44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 15, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I thank my Acadian colleague for his comments. I love working with him on issues affecting francophones.
The government is generally rather quick to acknowledge sensitivities. However, with this bill, it seems as though the government is discriminating between two classes of seniors, those between the ages of 65 and 75 and those aged 75 and up.
I would like to know why a government that is usually so sensitive to such sensitivities, to use a redundancy, is engaging in this sort of discrimination. We think that is unacceptable.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for giving us his perspective.
I would like to ask him this. He brilliantly explained the risks that going in the direction of this bill would pose for Canada, but I would like him to be more specific and tell me whether this bill contains any measures that are good for Quebec. Let us forget about the rest of the country for a moment. What measures does this bill contain that are good for us and what does he think is important?
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- Nov/15/22 5:17:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Kingston and the Islands for sharing his time with me. That was very kind of him.
Voters did not elect a majority government. Had they wanted to, they would have done so in 2019 or 2021, but they did not. They chose a minority government. However, the current false, hybrid, patchwork majority is an unholy alliance resulting from the NDP's renunciation of its fundamental values in exchange for a promise.
I have some advice for my NDP friends. They should be aware that all of the promises this government makes are for the future, which is understandable, but of course it makes them in the conditional form, never in the present tense. It is important to be aware of that because there is a good chance that many of these promises will end up in the graveyard of good intentions.
An intention is a promise that is not strong enough to be achieved. An intention is basically a false promise. When someone says that they had good intentions, their intentions were not good enough because they never resulted in action.
Government Business No. 22 is what I would describe as a rogue motion. It is a hold-up of democracy.
The motion shows that the current government does not like to govern with an involved Parliament. To avoid having to do so, it does not hesitate to violate the spirit of the rules of the House. Let us not forget that these rules are the culmination of the past wisdom of previous governments. Government Business No. 22 is detrimental to the legitimacy of the government.
Some claim that Parliament is currently ungovernable. Ungovernable, no, unpleasant maybe, but not ungovernable. The government has introduced 36 bills, 19 of which have gone through every stage, 16 of those received royal assent and three are at the Senate; seven bills are being studied at committee, 10 others are at second reading, and so on. Thirty-six bills is not bad. It is not ungovernable. Things might not be going at the pace that some would like. That may be unpleasant.
Why does the government want to muzzle the opposition? It claims this is urgent. Urgency is a convenient pretext. Philosophically speaking, urgency does not exist. It is simply a characteristic that individuals choose to assign to an event. Urgency does not exist.
Here, the person who chose to assign that characteristic to the event is the Leader of the Government. Urgency is subjective, not objective. Urgency is something that is decided, it is our own view. The Bloc Québécois does not agree with this subjectivity.
Subjectivity is about the subject, it is about the individual examining something. The thing I am examining is an object. It is said to be objective. Clearly, depending on where I am in relation to the object, it will have one hue rather than another. It is an interpretation, not the truth. Therefore, urgency does not exist. The only justification that I can see for Government Business No. 22 is an open devotion to ignoring the Standing Orders. The motion will prevent members from discussing issues together because not everyone will be there. Ultimately, having discussions together is the very essence of parliaments.
Government Business No. 22 will force us to give monologues and not have dialogue, and yet, dialogue is the only way to build an objective and not a subjective argument. I will repeat that this motion is a hold-up of the House and its activities. Why are they doing this? Why are they moving a motion such as this?
Everyone here knows that there is no point in asking “how” without asking “why”, so I have to ask, why? The only valid answer I have found in my heart of hearts and in consultation with my eminent colleagues is that the government prefers to govern in absentia, as they say in Latin, leaving members to fill the void in the evenings, at the whims of the government House leader and another party's House leader, I might add. I cannot imagine who the leader of the other party will be, but that mystery should be solved soon.
Of course, as parliamentarians, it is our job to sit. I am not arguing that. Our work is planned so that we can put forward our respective points of view. Sittings cannot be improvised at the whim of the government House leader. In 1982, the House adopted the principle of a sessional calendar. It cannot be flouted at every sitting. Government Business No. 22 allows the government to do indirectly what it cannot do directly.
Those are very wise philosophical words. I do not remember who said that; it could have been Plato, Aristotle or Martin Champoux. I am sorry, I should have said the member for Drummond.
Anyway, Motion No. 22 is an unethical decision based on the interest of one, not all. Motion No. 22 disregards the public interest by cutting off debate rather than enabling dialogue. The purpose of a parliament is to bring people together, to foster dialogue, to be constructive. Motion No. 22 says no to all that.
I listened to the member for Kingston and the Islands' passionate speech, and I look forward to hearing members opposite defend the indefensible, because Motion No. 22 is indefensible.
I will end there. I am happy to answer questions.
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- Nov/15/22 5:24:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member opposite for that excellent question.
It is important to distinguish between an exception and a precedent.
An exception is something that happens only once and must not happen again. That is what happened with Bill C‑10 because there was so much pressure from Quebec's cultural sector, and protecting that culture was the right thing to do.
A precedent is something that has already been set; it is there, we see it, and it will happen again. This practice should not be allowed to happen again, period.
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- Nov/15/22 5:25:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her excellent question.
We cannot immediately gauge all the negative effects that could arise, but we do know that there is a possibility that committee work will be disrupted, which would be unfortunate.
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- Nov/15/22 5:26:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I cannot answer the member for Winnipeg North on behalf of the Conservative Party. However, I will respond on my own behalf and on behalf of the Bloc Québécois.
We could be grateful for the amount of time we are allotted, but what we need in order to build the society we want is quality time. For me, here, quantity is not as important as quality.
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- Nov/15/22 5:27:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Drummond for his question.
It seems excessive, unjustified and unjustifiable to apply this measure until June 23. One of the negative consequences that was mentioned earlier is the fact that the work of committees will be compromised, but there are others.
Members were elected to sit and that is what we will do. However, quite honestly, this measure places a pointless and unwarranted burden on other staff, such as the pages, interpreters and other House employees.
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