44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 6, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, to the earlier exchange that the Minister of Finance had on the subject of Ukraine, I think it is significant that the budget implementation bill, for the first time, removes Russia and Belarus from most-favoured-nation status. We are not in this place debating the budget, which I voted against; we are debating Bill C-47, which I voted for and will continue to vote for. There are many measures in it that I support and none that I oppose, unlike the budget itself. I still cannot vote for time allocation.
Even after the amount of debate we have had in this place, I do not think anyone else has put on the record that Russia still has most-favoured-nation status for trade reasons until we pass this legislation. That is lamentable.
I wish we did not have tactics being used that amount to an obstruction to moving forward and that stand in the way of sensible debate on what we are actually talking about here. Therefore, I find myself in the awkward position of being in favour of this legislation, opposed to the government moving to push it through quickly, and very much opposed to meaningless partisan obstruction tactics that do not deal with the substance of the legislation, which I fear most people in this place still have not read.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Nepean for addressing Bill C-47, the budget implementation act.
I will point out, for those who are observing this debate, that the budget implementation act covers the variety of measures the hon. member for Nepean mentioned, changes the most favourable nation status for Russia and creates a vessel remediation act and a vessel remediation fund, which are going to be very important for areas in my constituency. Does he have any comments on that?
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Mr. Speaker, I want to start by thanking the hon. Minister of Families for her work, her non-partisan spirit, and the fact that from day to day, frankly, she inspires me, so she may be annoyed to find that I cannot vote for time allocation on Bill C-35, because we need to stop using time allocation in this place as if it is routine.
I protested it when it was done to us time and time again when the Conservatives were in power. In a majority government under former prime minister Stephen Harper, it was used abusively. I knew then that if it happens once, it keeps happening, so now it is being used abusively by the Liberals.
I know there are good reasons and serious provocation behind why the governing party wants to do this. I would say to my dear friends across the aisle that it does not help when the leader of the official opposition tells the Canadian media and the Canadian public that the Conservatives are going to use every sneaky trick they can to gum up the works.
The truth of the matter is that if this place used our rules, which would be that no one is allowed to read a written speech, or if every member in this place did not fill up all the time by forever giving speeches that are not always truly inspiring but definitely take up the time, we could make this place work better.
I appeal to all sides in this place to let good legislation like Bill C-35 move through this House properly without time allocation.
A gag order is not a good idea, regardless of the party in power.
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Madam Speaker, it is a great honour to speak in support of Bill C-35 at this time. I could not agree more with some of the members who spoke before me, such as the member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill and the Bloc Québécois member for Shefford, who gave a great speech. I always appreciate my colleagues' efforts.
Despite the fact that it is late, I would like to give my opinion on this bill. This bill does more than set up child care services. It is important to highlight the principles of this bill: It aims to provide a system of early learning and child care to promote the development of young children.
It is really important to stress the way that Bill C-35 embraces things that many of us have been working on for years, early learning and child care. This is about improving the life chances of children, because the evidence is very clear that children learn with qualified educators who are doing more than making sure the children are watched through a morning or during the day while their parents are at work.
The principles of Bill C-35 underscore that child care must be accessible, affordable, inclusive and of high quality. These are things that we desperately need to see.
In the debate over the bill, I heard legitimate concerns from colleagues, particularly among the Conservative benches. These are fair points. We cannot find enough early childhood educators for all the spaces that are being created. Child care workers should be paid appropriately, and I am saddened by the reality that the existing agreement between the Government of Canada and the Province of Ontario puts in place a payment schedule for child care workers that is embarrassingly insufficient for the work that we are entrusting these workers with.
They should really be paid more than CEOs. They should be paid more, with all due respect to colleagues across the way. I know at least one of our colleagues in the Conservative Party was a very famous hockey coach. We should pay our child care workers more than we pay our hockey players.
What is more important in our society than ensuring our children have the best start in life? Our teachers, at all levels, are underpaid. Early learning and child care educators are professionals whose work needs to be recognized and properly compensated.
However, it is not an unfair point to say we cannot find enough child care workers for all the $10-a-day child care spaces that are being opened up. The point is, we will. This has just come in. The agreements with provinces are very fresh. I am very encouraged that we are going to have it in law, in this piece of legislation, that one hopes any future government could not tamper with this. We have agreements with each of the provinces and territories, and that is a huge accomplishment.
Of course, we had accomplished it back in 2005, when, speaking of hockey players, a famous former minister responsible for the file, Ken Dryden managed to accomplish inked, signed deals with every province. Then we had the election of 2005-06, and the whole program, even though funded, with signed agreements, was scrapped by the incoming Conservative government of Stephen Harper. I wish I did not have such a good memory because thinking about that transition, where we lost Kyoto and Kelowna and child care in a relatively short period of time, is painful to recall.
The advantages of ensuring that every Canadian child, whether from families, as the hon. member for Nunavut was explaining so eloquently, that have not had the same advantages and privilege, or from families from equity-seeking groups, would be able to ensure that the child care program that allows the parents to go to work is of high quality.
I want to stress that part because early learning and child care is a different prospect than child care on its own. I have heard horror stories over the years, as a single mother myself, of child care arrangements that just were not adequate. They were actually unsafe. It is critical we elevate the professionalism, recognition and respect we give to the workers who do this work in early learning and child care.
I also want to mention, because it came up when the hon. member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill was speaking, why it is I continue to proselytize the virtues of the rules of Westminster parliamentary democracy that are ignored in this place. In the Palace of Westminster in the U.K. or any of the other Commonwealth countries that use the Westminster parliamentary system, reading a speech is not allowed. It is still a rule here, but it is not only ignored, it is ignored and encouraged with handing out podiums to people so they can put the speeches they are not supposed to be reading on a podium so they can read them.
In any case, I want to spend a moment on the advantage of not allowing a written speech. In the situation we are in right now on Bill C-35, we had a complete failure of House leaders to determine what kind of time was needed to deal with this bill in this place. This happens over and over again. The hon. members across the way will know this is the game that it is played.
In the old days, and I remember the old days because I am old, a minister or a House leader would say to another House leader that a certain legislation was coming up and ask how many speakers they thought would want to speak on it and ask how much time should be allocated for it. There would be an honest and fair-minded decision made based on knowing that so and so was deeply invested in the issue and would want to speak on it and that so and so would also want to speak on it so that probably there would be x number of speakers.
Of course, if one is not allowed to read a speech, which is the case in the Palace of Westminster in London, one would basically know who was prepared to speak to it because they were among the handful of people who know the legislation and the issue well enough to stand up and speak about it without a note in front of them.
I read a very interesting article some time ago now where Conrad Black reflected on his time in the House of Lords and how he contrasted it with the Canadian Parliament. In that comparison, we do not fare well my friends. He said it was wonderful that no one could speak with notes or a written speech and had to be able to stand up and talk about the legislation at hand because out of their own knowledge they could speak to the bill. He said that was far better; I agree.
One of the other advantages of that is one cannot play the game of “we can't tell you now how many of our members want to speak to that.” A House leader of either side of the big parties can say inscrutably that they are not sure and that it is maybe five, maybe 10 or maybe 80 speakers. That is how we find ourselves here tonight.
The government side, quite wrongly I believe, uses time allocation because it throws up its hands at the impasse it finds itself in with the official opposition. This is not about the politics. One can change the colours and the same problem persists. One just plays a game of silliness and says that maybe everybody wants to speak to it. We know what happens in the lobby. Someone says, “Hey, Joe, here's your speech. You're up next.”
I know some members of Parliament for the bigger parties, individual members, have told me over the years that they have refused to do that and are just not going to do it. One can kind of tell when someone is reading a speech they have not written themselves.
My only point here is to take the time to say we could do better. This bill deserves widespread support, and I hope it has it. It will pass. It will be a law.
Thanks to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance for believing in early childhood learning and education and thanks to the Minister of Families. Let us get this passed, but let us stop the nonsense of debating until midnight when no one here is really speaking to the bill but playing a partisan game of delay.
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Madam Speaker, I wish I could believe that passing the bill means that a future government will not repeal it. I recall spring 2012 and an omnibus budget bill, Bill C-38, which repealed the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, repealed the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy Act and gutted the Fisheries Act. There were 70 separate pieces of legislation destroyed in that.
I will also say that if we had not lost Kyoto, Kelowna and child care in the 2006 election, we would not be on fire now. Canada would have reached our Kyoto targets. They were on the books and fully funded. Therefore, there are tragedies in losing that government of 2005.
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Madam Speaker, when I referred to partisan games, I was merely referring to the public statements that have been made by the leader of the official opposition on the intent to gum up this place with as many obstructive tactics as possible. If he did not intend for those comments to apply to this debate on Bill C-35, I apologize to the hon. member.
I agree with her. There are many things, as I mentioned in my speech, including legitimate concerns about access and the shortage of qualified early learning and child care educators. I hope we can work together in a non-partisan spirit to ensure that the vision of the legislation is actually implemented. I agree with 90% of what the member said. It needs to be worked on, and it needs to be delivered.
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Madam Speaker, I could not agree more with the member for Winnipeg Centre. I apologize to her for changing to a different topic. However, I think it is critical, and I thought I made it clear in my speech, that we support and respect the child care workers who deliver early learning and child care. Why do we pay CEOs and hockey players more than we pay people doing the most critical job in our society, which is taking care of our children?
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Madam Speaker, following up on that, it is true that at report stage the only amendments that can be brought forward, generally speaking, are deletions. However, certainly the official opposition had a choice of what part of the bill it might want to delete. Is there anything the member can add as to why the choice was made to delete the short title?
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Madam Speaker, I do know what a dedicated father my hon. friend from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford is. How would he reflect on the availability of early learning and child care on Vancouver Island, particularly in the kinds of areas where we both work and live?
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Madam Speaker, my hon. friend from Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon continues to amaze me given how much he is like a Green Party candidate, because it is in our platform that we need workplace child care for all the reasons the member just discussed, which I would love him to expand on.
I think Bill C-35 is consistent with putting child care spaces where people can visit their kids throughout the day. If the member wanted to comment more on the advantages of workplace child care, that would be great.
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- Jun/7/23 12:10:39 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I rise this evening during the Adjournment Proceedings, most of what I want to say about the climate science is that we are running out of time and the hour is late. Both of those things are literally true, as I rise to speak after midnight.
I am raising a question that I put to the Prime Minister on March 22 of this year in question period in response to the most recent and sobering report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This is a large institution that was created by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme. It is not too much to make the proud claim that Canada had a lot to do with setting up the IPCC back in 1988.
Although we talk about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change a lot, it actually does painstaking work that takes years. This is the sixth assessment report, which came out with its final volume on March 20 of this year. We will not see another major review of the science from this eminent scientific body that has been created by governments, which appoint the scientists, for some time. It is a massive peer-review process. We will not see another report until sometime after 2030.
The receipt of this document, and the warnings in it, could not be more urgent. As many said when the report was tabled, this is really the last report when we have a chance to make a difference. What the IPCC says very clearly is that global greenhouse gas emissions must be arrested and begin to fall rapidly before, and this is important, 2025.
While the government has a target that it describes as ambitious, the target the government chose of net zero by 2050 is out of sync with the science. It is out of time with the reality that, in order to control and avoid runaway global warming, we need to act now.
When I asked the question on March 22, Canada was not on fire. We had lived through a lot of extreme weather events across Canada, whether it was hurricane Fiona, the wildfire seasons that have plagued British Columbia year after year or the heat dome over four days in 2021, late June to July 1, in British Columbia, where 619 people died. We have gone through fires, floods and extreme weather events, yet we are still here talking about when we will get serious about climate action.
The answer I had from the Prime Minister was to talk about the concrete actions the government has taken. As ever, the Prime Minister, or his Minister of Environment, talks about monies committed. Some of that money has been committed to things that will not address the climate crisis and may in fact worsen it. These things are disguised subsidies of fossil fuels, such as carbon capture and storage.
The closing line from the Prime Minister was, “As the Minister of Environment and Climate Change said this week, we will be looking very closely at that report.” One does not even have to look at the report closely. If one makes a cursory review of that report, one knows we have not done enough to avoid exceeding 1.5°C, shooting right past 2°C and putting human civilization at risk within the next half-century.
We need to do more, and we need to do it now; that is why I am back here tonight.
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- Jun/7/23 12:18:24 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is a really worthwhile discussion the hon. parliamentary secretary and I are having.
Here is the problem, for the answers the Prime Minister, or anybody standing up for the Liberal Party, gives, it is not good enough if we are going to put the planet at risk, continuing the trajectory we are on, which threatens the survival, and this is not hyperbole, of human civilization.
We have a window in which to ensure we avoid going past 1.5°C, where we would go way past 2°C to 3°C to unstoppable, self-accelerating, runaway global warming. That is what we are trying to avoid. We cannot avoid the weather we are having now. We will continue to have very unpleasant, extreme weather events. The goal is to hang on to human civilization and arrest the climate crisis so our kids can survive. Liberal policies do not do that.
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