditions that say that, for those who slander and throw ridicule, God will throw it back to them.
A further lesson provided is that of the eagle and raven. The raven is the only bird that dares to peck at the eagle's neck. However, the eagle does not react. It does not fight back. It does not spend time and energy with the raven. Instead, it opens up its wings and begins to fly higher in the sky. The higher the flight, the harder it is for the raven to breathe, and the raven eventually falls to the ground due to lack of oxygen.
We as parliamentarians face many ravens, internal and external. As we try to do our jobs to better the lives of our constituents and Canadians, let us be like the eagles and fly high and avoid the temptation of the slanderous ravens. I encourage members to stop wasting time with the ravens. Just take them to our height, and they will fade away. I have personally taken this advice very seriously. As I continue to serve my constituents, I know that the ravens will lose oxygen and fade away.
My sincere hope is that this short exposé to Islamic practices and cultures will enable us to be better parliamentarians and put our words into practice. We as Canadians claim diversity is our strength, but when faced with diversity, we have yet to learn how to incorporate it into our decision-making process. I hope that my speaking here today may in some small way contribute to changing this, and, in the future, that if anyone is ever in the same position as I was, they will be judged differently.
View Dane Lloyd Profile
CPC (AB)
View Dane Lloyd Profile
2021-06-21 17:59 [p.8881]
Madam Speaker, today we are debating a very unfortunately worded piece of legislation, Bill C-6, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding conversion therapy. I say it is unfortunate because this legislation fails to accurately define what conversion therapy is. It fails to provide clarity for Canadians, and I believe that it puts LGBTQ+ Canadians, children, parents, religious leaders and medical professionals at risk.
From the outset, I have been clear that I do not support conversion therapy, which involves coercive, involuntary and abusive practices that seek to change someone's sexual orientation. The evidence we have heard is clear: These practices have been harmful to those who have participated and they should not be allowed to continue.
The problem I have as a legislator is that the government has adopted a definition of conversion therapy that goes far beyond the scope of this harmful practice, and risks creating significant harms for families as a result. Going by the very definition the government has included in the legislation, we are asked to accept that even discouraging someone from “non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour or non-cisgender gender expression” is a criminal act of conversion therapy.
The Minister of Justice has tried to assure members of the House that honest discussions about sexuality will not be criminalized under this act, but it is very apparent that the wording has been left so vague as to open up the very real possibility that the courts could interpret honest discussions about sexuality as potentially criminal. Without further clarification, we are introducing confusion into the Criminal Code, which could potentially lead to many honest Canadians being subject to a criminal investigation for honest discussions about sexuality.
The legislation is also potentially very harmful to children under the age of 16, who I believe are unable to truly consent to life-altering surgeries and drug regimens to achieve gender transition. This legislation could lead to the criminalization of important information streams that are essential for people to make informed decisions regarding gender transitions. In the recent United Kingdom High Court decision of Bell v. Tavistock, the court ruled that it is highly unlikely that children under 13 could truly consent to the use of puberty blockers. The court also analyzed the considerable effects of these treatments and concluded that it was even doubtful that children under the age of 16 could understand the long-term risks and consequences of these treatments.
This legislation potentially undermines the ability of medical professionals to share critical medical information that may lead to discouraging a child from undergoing a gender transition. The consequences for these children, as we have seen in the Tavistock case, are permanent and tragic. This puts LGBTQ+ youth at significant risk, as they may not be given access to the necessary medical information and frank advice needed for them to make informed decisions.
I am also very concerned over the effect this legislation could have on families, the foundational building blocks of a free society. The inclusion of gender expression and penalties for the repression of non-cisgender behaviour creates risks for families that could result in bad outcomes for children.
It is not hard to imagine a young boy who wants to go to school dressed in female clothes. Many parents would force their child to wear what they believe are gender-appropriate clothes, and I believe in the majority of those cases the parents are doing it out of a genuine care and concern for the well-being of their child. When that child goes to school, perhaps he will tell the teacher that he believes he is of another gender and that his parents refuse to let him wear female clothing. If the practice of conversion therapy, as poorly defined by the government, is made a criminal offence, teachers would probably have little choice but to report the parents to children's services for allegations of emotional abuse. The ramifications of this outcome would be highly damaging to the welfare of children, families and society. The definition of conversion therapy must be clarified, and the rights of well-meaning parents who are caring for their children must be protected.
One result of this legislation is that it could lead to an infringement on the rights of LGBTQ+ Canadians to seek out services they may genuinely wish to access. In my exploration of this topic, I spoke with members of the LGBTQ+ community who, for religious or personal reasons, felt they did not want to engage in certain activities.
In some cases, members of these communities may have been struggling with issues of sex addiction or sexual practices that could lead to serious physical, emotional or spiritual consequences. Under this legislation, it would not necessarily be illegal to offer services that would be covered under the definition of “conversion therapy” to consenting adults. However, it would be very difficult for LGBTQ+ adults to find or access these services considering the effect of this legislation, which is essentially to make these services impossible to advertise and, by extension, to access in Canada.
This could even lead to cases of discrimination, whereby a heterosexual who is seeking counsel and support for dealing with sex addiction or harmful sexual behaviours will receive treatment, but an LGBTQ+ person would be turned away. I do not think the government intended to discriminate against LGBTQ Canadians, but I believe that it is a very real possibility under this legislation as it has been drafted. Again, this demonstrates why the flawed definition of “conversion therapy” is leading to confusion and significant potential adverse outcomes for LGBTQ Canadians.
Furthermore, the legislation's poor definition of “conversion therapy” could potentially lead to outcomes whereby well-meaning people with bonafide constitutionally protected beliefs will be made into criminals. When people are driven by a sincere desire to help those who come to them struggling with issues, they should not be treated as criminals for sharing their perspective. In the case of religious leaders who are approached by members of their congregation looking for guidance, I believe that under this legislation, the very act of even sharing passages of the Bible could be considered a criminal act of conversion therapy.
These provisions create the very real possibility of criminal sanctions against those who hold unpopular opinions in whole or in part because of those opinions. Punishing people for having unpopular opinions or beliefs is not a Canadian value. Given the religious views of conservative Muslims and Christians, among others, it is probable that those impacted by this legislation will be people who come from various faith backgrounds. This is potentially a case of enforcing religious discrimination.
Jail time is not an appropriate punishment for those who hold differing viewpoints, particularly religious views. The criminal penalties in this legislation, which include a maximum of between two and five years in prison, are on par with assault, abandonment of a child and infanticide. To treat people who hold constitutionally protected beliefs on par with those who kill children is completely disproportionate. I propose to the government that the provisions of this act are already addressed by human rights legislation and human rights tribunals. Given that we are debating competing rights, such as the equality rights of LGBTQ Canadians and the rights of freedom of expression and freedom of religion, it would be far better to delegate the adjudication of these difficult decisions to a body that is equipped to deal with them.
In cases where there is evidence of harm related to conversion therapy, such as forcible confinement, assault or kidnapping, the Criminal Code already has significant mechanisms to deal with these matters. In cases where there is a dispute between people over what is and what is not legitimate to say to somebody regarding their sexual orientation or gender identity and expression, it would be far better for the human rights tribunals to be investigating and making decisions on these matters rather than the criminal courts.
In closing, I have illustrated a number of reasons, including the poor definition, the potential for discrimination and the possibility that human rights tribunals could do a far better job of adjudicating these difficult decisions on competing rights, that I cannot support this legislation at this time. I believe that Bill C-6 would harm some LGBTQ Canadians, some families and society in general, which outweighs the potential benefits outlined in it. If the government is truly interested in working in good faith with concerned Canadians, it will commit to amending the definition in this legislation to provide clarity and protections for families, counsellors and medical professionals.
View Derek Sloan Profile
Ind. (ON)
Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise on this issue. I understand that the opinions to counter this bill are not as numerous as the opinions in favour of it, but they are nonetheless no less important.
When I was watching the debate ensue at committee, I was not a part of the committee, but as an interested parliamentarian, I watched all of it. The debate with respect to witnesses and so forth was rather even-handed. I did not count the number of witnesses who raised concerns, versus those who were in favour of it, but there were plenty of professionals and other individual people who brought up real situations which would be technically against the letter of the law according to this, but I think we would all agree are legitimate concerns. I just want to, as best as I can, address those today. Ten minutes is not sufficient for that, but I will do my very best. Of course, time is lacking to do much of what we need to do in this House.
I am in support of a ban on harmful counselling. There are many other jurisdictions, governments and cities around the world that have banned conversion therapy, but in a different way. They have different definitions that are far less broad. Of course, many of them, if not all, outside of a few, are not criminal in nature. I think it is problematic when we have a very broad definition that is also criminal because we want to ban harmful courses of practice, but we do not want to put people in jail who, frankly, do not deserve to be there.
As others have raised before, we want to be entirely certain that what we are targeting is, in fact, the evil that we are looking to target and not be overbroad in that ban. I am a little bit concerned that the assumptions that underpin this bill are faulty. When not all, but some of the assumptions are faulty we can be led astray. I just want to take issue with some of them.
The first is the myth that Bill C-6's definition of conversion therapy accurately identifies treatments that will be harmful and does so in a way that is not overbroad. I think, of course, that there are abusive practices out there and I think that we should aim to ban them, but what Bill C-6 has done here is to basically, in my view, when looking at the definition, outlaw any validated form of talk therapy for Canadians wishing to deal with various issues related to sexual attraction and gender identity. For those who would like to look into the proceedings of the committee, there are many examples of very credible witnesses who have gone through circumstances where they needed counselling to address certain things and their stories are credible. I do not have time to go through them all, but members can look at them.
I also want to say that with respect to transgender identification, particularly in children, there is a conversation going on globally right now that we are missing in this debate on Bill C-6.
In the U.K., the Government Equalities Office for example, is looking into whether the influence of social media and the discussion of gender identity with young people have contributed to the striking increase in referrals. When I get into some of the data here on the striking increase, I think we could all agree that there is something here that needs to be looked at. In the last 10 years, in the United Kingdom, which mirrors data from other countries, we have seen referrals to these gender clinics skyrocket. We have seen them increase by about 1,000% for boys and 4,400% for biological females.
These exponential rises, as I have said, are increasing in other western nations as well. We heard one of the members earlier speak about the United Kingdom High Court ruling with respect to Keira Bell. Keira Bell is one of the young women who was referred to the Tavistock institute, which is the clinic there that deals with gender referrals for gender identity. She was told that, if she went through the process, she would feel better about herself, so she went on to hormone blockers. She had a double mastectomy. She spent several years living, outwardly looking like a man, and she came to regret it. She was in her early twenties. She took the Tavistock institute to court saying she was not in a position where she could consent to this treatment, but was basically told that this would be the answer she needed to her life. It did not make anything better and, in fact, it made a lot of things worse.
The court ruled that people under 16 could likely not consent to puberty-blocking treatments. This bill does the opposite. This bill says that if someone wants to put their child on hormone blockers or if they want to basically put them on the road to surgery, that is totally fine, but to give them the wrong type of counselling could get them in trouble.
Some people would say that there is a clause in the bill that allows people to explore. However, the fact is we heard from very competent professionals in committee that this clause would not be enough, when there is potentially a five-year jail term hanging over people's head.
We heard from Ken Zucker, an internationally renowned expert in gender identity. He was basically working with our clinic here, CAMH, for decades. He is internationally renowned in this field. He has literally written the book on how to treat gender identity in children. He was accused of conversion therapy a few years ago. He was fired from his position, summarily. He had the wherewithal and the resources to take his employer to court. He won a substantial settlement. He cleared his name.
This is the type of thing that we are seeing, before Bill C-6. If this is the sort of witch hunt environment we are seeing before Bill C-6, it is going to increase significantly with Bill C-6.
Other than the U.K., we are seeing other countries in Europe, Sweden and Finland, have gone even a step further. They are moving away from what is called affirmation-only models of care, which I suggest is what Bill C-6 is, this is what other professionals in committee said about this bill. In Sweden and Finland, they are saying there must be a sober second look when a child identifies as transgender. A sober second look is the very thing that I believe Bill would criminalize.
Bill C-6 would criminalize parents who want to discourage their young child from transitioning, who would not be making life-altering decisions. I do not believe it is hateful for a parent to make a decision based on accurate medical facts.
When it comes to transgender identification in children, reliable data indicates the vast majority of kids who identify as another gender would grow out of it, meaning by the time they become an adult, many of up them, up to 80% according to some studies, will identify or accept the body they were born with. I think that given data like that, we really need to give a lot of room here for kids to explore but not to push them on this one-track mode of puberty blockers and eventually surgery. This is what is being criticized by people like Keira Bell.
I read an article in the National Post a year or so ago by Barbara Kay that highlighted the story of a young girl, JB is the acronym used, a child who is currently involved in an application in the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. This involves a teacher in an Ottawa area school who told this six year-old that girls do not exist. This six-year-old was a happy, loving young girl. I have a seven-year-old, a six-year-old and a five-year-old. The seven- and five-year-olds are girls.
This six-year-old became distraught, withdrawn and depressed. She did not understand what it meant. The parents asked the teacher if she could just cool it on some of these ethereal gender theory comments. The teacher and administration refused to do this, and the parents had to take that girl out of that school. They moved her to a different school, and have taken this particular school board to court.
The girl is once again a happy, well-adjusted young girl. It just goes to show that we have to be careful what we are putting into the minds of our young children. What the U.K. high court case found is that once these kids were put onto these drugs, the hormone blockers, it pretty much puts them on the road to surgery. It is kind of like a one-track street.
We need to be very careful. We need to have a sober second look in this country.
There are in fact many people, even in LGB communities, who are against this bill. I will read an email I received. It said:
Dear Mr. Derek Sloan,
As a Lesbian, I am asking you to investigate the use of gender identity in bill C-6. Approximately 75% of trans identifying youth will grow up to be gay or lesbian, if not affirmed and medically transitioned. This bill, as written, ensures that these gay and lesbian youth will be medically transitioned into straight adults.
She goes on to say:
Please protect vulnerable Gay and Lesbian youth from being told that they are“born in the wrong body” and told they should transition to feel “right” and to “fit in”. Sincerely...
View Anthony Rota Profile
Lib. (ON)
It is my duty to lay upon the table, pursuant to section 28 of Appendix 1 to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, a report from the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner entitled “Ratansi Report”, dated June 2021.
View Bryan May Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Bryan May Profile
2021-06-15 10:07 [p.8427]
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, regarding support programs for veterans, caregivers and families.
Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.
I would like to thank our clerk and all of the staff who have allowed us to continue our work virtually this past year.
View Marilyn Gladu Profile
CPC (ON)
View Marilyn Gladu Profile
2021-06-07 17:52 [p.8052]
Madam Speaker, it is good to have an opportunity to speak to Bill C-6. This is my first opportunity to speak to the bill. There has been a lot of conversation and I have listened intently to some of the debate.
I will say at the outset that in my riding I received a huge number of phone calls, emails and letters about the bill. Many people were very concerned. There have been petitions brought forward calling on the government to amend the definition in the bill.
Of all of the phone calls, emails and letters I received, 100% of the people in Sarnia—Lambton are opposed to forced conversion therapy. It is harmful: there is no debate about that, so the issues the people in my riding are raising have to do with the definition in the bill.
We know that the purpose of the bill is to ban conversion therapy, to make sure that children cannot be forced into conversion therapy, and to make sure that advertising or benefiting materially from conversion therapy is also banned. These are all good things. As I said, there is no dispute on the fact that everybody wants to ban conversion therapy.
The issue is the definition in the bill, which is overly broad. It would criminalize things that are not conversion therapy. The definition in Bill C-6 says that it is a “practice, treatment or service designed to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual, to change a person’s gender identity or gender expression to cisgender or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour.”
The concern coming forward from many people is about private conversations or preaching in the public square, or about counsel and discussions that people might have about people's sexuality or gender expression and issues such as these.
Many people are opposed to the definition that has been put forward. It is not just me here as a member of Parliament with a concern. Across the country, there are 12 million Catholics. The Catholic school boards across the country have come out against the definition in Bill C-6. Again, no one is saying that they do not want to ban conversion therapy, but they are concerned that this will infringe on their freedom of speech, on their freedom of religion and on their freedom to teach what they believe in their schools, and that they will end up going to jail for five years for exercising those very freedoms.
If we look at other people of faith in the country, we know that between evangelical Christians, Baptists, Muslims and the Jewish community, we are talking about another 12 million Canadians. All told, that is 24 million people and many groups have come out of them. Groups of lawyers, the Christian Legal Fellowship and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs all have come out with concerns about the definition in the bill.
That is 24 million Canadians out of 38 million Canadians, so we are not talking about a minority or a small group of individuals. We are talking about a lot of people who want to have their rights under the charter protected. We need to look into what is it they are calling on the government to do.
They are calling on the government to ban coercive, degrading practices that are designed to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. I think we would all agree that we want to do that. They want to ensure that no laws discriminate against Canadians by limiting what services they can receive based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The point here is that there are individuals, even within the LGBTQ community, who want to be able to receive whatever type of counselling they want. They believe that is their freedom, so they are concerned. Similarly, people who want to have conversations about their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression feel like it is their freedom to be able to do that.
We heard from a lot of parents who were concerned. They wanted to speak with their children about sexuality and gender and set house rules, for example, about sex and about relationships. They did not want the far-reaching definition in Bill C-6 to criminalize their ability to be parents and to set rules and boundaries about what should go on in the household according to them.
We want to allow free and open conversations about sexuality and sexual behaviour and not criminalize professional and religious counselling voluntarily requested and consented to. People have the right to seek whatever help they want. One hundred per cent of the people in Sarnia—Lambton, me included, are opposed to forced conversion therapy.
The Liberals knew that there was a problem with the definition. When the noise started to happen from faith groups and legal professionals who said this would infringe on people's freedom of speech, they published a clarification on their web page. This is the clarification as published:
These new offences would not criminalize private conversations in which personal views on sexual orientation, sexual feelings or gender identity are expressed such as where teachers, school counsellors...doctors, mental health professionals, friends or family members provide affirming support to persons struggling with their sexual orientation, sexual feelings, or gender identity.
That is a great clarification. That is exactly what people were concerned about and exactly what they wanted to hear. Unfortunately, however, judges have to judge by what is in the law, not what is on the government's web page. Therefore, we did what anybody would do. We said that this was a great clarification, that it should be put in the bill. Then it would be clear that we were banning conversion therapy, but we would not be criminalizing things that were private conversations, that were voluntary counselling, that were pastoral duties, all these things.
The Conservatives proposed that be done, but the Liberals would not put the clarification into the bill. Why not? If they really do not want to criminalize things that are not conversion therapy, these kinds of private conversations, which is what they said on their web page, then why would they not put it in the bill? That is something for Canadians to consider.
The Liberals actually accepted some amendments at committee, so they cannot say that they were not going to accept any amendments. They accepted amendments to even expand this to gender expression, so that made the bill even more problematic from the point of view of private conversations, counselling and all the things about which I have been talking.
There are conversion therapy bans in other jurisdictions. We have heard about some of them during the debate. There are other provinces that have conversion therapy bans. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan talked about how his municipality had a ban. They have all used certain definitions. Quebec, Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Yukon all have bans on conversion therapy and they have all used definitions, so that would be a good precedent to look at. The Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Israel and even Albania all have bans on conversion therapy. Therefore, it is worthwhile spending a few moments to talk about what definitions they used and what could we as Canadians learn from people who already implemented something and have not had issues.
Most of the people in the other provinces have used definitions from either the Canadian Psychological Association or the Canadian Psychiatric Association, recognizing that, in fact, it is not a bad thing to let the medical professionals, who understand what practices are acceptable and what practices are not, to define what conversion therapy is.
The Canadian Psychological Association says that, “Conversion therapy, or reparative therapy, refers to any formal therapeutic attempt to change the sexual orientation of bisexual, gay and lesbian individuals to heterosexual.”
The Canadian Psychiatric Association says that conversion therapy is, “a range of pseudo-scientific treatments that aim to change...sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual”.
Members can see the key words “formal therapeutic attempt” and “treatments that aim to change...sexual orientation” in these definitions. It is clear from this that they are not referring to conversations.
We know that in Israel, the definition is “any form of treatment or psychotherapy which aims to change a person's sexual orientation or to suppress a person's gender identity.” Again, it is a form of treatment or a form of psychotherapy.
In Germany's definition, it has to be shown that the individual “had not been deceived, coerced or threatened into taking part”, and I think that is important.
If we look at all the definitions I have presented, I think there are a lot of good options for the government to choose from. There are the ones that medical professionals have used, the ones that the provinces have used, and the ones that like-minded countries have used. All of these would be better than the definition that we have in the bill before us today.
Did I mention that 100% of the people who have spoken to me in Sarnia—Lambton are opposed to forced conversion therapy? I have to keep restating that because a lot of times when I am talking about the definition people think I am not against conversion therapy. No, 100%, everybody, including me and those I spoke to, is opposed to forced conversion therapy.
I will talk a little about my own experience and why I think it is clear that the Liberals and, in fact, the NDP want to criminalize things that are private conversations, things that people of faith are concerned about in this country.
When I was on the health committee, we studied LGBTQ health. Conversion therapy was one of the topics that came up during that discussion, and I shared some of my experiences. I was a youth leader for about 32 years in various churches, and over that time, I certainly had numerous conversations with young people about their sexuality. These are conversations that they initiated, and I do not think that anyone would be surprised about what a Baptist youth leader would say when they asked what I thought or what the Bible said about sexuality.
I mean, it is not a surprise. However, conversations were had, and I would say that of the individuals, some of them later came out gay, some of them came out straight, and the relationship with everybody was well established. We are still in contact, and the relationships are good, so there is not a problem. I talked about the benefit of being able to have those kinds of conversations for young people who are learning about their sexuality and trying to understand their feelings and bounce those ideas off of someone.
Do members know what the Liberal and NDP members said at health committee? They said that I should be in prison for having those conversations. I do not think I should be in prison. I really do not, but the fact that Liberal and NDP members thought I should be tells me that there is actually an intent on the part of some members opposite to actually criminalize things that are not conversion therapy. This is why I am very concerned and why I am asking to have the government change the definition.
I will share a story of one individual who came to me who was confused about his sexual orientation and had conversations with me when I was a youth leader. That individual has gone on to be a healthy member of the LGBTQ community, and he sees me regularly.
One day, he showed up at my house with a diamond ring. He had become a manager of jewellery store, and I do not know if he gets a discount or what, but he showed up with a diamond ring that he wanted to give me, along with a beautiful card thanking me for all of the mentorship that I had given to him over the years. He wanted me, every time I looked at the ring, to remember the positive impact that I had had on an individual.
I do not think those conversations are criminal conversations. I think they were helpful conversations. I do not think that anybody should be dictating to somebody what kinds of conversations they can have. I think that that is our freedom, that is something that is really important.
It has been apparent to me from Bill C-6, and even discussing these issues, that I have had a huge amount of harassment and a huge amount of hatred directed at me for questioning the definition in this bill. The same people who would put on a pink T-shirt for anti-bullying day, bullied me all day long on this issue. It is not always easy to stand up, but when I think about it, it is worth standing up for.
One of the reasons for that is because I have a good relationship with the LGBTQ community in my area. I attend their events. They invite me to their events. I go. I have been at the crosswalk reveal. I help their members the same way that I help all citizens. I have advocated for their issues, especially when we are working on LGBTQ health and making recommendations to the government about what we could do to help the community in areas like mental health where there are not adequate supports; things like supporting PrEP, which is paid for in some provinces and not in others; looking at all of the things that we can do and then standing up for members of the transgender community. My sister-in-law is transgender. There is a lack of support. These people are disproportionately targeted for violence. There is lots to be done there.
I am not coming to approach Bill C-6 from any position of being against any member of the community. I heard during the debate some members talk about how they wanted to uphold the LGBTQ rights over other rights. I do not want to be in a country where one group's rights are being taken away in order to give rights to another group.
I think we want to make sure we protect everybody's rights. I think we can do that in this bill. We have heard almost 100% agreement among members in the House that we want to ban forced conversion therapy. Other members and I have provided here today definitions that would be suitable, which would have unanimous support in this House. Again, there is this effort to not change the definition.
Twelve million people In Canada are Catholics. I want them to remember at election time that the Liberal government is trying to erode their freedom of speech and their freedom of religion. Their Catholic school boards are opposed to this and the government will not listen. If a person is a member of other faith communities like the Evangelical Fellowship, Baptists, Muslims and Jews, they are also having their rights eroded. I want them to remember that. There are 24 million of them in this country. If they all vote for their freedom of religion and freedom of speech, then the government will have to listen. That will be very important.
In the meantime, I have done a lot of thinking about this bill and whether it is worth the punishment of having all of the trolls out there not understanding that the issue with the bill is not about conversion therapy. Did I mention that 100% of the people who have spoken to me, and I, are opposed to forced conversion therapy? I hope I mentioned that.
There are men and women who fought for our country. In fact, yesterday was D-Day. People fought and died for our freedom of religion and our freedom of speech in this country. With that I am calling on the government to fix the definition in this bill. We want to criminalize conversion therapy but we do not want to criminalize other things. I hope that the government will recognize that it is not too late to uphold the rights and freedoms that people fought and died for.
View Ted Falk Profile
CPC (MB)
View Ted Falk Profile
2021-06-07 18:21 [p.8056]
Madam Speaker, it has been very interesting listening to this debate so far. I am happy for the opportunity to participate in this debate as well.
On December 3, Emmanuel Sanchez appeared before the justice committee to tell his story. He said, “I was around five years old the first time I noticed that I was attracted to the same sex.” As he grew older, he noticed the attraction more and more. He was bullied by the other boys at school. He was called crude names. As he sought an escape from the bullying, he found himself drawing near to the girls in a desire for safety and protection.
At times, these experiences, previous abuse and the hurtful words of others caused him considerable confusion. He told the committee he began to question his sexual orientation and gender identity. He hated himself. He hated being alive. He felt lonely and he did not feel safe confiding in anyone. He pursued a dark response to these feelings, but thankfully his suicide attempts failed.
As a teenager, Emmanuel began exploring gay culture. He wanted to understand his sexuality. He wanted to belong. At 16, he began to identify as gay and entered relationships with other men, but he feared rejection from family, friends and his faith community. While he knew that not everyone in his life agreed, he still described them as “very loving, caring and supportive of [him] as an individual.”
Despite Emmanuel's decision to embrace his truth, he described himself as “still very unsettled”. He made the choice to meet with a counsellor. She encouraged him to continue living the life he was living, yet week after week he still felt confusion and not peace. Feeling that he was not getting the support he needed, he made the choice to seek counselling from a pastor. This individual journeyed with him, neither affirming nor condemning decisions related to his sexual identity.
In time, he made a personal decision, his own choice, that he no longer wanted to continue this course that his life was on. He wanted to live his life in a way that was consistent with his faith and beliefs. Had it not been for the guidance and support that he freely sought out and received, he told the committee he did not think he would be breathing today and sharing his story.
This is not a story with a neat and tidy ending. Like every single one of us, Emmanuel is a unique and complex individual. He did not claim that counselling removed his same-sex attraction. He simply said it helped him determine the life he wanted to live.
Emmanuel asked the committee to do two things. He asked that parliamentarians acknowledge that people like him exist, and he asked that they create a well-written bill that truly bans coercive and abusive methods while respecting the individuals' freedom at any age to chose the type of support they want and their desired goal.
While we need multi-party co-operation to do the latter, I can at the very least recognize that Emmanuel and others like him exist. The problem with Bill C-6 is that it writes off people like Emmanuel. It suggests that the choices he has made and the support he has sought are wrong. It removes his agency and tells him that the government knows better than he does what kind of support he needs. Why? The definition of conversion therapy used in Bill C-6 is extremely broad. At present, it could not only capture instances where coercion or violence is present, but also capture something as simple as a good-faith conversation between a struggling teen and a trusted family member or professional.
Let me be very clear. If Emmanuel had described violent and coercive efforts that sought to change his sexuality against his will, this would be an entirely different situation. There is a reason government steps in to protect all of us from those who would cause such harm. It is wrong.
However, that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about a definition that could very well capture conversations. While many members want to pretend that no such problem exists, there were a myriad of witnesses appearing before the justice committee who had the same, or similar, concerns, individuals from the LGBT community, lawyers, medical professionals, clergy. Members might not agree with the view expressed, but when an issue is raised time and again by a diversity of voices, we should at least be paying attention.
Some witnesses warned of potential consequences should the bill not be amended.
Lawyer Daniel Santoro said:
The first problem is that the definition of conversion therapy is overly broad and imprecise. It's likely to capture situations that are not actual conversion therapy and cause confusion. The second problem is that the existing exception for medical treatment is too narrow, because it specifies only one lawful form of treatment: gender transition. The third and final problem is that the exception allowing exploration of identity is unclear and does not adequately protect charter freedoms.
Psychologist Dr. James Cantor said:
We will end up with clinicians...with a chill effect, simply unwilling to deal with this kind of issue; the service will become unavailable. Without a clear indication of what counts as an “exploration” and exactly what that means, anybody would have trouble going into this with the kind of confidence that a clinician needs in order to help their client.
I choose not to believe the Liberal government set out to restrict the choices available to Canadians based on their sexual orientation, but that is now exactly what will happen should this bill pass. It is not just these folks who will face limitations. Bill C-6 fails to affirm the right of parents to raise and educate their children in accordance with their beliefs. Whether we are talking about religious beliefs or a secular world view, the state has a duty to respect the values that parents choose to instill in their children.
This is not about allowing violent or coercive actions. The law should never protect those committing such acts against children, but the ambiguity created by this bill creates the fear that parents may not be able to set house rules about sex and relationships. In essence, parents of straight children would not be under the microscope, but parents with children questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity could feel as though journeying with their child through this period could result in criminal penalty. The fact the bill could restrict some parents from fully supporting their child and not others is an issue.
Family physician Dr. Jane Dobson told the justice committee:
My question is: Why is the government telling people what sexual or gender goals they should have? They are effectively doing this with Bill C-6, as the bill broadens the definition of conversion therapy from abusive and coercive therapeutic practices to also include talk therapy, watchful waiting, interpersonal conversations and spiritual practices, widening the net to now potentially criminalize parents, spiritual leaders and medical professionals for simply [raising] tested and tried therapy to help an individual reach their self-directed goals.
These are real concerns that many in this place have chosen to ignore in the name of political expediency. It is political expediency. We know this bill was reintroduced after the Liberal decision to prorogue Parliament. It was originally thought cleared from the agenda. The concerns I have mentioned were flagged to the government at that time, so when it later reintroduced Bill C-6, it could have been improved to ensure wide support, but it was not. The justice minister was fully aware of the changes he could have made to better this bill. He chose not to. It would have made sense indeed.
After the first introduction of the legislation, the Department of Justice put the following disclaimer on its website:
These new offences would not criminalise private conversations in which personal views on sexual orientation, sexual feelings or gender identity are expressed such as where teachers, school counsellors, pastoral counsellors, faith leaders, doctors, mental health professionals, friends or family members provide affirming support to persons struggling with their sexual orientation, sexual feelings, or gender identity.
Why did the department feel the need to clarify if the definition of conversion therapy in the bill is any good? If anything, the only clarity brought on by this clarification is that the bill is in need of much more work. The reality is that a disclaimer on the department's website is not the same as legislation. That is why Conservatives sought to find common ground by proposing reasonable amendments that would bring real clarity to the legislation. These amendments were focused to ensure that voluntary conversations between individuals and their teachers, school counsellors, pastoral counsellors, faith leaders, doctors, mental health professionals, friends or family members would not be criminalized.
Finding a balance between protecting individuals from violence, abuse or coercion while maintaining free and open conversation is a balance I think most Canadians would appreciate. Unfortunately, despite the clear indication the Liberals are aware of the bill's ambiguity, they refuse to support these amendments. In free societies, governments must leave space for individual citizens to make decisions about their lives. This includes the space to seek counsel on personal matters, such as one's sexuality.
Canadians can expect their government to respect the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including the freedoms of conscience, religion, thought, belief, opinion and expression. Like Emmanuel, those with deeply held convictions, who may want to seek advice and support on questions of sexuality, deserve the right to do that. No one should be be able to be told by the government that seeking guidance, asking questions or helping to reconcile faith and sexual attraction is off limits to them.
I stated earlier that Emmanuel had asked parliamentarians to do two things, which were to acknowledge the people who can exist and to create a well-written bill that protects from violence while respecting the rights of individuals to receive their chosen support. Unfortunately, I find that Bill C-6 fails on both points, and as long as it fails Canadians like Emmanuel, I will not support the bill.
View Pam Damoff Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, to begin, I would like to acknowledge that I am speaking today from the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, from my home in the riding of Oakville North—Burlington.
One week ago today, I was shocked and saddened to learn of the discovery of the remains of 215 children at the former Kamloops residential school. I was outraged that these children were stolen and never able to return home to the families and communities that loved them.
The tragedy of Canada's residential school system was born from colonialism and systemic racism. We acknowledge the lasting and damaging impact of residential schools. It is very important to learn about and remember the past. The history of residential schools was not taught when I was a student. Reflecting on this, it is because Canada did not think it was doing anything wrong. One hundred and fifty thousand indigenous children were ripped from their parents' arms and sent to residential schools. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission documented the deaths of more than 6,000 indigenous children as a result of residential schools. The true figure could be much higher, and Canada did not think it was doing anything wrong.
I want to share some of the details of the Kamloops residential school, so that we know and remember the truth of this wicked institution. It opened on May 19, 1890. It was situated on the Kamloops Indian Reserve No. 1 close to town. In the late 1940s and 1950s, the school was thought to be the largest residential school in Canada. The Kamloops school was one of at least 22 residential schools in British Columbia mandated by the federal government and run by various religious orders. Attendance at the school became mandatory for indigenous children in the 1920s, but many parents resisted the laws and tried to hide their children from Indian agents. Children at the school came from all over British Columbia.
On Tuesday, the Minister of Indigenous Services read out loud in the House the names of some of the children known to have died at the Kamloops residential school so that they would not be forgotten. It is of the utmost importance that we learn more details about what happened to the children at the Kamloops school. It is something we owe to the families, as learning the truth of this tragedy is necessary for closure and to further healing and reconciliation. Families deserve to lay their children to rest. We need truth before reconciliation, and there is still much work on this shared road.
Every single person in Canada has an obligation to work toward reconciliation and decolonizing Canada. We must do this together. Our government is committed to continuing to take action to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance reconciliation across Canada. This government is committed to supporting survivors and their families, as well as communities, to locate and memorialize children who tragically died because of residential schools.
The policy of forcing children into these types of schools was meant to break family and community bonds. Children who attended the schools were not allowed to speak their indigenous languages or express their culture: In fact, the system was designed to erase indigenous culture. The impact has lasted for generations, leading to a breakdown of indigenous communities and families and alienating younger generations from cultural traditions, resulting in deep pain and intergenerational trauma.
We have offered our support in collaboration with the B.C. First Nations Health Authority to respond to needs over the coming weeks and months. We also know that communities across the country will need supports, and we are committed to working with indigenous leaders to be there in partnership with them.
I invite and urge all survivors and family members to call the National Indian Residential School Survivors Crisis Line if they need support. This line has been set up to provide emotional and crisis referral services to former residential school students. It is available 24 hours a day at 1-866-925-4419.
All indigenous peoples can access the Hope for Wellness Help Line. They can chat with a counsellor on its website at www.hopeforwellness.ca, or by phoning 1-855-242-3310.
The Indian residential schools resolution health support program offers access to elders, traditional healers and other community-based cultural supports. It also offers emotional supports, professional mental health counselling and help with the cost of transportation to access services. These services are available to eligible individuals regardless of their indigenous status or where they live.
We recognize that there will be an ongoing need for access to mental wellness supports and services relating to childhood and intergenerational trauma.
Former students of Indian residential schools and their family members can also count on the support of more than 60 mental wellness community-led teams that provide culturally safe mental health services and clinical supports to 344 first nations and Inuit communities.
We are working in close partnership with the Government of Nunavut and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated to respond to the mental wellness needs of Inuit in the territory. Through this partnership, the government is contributing $224.5 million over 10 years through the Nunavut wellness agreement for community wellness initiatives.
In 2020-21, $19.9 million in funding is being allocated to the Government of Nunavut and community organizations for mental wellness teams and other mental wellness services. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Canada is providing additional support so indigenous communities can adapt and expand mental wellness services.
We recently proposed to provide $597.6 million over three years for a distinctions-based mental health and wellness strategy with first nations, Inuit and the Métis Nation that includes continuing supports for former residential school students and their families. This will build on existing strengths, help address gaps and be responsive to current, emerging and future needs.
Wellness is not just about our mental and physical health, it is also about the vitality of our communities. To this end, we are working with indigenous leadership and communities on the implementation of the act respecting first nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families, which affirms and recognizes indigenous peoples’ jurisdiction over child and family services to reduce the number of indigenous children in care.
This will put in place what indigenous peoples across this country have been asking of governments for decades: that their jurisdiction over child and family services be affirmed so that they can decide what is best for their children and their families. It also establishes national principles such as the best interests of the child, cultural continuity and substantive equality.
As of last month, there are 29 indigenous governing bodies that represent 67 indigenous groups and communities that have given notice to Indigenous Services Canada that they will exercise their inherent right to jurisdiction under the act.
Through my role as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Services, I have participated in discussions with some of these indigenous communities that are engaged in coordination agreement tables. Each table is unique and may require a different plan of action, including capacity-building, new programming or whatever the community decides is needed. We are also working with provincial and territorial leadership to ensure smooth transition. These conversations have demonstrated to me the essential nature of this work.
Our government is committed to continuing this process, which is why budget 2021 proposes to provide $73.6 million over four years to support the implementation of the act. This funding will allow us to recognize our shared goal of increasing the number of communities exercising jurisdiction in relation to child and family services and decreasing the number of children in care.
In addition to our commitment to mental health and child and family services, we are not wavering from our pledge to provide fair and equitable compensation for first nations children who were removed from their homes, families and communities. We will compensate survivors and will work to ensure that no child ever has to go through this treatment again. We are committed to providing indigenous children with access to necessary supports and services at home, in their communities and with their families.
I will close by saying the tragic discovery in Kamloops is a reminder of why the work of truth and reconciliation is vital for our country.
View Pam Damoff Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, my colleague gave a very heartfelt speech today.
The other night during debate, the member for Northwest Territories said, “It is time to move forward. It is time to take action. We have to start moving and get all the TRC recommendations done.” We all agree with that, and the member mentioned it in his speech.
The TRC had a full section on child welfare, and I know the hon. member was part of the last Parliament when we passed Bill C-92. In 2020, the government allocated $542 million for capacity building and agreement tables to implement Bill C-92. There was additional funding in budget 2021.
I just wonder what the hon. member's thoughts are on the importance of implementing Bill C-92 so that we do not have children being taken out of their communities and away from their families, and on returning the inherent right to indigenous communities to look after their own children and provide—
View Alistair MacGregor Profile
NDP (BC)
Madam Speaker, yes, I was in the previous Parliament when we debated that legislation, and I will admit that some of the measures announced in previous budgets were beneficial.
However, if the member were to talk to Dr. Cindy Blackstock about those measures, I think the member would see that she welcomed them, but she says they do not go far enough. We still have a case in which the government has not yet fully complied with the orders of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, and that is a real problem.
Therefore, I would ask the parliamentary secretary to build upon what has been done already and realize that much more is needed to be done. I hope she will find it in her heart, when this motion comes to a vote, to join members of the opposition and present a unanimous voice of the House on this particular motion.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Madam Speaker, today I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Vancouver Centre.
Kwe. Unusakut. Tansi. Hello. Bonjour. I want to acknowledge that I am speaking today from the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.
Indigenous communities, families and friends are hurting. Emotions are high, and the pain is real. For indigenous people, the events this week may not be a surprise. It does not make it less of a shock or less painful. There is not a single community that is not grieving today. The news that came from Kamloops last week has opened up wounds that were not closed, even if people thought they were closed.
Our thoughts and actions at this time must support the communities and families in recovering the truth, so that they could continue to heal. We cannot heal without the truth, as painful as it is. It is on the hearts and minds of all Canadians, and frankly, if it is not, it should be.
Over the past week, people have shared piercing and atrocious anecdotes that really show what kind of places those facilities were, and indeed the testimonials today from members in the House certainly reinforces that. I thank them for their testimonials.
I was reminded by a faith healer friend who I rely heavily upon that, for example, the Mohawk Institute in Six Nations had an orchard and had apples, but the kids could not eat them. They were punished if they did. There were chickens, but the kids could not take the eggs because the eggs were sent to market. The only time they would get one was at Easter. Calling those places schools is to use a euphemism. They were labour camps, and people starved.
I know people are eager to get answers as to what the federal government will do, what we will do nationally and what Canada will do. Let me say this clearly, we will be there for indigenous communities that want to continue the search for the truth.
The reality is that this is something that will be dictated to us by the communities that are affected, as set forth notably in call to action 76 in the body of the Truth and Reconciliation Report. We will be there for communities. We do have to respect the privacy, space and mourning period of those communities that are collecting their thoughts and putting together their protocols as to how to honour these children. They have asked us specifically for that. We will do that, and Canadians must respect that.
Yesterday, the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations announced $27 million in funding to support the ongoing NCTR and to implement calls to action 74 to 76. This will fund support for survivors, their families and communities across Canada to locate and memorialize children who died or went missing while attending residential schools.
We also have to look one another right in the eyes and face the fact that the general public either misunderstands or is ignorant of certain chapters of our history, especially the most painful ones. This truth is hard to bear, particularly for the indigenous communities affected and for the individuals and families who are reliving very painful parts of their own history or that of their parents, cousins, uncles and aunts.
As leaders, politicians and members of Parliament, it is also our role to educate and contribute to that education. In light of what we have learned this week, it is once again clear that many more truths remain to be uncovered. Explanations are needed. Too often, that explanation comes from indigenous peoples themselves. Too often, the job of educating Canadians has fallen to them, and, too often, we do not transmit that knowledge to our children. Fortunately, children are now learning about this in school, and they are telling us the harsh truth about what happened. Placing this burden on indigenous peoples is not fair. It should not be their burden to carry.
I repeat: We will be there for indigenous communities and families. We will support the search for truth and we will implement calls to action 72 to 76, among others, with an initial investment of $27 million. This funding will be distributed according to the priorities and requests of the communities themselves.
The government's role is to financially support communities in their grieving and healing process, as the wounds are still very fresh in this case. The communities will decide themselves whether they want to proceed with more extensive searches or not.
In this particular case, we spoke directly with indigenous leaders in Kamloops and the surrounding communities to offer mental health and security services, because emotions are running high, but we will respect the space they asked us to respect.
Obviously, this is painful for families who may have had uncles, aunts or cousins who disappeared and were never heard from again, but the key point here is that the Government of Canada will be there with the necessary support and funding for the communities that need it.
One of the many things being highlighted and underscored this week, in the midst of the heartache in Kamloops, is that indigenous children belong with their families and communities. Kids belong at home, where they can be with their relatives and elders; where they can learn their nation's culture, language and traditions; and where they can be given back all that was taken from, their parents and their grandparents. Bill C-92 affirms this inherent right. I would note that this basic right is one that the rest of us take for granted.
All of us share the responsibility to ensure this happens. The number of indigenous children who have been taken away in care in recent years far exceeds the number who attended residential schools. That should set in. In 2016, more than 52% of children in foster care in Canada were indigenous, and they account for 7% of the child population. The truth is that for children taken away from their community, their connections to their cultures and traditions were impacted too.
Fixing a broken system requires long-term reforms. The Government of Canada is determined to eliminate and continues to eliminate these discriminatory policies and practices against indigenous children, and we are doing it hand-in-hand with indigenous partners. The Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families, which responds to calls to action, is a new way forward. Indigenous governments and communities have always been empowered to decide what is best for their children, their families and their communities, and the act provides a path for them to fully exercise and lift up that jurisdiction.
As a result of this work, led by indigenous communities, two indigenous laws are now enforced: the Wabaseemoong Independent Nations law in Ontario and the Miyo Pimatisowin Act of the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan. In each of these communities, children will have greater opportunity to grow up immersed in their culture and surrounded by loved ones. They will be welcomed home.
We are moving closer to achieving our shared ultimate goal of reducing the number of indigenous children in care. Systemic reform of the child and family services system is one important step. Compensation for past harms is another.
Since the CHRT issued its first order for Canada to cease its discriminatory practices in 2016, we have been working with first nations leaders and partners to implement the tribunal's orders.
We have the same goal of fair and equitable compensation. Let me be clear that no first nations children will be denied fair and equitable compensation. Children should not be denied the products or services they need because governments cannot agree on who will pay for them. It is why, via Jordan's principle, we have funded approximately $2 billion in services, speech therapy, educational supports, medical equipment, mental health services and so much more. This is transformative and the right thing to do.
The government is not questioning or challenging the notion that first nations children who were removed from their homes, families and communities should be compensated. We are committed to providing first nations children with access to the necessary supports and services, but it is important to obtain clarity on certain limited issues, which is why we brought the judicial review forward. We need to focus on what is really important, ensuring fair and equitable compensation of first nations children affected by the child and family services program and that first nations children have access to the supports they need when they need them.
I would remind the House that there are also two competing class actions that deal essentially with the same group of children. We are, nevertheless, in discussions with the parties to the various cases, but those discussions must remain confidential out of respect.
Finally, no court case can achieve the transformative change that we need to achieve as a country.
As the recent discovery in Kamloops reminds us once again, every child in this country should have the support and services they need to thrive.
Removing a child from their family or community must be an absolute last resort. We need to do the work to change the system and ensure that every person is treated equally and fairly, without prejudice or injustice, and with respect and dignity. It is our responsibility as a government and as Canadians who want to make Canada a better place for everyone.
We cannot change the past, but we can learn from it and find ways to right some historic wrongs, to acknowledge what never should have happened and do everything we can to ensure a better future.
Meegwetch. Nakurmik. Masi cho.
View Arif Virani Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Arif Virani Profile
2021-06-03 16:55 [p.7924]
Mr. Speaker, let me start by congratulating you on your 10-year anniversary in that chair as Deputy Speaker and your distinguished service as a parliamentarian in this chamber, respected by every one of your 337 colleagues.
I want to speak today about something that is critically important, not just now but all of the time, that has come to the forefront given this opposition day motion that we are discussing, and that is the events at Kamloops in terms of the shocking discovery of the mass grave of 215 children who belonged to the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation.
After hearing about it on the radio, and the sheer magnitude, my first reaction was simply one of horror, and I had to explain to my kids why I was reacting the way that I was.
My second response was as someone who came to this chamber as a lawyer who has some experience with international law, particularly with Rwanda at the UN war crimes tribunal. I thought of how we usually associate mass graves with foreign conflicts and not with Canada. Then I started to think of what we have done vis-à-vis indigenous people of this land and how sometimes it is not much different in terms of the overt assimilation that we have propagated against them, and when the declared policy of the government at the time was to “take the Indian out of the child”.
I also reacted as a parliamentarian who has not been in this chamber as long as you, Mr. Speaker, but for six years now, who feels like he has gathered some understanding of the situation. I had gone through the calls to action, but I was still shocked and surprised. However, we do not have to dig too far to realize that there were a lot of people who were not surprised, and a lot of those people are indigenous people of this land, particularly elders.
This led me to the question of how we value knowledge and recognize its legitimacy, and how this Eurocentric idea has been passed down that unless something is reduced to writing or photographic or video evidence, it probably did not happen. This is a bias that we bring to the table that we have to acknowledge. I thank a constituent of mine who wrote to me about the issue of Canadians, including Canadian parliamentarians, who need to learn to embrace oral histories as legitimate histories so that we can truly come to terms with the magnitude of what we are dealing with.
I also reacted as a father, as I mentioned, when I heard the news that morning on CBC Radio while my children were eating cereal in front of me. My boys are very dear to me. I mean, everyone's children are dear to them. My wife, Suchita, and I are raising two young boys, Zakir and Nitin, and we try and do right by them. However, it one thing for me to imagine my children being removed from my home against my will, but it is another thing entirely to imagine them never returned to me and to never know their whereabouts, which is exactly what has transpired over and over again with indigenous families of this land. This is the true tragedy that needs to be dealt with and understood, and it needs to be accounted for, which can only start with a very strong, historical, educational exercise.
There are some people in this House who are younger than I am, which is the tender age of 49, who had the benefit of actually being educated on this. However, I went through every level of school, including post-secondary education and through law school, and never once was I instructed about the history of the residential school legacy in this country, which is quite shocking for a guy who graduated law school in 1998.
I know that people are now getting that education, and that is important. I also know that people are taking steps, and we heard the member for Kings—Hants talk about what was happening in his community in Nova Scotia. In my community of Parkdale—High Park in Toronto, there was a vigil just yesterday about this very issue, which raised awareness, and that is important. I thank my constituent, Eden, for organizing the vigil. She took the reins on doing so, because she felt so strongly about it. I took my oldest son to that event, because I wanted him to be there to understand, to learn, and to see how others were reacting to what we had learned on Friday morning.
It is one thing to read stories, and I do read him stories, particularly the orange shirt story of Phyllis Webstad, the woman who wore that infamous orange shirt, which was removed from her at that residential school. She is also a member of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation. However, it is more than just the stories, and I wanted him to get that. It is not just past or distant history, it is still unfolding around us, which is very important, because we should not deem it relegated to the past. It was also important for him and for me to see the turnout, the number of young people who were there, and to hear the demands, and there were many.
There were many directed at the federal government, the government that I represent. There was outrage, shock and horror, but it was important for me to hear the demands. It was important for my son to hear the demands. If I could summarize it, which is difficult to do, but they want justice, accountability and transparency and they want it now, not at some date to be determined in the future.
I hear that sentiment and I very much share that sentiment. I say that in all sincerity in this chamber for those who are watching around the country. In particular ,what I think is most critical is just having a sense that if this happened to the Tk'emlúps First Nation, in Kamloops at that former school, we know that there are 139 sites around this country where it may very well have happened there as well. That forensic investigation, that radar investigation must be done and it must be done immediately.
I know that we have dedicated as a government almost $34 million to address some of the calls to action we have heard extensively about during the course of today's debate. If more money is needed, it must be provided forthwith. That is what I am advocating for.
Others have also said to me just get on with every single one of those calls to action, get it over with now. It has been far too long. I hear that outrage and that sense of urgency. I pause because I know in looking at the calls to action that some of them relate to us at the federal level, us as parliamentarians in the House of Commons. Some of them relate to provincial governments, city governments. Some of them relate to institutions and school boards. Some of them even relate to foreign entities.
I, for one, would be dearly appreciative to see a formal papal apology. That is call to action 58. That is a call to action that the Prime Minister squarely put to the Pope on a visit to the Vatican and that has not yet been acceded to. I think that stands in stark contrast to what we see with other denominations of Christian churches in this country that have formally accepted and apologized for the role that the church played in terms of administering many of these residential schools. That needs to be forthcoming and Canadians are demanding that, rightfully so.
Others I believe have been met at least in part if not fully. I count myself as very privileged to have served in the last Parliament when I was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Heritage. We worked on and co-developed with first nations, Métis and Inuit leaders what became Bill C-91, Canada's first ever Indigenous Languages Act.
I personally count that as one of my most significant learning opportunities as a parliamentarian. It took that lawyer who was not educated about this stuff in law school and it turned him into a parliamentarian who was dealing directly with first nations, Inuit and Métis leaders about the difficulties of not having that connection to one's language and what that does to one's psyche, one's level of mental anxiety, one's connection to one's culture.
We have remedied that. It speaks directly to TRC calls to action 13, 14 and 15. We have also made great strides with respect to indigenous child and welfare legislation. That was Bill C-92 in the last Parliament. The most important piece there is that the norm now based on that legislation is if we must remove a child, then we keep them within their group, within their first nation, among their community and only as an absolute last resort would they be removed.
We have worked on UNDRIP with members of the opposition parties including the NDP. We have worked on Bill C-22, which I count myself privileged to have worked on as parliamentary secretary to the current Minister of Justice. It deals with curing the overrepresentation of indigenous people in this land. Much more remains to be done. I do not discount that and it needs to be done quickly. We need to do that work together.
I welcome this debate. I welcome the discussions we have been having literally all week, not just today about this important topic, because they are critical. I do feel at my core that we will only gather sufficient momentum when all Canadians are talking about this stain on Canada's history and Canada's legacy. That is critical to see. We have seen it over the course of this pandemic where people, non-white and white, people who are racialized or not racialized have taken up the call for addressing systemic racism and systemic discrimination in wake of George Floyd and in this country people like Regis Korchinski-Paquet.
I am seeing that again now. I am seeing that massive outreach now and that is a good thing because it gives us momentum. It gives us the initiative to keep working hard at these issues and to keep focused on these calls to action in addressing the needs of indigenous people, but always in a manner that is led by indigenous people and done on their terms, because gone must be the paternalism where Ottawa dictated to indigenous people the appropriate remedies. We must be listening and responding.
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
Madam Speaker, I agree with much of what the member said.
I followed the committee proceedings closely on this bill and noted with great respect the interventions of the Bloc member for Rivière-du-Nord. He also expressed some concerns about the definition as it was amended. It was not only Conservative members, it was also the Bloc member on the committee. He voted against an amendment from the NDP to add in gender expression. Here is what the member of the Bloc said at committee:
Let's say that, in the morning before going to school, an eight-year-old boy decides to wear a dress. His mother might say yes, or she might say no. Either way, if we use that definition, it would be a criminal offence for a mother to tell her son that she does not want him to wear a dress and to force him to wear pants. That's the definition we are about to adopt, and I see a problem with it.
That is a direct quote from the Bloc member for Rivière-du-Nord, who represents the Bloc on that committee, who had concerns about the definition and who listened to the witness testimony. The same Bloc member proposed a motion to delay clause by clause so the written briefings submitted could be reviewed by the committee.
I want to ask the member if she is in alignment with her Bloc colleague in terms of having some concerns about the reference to gender expression and other aspects of the definition and if she shares her colleague's concern about the lack of consideration of written briefs.
View Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.
We have stated, explained and spelled out what is included in the proposal we are studying today several times. The role of a committee is to go into detail and analyze the bill from top to bottom in order to be able to take action. As I clearly stated in my speech, we must make it illegal for parents and religious organizations to force individuals to undergo conversion therapy.
That is the least we can do. For now, it is clear that this practice must stop. We read it again earlier. Once the individual reaches adulthood, they will be able to make a voluntary choice. It is clearly indicated in the bill that that is the offence.
The other members are trying to stretch things out so that the bill dies on the Order Paper—
View Rachel Blaney Profile
NDP (BC)
Madam Speaker, I am here today to speak on Bill C-6, a bill on conversion therapy and the sometimes deadly impacts it has.
I cannot help but take a pause before I start my speech to acknowledge the deep grief and pain across Canada due to finding the 215 bodies of children in a mass grave at a school in our country. Many elders have said to me that the first part of dealing with this is making sure we support those beautiful babies in moving safely to their ancestors' arms, so I am here in the House of Commons wanting to say we see these precious children and that their loved ones are fighting to make sure they are never silenced again. I say, “Please go home to the loving arms of the people there waiting and know we will continue here to do the work that must be done.” We love them, we see them; we are telling them to go home and be surrounded by love.
For too long, Canada has not listened to residential school survivors and to the loved ones of survivors who have told us again and again of the horrific things they witnessed. Value is a key word today. Enough fighting kids in court. They do not get a second childhood. How many indigenous children should lose their childhood? Enough making indigenous communities choose between clean drinking water and other essential needs. Why would anyone be asked to choose one or the other? Enough make indigenous people fight for basic human rights, rights every other Canadian receives.
Enough paternalistic mechanisms so embedded in the departments of Indigenous Services and Crown-Indigenous Relations that indigenous communities continue to be underserved and under-resourced, and self-determination is blocked every step of the way.
The ugliness of our colonial history is hard to hear. However, it is harder to live, so I encourage all non-indigenous people to listen hard and then work toward reconciliation as an ally, which really means following and amplifying the voices of indigenous people and communities in Canada.
I want to thank my granny, Minnie, who went to Lejac Residential School. She came back broken and working hard to build something better. To my amazing family, who works so hard every day to bring the culture back and to share it with the children, I see their work and I am so grateful.
I also want to say to my niece Daisy, who today, after my sister explained why we are all wearing orange, said to her mom, “Please, don't let them take me to residential school” that we are all going to work so hard, baby, to make sure that never happens. What a relief it is that, unlike indigenous parents and family members in the past, we do not have to be arrested or beaten just for the right to protect her.
Now I will go back to Bill C-6, which is such an important bill.
I believe love is love and that our sexuality and gender identity and expression is a spectrum and celebrating everyone on it is a key point of building community and our country. I am also a parent and a grandparent. I remember when I had my first baby and the overwhelming honour I felt at knowing this being was a gift to me, that my job was to do one thing, which was to do my very best every day to love them exactly the way they are. It is the most beautiful practice of parenthood, in my opinion, that of unconditional love.
Sometimes I struggle with my kids. They are themselves, and getting to know them, as they get to know themselves, can sometimes be challenging. When it is hard, I remind myself my number one job is to be their love foundation and that when they go into the world and face the challenges that are there for them, when they look at me they see someone who loves and believes in them.
I often tell my children they are the best part, because for me they are. Grandchildren, well, that is just a whole other level of being a love foundation.
This is what I think of when I speak today about a bill that would specifically criminalize subjecting a minor to conversion therapy, transporting a minor out of Canada for the purpose of conversion therapy, subjecting adults to conversion therapy against their will and the business of conversion therapy aimed at both minors and adults. This would include criminalizing advertising the service and charging for or profiting from the service.
Let me just say I am absolutely horrified anyone has been supported or paid to try to convince any soul that who they are is not okay. Teens who are exploring transitioning are being subjected to body-affirming therapy that attempts to tell them they should love the body they were born with instead of affirming they can be whoever they want to be and feel themselves to be at their core.
Who are we to tell anyone, much less a growing teenager, to accept their body as it is when that teen knows their body does not match their gender identity and they have felt wrong in their bodies their whole lives? Body-affirming therapy is wrong and must be included in this ban on conversion therapy.
The reality is that we live in a culture where hate toward the SOGIE, or sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, community still happens all too often. Young people know who they are but are terrified that, if they say anything, they will lose their love foundation. Some do. Some souls say who they are and they lose their foundation. For those beautiful people, we must keep speaking about this. They need to know that it gets better, and that there are many people out there with love in their hearts waiting to love and accept them.
Any form of conversion therapy, in my opinion, is deadly because it is trying to change someone's wholeness and their being. That is a wound I cannot imagine. Some are told that who they are at their very core is wrong, and are left by the very people who were meant to love them. I want to put on the record that members of the SOGIE community do not need to be fixed, and that it is impossible to change someone's sexual orientation, gender identity or expression through counselling or aversion therapy because there is nothing wrong with them. We know that these attempts at conversion therapy, which are really just torture, and any kinds of attempts to alter a person's sexual orientation, gender identity or expression are harmful. All acts of homophobia and transphobia lead to depression, social isolation, self-harm and even death by suicide.
An earlier speaker on this bill said that the SOGIE community is resilient. Despite the hate in the world, this community is resilient. I have seen this. The many annual Pride events in my riding are a great example. They are loving and powerful. I am so grateful for this. I want to stop the hate in Canada that this community has to be resilient against.
I hope that by getting this bill through the House and the Senate we shut down this horrific practice that harms people so deeply. I hope we all work toward finding love for one another. Life is beautiful, but it is also hard. Who someone is should not mean they have to build up another level of resilience or layer of armour to simply exist in the world. Nothing in this bill affects the ability of parents to discuss questions of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression with their children. It simply does not stop the conversations.
The “what if” argument I am hearing from the Conservatives is disappointing. What I would say is this. What if we lose one more member of the SOGIE community to suicide because they are being taught that who they are is not okay? I want to lean into that fear and work toward saving lives, because to me those lives are more precious and more important than fear. For me, this is a bill that says Canada is beginning to say no to anyone who is making money from or providing conversion therapy.
Recently, I was able to participate in a virtual event to recognize the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia hosted by the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke. I am so grateful for his leadership and hard work on this file. I was able to ask how to be the best ally I could. I will always remember what Brian Chang said. He said that people should advertise when they are allies. They should not just think about it: They should make sure they do all they can to make sure that the people who need to know do not have to ask. I have done my best to be that kind of ally: one who is not passive, but who reaches out and does the work as much as possible. I will always look for more input because I know that we can always do better.
It is hard to recognize that we still live in a world that is not safe for the SOGIE community. This was amplified even more in my riding in December of 2020, when a young person put up a website and followed up with an art exhibit at the Comox Valley Art Gallery. Mackai Sharp had the great bravery to share the story of homophobia he experienced in his community. He named his project “Kill Yourself”. I hope we all take a breath when we hear that.
Hate is a message that tells people who they are is not okay and that they do not belong. I want to continuously work toward a Canada that stops homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. I want a Canada that says clearly, “Love is beautiful. You matter. Your identity matters. Your sexuality matters. Your pronouns matter. Who you are matters.”
View Luc Berthold Profile
CPC (QC)
View Luc Berthold Profile
2021-05-31 16:14 [p.7643]
Madam Speaker, it is with humility that I agreed to rise today to speak to Bill C-6 at third reading in the House of Commons.
This bill seeks to discourage and denounce conversion therapy by criminalizing certain activities associated with it in order to protect the human dignity and equality of Canadians. It seeks to amend the Criminal Code so as to forbid anyone from advertising an offer to provide conversion therapy; causing a person to undergo conversion therapy without the person's consent; causing a child to undergo conversion therapy; doing anything for the purpose of removing a child from Canada with the intention that the child undergo conversion therapy outside Canada; and receiving a financial or other material benefit from the provision of conversion therapy.
When we seek election to the House of Commons, we are full of good intentions to help our fellow citizens. We think our past experiences will help us deal with every subject that will arise. I have a confession to make: We are a bit naive to think that we have seen it all in politics just because we served at the municipal or provincial level or worked in all kinds of fields.
Since 2015, I have learned a lot about many issues that affect all aspects of our society. From medical assistance in dying to the government's reaction to a global pandemic that no one saw coming, we are always surprised by the variety of subjects on which we have to speak and on which we are not always as prepared as we would like.
I was born into a middle-class family in Sherbrooke. Growing up, I had all sorts of jobs, including reporter, computer salesman and mayor of Thetford Mines, to name a few, but none of those jobs ever really involved regular interaction with members of the LGBTQ2 community. It is only in recent years, when I really embraced my political career more fully, that I came to have more and more contact with representatives of that community.
That does not mean that I never knew anyone who was part of that community. I have some family members and friends who are openly gay or lesbian. However, I never really talked with them about their daily reality and their interactions with others.
Like many of us, in school, I unfortunately witnessed students laughing, taunting and bullying certain young people who were different. Everyone knows how cruel kids used to be in the past and how cruel they can be today.
What most surprised and angered me was when I found out right here in the House that there are therapies designed to force young people who are in the process of figuring out who they are to undergo so-called treatment to prevent them from becoming who they truly are.
I have read personal accounts of conversion therapy that touched me deeply. I immediately asked myself what I would do if it were one of my children. That is why I wanted to speak to this issue today. I have three wonderful children, and I want all the best for them. They are grown up now.
As I said at second reading of Bill C-6, I love them for who they are, not for who I might wish they were. I love them because they are whole, independent people who make their own choices. Of course, as a father, I might try to influence their choices. I can help them make good choices and help them get back up again when they make poor choices. For my wife and me, our most important job as parents is to be there for them no matter what.
When I found out about conversion therapy, I wondered if it would ever occur to me as a father to want to change who they are. The answer is never. As a father, nothing could make me want to change who they are. Never ever would it occur to me to pay for them to undergo therapy to change who they are. I can pay to help them deal with the vagaries of life, but I want them to deal with those challenges as they are, not as who I might want them to be.
I am clear on this and always have been: Life can lead us to make bad choices, but it cannot allow us to choose who we are. Sexual orientation and gender are not a matter of choice, in my opinion. I have read accounts from young people who have been put through conversion therapy. I can assure my colleagues without the slightest hesitation that, as a father, I would never subject my children to such treatment. Those are my values right now and what I inherently believe is the right thing to do, based on the knowledge I have today.
When I found out about conversion therapy, I wanted to know more. As I mentioned earlier, I honestly had never heard of it until the subject was brought up here in the House of Commons. I had to do my own research. Unfortunately, there is little to no research on conversion therapy in Quebec. Its consequences on Quebec and on members of Quebec's LGBTQ+ community are not well documented either, unfortunately.
I carefully reread some of the testimony on Bill C-6 at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. What I read was deeply disturbing. I will read some excerpts of the testimony from some witnesses, particularly Erika Muse, who says she is a survivor of transgender conversion therapy.
She testified that she underwent conversion therapy at the now-closed youth gender clinic at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. She was a patient there for seven years, from age 16 to 23. The doctor who treated her denied her trans-affirming health care in the form of both hormones and surgery until she was 22. Erika said:
[He] instead put me through what he has termed “desistance treatment” for trans youth. He interrogated me in talk therapy for hours at a time, inquisitorially attacking, damaging and attempting to destroy my identity and my self-esteem, and to make me ashamed and hateful of myself.
This young woman criticized Canada for exporting this practice to other countries. Conversion therapy has gone by all sorts of other names, such as autogynephilia, rapid-onset gender dysphoria, watchful waiting and desistance therapy, but, as Erika said:
They all have one thing in common. They're all conversion therapies and practices for trans people. They're attempts to define being trans as wrong, bad and something to be stopped, and they are efforts to stop trans people from living our own lives.
Reading first-hand accounts like that certainly does make us want to change things. I believe that, in a society like ours, it is completely unacceptable to force people to undergo therapy to change who they are.
The government could have achieved more of a consensus in the House of Commons for this bill. Unfortunately, despite the amendments proposed by the Conservative Party and the efforts made to appeal to the government party, it seems that petty politics prevailed. The House could have reached a unanimous agreement.
The Conservative Party brought forward amendments that I thought made sense in order to achieve consensus on the scope of the bill, particularly by protecting private discussions with parents, health professionals and various pastoral counsellors. I will have the opportunity to come back to this later.
I want to begin by explaining why I personally believe that conversion therapy of any kind has no place in Canada or anywhere else in the world.
In 2012, the Ordre des psychologues du Québec issued a warning about conversion therapy. I want to share an excerpt from this report, which deals with the ethical, deontological and illegal considerations of these practices:
Research on these issues has shown that it would be unethical to offer homosexual people wishing to undergo psychotherapy a procedure designed to change their sexual orientation as a treatment option. Not only is this practice unproven, but it also runs the risk of creating false hope and could cause more suffering when the treatment inevitably fails.
Furthermore, offering conversion therapy, especially if the person did not explicitly request it, may reinforce the false belief that homosexuality is abnormal, worsen the distress or shame some feel about not conforming to expectations, and undermine self-esteem. Research shows that procedures designed to change sexual orientation may have a significant negative impact and cause greater distress than that for which the person originally sought psychotherapy....
The report is referring to depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation.
I will continue:
Therefore, it is more appropriate to provide psychotherapy for the purpose of treating depression or anxiety, relieving distress, supporting self-esteem, and helping the person deal with difficulties they may be experiencing, thus fostering self-actualization regardless of their sexual orientation.
That makes perfect sense, and it is a great lead-in for the bill to criminalize conversion therapy in Canada. I can also point to the position of the Quebec government, which has made clear its intention to ban conversion practices in the province. I believe that reflects the fact that the majority of Quebeckers want to put an end to these practices. The Quebec government's Bill 70 seeks to prohibit anyone from soliciting a person, whether free of charge or for payment, to engage in a process of converting their sexual orientation.
Once the law becomes law, offenders will face a fine of up to $50,000, or even $150,000 for a corporation. Quebec is ready to do this, and other jurisdictions in Canada have already done it, such as the City of Vancouver. I feel that is what we need to do, because we have reached that point.
It is estimated that at least 47,000 men and women in Canada have undergone conversion therapy. Unfortunately, we know little about the number of cases in Quebec because the phenomenon is not really tracked. We have a duty as parliamentarians to protect the most vulnerable members of our communities, including members of the LGBTQ community who have been victims of degrading, dehumanizing practices designed to change their sexual orientation against their will.
It is clear that a federal ban is what it will take to put an end to this kind of practice nationwide. Health professionals and health organizations around the world have expressed concerns about conversion therapy.
In 2012, the World Health Organization issued a press release stating that conversion therapy is “a serious threat to the health and well-being of affected people”.
The Canadian Psychological Association took a similar stance in 2015, stating that “[c]onversion or reparative therapy can result in negative outcomes such as distress, anxiety, depression, negative self-image, a feeling of personal failure, difficulty sustaining relationships, and sexual dysfunction”.
From a global perspective, conversion therapy is harmful and wrong. This practice should and has to be completely banned.
No Canadian, no matter their age or history, should be put in a position where their identity is challenged and questioned. Above all, no one should be threatened or otherwise forced to undergo this type of therapy against their will. We know, and I have previously stated, that this practice can humiliate these people and force them to feel ashamed of who they are. That is unacceptable.
Allow me to quote another witness who appeared at committee, Peter Gajdics, who wanted to make recommendations for Bill C-6. He told us about his experience seeing a licensed psychiatrist. He was a legal adult at the time, as he was 24 years old when his therapy began and 31 when it ended. This is what he had to say:
I had already come out as gay before I met this psychiatrist. After starting counselling with him, he told me that my history of childhood sexual abuse had created a false homosexual identity and so my therapy's goal would be to heal old trauma in order, as he said, to correct the error of my sexual orientation and revert to my innate heterosexuality.
His methods then included prolonged sessions of primal scream therapy, multiple psychiatric medications to suppress my homosexual desires, injections of ketamine hydrochloride followed by re-parenting sessions to heal my broken masculinity, and when none of his methods worked, aversion therapy.
At their highest dosages he was prescribing near-fatal levels of these medications and I overdosed.
It is unacceptable to hear this kind of testimony in a civilized country like Canada. Several other similar testimonies come to us from across the country, while many people have spoken out in public forums about the effects this practice has had on their lives.
One person said that they were scarred by the experiences they had during a conversion therapy retreat that lasted a single weekend, some years ago. The people who participated in this kind of therapy feel as if they will never be able to forget the experience, saying how difficult it is to deal with what happened during the therapy, rather than the reason why they participated in the first place.
They say that many of the activities they participated in were traumatizing. For example, some people were forced to walk a great distance while being verbally harassed by therapy organizers because of their lifestyle, to unleash their anger by violently hitting a punching bag with a baseball bat, or to recount instances of sexual abuse they lived through. It would seem the objective was to diminish their feelings and emotions.
All of those participants noted that, in some cases, the objective was to recondition them and fundamentally alter them. For others, conversion therapy involved being taught not to act on or follow their natural desires. There are plenty of examples like that, and this type of therapy and the activities associated with it also caused a lot of harm to participants, such as nightmares, depression and suicidal thoughts.
Clearly, we are all against forced conversion therapy. The government could have gotten even more members of the House on board had it taken into account the comments it received when the first bill to ban conversion therapy was introduced.
Originally, the Department of Justice website clearly indicated that private conversations between a parent and child were protected. The current bill is not as explicit, however, and the amendments proposed by my colleagues at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights were rejected. These amendments would have made it possible to achieve a broader consensus and support, which would have made it even easier to pass Bill C-6.
We did not delay the bill, as the Liberals like to say. That is completely false. We wanted to have a constructive discussion to obtain the broadest possible consensus on Bill C-6. That is why we took the opportunity during the committee study to present amendments. Unfortunately, the Liberals decided not to support them and not to achieve that broader consensus.
In closing, I do not identify with an LGBTQ+ group myself, so I cannot claim to know what a person must feel like when they are ostracized, bullied and ridiculed because of who they are. However, as a father and a Quebecker, I can say that it is high time that this country put an end to conversion therapy because of the harm it has done under the guise of doing something good and, more importantly, to prevent it from doing any more harm in the future.
View Tamara Jansen Profile
CPC (BC)
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his commitment to standing against coercive and abusive therapies on behalf of vulnerable Canadians. I wonder, however, what he thinks about the earlier assertion by the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader that this bill includes a protection of parental rights to allow parents to follow a wait-and-see approach for their children who are struggling with their identity. That way, they will wait until they are mature enough to understand the repercussions of gender transition.
The bill clearly allows an affirmation-only approach. I wonder if the member would be able to speak to the apparent error in the parliamentary secretary's statement.
View Luc Berthold Profile
CPC (QC)
View Luc Berthold Profile
2021-05-31 16:43 [p.7646]
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.
The Liberals are sadly playing politics with this issue instead of trying to find a solution or a consensus, when, for once, a consensus is possible on an issue like this one. It would be easy to get a consensus on this issue, but unfortunately, as my colleague pointed out, the Liberals seem to have a hard time wording the bills properly to ensure that, when they rise in the House, what is written in the bill reflects what they are saying and can reassure most Canadians.
View Jean Yip Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Jean Yip Profile
2021-05-28 11:45 [p.7559]
Madam Speaker, the pandemic has impacted many Canadians, including young families. My constituents in Scarborough—Agincourt have had to balance work with child care alternatives and many higher expenses along the way. Can the minister please tell this House what our government is doing to support families with young children during this difficult time?
View Ahmed Hussen Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Ahmed Hussen Profile
2021-05-28 11:45 [p.7559]
Madam Speaker, families have faced financial challenges during this pandemic. That is why we announced a Canada child benefit top-up payment of up to $1,200 per child under the age of six. Today, the first payment is being made, going directly into the pockets of parents, and will benefit 1.6 million families. The Canada child benefit helps nine out of 10 families and has helped lift 435,000 children out of poverty. My message to families is clear: We will always be there to support them.
View Angelo Iacono Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Angelo Iacono Profile
2021-05-25 14:10 [p.7315]
Mr. Speaker, families across Canada, and especially in Alfred—Pellan, have been hit hard by the pandemic. COVID-19 has brought about unforeseen expenses, increasing the financial burden on families in Laval.
Our government has been committed to supporting Canadian families since 2015, and this pandemic has been no exception. This is why we are implementing the Canada child benefit young child supplement. Families will receive up to $1,200 per child under the age of six, and the first payment will be issued starting this week. Parents will have more money to put food on the table, buy clothes or sign their kids up for summer activities.
Our federal government will continue to be there for the Canadian families who—
View Bernard Généreux Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister repeatedly promised not to leave anyone behind. I repeat: not leave anyone behind.
As we speak, young mothers who gave birth between the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic are still not eligible for the Canada recovery caregiving benefit because of the rules this government brought in, requiring claimants to already have their child registered for child care. The Liberals are leaving them behind. What will they do to fix this for once and for all?
View Carla Qualtrough Profile
Lib. (BC)
View Carla Qualtrough Profile
2021-05-25 14:56 [p.7324]
Mr. Speaker, the government is determined to support parents dealing with the unique challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. That is why we brought in the CERB, which has supported more than eight million Canadians, and introduced three recovery benefits to help workers. With budget 2021, we are also investing nearly $30 billion to create a Canada-wide child care system that will allow more women to participate in the workforce.
View Annie Koutrakis Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Annie Koutrakis Profile
2021-05-14 11:27 [p.7237]
Madam Speaker, this pandemic has been extremely difficult for many low-income families with young children.
I am proud that Bill C-14 has received Royal Assent. This will make it possible to provide a $1,200 supplement to the Canada child benefit for low-income families with children under the age of six.
Canadians are feeling the financial burden of the pandemic, and this targeted support will provide some much-needed relief to thousands of families in my riding of Vimy and will help more than two million children in Canada.
The Government of Canada has provided 80% of all the pandemic-related support to Canadians, and we will continue to be there for families until this crisis is over.
View Peter Fonseca Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, tomorrow, May 15, is the International Day of Families. What an appropriate time to observe the day, as our government has just announced the Canada child benefit young child supplement. Through this benefit, families could be receiving up to $1,200 per child under the age of six. This benefit will help 1.6 million families and over two million children.
During these very challenging times, since the start of the pandemic, our government has recognized that families have been largely impacted by the unpredictable expenses of COVID-19. This additional support will help pay for necessities such child care, food, medicine and clothing. I am proud of our government and its commitment to supporting families, from our children to our seniors, through affordable housing, the Canada child benefit and increases to the GIS and OAS, which have lifted over half a million children and seniors out of poverty.
To all our Canadian families and seniors, we will get through this together.
View Marilène Gill Profile
BQ (QC)
View Marilène Gill Profile
2021-05-13 14:16 [p.7186]
Mr. Speaker, as the Bloc Québécois critic for families, children and social development, today, I am pleased to wish all Quebeckers a happy Quebec Family Week.
Family is the first home we know. Family is where we are loved, where we learn our mother tongue and where we absorb our culture. Family teaches us the values we need to develop bonds of goodwill and community with other people and other families outside our own family unit. These bonds help us take on the challenges that life brings and participate in a society that holds promise for all.
I want to take this opportunity to congratulate two members of my team, Jessie and Antoni, as well as their respective partners, Frédéric and Dinorah. Both of their families have grown in size and in love, as Jessie welcomed baby Ethan last month and Antoni welcomed baby Louis just yesterday.
I want these families to know that, as a member of Parliament, I am there for them, much like the Bloc Québécois will always be there to listen to and support Quebec families.
View Leah Gazan Profile
NDP (MB)
View Leah Gazan Profile
2021-05-12 18:13 [p.7135]
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-15, an act respecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I cannot reiterate strongly enough that this bill is long overdue.
Canada was built on the violent dispossession of the lands and resources of indigenous peoples. It is the kind of violence and genocide that we see perpetrated against indigenous women and girls, 2SLGBTQQIA individuals and sacred life-givers, including our mother earth and waters. We see a continuation of environmental destruction, supported by governments that violate human rights and continue to marginalize and oppress indigenous peoples on our own lands.
While big oil, big corporations and Canada benefit from resources, we continue to not even have our minimum human rights respected. The most minimum human right that anyone, indigenous or not, needs to have is joy. Our rights are constantly up for debate while corporations benefit.
I will be honest here today: There is no political party in this country that has not participated, or that does not continue to participate, in the violation of indigenous rights. Indigenous peoples on our very own lands are consistently and constantly a second thought, and our rights are often totally disregarded. This normalization of violating the rights of indigenous peoples needs to end. It is time that our very own Constitution is upheld, which includes aboriginal rights and title, along with the international legal obligations that Canada has signed onto.
We need to change this. We need to change the foundation of our relationship, which was built on human rights violations of indigenous peoples that were legislated through the Indian Act, and create a legal foundation that is grounded in a respect for human rights of all peoples, including indigenous peoples. We need the minimum human rights that are articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Although imperfect, I, along with our NDP team, believe that Bill C-15 is a step forward in upholding and protecting the fundamental human rights of indigenous peoples in Canada. As I mentioned, it is long overdue.
I will remind the House of what the General Assembly highlighted last December. It indicated that the declaration has “positively influenced the drafting of several constitutions and statutes at the national and local levels and contributed to the progressive development of international and national legal frameworks and policies.” In addition, it is also important to remember that the UN General Assembly has reaffirmed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples for the 10th time since its adoption by consensus. This means there is no country in the world that formally opposes the declaration.
After the second reading of Bill C-15, we undertook a study at committee, and we are reporting the bill today with amendments. I would like to take this opportunity to address some of these amendments.
First, as a legislator it is my legal obligation to be clear about the purpose or purposes of any legislation. As such, our party supported an amendment at committee to clarify that Bill C-15 had two purposes, which include to affirm the declaration as having application in Canadian law; and, second, to provide a framework for the implementation of the declaration.
This bill would not “Canadianize” the declaration, but confirms that United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has application in Canadian law as affirmed in preambular paragraph 18, which reads, “Whereas the Declaration is affirmed as a source for the interpretation of Canadian law”, in addition to other legal frameworks which include indigenous law, the Constitution, international law and treaties with indigenous peoples.
This legal reality has been confirmed by the Supreme Court as early as 1987. Even the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has heavily relied on provisions of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in their rulings about the racial discrimination that first nations children face living on reserve.
The declaration, in fact, has provided a source for legal interpretation for courts and tribunals, and protection of children, families and communities. Our children need this legislative protection to ensure that they are able to thrive, not just survive, to ensure that children and families are afforded the legal protection to ensure they can live with dignity and human rights, especially with the current government who willfully violates their rights.
As former Chief Justice Dickson confirmed in 1987, “The various sources of international human rights law—declarations, covenants, conventions, judicial and quasi-judicial decisions of international tribunals, customary norms—must, in my opinion, be relevant and persuasive sources for interpretation of the Charter’s provisions.”
Another significant amendment to Bill C-15 I would like to highlight is the inclusion of the living tree doctrine in preambular paragraph 19. This is a critical amendment. The living tree doctrine recognizes that rights are not frozen in time and that rights and treaties need to evolve overtime as our nations evolve and circumstances change.
The living tree doctrine is an important constitutional principle, which has also been affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada. An example I would like to highlight is that in the 2004 Same-sex Marriage Reference Case, the court emphasized that the Constitution was a “living tree” subject to “progressive interpretation”.
The Supreme Court in this case ruled as follows, “The 'frozen concepts' reasoning runs contrary to one of the most fundamental principles of Canadian constitutional interpretation: that our Constitution is a living tree which, by way of progressive interpretation, accommodates and addresses the realities of modern life.”
In the Hunter v. Southam Inc. case of 1984, the Supreme Court described the doctrine in the following way, “A constitution....is drafted with an eye to the future....It must, therefore, be capable of growth and development over time to meet new social, political and historical realities often unimagined by its framers.”
For example, the $5 given to treaty people during treaty days every year should have gone up with inflation. I would argue that it is not a symbolic act but an act of bad faith. Let us not forget Canada was built on the violent and ongoing genocide of indigenous peoples. This is why this amendment is so critical. We need legal tools to hold the government to account when it acts in bad faith.
Five dollars fails to take into consideration inflation or compensation owed for destroying lands, impairing our ability to participate in traditional forms of sustenance, perpetuating violence in our communities and leaving many unsheltered on our very own lands, while the masses and corporations continue to privilege off the human rights violations of indigenous peoples. This is gross privilege.
Since the time of invasion, our nations have gone through change, whether by choice or as a result of aggressive assimilation policies. This transformed our families and nations. However, although our colonizers set out to eradicate us, we are still here standing strong in the protection of our rights, the very rights that our ancestors put their lives on the line to protect.
We are still in this battle, whether it is in the courtroom or at the end of an RCMP sniper gun, as witnessed in Wet'suwet'en territory or at the military siege of Kanehsatake. We continue to stand strong. Now we see the very little land that has not been exploited is still under threat, and it makes us stand even stronger.
We will never concede our rights, and our rights evolve and change over time. These are indigenous lands, yet we still have to fight for crumbs against the disregard of our treaties and a lack of good faith by governments to respectfully interpret the meaning, intent, and letter of them. I have not forgotten, we have not forgotten and we will never ever forget.
This is also an important constitutional principle. It is why the new preambular paragraph 19 is so important. It states:
Whereas the protection of Aboriginal and treaty rights—recognized and affirmed by section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982—is an underlying principle and value of the Constitution of Canada, and Canadian courts have stated that such rights are not frozen and are capable of evolution and growth
I would suggest, in this particular instance, that UNDRIP is a new political, historical and certainly legal reality that Bill C-15 is acknowledging. I must admit, however, that I would have preferred this addition to be in the operative articles of the bill. In fact, I believe that it belongs in the operative articles, as some have proposed. However, I also recognize that the preambular paragraphs have legal effect, as confirmed in article 13 of the federal Interpretation Act.
The last amendment I wish to speak to is the addition of systemic racism as one of the measures to combat injustice and human rights violations against indigenous peoples.
We have serious issues with systemic racism in this country, and we have witnessed examples that have cost lives. The many indigenous lives that have been lost at the hands of the police include Eishia Hudson, Jason Collins and Colten Boushie. There is also the late Joyce Echaquan, who lost her life trying to get assistance in a health care system that intimidated her, mocked her, disrespected her life and let her die under its care, as though her life was of no value, leaving her children without a mother and her partner widowed. In addition, there is a continued lack of action to address the ongoing genocide against indigenous women and girls, and we see a rapidly rising movement of white nationalism and a growing number of white supremacists around the world and right here in Canada. This is a critical amendment to Bill C-15.
We need to move forward in a manner that ensures that all indigenous people can live with dignity and human rights in Canada. We need to begin living up to our identity as a country that values and respects human rights. We need to model behaviours and decisions that actually reflect that. That is still not happening in Canada, as we are witnessing with the continued violation of indigenous rights because, although the rhetoric that we are all equal in Canada continues, there is still a very clear division between the oppressed and the oppressor. The Canadian government continues to perpetuate a relationship of violent settler neo-colonialism in real time.
There is still no action plan to address the ongoing violence against indigenous women and girls and 2SLGBTQQIA individuals, and it is two years late. There are 10 non-compliance orders to immediately end racial discrimination against first nations children on reserve. People have unequal access to health care and education. There is continued inaction and a mould crisis. There has been a failure to end all boil-water advisories on reserve, in spite of the Liberal promise to end this by 2021.
The number of children in care is more than at the height of the residential school system. We have the highest level of unsheltered individuals in this country as a result of the violent dispossession of lands that left many of us homeless on our own lands.
There continues to be violation of land rights, privileging corporations over upholding the human rights of indigenous peoples. These include, but are not limited to, Kanesatake, Site C, TMX, Keystone XL, Muskrat Falls, Wet'suwet'en territory, Baffinland Mary River Mine and 1492 Land Back Lane. There is a continuation of the violation of the Supreme Court ruling in the Mi’kmaq fishing dispute, more than two decades after that decision was made. We continue to see a violation of our constitutional and international legal obligations in this House, and we are obliged to uphold these as members of Parliament. The list goes on.
The violation of indigenous rights by the current Liberal government is not even limited to Canada, but is perpetuated globally. In fact, Toronto-based Justice and Corporate Accountability Project, a legal advocacy group, noted, “28 Canadian mining companies and their subsidiaries were linked to 44 deaths, 403 injuries, and 709 cases of criminalization, including arrests, detentions, and charges in Latin America between 2000 and 2015.”
A working group states, “The financial and political backing that the government of Canada has provided to its mining companies has been strengthened by the de facto conversion of its cooperation agencies into mining investment promotion bodies.”
This working group reported human rights violations by Canada against indigenous peoples related to mining in, but not limited to, Venezuela, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala.
We are watching on the news and social media events unfolding right now in Sheikh Jarrah, and Canada is turning a blind eye to the ethnic cleansing. It is failing to uphold international legal obligations, and children and loved ones continue to die. That is another gross example of Canada and the privileged picking and choosing when to uphold human rights, which is when it suits economic interests and does not threaten power and privilege. This must change.
I share this because, although we are working toward passing a bill to affirm the application of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into Canadian law, in addition to other legal frameworks including indigenous law, international law, our Constitution and treaties, we consistently fail to uphold rights.
We must move forward in a manner that upholds these human rights in Canada and around the world. Lives depend on this. We have moved beyond a time when rhetoric cuts it, and we know what the violation of rights looks like in real time. It is denying individuals of their right to live in dignity, sometimes resulting in death.
We need to change this. Lives are on the line. Although Bill C-15 is not perfect, it is a start, and it must be followed with action. It is only then that we will achieve justice. There is no reconciliation without justice.
View Bernard Généreux Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has repeatedly said that he will not let anyone down during this pandemic.
Unfortunately, he is letting down young mothers who cannot access the Canada recovery caregiving benefit, the CRCB, because they were unable to enrol their baby in day care between the second and third waves of COVID-19 so they could return to work. Creating a national child care system in 2022 will not solve this one-time problem.
Why is the Prime Minister, a so-called feminist, stopping moms from accessing the CRCB?
View Carla Qualtrough Profile
Lib. (BC)
View Carla Qualtrough Profile
2021-05-06 14:43 [p.6800]
Mr. Speaker, we have worked tirelessly to ensure that our EI system and the temporary recovery benefits support and include as many Canadian workers as possible and, in particular, women. As we know, they have been hit the hardest with this pandemic. We have introduced flexibilities, which mean that a person will need fewer hours to qualify for both regular and special benefits. We have extended these flexibilities for a year. We have a minimum benefit rate of $500 per week for claims established after September 27, 2020.
We are there for all Canadian workers, women in particular, and we are committed to modernizing our EI system to be even more there for them.
View Wayne Easter Profile
Lib. (PE)
As members know, Bill C-208 is now at third reading stage. How did it get here? Simply put, Bill C-208 has had considerable debate in the House and was referred to the finance committee, which I chair. I will make a few comments on what witnesses had to say before committee in a moment. The finance committee referred the bill back to the House without amendment.
Bill C-208 has a long history, and it criss-crosses the political landscape. It was first introduced by the current member of Parliament for Bourassa, a Liberal, two parliaments ago. In the last Parliament, the same bill was brought forward by Guy Caron, an NDP member. Now, in this current Parliament, it is sponsored by the member for Brandon—Souris, a Conservative member.
This long history, across all major political parties in the House, certainly shows that there is a need to bring fairness and equity from a taxation perspective to the transfer of family farm corporations, fisheries enterprises and small family businesses. Quite honestly, it is long past time that this problem was fixed.
During an earlier discussion at third reading, it was suggested by the government spokesman that just maybe the bill could provide opportunities for tax avoidance. I would agree that tax avoidance is a legitimate concern. However, I must point out that at the finance committee we heard from 17 witnesses, and every opportunity was given to address the concern of tax avoidance. We called on the public and Finance Canada to provide witnesses and propose amendments, to anybody who had those kinds of concerns.
I certainly appreciate that the assistant deputy minister of the tax policy branch and the senior director of the tax legislation division in the tax policy branch appeared and answered questions, and their comments appear in the transcript for the finance committee for anybody who wants to see it. To be fair, they did outline some concerns, especially as it relates to what is called “surplus stripping” for the purpose of tax avoidance.
Where does that leave us? On the one hand, we have concerns being expressed by officials, and I do take their concerns seriously. On the other hand, we have a broad section of witnesses who expressed a serious and immediate need for a way to transfer a small business, farming corporation or fishing enterprise without facing unfair taxation when transferring to a family member. We do not see amendments to the bill that would fix this alleged problem.
I would even agree with those who might say that private members' bills are not the best vehicle to change tax policy. They are not. However, we simply cannot allow this inequity disadvantaging intergenerational transfers to family members to continue. It is time to accept the only change that is on the table to fix the problem, and that happens to be Bill C-208.
The sponsor of the bill, the member for Brandon—Souris, gave about the most concise and clear example of this inequity in the tax system. He said:
The second example was a father wanting to sell his farm to his son to fund his retirement. If the father were to sell his farm to a stranger, he could use his capital gains exemption on the sale, resulting in an effective tax rate of 13.39%. However, if the farmer sold his farm to his son, that sale would be recorded as a dividend rather than a capital gain, and the farmer would pay 47.4% in tax. That is a huge difference, and I think we can all agree that it is completely unfair.
The second quote is from Ms. Robyn Young, president-elect of the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada.
She said this:
In closing, this is an issue of equity and fairness. Business owners should not be penalized for selling their business to a family member. Tax implications should never be a consideration when making the decision to sell a business to a family member.
There were many other good witnesses I could quote and make the point on this serious inequity, including the UPA, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, other farming and fishing organizations, the tax manager at Deloitte, underwriting companies and more, but I think members get my point.
The backbone of many communities are small businesses, farmers and fishermen. Those who can pass a business down from generation to generation create the history and the character of many of our communities in the country. We need to give every opportunity for those families to make that transfer.
It is absolutely true that during this pandemic the federal government has been there in every way possible to support Canadians, businesses, farmers and fishermen. Tax policy, however, should not cause a disincentive to transfer to the next generation. Tax fairness should be the cornerstone on which to encourage intergenerational transfers. This bill would move tax policy in that direction.
Finance Canada, and the government for that matter, always have the option to put forward corrections in a ways and means motion if concerns expressed before committee do arise in reality. That, in itself, is a safeguard. They have the ability to do that fairly quickly through a ways and means motion. However, farmers, fishermen and small business owners, with respect to the unfairness of this taxation system, have been waiting for this change for years.
We have to put the shoe on the other foot. Instead of having those families that want intergenerational transfers sitting in the wings waiting for something to happen, we have to pass this bill and put the shoe on the other foot. If there is a problem, then government has the ability to fix that problem. I am encouraging others to recognize this problem.
I, for sure, will be supporting Bill C-208, and I hope others can do the same.
View Xavier Barsalou-Duval Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on his speech, which was interesting. My speech will be along the same lines as his, as it was all very sensible.
In his speech, my colleague said that Bill C-208, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, is not partisan. The bill does not belong to the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, the NDP or the Bloc Québécois.
In fact, since there were no questions and comments following the remarks by the previous speaker, I would like to point out an oversight. I believe it was an oversight. Perhaps not, but I hope it was.
He mentioned some of the previous versions of this bill intended to facilitate the transfer of family businesses. Yes, the hon. member for Bourassa did in fact introduce legislation to facilitate the transfer of family businesses when he was in opposition a few years ago. Yes, it is also true that the former member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, Guy Caron, had also introduced legislation to facilitate the transfer of family businesses.
However, my colleague may have forgotten that the member speaking right now, in other words me, also had the opportunity to introduce Bill C-275, which sought to facilitate the transfer of family businesses. I introduced it at roughly the same time as my former colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques. In fact, as we were announcing the introduction of this bill, my former colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques thought it was such a good idea that he quickly introduced his bill as well.
There was a bit of a friendly competition about doing the right thing. We wanted parents who want to hand down their business to their children to stop being penalized. This only makes sense, because it is good to see a family's achievement carry on.
Now it is the Conservatives' turn to introduce a similar bill. At the time, when they were in government, the Conservatives were against it, but now they support the cause. Of course we are very pleased to see that, but we are still disappointed to see that the current Liberal government does not seem to want to support the bill. It is hard to understand. How is it that when the Liberal and Conservative parties are in the opposition they want to do the right thing, but when they are in power they do not? That is quite disappointing, to say the least.
When this type of bill is introduced, many people pay attention to the ongoing debates. When the bill was introduced, and then when we began debating it, I immediately alerted certain businesses in my riding as well as some people I went to school with who also wanted to take over their family businesses. After seeing so many bills fail, they were all excited and hoped that this one would come to fruition.
In the meantime, after so many bills failed to pass in previous parliaments, the Quebec government decided to act. Quebec changed its tax legislation to allow the transfer of family businesses. It would seem that the federal government is frozen and incapable of moving forward. When either the Liberals or the Conservatives come to power, everything suddenly stops and fails to move forward.
I am making a heartfelt plea, which I believe echoes the pleas of the people who have been contacting me. They want to know what progress has been made on this bill and whether it will pass. Sometimes I tell them that even if my bill does not pass, some measures might well be included in a budget. In several economic updates and even in some budgets, the government stated that it would work to facilitate the transfer of family businesses and that it would examine the legislation to make certain improvements.
Once again, the government is giving people hope. People are thinking that maybe the government is finally going to do something. It is disappointing, because year after year there is always a holdup. Is it an administrative problem or does the bill run counter to some kind of interest? I do not know who would have an interest in preventing families from passing their business from one family member to another.
Passing a business on to the next generation is not easy. It is rare. People often say that it is difficult to transfer a business and to encourage their children to take over the family business. When their children do want to take over, why are we stopping them from doing so? Why would we financially penalize those who pass their business on to family members but not penalize those who do not? Why is it more profitable to sell one's business to anyone other than one's own children?
For example, I could sell my business to a stranger and make more money. There are many parents who have to think about that option. Obviously, all parents want what is best for their children, but when they see that passing their business on to their children could, in some cases, cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars, many of them have to stop and think about whether doing so is financially viable for them. Not all business owners have millions of dollars put away. Often these business owners invested in their business thinking that they would use it for their retirement. They therefore want to be able to benefit from it.
This is creating quite the dilemma for people. If they pass their business on to their children, then they may have to forgo their retirement. It is really disappointing to see that this situation has not yet been resolved. That is why I wanted to speak today, to bring to light this issue, this problem.
We also have to look further ahead. What happens when there is no one in a family to take over the business? The owner has to seek out someone else, approaching businesses or people who are already well established, such as a competitor, a bigger company. That is what poses a problem.
Family farms can disappear when they are taken over by larger farms. I have nothing against large farms, by why not let small businesses exist and prosper, run by people who are working for themselves and being their own boss? I think that would be nice. However, we are faced with a bill that hinders that possibility.
If we let farms disappear, if we let small businesses disappear because there is nobody to take them over, we are making other people think it is not easy to start a business or start a farm. Ultimately, if we want to allow those transfers, if we want to avoid seeing mega-businesses and mega-farms that are held by shareholders and operated by absentee executives and managers who live who knows where or are very far away from the customer, the consumer, we have to be flexible and attentive to this concern.
I studied accounting. Business owners and I are not the only ones saying we are frustrated. We are also hearing that from accountants, accounting students and professors, who have been saying for ages that the government is not interested in listening or understanding. We were hearing it back in the early 2000s, when I was in university. Professors did not understand why the government was not doing something about this issue. All the students were appalled to learn that, by law, this kind of capital gain was considered a dividend, which meant at least twice as much tax had to be paid on that gain. Financially, that hurts. Like it or not, money influences these decisions and affects the young people who would like to take over.
As I see that my time is almost up and I do not want you to interrupt, Madam Speaker, I will conclude with a heartfelt plea. I implore the government to finally listen to the wishes of the business world, small businesses, members of the House and members of the Standing Committee on Finance and to do the right thing by supporting and passing this much-needed bill.
View Ted Falk Profile
CPC (MB)
View Ted Falk Profile
2021-05-05 18:24 [p.6708]
Madam Speaker, what a privilege and honour it is to speak to Bill C-208. Not often in the House do we find a private member's bill that has all-party support, and this is one of those unique situations.
For many small business owners, business succession is an important factor to consider when planning for the future. This is no surprise. When they spend so much of their time and energy pouring hour after hour into running their operation, what happens to the fruits of their labour when it is time for them to retire or move on matters to them.
However, surveys tell us that only about half of small businesses have a succession plan. I suspect that is because they are caught up in the day-to-day running of their businesses. However, whether they are thinking about succession early on or are confronting succession decisions near the time of transition, somewhere along the line these entrepreneurs face a frustrating reality: It is more expensive to sell an incorporated small business, or a family farm or fishing enterprise, to a family member than to a stranger.
What is behind this? When a business is sold to a family member, it is considered a dividend. When sold to a stranger, it is considered a capital gain and is eligible for capital gains exemption. In its simplest form, when selling to a family member the tax rate is higher for the seller than when selling to a stranger. That tax rate is significantly lower.
This is not right, and it is not fair. About half of small business owners are hoping to sell or transfer their operations to family members when it is time for them to move on. If members have spent even a little time around family-run businesses, the “why” becomes clear. Sometimes kids are raised in the business and learn the ropes at a young age. They come to know the ins and outs of the business better than anyone. They put in the time, they know the customers and they are established figures in their communities. When the time comes for succession, they are an obvious option for so many reasons.
This is where Bill C-208 comes in. It seeks to achieve tax fairness for business succession by amending the Income Tax Act to level the playing field. It would allow a small business owner the same tax rate when selling their operation to a family member as when selling to a third party. It would correct the injustice within the act that unfairly punishes individuals when they sell their qualifying small business, farm or fishing operation to their own family.
During the finance committee's study of the bill, Brian Janzen, a senior tax manager with Deloitte, gave an example to help members understand just how stark the financial difference currently is between selling to a family member and selling to a stranger. He said:
Right now, if you have a $1-million business and you sell your shares—in a restaurant, let's say—to your neighbour, you will walk away with after-tax proceeds from a $1-million sale of about $971,000. That's only $29,000 of leakage....
There are various ways to sell your shares to your kids under the current regime of section 84.1, but I'll just use the worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is that your kid sets up a holding company, or holdco, and buys your shares from you. In Manitoba, that will cost you $466,000 because of the deemed dividend. That's a difference, between the two scenarios, of $437,000. That's just crazy.
He is right. That is crazy, especially when we consider the value small business continuity can have in our communities. Small business owners have often built strong relationships with their customers over the long term. They have employees, whether a couple or a couple dozen, whom they care about and have invested in. They are plugged into their communities in multiple ways. Whether by supporting local food banks, sponsoring sports clubs or donating to construct a new community centre, small businesses are there.
Handing that over to a stranger, perhaps someone from out of town, may not be the best situation for the business owners or their communities. When they have built something and invested plenty of sweat equity in their operation, it is understandable to want to hand it off to someone who can carry on that legacy.
Robyn Young, president-elect of the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada, told the finance committee about her experience of purchasing the family business from her parents. She said:
When my parents decided to sell their business, they received an offer from a large direct writer. They ultimately chose to sell the business to me and my brother, because it was important to them to keep the business they had built within the family. They also wanted to ensure that their clients would continue to receive the same expert advice and personal touch they had come to expect.
She went on to say:
Family-run brokerages are the pillars of the community and the lifeblood of the economy. They serve and support their communities in good times and bad by creating employment and donating time, money and other resources.
These are the considerations for many small business owners looking at succession planning. There needs to be a level playing field that empowers owners to make the best choice for them and their communities.
The current inequity is a reality that impacts a variety of types of small businesses, but I want to take a moment to talk about farm families specifically.
Agriculture is incredibly capital intensive, and as Scott Ross of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture told the finance committee, “effective succession planning is critically important, particularly for a sector that will transfer tens of billions of dollars in assets to the next generation in this decade alone.” Uniquely, the agriculture sector continues to be one where the vast majority of farms, even though they are incorporated, still remain family owned. This has considerable advantages for all Canadians since, as Mr. Ross highlighted, “studies show that family farming encourages sustainable growth, environmental stewardship and increased spending within one’s local community, not to mention its contributions to the social fabric of rural Canada.”
I share several commonalities with the bill's sponsor, the member for Brandon—Souris. For one, we were both elected in the same 2012 by-election. More importantly for today's discussion, we both have “farmer” on our resumes. We are very familiar with the immense benefits that farming and agriculture provide to the communities we represent. By passing Bill C-208, the House can acknowledge the tremendous contributions that our farmers make and can help ensure tax fairness for farm succession.
Throughout debate on this bill, we have heard some members suggest that this change will just benefit the rich or create opportunities for tax avoidance. I want to address this head-on because that is a mischaracterization that finance committee testimony swiftly put to rest.
The bill includes tax-avoidance safeguards mandating that the family member who purchases the operation must maintain their shares for a minimum of five years to avoid penalization. As Deloitte senior tax manager Brian Janzen confirmed, “This bill is helping the lower end of the small business community. It is not helping the huge, rich companies, even if they're family owned.” He also told the finance committee that Bill C-208 has enough guardrails to prevent tax avoidance, even as he urged vigilance so that tweaks could be made if required.
Like all colleagues, I wanted to make sure that the bill did not providing an undue benefit to large corporations. I therefore asked Mr. Jansen very specifically about those concerns. He said it did not benefit large corporations, “partly because of the guardrails you have in this bill, but also because for the larger companies...section 84.1 and the capital gains exemption didn't even come into play. The numbers are big enough that this is just...not material to the larger private businesses. This is really helping the small private business.”
It is clear that this bill strikes the right balance between providing tax fairness and preventing abuse. I encourage any members who feel differently to review the testimony before the finance committee. They will see experts addressing these concerns and urging the bill's swift passage.
There were 145 Liberal members who voted against this common-sense bill at second reading. Meanwhile, members of all the opposition parties supported it, and so did two Liberal MPs. I sincerely appreciate the two Liberal members who voted in favour of this bill. They recognized the positive impact that it would have on their constituents. I hope that the testimony we have heard since that time will help other Liberal MPs better understand why they ought to lend their support to Bill C-208. Their constituents deserve tax fairness.
I want to wrap up by saying thanks to the member for Brandon—Souris for introducing this pertinent legislation. His efforts are going to make a real difference in the lives of many small business owners and farm families. We have seen iterations of this bill brought forward by multiple parties over the years, and this goes to show that there is cross-party support for this bill. It is time to get it over the finish line.
I invite all my colleagues to support small business and vote in favour of Bill C-208. Let us get it passed and get it to the Senate. Hopefully it will deal with it as expeditiously as the House has. I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to the bill.
View Chandra Arya Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chandra Arya Profile
2021-04-26 14:02 [p.6152]
Madam Speaker, I recently had the great privilege of meeting with members of For Our Kids, including Ms. Emily Gray, Dr. Tonja Stothart and Dr. Sarah Sloan.
For Our Kids is an Ottawa-based climate advocacy group representing hundreds of parents across the Ottawa-Gatineau area. It is associated with a network of thousands of other mothers, fathers and grandparents across Canada. Together, they are rightly concerned with the well-being of their children and grandchildren due to the climate emergency that faces our country and the world.
I was inspired by their message that with all these crises, we need to build political will. We need to work together as politicians and as leaders to avert the climate crisis.
I thank For Our Kids again for its continued advocacy.
View Soraya Martinez Ferrada Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Soraya Martinez Ferrada Profile
2021-04-22 11:29 [p.6009]
Madam Speaker, I will start by acknowledging the people in my riding of Hochelaga. During this unprecedented and ongoing crisis, the people of Hochelaga have been resilient, supportive and engaged. I am so proud to represent them in the House, especially today, as I rise to speak to a progressive budget focused on an inclusive and feminist economic recovery.
I too want to commend my colleague and Minister of Finance, who is the first woman to table a federal budget in the House. A significant glass ceiling has just been broken.
Since the start of the pandemic, more than one million Canadians have contracted COVID-19 and more than 20,000 Canadians have died from it. I want to tell the families and friends who lost a loved one that I am thinking of them. I also want to thank health care workers for their dedication and tireless efforts. In Hochelaga and Montreal East, the vaccination campaign is making great progress. More than 83% of seniors over 70 have already been vaccinated.
We are still living with a great deal of uncertainty and facing a global health crisis. Now is not the time for austerity. We cannot ask the most vulnerable to go into debt to pay for food and shelter or just to live during this period of uncertainty. The federal government decided to be there for Canadians and support them in the fight against COVID-19.
I come from a family that strongly believes that the role of government is to fight for society's most vulnerable and to ensure that it is ready to step up in times of crisis. That is what this budget does. Our budget seeks to meet today's urgent needs, namely overcoming COVID-19 and building a fairer, more prosperous and more innovative future for all. This budget will have an important impact on the people of my riding and of Montreal East.
In my riding, many businesses and organizations have benefited from the Canada emergency wage subsidy. “We would not be here without the federal government”: This is a strong message from Benoist, director general of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve community kitchen. Without the help of this wage subsidy, this jewel of Quebec's social economy, this pioneer of community kitchens in Quebec, which has provided more than 140,000 meals, would no longer be there. In fact, the budget allocates an additional $140 million to the emergency fund for food security.
The wage subsidy has helped several industries and small and medium-sized businesses. We can be proud to have supported two new businesses in Hochelaga and Montreal East, Oshlag and Glutenberg. A few months ago, the Prime Minister and I met with co-owners David and Frédéric to talk about the impact of COVID-19 and the federal programs that helped them. I am proud to tell Benoist, David and Frédéric, as well as thousands of organizations and businesses throughout Quebec and Canada, that our budget will extend the wage subsidy until September 25, 2021.
On top of helping these companies and making it easier for them to keep their workers employed, we are jump-starting the economy by increasing the Canada workers benefit, enabling thousands of workers to upgrade their skills in this modern, ever-changing world. With this budget, our government aims to support a sustainable green recovery, focused on the jobs of tomorrow.
Community organizations have been there for the most vulnerable Canadians since the beginning of the pandemic. Volunteers have been working every day to help the less fortunate. In Hochelaga, more than 35 community organizations received assistance from the emergency food security fund. I want to tell all of the organizations serving our community, including Le Mûrier, the Fondation des aveugles du Québec, Le Chic Resto-Pop, Projet Harmonie, Un prolongement à la famille de Montréal, and the Un Élan pour la vie foundation, that the government is supporting them in this budget. They play an important role and we recognize that. This is why we plan to invest $400 million over three years to create a temporary community services recovery fund that will help organizations adapt, modernize and participate in the economic recovery.
One of the main concerns for people in eastern Montreal and Hochelaga is the high cost of housing, which continues to put financial pressure on families. These high costs undermine the economic and social prosperity of all families in Hochelaga and across Quebec and Canada. A family should not have to choose between paying rent or buying groceries, and families will not have to do so. In addition to investing in safe, affordable housing, we plan to increase the Canada child benefit, which has lifted more than one million Canadians out of poverty for good.
I want to tell organizations like Maison Tangente, Centre NAHA, L'Anonyme, CARE Montreal and CAP St-Barnabé that the budget provides an additional $567 million over two years to support people experiencing homelessness. An additional $2.5 billion is also being invested to speed up the construction of affordable housing.
COVID-19 has disproportionately affected women. In the labour market, women were hit early. Schools and child care centres had to close, making it even harder to achieve work-life balance. The budget includes a fundamentally feminist plan to support growth and jobs. This includes creating a nationwide early learning and child care system based on the Quebec model. Creating such a system will help ensure that women can contribute to economic growth.
I would like to remind the House that Quebec is one of the best places in the world for women to enter the workforce. It is time for the rest of Canada to follow that example.
A feminist recovery also means supporting women entrepreneurs, strengthening diversity in corporate governance and creating a national action plan to end gender-based violence. We must act.
Our thoughts are with all the victims of femicide. I want to say to all women at risk that we think of them every day.
Lockdowns and reduced social contacts during the pandemic have had serious repercussions on mental health. We have a duty to ensure that Quebeckers and everyone in Canada are getting the help they need when they need it. As a mother of two young adults, I can say that the pandemic has hit hard at home.
I spoke at length with two young students at Collège de Maisonneuve, Estelle and Jean-Emmanuel. The mental health of young people has been hit particularly hard. Overnight, they ended up isolated without necessarily having access to resources to help them prepare for these changes. I want to say to Estelle, Jean-Emmanuel and the thousands of young people in Hochelaga that the government has heard them. The budget we are proposing today includes $100 million in funding to support mental health interventions, including for young people.
For the first time, the federal government recognizes the precarious state of the French language in Canada. We have a responsibility to protect and promote it. We recognized the need to protect the French language in Quebec, but also across the country, because the declining demographic weight of francophones is very real.
The time has come to modernize the Official Languages Act, and that is what we are going to do by providing funding to Canadian Heritage and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat for that modernization.
By providing $180 million to enhance French immersion and French second-language programs in schools and post-secondary institutions, we recognize that the status of the French language is at risk in Quebec and Canada and that we have a responsibility to protect it.
I would like to close by letting the House know how proud I am that east Montreal, which I proudly represent, is included in budget 2021. Our government recognizes the potential of east Montreal, its potential for innovative research, for new and growing businesses and for the economy of tomorrow.
As the proud government representative for Hochelaga and east Montreal in the House of Commons, I will continue to work hard to defend the economic and social interests of our area and, more importantly, to support all Canadians in the recovery of tomorrow—a green, sustainable, inclusive she-covery.
View Jag Sahota Profile
CPC (AB)
View Jag Sahota Profile
2021-04-22 17:10 [p.6064]
Mr. Speaker, as the shadow minister for women and gender equality, I want to start my speech by congratulating my colleague, the Minister of Finance, on being the first woman to present a federal budget.
I listened closely to the speech the minister delivered Monday on the budget and then read it closely. The minister was right when she said this budget had to be about finishing the COVID fight, healing economic wounds left by the COVID recession and creating more jobs and prosperity for Canadians in the days and decades to come. However, it does not do any of that and it absolutely does nothing to secure long-term prosperity for Canadians.
The minister mentioned that one of the consequences of COVID had been women leaving the workforce. This is true. COVID forced businesses, small and big, to suddenly shut down. The status of women committee heard from witnesses that women left the workforce for several different reasons.
Some left the workforce not by choice, but because they worked in industries, such as retail, travel or hospitality, which were hit the hardest. Others left the workforce because of the additional responsibilities of having to become teachers to their kids and taking care of family members, while for others working from home was just not an option.
The committee heard from these witnesses as well that while many men had returned to the workforce, women still had not at the same rate.
The minister made the conclusion that the reason for this was because of a lack of child care spaces and the need for a universal child care package.
Again, the committee heard evidence from witnesses that this was not the case. As a matter of fact, it heard that child centres were closing because of a lack of children to fill the spaces. Additionally, a universal child care plan is a simple answer to a very complex problem.
Under the Liberal plan, we end up treating all children exactly the same and make day care centres identical from coast to coast to coast. However, their plan has not taken into consideration parental choice and that parents, not the government, are in the best position to make these decisions on what is best for their kids, not a bureaucrat.
The Liberal budget also has not taken into account the cultural sensitivities that exist in such a vast and diverse country like Canada.
For example, I am of an ethnic background where we believe strongly in the importance of not just ensuring our children get a good education, but the preservation and teachings of our culture, language and religion. This is something on which I know that my Bloc colleagues will agree with me. This is why their provincial child care system is unique and important in Quebec. It does just that. It is designed to protect, nurture and instill the French culture, the French language and French history.
Canadians do not need a generic program where they drop off their kids and then pick them up at the end of the day. They need help in supporting their choice of child care, whether that be a day care centre, or grandparents or friends, where the culture, language and values are taught to their children.
For example, I have heard from many how, when their children were younger, grandma and grandpa would watch them throughout the day, and it was there that they learned how to do their fractions. The learned that four quarters of a cup equalled one cup when spending quality time baking delicious cookies and breads, which they enjoyed before their parents would pick them up. This is extremely important to my constituents and the Liberal budget does not achieve that.
I want to highlight in the budget the focus on gender-based violence in Canada.
Since the government was elected, it has constantly talked about gender-based violence and how it impacts negatively women and girls. On average, one in three women and girls in Canada will face some sort of violence in their lifetime. Each time the Minister for Women and Gender Equality appeared at the status of women committee, I asked her repeatedly when Canadian women and girls could finally see the government's national action plan to address gender-based violence.
Do members know what her response is? The minister always replies with acknowledging this is an important issue that the government wants to address, yet there comes a point when words no longer mean anything if they are not followed through with action.
Every single one of our allies who signed the international agreement that gender-based violence is a serious issue, a pandemic, that needs to be addressed has already published at least one national action plan, and in some cases they are already working on versions two and three. We do not even have our first version out.
This is why I was pleased to see in the budget the government’s plan to address this very serious issue. However, I was completely disappointed that only now, after years of campaigning and promising from the Prime Minister, the government has decided to appoint a secretariat to develop our plan. Last year, 160 women died because of the government's failure.
View Philip Lawrence Profile
CPC (ON)
Madam Speaker, it is my privilege today to rise virtually in the House of Commons to speak to Bill C-14, which enacts certain fiscal components of the fall fiscal update.
I want to begin by speaking about some of the advantages of the bill. Steps like raising the Canada child benefit are essential to maintaining gender equality during this pandemic. When lockdowns happened, it has been very difficult for women to find child care for their children. It is clear that the pandemic has disproportionately affected women.
There is no doubt the relief for student loans will help students. As our students graduate and struggle to find jobs, it is clear that they, too, have been deeply affected by the pandemic and by the high employment rates that have come with it.
We have also continued to call for changes to the rent subsidy program, some of which has been included in Bill C-14.
While the legislation does make some important changes, in many ways it also misses the mark. While a certain amount of spending and investment can be expected, and actually encouraged during these times, Bill C-14 would give the government unfettered power to put Canada in a precarious situation. It would give the government the power of borrowing without the appropriate accountability and oversight.
The fact of the matter is that the COVID pandemic is far from over. In fact, Canada just reached an ominous milestone. For the first time in the global pandemic, Canada has reported more new COVID-19 cases per capita than the United States of America. How is this possible? How is it that many countries across the world are beginning to reopen their economies, beginning a new normal, while we hit a third wave that seems to be even worse than the ones that preceded it?
The answer is simple. We do not have enough vaccines. The procurement efforts have been botched and have been a failure. It has come with a deadly cost to Canadians. Whereas our counterparts in the U.S., UK and Israel are beginning to reopen, across Canada, we are re-entering devastating lockdowns.
It is with great sadness that I speak about the devastating impact this has had on our people. Many Canadians, including those in my riding of Northumberland—Peterborough South, have been forced to shut down for the better part of a year. According to Stats Canada, 60% of businesses reported a drop in revenue between 2020 and 2019, with certain industries being affected harder than others.
My riding of Northumberland—Peterborough South is home to some of the most beautiful landscapes and some of the most charming small towns in all of Ontario. Because of this, many of my constituents rely heavily on the tourism sector to survive and thrive. The hospitality, tourism sector, unfortunately, has been one of the hardest hit in Canada.
New statistics are now suggesting that 50% of Canadians are on the brink of insolvency. As we face more lockdowns, many Canadians are barely holding on and are continuing to rely on federal stimulus, like the CERB and CRB.
Mark Rosen, chair of the Canadian Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Professionals, recently had this to say.
I am having trouble speaking, Madam Speaker, due to a member not having his mute on.
View Alexandre Boulerice Profile
NDP (QC)
Madam Chair, honourable colleagues, I wish I could say that I am pleased to take part in tonight's debate, but I hate the fact that we need to have this debate at all.
The truth is, we should all be panicking. We should all be terrified that we need to have a debate because there have been so many cases of femicide in Quebec and Canada. It is absolutely terrible. These are not just tragedies involving a family, an individual or a couple. We are talking about a bloodbath, something huge that should make us all shudder right now.
The fact that seven women in Quebec have been murdered by their spouses in the last seven weeks is unbelievable. Last year, 160 women were killed in Canada because they were women. That is one woman murdered every two and a half days.
How did we as a society, as a community, get to the point where femicide is in the news three times a week in Canada?
In Quebec, seven women have been killed in the last seven weeks. I want to take a moment to remember them by name.
Her name was Elisapee Angma, and she was killed on February 5 in Kuujjuaq. Her name was Marly Edouard, and she was killed on Feburary 21 in Laval. Her name was Nancy Roy, and she was killed on February 23 in Saint-Hyacinthe. Her name was Sylvie Bisson, and she was killed on March 1 in Sainte-Sophie. Her name was Myriam Dallaire, and she was also killed on March 1 in Sainte-Sophie. Her name was Nadège Jolicoeur, and she was killed on March 19 in Saint-Léonard. Her name was Rebekah Harry, and she was killed on March 23 in Montreal.
These women were not killed in a car accident or because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were simply in the wrong place. Where was that place? It was at home.
For many women and girls in Quebec and Canada, home is the most dangerous place they can be. That speaks volumes about the problems they face.
Normally, in our individual or collective psyche, home is a refuge. It is the place where we are loved, reassured and comforted. It is the place we go to when we have problems in the outside world. For many people, however, home is the worst place in the world, and they must seek refuge elsewhere.
However, when these women seek refuge elsewhere, they learn that there are not enough shelters. The Fédération des maisons d'hébergement pour femmes, an organization that represents several dozen shelters for women fleeing abuse, has an office in Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. I spoke with officials from this organization a few years ago, and they told me that they had to turn away around 10,000 women a year. More than 10,000 requests a year are being turned down because there is no room, no space, no refuge for these women in need knocking at the door.
What happens then? These women have two choices. One, they can return home, where they will have to deal with a dangerous or violent husband or partner and continue to suffer until a space opens up. Two, they can move out, but since there is no shelter space available, they end up on the street.
If they decide to bring their children with them, they end up in a catch-22. If they refuse to go home for their own safety and that of their children, they are accused of endangering their children. Our police, public and legal services have not kept up with the times.
We want to prevent these situations. The Government of Quebec and the provincial governments bear much of the blame for the chronic underfunding of shelters for abused women. The federal government should and could do more as well. It goes both ways.
As a result of the pandemic, these women, who were already in sensitive and difficult situations, have unfortunately become trapped in their own homes with violent partners and toxic masculinity. We have seen an explosion of cases, and we all need to reflect on this together, as a community.
My time is up, but I could elaborate in my answers.
View Raquel Dancho Profile
CPC (MB)
Madam Speaker, I will mention on the record some of the people who are being impacted by this. I believe it is very relevant to Bill C-24 because this is the CRB-EI bill and yet there is a CRB-EI technology issue that is preventing thousands of Canadians from getting the support they desperately need and have been promised by the Liberal Government.
Laura has a sick 13-year-old daughter at home and is unable to claim the Canada recovery caregiver benefit because of this open EI claim issue. Jennifer, a young mother from the Windsor-Essex area, was forced to rely on credit cards because she kept getting bounced between departments. We hear this a lot. There are people being kicked around, being told that the government cannot deal with it and that they should call another person, and they call that person and are told to call another person.
Adam and Michelle, a Winnipeg couple with a newborn baby, have been calling CRA in shifts. We know, at tax time, calling CRA is an absolute nightmare. Right now, it is a nightmare times 1,000. People are calling, getting put on hold for four, five, six hours and getting disconnected passed around to other people. People are sort of kicking the can down the road and being told that some other bureaucrat will deal with it. I find it absolutely unacceptable that people are waiting for this money they have been promised. They need it. They have been laid off through no fault of their own and yet they cannot get through to the CRA.
There is nowhere physically that they can go. Service Canada has been closed for a year. There is nowhere they can go to ask someone to please help them. They cannot get through to a real person who can give them answers, and there is just really no fix for this. The minister has committed to fixing it, but there is no deadline for when that is going to happen and these people have been left with no option.
The last thing I will say about this is that there is a further complication. There is MyCRA account, which I have been locked out of as well, but over 100,000 Canadians' MyCRA accounts have been hacked, and so they have been locked out of them too. Apparently the CRA is telling people to go online and deal with it, but then 100,000 people have been locked out of their CRA accounts. I guess there are cybersecurity issues in this country and over 100,000 people's tax accounts have been hacked. That very serious problem is further impacting progress and payments for these thousands of Canadian families. I wanted to address this issue yet again and urge the Liberal government to do whatever it needs to do to fix this problem.
I would like to talk about what is not in this bill but should have been, or at least should have been part of the Liberal talking points, and that is how we get out of this. How do we get three million people currently relying on benefits off the benefits and back into the workforce? I do not know. I have yet to hear a plan, and that is of particular concern to me and I know opposition parties, in particular, the Conservatives. Now that it has been a year, we are raising the alarm. Where is the jobs plan on this?
The numbers are really astounding. We have spent unbelievable amounts of money. There are 3.17 million Canadians on some form of temporary COVID-19 assistance, and we know that over 831,000 people were on the CRB during the period of February 14 to 27. There are almost 1.8 million unique applicants for the CRB and $12 billion has been spent to date, which is double what was originally planned by this date, according to the parliamentary budget office. There are currently over 2.3 million beneficiaries of EI, with $20.21 billion being spent on them since September 21. These numbers are so huge, I cannot quite wrap my head around them, and more is being announced. As I have said today, we are to spend about $12.1 billion as a result of this bill. Based on the track record over the last year of cost overruns, it is going to be significantly more than that.
I firmly believe that Canadians do not want to be sitting at home on employment insurance or the like. I do believe people want the integrity and honour of having a job. I do not think Canadians want to be sitting at home. From what I hear from my constituents, people are going a bit crazy at home, because they are stuck there with no jobs and the kids are out of school. It is absolutely unbelievable the stress that young parents in particular are under right now. I could get into that and go on, honestly, for days about the horror stories I have heard of the stress this is causing Canadians and my constituents.
The minister said yesterday at the HUMA committee that she did not want to come back to renew these supports via legislation despite rapid collaboration at committee. She made that commitment, in saying that she did not want to have to come back to fix some problem with this straightforward piece of legislation. I hope she is right. I hope we did not miss something and in a month from now to have to come back at lightning speed to fix this again, but we very well may.
The problem is that in Bill C-24 there is essentially a sunset clause of September 25. That is when these CRB-EI benefits will come to a close. That is about six or seven months away, so I think we can all hope and pray that people will not need these supports then and that there will be jobs coming back. As I mentioned in my speech on Monday, September 25 kind of coincides with when the Liberal government has reportedly promised that every Canadian will be vaccinated who wants to be. I guess we could infer that if everyone is vaccinated, we could get the economy back to normal and jobs could come flowing back, but the Liberal government has not actually made that a definitive promise, that when everyone is vaccinated the economy can open up as normal and we can go back to normal. I do not know why it has not given us some sort of measures—
View Patricia Lattanzio Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, the government recently announced the coming into force of the new version of the Divorce Act. The legislation, which passed in 2019, marks the first substantive changes to family laws in 20 years.
Could the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada please update the House today regarding the changes that can be found in the new version?
View David Lametti Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel for her wisdom and her hard work.
The changes made to the Divorce Act will modernize the justice system so it supports all Canadian families. The act puts the best interests of the child first and helps address family violence in order to make the family justice system fair and effective for everyone.
I have to thank our provincial and territorial partners for their co-operation. Together, we have been able to ensure that the laws in place are truly beneficial to families who are often going through difficult times.
View Rachel Blaney Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, the Veterans Affairs assistant deputy minister told the veterans affairs committee that VAC conducts a gender-based analysis of all of its policies and programs. That sounded good, but when the veterans ombudsperson asked to see the GBA+ report on mental health treatment benefits for family members, the department did not even bother answering her.
If VAC officials cannot bother to respond to the ombudsperson, how many pleas from veterans are they also ignoring? What will the feminist Prime Minister of Canada do about it?
View Justin Trudeau Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Justin Trudeau Profile
2021-03-10 14:48 [p.4823]
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for bringing up this important concern. I will be following up on it with the minister to make sure that we are delivering on our commitment as a feminist government.
View Michael Kram Profile
CPC (SK)
View Michael Kram Profile
2021-02-05 11:01 [p.4057]
Madam Speaker, Ronald McDonald House Charities is looking to expand services for families across Canada. When a child becomes sick, it takes a terrible toll on the whole family. This burden is made so much greater by the fact that hospitals with pediatric services are often located a significant distance from the family’s home.
This is where RMHC steps in to provide accommodations, meals, peer support and other services to the entire family while their child is being treated at a nearby hospital. RMHC is seeking federal funding to expand its network of houses across Canada, including a potential location near the Regina General Hospital.
On behalf of the people of Regina and southern Saskatchewan, I would like to salute Ronald McDonald House Charities and encourage the government to support this worthwhile cause.
View Laurel Collins Profile
NDP (BC)
View Laurel Collins Profile
2021-02-03 14:18 [p.3948]
Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago I had the pleasure of sharing the exciting news that I am expecting my first child, and it gave me the opportunity to connect with many new and expecting parents. While welcoming a new baby is an exciting time, many parents are facing serious financial challenges.
I have heard from parents who work in the gig economy who are not eligible for EI and who are therefore also not eligible for any paid parental leave. I have spoken to countless women who shared their stories of wanting to return to work but being unable to find or afford child care. These stresses have been exacerbated by the economic impacts of COVID-19.
Over the course of the pandemic, women's participation has dropped to its lowest in 30 years, reversing decades of progress. We must continue to call for a future in which women are not the assumed sole caregivers, forced to chose between having a family and having a career. We need to do better for new parents and we need a universal national child care program now.
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
2021-02-01 11:05 [p.3797]
Mr. Speaker, for those who may not know, the city of Joliette, for which my riding is named, was established after Barthélemy Joliette built a mill on the bank of the L'Assomption River. At that time, the city was named L'industrie, which cleary shows the importance of entrepreneurship for our regional county municipality and for the northern Lanaudière region.
I already knew that before I was elected in 2015, when my riding was booming both socially and economically. However, I have heard from many entrepreneurs about how difficult it is to transfer their business to their children, since it is less profitable than selling it to a stranger. That is unbelievable. The Bloc Québécois and I are obviously in favour of Bill C-208. We have been working on this issue for many years. In fact, my colleague from Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères introduced a similar bill in the previous Parliament.
If this bill were to pass, it would have a very significant impact on Quebec. Nearly one-third of Quebec's SMEs were buy-outs, whereas that number is one-quarter for Canadian businesses. According to Marc Duhamel, a professor at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, the rate of business buy-outs in rural areas is around 45%. Helping the next generation of business owners would be good for Quebec, and when something is good for Quebec, the Bloc Québécois votes in favour of it.
I also know that these changes will be good for my region. My riding has numerous farms in practically every one of its municipalities, including places like Saint-Thomas, Rawdon and Saint-Ambroise. We all know a farmer, and we are proud to support our local producers in our farmers' markets, grocery stores and even the little stands we see on pretty much every major roadway.
Right now, the crux of the issue is that a business transferred to a family member is treated as a dividend, not a capital gain, unlike a business sold to someone at arm's length. People who want to sell their small or medium-sized business or their farm or fishing operation to their children are not entitled to the lifetime capital gains exemption, but if they sell to a third party, they are.
I get that the government wants to prevent potential fraud and tax avoidance, but this situation complicates the lives of everyone who genuinely wants to take over the family business. This is like asking people to slow down to 80 kilometres per hour because some people are speeding along at over 130 kilometres per hour. The government should fix this situation by allowing transfers to family members. If a transaction is fraudulent, the government can investigate it, kind of like how a police officer would ticket someone speeding on Highway 50, but would let everyone who obeys the speed limit carry on.
Speaking of tax avoidance, there are other much more concerning cases. Here are three examples the government should tackle. First, the government should immediately start taxing web giants doing business in Quebec and Canada. Second, web giants' digital services should be subject to GST. Quebec already collects QST from them. These two measures have been announced, but they should be implemented right away. Third, the government should shut down the tax haven loophole. That was my goal in 2016 with Motion No. 42.
This is a serious problem, and many people in my riding are suffering as a result. Year after year, I meet entrepreneurs who are looking for someone, the next generation, a young person, to take over the family business. Rather than taking examples from my own family, among my uncles, aunts and cousins, let me give an example that illustrates how ridiculous this situation is. I will tell you about Charles, who went to high school with my assistant.
I have met Charles a number of times since my first election campaign in 2015. Ever since he was old enough to work, Charles has been toiling in his family business, a great sound, multimedia and lighting services company, the kind you often see at festivals, fundraisers and community events in the Lanaudière region and beyond. Not too long ago, Charles and his business partner bought the company. However, the family member who owned the business would have been better off selling it only to the partner, who was already working for the business, rather than including his own son in the transaction. How is that right?
Another incongruity has to do with selling to a competitor, which would actually be more profitable than selling to the next generation, the ones who know the distributors, the customers, the activities and the local reality. This would reduce competition in the sector, possibly increase the price of services and cause the loss of local expertise.
Unlike many other businesses that have no choice but to close up shop because of tax regulations, that SME was able to keep running back home in Joliette. If I open my curtains, I can see it from my window. I could talk at length about the problems facing this industry and even more so now because of the wide-scale cancellation of activities. However, that is not what this bill is about.
I would point out that the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the CFIB, would like to see this bill pass, which is only natural.
There are many reasons we need to keep these SMEs in the hands of the next generation. First, this would allow several regions to develop their industry. We need to fix this problem for all SMEs, but even more so for businesses in the fisheries and agricultural sectors. In Quebec and in the regions, fisheries and agriculture are among our biggest industries.
Things are looking rather bleak when it comes to the next generation taking the reins of SMEs in the future. Statistics show that in 2016, fewer than 25% of farms had secured a successor and that rate has remained the same since 2011.
Between 500 and 800 young farmers are taking over a farm each year, when in fact 1,000 are required to maintain the number of farms in Quebec. Roughly one farm a day is disappearing back home.
In the fisheries sector, there are three major obstacles to the acquisition of a business. Léa Richard, of the Comité sectoriel de main-d'œuvre des pêches maritimes, said the following:
...what is truly difficult for this next generation is access to financing, the transfer of licences and the administrative complexity. These are the three elements that make it difficult for the next generation to acquire a fishing business.
We know that it is already difficult to take over a business. It is that much more difficult in sectors that require a sizeable capital investment. For these people who have poured their heart and soul into their business, which most of the time represents their retirement nest egg, it seems unfair that it costs them an arm and a leg to sell their business to their children.
It is difficult for people to go into business and later to let go of what they have spent most of their life building. If we could at least make it easier for them to sell their business to a family member, that would be a good thing.
The government will probably remind us that we need to make choices and that this measure comes at a significant cost. In fact, the Parliamentary Budget Officer reviewed a similar bill in 2017 and estimated the cost at about $376 million. To put that in terms the Liberals will understand, that is equivalent to a little more than one-third of a contribution agreement with WE Charity, or about 40% more than the sole-source contract awarded to Frank Baylis.
This measure may be costly, but it is nothing considering how much the next generation could help business owners. Losing a business is hard on the owners, but the impact of that loss ripples beyond the owner and their loved ones. Suppliers, creditors, employees and customers lose an important partner. We often think about how the closure of a large company can have repercussions on a region, as was the case with Electrolux a few years ago in Assomption, near my riding. However, we rarely consider that the loss of multiple small businesses can have a less immediate but equally serious impact on the socio-economic fabric.
Ensuring the succession and continuity of SMEs is not only good for our economy and governments' fiscal capacity, but it is necessary for efficient land occupancy. From the North Shore to Abitibi, from Gaspé to Nunavik, Quebec has chosen to have vibrant regions, each with its own strengths, growth sectors and educational institutions, such as CEGEPs. According to Maripier Tremblay, an associate professor in the department of management in Université Laval's faculty of business administration, “Quebec's economy depends on its SMEs, but also on its regions. It is very important for businesses in the regions to retain their pools of workers.”
I will close by saying that to have strong regions, we need to have people living there. For the period from 2014 to 2023, the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal estimates that between 79,000 and 140,000 jobs in our SMEs could be lost due to the entrepreneurial deficit. That is a gigantic number.
That is like one or two whole ridings of workers disappearing in 10 years. When many families leave a region, it has significant consequences for the entire ecosystem.
View Gord Johns Profile
NDP (BC)
View Gord Johns Profile
2021-02-01 11:16 [p.3798]
Mr. Speaker, many in this country are away from their loved ones, so before I get started, I note that today is my oldest daughter's 21st birthday. She is on the other side of the country, but I wish Maddie a happy 21st birthday and give her lots of love from everyone here at home.
It is always an honour to rise on behalf of the federal NDP to fight for small business. We know that small business owners are the job creators. Right now they are are creating 80% of all new jobs in our country. Bill C-208 is very important for supporting small businesses and local communities and for stopping the economic leakages from small communities in our country. These leakages often end up in the hands of large corporations because of flawed and broken tax rules that create a benefit for selling a business to those at arm's length versus a family member.
I want to thank the member for Brandon—Souris for reintroducing the bill, which shows that there is non-partisanship when it comes to supporting it. As members are well aware, the bill was first tabled as Bill C-274 by the former NDP finance critic and former member from Rimouski, Guy Caron. He fought hard, as the New Democrats continue to do, for small business.
I want to talk about what Bill C-208 would mean for small communities. We know that owners of small businesses, such as family farms and fishing businesses, as in the communities around where I live in coastal Canada, are often selling their businesses to family members. Specifically, the bill would give business owners the same rights they would normally get if they were selling to someone at arm's length. This is important, because nobody should be penalized for selling a family business to a family member, but it is happening now with the current taxation system. The bill is very important to us, and we are excited to be speaking in support of it given what it would mean to rural communities.
I cited the importance of small business for job creation. If people see a barrier to selling to someone at arm's length and will pay more tax, they will do everything they can to pay less tax. With the current structure, for example, if a person sold a family business worth $1 million to a family member, they would end up paying a dividend tax rate of about $350,000. However, if a person were to sell that same million-dollar business to a stranger, someone at arm's-length, they would end up saving $306,000 of the tax they would have paid otherwise. It makes absolutely no sense.
We want to encourage people to keep businesses in the hands of family members and encourage intergenerational business ownership, because we know that it keeps money and profits in our communities. For example, in fishing, if a person were to sell a family fishing operation to someone in their family, they would keep the quota and the jobs in the family. However, if a family member had to pay more tax, they would be more likely to sell to an international company or large conglomerate, which would hoard fishing licences and then lease them out to fishers. The same applies to farmers. Profits then leave the community at the end of the day, which is a huge economic leakage. The money is leaving the community and leaving our country in many cases, and this needs to stop.
Mr. Caron's bill tabled in the last Parliament would have supported small businesses, farmers and fishers, but it was defeated by a margin of only 12 votes. It was voted on after the government misled Parliament. The government cited that the fiscal losses would be up to $1.2 billion, but the PBO put the fiscal revenue shortfall between $126 million and $249 million. That is quite a gap. The Liberal government could have stated what it would have cost Canadians taxpayers to do the right thing to help support the sale of intergenerational businesses by not making them pay more, but instead it said the loss would be an astronomical amount of money. In fact, the PBO's numbers were somewhere between 10% and 18% of what the government had initially cited, which is a big gap.
The cost of the economic leakage and its impact on small communities across our country, and on family members, is worth the price of what we are going to lose in the long run, as we see those profits leave our communities.
We are heading into a huge period of succession in our country. A lot of small business owners belong to an aging demographic. People want to sell their businesses to their family members and keep the ownership in the community, which I assume we want to encourage. We expect over $50 billion in farm assets alone to change hands over the next 10 years, so we are heading into a huge period of succession. For farming alone it is critical that we fix this now, because we have lost 8,000 family farms in the last decade. We need to do everything we can to curb that trend because it is obviously not working for Canadians. Only half of those small business owners actually have a succession plan, while 76% of them are planning to retire over the next decade.
That is important for a lot of people who have developed and built businesses in their families. I had a business for many years. When I started it, I was not informed that if I were to sell my business to one of my three children I would be penalized with a heavy tax bill. If I sold it to someone at arm's length, I would not have incurred that same tax. It makes absolutely no sense, but most Canadians do not know that this is the current situation.
This is something we need to remedy. I hope that the government will talk about the real numbers that the PBO shared. We saw some Liberal members support the opposition in the last Parliament, so I am hoping those Liberals who decided to vote with their government's misleading information will actually support the PBO and do the right thing to support their communities and small business owners, especially those family businesses that want to maintain intergenerational ownership. In rural communities such as Courtenay—Alberni, where a large part of our main street is made up of local or small businesses, this is a really important piece to our long-term survival. We want to encourage local ownership.
Again, this bill did not pass based on misinformation in the last Parliament. The Liberals continue to make excuses on this bill. They say they will relax the rule for tax avoidance, but we want it to be done carefully to avoid these difficulties and challenges of people avoiding tax rules. If the purchaser or family member retains the shares for five years, the Canada Revenue Agency's concern is that, in the absence of a specific provision, the shares would pass from one family to another. If that five-year provision were in place, it would make that impossible. We want to make sure that we take all the excuses away from the government and alleviate the concerns of taxpayers, so that there are provisions and a system in place to protect against flipping these businesses to avoid paying taxes. This is to keep them in the hands of small business owners.
According to a 2012 CIBC study, close to 30%, or 310,000, business owners were planning to exit ownership or transfer control of their businesses by 2017, in one year alone. We do not have the recent figures. That means that a lot of businesses are changing hands right now.
I want to talk about economic leakages, because we are seeing more businesses being sold and ending up in the hands of large conglomerates. We constantly see local ownership being reduced. This kind of taxation creates a threat to local communities. We want to invest in small communities, and this is a very good way to invest in families and small communities.
Returning to closing economic leakages, we need to do everything we can. This legislation is important, but we also need to make sure that the big banks pay their share, that we cap merchant fees and that we continue to take a holistic approach to supporting small businesses. This is a good bill and I hope the government will support it as well.
View Bernard Généreux Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today in support of Bill C-208 introduced by my hon. colleague, the member for Brandon—Souris, to amend the Income Tax Act to facilitate the transfer of small businesses or family farms or fishing corporations.
We already knew how important this issue was when this bill was introduced for first reading in February 2020. Who would have thought that, barely a month later, COVID-19 would come along and drastically change the landscape for Canada's SMEs?
As an entrepreneur and representative of a region that consistently ranks as one of the most entrepreneurial areas in the country, I was very sad to see the latest survey that the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, or CFIB, released last week, warning that 181,000 small business owners in Canada were considering closing their businesses. That means one in five businesses could close down, despite all the programs and billions of dollars spent by different levels of government and the support services we have provided in our respective ridings.
This is a frightening prospect, since 2.4 milion jobs are at risk if the pandemic continues, which is why I want to reiterate how important it is that the government do whatever it takes to fix the vaccine supply problem. We cannot sit back and wait until 2022. After all, we are barely into 2021.
Workers in the tourism and cultural sector are very much on my mind. Last year was devastating for them. The federal government really needs to get creative with its vaccine strategy, and it needs to do it fast so we can at least hope for some degree of recovery for the sector this summer.
September is too late, and 2022 is even worse. Until very recently, small and medium-sized businesses were the backbone of our economy. They created more than 77% of all new jobs between 2002 and 2012. As a Conservative, I am very proud of the Harper government for creating an environment that helped SMEs grow by reducing the corporate tax rate from 22% to 15%, lowering the small business tax rate to 11%, and increasing the income limit for applying this tax rate from $300,000 to $500,000.
As a business owner who created nearly 30 printing and communications jobs in my region, I understand the importance of ensuring our tax system encourages entrepreneurship.
It is important to understand what motivates entrepreneurs to risk all of their savings and their financial security to set up or buy a new business. People go into business for a variety of reasons. Some are motivated by their passion, while others see a service gap in their community that needs to be filled. However, most people go into business to provide for their family, with the hope that, one day, their children will be able to take over the business and build a better future.
In my case, I intend to one day transfer my family business to my daughter, of whom I am obviously very proud. However, I was very surprised to learn that, under the existing Income Tax Act of Canada, it would be better for me to sell my business to a stranger than to a member of my own family. When a business is sold to a family member, the difference between the sale price and the original price of the business is considered a dividend and is taxable at 100%. However, if the sale is between two strangers, the difference is considered a capital gain, only half of which is taxed. What is more, in Canada, the lifetime capital gains exemption that normally applies to small and medium-sized businesses does not apply when the business is sold to a family member.
What message are we sending? Are we trying to discourage people from going to business? I am not the only one asking these questions. According to a 2012 CFIB study, approximately 310,000 business owners, or around 30%, planned to sell or transfer their business within five years. That figure jumped to around 550,000 within 10 years. The figure may have changed during the COVID-19 crisis, which makes passing Bill C-208 all the more urgent for the many family businesses whose future is at stake. It is already bad enough that so many businesses plan to hand their keys over to creditors during this economic crisis.
We must not allow the unfairness in the Income Tax Act to force so many small businesses to hand their keys over to the government. According to the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, “Over $50 billion in farm assets are set to change hands over the next 10 years”. That does not even include the more than 8,000 family farms that have already folded in the past 10 years. Just half of them had a succession plan. As the population ages, three in four farmers plan to retire in the next decade. We need to act quickly to fix this anomaly in the Income Tax Act to prepare for the demographic reality we are facing, in the agricultural sector especially.
That is why I support Bill C-208, introduced by my colleague from Brandon—Souris, and I urge the Liberals to do the same. I remind my colleagues that during the 42nd Parliament, we debated a similar bill that had been introduced by Guy Caron, the former member of Parliament for a riding next to mine. This is a unifying bill. This is not a left or right issue; it unites us all.
I would like to remind members that Bill C-274 received the support of the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP, but was defeated by the Liberals, who had a majority at the time, because they heeded the advice of public servants rather than that of the people who elected them. Many organizations across Quebec support the bill. The Association des marchands dépanneurs et épiciers du Québec has spoken out against the current situation, and the Union des producteurs agricoles and the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal both indicated that they supported the bill.
This issue was also brought to my attention during the last campaign, in 2019, when I met with UPA producers in Cap-Saint-Ignace, which is in my riding. Last Friday, I received an email from Andre Harpe of Grain Growers of Canada asking us to support Bill C-208.
I want to point out that the agriculture sector is following the debate very closely today. As the saying goes, better late than never. If the Liberal Party really wants to back SMEs, it must support this bill and pass it quickly because Bill C-208 will ensure that all these family businesses will continue to operate and remain intact by facilitating their intergenerational transfer. If this does not happen, a Conservative government will have no problem ensuring that it does.
I would add that with the speeches my colleagues made ahead of me, I think it is clear that the Liberals have no choice but to move forward and support this bill. In any event, they are in a minority. We will move forward with this bill. Whatever it may cost to implement it, not doing so would cost even more, because the value and pride that comes from handing down a family business is priceless. Considering that for the most part, all Canadian businesses started as family businesses, that they represent 90% of the Canadian economy, and that they are the backbone of Canadian entrepreneurship and businesses with fewer than 10 employees, it is essential that people be able to transfer these businesses to members of their own family without being penalized.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Brandon—Souris for bringing forward this bill. I know that private members' business can generate some good bills from throughout the House. A lot of people do not fully appreciate the amount of work that goes into private members' business, which one only knows if one has gone down that road. Just for taking the time to go through the process to bring this piece of legislation forward, and all the work that went into it, the member deserve a lot of credit.
I am pleased to take part in the debate today over this private member's bill, Bill C-208, which aims to facilitate the transfer of family businesses between family members. This is an admirable goal. Indeed, our government recognizes this important issue, as evidenced by the mandate given by the Prime Minister to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to work together on tax measures to facilitate the intergenerational transfer of farms.
Ensuring the sustainability of small businesses, family farms and fishing corporations is essential to our economy and to the communities these businesses serve. This has been underscored by their crucial role in supporting families and communities as we continue to fight against COVID-19.
Our government understands that this is a fact. From the onset of the pandemic, through Canada's COVID-19 economic response plan, we have introduced a range of supports for small business owners to help bridge them to the other side. Simply put, we have their backs, and this extends to helping family businesses thrive for generations to come.
Encouraging the sale of businesses to family members often means those businesses will remain in and continue to benefit their communities, as well as their families, who have fought hard, sacrificed and, through pure determination and entrepreneurial spirit, succeeded. It is with this spirit in mind that Bill C-208 is to bear full and careful consideration.
Bill C-208 seeks to amend two of the Income Tax Act's most important and complex anti-avoidance rules. These rules deal with intercorporate dividends, share sales and circumstances in which the lifetime capital gains exemption is claimed. Any relieving changes to these sections of the act must be done cautiously and follow rigorous study and debate to avoid the unintentional creation of loopholes that would disproportionately benefit the wealthy, instead of protecting the middle class and those who are struggling to join it.
Section 84.1 of the act, in particular, is in place to apply anti-avoidance rules when, as appropriate, an individual sells shares of one corporation to another corporation that is linked to the individual, such as one of a family member. When the individual sells shares of a Canadian corporation to a linked corporation, section 84.1 of the act deems, in certain circumstances, that the individual has received a taxable dividend from the linked corporation rather than the capital gain.
This prevents the individual from realizing the proceeds from the sale on the tax-free basis using the lifetime capital gains exemption. This rule is meant to ensure that taxpayers cannot use linked corporations to, in effect, remove earnings from their corporations using a contract sale. Without this rule, such sales between related parties could be used to convert what should be dividends of an individual shareholder into capital gains that are tax-free under the lifetime capital gains exemption.
Bill C-208 proposes narrowing the scope of section 84.1 by removing the sale of certain shares of small businesses, family farms or fishing corporations from its application when being sold by an individual to another corporation that is owned by their adult child or grandchild. This change would allow the owner-operator of a family business to convert the dividends of the corporation into tax-free capital gains.
In order to better illustrate how this would work, I will use an example. Let us say Darryl and Emily own a potato farm in P.E.I., which has grown to be a major regional supplier. After decades of hard work, they are now planning their retirement and want to pass down their business to their two adult children, both of whom already own successful small businesses in the community.
By applying the proposed amendments in Bill C-208, Darryl and Emily would sell non-voting preferred shares from their farm corporation to the two corporations controlled by their children. In doing this, they could claim tax-free treatment of the resulting capital gain from the sale under the lifetime capital gains exemption in a manner that allows the sale to be financed by the sold corporation's own assets without relinquishing control of the farm corporation.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I thank the Bloc member for raising that point of order.
Bill C-208 also proposes amendments to section 55 of the act, which generally applies to corporations that seek to inappropriately reduce capital gains by paying excessive tax-free dividends between corporations, which the act considers to be a capital gain.
Two exemptions to these anti-avoidance rules authorize businesses that are restructuring to allow company shareholders to split company shares between them while deferring taxes. The first exemption applies to the restructuring of related corporations, and the second applies to all corporate restructurings. Bill C-208 would broaden the first exemption so that it applies to brothers and sisters, despite a standing long-term tax policy that considers brothers and sisters to have separate and independent economic interests for these purposes. Any changes to this exemption could risk eroding the tax base.
Spouses, as well as parents and their children, are already eligible for this exemption because it is presumed they have shared economic interests. Although brothers and sisters cannot restructure their participation in a corporation on a tax-deferred basis under the related corporation's exemption, they can do it under the second exemption of section 55, which applies to all corporate restructurings. This is called the butterfly exemption, and there are fewer tax avoidance opportunities under it.
If the proposed amendments of section 55 included in Bill C-208 were passed, siblings could undertake business restructurings in which otherwise taxable capital gains realized between corporations would be converted into tax-free intercorporate dividends. This would create new opportunities for tax avoidance.
In conclusion, these are important considerations to take into account when reviewing the merits of Bill C-208. Our government remains committed to working with family businesses, including farming and fishing businesses, to make it more efficient, or less difficult, to hand down their businesses to the next generation. However, we must exercise caution to not create loopholes and opportunities for the wealthy to use private corporations for tax avoidance purposes. This would dilute our base protection of anti-avoidance tax rules. Moreover, this would create a tax system that caters to the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.
View Xavier Barsalou-Duval Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Speaker, today's debate is about Bill C-208, an act to amend the Income Tax Act with respect to the transfer of small business or family farm or fishing corporation. This is a very important issue, and I am concerned about the government's ongoing failure to take action on it. This problem comes back year after year, and it has still not been resolved.
In Quebec, one in three SMEs is a buy-out. That means that one-third of Quebec's small businesses were existing businesses bought by someone else. That is a big deal, yet the government penalizes people who want to transfer their business to a family member. In 2018, it was estimated that 30,000 to 60,000 Quebec businesses would not find a buyer in the years to come, yet the government is actively penalizing people who want to buy out the family business. It would rather those businesses disappear or be sold to strangers. That is just great.
In the agricultural sector, Quebec is losing one farm a day. We know this, we talk about it and we speak out against it. The fishing sector is no different. Fifty years ago, fisheries were flourishing in the regions, but today, fishing villages are disappearing one after the other. This is sad, but it is partly due to inaction by this government and, obviously, governments before it.
During my previous term, from 2015 to 2019, I introduced Bill C-275 to address this issue by allowing family businesses to be transferred to members of the same family. I was made aware of this issue by some of my constituents, including Mr. Tremblay, from Armoires Tremblay in Saint-Mathieu-de-Belœil. Mr. Tremblay was in his 30s and his father owned a small, family-owned cabinetmaking business. His father wanted to retire and was waiting to sell his business to his children, in the hopes that one day the act would be amended and allow him to do so without being penalized.
Right now, the government assumes that people who sell their business to their children are fraudsters. It thinks that they will not set the price at fair market value, so it decided to tax the entire profit generated by the transaction. The problem is that a small company can quickly grow to be worth one, two or three million dollars, even if it does not employ a million people, but rather three, four, five, six or 20.
We cannot ask young people who want to take over from their parents to withdraw two million dollars from their bank account. Very few people in their twenties and thirties can withdraw one million dollars from their bank account. That is the problem. The government thinks that people who sell their business to their children are fraudsters because they will give them a better price.
That means that they will not be able to sell unless they sell to strangers. Businesses will have to close because there will be no one to take the reins. It is really frustrating to see how the government refuses to recognize and resolve this problem year after year.
Not so long ago, I was discussing this with an old school friend, Marc-André Daigneault. His parents have a company called Revêtement RJ. The same thing happened to him. His parents wanted to wait to sell their company in the hope that the rules would one day change. He is saddened by the fact that young people cannot take over their parents’ companies because the government does not want to modernize and change the legislation.
At the time, I had tabled a bill that was similar to Bill C-208. The NDP found the bill so appealing that it decided to copy it, and the former NDP member for Rimouski, Guy Caron, tabled it himself. I would not want to take all the credit for the bill, because this is something the Bloc Québécois has been fighting for for 15 years. As early as 2005, a Bloc Québécois member introduced a bill seeking to address the problem of passing down family businesses from one generation to the next.
I am an accountant by training. In my university years, when I learned the tax rules and understood that people could not pass a business down to their children—well, it is possible but very disadvantageous from a tax perspective—I was really frustrated and could not get over it. All of my classmates and professors agreed with me. If we visited a tax school, an accounting office, a lawyer’s office or any university and asked an accounting or tax professor what they thought of this, they would tell us that it makes absolutely no sense. Unfortunately, the government is digging in its heels and preventing family businesses from being passed down to the next generation.
In June 2015, however, the Liberal member for Bourassa introduced a bill concerning the passing down of family businesses. He said that it was his first bill and that it was extremely important. That was in June 2015. When the Liberals came to power in October 2015, just a few months later, they were suddenly against it. It seems that the Liberals promise all sorts of things when they are in the opposition but do not follow through when they get to power .
As my colleague from Rivière-du-Loup pointed out earlier, this is not a partisan approach. My Conservative colleague said he thinks transferring family businesses is important. I mentioned my NDP colleague earlier. I do not know the Green Party's position, but I know a lot of Liberals are not happy with their party's position and agree that it is ridiculous, so much so that the government now finds itself in an awkward position.
We have seen several economic updates and budgets since 2015. The government said it would tackle the problem and try to fix it. Now here we are in 2021, and it is still not fixed. The Bloc has been fighting for this since 2005. This is unacceptable.
There are solutions, however. The government is going to tell us that we would be opening up loopholes, but our tax law is full of loopholes. People use tax havens, and the government does not go after them, but it prevents the transfer of family businesses. How does that make any sense?
The government says that it is impossible, but we have tabled a number of bills to resolve the problem. In 2016, Quebec's Minister of Finance announced a solution to the problem in his budget. Since January 1, 2017, four years ago, Quebeckers have been able to pass down their business to their children without a tax penalty, but the federal government is unable to do the same. We do not know why, but it cannot do it. I think that the problem is stubbornness more than anything else.
Let us examine this question more in depth. The capital gains deduction in 2021 is $892,000. That means that you can sell a business you spent your entire life building without paying income tax on the first $892,000. It is similar to the sale of a tax-exempt home.
We also know that people with small businesses often do not have an RRSP. They pay themselves dividends or a small salary, and they have just as much as they need to get by. I am thinking about the neighbourhood mechanic or your local farmer. Often, they do not have any money put aside because they put everything back into the business. When they come to retire, they are very happy to have the $892,000, because retirement is expensive, and they need enough money to last the rest of their lives.
Unfortunately, the government does not allow them this $892,000 if they sell their business to their children. Selling their business to a stranger gets them an $892,000 deduction, but they have to pay tax on that amount if they sell to their children. Even worse, the tax payable on capital gains is normally half the amount. If they sell the business to their children, they have to pay income tax on the profit as if it were ordinary income or a dividend.
It boggles the mind that the government insists on voting against the bill when it is well aware of the problem, when we have been telling it for years, and when a number of bills have been tabled to resolve the situation. I try to understand, but I cannot. That is why I am very pleased that we have a minority government today and that, with the three opposition parties, we will be able to pass the bill.
View Larry Maguire Profile
CPC (MB)
View Larry Maguire Profile
2021-02-01 11:56 [p.3804]
Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to be here in the House today. As I said on November 25, “it truly is a humbling moment to stand in this chamber and put one's name to legislation and ask one's colleagues to support it.” That is an extremely important part of private members' bills and it has been recognized by my Liberal colleague today, and I thank him for his comments as well. I will refer to that in a moment.
I want to thank my colleagues in the House for supporting this bill on small businesses and the idea making it fairer for people to sell their business to their own family members directly, as opposed to selling it to a complete stranger or a third party that they may not have any connection with.
The bill and the bipartisan support I have seen in the House are tremendously important. Here I want to congratulate my former colleague, the interim leader of the NDP, Mr. Guy Caron, for bringing this bill forward to start with and for the support of the Bloc, which a couple of speakers have pointed out here today, as well as in the first hour of the second reading of the bill on November 25.
This legislation impacts every corner of Canada. It impacts every one of us in the House, all 338 of us. We all have small businesses in our ridings and I want to refer to the words “small businesses”, as some of my colleagues who have spoken today have addressed the fact that this is for small businesses, not big businesses. There is a huge difference that I want to point out to my colleagues in the House, and they know that.
The bill refers to family operations in fishing, farming and other small businesses in Canada that have been built on the pride of ownership and the hard work that their families have done throughout Canada, and it in no way is trying to provide any kind of loopholes. In fact, the bill is very clear and has gone to great lengths, which Mr. Caron and I have studied, to make sure that its wording will not allow those types of situations. As I said, it would be pride of ownership for people to be able to build a small business into a larger business, but once they do that, the things we are talking about in this bill are not relevant to those businesses.
The outcome of bill will have very little impact on the government, as my colleagues have pointed out today. It will have very little financial impact on the federal government, but a huge impact on the currency that is available through small businesses to every region of this country, particularly during this pandemic. All small businesses are struggling. It is not their fault, but they are struggling right now and the bill would go a long way toward helping all of them alleviate some of the stress and strain of being able to hand their business directly down to their own son, daughter, granddaughter or grandson. That is whom this applies to. It is very narrow in its scope in that way.
It is inherently unfair for small business persons to pay disproportionately higher taxes if they sell their operation to their own children than if they did to a complete and absolute stranger. We have referred to the difference between selling to their family as a dividend, or to a stranger as a capital gains exemption, which amounts to a difference of hundreds of thousands of dollars to small businesses.
In making this change, it will allow the next generation to become business owners and to be able to carry on those businesses and to keep jobs in their local areas. Moreover, the funds the younger generation provide to the older generation are generally used for retirement, because a lot of funds that are earned during the small business development are going into the business to keep it afloat and expanding so that they can have that pride of ownership for their families in the future.
I want to close by asking all members to support Bill C-208 to encourage small business development in our country.
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
Mr. Speaker, going back to the last Parliament and the debates we had at PROC, my friend has heard me speak on these subjects for 10 hours at a time, so I am sure he will not mind an additional question.
He mentioned facilities on the Hill and recognizing the presence of young women with children. I want to observe that men also have children and that this is a live issue for young fathers as well. It is important to note that this is a balance that both male and female members of Parliament are often trying to strike.
Following up on his comments on the unanimous consent issue, it is interesting to me that members are speaking about the use of unanimous consent during this debate on the Standing Orders. All it would take is for one of those members to commit to consistently opposing all requests for unanimous consent and to say so. Of course, the member who did that would have to commit to saying no in every case, including in cases where the cause put forward through a unanimous consent motion was a popular one.
I am curious to know from the member if he is prepared to take that position—
View Maninder Sidhu Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Maninder Sidhu Profile
2021-01-26 10:53 [p.3508]
Madam Speaker, I would like to start off by wishing my colleagues a very safe and happy new year. The COVID-19 pandemic has put unprecedented stress and hardship on Canadians, from small business to long-term care homes and front-line and essential workers. Every Canadian has a story to share of how this pandemic has impacted them. Constituents in my riding of Brampton East are concerned about their businesses, the safety of their workers or simply when they can pay a visit to loved ones they have not physically seen in months.
For said reasons and countless others, the federal government has committed to the implementation of a strong and robust recovery plan presented by our finance minister through the fall economic statement. Our government's message is clear: We will do whatever it takes to protect the health and safety of Canadians for as long as it takes.
This message extends to our commitment to strengthen the economy by creating one million good jobs, investing in training and skills, creating valuable opportunities for youth and investing in green technologies to help combat climate change. This is a critical component in providing Canadians the support they need in Bill C-14. The economic statement implementation act would help put into action what the fall economic statement set out to do, which is supporting middle-class families, helping students manage their debt and investing in resources that will help better protect Canadians and the economy.
Amendments to the Income Tax Act will mean that families entitled to the Canada child benefit will receive additional temporary support of up to $1,200 for each child under the age of six. Families have had to transition their entire household routines in order to accommodate more time being spent at home, which means facilitating extra child care, buying additional school supplies to aid in virtual learning or simply helping with the cost of raising a family.
Throughout 2020, our government saw that families needed our help, which is why we stepped up to provide an extra one-time $300 payment in May and increased the Canada child benefit payment amounts in July. The proposed temporary $1,200 support for families is an increase of almost 20% over the maximum annual CCB payment. Our goal for a stronger and more resilient middle class involves ensuring that families have the resources they need in order to help nourish and support their children's futures. This plan includes a Canada-wide early learning child care program that will help ease the burden of arranging affordable child care. We know that this pandemic has disproportionately affected women. Doing better is not simply a choice, it is a responsibility that this government takes very seriously.
We will continue to support Canadian students. Our government plans to eliminate the repayment of the federal portion of the Canada student loans and apprenticeship loans from April 2021 to March 2022. Students in Canada can feel a sense of relief once these measures are in place to help them manage their student debt. This investment will help 1.4 million Canadian students who are trying to achieve higher education and ultimately begin their careers. I have listened to their experiences. I know that this support is essential. By easing the federal interest portion of student debt, we are allowing students the opportunity to focus on working toward their career goals and not being worried about incurring additional debt.
We also provided financial support to post-secondary students and recent post-secondary and high school graduates who were unable to find work last summer due to COVID-19. Eligible students received $1,250 for a four-week period for a maximum of 16 weeks between May 10 and August 29, 2020. Those with a disability or dependants also received an extra $750.
Most post-secondary students in my riding were unable to access the Canada emergency student benefit and are very positive toward our government's support for students, including the doubling of the Canada student grant amount to a maximum of $6,000 in response to the increased need for the 2020-21 school year.
Our government is actively creating opportunities for youth, whether that be through the investments of over $300 million into the Canada summer jobs program or the youth employment and skills strategy investment. These investments help young Canadians gain practical experience and make meaningful connections in the workplace. Students need our help. They have adapted to new learning methods and have overcome tremendous adversity during these troubling times, which is why our government is here to lend a helping hand.
The COVID-19 pandemic has put immense strain on our health care systems. The amendments made to Bill C-14 mean that we can help better protect those most vulnerable, like seniors, by investing through the new safe long-term care fund. This funding will help prevent and manage outbreaks in long-term care homes, which will ultimately help save lives.
The heartbreak and fear that many Canadians have felt knowing that they have a loved one living in a long-term care home or, God forbid, losing someone to the virus are all too common. We will also be establishing a new national standard for long-term care facilities to ensure that none of our grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles or friends must endure a substandard level of care. No person deserves that. Amending the Food and Drugs Act means that we can increase our investments in order to support access to virtual health tools, mental health supports and substance use programming.
Asking Canadians to stay at home can impact the mental health of so many. Restricting social interaction for long periods of isolation and job anxiety can take a toll on people's mental health. As the government, we want to make sure that every Canadian has access to the supports they need.
As we begin this new year, there is a great sense of hope among Canadians. This sense of hope was created by the hard work that was put into composing the largest vaccine portfolio in the world. I was excited to hear that all the long-term care homes in the region of Peel have received doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. As a government, we will continue to ensure that our vaccine rollout happens as efficiently as possible. We will also continue to prioritize those who are at high risk of or vulnerable to contracting COVID-19.
The amendments made in Bill C-14 under the Food and Drugs Act will help our government increase funding to support testing, vaccine procurement and distribution, as well as isolation sites. In November, the federal government, in collaboration with various levels of government, granted $6.5 million to establish an isolation centre for residents of Peel, in my riding of Brampton East, and throughout the region, to isolate safely if they cannot do so safely at home.
It is imperative that the messaging we continue to convey to Canadians is that we will support them for as long as it takes. That means including investments, such as the one proposed in the fall economic statement, which will help upkeep our efforts for medical research, countermeasures and rapid testing, and ensure that every Canadian can receive the vaccine.
Adapting to new research and trusting the science our health officials advise us on is how we can best protect the health and safety of Canadians. That is why investing in research is so critical under the presented amendments of Bill C-14.
The Canadian economy cannot function without the success of our small businesses across the country. Unfortunately, this pandemic has put an unprecedented strain on the ability of our small businesses to succeed. They account for over 90% of all businesses in Canada, and our economy cannot afford to stand back and allow businesses to close their doors. We must continue to provide a prudent fiscal plan that helps businesses stay viable and keeps employees on the payroll.
The Canada emergency rent subsidy saw over 20,000 organizations apply within the first four days of the application period. As a government, we are also cognizant of employees who have seen a reduction in their working hours or have been told not to come into work. Therefore, supports such as the Canada emergency wage subsidy have been extremely important to small businesses and their employees.
In my riding of Brampton East, I had the pleasure of speaking with various small business owners who were able to access both programs. I spoke with Mr. Dheri, the general manager of a local Turtle Jack's restaurant, who was thankful to have access to the Canada emergency wage subsidy so that he could keep his employees on the payroll. His is one of the over 350,000 small businesses across Canada accessing the Canada emergency wage subsidy program.
We want small businesses to be able to open back up once it is safe to do so. As we continue to fight COVID-19, our government will be there for Canadian small businesses every step of the way, so we can safely rebuild our economy and make us stronger than ever before.
While speaking to constituents, I have heard first-hand their concerns surrounding climate change and the state our children and grandchildren will inherit. Our fall economic statement represents actionable steps and investments to tackle these concerns. By taking steps to making homes greener and more energy efficient, Canadians can reduce their carbon footprint while lowering their energy bills.
Our government's efforts to establish a network of zero-emission vehicle charging stations across the country in convenient locations, including where we work, live and travel, will help accelerate the use of zero-emission vehicles. We will build on current investments and zero-emission vehicle infrastructure by providing an additional $150 million over three years to help ensure that charging stations are available and conveniently located where and when they are needed. This is on top of the 500 electrical vehicle charging stations at more than 250 locations across Ontario announced last year. Brampton is currently home to many electrical vehicle charging stations, and I look forward to welcoming many more.
Building back our economy requires a jump-start of investments to help stimulate growth once we get through this pandemic. As we stated in the fall economic statement in November, the federal government will invest billions of dollars over three years to help make this happen. The amendments proposed will help our government continue to make investments in resources to best manage the pandemic and support the recovery of our economy.
As I said before, there is a sense of hope among Canadians. We will continue to roll out and distribute vaccines over the coming months, and Canadians will be ready to return to a sense of normality. We must support these hopes and ensure that the economy, and Canadians' return, is adaptive, innovative and strong.
A lot of changes have happened this year due to COVID-19. Working from home has now become common practice among businesses. Students have adapted to online learning, and businesses have amplified their online capacities. The decisions and amendments that we decide on as members of Parliament will allow positive change to come to fruition. It will help us save lives, improve mental health supports, help middle-class families and create a more inclusive economy and society for all. Let us continue to move forward together.
View Christine Normandin Profile
BQ (QC)
View Christine Normandin Profile
2020-12-11 12:51 [p.3349]
Madam Speaker, I will spare members the suspense and announce right away that the Bloc Québécois will support the Conservatives' motion.
However, we will take this opportunity to further discuss ethics and the role of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. We will talk about what the commissioner should have the right to do, the possibility of future amendments and the suggestions that we will make to strengthen the commissioner's power, which is something he himself is asking for.
Before that, I will briefly remind members of the facts. The reason for this debate is the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner's November 19 report with regard to the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore. In his report, the commissioner found that the member contravened subsection 20(1) of the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons by failing to fully disclose his private interests and those of his family members within a reasonable time even after the initial deadline was extended from January 7 to February 7, 2020.
As the first step in the initial compliance process, members must fully disclose those interests to the Commissioner within 60 days after notice of their election is published in the Canada Gazette. That is what we all had to do at the beginning of the year. We had to declare our real and potential interests by January 7.
The member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore submitted his statement, but it was incomplete. He therefore asked for an extension, as did other members, and he was given until February 7 to submit the required information. However, even with this extension and after some information was sent, his file was still incomplete. His initial statement remained incomplete and did not meet the requirements of the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.
Ultimately, it was not until September 1, 2020, that the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore provided the last of the missing information, which he had not done until then, despite numerous requests from Commissioner Dion. Mr. Dion did contact the member several times to move the file forward, but without success.
It took the media getting involved and newspapers asking him why his report was incomplete to spur the member to action. As my colleague mentioned, the member used the pandemic as an excuse. However, as many will recall, the House was still sitting on January 7 and February 7, as the pandemic was escalating in other countries. We were not yet facing a health crisis here in Canada.
The hon. member knew his obligations to the Ethics Commissioner because this was not his first election. What is more, the member was a lawyer before entering politics. As lawyers we are required to be diligent and respond quickly when we are asked to do something. That is the minimum that can be done, not to mention simple common courtesy.
The hon. member waited until September 1, 2020. That is no longer a matter of carelessness. It is outright negligence. That is why the commissioner finally recommended a sanction. It is provided for under the code, but this is the first time this has been done in such a context, which illustrates how annoyed the commissioner was by the hon. member's lack of respect and diligence.
In his report, the commissioner reminded members of the importance of obeying the rules, saying that the report should serve as a reminder to all members of the House of the importance of fulfilling their compliance obligations under the code. The compliance rules in the code ensure transparency and accountability to the Canadian public.
No pandemic can be used as a justification for not fulfilling one's obligations to transparency. On the contrary, it should be more important than ever to ensure that hon. members meet these obligations during a pandemic.
That said, this is not the first time that the Ethics Commissioner has made comments about his role. In September 2018, the commissioner mentioned that the intergovernmental affairs minister at the time had violated the ethics rules by granting a fishing permit to a fishing company that stood to make millions of dollars from it. A member of his family was employed by that same company.
It was already an issue at that time and the commissioner wanted more powers, in particular the power to intervene in cases where there was a breach of trust and a breach of ethics.
The comments of the then ethics commissioner are even more relevant today. We need only think of certain ethical breaches that have occurred in recent years. I am thinking in particular of what happened in the Aga Khan file. The Prime Minister and his family had the privilege of a paid vacation, which earned him a reprimand from the Ethics Commissioner.
He received a second reprimand from the Ethics Commissioner for allegations of interference in the SNC-Lavalin case.
More recently, WE Charity paid for a vacation taken by the former finance minister. The whole WE Charity case caused the government to prorogue Parliament this summer in order to deflect attention from the case. Furthermore, some members of Parliament hired family members in their riding offices, which is a breach of ethics.
The Bloc Québécois is therefore suggesting that members further discuss the role of the Ethics Commissioner, as the commissioner himself has requested.
We are suggesting that members look into four ideas based on what the Ethics Commissioner himself wants to be able to enforce.
For example, when the wrongdoing is quantifiable and has a monetary value, it should be reimbursed. This is what we saw with the finance minister. He reimbursed the $41,000 for the trip that had been paid for him, but he was not obligated to do so. If the rule had been enforced on the trip to the Aga Khan's island, the amount of the reimbursement would have exceeded $100,000. That could become an incentive to follow the ethics rules more closely.
Another suggestion could be imposing a more substantial fine on those who violate the code of ethics, since it is currently only around $500. The Ethics Commissioner suggested that it should be more like $10,000, which would serve as more of a deterrent than what we currently have.
In some cases, parliamentary privileges could be suspended outright, thereby ensuring that the higher a person is in the parliamentary hierarchy, the more transparent and accountable they must be. Sanctions could be tougher for those who must exhibit perfect transparency and perfect adherence to the integrity and ethics rules.
Finally, work could be done on the issue of parliamentarians' immediate family members. Perhaps a code of ethics is needed for them, as well. A code of ethics should also be imposed on them, as though they were an extension of the MP's duties. Perhaps that would have been a deterrent in some of the more recent cases that history has brought to light.
In closing, we suggest that the Ethics Commissioner be given increased powers, including the ability to intervene more, as the commissioner himself has suggested. This would avoid the need for us to strike a committee every time there is a breach. It would ensure that the Ethics Commissioner would be given more power so that parliamentarians would no longer feel that they can walk away every time with a simple apology.
View Serge Cormier Profile
Lib. (NB)
View Serge Cormier Profile
2020-12-02 14:56 [p.2814]
Mr. Speaker, this pandemic has been particularly hard on children and young families. When schools, day cares and workplaces closed down, many families had to make very difficult choices. Our government has promised that it will continue to be there for Canadian families.
Can the Prime Minister tell us how the fall economic statement will help families with young children here in Acadie—Bathurst and across the country?
View Justin Trudeau Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Justin Trudeau Profile
2020-12-02 14:57 [p.2814]
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Acadie—Bathurst for his excellent question and hard work.
Many middle-class families are having a hard time making ends meet, especially during this pandemic. That is why we have announced additional support, totalling up to $1,200 in 2021, for each child under six for low- and middle-income families entitled to the Canada child benefit.
We have been there for Canadians throughout the pandemic, and we will continue to be.
View Helena Jaczek Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Helena Jaczek Profile
2020-12-02 15:09 [p.2817]
Mr. Speaker, when the first wave of this pandemic hit Canada, child care providers from across the country were particularly hard hit. In many cases, this meant that mothers were forced to leave their jobs and stay home to take care of their children. This is leading to what some are calling a “she-cession”.
Can the Prime Minister tell us how the fall economic statement proposes to address this?
View Justin Trudeau Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Justin Trudeau Profile
2020-12-02 15:09 [p.2817]
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Markham—Stouffville for her incredibly hard work.
We recognize the extraordinary and disproportionate toll this pandemic has taken on women. Investing in accessible, high-quality and affordable child care is not only good for families, it makes economic sense.
With the fall economic statement, we have laid the groundwork for a Canada-wide child care system with a new federal secretariat on early learning and child care. By taking this step, we are charting a clear and meaningful path forward to deliver this system for women and families across the country.
View Patrick Weiler Profile
Lib. (BC)
Mr. Speaker, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our government has been there to support Canadian workers. More recently, we have transitioned from emergency supports to a more flexible EI system and a suite of recovery benefits for Canadians who are not eligible for EI, are sick, are self-isolating or need to provide care for a child, family member or dependent. Now that we are in the midst of the second wave, some jurisdictions have already announced an extended winter break for students to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Can the minister confirm that parents who cannot work because they must care for a child or family member will be supported through the Canada recovery caregiving benefit?
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