Garnett Genuis · TranslatePolitics.ca

Government Orders

Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 2

2026-06-01

“You didn't respond to my points at all. You just patted yourself on the back. Canada's the only major economy in a recession. You should show some humility. Your policies caused this mess. But yes I want more military spending and a tighter budget. For now I'm waiting to see if your budget works. So far it's failing. Regular people are struggling. Young people can't get ahead.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, that question did not relate to the specific budgetary policies that I discussed in my speech at all. I will just say in response that government members are eager to congratulate themselves at every turn. Canada is in a recession right now. We are the only G7 country in a recession. I would like to see a little more humility from government members and their taking stock of the fact that their policies have led us here and of the challenges young people are experiencing. I think we need a stronger national defence. I think we need control in our budget policy. I will believe the results when we see the results. Right now, what we are seeing is recession and continuing challenges, especially for those who are just starting out, young people and young families, who are trying to get ahead.

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“I'm filling time with stories about my family. But my party has plans to address youth unemployment. The other party doesn't. We should give businesses more freedom to grow and hire young people. We should fix immigration and training to help young people find jobs. And we should build more homes where the jobs are. The other party isn't doing these things. That's bad for young people and families.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to address the House on the budget bill today. It is also a pleasure for me that my second daughter, Lilly, is on the Hill today. It is great to have her here with us, and having my kids with me always reminds me how blessed I am. My kids really are the perfect combination. They have my wife's beauty, my wife's intelligence and my wife's personality. That is the ideal combination, and I am sure members would agree. However, it is also when thinking about my children that I think about the future of this country and the kind of future we are building for them as they grow up, as they think about the jobs and opportunities they have and as they think about what they will be able to pass on materially, as well as the kind of quality of life they will be able to have more broadly. I think for many members, providing a better life for our children is a powerful motivator of the work that we do. Taking that perspective, it is very troubling to regularly hear about the challenges young people are facing in this country, such as the fact that we continue to have this youth unemployment crisis. Youth unemployment is at 14.3%. Young people are frustrated by their inability to find jobs, their struggles to find jobs in their fields and the lack of action by the government. The government has no plan to address the youth unemployment crisis. We hear its members re-announcing existing programs that have already existed for a long time, but there is no plan to meet the new challenges, which in so many ways are the results of their policies. Last fall, Conservatives put forward a constructive plan to address the youth unemployment crisis with very simple, specific interventions that aligned very much with what young people are asking for, what the business community is asking for and with what our country needs. Our plan is to unleash the economy, fix immigration, fix training and build homes where the jobs are. Unleashing the economy means addressing the fact that so much unemployment for young people is a result of businesses struggling to start, to grow and to expand. When businesses are optimistic about the future, they hire more young people because they are planning for growth. When businesses are more pessimistic about the future, young people are more likely to be let go, because it tends to be last in and first out when it comes to young people on the work site. If someone is worried about the future of their company, they are not going to fire the long-tenured employees first; it is going to be those newer hires who are going to be let go. Also, when small businesses are under pressure, it is harder for them to invest in training and supports. Of course, when giving someone their first job, a lot of businesses want to be able to help young people adjust to the workforce, but training, investment and costs are associated with that. When a business is so close to the margin, it is very hard to do that. As such, we need to create a climate in this country where small businesses in particular can start and grow and, therefore, be able to hire young people. That is what unleashing the economy is about. Number two is fixing immigration. A poorly designed immigration system under the Liberal government has led to intensified competition for entry-level positions. Newcomers who have not had their credentials recognized are competing against young people who are just starting out. We should have an immigration system that is aligned with the needs and interests of Canada and that identifies specific skill gaps while we, at the same time, try to train Canadian workers to fill those skill gaps to where the numbers are proportionate to what our country can actually handle. That is unleashing the economy and fixing immigration. Number three is fixing training. There has been a significant problem in this country with a misalignment between the training young people receive and what the labour market is actually looking for. A big part of that is our push to recognize the value of vocational training and the value of trade skills. University is a great path for some people, but it is not the path for everyone. There are many folks in this country who have pursued a vocational or trade path, have been extremely successful with that and are actually earning more and enjoying a higher standard of living than those who have pursued university degrees. We proposed this pillar of fixing training as part of our youth jobs plan, where we said that we should offer relatively more generous grants to those pursuing in-demand skills. The Liberals went in the opposite direction. In their last budget, they removed funding for students at private vocational institutions. For them, I think it was sort of an ideological thing about wanting to go after students who are seeking grants at private institutions, but really, it is not about private versus public; it is just about the fact that this is where these skills are offered. There are certain kinds of skills that, if people want to acquire that specific vocational skill, they cannot do it at a university or are much less likely to find a program of study at a university. There are many kinds of skills, with the way our post-secondary system is structured, that are learned at a private institution, yet, the government is going after and defunding the students who are studying at those kinds of institutions. Our proposal is to unleash the economy, fix immigration and training, and build homes where the jobs are. We need to do more to support those young people, people of all ages, who are looking to relocate to find employment, because we have regions in this country of very high unemployment and regions of very low unemployment. One thing we proposed to help young people and others relocate to find those opportunities is to offer an accelerated capital cost writeoff for employers who are investing in workforce housing to try to remove a barrier that exists that maybe makes it more difficult for young people and others to relocate for those job opportunities. It is a very simple plan that we put forward last fall to unleash the economy, fix immigration and training, and build homes where the jobs are. We put this forward wanting the government to implement it, yet in some areas that I have identified, the government is moving in the opposite direction. We continue to see no plan to address the youth unemployment crisis as part of this budget. What are the effects of high youth unemployment? We have pressure on young people to get more credentials that may or may not align with the needs of the labour market. We have high youth unemployment. We have high housing costs. All of these things make it so much more difficult for young people to launch themselves into the world. When it becomes harder for young people to launch themselves into adulthood, to find a job and to afford a home to finish their schooling, then they will potentially start hitting those key personal milestones later and later. This is a big contributing factor to the fact that, statistically, we now know that young people are having far fewer children than they tell pollsters they want to be having. In polls, on average, people say they want about 2.2 or 2.3 children, yet the real fertility rate is about 1.25, which means there is a major gap between the number of children people want to have and the number of children they are having. I think a big part of this is just the challenges in getting started in life, in being able to hit those key personal milestones as early as they might want to, because it is so hard to afford a home and get a job. This has long-term effects on people's desires for a family not being realized. It also impacts the fact that we have an aging population with not as many workers contributing to the system to provide for the benefits our seniors, who have worked so hard and would like to see available to them. There are consequences down the line with respect to these problems impacting the challenges young people have launching themselves into adulthood. We have also put forward constructive plans to not only make it easier for young people to get into the workforce earlier, but also make it easier for young families to achieve their goals with respect to the number of children they want to have. We have proposed significant reforms to parental leave to make it easier for people who are working to balance work and family life. We have proposed, for instance, more flexible parental leave to allow people to pause and then resume parental leave. We have proposed allowing more learning on leave, so that a person who is on parental leave could always study and take university, trades or other kinds of courses while they are on parental leave. We have also proposed an exception to clawbacks to allow parents to earn income for caregiving while they are off watching their own children. These changes would make it easier for young families to achieve the goals they want and find a good balance between work and family life. As I have demonstrated, Conservatives are laser-focused on trying to make life better, especially for those who are starting out, for young people and those who are trying to start families and are struggling to hit those initial milestones that would allow them to launch themselves well into their dreams, both with respect to work and family life. We are proposing constructive proposals to try to address these challenges and would really like to see the government adopt some of those constructive proposals that we have put on the table. We would like to see it take ideas from our Conservative youth jobs plan. We would like to see it take some of the ideas from our proposal on parental leave reform, making it easier to balance work and family life. We have asked the government to implement these proposals. On Friday, in question period, I asked the government whether it would consider implementing some of our proposals for parental leave reform. We did not get an answer. The government simply came back with partisan insults. I would encourage its members to have a look at the constructive proposals we are putting forward and include them in our budget. Maybe if it did not shut down debate after three and a half hours, we would have more time to get through these constructive suggestions and put forward more of these ideas to make our country better.

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Private Members' Business

2026-05-29

“I want to be seen working across the aisle for once. It's good when we all agree to spend more together. I had to compromise and accept this version because they wouldn't let my bigger version go through.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by acknowledging it is great to see you in the chair today. I know this is an issue that you have spoken out on, in terms of your own experience, with great courage and significance. I know the parameters of being Deputy Speaker limit your ability to give speeches on bills now, but I thank you for giving aid and confidence to other families who are confronting similar situations. It is good to see you presiding over this debate today. Bill C-222 is an important piece of legislation that has been the subject of significant cross-party co-operation. As the Conservative shadow minister for employment, it has been an honour for me to do this work with colleagues, collaboratively across the aisle, on behalf of our caucus as we work to deliver on our clear commitment from the beginning, to do all we can to maximize support for families who are dealing with loss. I want to start by highlighting that the journey to this legislation did not start in this Parliament, and it did not start with just this bill. Over 10 years ago, our colleague from Airdrie—Cochrane put forward Motion No. 110, which began driving the necessary national conversation on offering more support to parents dealing with loss. It recognized that parents who have paid into a parental leave system and then faced the loss of a child should obviously not be forced immediately back to work and should have a system that allows them to continue to receive benefits that they have paid for, with clarity, with simplicity, without disruption and without red tape. That national conversation on this issue was started and driven in this place by my colleague from Airdrie—Cochrane, a member with so much compassion and empathy. I want to salute his work on this, continuing throughout this process. As members of Parliament speaking on these issues in this place, we are in many ways the tiny tip of the iceberg. There is a vast array of people underneath us and behind us, pushing us forward and magnifying this issue. Without the courage of families speaking out about their own experience, I do not think this would have happened today. I know it is very difficult for people who have faced personal tragedy and personal grief to speak publicly about it, to come to Parliament and share from their own experiences, but we know in history that so often justice and compassion move forward because people who have had terrible situations themselves are willing to speak up and share their pain, share their experience and motivate others to understand that experience and to walk with them. I want to thank the families who have spoken out about their own experiences and salute them for making that happen. In this Parliament, the member for Burnaby North—Seymour, a member of the government, is putting forward Bill C-222 with our complete and strong support. I want to thank him for taking this step and continuing this important work in putting this bill forward. I do not in any way mean to diminish his work by noting the history. The first bill I put forward in Parliament had in fact previously been a Liberal bill that I took up and tabled in this House. I want to highlight the collaboration, the continuation and the important work that the member has done. As we signalled during the second reading debate on the bill, it was our desire to put forward an amendment to the bill that would include more grieving families, following conversations that I had with the member for Bowmanville—Oshawa North. He had highlighted a situation in his riding where a parent, not a child in this case, who was an EI parental leave recipient, had passed away. Following the death of that person who was the parent recipient of the parental leave benefit, those benefits were immediately cut off, compounding the grief for the family with financial hardship. Our position has been that, if a parent receiving leave benefits passes away, and they were entitled to those benefits as they had paid into those benefits, then those benefits, which they had paid into and had been entitled to prior to their death, should be able to continue. We should not be immediately cutting off those benefits at the point at which a parents dies. That was not the purpose of this bill in how it was initially written and constrained. This bill was designed to deal with the situation of the loss of a child. We proposed amending it to extend that support to more families, in cases where there is the loss of a parent. Following that proposal, which we put forward at second reading, we had many constructive conversations across the aisle about the best way to move forward with that idea, whether it was including it in the bill or working on that issue of supporting families dealing with the loss of a parent through a separate track. In the end, we were able to come to what I think was a constructive and effective agreement on the best way to move forward, which was an agreement at committee to have the committee undertake, separately from this bill, a study of the issue of extending parental leave in cases where there is the loss of a parent. Further, our committee adopted a motion asking the Parliamentary Budget Officer to provide us with costing on that particular proposal. I do not think it would cost very much. We are talking about extending benefits out of a sense of justice and compassion to a very small number of families who have paid into the system. I do not think it would cost very much because we are not talking about very many families, of course. In any event, the compromise we arrived at was that we would not include it in this bill, although I would have liked to. Instead, we requested information on costing from the Parliamentary Budget Officer. We agreed to do that study at the human resources committee. I hope that, coming out of that process, we will see a report to the House and see legislation on this. Perhaps the government will even consider including in the next budget a further extension of leave to protect benefits in cases where there is the loss of a parent. In the process of making that agreement with the government, we were clear-eyed about the reality that private members' bills that spend new money cannot pass unless they have a royal recommendation. That is, they cannot pass without the support of the government. Even if the revised, beefed-up and strengthened version of the bill that Conservatives had initially proposed had the support of a majority of members of Parliament, it would not have been able to become law because, I suspect, it would not have received a royal recommendation from the government. Out of what were at times difficult and challenging, but sincere, discussions across parties, we were able to come up with a very good path forward under the circumstances, recognizing that the government was not prepared to do the version in the fullness of what we had hoped for all at once. We now have a royal recommendation to proceed with offering this essential support to families dealing with the loss of a child. Meanwhile, the human resources committee is committed to a path where we will get more information and do further study, and we will continue to push the issue of extending benefits in the case of a loss of a parent as well. I think we can do both. We do not have to do both things as part of the same legislation, but we can do both, and I think we should get there. I want to say as well that in the process of those negotiations, working with my colleague and friend the member for Vimy, the parliamentary secretary responsible, has been a pleasure. It is good for Canadians to know, because they see the cut and thrust and the conflict of this place. I definitely think that has a place. It is right and important for the opposition to fulfill its responsibilities, to hold the government accountable, to challenge the government when it is on the wrong path and to push for better outcomes for everyday Canadians. However, when it comes to the work of legislation, we do and we must work collaboratively across the aisle to propose constructive reforms and changes. Those relationships exist, and those behind-the-scenes conversations are important. We in the official opposition are committed to playing a constructive role, to opposing the government where we think it wrong, working with it where we see opportunities for collaboration and supporting good ideas it puts forward and asking it to support good ideas we put forward. As the official opposition, we have stood up, and will continue to stand up, for families dealing with loss, to support this legislation and to build on it with further measures to include more families dealing with loss as well.

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Government Orders

Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 2

2026-05-29

“Housing costs and the cost of living are out of control. Young people can't afford to start families. The government shouldn't cut vocational education grants while people are struggling.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, as we talk about the situation of the economy, one thing I often hear from young people is about how difficult it is right now for young people to start out in life. Youth unemployment is extremely high, at 14.3%, and we have very low workforce participation as well. Homes are extremely expensive. All these challenges make it more difficult for young people to start out, to start a family and to start to have children. We see this showing up in the numbers. People are having far fewer kids than they tell pollsters they want to have, because of these pressures. Meanwhile, the Liberal government is cutting funding for students attending vocational programs. Will the government reverse its removal of grants to students studying in vocational programs?

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“The sovereign wealth fund is a bad idea. The government is already in debt. We shouldn't borrow more money to put into a fund. It's just going to increase our debt and burden future generations. The Liberals need to understand this.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the member has well understood the debate about the sovereign wealth fund. I will explain it simply by analogy. If I open a savings account to save my money, that is a good idea. If I have no money, so I open a savings account then take money off the credit card and put it in the savings account, that does not make a lot of sense. The issue is not the existence of the account but whether or not we have something to put into it. The principle of having a sovereign wealth fund is great, but when the government is running massive deficits, its proposal is not for a sovereign wealth fund. It is for a sovereign debt fund. It would be taking out even more money we do not have and then requiring the additional costs and capacity around a fund that would invest borrowed money. There is also a lack of the protections from political interference, and all kinds of other problems. Will the parliamentary secretary recognize the real problem and understand that the Liberals should not have a sovereign debt fund that would land on future generations?

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Oral Questions

Families, Children and Social Development

2026-05-29

“You didn't answer my question about parental leave. Parents want more flexibility. The government should do what we suggest.”

“I want the government to adopt our parental leave reforms. We think they will help families.”

Statements by Members

Exposure to Pornography

2026-05-29

“I want government to force pornography sites to guess the age of everyone who visits. This will protect kids and families. The law is late, we have studied a lot. Do it now!”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, stats show that a very large number of 9-, 10-, 11- and 12-year-old boys are accessing violent, sexually explicit material on the Internet. Exposing children to sexually explicit images is a form of child abuse. The proportions of this abuse make early exposure to pornography the most underdiscussed crisis in our nation. It is at the root of so much sexual violence, family breakdown and personal crisis. There is an urgent need to protect young children from the abuse they so regularly experience through being shown violent sexual images online. Bill S-209 proposes a simple solution: Pornography websites should be required to verify or credibly estimate the age of those who access them. This bill has passed the Senate unanimously three times. This bill is now one of the most repeatedly and thoroughly studied bills ever, but we have still not acted. We are past due for action, and I hope this Parliament is the one that finally acts to protect kids from abuse, women from violence and families from crisis by completing the work on Bill S-209.

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Oral Questions

Labour

2026-05-28

“You're making up excuses. I don't believe your story. Come clean and admit you didn't tell the truth.”

Adjournment Proceedings

2026-05-27

“You talk about your programs a lot. But you don't fix youth unemployment. You just spend more of other people's money. You don't make youth unemployment better. Your plans don't work. You need to admit that.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, it is really incredible listening to the way the government talks about the youth unemployment crisis, because fundamentally it seems that it does not understand the task. The task is to address the youth unemployment rate. It is to address the fact that we have a high and climbing youth unemployment rate. It is to address the fact that youth employment is at one of its lowest points in decades. It is to address the real facts on the ground. In response to these questions, the government never actually talks about the youth unemployment rate. It never points to success in terms of, in aggregate, getting more young people into work. It always wants us to be impressed by the amount of money it is spending, by the fact that it is continuing existing programs and by the fact that it has hopes and ambitions for things that it might do later on. Can the member acknowledge that it is not working and that the youth unemployment rate is high and increasing, that their plans are not achieving the—

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“Young people can't find jobs. The government has no plan. Our report has good ideas. The government should do what we say.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, I rise this evening to address the continuing, worsening youth unemployment crisis. The youth unemployment rate now is at 14.3%. We recently asked the finance minister about the youth unemployment crisis in this country. He would not agree in the House that we face a youth unemployment crisis, and he was not even able to state the youth unemployment rate. That is from the finance minister of this country, which shows how asleep at the switch the government is. It has no plan to address a crisis that it will not acknowledge and does not even understand the magnitude of. However, there is good news as well. This week the human resources committee tabled its detailed report on a youth unemployment crisis study, which contains many recommendations that, actually, specifically reflect the Conservative youth jobs plan. As we have called on the government to confront this youth unemployment crisis, we have put forward a Conservative youth jobs plan to unleash the economy, to fix immigration, to fix training and to build homes where the jobs are, and now we have a unanimous report from the human resources committee that reflects these key Conservative priorities. I want to congratulate the members of the human resources committee from all parties who got behind these Conservative priorities. Now it is time for a government that has been asleep at the switch for too long to recognize this crisis, to talk to young people, to read the statistical reports, to know the information and to implement a real plan that reflects what Conservatives have put forward and what is contained in this all-party report. I want to highlight a number of the recommendations. First, this all-party report recommends that “the Government of Canada seek to reduce taxes and red tape in order to address concerns about how the taxation and regulatory environment has limited productivity growth and held back youth employment.” It is incredible, an all-party recommendation calling on the government to respond to this Conservative priority to reduce taxes and red tape. Recommendation two states, “That the Government of Canada recognize the positive role that natural resource development, manufacturing, and all other sectors play in contributing to employment, and seek to valorize work in all sectors.” Recommendation three deals with recognizing the role that immigration policy failures have had in contributing to youth unemployment, and addressing them. Recommendation five calls on the government to “apply strict penalties to companies hiring illegal workers.” We have actually had cases where companies that have been punished for hiring illegal workers went on to get government subsidies. When we have this culture of permissiveness toward companies hiring illegal workers, it contributes to youth unemployment. Recommendation seven calls on the government to “celebrate the value and dignity of trades work [and] ensure that institutions providing trade skills are treated equally and fairly”. That responds to the fact that the government has actually removed funding for grants from students attending vocational institutions. That is, if someone is trying to pursue in-demand skills at a vocational institution, the government has cut them off from getting a student grant. We would reverse that, and that is what is alluded to by recommendation seven in this all-party report. There are many great recommendations in this report. It provides a clear blueprint for the government to follow, building on the Conservative youth jobs plan released in the fall. The government is doing nothing. Young people are getting desperate. The government needs a plan. We now have an all-party report that follows the lead of the Conservatives with specific concrete recommendations. Is the government prepared to implement these constructive recommendations in the 10th report of the human resources committee?

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Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-05-26

“You talk a lot, but say nothing. I asked about immigration causing youth unemployment. Answer my question.”

“You won't give a straight answer. I'll ask you again. A report said more taxes and red tape hurt youth employment. Will you cut taxes and red tape to help youth employment?”

“The youth unemployment rate is high. You should admit there's a crisis. Cut taxes and red tape so businesses can hire more young people. You should listen to the all-party report that says this would help.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, clearly the minister was not aware. The number is 14.3%, according to the latest StatsCan numbers. That is a very high youth unemployment rate, including against international peers. I am sorry that the minister is not willing to acknowledge tonight that we are facing a youth unemployment crisis. He should acknowledge that, and he should support the necessary actions to address it. In particular, in today's human resources committee report, there is a recommendation endorsed by all parties to reduce taxes and red tape in order to address concerns about how the taxation and regulatory environment has limited productivity growth and held back youth unemployment. Does he agree with that all-party recommendation, and will he act on it?

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“Youth unemployment is high. Does the minister understand how bad it is? I want the minister to admit there's a crisis.”

“You didn't answer my last question. I want to change the subject. I'm going to talk about youth unemployment. That's a real problem. Do you agree?”

“I think the new fund's operating costs will be high. $1.7 billion for the pension fund. Half a million dollars per employee. That's a lot of money. What will the costs of this new fund be?”

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

2026-05-25

“I'm here to praise a group of young activists and their MP for creating a petition. The petition argues the government should spend more money on domestic students and less on foreign scholarships. It says the government should prioritize policies and funding that improve access to education and work for young Canadians. These young people are calling for Canadian jobs and training for Canadian students. They want the next generation to have opportunities in our labour market.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, finally, before we recessed, there was a very large group of young people from Newmarket—Aurora. My colleague from Newmarket—Aurora has convened a very large and active youth council that has been organizing its own petitions, responding to concerns that exist in that community. I want to commend my colleague from Newmarket—Aurora for her incredible work with young people in her community and also the young people who worked hard to organize this petition, relating specifically to some issues of employment that I think are very important, relating to the desire of young people to have access to jobs, homes and hope. Petitioners highlight that young Canadians are struggling to find jobs, afford housing and pay for education, yet the current Liberal government continues to prioritize international programs and foreign partnerships over the needs of young Canadians. Petitioners argue that the federal government has committed large amounts of money to foreign scholarships. While the federal government needs to continue to increase applicants' acceptance to current projected gaps in the labour market, it should be prioritizing the needs of domestic students first. The petitioners note that the federal government continues to expand these international initiatives. Meanwhile, Canadian students continue to struggle in various ways to afford education and access employment opportunities that they need. Therefore, petitioners call on the Government of Canada to prioritize public policy and funding that protect and expand access to education and work for Canadian youth, especially low- and middle-income students, before committing equivalent public resources to large international scholarship initiatives; to tie accepted applications to current and projected gaps within the workforce; and to create pathways for those who have completed their education within Canada to help fill current gaps within the Canadian labour market, and require that these international scholarships include a clear funding breakdown and a public assessment of likely effects on domestic students and labour markets, and measures to ensure that Canadian students benefit. These wise young people from Newmarket—Aurora are proposing Canadian jobs and Canadian training for Canadian students. We want Canadian young people to be able to fill the gaps that exist in our labour market, so that we have opportunities for the next generation. Again, I want to commend these young people from Newmarket—Aurora for their hard work on this excellent petition.

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“I want my bill to pass. I want to stop bureaucrats from pushing euthanasia on veterans and disabled people who just want normal help. It's happening a lot. This bill would ban them from suggesting it. Support my bill to stop this.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, next I would like to present a petition in support of my private member's bill, Bill C-260, the care not coercion act. Incidentally, more information about that is available at our custom website, carenotcoercion.ca. Canadians are concerned about the many reports, including those laid out on our website, indicating a series of problems of veterans, people with disabilities, seniors and those living in poverty being offered MAID or euthanasia by bureaucrats when they are trying to access unrelated public services. These repeated, unprompted offers from those who are not even supposed to be involved in providing facilitated death can be coercive in nature and make it more difficult for people to access public services they are entitled to. Petitioners call attention to the testimony of the CEO of Inclusion Canada, Krista Carr, before the finance committee, that she hears weekly complaints from people with disabilities who have had facilitated death proposed to them when they are trying to access other public services. They highlight the story of Christine Gauthier, a veteran living with disability who was fighting simply to get a wheelchair stairlift from Veterans Affairs Canada. A caseworker suggested she pursue facilitated death instead. These are not isolated cases. There are many examples of this on our website, carenotcoercion.ca. Bill C-260 would provide a response to this by prohibiting bureaucrats from proposing facilitated death to those who have not asked for information about it. Petitioners hope that all members will get behind Bill C-260 and protect the ability of veterans, people with disabilities, the elderly, those living in poverty and all Canadians to be able to access public services without fear of this kind of coercion. They also want to see the government take additional steps to combat the problem of this coercion.

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“I want taxpayers to spend money on students at private career colleges. The government is changing the rules. They'll give money to university students, but they won't give it to students at vocational schools. That's not fair. Chinese medicine and skilled trades are good. Young people should get taxpayer money to study whatever job the market wants. The government shouldn't pick favorites.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, the next petition I am presenting highlights the concerns of Canadians about the government's attack on vocational institutions. Budget 2025 proposed restricting eligibility for the Canada student grant for full-time students to those attending public or not-for-profit institutions, excluding many students at regulated career colleges. These are reputable institutions that provide important vocational training, providing skills to young people that align with the needs of the labour market, and yet the government is changing the situation such that any program at a university entitles one to make an application for student grants if they meet the financial need criteria, whereas no students would be eligible if they are at vocational institutions, outside of narrowly prescribed exceptions. This creates unequal treatment among students based on the type of institution they attend rather than the value or demand of their chosen field of study. For many in-demand careers, including in the skilled trades and in health care fields including, for instance, traditional Chinese medicine, the training is offered through regulated career colleges. Removing grant eligibility risks reducing access to affordable training for students, particularly those from low and middle-income backgrounds, and limiting support for these programs may worsen existing labour shortages in critical sectors of the Canadian economy. Petitioners call on the Government of Canada to reverse the proposed changes, to ensure equal and fair access to student financial assistance for all students regardless of institution type and to support training pathways that align with labour market needs, including skilled trades and other high-demand professions.

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