Lindsay Mathyssen

[Privilege, November 7th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I have now known the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona for a few weeks and have come to really appreciate her as a very genuine, caring member of Parliament. I know that her constituents will truly appreciate that going forward.

She and I spoke about her being on the campaign trail and I would love to hear comment further on it. She visited some folks who were on the picket lines and she spoke about what it meant for her to be there with them. There are people in this place who are fighting for their collective bargaining rights, and that is a big part of her community. What did she hear directly from them?

[Committees of the House, November 7th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to join with my Bloc colleague to offer my sincerest apologies. Actually, I was looking for my tiny violin, but I am not allowed props, so I thought maybe I could not use it, unfortunately.

What I am interested in, however, is the recognition, absolutely, that the NDP ripped up the agreement. From our end, it was because we simply could not continue to support the government in the fact that it was ignoring a war in Gaza and ignoring the massive amount of corporate greed in Canada and doing nothing about it. While we could work together to some degree to get some of the things we wanted, certainly, they were not all of the things New Democrats want.

Maybe the member could talk a bit about where the government has failed and take responsibility for some of the actions we see here today.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, November 6th, 2024]

With regard to government contracts with healthcare agencies to service the health and well-being of military members at the Department of National Defence and in the Canadian Armed Forces, broken down by fiscal year, since 2017-18: (a) what is the total number of contracts signed; (b) what are the details of all contracts signed, including the (i) agency contracted, (ii) value of the contract, (iii) number of healthcare practitioners provided, (iv) duration of the contract; and (c) what is the total amount of extra costs incurred as a result of relying on contracted services instead of employing healthcare practitioners directly?

[Veterans Affairs, November 5th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, for 17 years, the Office of the Veterans Ombud has been shining a light on the neglect of veterans. We have a sacred obligation to care for those who have served, but successive Liberal and Conservative governments have ignored its reports and recommendations. Veterans need action, and we need to empower ombuds by giving them the power to compel documents and issue binding recommendations.

When will the Liberals make the necessary changes to create a truly independent ombud so she can be the champion veterans deserve?

[Committees of the House, November 4th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize for having to ask my question in English.

The NDP's supplementary opinion to this report discussed, as the member spoke about, that numerous witnesses, like the chiefs from the Anishinabek Nation, talked about a lack of respect. One chief said that a nuclear waste management organization told his community that it could explain the process of nuclear processing, but the community would not understand it anyway.

Is that something the member heard consistently? This was one example, but in the desire to truly find out what Conservatives like to talk about as economic reconciliation—

[Committees of the House, November 4th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I have a quick question. In the NDP's supplemental report to this report, we spoke about the fact that AECL, which the member acknowledged in her speech, used to be government-owned. It was a Crown corporation, but the Conservatives under Stephen Harper sold it in 2011 to SNC-Lavalin. SNC-Lavalin, of course, was charged with scandal, bribery, the defrauding of the Libyan government and so forth.

I want the member's explanation for why that happened at the time and how it impacts Canada now given that SNC-Lavalin effectively owns and operates many of Canada's nuclear assets.

[Privilege, October 31st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it is fascinating to hear the hon. member talk about fighting for unions, which we know they do not do on that side.

Another thing the hon. member talked about was my party leader's pension. I will mention that the leader of the official opposition's pension is now worth $3.4 million, which is 3.5 times larger than my leader's. I would love for the member to talk about the value of that pension. The fact is, the New Democrats fight for other people to ensure they have a pension in this country, while the Conservatives fail to do so and want to bring everybody down to the bottom denominator.

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, October 31st, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, London families with loved ones trapped in Sudan have been failed by the government. It has been eight months since the Liberals announced a program to bring families in Sudan to safety, but only five applications have been approved. As the humanitarian crisis in Sudan gets worse, more and more people will die. Londoners were promised by the government that their family would have a path to safety.

Will the minister fix his failed program so families can save their relatives before it is too late?

[Committees of the House, October 31st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it is certainly very interesting, especially on a difficult subject such as this, when a chamber with all different perspectives on all different sides comes together to discuss such a topic. I disagree with many of the things the hon. member has said. However, he spoke at length about palliative care, and one of the recommendations of the report we are discussing today is recommendation 6, which talks about the increased funding for the implementation of the action plan on palliative care.

When the member talked about the demise of health care, it brought me to the idea of increasing the transfer payments that go to the provinces in relation to all health care. We know that with the Harper government there was a significant decrease in the transfer payments for health. They have not been renewed by the Liberal government, so I would ask the member about his commitment to the increasing of transfer payments to ensure that we do not experience the demise of our health care system.

[Committees of the House, October 30th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I am concerned and it comes from a lot of the questions and points that my colleague from Port Moody—Coquitlam raised earlier in the day. In the HUMA meeting, Conservatives and Liberals joined ranks to ensure that the committee would not bring forward CEOs' big corporate interests to committee, to hear about that financialization of housing that we know is driving up the cost of housing. I would really love to hear the hon. member's explanation of why she joined with the Liberals to block that from happening at committee.