Tonight, I am going to tell you a story about falling in love when I was sixteen – and how that experience changed my life.

But first, I need to give you a little background about my life. So here`s the 10-minute compression of the past half century…

Can you imagine a flight without an adequate number of flight attendants? What would happen in the event of passenger sickness, a disturbance or in the event of a serious emergency?

Every 3 minutes, a Canadian is diagnosed with cancer. But there is hope – and improvements in research, prevention and care. That’s in large parts thanks to the Canadian Cancer Society. Watch Olivia’s statement in Parliament.

Canada Post is considering cutting back its work force and services dramatically based on a controversial report. Instead it should expand services to bring in more revenue.

A flawed report is calling for major cuts to Canada Post. Don’t slash postal services, Olivia Chow warns. Instead, Canada Post should be allowed to expand and broaden its services to become profitable again.

Toronto’s mixed-use waterfront belongs to all citizens. An expanded airport with jet aircraft taking off and landing goes against the successful waterfront revitalization.

We are all special and unique; we can all contribute and achieve. That’s the powerful message of the Special Olympics. Olivia recently thanked all Toronto volunteers and coaches for their outstanding work of empowering athletes with intellectual disabilities.

Canada’s farmers, forestry and mining companies need reliable rail freight services to thrive. The government squandered the opportunity to improve proposed legislation in the Transport Committee.

Canada needs a strong government watchdog in the form of the Parliamentary Budget Officer but the current government is threatening his work. It’s time to make this crucial position strong and independent through a better legislative mandate.

Over the course of one year almost twenty day care programs closed in Toronto, which cost our city over 100 jobs and hundreds of possible placements. Read about a recent town hall on improving child care.

An aging population in south Vancouver needs a new seniors centre as well as accessible and affordable public transit. The problem: lack of federal funding for both.

Despite the need for border security, the federal government is laying off 10% of Canada Border Services Agency staff, including 325 frontline officers.

Designed to help Canadian companies fill “immediate skills and labour shortages, when Canadian citizens and permanent residents are not available to do the job”, the Temporary Foreign Worker program is broken as recent cases of abuse show.

Canadians have transportation services that are expensive, not very accessible and unreliable. This in large parts due to federal government neglect, underinvestment and deregulation. It doesn’t have to be this way.

A number of Canadian airlines keep hiring temporary foreign pilots, even when Canadian pilots are out of work. And the federal government is looking the other way. Read the backgrounder.