Karim Bardeesy
Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, Ontario · Liberal · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the continuing work of the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, the leader of the Green Party, on issues related to contaminants and leakage. I also want to thank her for the interventions regarding the work of the late Dr.”
“Mr. Speaker, treaty rights are sacrosanct to this government, as are the regimes that we have in place, including the regimes for non-compliance and the environmental damages penalties that we have under the legislation. Incidents such as the recent spill at Cold Lake are taken very seriously.”
“That work continues, with Environment and Climate Change Canada and indigenous groups working together through that working group to develop long-term, science-based solutions that will form recommendations to the minister . I think the hon.”
“It is a core responsibility of the current government, and, I would say, of government, both now and for future generations. We need to address risks associated with tailings management in a way that gives sustained attention and brings solutions grounded in sound science.”
“Mr. Speaker, we know that small businesses do well when consumer spending is up, and that is why we have made investments like the Canada groceries and essentials benefit. Wages are increasing faster than inflation, and we have cut taxes through measures like the superproductivity deduction to make it easier for businesses to invest.”
“I would add that, with some of the investments we have been making in science and research and some of the advances in technology, we hope this work can continue to accelerate and to inform policy-makers, government and hon. members in an even more timely fashion.”
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“I think that it is the responsible choice to limit it to first-time homebuyers. I am looking forward to seeing how that vote will go tomorrow. The GST cuts also, again, support that affordable housing industry, ensuring purpose-built rentals, with GST off new rental buildings. These are some of the initiatives that are in these estimates. I know that there are also initiatives that have agreements signed with provinces and municipalities under the housing accelerator fund, and they are expected to support the construction of more than 750,000 new homes over the next decade.”
“I am very pleased to hear about the “build Canada homes” initiative that will support development at scale, which Canada needs right now, using public lands, catalyzing a new national housing industry and providing significant financing to affordable home developers. We have a vote, I believe, tomorrow. We are looking forward to hearing what is going to happen on the other side of the House. I know the residents in my riding, especially those first-time homebuyers in my riding, are very much looking forward to the prospect of the complete elimination of the GST for new homes up to $1 million and a cut for new homes between $1 and $1.5 million. We did hear on the other side, earlier in the week, that one Conservative member thought that this should be available to all homebuyers, not just first-time buyers.”
“It has a partnership between the University Health Network, the Fred Victor centre, United Way Greater Toronto and the city. These are 51 lives, 51 families that are going to be changed by this project. This project is now built, and we have residents in that site at 90 Dunn. We have the 11 Brock Avenue site, which is going to be under construction, with 42 rent-geared-to income supportive housing units, supported by $21.6 million in rapid housing funding. We have this work that is happening, that is being supported by the work shown in the estimates. That is making a real difference in Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park. We also have other needs beyond supportive housing. We need that affordable housing, and we need the promise of home ownership, which we need to bring back to more Canadians, to more people, in particular in west Toronto.”
“I am really pleased to report some of the things that are now happening in Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, thanks to federal government investments. I know that the minister has some awareness of this because of the great work of my predecessor, Arif Virani. I spoke to the different kinds of needs that my constituents have, and we have some needs. We have some residents who have complex health needs who need not only their housing supports but also a good place to live and other kinds of health care supports. I want to point out two specific projects in my riding that are being supported by the rapid housing initiative. One is the 90 Dunn Avenue site, which has 51 rent-geared-to-income supportive housing units and a $14-million federal government investment, the first of its kind in Canada.”
“However, again, we have needs developing in the riding, as they are in a lot of places in west Toronto, and we need a renewal of housing stock. This is generally an older housing stock, especially for families and for people who just need a place to stay, a place they can call home. We are also seeing, as we are seeing in lots of different parts of urban Canada, residents and constituents who have a complex set of health needs or other needs who need more attention. (2255) I took the decision to stand for this riding and to help represent this community in order to represent the wide variety of people and the wide range of housing needs and the wide range of health care needs that people might have that can be supported through different kinds of housing.”
“Another part of my riding is what we call High Park North, which is actually one of the most dense communities in Canada. People are probably familiar with High Park, a destination for baseball players, birders and people to check out the cherry blossoms. We are very blessed to have a number of buildings, a number of towers, again generally built in the postwar era, just north of High Park. There are about two dozen towers there on Mountview, Oakmount, Pacific, Quebec, Bloor West, Glen Lake and High Park Avenue. There is some new building happening there too. We also have a blessing of different kinds of housing. We have purpose-built rentals, we have some Toronto community housing and we have some different kinds of ownership options there.”
“The net number of constituents living in Parkdale has gone down. That is because not only are we not building enough purpose-built rentals, but the larger multi-residential units, the mansions that used to house the business class of the riding, which then became multi-unit residential, have been turned back into single-family homes. Therefore, the population of the Parkdale part of the riding is going down. The tenants of 30 Springhurst were coming together to find ways to advocate for themselves, as we are seeing such a great spirit of tenant activity and, in fact, community activity all around Parkdale. We are seeing these buildings and are seeing folks in our riding looking for other residential options, other places to provide themselves with housing.”
“It goes by the name Edge Water Tower. I went to that building a few weeks ago because there is a group of tenants gathering to try to form a tenant group there for the first time. Edge Water Tower at 30 Springhurst is like a lot of buildings in Parkdale, in the High Park area and in west Toronto generally, where there are a lot of purpose-built rental buildings. It is a bit of an older building with good bones, but the stock is becoming a bit aged. The kinds of new buildings being built are not being built in the same way that the older buildings were built. We are seeing more of the smaller, single-unit condos and single-person condos. We are not seeing the kind of development needed for the population in the riding. Recent census figures show that the population of the Parkdale part of our riding has actually gone down.”
“Two weekends ago, I spent some time at 30 Springhurst, which is a building built in 1964. Springhurst Avenue, in fact, is an avenue that became developed because of a different development. Many people in this chamber would have travelled on the Gardiner Expressway. It resulted in the removal of a number of housing units in the old part of South Parkdale. The city of Toronto in the early 1900s was a destination for lots of tourists. Members might be familiar with Sunnyside Pavilion, which still has a pool. There was a very old and large housing development in South Parkdale, and when we built the Gardiner Expressway, that neighbourhood was removed and we ended up building housing and rental housing farther up north of where the Gardiner Expressway was being built. One of those buildings was 30 Springhurst Avenue.”
“Mr. Chair, I am pleased to speak to the Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada estimates. I will put some questions to the minister at the end. I am glad to have a group of colleagues here who are from ridings outside of Toronto. I want to tell them about my riding and the housing experiences and challenges we have and engage in a bit of dialogue and exploration around how the items in the estimates and some of the current government actions might support some of the housing challenges and opportunities. I will start with one of the areas of my riding, which is in the name of the riding, Parkdale. Parkdale is just to the east of High Park. It is a destination for people who have arrived from all parts of the world, people in need who have found a community in that particular part of west Toronto.”
“To follow up with a question about the income tax cut that is in the legislation, I want to ask the minister his perspective on what the motivation is and what the understanding is around how we came to this particular proposal for the income tax cut.”
“It was about how much money she was going to have to be able to take that vacation she had been putting off this year. I explained to her that there was a tax cut coming, and that we did not have all the details at the time. It is not in the estimates. It is in our ways and means motion and in the bill. I am going to be happy to be communicating to her that, in July, there is an immediate action. There is an immediate action in these estimates and in the measures that this side of the House is putting forward in this session that are going to meet her concerns, and, I think, more broadly, the safety and security concerns of Canadians.”
“They are still working, but they are looking around the corner to when they might have that chance of a little relief, maybe taking that little vacation, getting some support from their children, after they have given so much to their children. We have a lot of immigrants from eastern Europe in that particular part of the riding, the Valley, also known as Warren Park. I remember going to one particular building. A constituent in her sixties was asking me what the offering would be for her in this campaign. I explained to her the different things, and she understood the bigger things that were at stake. She understood the bigger picture. I think she understood some of how our proposals were meeting her safety and security needs, but for her, it was about the end of the month.”
“Canadians are looking for safety and security from their national government and these estimates communicate the kind of depth of concern that, I think, we have on this side, based on a strong set of values and on one of the most fundamental Canadian values of Medicare. It is one that I commend to the House. Finally, safety and security are expressed through the economic lives of our constituents. As I was campaigning, I recall going to an area in the northwest part of Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park called “the Valley”. There is a street there called Old Dundas Street, and there is an apartment building. A lot of my constituents there would be in their forties, fifties and sixties.”
“It puts conditions on some of these transfers, but it is really up to the provinces. I am very pleased that these estimates continue the commitment that was made two-plus years ago. Governing is about making these decisions, but these estimates are moral documents. They are statements of values. We have the statement of values in this ongoing commitment to funding health care, including all the primary care commitments that are in that particular agreement, and I commend to people the platform of our party, which goes beyond and redoubles its commitment to the Canada Health Act and makes very specific commitments around funding medical school spaces, funding more primary care, and again, safety and security.”
“As I was explaining this complex system of transfers and the British North America Act and all the things that go into how health care is delivered in Canada, they really just had one main question for me, and that was, “What will this mean for me in my community?” They wanted to know what it meant for their mother or their grandmother who is looking for primary care, what it meant for the health care system they are dealing with in Ontario. They also wanted to know, maybe, what is happening with their own health care situation or what is happening with their health care data. They had some ideas around how to make the health care system work better. These are the questions that were coming to me as a teacher. I had to say that there is some complexity here. The federal government is a funder.”
“At the time of this historic agreement in February 2023, which, I believe, was a 5% escalator in spending all the way out to 2027-28, I was teaching public policy at Toronto Metropolitan University. We had a little unit on health care. If students are going to understand how their government works, how public policy works and how this place works, then one of the biggest expenses, definitely, for the provincial government, and the thing that is in their day-to-day lives, is health care.”
“When we think about what the national government does to help support the safety and security of Canadians, obviously there is the federal government's role in health care, not as a deliverer of health care, but as a funder, as a transfer partner, as an ally with provincial governments, which are supporting the health care initiatives in their provinces, something that is very important and is reflected in these estimates. (2055) I recall that, about two years ago, the federal deal was being made with the provinces to support an enhanced multi-year investment in health care with conditions, such as accountabilities around data and primary care.”
“They are tabled through the Department of National Defence and have yet more funding for Canada's support effort in Ukraine. Ukrainians are wondering if we are we going to be there for them. These estimates are moral documents. These estimates show, as well as the supplementary estimates, that yes, Canada is there for Ukraine and in this battle. Even though some allies may have drifted away or even perhaps changed their position, Canada will be there. Canadians are looking for safety and security from their national government, so they look for that outside of Canada. What can Canada do to project its power outside this place? Again, the estimates do that with support for Ukraine. However, they are also looking for it closer to home.”
“We were Ukrainians, Ukrainian Canadians, people who had arrived in the country a few weeks ago, people who had been reclaiming their heritage and allies who were not Ukrainian Canadian themselves, and we marched all the way to High Park in my riding. Along the way, I was presented with a key chain that reads, “Made in Russia. Recycled in Ukraine”. It is a piece of the remains of a Russian tank that was destroyed by the Ukrainians in the war. It is an effort that continues, and Ukrainians and Ukrainian-Canadians, with this war now in its third year, are wondering, “Is Canada still there for us?” Budgets and estimates are moral documents, and I am so pleased that these estimates provide money through the World Bank to support Ukrainian relief and economic development efforts. More importantly, the supplementary estimates are coming.”
“Will you be there for us?” A few weeks ago in the riding, and maybe members in the House may have celebrated in their own communities, we celebrated Vyshyvanka Day, which is a day of celebration of Ukrainian culture and heritage. We know that the best way to try to eliminate a nationality, to try to dominate in an imperial sense, is to try to wipe out a country's culture, a nationality's culture. Vyshyvanka Day is actually a fairly recent phenomenon, developed by university students just 20 years ago, which reclaims this very traditional, very important piece of embroidered clothing, the vyshyvanka, and has now been celebrated in Canada and around the world for almost 20 years. We were wearing the vyshyvanka.”
“election day, they realized that the game had changed and the security guarantees, the security protections they had taken for granted from their main ally in the United States, were not going to be available to them anymore. That evening, the very night of the U.S. presidential election, the people in Estonia were looking to Canada for increased security and increased reassurance that we were going to be there for them. Subsequently, in my conversations at the doors during the election campaign, my constituents, many of whom are Ukrainian Canadian, were really looking for that protection. They were asking me, “Will Canada continue to be there for us? You've been there for us all along, but it's about to get harder for us.”
“presidential election, and I will talk about three items in these estimates that I think really speak to those concerns. There is a set of concerns that are very important to my constituents in Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, which are concerns around security in eastern Europe. For me, this really became crystallized in a different way on the U.S. presidential election night when I spoke to a constituent who was in Estonia that night. She was reporting back to me about what the people in Estonia were realizing was happening, and they were maybe realizing it more immediately than we did. It took us a few weeks, a few months really, to realize the full measure, but in Estonia, on the U.S.”
“Mr. Speaker, these documents, these estimates, are statements of values. These are moral documents. They are statements of values and principles, and they are right in front of us today. I want to talk, in particular, about some of the initiatives in here that speak to the fundamental things a federal government does, and it is really around national unity. What I was hearing a lot about in the recent election, and what this document speaks to very clearly, are concerns around safety and security. If a government cannot offer and take proactive measures to ensure the safety and security of the people in its country and abroad, then it has an issue. We know that safety and security for Canadians has been on their minds for a long time, especially since the U.S.”
“Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak to this committee of the whole today. I would especially like to speak to some of the spending measures outlined in these main estimates, which aim to support Canadians during a time of significant economic volatility while preparing for the opportunities that lie ahead. [ English ] I want to maybe focus a bit more specifically on budgets and estimates being moral documents. They are statements of values, and that budget is coming. Meanwhile, we have the estimates in front of us. Really, with the finance estimates, it is riches, because we could describe any number of issues— Some hon. members: Oh, oh!”
“The community at Runnymede United is active, reconciling with its past and reaching beyond its community to its neighbours and the world beyond. It is a spirit we see throughout the riding of Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, and at a time when so many are doom-scrolling, retreating or dividing, it is one that I commend to this House.”
“Mr. Speaker, exactly 100 years ago less a day, 468 Presbyterians, Methodists and Congregationalists in west Toronto put aside their differences to worship together for the first time. They gathered at a church at 432 Runnymede Road, a church they had just disassembled together and reassembled six blocks away. They were part of a national movement sweeping farming communities, small towns and cities across Canada. Scarred by war and motivated by their faith and their belief in justice, these believers put aside their differences to create The United Church of Canada. This weekend, I had the honour of joining members of Runnymede United Church, still at 432 Runnymede Road, for their 100th anniversary celebration. Thanks go to centennial committee chair David Ambrose and all of those who put on and attended this celebration.”
“In recent weeks, I have met with the Sikyong, or leader of the Tibetan government in exile, and several other Tibetan human rights groups, guided by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Their unwavering commitment to self-determination for Tibet, to justice and to cultural survival in a non-violent way is deeply inspiring. I am proud to represent the resilient Tibetan community of Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park. Together with the community represented by my colleague, the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore , it is the largest population of Tibetans and Tibetan Canadians in North America. To them, we say that we see them, we hear them and we stand with them.”
“Madam Speaker, 36 years ago this week, the world watched in horror as peaceful democracy activists in Tiananmen Square were met with tanks and gunfire. Less known, but deeply remembered by many of my constituents, is that Tibetans have, for decades, been met with brutal repression as they assert their basic rights to freedom and dignity. Today that includes a more recent horror: colonial-style boarding schools, run by the Chinese government, that house approximately one million Tibetan children. A new report by the Tibet Action Institute shares how these schools now separate children as young as four years old from their parents, stripping Tibetan children of their religion and mother tongue and threatening to destroy Tibetan culture in China.”
“Mr. Chair, in the minister's portfolio, one of the main ways of binding people, again, is transportation. I know that passenger rail is also under the minister's portfolio. Could she share what the plans and estimates are to help support passenger rail, which connects people across the country?”
“My question is this: What kinds of opportunities exist in the trucking sector, where there are internal trade barriers or labour barriers, that can help people move back and forth and practise this very important profession?”
“Mr. Chair, I will pick up on that remark from the minister. Trucking is one of the top employment sectors in Canada. We know that the sector is going through lots of change, as technology is changing fast, the working conditions that truckers experience are changing rapidly, and the manifest of what they are doing is changing fast because the economy is changing so rapidly. We also know from the Minister of Public Safety 's portfolio that there are concerns about what is happening at the border. This is a sector and a profession that is not talked about very much and, increasingly in southern Ontario anyway, is quite racialized. It is key to unlocking a lot of the economic potential in southern Ontario in particular.”
“Mr. Chair, we heard in the minister's remarks, which I referred to a bit, the many kinds of partnerships that already exist and the many kinds of efforts that have been made over the years to reduce internal trade barriers. I wonder, in her opinion, what she sees as the most exciting opportunities in her portfolio, or what the most egregious internal trade barrier is that she really wants to tackle in her work.”
“They may be great breweries, and they are great breweries, but do I need to be protected by my government from trying someone else in Canada's beer? As a New Brunswicker, I truly believe that George Riordon's maple syrup in Pokeshaw is the best maple syrup. However, I am now an Ontarian. As long as it is maple syrup that is all that counts; just none of that table syrup on my pancakes. However, I do not want to be protected from Ontario or Quebec maple syrup. Vermont is another story. This is hard work. I know there are lots of nation-building projects under the Minister of Transport and Internal Trade 's portfolio and a lot of hard work to start to expand our imaginations. I look forward to talking about that more.”
“We have 17 major ports across Canada and the estimates refer to new ports in Montreal and the proposed new port of the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 in Vancouver. We also have the nation-building projects that were discussed in Saskatoon, which include rail, electricity and other projects that will be tackled there. We also have rules to tackle. I am from New Brunswick so I cannot help but make a little tribute in this House to Gerard Comeau, who brought some of that Quebec beer across the border. He took his fight all the way to the Supreme Court and won. Thank God he did, because he awakened people in this House and elsewhere to the fact that, in my riding, I have High Park Brewery and Junction Craft Brewery.”
“They were telling us how important their local economic development initiative was compared to that of the City of Brantford, which was within the region of Brant, and how they had to have their own external trade promotion efforts. I think moments like what we have faced in the last six months have really awakened us to the fact that we have to start to bring some of these issues and initiatives together. What are the internal improvements of the 21st century? They are some of the major investments included in the estimates. I will point out the national trade corridors fund, with $826 million under the Minister of Transport and Internal Trade 's portfolio. I will point out the investments in ports.”
“The Minister of Transport and Internal Trade referred to the New West Partnership, a really important good idea, a Conservative idea primarily at the time, and one that Ontario tried to adopt in similar ways for its local circumstances. There was a time when Ontario and Quebec had very aligned provincial governments and they really tried to make concerted efforts to align their economies, but it is hard work. It is hard people work. It is often hard engineering work. We would like to have more electricity cross between eastern Canada and western Canada, but finicky interties and all those things get in the way of really connecting our economies. The human work is just as challenging. I will never forget a briefing when we had the the regional chair of the County of Brant.”
“It tells the story about the politics and the economic debates that were happening in the United States before the Civil War. One of the key issues that really divided Americans at the time was the issue of internal improvements, of how much to invest in harbours, light craft and waterways, and all those things that could connect regional economies to each other. We did this work in Canada. The United States did that work throughout the 19th and 20th century. We continue to do it. It is a key way of uniting and defining us as a country that, again, we have this improbable country that is so close to the U.S. border. More recently, I have been part of efforts that tried to create more of a national economy, in my earlier life as a policy director to two Ontario premiers. It is hard work.”
“For those in an urban riding, the biggest piece of machinery they might see is a TTC train, a GO train or an UP Express train, but by going to the Trent-Severn Waterway or the Welland Canal, we can see the full might of Canadian industry on display. It is very important to see these and it is very inspiring. (1955) Transportation has always been at the heart of nation-building projects. Of course, we have the legendary story of the Trans-Canada railway lines that we built that unified this country from east to west. We did make some mistakes along the way in doing that, but it was a vital nation-building project. I was recently reading Team of Rivals , which is a book about Abraham Lincoln putting together a unity cabinet in the Civil War era. It is a fascinating book.”
“Growing up, I recall learning up about how New France, as it was called then, was settled with the seigneury, the very narrow strips of land, which is the way a lot of agriculture in Quebec is still organized. The St. Lawrence River was so important to the nation-building project then. We learned about other waterways, such as the St. Lawrence Seaway, that were important for nation-building projects. I recommend that anyone who lives in an urban riding visit a waterway. For people in southern Ontario, it is actually quite close to check out the Welland Canal. It is an incredible piece of engineering that has opened trade routes that were previously unimaginable. There is the Trent-Severn Waterway. A whole number of nation-building projects based in transportation connect us together.”
“The thing that was attacking us meant we had to wake up to the need to, as the Minister of Transport and Internal Trade mentioned, find those things that were holding us back. They did not have that 7% figure on the tip of their tongues, but they knew there was something amiss. I think it comes from a very deep part of our history in Canada, which is that when we have been our most ambitious, when we have been building nations, it is because we have been breaking down barriers. In fact, we have been using transportation systems in part to do that. Canada is an incredibly improbable country. Ninety-five per cent or so of our population lives within 100 miles of this U.S. border.”
“When the Prime Minister was talking about this need to break down internal trade barriers, and when our platform came out with this very strong commitment around having one Canadian economy and taking all federal actions necessary by July 1, people awoke to that. They asked me at the doors about that, and they actually contextualized it a bit more broadly. They said they wanted me to do that work because they are interested in what their fellow citizens in Alberta, the Maritimes, Quebec, B.C., the Prairies and the north, what other people in their economy and country, are experiencing. People awoke to the fact that people in those provinces and people outside urban Ontario had something to offer and that we were stronger together.”
“There are lots of different kinds of need, but across the demographic groups in the riding, whether it was in the Parkdale area, the Roncesvalles area, where I live, Liberty Village, which is full of young professionals, Bloor West Village, Swansea, the valley down by the Humber River, the Stock Yards area, Rockliffe-Smythe or the Junction, there was a common theme around putting some of our economic differences aside, putting some of our more parochial concerns aside and really taking the national interest. There was a really specific interest in this idea that we needed to break down these internal trade barriers. Canadians really have to wake up to an issue to really land on something that can sometimes be a bit technical, that can be in the area of very specific professions or sectors, yet they awoke to it.”
“As I said in my maiden speech, we are an urban riding that is a little more than 16 square kilometres between the Humber River, Lake Ontario and the transmission lines and the train tracks in the west part of Toronto. When we think of urban ridings, of people who are engaged in such a small space, there is often an assumption that they have very parochial urban concerns. Indeed, the people in my riding did have a lot of concerns that were very specific to their needs, around transportation, around poverty and around economic development. There is more poverty in my riding than in other ridings.”
“Mr. Chair, I will be speaking for about 10 minutes and will be addressing my questions to the Minister of Transport and Internal Trade . A lot of us have just been through a very energetic campaign. I do not think a year ago we would have been talking about internal trade in this chamber. I do not know if we would have been talking about national unity in the way we are in the estimates and in the platform we are putting together, which the Minister of Transport and Internal Trade referred to in her opening remarks. I think it is really due to the awakening that happened first in November and then into the winter months with the threat to Canadian sovereignty. I really awoke to this in my campaigning and my canvassing in Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park.”
“Mr. Speaker, we heard a lot about different kinds of housing challenges in the member's riding and across Canada, and the pressures that private sector and other players have in that. Is the ideal housing market, as a well-functioning housing market, one that has a multiplicity of operators, or is it one where it is just the public sector providing housing?”
“Mr. Speaker, we are a new Parliament. Part of being a new Parliament means bringing in new voices. In my past life at a think tank at the Dais at Toronto Metropolitan University, we worked a lot on this issue, and I am looking forward to working with the member on this issue if she is interested.”
“Mr. Speaker, there is more poverty in my riding than in other ridings. Even a small reduction in the cost of living is good for taxpayers. That measure is set to take effect in July, and it will have an immediate impact. Many people in Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park are living on the margins. Every effort we make to recognize that and make life a little more affordable will bring immediate relief.”
“Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out, we have already had a lot of success with the rapid housing initiative, which delivered results for the citizens of Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park with Dunn House. A second project will be developed on the former LCBO site on Brock Avenue. As members of Parliament, we represent our communities, and it is good to see ambitious programs being implemented. We need to look at how we can get these programs off the ground.”
“Mr. Speaker, I was not at that particular event, so I cannot comment on it specifically. However, I can tell the member that in this caucus, as he will see in the platform, we need to do a lot at the same time. We need to act with speed and with urgency. The commitment around defence spending is robust and has a lot of elements to it, and we are going to work very hard towards that. I look forward to hearing more from the Minister of National Defence on that.”