44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 12, 2023 11:00AM
- Jun/12/23 8:55:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that this motion was forced through committee to come to the House. Quorum is required. I do not see quorum. Should we ring bells for quorum? Would you consider that, Mr. Speaker?
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to bring the voices of Chatham-Kent—Leamington, and tonight I bring them in person to the debate on Motion No. 26.
I want to begin by asking a question: What is the role of Parliament?
It is a rhetorical question for sure, but it has a clear answer: It is to serve Canadians, and that concern is at the heart of the matter being debated tonight. The Liberal-NDP coalition has unilaterally pressed for making hybrid Parliament, a temporary model of Parliament, into a permanent model. Such a dramatic change to a long-held procedure cannot and should not be implemented without clear consensus from all recognized parties within this chamber.
On May 5, the World Health Organization formally declared the COVID-19 pandemic emergency to be over. The governing coalition cannot hide behind a past crisis to avoid accountability and transparency, because ultimately that is a by-product. I hope that is not the intention, but that is a by-product behind this procedural change. Instead of helping Canadians who are struggling to pay their bills and put food on the table, the government is actively working to avoid facing the Canadian people.
Both accountability and engagement suffer in a hybrid Parliament. We have seen the core constitutional principle of responsible government, which is accountability to Parliament, weaken under the current hybrid system. I do not think anyone is challenging that.
In this session of Parliament alone, House administration decided to cancel dozens of committee meetings due to a lack of resources for virtual participation. That fact alone should give my colleagues across the aisle pause. The importance of committee work cannot be overstated. It is at committee where drafted legislation is reviewed, and at times it is there, after all, that corruption and mismanagement are uncovered.
Here are some examples. It is at the finance committee that the extent of the implications of another deficit budget are examined and highlighted. It is where amendments are tabled, debated and hopefully passed to improve the lives of Canadians, though unfortunately not this year.
At the fisheries and oceans committee, which I attended this morning, the bungling of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' handling of the bilateral Great Lakes Fishery Commission file has united both houses of the U.S. Congress and all four accredited parties of this chamber in calling for a change in how the commission is managed. This failure has caused our American partners to walk away from the board table and risk the $8-billion fishery industry through the return of an invasive species, the sea lamprey, which devastated the Great Lakes in the 1950s and actually led to the original creation of the Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries.
Earlier this evening, I attended an agriculture and agrifood industry committee where the four parties representative of this chamber reviewed Bill C-280 for my colleague from York—Simcoe, a bill to bring about some protections for fresh vegetable and fruit growers in case of bankruptcy of their buyers.
Committee work is important, then, for advancing legislation and for government accountability, yet through the mechanics of a hybrid Parliament, the Prime Minister and his cabinet have been able to duck and weave their way around facing questions from His Majesty's loyal opposition. This defies a founding tenet of our Westminster parliamentary system, in which the role of the opposition is to hold the government to account. There are technical glitches. The ministers avoid standing in their place in this chamber or at committee, choosing instead to surround themselves with screens in their offices right here on the Hill to avoid accountability when a poor grasp of a file is on full display.
Is this acceptable? As parliamentarians, is it not our duty to serve our constituents to the best of our abilities? How can we do that if the government enshrines opportunities to avoid accountability?
I do not deny that by almost every quantifiable metric, productivity and accountability are higher when we are working in person, but to quote General Patton, “Always do everything you ask of those you command.” This is not what the Minister of Procurement demonstrated as the minister was directing our federal workers back to work in the office. How is it just to deny a provision to federal workers while granting the same privilege to politicians? This is a textbook example of “Do what I say, not what I do.”
Beyond televised acts of accountability, there are innumerable interactions that help our constituents, advance public policy and generally contribute to the building of constructive relationships among colleagues, both within our caucuses and across party lines. Stifling these small but consequential interactions through a hybrid system is simply flawed.
I am sure I do not need to explain the many ways that constituents' problems can be solved with a quick word to a minister while the bells ring for a vote, or the important information that stakeholders draw to our attention when they visit us personally in our offices, or how a casual word with a colleague bumped into in the hallway helps to build the trust needed later to be confident that a future agreement struck at committee will be honoured. This has been mentioned several times this evening. These are just some of the examples of inter-personal dynamics that a hybrid Parliament prevents and discourages.
Again, it must be asked how Canadians are best served by their parliamentarians. Is it through increasing the personal convenience of members of the House or is it instead through encouraging maximum transparency and accountability, part of which is through ensuring that both official languages in Canada are given equal weight?
Conservatives have a long and proud history in building and supporting a bilingual Parliament.
I do not speak French, but I am learning French with Duolingo.
That is as far as I can get right now, which is why it is all the more alarming to hear from the International Association of Conference Interpreters, Canada region, and its president, Linda Ballantyne, who said that a hybrid Parliament has meant that “English has predominated and French has been snuffed out.”
In part, this is due to a skyrocketing injury rate among staff interpreters. We have gone from a single disabling injury before the pandemic to 90 incidents. With a dwindling pool of interpreters, we cannot tolerate the harm done to these crucial women and men in the functioning of our democracy. It is for these reasons that Conservatives put forward a common-sense recommendation to have the House of Commons proceedings return entirely to in-person while maintaining the voting application. Considering that 97% of chamber interventions are now made in person, this recommendation would have led to little change to the nature of House debates, yet such a change would free up a badly needed translation service while also reducing some workplace risks that interpreters have faced.
To reiterate an earlier point, far too many committee meetings have been cut short or outright cancelled due to a lack of resources, particularly the presence of interpreters to ensure our meetings are conducted bilingually. By cancelling the important work done at committees, Canadians are deprived of one avenue of making their voices heard, especially when it comes to holding this government or any government to account.
Regrettably, truncated committee work has formed just one portion of a broader pattern of hybrid proceedings eroding government accountability to Parliament. Finding an effective way of combatting the pandemic and ensuring that parliaments continued to function the world over was a global concern, yet perpetuating the solutions found during the pandemic to the post-pandemic era seems to be a problem unique to the Canadian federal government. According to Andy Williamson, an Inter-Parliamentary Union researcher, some of the digital and remote working practices at foreign legislatures “will have been temporary as they are no longer felt necessary”. Indeed, he advised that just 46% of legislatures will retain remote functionality while “in some cases this might only be for use in exceptional circumstances.” To answer a question heckled across earlier, even within Canada, no provincial or territorial legislature currently has a full-fledged hybrid system.
Succinctly, no other comparable legislature has rushed headlong into a permanent embrace of full-fledged hybrid proceedings or, if it is being entertained, it is with eyes wide open to the potential downsides. Despite the advances of technology and the rise of the Internet, some problems are best solved the old-fashioned way. Sometimes precedent and procedure are in place because they work. It is with a reckless disregard for the health and functioning of Parliament that the governing coalition has pressed for the permanent status of a hybrid system.
I must ask again. What is the role of Parliament? Is it to serve the interests of Canadians or the convenience of its members?
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- Jun/12/23 11:00:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what I see in the Conservative offer is respect from the Conservative Party for the long-standing tradition of compromise to get a consensus for the standing rules of the chamber. That is what I see from the members of the Conservative Party.
In that very vein, I was listening when the member for Winnipeg North was speaking. At 10:04 he was referring to something and saying that something was virtually impossible. He went on to explain that he was also willing to consider other changes in the Standing Orders if they were mutually agreed upon.
Would the member entertain, at some further point, that after 10 p.m., no puns would be allowed in this chamber? I do believe that saying something is virtually impossible when we are talking about virtual Parliament is a pun.
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- Jun/12/23 11:02:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, to the member's first question, why would the House leader act as if he had a majority government and not have to work toward a consensus? Quite frankly, in this minority Parliament, I believe that at times the government is acting like it is has a majority. A prime example of that is what we are debating tonight being pushed through.
Do they not feel the need to work toward a consensus? I would direct that to our NDP colleagues across the aisle as they are supporting the government on many measures that seem to not be in the best interests of Canadians.
To the second point by the hon. member as to who is being hurt the most, I referenced in my speech that it is Canadians in general due to the accountability Parliament has to them. I also focused on our interpreter friends who we need for accountability, bilingualism and the future of this country.
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Madam Speaker, the Conservative Party has respected the long-standing traditions of the House. We have even seen in this session of Parliament the government filibustered its own legislation at committee on Bill C-21.
I am not in a position to respond to that. Our track record as a party demonstrates the fact that we respect the traditions of the House and work at compromise. We have worked with the 100 and some-odd years of our Westminster parliamentary tradition, which has served us so well. I advocate using that going forward.
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