44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 25, 2021 10:00AM
- Nov/25/21 1:38:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise for the first time in the 44th Parliament. I want to congratulate you for your ascension to such a great chair and presiding over these important meetings. I also want to thank all the voters back in Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman for putting their trust in me for the seventh time. I thank my family and, of course, all the great volunteers who worked tirelessly on our campaign.
This is such an important debate. The idea that again the Liberals, with the NDP, want to go back into their basements and Zoom Parliament is so disheartening. As someone who has been in the chamber since 2004, it is important that we have the opportunity to look each other in the eye, to carry on these discussions, to be empathetic and to read the room.
We cannot do that when we are sitting in a Zoom call. We cannot do that when people are shutting off their cameras and wandering away from the computer. They are not able to see every member in the House. Nor do they have the ability to have the sidebar conversations with their colleagues on both sides of the aisle, with all parties.
For all the newly elected MPs sitting in the Liberal caucus right now, as well as our own MPs who were just elected, some of the most important work they will ever do for their constituents is by having the opportunity to approach the ministers right in the chamber, to pass them a letter from a constituent, to sit down and talk about a problem with an infrastructure project that may be under way in their riding or to talk about refugee files and immigration cases directly with the minister or the parliamentary secretary. When we try to do that on Zoom, people are just too busy and shut off the camera or mute their microphones.
That is not the way Parliament is meant to work. If we respect this institution, we will do what the people elected us to do in all 338 ridings. That means taking our place in the chamber, in our seats, and advocating for them publicly in this forum or in private sidebar conversations we can have in the chamber, in the lobbies or in the committee room.
One of the reasons the Liberals want to close down Parliament to in-person sittings is that it works so well for them to be non-transparent and not to be held accountable. A case in point is what happened to the Standing Committee on National Defence, which, in the last Parliament, was doing a study into sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces by former chiefs of the defence staff. The Liberals were able to use the argument that there were not enough House resources for the committees to keep meeting, and would suspend meetings indefinitely. They never had the ability to adjourn a meeting because they did not have consent, so chairs were instructed by the Liberal whip to just suspend, and the Liberals would leave the room.
When we had reports to write, when there were witnesses to be called, the Liberals would suspend the meetings indefinitely. Meeting 26 of the Standing Committee on National Defence was suspended from April 19 to April 23. It was the same meeting running over all those days. Meeting 28 was suspended from April 30 to May 7. Then they realized this was working so well that meeting 32, when we were trying to draft the report to come back to the House on how to deal with sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces, the Liberals filibustered committees and suspended meetings endlessly from May 21 to June 21. There were 21 sittings days, 505 hours of filibuster, and there was no report to table in the chamber. That is not only a failure of our democracy; it is a failure to the brave women and men who serve in our Canadian Armed Forces. We could not even get a report tabled in the House. That is not how Parliament is meant to work.
If there are going to be difficult conversations, then let us have those difficult conversations in committee. If that means committees are sitting for hours on end because of procedural moves that members will take, both in government and in opposition parties, to filibuster, let them talk it out. At some point in time a decision will be made. However, to use technology and the argument of the lack of resources from the House of Commons is no way to conduct the business of the people of Canada.
I know it is great to be at home with our families. It is great that while we are there, we can be a little more in touch with our constituents. However, during COVID there were not as many activities and events to attend. Some of that is starting to come alive again.
When we were door knocking, canvassing our constituents and asking for their support, they were not saying they wanted us to be at the Rotary club breakfast or to stop by the legion for the meat draw. It is great that we can do those things, but our constituents have elected us to be here.
Again, it comes down to this being all about the Liberals trying to cover up, not to be held to account and us not having the ability to interact with cabinet. One of the great things in our Westminster system is that the executive branch of government sits in the House of Commons with the legislators.
An hon. member: Not anymore.
Mr. James Bezan: No, not anymore, because the Prime Minister, who definitely does not like coming here, and it is debatable whether he even likes his job anymore, is trying to avoid listening to all the voices in the chamber rather than just who sits at the cabinet table.
It is so disheartening to see the New Democrats being the enablers. If NDP members are going to sit here and take their orders from the Liberal whip and House leader instead of standing up and being independent members, then maybe they should be telling all their constituents back home to vote for a Liberal instead of an NDP member. The Conservatives will be more than happy to put forward strong Conservative candidates in those ridings next time around, who want to be here, who want to serve the people and who want to carry forward the constituents' voices and the issues they need addressed in the chamber.
We can see the Liberals coaching the NDP members. It is great that their coalition is working so well and that they get along like that.
We are here to carry forward the voices of the people who elected us. We are here to protect this institution, which should be treasured by each and every one of us. While sitting in our basements and home offices, turning off the camera, turning it back on when when we want and using the voting app might be convenient, that is not how democracy works. That is not how Canadians expect us to be. They are generous and charitable in how much we are remunerated for this job and they expect us to do the hard work, which requires us to be in our seats representing their views, their values and the important things in our ridings.
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- Nov/25/21 1:48:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Westminster parliamentary system has survived for centuries. It has survived here with in-person sittings through pandemics, like the Spanish flu and SARS. Even if we have a situation where members of Parliament and cabinet ministers become ill, there is an age-old tradition called pairing that we could implement. We have parliamentary secretaries who can answer on behalf of ministers. We have ministers who can carry on with other portfolios in the short term for ministers who have to take a leave because of personal health reasons, which could include COVID. That is not a reason for shutting down the way democracy is supposed to work.
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- Nov/25/21 1:50:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we know for a fact that the people of Glasgow were quite concerned that not all countries required participants to be double vaccinated. They may have been testing daily with rapid tests, which is something we could do here quite easily, even for those of us who are vaccinated, but there is no reason we need to be doing things differently here.
If people can show up in the thousands in Glasgow and people can show up at football stadiums and hockey arenas, why can we not be sitting in this chamber? It is completely baffling to most Canadians to see the Liberals and the NDP arguing against having in-person sessions.
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- Nov/25/21 1:52:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I can say that my wife, who is a nurse, is scheduled to have her third shot of Pfizer. In Manitoba, I will have the opportunity in the new year to get my third short of Moderna. There are great opportunities for all of us. We could administer some of those vaccinations here in Parliament. In the past, we have offered the flu shot in Parliament to all members. All we had to do was walk across the hall, go into one of the side rooms and one of the nurses would be there to give us a vaccination.
There are advantages to being here and allowing us to be at the same level of protection. Many of us want to make sure that we are taking all the proper precautions to protect each and every one of us.
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- Nov/25/21 2:14:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this Saturday marks the 88th anniversary of the Holodomor genocide. In 1932-33, Joseph Stalin's brutal Soviet regime used food as a weapon to exterminate upwards of 10 million Ukrainian men, women and children. At its height, Stalin's starvation edict killed 28,000 Ukrainians per day in 1933.
To illustrate the extent of the Holodomor genocide in modern times, imagine if in Western Canada all the food was forcibly removed from all homes, produce, crops and livestock were seized from farms and all the grocery shelves were stripped bare. Then let every man, woman and child slowly starve to death in Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. That would be the equivalent of the evil perpetrated on the Ukrainian people by Stalin and his communist thugs. The Ukrainians' only crime was being patriotic. Ukrainians wanted to keep their language, culture and traditions.
Today, Ukraine's very survival is threatened by Putin's kleptocratic regime, which is amassing Russian tanks and troops on Ukraine's border. This Saturday evening, I invite every Canadian to light a candle in remembrance of the millions of lives lost and honour those who survived.
[Member spoke in Ukrainian and provided the following text:]
Vichna yim pamyat.
May their memories be eternal.
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