Garnett Genuis
Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta · Conservative · Canada
“It is getting increasingly harder for young people to find their first job, and for young families to afford their first home and be able to afford to take those critical steps forward in life.”
“I look forward to talking to people and listening to them over the summer. I would encourage colleagues from all parts of the country to also listen to, respect and try to understand the concerns Albertans have.”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his kind words. Indeed, I would welcome him, and all members of this House from all parties, to come to Alberta this summer. Let me know. I would be happy to host. Members could spend some time talking to people in our province to understand some of their concerns.”
“This plan includes vital reforms to parental leave to make it easier for parents who are trying to start a family, maintain a connection to work and earn an income at the same time.”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to extend my best wishes for the summer to all colleagues from all sides. We have fought hard for our constituents, for our convictions and to advance the common good of this country.”
“We have always sought to be productive and constructive by putting forward these good ideas and asking the government to adopt them. Therefore, as we face these ongoing challenges, an affordability crisis and a youth unemployment crisis, will the government take a serious look at what we have put forward, including the Conservative youth…”
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“The work of a legislator is always to try to turn their visions of an ideal society into practical and incremental steps towards a better world. I would like to see a society in which the dignity of the human person is always recognized and defended, but piling all aspects of such a vision into one piece of legislation is not the most productive way to move forward in the real world. Still, there is always the possibility of amendments that remove or adjust exemptions, and I will be supportive of those amendments as long as they do not imperil the bill as a whole. I invite those, who wish we had gone further, to support us at second reading and to make their case for those amendments when we come to committee. However, we need to win this vote in order for us to have that opportunity.”
“I was very pleased to see the passage of Bill 18 in Alberta, for example, which goes further than Bill C-260 by using provincial jurisdiction over health care to introduce protections which likely would not receive enough support to pass at the federal level. I want to congratulate justice minister Mickey Amery and all who have made this happen. Alberta is a safer place for all people as a result of their work. I hope that legislators in other provinces will join the fight against MAID coercion with their own provincial changes. Every legislator must look realistically at the chances of getting something passed in the place where they serve. Some provincial environments provide an easier context for more action. I hope that these opportunities will exist here in the near future, but I am doing my best with what we have for the time being.”
“Bill C-260 does not seek to prohibit all conduct that is problematic or potentially problematic. It does not pretend to. However, the scope of this bill is designed to respond to the realities of this Parliament. I cannot pass a bill without at least some votes on the government's side. I have proposed therefore a bill that I believe is realistically calibrated to the sentiments here and a bill that would have a chance of helping us take a step towards confronting this problem. I would also note that action to confront MAID coercion involving licensed professionals like doctors and nurses is possible at the provincial level.”
“Now, from my end, I actually completely agree with those who would like this bill to go further. I agree that this bill does not address every instance of MAID coercion, and that there are many instances of coercive behaviour involving those who are not included in this bill. I also see this bill as a meaningful step forward. Today, people with certain characteristics are bombarded with the suggestion that they die, suggestions potentially coming from anyone and everyone who is responsible for offering them public services. My bill would significantly narrow the number of instances in which these suggestions can be made. It is an important step because it reduces that pressure and introduces a new concept into law, providing additional protection, even if it leaves certain kinds of situations unaddressed.”
“If people do not think that Veterans Affairs Canada, caseworkers and other bureaucrats should be, out of the blue, proposing MAID to those who are seeking access to other public services, then please vote for Bill C-260 at second reading. Since tabling this bill, I have had a lot of conversations with veterans, people with disabilities and groups that represent them. Many people are very supportive of this bill. The biggest complaint I have heard about Bill C-260 is from those in these communities who say that the bill does not go far enough. MAID coercion is a massive problem for these communities and the bill's limitations and exemptions, particularly the blanket exemption for doctors and nurses, leave open the possibility for MAID coercion to continue in many contexts.”
“In cases where a bureaucrat in a position of authority or trust proposes MAID to a person who is not seeking it, Bill C-260 introduces a new Criminal Code offence, punishable on summary conviction. The penalty is minimal. The goal is not to punish people but to establish a standard and deter behaviour so that people with disabilities, the elderly and all Canadians can access public services without being treated as useless or expendable. This bill is indeed modest. It starts a conversation and it establishes a minimum standard, something that all members of Parliament, I hope, should be able to get behind.”
“(1740) This gap in the law has left the door wide open for people who are seeking unrelated public services, who do not want to die, to have death repeatedly pushed on them, simply because of characteristics like age or disability. My bill seeks to begin the necessary process of filling this gap in the law by proposing legal limitations on what MAID and when MAID should be proposed to a person seeking public services. Now, my bill is narrow in scope. It provides that a person cannot have MAID proposed to them by a bureaucrat in a case where they have not first asked for information about it. It only applies in cases involving a government employee in a position of authority or trust, and it exempts doctors and nurses.”
“Moved and angered by these stories, I have brought forward Bill C-260 , a bill that would begin the vitally necessary process of affirming the dignity of the human person confronted by MAID coercion. The current law allows people to pursue MAID, and it defines who can provide MAID, but the law is completely silent on the question of who can propose MAID. Due to this gap in the law, anyone can propose MAID: a counsellor, social worker, teacher, professor, parole officer, veterans services worker or CRA call centre employee. Literally anyone in a position of authority could tell a person seeking help that maybe they should die instead.”
“As Krista Carr from Inclusion Canada told the finance committee, “People with disabilities are now very much afraid, in many circumstances, to show up in the health care system with regular health concerns.” She later identified that she heard complaints from people with disabilities on a weekly basis about this problem. This is the sad reality of what has come to happen in our Canadian society. People with challenges but also with immense potential and capacity are repeatedly being told when they try to access unrelated public services that they should die instead. On their behalf, I am begging colleagues in the House to listen to these cries for help and to work constructively on solutions.”
““I’m coming here because I’m looking for help and you’re telling me there is no help.” That’s when the counsellor [suggested to] Mentler [that she consider] medically assisted suicide. Mentler says she was “shocked” and “sickened” because she came to the Access and Assessment Centre for help, “not for recommendations on how to kill myself.” These stories are not one-offs. They reflect the regular experience of many people with mental health challenges and with disabilities here in Canada, and also the experience of some people who are aging, as they interact with the health care system and other systems that are supposed to be providing them with services.”
“Instead of giving her the equipment she needed in order to live, bureaucrats proposed facilitated death and offered her the equipment for that instead. Meet Kathrin Mentler. She faced mental health challenges and wanted to become a counsellor in order to help others. The Tyee reported on how she was treated in the midst of crisis: Mentler found herself in crisis and took herself to Vancouver General Hospital's Access and Assessment Centre to get help. “That day my goal was to keep myself safe.”...she says Mentler says she told the counsellor she was scared she’d “never not feel horrible.” She also [discussed] her history of mental illness and self-harm. Mentler says the counsellor then told her the mental health system was “completely overwhelmed,”... “It was pretty disheartening and made me feel helpless,” Mentler says.”
“Meet David Baltzer, a Canadian hero from St. Catharines who did two tours of duty in Afghanistan. While struggling with a post-traumatic stress injury, he called Veterans Affairs Canada for help. Instead of receiving the help he was seeking, he received the unprompted suggestion of facilitated death. Consider the story of Heather Hancock, a successful author living with cerebral palsy who had every desire to keep living. She was told by a nurse that she should do the right thing and consider MAID. The nurse told her that she was being selfish and that she was not living but merely existing. There is the well-known case of Christine Gauthier, another heroic former member of the Canadian Armed Forces, and a Paralympian, an accomplished, successful, powerful woman who was simply fighting for a home wheelchair ramp.”
“If someone is not part of a victim community in question, chances are that they have less familiarity with the phenomenon, but people who doubt these realities need only to open up and listen. Listen first to Miriam Lancaster, a woman from Vancouver in her eighties. Last year around this time, she woke up with severe back pain and was taken to hospital. Miriam was immediately offered MAID. Before any tests, diagnosis or discussion of symptoms, someone took one look at her and asked if she had thought about dying. Miriam made a full recovery. Six weeks later, she was walking her daughter down the aisle. I understand that her daughter joins us on the Hill today. Miriam just celebrated another birthday. In the intervening time, she has travelled the world and even climbed a volcano on horseback. There are many more of these stories.”
“They would know that they have meaning and power and significance and the will and ability to be part of a community in which they both give and receive love and care. However, the constant, contrary implication, especially from those in power who are supposed to be helping, would be wearing and painful. At some point, because of the social context in which all choices are made, someone might start to believe and accept these lies and contemplate things that they would never have contemplated before. (1735) I know that there are some people who deny that this sort of dehumanization happens at all. They are like the people who suppose that racism must not exist because they have never experienced it.”
“The process of losing some capacities and developing others can be a difficult and painful transition, but it remains true that all human beings have the power and the capacity to shape the world around them in meaningful ways at all stages of life and at all levels of ability. Many of us will experience this transition. The community of those with disabilities is one that many of us will join later in life. It is very likely that I will one day be living with disabilities, as will many of those currently able-bodied who are listening. I ask members of the House to reflect on what it would be like to be treated as if their life was without value or meaning. They likely would know, at least initially, that this was not true.”
“This way of thinking is wrong and dangerous, because it degrades people to something less than the bearers of inherent rights and instead regards them as mere tools for some other purpose. As a friend once told me, “My greatest suffering doesn't come from my disability. It comes from trying to live up to the ideal of independence. It has taken time to realize that I am valuable for who I am and not just what I can do.” Moreover, it is always incorrect to think of any person as useless. Every person bears the capacity to shape the world through their love and connection with others.”
“In his defence of eugenics, Shaw said, “I don't want to punish anybody, but there are an extraordinary number of people whom I want to kill, not in any unkind or personal spirit, but it must be evident to all of you, you all must know half a dozen people at least who are no use in this world, who are more trouble than they are worth.” There is a direct line between arguments about eugenics and uselessness presented by people like Shaw and the gas chambers, to which many with disabilities and others deemed “more trouble than they are worth” were ultimately consigned. The implication of some utilitarians is that people and things are to be valued based on their usefulness rather than on their inherent qualities.”
“The implication of this often unsolicited offer of death is not merely that they are better suited to a certain kind of vocation or career path but that these changes in capacity mean their life is no longer worth living, that they are useless and good for nothing. Members may be able to imagine regularly experiencing this kind of discourse directed toward them, the kind of extreme stereotyping and presumption that the famous playwright George Bernard Shaw defended in 1931.”
“Persons are not merely the potential recipients of someone else's support. Every person has a potentially heroic story arc of their own, a story arc that involves successes and setbacks and that brings triumphs and contributions that are consequential for the lives of others and for the communities in which they live. Persons with disabilities are persons in this profound sense, yet many forms of discourse, rarely directly but often subtly, deny the agency, power and full humanness of those with disabilities. This is evident in the fact that those with disabilities are the only community wherein facilitated dying is offered to those who are not dying.”
“However, while this discourse and recognition is well developed across many dimensions of potential discrimination, we repeatedly fall short when it comes to recognizing and affirming the dignity, uniqueness, value and capacity of people living with disabilities and the elderly. For too many people living with disabilities or aging, their experience is one not merely of being pushed into narrow boxes or categories but of something much worse. I ask colleagues here to imagine something. Imagine living a life in which interactions with people in positions of authority and other prominent social institutions often carry the explicit or implicit message that one is an object instead of a subject. All people think of themselves as, and indeed are, the protagonist of their own great story.”
“moved that Bill C-260, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying—protection against coercion) , be read the second time and referred to a committee. Bill C-260. Second reading He said: Mr. Speaker, we are familiar with the problem of people facing stereotypes based on immutable characteristics like race and gender, people being told that they are better suited to a particular kind of career path or that they are not fit to pursue certain subjects simply because of their personal characteristics. Here in Canada, governments undertake to push back against this kind of stereotyping and to give life to the reality that people should not be pushed into presupposed categories. We pursue together an ideal of a Canada free from discrimination, of a truly just society.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am not at all surprised to hear that the minister spends a lot of time talking to CEOs. However, on page 122 of the Liberals' fiscal update, it is clear that they would increase the tax on jobs, at a time when we already have a massive youth unemployment crisis. This credit card budget proposes to squeeze small businesses and workers even more, at the same time as these Liberals are voting against allowing student grants to go to those at vocational institutions. They are attacking young people and attacking jobs. When will it end?”
“Mr. Speaker, those apprentices desperately need projects to go forward that they can work on. Canada faces an unemployment crisis, most severe among youth, yet this Liberal costly credit card budget plans further increases to EI premiums. Increasing the tax on jobs now would make it harder for businesses to create jobs and would make the jobs crisis even worse. Why are the Liberals paying for their costly credit card budget with further tax increases on jobs?”
“The petition highlights various other cases, including that of Christine Gauthier, a veteran living with disabilities who spent five years trying to get funding for a wheelchair stairlift from Veterans Affairs Canada. A caseworker offered her facilitated death instead. This is one of many instances of cases involving Veterans Affairs Canada. Bill C-260 , the care not coercion act, to prevent coercion of persons not seeking medical assistance in dying, would prevent these instances of coercion in which a bureaucrat offers medically facilitated death to people who are not seeking it. The people who signed the petition want the House to support Bill C-260 , the care not coercion act, as it begins debate tomorrow, and they want more action to combat the problem of MAID coercion.”
“Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the House will begin debate on Bill C-260 , the care not coercion act. Reports, including many media stories, as well as evidence heard by parliamentary committees, have indicated the serious problem of seniors, veterans, people living with disabilities and those living in poverty being offered MAID, facilitated death, by bureaucrats when they are trying to access unrelated public services. These unprompted offers can cause serious distress, be coercive in nature and make it more difficult for people to access public services in the future. In fact the CEO of Inclusion Canada, Krista Carr, has testified that she hears weekly complaints from people with disabilities about this problem.”
“Mr. Speaker, this question of trust in institutions is a very important one. We would all like to see a situation in which institutions are both trusted and worthy of that trust. Our democratic institutions, though, have been weakened over the last 10 years under the Liberal government. We see continuing efforts to undermine those institutions, including the failure to hand over documents when ordered to, efforts to unilaterally impose changes on the structure of Parliament and the pursuit of power regardless of the constraints that are supposed to exist on that power. That has implications for how Canadians view, and feel represented within, our institutions, and the right response is for those institutions to try to rise to the occasion and be worthy of that trust once again.”
“Mr. Speaker, my heart goes out to those families in his community. When it comes to the work of the House and its committees, I would say that, in minority parliaments, such as what Canadians chose in the last election, we are forced to work together in a different way, because anything that moves forward at committees requires two parties, at minimum, to be able to have a meeting of the minds. That process of negotiation is not always easy, but I think we have seen in the last year that things can get done and done well, especially because our party has been responsible. We have expedited legislation where appropriate and we have opposed it where necessary, but now the government is trying to eliminate the need for that co-operation and create the circumstances in which it can impose its will undemocratically on the House.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is unsurprising to hear this member in particular complain about Conservative use of social media accounts. During the debate on Bill C-9 , my colleague from London and I were doing a livestream, explaining to the public what was going on, and this member came by, trying to offer some comment. We invited him to join the livestream, but he quickly ran away. If he objects to how we use social media, I would like to give him another chance. He can join me for a livestream to discuss the bill and to share his thoughts with my followers. I will certainly happily share my thoughts with his. Canadians are frustrated by the attack on democracy that we are seeing. Canadians deserve better.”
“The Prime Minister , through connivance, has weakened this institution and is pursuing a reality in which he can rule without the normal checks and balances that are supposed to be a part of our system, and without the checks and balances that Canadians voted for when they chose to elect a minority government. We need to fight back against this abuse of power and defend democratic norms in this country. Conservatives, despite the limitations the government is imposing on us, will continue to fight for democracy and for the common good.”
“He wants to have extra members there who will likely not have an opportunity to speak very much. He wants to keep them busy. He wants to prevent them from being able to engage in and challenge things, even in the very measured and limited way that government members sometimes do. What the Prime Minister is trying to engineer is the greatest amount of power, not merely for his party, but for himself. He views members of Parliament as encumbrances to his exercise of executive power, to his pursuit of power, for reasons that are largely unspecified and that have not been articulated up until this point. This is a sad day for Canadian democracy.”
“Maybe we would say that, if we believed their arguments, we would go from five to six. Why are they asking for seven? Why are the Liberals, who now have a very narrow majority in the House, seeking a supermajority on committees? It is particularly worth asking because, in practice, given the rounds of questions and the activity of those committees, the fifth, sixth and seventh members of that committee likely would not have an opportunity to do too much. The nature of time allocation within a committee, with questions, etc., means that the extra member at the table is probably just going to be sitting there, for the most part. Why does the government want to have seven members? I will say that this demonstrates that the Prime Minister has as much respect for his own caucus members as he does for members on the other side of the House.”
“Sometimes there are conflicts, but people have had to negotiate to get a result. Liberals do not want to have to do that hard work of listening to other ideas and working with other parties. They are pursuing power at all costs. They are pursuing power in defiance of democratic norms and in defiance of the wishes of Canadians. They would like to be able to impose their will on committees, prevent documents from being requested and prevent the necessary accountability work from being done. I also want to also point something out, which may be something worth the reflection of the individual members of the government. Even if we were to accept the argument that the committee should have the same proportions as what the Liberals have engineered in the House through floor crossings, we might then say that there should be six Liberal members.”
“(1320) Members can bet that those requests for documents will immediately be shut down as soon as the Liberals who have taken the majority feel that they no longer have to be accountable. In fact, in the past when they have had minority governments, they have refused to hand over documents, even when they were ordered to by committees. These Liberals are completely allergic to accountability. In a minority situation, committees must at least work together to achieve results. They are, in a way, forced to work together because no party has all of the power. This has led to very constructive outcomes. In the last year, the committee that I am a part of has done very good work. We have tabled eight reports in the House, which is very productive work as a committee, because people have had to negotiate. It is not always easy.”
“This is about Liberals who care about nothing except power and who are pursuing power, not as a means to advance anything in particular, but for its own sake. Today we are debating this motion that they brought forward and quickly moved closure on. Now that, through backroom deals, they have a majority that Canadians did not give them at the election, they have quickly moved to impose upon committees a supermajority that Canadians certainly do not want. I note that we have multiple committees right now where Liberals are actually filibustering. At the human resources Committee, which I am a member of, and a number of other committees, Conservatives are working with our Bloc colleagues in seeking information from the government. Liberals are filibustering those committees.”
“Of course, I welcome her to this place, and I think she has had some very thought-provoking things to say in the past. She previously described the Liberals as “the surest path to greater evil”. What a thing to say. I am not sure if she could say that in the House. She described the Liberals as “the surest path to greater evil”, as well as “untrustworthy” and “conniving”. Those were things the new member for Scarborough Southwest had to say about the Liberals before she decided to run for them. The member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong said that many Liberals think she belongs in jail. She said that about two weeks before she crossed over to join the Liberals. This is not about bringing people together with some common agenda.”
“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate and will reflect upon your advice. What we have happening today is that the Liberals have taken unprecedented steps in a pattern of trying to undermine democracy in this country. Canadians voted for a minority government, and the Liberals used all kinds of devices and connivance to draw in members with whatever conviction, with no consideration whatsoever of the beliefs of those members. They took members who, in normal times, would obviously not fit what the Liberal Party pretends to be ideologically, and they did so out of desperation for power. Mr. Speaker, you have chastened me to not be too strong in my language, but I hope you will not mind me quoting some of the things the new member for Scarborough Southwest said about Liberals.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are known for their cynical pursuit of power at any cost. Today, they are plumbing new depths. Some hon. members: Oh, oh! Garnett Genuis: Mr. Speaker, I am hearing some noise from the other side, so I will say that the only convictions Liberals have are the criminal kind. Today, what the Liberals are doing is ignoring the will of the voters. They are undermining—”
“Mr. Speaker, in the Liberals' pursuit of an undemocratic majority, which they were not given at the ballot box, it has become clear that the Prime Minister and the Liberal government stand for absolutely nothing except the pursuit of power. They flattered and recruited a member who endorsed Avi Lewis and a member who endorsed the convoy, all in the pursuit of power. I have a specific question for the government House leader about their pursuit of power. Is there any member of this House, even one, whom the Liberals would not accept as a floor crosser in their pursuit of a majority?”
“Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary wrongly described my outlook as “pessimistic”. I want to say that I am incredibly optimistic about the potential of young people, about what is possible in this country if policy changes are made, and about our potential to shape our own reality if we make different choices as leaders. I am also capable of reading Statistics Canada reports about unemployment. It is not a question of opinion; it is a question of fact, from objective reports, that labour force participation is way down among young people and unemployment is way up. The good news is that we can change this reality if we change policies that have targeted tradespeople for defunding, through changes to the student loan program, and change policies around immigration and in other areas.”
“Sadly, the Liberals are moving in the opposite direction by attacking students, particularly those who attend vocational institutions and particularly students in the trades. Finally, we have proposed policies to support labour mobility, to help young people move to places where the jobs are. These are constructive solutions that we have put forward. Unfortunately, the government has chosen not to adopt them and so we see the continuing worsening of this youth unemployment crisis. What is it going to take for the government to listen to what we have proposed, for it to take good ideas in the spirit that they have been presented and actually propose a plan to fix this problem?”
“If a company's owners are optimistic about its future, they will be able to hire more young people and they will take on summer students and this sort of thing. However, for company owners who are more pessimistic about their future and are in the process of downsizing, it is likely not going to be their long-tenured, experienced employees who are let go first; it is going to be those young people who have just started. The second area is fixing immigration. We have seen how a failure of immigration policy has exacerbated the competition for entry-level positions, and we need to change that. Third, we have talked about fixing the training. That means supporting young people to acquire skills that are required for the Canadian economy. We must train Canadian workers for Canadian jobs.”
“When we highlighted the February workforce numbers, the government tried to blame the war in Iran, even though the war in Iran had not started at the time that data was collected. Moreover, what we normally see in youth unemployment figures is that there is a certain natural relationship between youth unemployment and overall unemployment. It is usually a bit higher. However, we are seeing a widening of that gap. Youth unemployment relative to overall unemployment is very high, which suggests that there are particular factors unique to our own circumstances that are contributing to a widening of that gap. The constructive solutions we have proposed are in four areas. First is unleashing the economy, removing barriers that have limited economic growth. Young people are often last in and first out.”
“In the next round of data that came out after March, we saw a continuation of that situation with the persistence of this youth unemployment crisis. The unemployment numbers are bad, but so are the workforce participation numbers. Unemployment measures the percentage of youth in the workforce who are not employed. Labour force participation identifies the number of youth who are in the workforce. What we are seeing, in addition to high unemployment, is that many young people are giving up, with lower workforce participation rates in general among youth. This is driven by this frustration about how challenging it is for young people to get jobs that will allow them to get ahead. This is a grave and serious problem that can not be explained away by external events, as the government tries to do.”
“Mr. Speaker, Canada is losing jobs at rates not seen in a generation, and it is the next generation that is bearing the brunt of these job losses. The Conservatives have been sharply and pointedly highlighting this problem, and we have been offering constructive solutions to the government that would make a difference. Sadly, the government has chosen to ignore these constructive solutions. In many respects, it has actually moved in the opposite direction in ways that have made, and will continue to make, the problem worse. We follow these monthly updates from Statistics Canada that show us how the job market is doing. The February results of the labour force survey were particularly dire, showing that over 100,000 full-time jobs were lost in one month alone, with close to 50,000 youth jobs lost in that month.”
“We are going to deny funding that is available to every other stream, but then we are going to have a framework to study trying to fix these problems in the future.” It is time for the Liberals to put their money where their mouth is on this issue, to put actions behind words. The Conservatives will always stand with, and stand up for, the hard-working trades workers who built this country. It is a pity that the Liberals are attacking them while hypocritically pretending to care.”
“We have this situation of “say one thing and do the exact opposite”. There are members in today's debate, I am sure, eager to pay lip service to the value of trades while attacking trades workers by targeting them with the removal of funding through these student grants. They cannot deny it because every one of them voted for it. Not only did they vote for the budget, but we had a stand-alone vote on this discrimination against trades workers. Every Liberal who was present, including the sponsor of this bill, voted in favour of that discrimination. They cannot get away with saying, “We are going to attack trades workers. We are going to insult them.”
“The member for Markham—Unionville , who previously as a Conservative worked with me on this issue, called out the Liberal policy change for being systemically discriminatory because of its attack on those studying traditional Chinese medicine. He called this Liberal policy discriminatory and then, after he crossed the floor, he voted in favour of the policy that he said systemically discriminates against his own community and others. It is pretty baffling, to say, “This is systematically discriminatory against the community that I represent, and now I am going to vote for it.” Every Liberal member of the human resources committee who initially voted in favour of this motion to reconsider the discriminatory Liberal policy reversed their position when the motion came to the House. It is unbelievable.”
“Even Liberals on the human resources committee at the time voted in favour of asking the government to reconsider this policy. Then, this week, we put the motion before the House of Commons on Tuesday, and every single Liberal member voted against our motion to reconsider this policy. Every Liberal member present voted in favour of this Liberal policy to discriminate against trades workers and others pursuing vocational training at private institutions. The member who sponsored this bill and just spoke about the importance of trades workers voted in favour of the Liberal policy and against our motion to reconsider it. The Liberal member who put forward this bill earlier this week voted in favour of denying funding to students specifically and uniquely in the trades at private institutions.”
“It is mind-boggling to me, in this time when finally even the Liberals are paying lip service to the fact that we need more trades workers, that they are still pursuing a policy that attacks trades workers by denying grants specifically to those who are pursuing careers in the trades. The Conservatives have been doggedly pursuing this issue. We are defending trades workers, defending those who are trying to pursue critical skills at vocational institutions. In many cases, these are skills that are simply not offered at public or not-for-profit institutions. We have pushed this issue at the human resources committee and we were able to get the human resources committee to adopt a unanimous report encouraging the government to reconsider this policy.”
“We have done a lot of advocacy around this work and it feels like we are pushing the needle a bit. The exemptions were for nursing, dental hygiene, early childhood education and paramedics. It should not be a policy of exemptions. We should just eliminate in general this discriminatory policy that the government has proposed. What I notice about these exceptions is that none of them apply to trades workers. Therefore, the government's policy continues to be that if someone is studying to become a tradesperson, and in many cases that training is offered at private institutions, then they cannot get a student grant.”