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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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. 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.

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. 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.

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. 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. 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.

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.

Karim Bardeesy

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