SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 211 - Jun/12/23

Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP)

Jun/12/23 6:29:14 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-41 Bill C-40

Madam Speaker, I have enjoyed working with my hon. colleague on a number of different things and I want to echo his concerns. I was prepared to debate Bill C-40 today. I think it is very important legislation and something that we really should be discussing at this point. I also want to go back to some of the discussions the member brought forward with regard to Bill C-41. The member would know that I did not vote in support of this bill for the simple reason that I find that there are some real challenges to this legislation. As much as we were able to work together with members of his party and members of other parties to fix parts of this bill, there are still some really outstanding challenges within the bill that I think make it difficult for civil society organizations and non-profit organizations to work within. It is overly bureaucratic, of course, and has some big challenges on definitions. One of my big concerns is around the potential for politicization, knowing that a future government could use this legislation to act punitively towards the charitable sector and the international development sector. Does the member have those same concerns? Would he like to comment on that?

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Context: House Hansard - 211 - Jun/12/23

Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP)

Jun/12/23 9:10:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one of the concerns that I had with the hybrid Parliament is the idea that the government would not necessarily send ministers and have people on the front bench here to answer the questions of parliamentarians. That, of course, is very important. That is how we as parliamentarians hold the government to account. I know that this process has certainly improved over the last several months. I wonder if the member could talk about what could be put in place that could ensure that the government is here taking questions from the opposition and doing its job as the government so that the opposition can do its job as the opposition.

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Context: House Hansard - 211 - Jun/12/23

Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP)

Jun/12/23 10:48:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is the first time I have been able to stand up and speak since one of the member's colleagues brought up time allocation. Therefore, I want to make the point that, when the Conservatives were in power, they used time allocation 115 times. In fact, they made a cake to celebrate the 100th time. I just wanted to make that clear. However, the member talked about a lot of hypothetical situations that I do not think any of us can address. He also talked about the fact that there is no difference between constituency and parliamentary weeks, saying that our constituents would expect us to be around all the time. I think that is the case for many of us. What I do not understand, though, is how taking Zoom away from Parliament would take Zoom away from parliamentarians. It would not. Our constituents would still be able to reach us through Zoom, and they would still expect that to happen. Therefore, that argument does not actually make a lot of sense. Could the member comment on that?

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Context: House Hansard - 211 - Jun/12/23

Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP)

Jun/12/23 11:50:11 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I have worked very well with my colleague, both in and out of the House. We have had meetings together on Zoom. We have been very effective that way, too. Even today, we were able to talk in the lobby together about some of the work that we are doing to push the government to bring Afghan MPs to safety in Canada. What I want to say to the hon. member is that it is hybrid Parliament right now, and we did that. We were in the lobby working together. That was happening. There are people in this House debating right now, but there are also people who were able to stay in their communities because they have other things that they are doing. We have an NDP member of Parliament who is going to be having a baby in the next few days. A member of the Conservative caucus just had a baby. There are reasons why hybrid is very important, and we can still do the work that we do. We did it today.

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