44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 15, 2022 10:00AM
- Feb/15/22 4:28:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if the Bloc members are nothing else, they are consistent in regard to the health care issue.
The Government of Canada is not an ATM that just distributes money. We have the Canada Health Act, and Canadians from all regions of the country recognize that the national government has an important role to play in health care. Whether the Bloc members agree or disagree, quite frankly, is irrelevant. We are here to support a healthy health care system where we can, looking, for example, at long-term care and at issues around mental health. These are important issues to people, no matter where they are in Canada.
Why is my friend teaming up, once again, in that coalition with the Conservatives and the Bloc to try to get things done here in the House? I am glad she is supporting the bill, but why does she not support the actual motion to see it come to a conclusion today?
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- Feb/15/22 4:29:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will answer the first part of the question.
Mind your own business. Your business is providing funding for provincial health care systems. Your business is looking after retirees and seniors. You have programs and it is up to you to support them. That is your responsibility.
I would, in turn, ask you why you are in such a rush to interfere in our business and in less of a rush to take care of your own?
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- Feb/15/22 4:30:24 p.m.
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I remind the hon. member that she must address her questions and comments through the Chair and not directly to the government or a member. I have already reminded her of that today.
The hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway.
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- Feb/15/22 4:30:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree very much with my hon. colleague about the importance of the Canada Health Act and federal spending. I also worked for a union for 16 years, so I appreciate her contributions to working people.
However, I must take issue with the member's inaccurate statement that health care is provincial. I am going to read from the Library of Parliament paper on the jurisdiction. It states that “...the Constitution Act, 1867 does not expressly include “health” as a legislative power assigned either to Parliament...or to the provincial legislatures....” The Supreme Court of Canada has not interpreted section 92 as giving provincial legislatures exclusive jurisdiction over health care.
The Supreme Court of Canada, in Schneider v. The Queen, stated:
...“health” is not a matter which is subject to specific constitutional assignment but instead is an amorphous topic which can be addressed by valid federal or provincial legislation, depending in the circumstances of each case on the nature or scope of the health problem in question.
The Schneider decision also says that the national concern doctrine is a basis for a federal health jurisdiction, saying:
...federal legislation in relation to "health" can be supported where the dimension of the problem is national rather than local in nature....
Therefore, when my hon. colleague says that it is not the federal government's business to be in health care, she is constitutionally wrong. Is the member aware that the phrase “health care” does not occur in the Constitution and that the Supreme Court of Canada has said that health care is federal—
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- Feb/15/22 4:32:12 p.m.
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I do have to allow the hon. member to respond.
The hon. member for Thérèse-De Blainville.
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- Feb/15/22 4:32:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in response, I would tell him to go read everything that might be constitutional on the issue.
I am perfectly comfortable with the idea that the provinces and Quebec have jurisdiction over organizing services and care, and that the role of the federal government is limited to paying its fair share to support the provinces and Quebec.
What is more, it is also the responsibility of the federal government to support our seniors by significantly increasing old age security and never again denying seniors their guaranteed income supplement.
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- Feb/15/22 4:33:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would have liked my colleague, who delivered a very fine speech, to remind the House that the Bloc has also made proposals to support seniors, such as increasing the earnings ceiling for the GIS from $5,000 to $6,000 in order avoid penalizing seniors who want or have to work. Can she explain why this is so important?
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- Feb/15/22 4:33:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is very important, especially in the context of a labour shortage, because this will allow our seniors to earn a comfortable retirement income so they can continue their substantial contribution to society. This will also allow them to rise above the poverty line.
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Madam Speaker, today is a great opportunity to rise in the House on this flag day. I want to note the importance and significance of today being the day we mark and recognize the Canadian flag, a flag we have seen on various people's knapsacks and backpacks throughout the world. It is a symbol people proudly wear to show where their home is. Unlike some other countries in the world, we are incredibly proud to show that flag as we travel in other parts of the world.
I would be remiss if I did not mention that it was MP John Matheson, who was from the riding just east of Kingston, the riding of Leeds, as it was called at the time, who played a key role in the development of the flag we now recognize as being the Canadian flag. I encourage those who are listening to look into the history of it a little. They will see the committee he led, and some of the different examples of flags that were brought forward. Ultimately, they settled on the one we have now come to cherish as the Canadian flag. I wish everybody a happy flag day. It certainly is an honour to come from the part of the country that was, at the time, led by an MP who gave a tremendous amount to the pride we now have and show through that flag.
It is an honour to rise today to talk about such an important issue. Right now we are debating the motion that would set the programming of how we will deal with this particular bill, which relates to the Old Age Security Act, and how we would make amendments to it in order to ensure those who experienced these clawbacks are properly taken care of.
I am concerned to see some of the posturing going on in the House today. We heard MPs from the Conservatives and the Bloc saying that they are supportive of the bill but not of this motion. Once again, I want to thank my colleagues in the NDP for recognizing the importance of this. The truth is we knew the Conservatives would be against it, which was a default, but the Bloc, quite frankly, is using this as an opportunity. It knows it has the luxury of voting against this motion because the NDP will be there to carry the weight the Bloc is unwilling to carry today. That is the reality of the situation.
We saw it with another equally important motion yesterday, where the NDP had to carry the weight of the Bloc, and now it is doing it again. I just want to thank my colleagues in the NDP for helping us get through this very important motion, and we know at the end of the day all members of the House will vote in favour of the bill because of the importance all members place on this issue.
This motion basically says that we would proceed moving forward with this bill in a very expeditious fashion, because it is very important to get it through. I can understand some of the need for rigorous studying of bills from time to time as they come to committee. I know members of the Conservative Party have said today that we need to study this bill and properly go through all of the details.
These are the same members who have been raising this issue time and time again and asking why something was not done yesterday. Now they have in front of them a programming motion that would basically expedite this and fast-track it, and they literally want to put on the brakes. They say that we need to hold on, study, give a lot of consideration in committee, and go through various procedural elements back and forth from committee and the House on what is an extremely simple bill.
The bill states:
for the purpose of determining benefits payable in respect of any month after June 2022, there shall be deducted from the person’s income for the year the amount of any payment under
It then goes on to list the four articles. That is literally the entire bill. I do not understand what could be studied in committee that would bring about some revelation of how an amendment should be made with respect to this.
This is an issue that all members of the House know about. I am happy to get into how we got to this point, which I will shortly, but it is an issue that all members of this House know about so well. They understand the content of it and exactly what this bill would do. To suggest that we should ensure that the proper, thorough, democratic process through the parliamentary system is maintained for a bill that is so direct in its nature of addressing a very specific issue is absolutely remarkable to me.
However, the Bloc has the luxury of not having to vote in favour of this motion so it can somehow stand on principle, but it only has that luxury because the NDP is once again creating a scenario for the Bloc to be able to do that. I again want to thank my NDP colleagues for staying above the partisanship of this and making sure we can move forward with this as quickly as possible.
I want to take a few minutes to congratulate the new Minister of Seniors on tackling this issue. She had not been a minister prior to this session of Parliament. She is the member for Brampton West. When she was appointed, she tackled this issue head-on, along with her parliamentary secretary, the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour.
As she indicated in her comments earlier today, she made sure she consulted with various parties. She made sure she went to committee and answered the questions of committee members. She made sure she communicated with various seniors groups and groups that represent seniors' interests and that when she did this, she would get this right, in line with her mandate letter from the Prime Minister and in line with the very reasonable requests being made by seniors throughout the country.
I want to thank the minister for the work she has done to get us to this point, so we can ensure that seniors who experienced clawbacks relating to the CERB and other programs indicated in the bill are properly taken care of. Her mandate letter specifically says that she will, “Ensure seniors' eligibility for the Guaranteed Income Supplement is not negatively impacted by receipt of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit...and the Canada Recovery Benefit”, and that is exactly what this bill would do.
Bill C-12 builds on our commitment to old age security, to increase the guaranteed income supplement by $500 for single seniors and $750 for couples starting at the age of 65. Bill C-12 would also ensure that GIS cutbacks due to collective COVID supports will not happen again in future tax years. All parties, as I indicated, have raised this issue for sometime, so it is very odd to see that our Conservative friends across the way and the Bloc wanting to drag the parliamentary process down with this motion as opposed to just passing it so we can eventually vote on the bill.
I would like to go back to the creation of these particular programs and how we got to the position we are in. I found it very fascinating and quite perplexing, while listening to the member for Abbotsford this morning, when he pointed the finger at the government, as though the government is solely responsible for the issue that has been created. I would remind all members that these programs were passed by unanimous consent, by all members of this House.
Unanimous consent, for those watching, is when all members of the House agree to bypass a number of parliamentary procedures in order to get programs into place immediately. That is the manner in which unanimous consent was used back in March of 2020 and a few times afterward. Unanimous consent basically means that everybody agrees.
If one person disagrees with unanimous consent, it would shut it down, right there in its tracks, and the various pieces of legislation would have to go through the regular parliamentary process. However, we agreed to unanimous consent at the time because we recognized the incredible need that was out there for Canadians at the time.
Not only that, the minister at the time, Minister Morneau, went to great lengths when we heard the complaints about various different pieces of the supports from the other side of the House, and they were improved upon. I can remember, for example, that the original proposal by the government on the wage subsidy fell short, quite frankly, of what was really needed. The Conservatives were there to highlight that issue and to say that this particular support was not good enough and that we needed to do better. As a result, by working with the minister behind the scenes and outside of this chamber and fixing the legislation, we saw much better wage subsidy legislation end up coming forward.
If the member for Abbotsford is somehow saying that the government completely botched this legislation, well, he and the Conservatives had the opportunity to try to improve upon the programs at the time. In some instances they did, and in some instances issues were missed, but let us remember where we were at the beginning of this pandemic. At that time it was absolutely critical to get supports to Canadians as quickly as possible to support those in need, those who were affected.
Let us remember that at the beginning of the pandemic, nobody had any idea what was happening. We were shutting down businesses throughout the country. Provinces were bringing in lockdowns. We did not have the luxury of knowing what a lockdown is, as we do now. If a lockdown was brought in now, we would know what to expect. Back in March 2020, we had no idea what it meant, what the short-term, mid-term or long-term impacts of a lockdown would be. We have that luxury now, because hindsight is 20-20, but back then we did not. We did not understand what was happening.
The government—with the incredible support of the public service, I might add—developed these programs, working day and night, with the objective of helping as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Perfection was not an issue at the time. It was not seen, in my opinion, as a priority at the time. The priority was getting the supports out to people who needed them the most. That is what happened. That is what the government was able to deliver on, again with the incredible support of the public service.
I have said it a number of times in this House, and I will said it again: 5.4 million Canadians had money in their bank accounts within five weeks of the World Health Organization declaring a global pandemic. Let us compare that to the United States or any other jurisdiction in the world. It was regarded as the gold standard for taking care of Canadians in their absolute dire moment of need. That is what the public service was able to deliver for Canadians. That is what we were dealing with at the time.
Issues are going to come up, as the member for Abbotsford has indicated now that he has luxury of looking back on it 24 months later. Issues are going to pop up. The key is how we deal with those issues now to make sure that people are treated in a fair manner. That is exactly what we are seeing now. We are not only fixing some of those problems that existed before but also putting safeguards in to make sure that they do not continue to happen. It is the reasonable and responsible thing to do. It is the thing the minister was tasked to do in her mandate letter from the Prime Minister, and she has moved very quickly on it with her department.
I also find it extremely rich when I hear my Conservative colleagues across the way in particular trying to position themselves as the champions of seniors. It is absolutely remarkable when I hear the rhetoric that comes from across the way.
This is the party that in the last government sought to increase the age of retirement to 67 from 65. What grounds they think they have to stand on this issue as it relates to seniors I do not understand. I do not know where they are coming from. That is their record. They increased the age of retirement from 65 to 67. That is their record.
Our record is this: We enhanced the CPP. The QPP followed suit. We strengthened old age security and the guaranteed income supplement. We increased in general the number of services available to seniors. We provided a one-time $500 payment to seniors. This year we are increasing old age security by 10% for those seniors over the age of 75 because we know that once they get into that age category, they need more support. The data shows that as they reach the age of 75 and older, seniors have burned through more of their savings, their medical expenses are higher, and as such they need more resources in order to support themselves. We want seniors to support themselves. That is the objective, so increasing the old age security benefit for those who are over the age of 75 is an investment.
I am absolutely perplexed by the position of the Conservatives when they try to tout they are the champions of seniors, but I am equally concerned about what I hear coming from the Bloc. The last two Bloc members who spoke made reference to a unanimous consent motion when I asked a question. Let us understand this. Eight months ago, the Bloc members brought forward a unanimous consent motion. At the time, they were willing to deal with this problem through unanimous consent, as I described earlier, but now they are not even willing to vote in favour of this motion that expedites the process.
That is the hypocrisy. They referred to a unanimous consent motion to fix the entire problem through that one quick motion back in May, which they felt was fine to do then, and they chastised us for not agreeing to it; now we have a programming motion that would allow us to do this quickly, but they are totally unwilling to vote in favour of it. Again, this goes back to the luxury of not having to do it because the NDP is picking up the slack for the Bloc, as we are seeing.
I have already talked about the unanimous consent motion that the Bloc brought forward and the problems that existed with it. It was not indexed over time. It did not take into account the length of time that people had been in Canada. It did not have any kind of clawback based on income so that higher-income individuals would get less than those who really needed it. It was extremely problematic, yet they were willing to do that through a UC motion. Unfortunately, that just comes down to the politics of this place that we see time and again.
Quite frankly, we see it more often from the Conservatives. They bring forward these unanimous consent motions not because they think they will pass and fix the problem, but so the Bloc members can then go back to their constituents and tell them that they tried to help them but nobody wanted to agree with them and help them out. That is what we are seeing. Quite frankly, that is what the Bloc Québécois is doing in partnering up with the Conservatives. We saw it yesterday and we see it today. The Bloc and the Conservatives are continually partnering up together, and it makes me wonder why. I thought the Bloc was more concerned about seniors, as opposed to playing politics in this place in dealing with this bill.
I see that my time is coming to an end. I appreciate the opportunity to have provided some comments on this process and I look forward to any questions my colleagues might have.
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- Feb/15/22 4:53:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would encourage the member across the way to not be so dismissive of the role and functioning of Parliament. The rules of Parliament do not exist to protect just members of the opposition but also members of the government, who will one day be in opposition.
The member did not at all address the actual issue we are debating right now, which is the Conservative amendment to the government motion. It is important to underline that the Conservative amendment would still involve this bill being expedited, but also involve, for instance, the minister testifying before the health committee tomorrow in a context where amendments could be made to the bill, but all of that would have to be wrapped up by 11 o'clock. Our amendment involves an extremely expedited process but still involves the possibility of the minister testifying. It involves the possibility of amendments coming forward. It involves a genuine look at the bill. Why will the member not support this reasonable amendment that still involves expediting the bill, recognizing that it will not fundamentally change the timelines for the bill, as the Senate is not back until next week?
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- Feb/15/22 4:54:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I take exception to the fact that the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan would suggest that I do not appreciate, value or see the benefit of various members' input in this House. As a matter of fact, if he listened to my speech, I actually gave credit to the Conservatives for helping to make the wage subsidy program better. I am totally and absolutely willing to do that when I see it coming from across the way. They made that particular program better as a result of their interventions.
My issue was with respect to the fact that the member for Abbotsford was somehow very critical of this particular program, but at the same time, he knows full well that he helped pass that through unanimous consent and had input into those programs at the time.
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- Feb/15/22 4:55:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague talked a little earlier about the Canadian flag. I would like to take this opportunity to say that in Quebec, on February 15, we celebrate Patriots' Day and their tricolour flag.
My colleague may not be aware of this, but on February 15, 1839, five freedom fighters in Quebec were hanged by the British authorities. Just before he was hanged, Chevalier de Lorimier cried out, “Long live freedom, long live independence!” That is what we are celebrating today in Quebec.
Getting back to the motion before us, my colleague is accusing us, the Bloc Québécois, of delaying the process. That is rather fascinating. Vulnerable seniors have been waiting for a cheque for a year, but it is the Bloc Québécois that is delaying the process.
Let us talk about employment insurance. There are 90,000 households in Quebec waiting for a cheque because the government is paralyzed, but we are the ones delaying the process.
Let us talk about immigration. There are hundreds of thousands of family reunification cases. There are some in my riding, including families from Haiti. The mother is here, the father is over there and there is no reunification. There have been delays for the past year or two because the government is paralyzed, but it is the Bloc Québécois that is delaying the process.
Is my colleague not a little embarrassed today to hear about all these vulnerable people who are unable to get their due because the government is paralyzed?
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- Feb/15/22 4:57:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not saying that the Bloc is delaying the process. What I am saying is that it is because of the NDP that the Bloc members have the luxury of being able to vote against this motion. The Bloc members know full well that if they were not in this position and the NDP was not voting in favour of this motion, they would have a lot more pressure to vote in favour of it.
Where I am identifying the hypocrisy is that the Bloc members were willing to deal with this issue through a unanimous consent motion that they raised on a number of occasions today, to deal with it swiftly in one quick motion, in less than 15 seconds, yet they will not vote in favour of this motion to move it along just as quickly. That is the hypocrisy.
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- Feb/15/22 4:58:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my thanks to my colleague, the hon. parliamentary secretary, for acknowledging that it is the NDP that has done the heavy lifting, not just on this motion but on this whole issue. I want to assure him that if at some point governing becomes simply too difficult for his party, we are prepared to take over at a moment's notice.
I see he is talking to his friend. Perhaps he can help me square this circle. The part of his speech that I was particularly interested in was the part that outlined how simple this bill is. It is merely a few lines and addresses a major flaw in the way the government has rolled out pandemic supports. This is an issue the NDP has been raising for over a year. With a solution that is so simple and so elegant, how did it take an entire year or more to get to this place? Why are we rushing at this moment to get this through, when the government had so much time to fix this problem from the very start or to avoid the problem altogether?
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- Feb/15/22 4:59:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member knows just as well as I and every other member in this House about the challenges of the legislative calendar.
I am not going to say that this could not have been done sooner; I would have loved to have seen this done sooner as well. What I will say is that this particular minister was clearly seized with this file on day one after being appointed. She moved as quickly on it as she could, in addition to dealing with other obligations that she had to bring up to date in her files, and introduced this piece of legislation. We have been able to fit it into the legislative agenda.
The mere fact that we are debating this closure motion all day long makes it obvious that we have a problem with moving legislation through this House. We have dealt with obstacle after obstacle in order to get to this place. I wish we could have done this motion that we are debating all afternoon as a unanimous consent motion, but clearly the Bloc and the Conservatives would rather play games, so we are in this position.
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- Feb/15/22 5:00:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I enjoy listening to my colleague, but he is really pushing it when he blames the opposition parties for all of the government's own sins with respect to seniors. He has some nerve.
Since 2019, we have been constantly telling the government that it needs to increase OAS and the GIS. We even held opposition days on the topic. We have talked about health transfers. If anyone has been affected during the pandemic, it is seniors.
Our health system is falling apart because of a lack of support from his government, and now he is blaming the opposition parties for not acting quickly enough.
The member has a lot of nerve.
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- Feb/15/22 5:01:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, he clearly understands the problem that we are in, yet he is not willing to be part of the solution. That just proves what I have been saying all along, which is that this weird coalition between the Bloc and the Conservatives to somehow slow down the legislative agenda is impacting legislation. He literally just told us that he understands what the problem is, so he should vote in favour of this. Let us get moving on it. Instead, they have the luxury of being able to be against the government on this motion, but for the bill. It is a luxury that unfortunately the NDP does not have, but to their credit they have seen the importance of this. They are willing to see beyond that partisanship, and are actually helping to move this forward.
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- Feb/15/22 5:02:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am very fond of the member for Kingston and the Islands, so it almost seems unfair to point out that one of the obstacles we have all faced in this place was an unnecessary election called on August 15, which stopped the work of the House from the end of June until the end of January.
I know it is not his personal responsibility to explain it, but can he perhaps cast some light on it?
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- Feb/15/22 5:02:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I can cast light on that. As one of the only Liberals in the House, I physically sat in the House for five months last winter and spring. I saw the games being played in order to prevent legislation from going through. That was coupled with everything that had happened during the pandemic. I have no problem saying that I felt that it was time for Canadians to weigh in on this and see where they were with it.
I would never accuse the member in particular of doing this, but I understand that it is a very easy political argument to make. That is why we hear it from the Conservatives so much. I actually do not have a problem with letting the electorate weigh in and tell us how they think we are doing, especially after the amount of money that had been spent on the pandemic and what had happened during the pandemic. To let the public weigh in is to give them their voice. I think they told us what they thought through their votes, and we are back here in the House to continue acting on their behalf as a result of that.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to join the debate on Government Motion No. 7, particularly the amendment from my colleague for Cumberland—Colchester.
Toward the end of my speech, I will make some comments on Bill C-12, a bill with respect to seniors. It is a bill that Conservatives support. It is a bill that would address long-standing gaps in government support for seniors: perverse outcomes of some of the measures that came in during the pandemic. It is important to speak to those.
The specific issue that we need to discuss in Motion No. 7 is a programming motion by which the government seeks to set the agenda of the House and dramatically change the normal operating procedures for passing legislation. It is important that we talk about this, because this is one in a long list of things that we see from the government that really is an attack on the normal, proper functioning of our democratic institution.
To see the nature of that attack, one only needs to listen to what the government members are saying. We can listen to the member, for instance, for Kingston and the Islands, who spoke before me. He was so dismissive of alleged games being played. It is the expectation of members of some opposition parties, at least, that they have an opportunity to debate legislation and to see that legislation studied in committee, to see opportunities for amendments to be brought to that legislation, and then to see follow-up debate and a final vote.
This is the process we have for legislation. It is not a game. It is the way the process is supposed to work. Since the beginning of our country, we have had this process in place for how legislation has operated through Parliament.
When Conservatives were in power, from time to time we used mechanisms of closure to limit the time spent on debate at a particular stage of a particular bill. However, the government has gone so much further than that. It promised, in the 2015 election, to do away with the closure mechanism and not use closure. The Liberals were very critical of Conservatives for that closure mechanism, which limits the time spent in debate on a bill at a particular stage without limiting the study that can take place at committee and without trying to combine a bunch of stages into one.
In 2015, the Liberals were still very critical of the use of that procedure. However, now not only have they been using closure themselves, but they have gone further. They are putting forward motions that essentially wrap together all of those stages of legislative study and, for all intents and purposes, entirely skip the process of committee study.
This is a serious attack on the functioning of our democratic institutions. It is important to say that it fundamentally does not matter whether one agrees with the bill or not. We could be talking about a programming motion on a great bill, a terrible bill or a bill somewhere in between. The reason we have a legislative process for studying bills, and for understanding whether they work, is to be able to determine through that process of study how the bill would apply and what was missed in the bill.
It is possible that a bill could be motivated by an intention that everybody agrees is good, but then the process of committee study could reveal that there were some legal technicalities that lead to the bill having a perverse outcome. It is possible that there are some unintended consequences of the bill that are just not considered.
When I was a high school student, I remember that we spent some time at the Alberta legislature learning about the legislative process. One of the students asked about second reading, committee studies and third reading, and asked if it was possible to skip over this process as it seemed to take so long. The legislator who was speaking at the time said, I think wisely, that there were processes by which things could be skipped over, but there was a history of very bad outcomes associated with it.
He pointed out at the time that a terrible piece of legislation, a blight on our history, was passed at the beginning of the 20th century. It was a mandatory sterilization act that existed in Alberta for a number of decades. It passed extremely rapidly without the normal process of legislative study, because it seemed like a good idea to the people who were there at the time.
The lesson I learned, as a young student, and one that I have carried with me, is that one might be in a place in a moment in time when something seems like a good idea. That does not take away the importance of a process to study, and to reflect on, the value of the legislation.
On this point, I am often drawn to reflect on a particular exchange from the great play, A Man for All Seasons. The character representing Sir Thomas More is in dialogue with his son-in-law, William Roper, and Roper says, “So now you give the devil the benefit of the law,” and More says, “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?” His son-in-law replies, “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”, and Sir Thomas More replies:
Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
The point is valid, even if we feel very strongly about a particular piece of legislation, or even if we feel very strongly that our cause is just and that our opponents are on the wrong side.
I understand the member for Kingston and the Islands is very critical and partisan in his tone about Conservatives. I am not that enthusiastic about the Liberal government either, but respect for Parliament and respect for the process of studying legislation, even when we disagree, is how we ensure we leave in place what More's character in A Man for All Seasons calls “Man's laws”, which protect all of us from the perverse outcomes that come when we start to cut corners and say we do not need committee study, we do not need third reading, we do not need substantial debate at second reading, or that we all basically agree with an idea, so let us just rip it through quickly.
What happens then, when we have established that precedent, is that we start to do that more and more, and pass bills that are maybe still motivated by good intentions, but we start to miss more things, and we find out we have more problems because we are not doing the analysis work that our legislature is supposed to do.
The other thing I was struck by, in the comments of the previous member, was that he spoke about how, at the beginning of this pandemic, all parties worked together to very quickly pass, by unanimous consent, a number of measures that were urgently needed in the context of the pandemic. Let us recall that was at a time before we knew much of anything about the operation of the virus, and before we were set up to do any kind of virtual Parliament. This was even before there was the same awareness there is now about the impacts of masks.
There was no viable way for all members of Parliament, or most members of Parliament, to get together in Ottawa. There was not that awareness about masks, and we did not have the tools to meet virtually, so in an extremely exceptional circumstance, we worked with the government with unanimous consent to adopt some pandemic measures. I think, importantly, that those of us at least on the Conservative side saw this as a very exceptional situation and believed that it should not, under any circumstances, be precedent-setting.
However, members of the government are now invoking some of these past precedents, as if to say, “We did it in extraordinary times, so why can we not just do it in normal times?” This is the problem. When we suspend normal rules, even in extraordinary circumstances, we get people such as members of the government saying, “If we could do it in that situation when we really needed to, why do we not have these kinds of programming motions skipping committee study and analysis, even when we do not need them?”
We do so much better as a legislature, and we do our jobs as legislators, when we actually study and analyze bills. This means voting on the principle of second reading, sending bills to committee where they can be studied and where questions can be asked and answered, and experts can weigh in, and amendments can be sent back for a final decision at third reading.
That would be the right way of proceeding. Instead, we have this draconian programming motion from the government that says we would have a limited number of speakers from each party, and then after those speakers were finished speaking the vote on the bill would take place, and then it would immediately be deemed to have gone through all of the remaining stages without any of the consideration that normally takes place at committee.
We are under the general terms of the debate on the government motion, but in particular what we are debating is an amendment from the Conservative Party caucus. We have tried to meet the government partway here, in terms of saying we understand there is value in passing this bill quickly, and we understand that bills on which there is general agreement do not require the same level of debate as bills on which there is substantive philosophical disagreement that has to be worked through. We accept that it is reasonable for different bills to be debated for different amounts of time.
What we are trying to do to meet the government halfway here is say that we will have the debate and then the bill will be quickly referred to the Standing Committee on Health, where the Minister of Health will be ordered to appear as a witness. That committee hearing will occur the day after the bill is passed, and clause-by-clause consideration will have to be completed effectively by 11 p.m. that night. If it is not completed by then, all remaining amendments and clauses will be considered immediately without further debate. We would put in place a mechanism that is extraordinary anyway, and it would involve the bill being able to progress very quickly. However, it would still involve the committee looking at the bill, hearing from witnesses, hearing from the minister responsible, considering possible improvements or amendments and then referring the bill back to the House.
We hear members say that it is a simple bill and they ask, “What possible amendments?” However, that is really not the point. Regardless of the particulars of the bill, the committee and the members of Parliament who are responsible for being experts on the bill should have the opportunity to weigh in on it. We have put forward a reasonable amendment to a very draconian programming motion, and I hope members will look at it and consider it.
Frankly, we see many ways in which the governing Liberals have been willing to attack and weaken our democratic institutions. I am particularly disappointed that the federal NDP is joining arm in arm with the government. This is, I suppose, consistent with what we have been seeing in this Parliament, which is a de facto coalition between the federal NDP and the Liberals. In the past, NDP members have generally always opposed even closure motions, yet they have gone from opposing closure motions across the board to joining in with the government on a programming motion that skips all of the stages, not just limiting time at a particular stage. It skips through all of the subsequent stages of the bill. It is disappointing to see these two parties standing together in this attack on our democratic institutions.
It is important to remind my colleagues that the use of these programming motions is not happening in isolation. It is part of a broader pattern of behaviour. We have seen the government's refusal to hand over documents ordered by Parliament in the Winnipeg lab affair. The Speaker ordered the government to hand over the documents and said that Parliament had a right to request them, and in defiance of the legal and constitutional authority of Parliament, the government refused to hand over those documents.
We saw the attempt initially, at the start of the pandemic, to effectively shut down Parliament and give the government the power to make laws, introduce new taxes and raise taxes without consultation with Parliament, effectively trying, for a relatively extended period of time, to negate the basic principles of parliamentary supremacy. Of course, the Conservatives stood against that and were able to stop it at the time. However, it shows the government's horrific ambition to weaken our parliamentary institution.
Now we are in a context where the government has decided, for the first time in history, to use this legislative instrument called the Emergencies Act, and I think the trust that many Canadians had in the government prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act impacts how they view its use. We have a government with a long-running pattern of disrespect for Parliament in refusing to hand over documents ordered by Parliament and trying to shut down Parliament and give itself the power to rule by fiat. The government has done all of these things. It does not think its bills deserve to be studied by committee and it thinks that trying to spend more than a single day on a piece of legislation is playing games. However, now they want to use the Emergencies Act and tell us not to worry because they are going to be very cautious and measured in how they apply it. There is a lot of broken trust between Canadians and the government when it comes to whether we can have confidence in its ability to use very severe and potentially dangerous instruments in that way.
This is on the minds of many Canadians. It is a lack of regard for the democratic process, and it is kind of a precursor to the step the government has now taken of using the Emergencies Act. We have to be very careful. I think it is important that we do not take our democratic institutions for granted and preserve the functioning of Parliament as the people's House, as a democratic institution that studies legislation. It does not just exist as a group of spokespeople for government legislation. It exists to challenge, to question, to reflect, to analyze and to make laws better. We need to protect our democracy by protecting our democratic institutions, Parliament foremost among them.
In the time I have remaining, I want to make some brief comments on Bill C-12.
I support this bill. We need to do more to help and protect seniors, especially during the pandemic.
However, the Liberal government has done too little, too late. The Liberals were well aware of the problems caused by the clawback of the GIS and CERB almost two years ago, and yet it took them nearly eight months to come up with any solutions and fix these problems. That is simply unacceptable.
I have heard from many seniors in my riding who are still waiting for their payment from the government. They are expecting it to be tax-free. What took so long, and why are seniors being arbitrarily penalized by the government's mistakes?
Furthermore, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has stated that the cost of clawing back the GIS and CERB is $400 million, but we know that the government has set aside $742 million for the clawback. The Liberals need to explain the huge discrepancy between those two numbers.
This reminds me of the net versus gross income issue when it comes to CERB. The Liberals made the mistake, but Canadians have suffered the consequences. The Liberals need to explain how they are going to get this money to the right people and make sure there is no fraud.
That is why I support this proposal to amend the Old Age Security Act. Bill C-12 will help correct one of the many mistakes made by this government during the pandemic, especially with regard to seniors.
Essentially, the need for this bill demonstrates the importance of careful study of legislation. The reason we need Bill C-12, the reason we support Bill C-12, is that it corrects an error in previous legislation, an error that effectively would limit seniors' ability to access their regular benefits based on support they received during the pandemic. We need this bill to protect seniors from facing clawbacks to their regular benefits as a result of what they received during the pandemic.
Here is the point. This bill underlines the fact that governments, hopefully with the best of intentions, make mistakes in the legislation they put before Parliament. That is why we have Parliament. The government, with all its access to information and experts, puts forward a bill in good faith before Parliament, and then it is critiqued and analyzed by opposition parties and hopefully by backbench members of the governing party. It then goes to committee, where experts outside of government can testify and raise concerns, and amendments can be put forward. Problems with the bill can be identified and then perhaps the bill moves forward in the same or amended form. There are many cases, actually, where government members have moved amendments to government legislation at committee. This is an important part of the process.
We have this bill before us because the government failed to take important issues into consideration in its previous pandemic benefits. It is ironic: On a bill that corrects an error existing in previous benefits because of insufficient attention to detail, we are being told we need to pass it without attention to detail. Some members of the government say they have a problem and they want to be able to pass more bills. They say the opposition wants to spend all this time talking about bills and it slows down the ability to pass bills. Well, if we did not have to pass bills correcting errors in previous bills, then maybe the government would not have a problem in moving forward aspects of its legislative agenda. However, I still say that if we spent two or three days on this bill instead of just one, we would be doing Parliament a great deal more credit than we are doing it right now.
I encourage members to take into consideration the reasonable amendment from the Conservatives, which still involves dramatically expediting the bill, but also creates some mechanism and some opportunity for committee study on the bill. I think that is the least we can do to show Canadians that we have a real job as members of Parliament. We are not just here to provide a rubber stamp. We are here to make Parliament function and do a service on behalf of Canadians, which is to study legislation that comes before us, to understand it, to analyze it and to make it as good as possible so that we can then assure Canadians that the bills we are passing have gone through the due diligence they deserve.
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