Bills and Petitions From the 43rd Parliament

Petition to Reallocate Revenue From the Cannabis Excise Tax

(e-2824)

Petition to the Government of Canada

Whereas:
  • RCMP planned gross spending for 2019-20 is $5.1 billion with 0.5% forecasted increase for FTEs to support cannabis policing;
  • Up to $274 million was announced for law enforcement regarding cannabis legalization, $113 million of which was budgeted between the RCMP, Canada Border Service Agency, and Public Safety Canada over five years;
  • Canadian governments earned $186 million from excise taxes and general taxes on goods and services directly related to the sale of cannabis within 5.5 months of legalization;
  • Excise tax revenues are estimated at $66 million in fiscal year 2019-20;
  • BIPOC communities face disproportionate discrimination and criminalization for cannabis-related activities;
  • In Toronto, from 2007-2017, 25% of those arrested for simple cannabis possession were Black, despite Toronto’s Black population only being 8.4%, and equivalent usage rates among whites;
  • Indigenous people account for 30% of Canada’s inmates while comprising only 3.8% of the population;
  • Policing, judicial, and correctional systems are failing BIPOC in Canada; and
  • BIPOC communities face disproportionate barriers to entering the legal cannabis industry related to federal/provincial licensing.
We, the undersigned, citizens of Canada and cannabis industry stakeholders, call upon the Government of Canada to reallocate the total revenues from the cannabis excise tax, and corresponding amount from previously promised law enforcement funding, to develop a department for the equality of Black, Indigenous, and people of colour. This department would oversee and allocate funding for community initiatives including:
- harm reduction andeducation programs;
- PTSD treatment programs;
- community revitalization programs; and
- the creation of a business development program with the express mandate of creating and funding opportunities for BIPOC in the regulated cannabis sector.
Read full petition details here.

Petition to Support Canadian Green New Deal

(432-00559)

PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

We, the undersigned Citizens of Canada, draw the attention of the House of Commons to the following:

WHEREAS, Climate change has escalated into a global climate emergency; the world is on pace to warm nearly 4 degrees Celsius by 2100 and extreme weather events are growing with increasingly severe impacts, including floods, forest fires, rising temperatures, killer heat-waves, massive storms, sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystems;

WHEREAS, in order to act to avert further catastrophic climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) states that the scientific consensus is that we need to immediately move to reduce net human-caused greenhouse gas emissions to 45 per cent below 2010 levels by 2030 and net-zero by 2050;

WHEREAS, Canada must address this climatic emergency with the ambition and urgency required, on behalf of present and future generations;

WHEREAS, Canadians are living through unprecedented, catastrophic climate events and at the same time, our society is suffering from worsening socio-economic inequalities, with almost half of Canada's population reporting they are $200 away from insolvency at the end of each month;

WHEREAS, climate change impacts threaten physical & mental health (particularly young people, the elderly and persons with disabilities), surrounding environments by affecting the food we eat, the world's water supply, the air we breathe, the weather we experience, and how well local communities can adapt to climate change;

WHEREAS, the impacts of climate emergency are far more severe for those living through the immediate consequences of climate change; Indigenous Peoples, frontline and vulnerable communities, like people seeking refugee status or asylum and those displaced by climate change, are disproportionality affected, resulting in the increased risks to their health;

WHEREAS, it has never been more urgent that Canada reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a low-carbon economy to meet the scale and urgency of the climate crisis, while ensuring that all Indigenous Peoples and Canadians benefit from the substantial public investments a low-carbon economy requires, like energy efficiency retrofits, affordable housing, renewable energy, infrastructure, public transit, pharmacare, dental care, childcare and eliminating student debt and tuition fees;

WHEREAS, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and the recognition of inherent rights, title and treaty rights, while fully implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), must be at the heart of Canada's approach to addressing the climate emergency;

THEREFORE, your petitioners call on the Government of Canada to support Motion M-1, a made-in-Canada Green New Deal, the first initiative before the House of Commons, which calls on Canada to take bold & rapid action to adopt socially equitable climate action to tackle the climate emergency and address worsening socio-economic & racial inequalities at the same time; while ending fossil fuel subsidies, closing offshore tax havens, and supporting workers impacted by the transition and creating well-paying, unionized jobs in the shift to a clean and renewable energy economy.

Read full petition details here.

Petition to Declare Overdose Crisis a National Public Health Emergency

(432-00558)

Petition to the Government of Canada

Whereas opioid crisis is one of the most deadly public health emergencies of our lifetime, with a death taking place on average about every two hours and a death toll of almost 15,400 in the past four years alone (January 2016 to December 2019);

Whereas the overdose crisis rages;

We, the undersigned, call upon the Government of Canada to declare the overdose crisis a national public health emergency and:

  • Take steps to end overdose deaths and overdose injuries
  • Immediately collaborate with provinces and territories to develop a comprehensive, pan-Canadian overdose action plan
  • Ensure that any plan considers reforms that other countries have used, such as legal regulation of drugs to ensure safe, supply, decriminalization for personal use, and changes to flawed drug policy and policing.
  • Ensure this emergency is taken seriously with adequately funded programming and supports.

Read full petition details here.

Petition to Expand CERB Eligibility

(e-2821)

Petition to the Government of Canada

Whereas:
  • Disabled Canadians and Canadians living in poverty are disproportionately provided with emergency financial support since the launch of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) mandated $2,000 a month as the minimum required to live;
  • The United Nations has expressed concern over the unequal support and protections for disabled people and people living in poverty;
  • There is no nationwide support equal to CERB for disabled Canadians or Canadians living in poverty;
  • The Government of Canada has not provided equal support since the launch of CERB to protect the human rights of disabled Canadians and Canadians living in poverty;
  • The Government of Canada has not raised federal supports for disabled Canadians and Canadians living in poverty to be equal to the amount mandated as the minimum of $2,000 a month to survive; and
  • The Government of Canada has not kept federal support programs equal to inflation.
We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to:
1. Immediately expand the eligibility for the CERB to include those who were previously deemed ineligible due to poverty, disability, or other circumstances that have prevented them from meeting the minimum earnings required to qualify for CERB, and that payments be backdated to March 15, 2020; and
2. Continue to provide equal support for Canadians as outlined above for the duration of CERB, as well as continuing to provide this support indefinitely through a guaranteed basic income, with the monthly rate increased annually to reflect any increases in of the cost of living.
Read full petition details here.

Petition to Ban the Use of Tear Gas in Canada

(e-2656)

Petition to the House of Commons

Whereas:
  • Tear gas (CN, CR or CS gas) is a chemical weapon used by police for crowd control;
  • Tear gas was banned in the use of warfare generally by the 1925 Geneva Protocol, and specifically by the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention;
  • Tear gas can and has caused death, miscarriage, and significant long term health effects to those exposed to it;
  • Tear gas is an indiscriminate weapon which can affect both targeted individuals and bystanders alike;
  • Tear gas in certain forms can contaminate a surface and continue to be harmful for up to two months;
  • Tear gas has been used numerous times in densely populated major cities in Canada;
  • Tear gas was used in Montreal against protestors on May 31, and only served to increase tensions and provoke violence; and
  • Tear gas used during a global pandemic greatly increases the risk of COVID-19 spread, and is made much more dangerous by those conditions.
We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to ban the use of tear gas in all its forms in Canada, destroy the stocks of tear gas currently owned by the police and armed forces in Canada, investigate the use of tear gas by the police in Montreal on May 31, and encourage the police to prioritize de-escalation tactics over dispersal and arrest tactics in crowd control actions.
Read full petition details here.

Petition to Divest From RCMP and Redirect Funding to Social Services

(e-2714)

Petition to the House of Commons

Whereas:
  • Black and Indigenous people are more likely to experience police brutality in Canada;
  • Black and Indigenous people are overrepresented in the rate of incarceration relative to their population numbers in Canada;
  • The annual Royal Mounted Canadian Police (RCMP) budget is in excess of $5 billion;
  • Adequately trained community services can fill the roles currently fulfilled by the RCMP, such as responding to mental health crises, in a safe and violence-free method;
  • Social factors such as homelessness, poverty, and lack of access to resources often are the root causes of criminality, yet are chronically underfunded;
  • Police involvement leads to substantially greater negative outcomes for Black, Indigenous, and racialized communities, such as increased risk for the use of violence and potential for criminalization;
  • Recent instances of Black and Indigenous death in Canada have been as a result of police involvement in Welfare Checks; and
  • A way to reduce the sheer number of deaths is to defund the police, remove this activity as some that needs police involvement, and redistribute the funding to other places of effective mental health support.
We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to divest from the RCMP and redirect funding towards social services to replace policing functions in recognition of the long history of violence against Black and Indigenous communities and the inefficacy of policing.
Read full petition details here.

Petition to Support Motion M-1: Canadian Green New Deal

(431-00077)

PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

We, the undersigned Citizens of Canada, draw the attention of the House of Commons to the following:

WHEREAS, Climate change has escalated into a global climate emergency; the world is on pace to warm nearly 4 degrees Celsius by 2100 and extreme weather events are growing with increasingly severe impacts, including floods, forest fires, rising temperatures, killer heat-waves, massive storms, sea level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystems;

WHEREAS, in order to act to avert further catastrophic climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) states that the scientific consensus is that we need to immediately move to reduce net human-caused greenhouse gas emissions to 45 per cent below 2010 levels by 2030 and net-zero by 2050;

WHEREAS, Canada must address this climatic emergency with the ambition and urgency required, on behalf of present and future generations;

WHEREAS, Canadians are living through unprecedented, catastrophic climate events and at the same time, our society is suffering from worsening socio-economic inequalities, with almost half of Canada's population reporting they are $200 away from insolvency at the end of each month;

WHEREAS, climate change impacts threaten physical & mental health (particularly young people, the elderly and persons with disabilities), surrounding environments by affecting the food we eat, the world's water supply, the air we breathe, the weather we experience, and how well local communities can adapt to climate change;

WHEREAS, the impacts of climate emergency are far more severe for those living through the immediate consequences of climate change; Indigenous Peoples, frontline and vulnerable communities, like people seeking refugee status or asylum and those displaced by climate change, are disproportionality affected, resulting in the increased risks to their health;

WHEREAS, it has never been more urgent that Canada reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a low-carbon economy to meet the scale and urgency of the climate crisis, while ensuring that all Indigenous Peoples and Canadians benefit from the substantial public investments a low-carbon economy requires, like energy efficiency retrofits, affordable housing, renewable energy, infrastructure, public transit, pharmacare, dental care, childcare and eliminating student debt and tuition fees;

WHEREAS, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and the recognition of inherent rights, title and treaty rights, while fully implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), must be at the heart of Canada's approach to addressing the climate emergency;

THEREFORE, your petitioners call on the Government of Canada to support Motion M-1, a made-in-Canada Green New Deal, the first initiative before the House of Commons, which calls on Canada to take bold & rapid action to adopt socially equitable climate action to tackle the climate emergency and address worsening socio-economic & racial inequalities at the same time; while ending fossil fuel subsidies, closing offshore tax havens, and supporting workers impacted by the transition and creating well-paying, unionized jobs in the shift to a clean and renewable energy economy.

Read full petition details here.

Petition to Recognize Haudenosaunee Law and Respect Claims to the Haldimand Tract

(e-2984)

Petition to the House of Commons

Whereas:
  • The Haudenosaunee people have a well-documented claim to the 1784 Haldimand Tract, a treaty between the Haudenosaunee and the British Crown on 950,000 acres of land, running six miles on each side of the Grand River, from its mouth to its source;
  • Unresolved land claims at Six Nations Territory have existed since 1982;
  • Structural racism entrenched in our courts and law enforcement have resulted in the discriminatory use of laws to target, harass, and intimidate land defenders; and
  • Land defenders have been defamed as “terrorists” for protecting their lands in an effort to ensure future generations have access their ancestral lands and territories.
We, the undersigned, citizens of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to:
1. Return 1492 Landback Lane to the Haudenosaunee peoples and put a moratorium on developments on all disputed lands in the Haldimand Tract, to prevent irreparable harm to both Indigenous peoples and innocent third parties;
2. Ensure that that the Crown negotiates with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Council;
3. Recognize Haudenosaunee Law as an equally legitimate, binding authority in the eyes of Canadian and provincial courts;
4. Implement mandatory training that all judges and law practitioners in Canada must undertake to ensure they are practicing, interpreting and upholding Indigenous legal orders;
6. Prevent injunctions from being used as a tool to prevent Indigenous people from lawfully defending their land and following their duties in accordance with Indigenous legal orders; and
7. Ensure that municipalities are not excused from upholding the honour of the Crown, a direct contravention of Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
Read full petition details here.

Petition to Investigate Recruitment for the IDF

(e-3337)

Petition to the Minister of Justice

Whereas:
  • The Foreign Enlistment Act states: “Any person who, within Canada, recruits or otherwise induces any person or body of persons to enlist or to accept any commission or engagement in the armed forces of any foreign state or other armed forces operating in that state is guilty of an offence.”;
  • The Israeli consulate in Toronto has advertised on several occasions an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) representative available for personal appointments for those wishing to join the IDF, not just those who are required to do mandatory service;
  • The IDF has shot and injured at least two Canadian citizens since 2015;
  • The IDF has repeatedly contravened the Fourth Geneva Convention, and illegally attacked Syria and Lebanon by missile or by drone;
  • Israel is a nuclear power
  • The Ambassador of Canada conducted an event on January 16, 2020 honouring Canadians serving in the IDF; and
  • A formal complaint has been filed regarding recruiting taking place within Canada to enlist persons into the IDF.
We, the undersigned, citizens or residents of Canada, call upon the Minister of Justice to undertake a thorough investigation of those who have recruited or facilitated recruiting for the Israel Defense Forces, and, if warranted, lay charges against those involved in recruiting and encouraging recruiting for the IDF.
Read full petition details here.

Petition to Enact Legislation to Prohibit Racial Profiling

(e-3349)

Petition to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Whereas:
  • The practice of racial profiling by law enforcement seriously threatens the equal rights, democracy and justice for all Canadians;
  • The Supreme Court has acknowledged that systemic racial profiling is a “day-to-day reality” for Black and Indigenous Canadians;
  • In 2017, a UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent found that racial profiling is “endemic” in Canadian law enforcement, and urged this country to immediately discontinue this practice in all of its forms;
  • While some provinces have passed regulations and moratoriums prohibiting these practices, pretextual pedestrian “street checks” and “stops” of Black motorists (aka "driving while black") persist;
  • There is a clear link between public confidence in policing and public safety, the erosion of police legitimacy has profound consequences for our justice system, the cost effectiveness of police services and billions of taxpayers’ dollars paid annually;
  • To date, there has been no concrete meaningful action from governments to effect systemic changes in policing to eliminate the practice of racial profiling; and
  • Canada has the constitutional power to legislate in respect to “peace, order and good government”.
We, the undersigned, citizens (or residents) of Canada, call upon the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to request the enacting of legislation to prohibit racial profiling and influence the policing culture in this country, by requiring law enforcement agencies to establish policies and procedures to eliminate it from their practices in order to qualify to receive Federal funding.
Read full petition details here.

Petition to Uphold Treaty Relationship with the Haudenosaunee and Honour Decisions by the HCCC

(e-3466)

Petition to the Government of Canada

Whereas:
  • The Iroquois Confederacy was founded August 18, 909, and has remained a governing body to the present day as the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council (HCCC);
  • Between 1927-1951, Indian Act amendments made it illegal for First Nations people to hire lawyers and bring forward land claims without the government’s consent;
  • Colonial provincial and federal court systems remain largely biased against First Nations communities and do not hold jurisdiction over First Nations land rights;
  • In 2006, the Government of Canada acknowledged the HCCC as lead negotiators for Six Nations territory to resolve the Douglas Creek Estates land reclamation (known as Kanonhstaton), thus setting precedent for the current efforts at 1492 LandBack Lane;
  • 1492 LandBack Lane is part of the Haldimand Tract that Governor Haldimand granted in 1784 for the Haudenosaunee and their progeny to enjoy forever thereby making the Haudenosaunee the true title holders of this land;
  • In April 2021, the HCCC put in place a moratorium on development in the Haldimand Tract indicating that no development can proceed along the Tract without the Haudenosaunee peoples' consent;
  • This moratorium builds on the HCCC’s 2006 Land Rights Statement to end Haldimand Tract land and resource exploitation; and
  • Developers have profited from government bail outs on unceded lands (e.g. $15.8 million to Henco Industries in 2006).
We, the undersigned, citizens of Canada and residents throughout Turtle Island, call upon the Government of Canada to:
1. Uphold the established Treaty relationship with the Haudenosaunee of the Grand River Territory;
2. Honour the moratorium put in place by the HCCC; and
3. End the practice of paying out developers who do not honour the moratorium.
Read full petition details here.

Are you ready to take action?

Request a Sign
Learn More
Join our Campaign

Make a donation

Connect with Matthew

Email: