44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 14, 2022 11:00AM
- Nov/14/22 12:27:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am somewhat surprised by the turn today's debate has taken. I note that the government House leader gave a spiritual and somewhat philosophical speech about how he sees things. I see signs of his personal growth. I heard him quote the Bible. I realize that it may be pleasant to hear ourselves talk and share ideas, but we must not forget what today's debate is about.
We are debating a motion that essentially muzzles the opposition. I want to speak about truth, but who holds the truth? I do not claim to know the truth or to believe that my colleagues' notion of the truth is better or worse than mine. I am seeking a guarantee for the exercise of democracy, and democracy is exercised in debates between a government and a very strong opposition, which makes it possible for the government to excel and be even better.
I missed the first two minutes of my colleague's speech, but I would like to hear him explain why we need today's Motion No. 22, under Government Business, to extend sitting hours. I want to talk about the facts. The facts are that 36 bills have been introduced, 19 bills, or 52%, have passed all stages of the House; three are at the Senate, 16 have received royal assent, seven are in committee and 10 are at second reading. Personally, I think that it pretty good. I do not understand this obsession with extending sitting hours and saying that we need this because Parliament is paralyzed, when in fact the opposite is true.
I would like the government to explain to me, with supporting evidence, why we are debating this motion today.
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- Nov/14/22 12:51:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thought it was time for questions and comments.
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- Nov/14/22 1:11:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened to the deputy government House leader. Perhaps he should take a cue from his House leader, who is suggesting that everyone remain reasonable, calm, open-minded and forgiving. I think he still has a lot to learn from his House leader. I do not see how shouting and raising one's voice in the House is a credit to anyone. It sends the message that the previous speaker is irrelevant and knows nothing. There are limits that must not be crossed.
I have a question for the House leader of the official opposition.
With his question, the government House leader is suggesting that the opposition members, or at least the Conservative and Bloc members, are a bunch of lazy so-and-sos who simply do not want to sit for several hours to defend and debate bills that matter to our constituents. Everyone knows that that is completely false. We are hard-working people and we are not afraid to sit until late at night.
What also matters to me—and the government House leader knows this, and I would ask the House leader of the official opposition to say it—is knowing what will happen to parliamentary committees every time Parliament sits until 12:30 a.m. How many parliamentary committees will not be able to sit because the House sitting is being extended?
Committee work is an extension of Parliament, and the government leader knows that. Can the House leader of the official opposition tell us how extended sitting hours in Parliament affect parliamentary work in committee?
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- Nov/14/22 1:19:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to this debate on Motion No. 22 under Government Business. For those watching us, this motion may seem procedural and maybe even uninteresting. We are talking about procedure and rules. The public does not usually like that part and does not consider it a priority.
However, we are talking about democracy here. From what I see, and from what my entire caucus sees, the government is taking advantage of its alliance with the NDP to change the rules of the House.
Before, changing a rule required debate. There is a way to do this under the Standing Orders. Ever since the pandemic and the adoption of a hybrid Parliament, the government has not really been shy to propose changes to the Standing Orders to serve some interests more than others. Maybe we should talk about this and consider what the rules are for.
We have a good rule book that sets out the agreed-upon rules of the House that must be followed. Most importantly, these rules guarantee the exercise of a healthy democracy. In our Parliament, democracy is practised with a government in power and opposition parties that challenge it. I often say that the better the opposition, the better the bills and debates and, consequently, the better the government. A government that seeks to muzzle the opposition by changing the rules is a government that is basically depriving itself of the expertise of witnesses and parliamentarians to improve its bills.
The motion that we are talking about today essentially seeks to extend sitting hours late into the night. However, 10 days of intensive sitting days are already set out on the parliamentary calendar, depending on the needs of the government. When the government manages its legislative agenda properly, Standing Order 27(1) proposes a calendar that is negotiated among the leaders of each recognized party in the House at the beginning of the Parliament. The leaders agree on a calender and establish the ground rules at the beginning of the Parliament. This standing order about the calendar was established in 1982, so the House agreed a long time ago that it would decide on a calendar in order to have more transparency and to exercise a healthy democracy. This means that we are well aware of the times when the government can intervene to extend the sitting hours.
I remember the government House leader lecturing the Bloc Québécois last June. Quebec's national holiday falls on June 24, but we begin our celebrations on June 23 and end them the evening of June 24. The Bloc Québécois had asked that we rise earlier, on June 23, so that members could return to their ridings to celebrate the national holiday. This elicited a strong reaction from the government House leader. He told us that it was ridiculous for the Bloc to dispute something that had been agreed to unanimously by all parties. He criticized us for revisiting a unanimous decision made by all parties. I could repeat that my colleague, the government House leader, stated that we needed to be reasonable.
Today, I consider that the original calendar proposed at the beginning of the Parliament was the reasonable outcome of discussions, and it was adopted. Now, the government itself is brazenly revisiting it and is seizing the opportunity to change it, not just until Christmas but until June 23, 2023. We do not understand this. We are wondering what is happening. Why amend the calender up to June 23, 2023?
This motion circumvents Standing Order 26. According to the Standing Orders, if the government wants to extend sittings in addition to what is already provided for, it can move a motion. However, if five opposition members rise to object to the motion, that is one way for the opposition to play the parliamentary game and object to a government motion.
Today's motion circumvents that. It will no longer be possible for opposition members to rise and object to an extension of sitting hours.
I am sorry to have to say this, but I am surprised to see my NDP colleagues support this motion, insinuating that we will have more hours for debate, and then wonder why we oppose the motion. They also say it will not cause problems for parliamentary debate, which is totally false, and they know it.
Standing Order 106(4) enables members who sign a written request addressed to a parliamentary committee to discuss and debate a priority matter in committee.
At the beginning of this Parliament, we unanimously agreed that the opposition could not play around with this standing order. Everyone agreed, reasonably, that a request to call a committee meeting should be signed by different parties. In other words, if the official opposition wanted to call a committee meeting, it would need help from the NDP or the Bloc Québécois in order for the matter to be considered a priority in committee.
However, today's motion gets rid of that idea. It takes only one other House leader to extend the sitting hours. It seems to me that it would have been more transparent, beneficial or democratic to say that two leaders are required to change the sitting hours. Instead, only one leader is required. What is the motive behind all this? Again, I have a hard time understanding how my NDP colleagues could get on board.
By putting forward this motion, the government is seeking to limit, but not ban, the use of gag orders. There have been a lot of gag orders in the past year. I am guessing that the government is starting to get a bit embarrassed about needing to use gag orders to manage its agenda. The government has decided to bypass a few Standing Orders and do indirectly what it cannot do directly.
Let us be honest. Even if this motion is adopted, it will not stop the government from using closure motions, with the NDP's support.
What is motivating the government to table such a motion? We think the House and the committees are working very well. In the last year, 29 debatable bills have been introduced in the House. The House has passed 18 bills, 15 bills have received royal assent, six bills are currently in committee and five bills are at second reading. When I hear someone say that Parliament is not working, that sounds like nonsense to me.
On the face of it, the government would have us believe that Parliament is not working, when that is completely false. As I said, many bills have passed in the House and are either in the Senate or have received royal assent.
I did a little research. In 2015, the majority Liberal government passed 13 of the 37 bills it introduced in its first year in office. Clearly, the current minority government is performing better than the majority Liberal government did in its first year in office.
What is more, on October 5, the House adopted a motion by unanimous consent to extend the debate in order to pass Bill C‑31. This was possible because we negotiated, discussed and concluded ad hoc agreements. This allowed us to avoid a “supermotion”, which would effectively bulldoze the democratic process and would not be the fruit of the parliamentary discussions we should be having.
This leads us to question why the government wants to extend the sitting hours of the House of Commons when in fact it is reducing parliamentary debate. I think my colleagues are aware that the work done in committee and the studies they do, on bills and other issues, are very important to me. We know that the parliamentary work suffering the repercussions of the hybrid Parliament is the work done in parliamentary committee. I will give some examples.
This morning, a committee meeting with veterans was cancelled because a motion had been moved under Standing Order 106(4) at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The meeting with veterans was cancelled so that discussions and debates could be held at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. We had to do this because we do not have enough interpreters or technical support staff to go around. This means the whips must agree on which committee will cancel its meeting.
As a whip, it was heartbreaking today to have to cancel a meeting with veterans, two days after the Remembrance Day celebrations, to give priority to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Every time a minister rises to ask for extended sitting hours, the whips will have to agree on which committee will have to be cancelled. It will not be just one committee because when we sit until midnight, we usually cancel two committees. Those two committees will not do their work, will not move forward and will have to cancel on witnesses they invited.
It seems as though this government has just accepted that it is now normal for committee meetings to be cancelled because of the limitations of the hybrid Parliament. I do not mind sitting until midnight. I do not see any problem with that, as long as no committee meetings are cancelled. However, I do not want anyone calling me lazy for not wanting to sit until midnight when I just want to make sure that committee meetings are held. Right now, the NDP and the government are consciously working to cancel committee meetings and limit their important work.
I would say that partisanship has trumped common sense. One cannot call for a better democracy and extended debates in the House while limiting important debate in committee without anyone noticing. On Thursday, we may sit late and we will have to determine which committee will be cancelled. The Board of Internal Economy is sitting one afternoon, and we will have to cancel yet another committee meeting. No one from the government or the NDP is talking about that situation.
I kept a close eye on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs' work on the subject of hybrid proceedings, and I was quite touched by all the talk of work-life balance. The Leader of the Government in the House of Commons' very personal testimony about the importance of avoiding burnout, participating in family life and finding balance was moving. Now, however, he is an ardent proponent of extending sittings until midnight or 12:30 in the morning. Can someone explain to me how that squares with the importance of work-life balance? The NDP, despite its support for a hybrid Parliament, is doing the same thing. One of the main reasons the NDP is in favour of a hybrid Parliament is that it makes work-life balance possible, or so it says.
If I have kids and I work until 12:30 in the morning a few nights a week, I might find it challenging to collaborate and get work done. Obviously that will have repercussions on my family life.
What should be normal is having a climate of collaboration and discussion in the House, a climate that allows us to prioritize bills and agree on a legislative process. That process should focus on seeking a consensus or a majority, rather than having the agenda dictated by a government that will simply seek an alliance with the NDP. I do not understand my colleagues' lack of sensitivity on such a fundamental issue, and that goes for both the government members and the NDP.
What is more, we have yet to talk about the interpreters. As we know, there is a shortage of interpreters. Many were injured during the pandemic. Even now, interpreters are still being injured by acoustic shocks. We know that there is a shortage of interpreters, yet the government, with the complicity of the NDP, has decided to make the interpreters work until 12:30 a.m. under conditions that could lead to burnout.
I do not understand the position of the government and the NDP in this regard. They are not in such a hurry to move a motion that would make it mandatory for witnesses and MPs to wear headsets and require committee chairs to attend meetings in person. They are in less of a hurry to protect the health and safety of our interpreters than they are to muzzle the opposition in order to advance their legislative agenda.
Honestly, I am completely dumbfounded. Normally, I would say “appalled” because that word reflects my sadness at the government and NDP members' lack of sincerity and authenticity in the context in which we are debating, namely a hybrid Parliament with a shortage of interpreters and technical limitations. The Board of Internal Economy, of which I am a member, has spent countless hours talking about this dangerous situation for our interpreters, and yet I still feel as though, today, the government and the NPD are abandoning them and their health and safety. The government and the NDP are saying loud and clear that parliamentary committees do not play an important role in our overall work. That is sad.
Members will realize from the comments I have made that we will be voting against this motion. We are doing so not because we are not willing to work hard or sit until midnight, but because we object to the government's refusal to discuss or agree on a calendar with the opposition parties. The government is acting as though it has a majority. Quebeckers and Canadians voted in a minority government, and that requires that it work with the opposition.
Therefore, I am moving this amendment to the amendment moved by the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle: that the amendment be amended, in paragraph (a), by adding, after the words “provided that”, the following: the House leader of a recognized party that supports the government's request also rise from their seat to orally and formally indicate their support to the House.
My amendment to the amendment demonstrates that transparency is important to the Bloc Québécois.
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- Nov/14/22 1:42:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, five Bloc Québécois members participated in the debate on Bill S‑5, as did 27 Conservatives. That works out to about the same proportion for both parties.
I cannot complain or criticize if members want to speak to a bill. I find my colleague's argument rather weak. The government has passed all its priority bills. In has checked a lot of items off its legislative to-do list.
As we see things, it does not need this motion to pursue its legislative agenda. Empirically, it has done well for itself so far. Just because more MPs spoke to one bill than to another it does not mean Parliament is at a standstill. On the contrary, I think the government should be proud to have garnered this much support and to have moved this many bills all the way to royal assent given the minority context.
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- Nov/14/22 1:44:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.
I am not sure if it is a coincidence, but we know that the NPD whip is also a member of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. This morning she was also at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
The idea is to determine whether committees are being cancelled out of expediency. The Standing committee on Veterans Affairs is an important committee. My colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles said that there is a major problem adversely affecting the integrity of francophone veterans who are not getting the services they are entitled to. It annoys me to hear the minister and his officials justify this situation and demand that they correct it.
Slowing the work of committees stops the opposition, witnesses and experts from documenting a problem and finding solutions. Every day, as soon as we start sitting later, one or two committees will be cancelled. How can we justify this?
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- Nov/14/22 1:47:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are not debating the hybrid Parliament today. However, since the question was asked, I will provide a quick answer.
The hybrid Parliament was created for use during the pandemic, but now it is being changed with a view to perhaps making it permanent in order to foster work-life balance, among other things.
The Bloc Québécois does a lot to promote work-life balance and, as whip, I approve many requests on that subject. The hybrid Parliament is not the only solution. Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. My colleague, the NDP House leader, and I both sit on the Board of Internal Economy. He knows very well that I have proposed concrete solutions. I proposed that we all agree to require witnesses and MPs to wear a headset that meets the safety standards and to require chairs to attend in person. I proposed concrete solutions on behalf of the Bloc Québécois.
I condemned the fact that no one seemed to be in much of a hurry to turn the suggestions I had made on multiple occasions into a motion that we could adopt unanimously to guarantee occupational health and safety for interpreters.
Today we are debating a motion to extend sitting hours, which will have an impact on the health and safety of our interpreters and cause burnout among mothers and young fathers in every party. Although I respect my colleague, I do not think I have anything to learn from him on this subject.
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- Nov/14/22 1:50:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think that my colleague's testimony says it all.
Today, the government is trying to do indirectly what it cannot do directly: dictate to the opposition how work is to proceed.
I think that, given all his personal and professional qualities, the government House leader could have made more of an effort to try to secure the co-operation of all House leaders. If he had accepted to negotiate one-on-one, he would have been able to better demonstrate the importance he places on democracy, discussion, negotiation and parliamentary politics.
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