Mike Morrice wrote:
Summer Update from Mike
Hi again r/kitchener! Mike Morrice here, Member of Parliament for Kitchener Centre.
Parliament has risen for the summer, so my team and I thought it would be a good time to share a brief update with y’all on some recent advocacy we’ve been focused on for our community. Feel free to ask any questions here – I’ll be monitoring over the coming days to answer as many as possible.
Housing Affordability
As I’ve shared here before: how we respond to the housing crisis has already, and will continue to, define our community. It’s why I’ve been so focused on advocating for policies that prioritize homes as places for people to live rather than commodities for institutional investors to trade, as well as for investments in deeply affordable housing at a scale we haven’t seen since the mid 90s.
Thanks to all of you that signed our petition calling for a reasonable step in the right direction: an end to tax exemptions for real estate investment trusts, and for the revenue from this to be put towards building more affordable housing.
Since my last post, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has costed our motion, showing this would generate at least $289M for affordable housing over the next five years.
Recent article in The Record on this: https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/2023/04/10/kitchener-mp-proposes-removing-tax-exemptions-for-reits-report-finds-it-would-save-hundreds-of-millions.html
Blog post from last fall: https://mikemorricemp.ca/motion-71-one-solution-to-the-housing-crisis/
Example of my advocacy on this in Parliament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHqK0cWeFbo
Climate Action
In the midst of wildfires across the country, I’ve continued to call for an end to all fossil fuel subsidies, for a windfall profit tax on oil and gas companies that are gouging Canadians, and for these funds to be re-invested in proven climate solutions instead.
Recent op-ed in The Record offering ideas for folks to take action: https://www.therecord.com/opinion/climate-generation-needs-wildfires-devastation-to-serve-as-a-wake-up-call/article_dd87d491-323d-52db-9902-530b7f44ac8d.html
Text of my motion calling for an end to fossil fuel subsidies: https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/mike-morrice(110476)/motions/12245924/motions/12245924)
Examples of my advocacy on this in Parliament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSe5nBeKMCg and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j4r-wNTjXI
Media event in the midst of wildfires, with Elizabeth May: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1J-OdyCs_8, which led to media that picked up on quotes like this one -
“What will future generations think about us,” asked Morrice, “that we were in the closing window of opportunity to invest in climate solutions, and we were so busy looking at what kind of fossil fuels subsidies we want to keep?”
Ending Legislated Poverty for People with Disabilities
Since being elected, I’ve been calling on the governing party to follow through on their promise to lift people with disabilities out of poverty (over 40% of those living in poverty are Canadians with a disability!).
Just before Parliament rose, while very much imperfect, a bill that would move us in the right direction – the Canada Disability Benefit Act - finally received royal assent. This is after my team and I secured 5 out of 9 successful amendments to improve the bill, all of which came directly from the disability community.
Recent article in The Record on this: https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/kitchener-s-mike-morrice-makes-his-mark-in-parliament-54-seats-behind-the-prime-minister/article_6df0db9d-a85d-5b62-844a-69abdc5c71c9.html
Examples of my advocacy on this in Parliament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hpVRGJPLKs and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0Ea-S53jDE
Example of an amendment passing in committee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYPFvkrX7Zk
Blog post from last April: https://mikemorricemp.ca/cross-party-push-for-canada-disability-benefit/
Electoral Reform
So many people in our community feel disenfranchised by politics, and this is made worse by our ‘winner take all’ voting system (here’s some background on the issue put together by Fair Vote Canada).
I believe every vote should count. And that the governing party should follow through on what the Prime Minister promised over 1,800 times in 2015. It’s why earlier in this Parliamentary session I put forward a motion calling for a national citizens’ assembly on electoral reform. This would bring together a diverse group of Canadians to recommend to the government the best way forward for our democratic system.
We’ve been building momentum ever since. Working alongside volunteers across the country from Fair Vote, we maxed out the number of MPs that could joint second it. More recently, I found another MP willing to bring it forward for a debate and vote in Parliament, sooner than I would have been able (resulting from bad luck in the lottery system that decides who gets to bring legislation forward first for a vote!).
Recent article in The Record on this: https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/kitchener-mp-finds-support-for-electoral-reform/article_45e2ffdd-2ca2-55b8-909b-774d0413b9c1.html
Announcing the partnership with MP Lisa Marie Barron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C15sIlXHgFI
Example of my asking the PM about this in Parliament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOl-w7BGP6E
More background on this campaign: https://nationalcitizensassembly.ca/
Search for yourself
At the bottom of this post I’ve included a handful of other examples of recent advocacy.
If you’re curious where I’ve stood on other issues important to you, here are a few tools to search based on your interests:
- Easily searchable database of everything I’ve ever said in Parliament and in committee: https://openparliament.ca/politicians/mike-morrice/
- Text and video of all 485 times I’ve spoken in Parliament since being elected: https://www.ourcommons.ca/publicationsearch/en/?per=110476&pubType=37
- List of every bill and motion I’ve put forward or seconded: https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/mike-morrice(110476)#work#work)
- List of all 401 votes I’ve taken in Parliament (note I missed 6 while travelling for the annual climate negotiations; MPs are not permitted to vote when out of the country): https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/mike-morrice(110476)/votes/votes)
- Online repository of each paper newsletter sent to constituents every 3-4 months (most recent June 2023): https://mikemorricemp.ca/newsletters/
Feel free to connect
My sense is that I’ll be a better MP if I’m informed by a wide mix of perspectives and experiences from across our community. If you’re a resident of Kitchener Centre and you’d like to chat more about any of these or other issues that are important to you, feel free to email me at [email protected], or call my office here: 519-741-2001. My team can setup a 15 min phone or zoom chat.
I’m door knocking again all summer (including tonight!), I’ll be at community events, and hosting backyard chats – I hope between all of this, if you would like to chat, we could find a way for this to happen.
Mike
Additional Priorities
Here’s a smattering of other recent points of advocacy that came from our community:
- Amplifying a petition started by former SPECTRUM President and trans activist Cait Glasson (now the 3rd most signed petition of any ever presented in Parliament), calling for trans and non-binary folks to be able to successfully claim asylum in Canada: https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/kitchener-mp-mike-morrice-champions-refugee-status-for-trans-and-non-binary-asylum-seekers/article_b6335219-666f-5a86-b2fe-002295d03e2a.html and https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/06/23/canada-asylum-petition-trans-us-uk/
- Calling for action to address the deep injustice that 96% of those in solitary confinement in federal women’s prisons (like the Grand Valley Institution for Women in our community) are Indigenous:
- Calling for the federal government to stop the province of Ontario from adding natural gas to the electricity grid by implementing strong Clean Electricity Regulations:
- Advocating for federal leadership to address the poisoned drug crisis, following calls from Health Canada’s Expert Task Force on Substance Use recommending decriminalization, safe supply and harm reduction:
- Press conference with Moms Stop the Harm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUkShYXdjOs
- Question in QP (note this is less recent but very relevant, related to a bill that was voted down last June): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cZ5f7uqXj0
I’m over the moon that electoral reform is something that hasn’t been forgotten. Kitchener-Centre did us a great favour putting Mike Morrice in the house.
Mike has a lot on his plate but it would be good to know if he’s thinking about TekSavvy, the CRTC, and regulatory capture.
