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IN PARLIAMENT: VIDEO - Speak to support Bill C-242, the Reuniting Families Act

The heart of the issue of Bill C-242 is reuniting families. It is about ensuring that parents and grandparents can come to Canada to be with their loved ones. We know the value of that and cherish it as individuals. Like other people with children, I value the moments that my daughter and son spend with their grandmother and grandfather. Of course, my parents are immigrants here, so they get to enjoy that, but so many newcomers, so many immigrants who come to this country, are not in that fortunate situation. They did not bring their parents and grandparents here to Canada, and they cannot enjoy those moments. What Bill C-242 is trying to do is facilitate a process for those families to be reunited through the super visa process.
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.

Interestingly, and because of petty politics, in my view, after the bill was tabled, we saw the government, through committee, literally in the ninth hour, bring forward ministerial instructions to try to kill the bill, which is exactly what happened. Despite government members saying that they have advocated for this for a very long time, the reality is that they did not act on it. I remember, because back in 2015 as a new member of Parliament, this was one of the issues that we studied. We studied parents and grandparents reunification, and there was a whole host of recommendations that were tabled, but then it just sat on a shelf and nothing happened. I express my congratulations to the member for actually pushing the government in this regard and getting this done.

With that being said, I do think there are flaws within the bill. Of course, my first choice would be for the government to lift the cap on parents and grandparents reunification so that all those family members could seek permanent residence status here in Canada in an expeditious way. Now, that did not happen.

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.

IN THE NEWS: New Canadian Media - Canada eyes 1.3 million immigrants to overcome labour pains

Jenny Kwan, the Vancouver East MP, who also acts as the NDP Immigration Critic, said the government is actually scaling back the Federal Skilled Workers Program by almost 50 per cent by shifting resources and immigration levels from one stream to another. 

“The immigration levels released today shows that the government is perpetuating the problems they created when they failed to adjust the levels to accommodate the new (temporary to permanent resident pathway) immigration measure,” she said.