44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 3, 2022 10:00AM
- May/3/22 12:09:59 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I am certainly from the vintage of the Care Bear stare. I always thought the member was quite a bit younger than me and assumed that he would not even understand that reference, but he just looks great for his age, I guess.
I just do not understand the end goal here of the Conservatives. We have had speaker after speaker, more than 50 speakers, speak to Bill C-8 since report stage. The Conservatives have clearly identified some issues they have with the bill, and I get that, but does that justify doing absolutely everything humanly and procedurally possible to prevent this legislation from going forward?
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- May/3/22 12:25:50 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I listened quite attentively to the member's discussion about the level of debt that has been taken on by this country, and there is no doubt that it is an extremely large amount that was taken on, in particular to provide assistance to Canadians collectively throughout the COVID pandemic. I will give this member the benefit of the doubt that perhaps he was not in this House when a lot of that funding was passed and spent, but I would like to inform him that the vast majority of that spending was done through unanimous consent motions. Conservatives voted in favour of those. All of this member's colleagues voted in favour, quite often through unanimous consent, for spending that money.
I am curious how he can justify standing before this House and being overtly critical of the spending, when his own colleagues voted in favour of it all.
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- May/3/22 1:07:01 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, toward the conclusion of his speech, the hon. member justified why Conservatives have intentionally slowed this down. He basically said that it is because there is something in here that he would like to see different, but that is not how the democratic process works. This bill was introduced. It was debated here. It went to committee. Suggestions were made there. It came back from committee.
You win some; you lose some. He might not get exactly what he is looking for right now, but at the end of the day, he has to respect the fact that the democratic process worked. What he is basically saying is that because he did not get his way, he is going to kick and scream and not let this bill pass. Is that essentially what he is trying to tell this House?
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- May/3/22 1:21:45 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, when the member was speaking earlier, he was talking about the desire of the Conservatives to continue to discuss this bill. He expressed his displeasure with the fact that a new motion that was introduced and passed last night gave the ability to give it even further discussion and debate in the House over the next few months. If I heard him correctly, he referred to that as being undemocratic or as somehow an abuse of powers, or the opportunity to debate, in this place.
I wonder if he can explain that to me. The motion we passed last night was to extend the ability of members to speak in the House and gives more members the opportunity to speak so that when another motion or bill comes forward and over 50 Conservatives want to speak to it, such as with Bill C-8 at report stage, they would have an opportunity to speak to that.
How can he phrase that motion in such a way?
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- May/3/22 1:23:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, am I not entitled to the right to speak in this place when I am recognized by the Chair? The member suggested and indicated through his comment that somehow I am not entitled to do that. If I am acting out of line, I would—
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- May/3/22 1:42:29 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-8, but like some of my colleagues who have spoken before me, I too want to bring up the fact that I am gravely concerned about what we are hearing coming out of the Supreme Court of the United States, the leaked document that suggests that it will be rolling back its ruling on Roe v. Wade. I think it is incredibly concerning. I think that, as a global community, we should be concerned about such a regressive form and attack that the United States is taking as it relates to such an important issue.
Equally as alarming, I am very concerned that the leader of the Conservative Party sent out an email to all of her MPs today telling them that they are instructed not to speak to the leaked document that has come out. I see some people shaking their heads, so I better quote this for them. It says, “Conservatives will not be commenting on draft rulings leaked from the Supreme Court of the United States.”
That was sent to Conservative members by the Leader of the Opposition this morning around 9:00 a.m., and I think that the Conservative opposition leader should allow her MPs to stand up and say exactly what they think about this because I think it is extremely problematic. Conservatives should stand united with the vast majority of Canadians in their feelings toward this.
Nonetheless, we are here to talk, once again, about Bill C-8. Bill C-8 is the bill that keeps coming up in the House. It is, for some reason, the hill that the Conservatives have chosen to die on, and I do not understand why.
This is a fall economic statement implementation act from the fall of not this year but last year. It is very likely that budget 2022 may be passed before we actually see the fall economic statement of 2021 passed. In any event, it is there to provide very important supports for Canadians during the conclusion of, and coming through the end of, the pandemic and into the endemic state that we are going to see COVID enter into.
For this to be the hill that Conservatives have chosen to die on is absolutely outstanding to me. I cannot, for the life of me, understand their strategy.
This is because most times, when a political party chooses an issue that will be the issue that it will define itself by through filibustering and doing everything possible to influence the way the House treats it, there is a common theme behind their approach. Normally, if it is something like, for example, we were suddenly going to do something dramatic to the health care transfers, I imagine that the Bloc Québécois would put up an endless fight on that, and I think that everybody on this side could appreciate and understand where they were coming from, given the fact that they raise it on a daily basis.
The Conservatives are not doing that. They seem to be all over the place in their approach when it comes to Bill C-8. They are picking and talking about this little bit, and then they are talking about another thing over here. Then they are talking about farmers. There is no common theme. I am left to conclude that the only common theme is the absolute stalling of Parliament, doing whatever necessary, for whatever reason, for any reason at all, to make sure that legislation cannot get through the House.
The rationale for their approach to Bill C-8 is entirely politically motivated. I do not know if they have just dug their heels in so far that they are now just saying, “Well, we have come this far, we may as well not stop now.” They need to explain to the House what it is that is so offensive within this piece of legislation.
I have heard Conservatives talk about the fact that they have some concerns about stuff that is missing from this legislation. That is fair. I think that is a good way to be critical about it. It is part of the democratic process, but it went to committee. It came before the House, was debated, went to committee and was discussed. Ideas were put forward, and I imagine some ideas were adopted and some ideas were shot down. Then it came here, and we are debating it again. That is the democratic process.
As I said earlier to the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, one wins some, and one loses some. One gets some, and one does not get other things. At the end of the day, we eventually should be voting on a piece of legislation that we do know is going to impact and help a lot of Canadians.
I bring this up, because on this bill at report stage alone, as of my count yesterday, 51 Conservative members had already spoken to it. That does not include today. Just for comparison, and this is before today, four members of the Bloc spoke to it, two members from the NDP, two Green members and four Liberals. That is just to put it into context for members. The Conservatives have monopolized the time of debate on this particular issue.
The Conservatives are going to stand up and say, “Well, that is part of the democratic process: rigorous debate.” Of course it is. It is important to discuss and bring forward members' ideas, but it is very clear to people after a while that we have passed the threshold of vigorous debate, and they are just being obstructionists for the sake of being obstructionists.
There is no desire among the Conservatives to actually see this go through. They just want to ensure that they can inflict as much damage as possible, in terms of allowing this government to move forward its political agenda, and nothing made it clearer than when we debated the motion yesterday about extending sitting hours. One would have thought we had done something dramatically unparliamentary and undemocratic: those two terms, by the way, were brought up by the Conservatives. One would have thought we had done that, but all we did was say, “Let us debate more. Let us have more time to talk into the evenings and all the way until midnight.” The Conservatives had a problem with that, so they wanted to ensure that we could not even do that.
Members will forgive me if I come off as being very cynical about it and as assuming that there is some ulterior motive here. I cannot seem to wrap my head around why the Conservatives would take this approach, again, on a bill that would provide supports to Canadians. It is not a hill that, in my opinion, any political party would be willing to die on, but the Conservatives have chosen to do that.
In the last few minutes that I have to speak, I want to talk about some of those incredible supports that were introduced in the fall economic statement, which we are talking about on May 3.
I will speak specifically to the one that really is important, and I think it should be to all members of this House. This is supports for safe schools and teachers. This is about increasing the ability to provide quality air ventilation in schools. This is about allowing teachers to claim certain expenses on their income tax. This is stuff that none of the 50-plus Conservatives who have spoken has brought up. They have not commented on them at all. I am not just talking about being against them: they have not commented in favour of them, either. However, those are some of the supports we are talking about here. Teachers are literally beyond the deadline to do their taxes for 2021, and they cannot, because the Conservatives have still held this issue up.
There are so many other things, such as employment insurance details, supports for businesses and the underused housing tax act. These are all things in here that, in my opinion, should be passed. If we missed stuff, and members of the Conservative Party are still very upset about the fact that they have been missed, then they have representation on the finance committee and should bring forward a motion. They should go and garner support from a majority of members of Parliament on the committee, have a study on it and then make a recommendation to Parliament. That is how this body works. That is how the democratic process works in our chamber, and that is certainly how I would encourage the Conservatives to approach it, despite the fact that they have completely chosen not to do that.
I am running up against my 10 minutes, but I am very glad that we finally have some time allocation on this bill so that we can get moving on it and pass the fall economic statement from the fall of 2021.
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- May/3/22 1:53:27 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, for the record, I am way less animated today than I was yesterday. I am sorry that member missed that speech.
We heard the reality in his question. That member said that this is a priority for the PMO. This bill, and the details of this bill, should be a priority for every member of the House. The supports in here are for teachers and small businesses. The Conservative member for Regina—Lewvan basically said in his question that this is not a priority for the Conservatives but that it is a priority of the PMO, and that is the only reason why this side of the House wants to get it passed.
Not everything comes down to a political agenda. From time to time, even though the member might not realize this, we are here to serve Canadians.
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- May/3/22 1:54:54 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, the only way this got back here is if a majority of the members at committee voted in favour of it. That is the only way that the report would have gotten back to the House. Clearly, that happened at committee.
The member said that he found my speech to be unusual. Did he listen to the 55 Conservatives who have spoken to Bill C-8 just since report stage? It was literally the same speech over and over again, with no central theme to it. There was no central theme to attacking a particular portion of it.
This is not the hill to die on, yet Conservatives continually put themselves in a position as though Bill C-8 is the be-all and end-all.
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- May/3/22 1:57:03 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I would agree with the member 100%.
The member brought this issue up yesterday. I asked him a question about his private member's bill, and he provided some feedback on what he was hearing throughout the country when he was touring around, talking to people about it.
We have come a long way in our understanding and our appreciation of mental health, in terms of the genuine health challenges we have around mental health. I would be willing to work with this member, as I know many members on this side of the House would, to do and provide more, in terms of mental health supports.
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- May/3/22 3:35:30 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I listened to the member talk about collaboration, and she suggested that this place requires collaboration. That is absolutely true, but collaboration does not equal consensus. The way our entire system works is to bring forward ideas, a bill in this case; bring it to committee; have robust discussion at committee; formulate a response with a majority of the committee members voting in favour to send it back here; debate it one more time in this place; and, ultimately, vote on it.
Can the member explain to me why she feels as though the collaborative process has not occurred? If a majority of the members on the committee have sent the report back to the House for final debate and to vote, it clearly has.
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- May/3/22 3:49:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I believe that the button the member is wearing is in reference to what is definitely known to be a political statement in here, talking about ending mandates. We all know, and in particular this member does, that we are not supposed to be wearing any kind of buttons that promote any kind of political agenda or statement in that manner, and the member is clearly disregarding that rule. I am wondering if you could politely ask him to remove it.
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