The veteran politician plans to vote in favour of the Emergencies Act, but she promises that the NDP is not giving a "blank cheque" to the ruling Liberals
IN PARLIAMENT: VIDEO - Speak to support Bill C-242, the Reuniting Families Act
The super visa process is already in place, and the bill before us seeks to enhance it by addressing the high cost of the issue with respect to insurance coverage particularly, and then extending the period to which parents and grandparents can come to Canada under a super visa.
IN THE NEWS: toronto.com - Getting ‘ghosted’ by Canada: Why those trying to reach immigration officials say no one is picking up the phone
The volume of calls and inquiries to the Immigration Department is through the roof and so is the frustration and helplessness among applicants who get no reply. ‘It’s been a total nightmare to have our lives in limbo,’ said one.
Federal Government To Reverse GIS Clawback with One-Time Payment
Since before the election, New Democrats have been hearing from seniors who have been seriously hurt by the Liberal government's unacceptable decision to claw back the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) from seniors who received emergency pandemic supports such as CERB. The NDP brought the issue directly to the attention of the Ministers before the election, sadly they just ignored it. For months, we continued to call for the government to fix this injustice immediately by excluding pandemic benefit benefits in the calculation of GIS eligibility.
IN THE NEWS: iPOLITICS - First-time-homebuyers program still short homebuyers
“I think the program design is flawed,” said NDP housing critic Jenny Kwan. The income and mortgage caps means “there are many homes that would not qualify.”
“You need to go to the core of the issue, to bring down the cost of housing and not necessarily look at mortgage subsidies,” she added.
IN THE NEWS: iPOLITICS - Conservatives present plan to help Canadians buy homes
“It’s a start, and the NDP supports the measures in the motion, but the Conservative approach is not aggressive enough to meet the urgency of the housing crisis,” said NDP Housing critic Jenny Kwan.
Kwan put forward an amendment to the motion calling for a large campaign to build 500,000 social-housing units, but the Conservatives didn’t support it.
IN THE NEWS: Hill Times - Immigration Minster Fraser takes heat for ‘short-sighted’ approach to processing backlogs
IN THE NEWS: Hill Times - Immigration Minister Fraser takes heat for ‘short-sighted’ approached to processing backlogs
“Those people have already missed the boat with respect to that processing standard,” Kwan concluded. “And they’re going to probably get another problem because soon people will come back and say, ‘how come the newer applicants got processed before me?’” Kwan called it a “short-sighted way of dealing with the situation.”
“They’re trying to create this perception that they are somehow on top of things, when in fact, frankly, they’re not. And the system remains opaque. There’s a lack of transparency, and lack of accountability,” she said.
IN THE NEWS: CBC - Hong Kong protest film sells out within minutes in Vancouver
Hong Kong-born Vancouver East MP Jenny Kwan, who was invited to watch the screening on Sunday, says she was devastated at the scenes of brutality involving Hong Kong police and gangsters trying to suppress the protest.
"There were students as young as 11 years old coming out to protest on their own, trying to fight for their future, and you have seniors, elderly coming forward to try and protect them," she said.
IN THE NEWS: G&M - Canada aims to welcome 432,000 immigrants in 2022 as part of three-year plan to fill labour gaps
NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan urged the government to introduce special immigration levels to give the 500,000 migrant workers already in Canada a path to settlement and help address the labour-skill shortage.