SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 118 - Oct/26/22

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Oct/26/22 3:38:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians care about human rights. We stand up for human rights, whether it is for the Uighur Muslims in the People's Republic of China and whether it is the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and around the world. We must also stand up for Palestinian human rights. We must make it very clear that as a staunch friend of Israel we also call for human rights to be respected for the people of Palestine. There are two important UN resolutions coming up. I want to ask the Prime Minister, will Canada consider please voting for the motion to respect what is happening, to help Palestinian refugees and to take action on Israeli settlements?

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Context: House Hansard - 118 - Oct/26/22

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Oct/26/22 4:33:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to present a petition. It is rather long, so I will try to summarize it, as required by our Standing Orders. It relates to the really high value and importance of old-growth forests for Canada, particularly in the context of indigenous values, indigenous exercise of rights under treaties and the indigenous role in fighting the climate crisis. Petitioners are calling for the Government of Canada to act to protect the last unprotected, intact old-growth forests on southern Vancouver Island, specifically referencing Fairy Creek. They call on the government to work with provinces and first nations to immediately halt logging of endangered old-growth ecosystems, move to high-value forest initiatives in partnership with first nations, preferring value added and the harvesting of second and third-growth forests. The petitioners specifically also call for banning the use of whole trees for wood pellets, in what is described as a fairly fraudulent climate action because it does not reduce emissions of carbon, but it does remove forest. They also call for banning the export of raw logs, whole logs, from Canada, to instead make sure they reach Canadian mills to create Canadian jobs.

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Context: House Hansard - 118 - Oct/26/22

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Oct/26/22 4:56:39 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-9

Mr. Speaker, I am restricting my comments right now to the issue of time allocation. I will oppose time allocation in every instance, unless the circumstances are truly exigent. I first served in this place when Stephen Harper's government had a majority and, for the first time in parliamentary history, closure motions such as this became routine. We lamented it at the time. At the time, we, including the Liberal third party members and the New Democrats, all lamented and opposed the fact that, when I counted it up, there had been more closure motions in the previous 40 days than in the previous 40 years. We kept counting them up and seeing how egregious this was. I will oppose closure motions except in a case in which we see that Canadians are desperate for financial help and we are slowing something down. This bill is very much needed. With respect to the case that was just referred to by the hon. justice minister, the judge was someone who, two weeks before being appointed to the bench, was caught on video buying cocaine. This is not someone we want on the bench, but the current state of the rights of a judge to keep going through appeals lasts a long time. I agree that it is egregious. The bill should be passed, but not at the cost of our democracy.

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Context: House Hansard - 118 - Oct/26/22

Ms. Elizabeth May

Oct/26/22 5:10:42 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-9

Mr. Speaker, it is a rare opportunity for me to speak to this kind of motion and follow up on something the minister said. I think we all agree that we would like to see the smoother operation of this place. I have had the honour of working in and around Parliament Hill for a number of decades. We used to have more co-operation among the House leaders. We used to have better scheduling of debates so that bills that had virtually unanimous support, like Bill C-9, did not need to have repetitive speeches. I put to the hon. member, as I have before in this place, the solution is not closure motions, but to fully use the rules of Westminster parliamentary democracy and not allow the reading of speeches, which will then have a very salutary effect on the number of members who are prepared to stand up and speak to an issue. They would have to know it well enough to speak without reading a written speech and especially not a written speech prepared by somebody else. I urge the hon. minister and all members of the front bench of the government to strongly consider working with the Speaker and other House leaders to find ways for this place to work better through co-operation and respect for our rules.

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