44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 13, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to table a number of petitions in the House today.
The first petition is from Canadians who are concerned about the increasing phenomenon of people being bullied in corporate environments over their political views and having pressure put on them to express or not express political opinions that may go against their conscience. The petitioners are in support of a private member's bill I put forward that seeks to protect people from corporate bullying and efforts, in a work environment or other kinds of environments under federal regulation, to discriminate or pressure people on the basis of their political views.
Bill C-257 would add political belief and activity as prohibited grounds of discrimination to the Canadian Human Rights Act. The petitioners want the government and the House to support Bill C-257 and to defend the rights of all Canadians to peacefully express their political opinions.
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- Jun/13/23 1:17:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the next petition I am tabling highlights concerns about the dramatic expansion of euthanasia under the government, and in particular a recommendation to allow euthanasia for infants. The proposal to legalize the euthanasia of infants is a matter of grave concern for these petitioners, and they call on the Government of Canada to block any attempt to legalize the killing of children in Canada.
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- Jun/13/23 1:17:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the next petition deals with a proposal in the Liberal Party's platform in the last election to effectively politicize charitable status determinations, which is again dealing with an issue of political discrimination and discrimination on the basis of political views. The petitioners are opposed to the government applying values tests or political position-based determinations for making decisions about charitable status. They call on the House to protect and preserve the application of charitable status rules on a political and ideologically neutral basis without discrimination, and to affirm the right of all Canadians to freedom of expression.
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- Jun/13/23 1:18:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the next petition draws attention to the ongoing detention of Huseyin Celil. The petitioners note that although Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were released after 1,000 days of unjust detention, there are other Canadians detained in China, including Mr. Celil, who has been detained for well over 5,000 days.
Mr. Celil is a Canadian citizen and a Uyghur human rights activist who has been detained for supporting the rights of Uyghurs. The Chinese government has, sadly, refused to recognize Mr. Celil's Canadian citizenship and has denied him access to lawyers, family and Canadian officials. He was coerced into signing a forced confession, and he underwent an unlawful and unfair trial. The petitioners further note that evidence makes it increasingly clear that Uyghurs are being subjected to an ongoing genocide and that Canada has an obligation to act to respond to this genocide.
The petitioners want the Government of Canada to demand that the Chinese government recognize Mr. Celil's Canadian citizenship and provide him with consular and legal service in accordance with international law, and to formally state that securing the release of Mr. Celil is a priority of the Canadian government of equal concern as the unjust detention of the two Michaels was. The petitioners want the government to appoint a special envoy to work on Mr. Celil's case and to seek the assistance of the Biden administration and other allies in obtaining the release of Mr. Celil, actions that were taken in the previous cases referenced.
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- Jun/13/23 1:19:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, next I am tabling a petition that deals with the situation of Hong Kongers who are seeking immigration to Canada.
The petitioners note that the judicial system in Hong Kong has been compromised through various measures, including through the passage of the national security law. They note that peaceful protesters charged in Hong Kong have not received fair or impartial treatment and that they have been subject to politically motivated convictions for their democracy activism under the national security law but also under other laws. The petitioners want the government to ensure that for people who have faced these kinds of unjust charges and convictions, those convictions will not be barriers to their potential immigration to Canada.
The petitioners call on the government to recognize the politicization of the judiciary in Hong Kong and its impacts on the legitimacy and validity of criminal convictions; to affirm its commitment to rendering all national security law charges and convictions irrelevant and invalid in relation to paragraph 36(1)(c) of the IRPA; and to create a mechanism by which Hong Kong people with pro-democracy movement-related convictions may provide an explanation of such convictions on the basis of which government officials can grant exemptions to Hong Kong people who are deemed inadmissible under paragraphs 36(1)(b), 36(2)(b) and 36(2)(c) upon an examination of circumstances and a determination that the applicant's criminal record is political in nature.
Finally, the petitioners want to see the Government of Canada work with other like-minded allies, especially the Five Eyes countries, and other democracies to waive criminal inadmissibility of Hong Kong people convicted for political purposes, provided they do not otherwise have a criminal record.
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- Jun/13/23 1:21:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the final petition that I am presenting today deals with recommendations of the Minister of National Defence's advisory panel on systemic racism. In its final report in 2022, this panel paradoxically recommended discrimination on the basis of religious affiliation in determinations about chaplaincy and discrimination against religious communities holding views that are not consistent with the Government of Canada's positions on, for instance, various sexuality issues.
Petitioners believe that Canadian Armed Forces chaplains serve all members of the armed forces without discrimination, and they should not be facing discrimination. This proposed discrimination would affect the Muslim community, the Christian community, the Jewish community and other religious communities in Canada. They call on the Government of Canada to reject the recommendations on chaplaincy in the Canadian Armed Forces in the final report of the Minister of National Defence's advisory panel on systemic racism and discrimination, as well as to affirm the right of all Canadians, including Canadian Armed Forces chaplains, to freedom of religion.
I commend all these petitions to the consideration of my colleagues.
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- Jun/13/23 1:24:57 p.m.
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moved:
That Bill S‑8 be amended by deleting the long title.
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He said: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address Bill S-8 today. This is important legislation that Conservatives have been supportive of. It is also an opportunity to discuss the significant problems with the sanctions regime that we have seen under the government, including the failure to move quickly enough to sanction perpetrators of violence around the world, the failure to be consistent and the failure to apply sanctions in some critical cases where that is required.
I want to focus my remarks today on expressing support for the modifications, as we supported them at committee, around inadmissibility to Canada being tied in with sanctioning. I also want to highlight the gaps, in terms of the government's responses when it has come to sanctioning.
The trend we are seeing overall, in terms of sanctioning, is to try to be as precise and as targeted as possible. This is done to minimize the harm to a civilian population in association with sanctioning and to have sharp sanctions against perpetrators of violence to hold them accountable for their own actions, as well as to sanction those institutions that are involved in violence and the flow of resources that allows violent regimes to hurt their own people and people in other countries.
More and more precise sanctions, broadly speaking, are a positive development. However, as we move in this direction, we need to ensure precision and enforcement, as well as that we are not missing things or allowing holes in the process that render the sanctions that have been put in place ineffective. We also need to ensure that enforcement is in place as required and that it is effective.
Another trend we have seen is the adoption throughout the world of Magnitsky sanctions legislation, which is part of that trend of narrowing in precision and targeting those responsible for violence. In particular, it aims sanctions at those involved in gross violations of human rights.
In the past, those involved in violations of human rights in other parts of the world would generally have stayed in their own countries. However, in the globalized world we live in today, it is much more common for oppressors, oligarchs and maybe their family members to take their ill-gotten gains and try to use them to vacation, attend school and do other things in various other parts of the world, including the United States, Canada, Europe, etc. Magnitsky sanctions provide us with a unique opportunity to try to deter human rights abuses by saying to those who are involved in gross violations of human rights that they are not going to be able to engage in this kind of travel, move their money or spend time in Canada or other parts of the world if they cross certain thresholds in terms of violations of human rights.
Another reason these types of sanctions are very effective is that, when people are part of violent autocratic regimes, they often realize that these regimes can turn on those within them. As the saying goes, “Sometimes the show trial comes for you.” These corrupt officials who have been involved in violence are often thinking in the back of their minds, “What is the escape hatch that I could have if I need to leave my country at some point? Can I move my money? Can I create a kind of golden parachute that would allow me to leave the regime I am a part of, if I need to?”
Magnitsky sanctions, by sanctioning individuals who are involved in human rights abuses, are a way of saying that if individuals cross a certain threshold in terms of violation of fundamental human rights or if individuals are identified as being involved in violence against civilians, human rights violations or threats to international peace and security, they could be sanctioned and therefore prevented from finding that escape hatch. One corollary to the point of people maybe wanting to escape at some point but being told that they would not be able to escape and using that as a way of deterring human rights abuses is that, in order for these sanctions to be effective, they have to be imposed in coordination.
If Canada, the U.S. and our partners in Europe are sanctioning different people, then those who may be sanctioned in one place but not another would still have that escape option available to them. However, if like-minded countries are coordinated, then it shuts off the potential options of escape for those involved in human rights abuses. Therefore, it puts pressure on them to stop or at least to limit their violations of fundamental human rights.
They know there will be significant consequences for them if they persist in this direction. I think we have a big problem with impunity right now. People who are involved in human rights violations believe they will get away with it, because we do not have effective systems to hold people accountable. Magnitsky sanctions are a key tool for countering that.
It is in that spirit that Senator Andreychuk and, in this place, my colleague from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman put forward the Magnitsky sanctions bill. It initially received a cold response from the government, but eventually, it was passed unanimously. With Bill S-8, if an individual is subject to sanctions, including under the Magnitsky act, they are also considered inadmissible to Canada. It lines up inadmissibility provisions with sanctions provisions. This is positive.
The problem is that the Magnitsky act and other sanctions tools give the government tools to use for sanctioning individuals, but unfortunately, the government has been reluctant to use them. For a number of years now, the government has not used the Magnitsky sanctions tool. When it was passed, the Magnitsky act provided the government with tools for sanctioning human rights abusers under the Special Economic Measures Act, and some of that has been done.
However, the absence of the use of the Magnitsky act is troubling, especially because the act is an important mechanism of coordination among allies. Multiple countries have a Magnitsky act, and if we are able to use our Magnitsky act and coordinate with other countries' use of their Magnitsky acts, we can send a stronger, clearer message of deterrence to human rights abusers.
The government has been very reluctant to use a tool that it has been given by Parliament and encouraged by Parliament to use. Recognizing the failure of the government to use the Magnitsky act sufficiently, we have actually put forward a new private member's bill. It just passed this place, and it is on its way to the Senate.
Bill C-281 would create a parliamentary trigger mechanism that would allow a committee, in the House or in the Senate, to pass a motion calling on the government to list an individual under the Magnitsky act. The government would then have to provide a response to that committee within a time frame consistent with the time frame for responses to committee reports in the Standing Orders. It would have to provide that response regardless of, for instance, whether there is a prorogation.
We recognize the value of the coordination that we are seeing in Bill S-8, but like any other sanctions tools, it is only as good as its use. If the government is failing to use that tool, then we are still going to have a significant problem.
I want to use this opportunity to call on the government to use more sanctions and more effective targeted sanctions against the military junta in Burma. I have met with various communities from Burma recently. There is an urgent need to support pro-democracy and opposition movements in Burma, as well as to apply tighter, more rigorous and more effective sanctions against the Burmese regime.
That is the case for a number of reasons. One is that the Burmese regime is supporting and co-operating with the Putin regime. We see increasing collaboration among countries that are seeking to violently upset the international rules-based order, as well as a sharing of weapons and technology among them. If we want to effectively sanction the Putin regime and deter further violence by that regime, then we also have to be sanctioning the partners that are supplying them with military technology; that includes the government of Burma.
The government of Burma has also been involved in horrific violence against civilians. It is undertaking a campaign of air strikes targeting civilians that is horrific in its proportions. It follows, of course, the Rohingya genocide that we spoke extensively about in the House a number of years ago. It has been positive to see an increasing collaboration or reconciliation among various ethnic minority communities and the pro-democracy movement, including Rohingya in that process, of course.
More work needs to be done there, and Canada needs to stand with opposition groups. That includes sanctioning the Burmese regime. In particular, the government should be applying tough sanctions to prevent aviation fuel from getting into Burma. Aviation fuel is what is allowing the military junta in Burma to undertake these horrific air strikes against civilians. Sadly, until now, this has been a gap in terms of government sanctions, but I hope it will step up and improve in that respect.
Overall, we are supportive of Bill S-8, but we are very concerned about the government's failure to use the tools that are available to it on sanctions. We call on it to apply those tools more effectively.
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- Jun/13/23 1:36:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think I have been very clear about that already, but I do want to pick up on the first comment he made about the Harper government and sanctions.
What he said is obviously nonsense. In fact, under the Conservative government, Canada led the world following the invasion of Ukraine and we were able to drive a consensus in the G7 that led to a tough response. It was likely not tough enough, but we were able to bring our allies along for a response that removed Russia from what was then the G8 and sanction Russia for the invasion of Ukraine that began at that time in 2014.
Of course, there have been changes in the world. There have been further developments since then, and I am very pleased about the passage of the Magnitsky act. It was a Conservative private member's bill that was passed following the 2015 election. I will also mention boycotting the Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka.
After the Liberal government took office, the Liberals actually wanted to warm things up with Russia. They wanted to have good, warm, cozy relations with Russia again. That was what the then foreign affairs minister Stéphane Dion was pursuing, and the Liberals cut off sharing radar satellite images with Ukraine.
Conservatives have been steadfast with Ukraine, opposing the Putin regime from the beginning.
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- Jun/13/23 1:38:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, everything that I said in my previous response is on the public record and is easily verifiable as accurate.
The member asked if there are instances of other countries that have imposed sanctions that Canada should have imposed. Yes, absolutely, and I will pick one present topical example.
Five years ago, the House listed the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran, as a terrorist organization. The House voted five years ago. That member, if he was present, voted for it. I know the Prime Minister was present but he did not vote for that listing.
In five years, they have done nothing. It has been five years of inaction in terms of recognizing the IRGC as a terrorist organization. The United States has recognized the IRGC as a terrorist organization.
We just had hearings at the foreign affairs committee on the Wagner Group. We have been calling for the listing of the Wagner Group as a terrorist organization. The United States has listed it as a transnational criminal organization, which is slightly different, but they have applied tough sanctions against the Wagner Group that we have not applied at an equivalent level.
There have been various instances. For instance, there are officials associated with the Sri Lankan military to whom we did eventually apply some sanctions this year, but we were way behind the Americans, who had applied those sanctions years before. There are many examples, actually, of allies being far ahead of us on sanctions.
We need to do better. We should be leading, by the way, not just catching up. We should be leading in terms of taking a stand against violations of fundamental human rights.
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- Jun/13/23 1:40:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think my colleague is referring to AUKUS and the fact that Five Eyes is supposed to be, and is, this critical vehicle for collaboration among five Anglo-sphere nations for sharing of intelligence, yet the U.S., Australia and the U.K., three of the Five Eyes, are creating a separate alliance that covers many of the areas that are supposed to be covered by the Five Eyes.
Recently there have been statements out of the White House saying that there are no plans to invite Canada to participate, so we should be very concerned about what is behind those developments.
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- Jun/13/23 8:33:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his reflections on this issue.
I think an important distinction should be made between whether the rules are being used and whether the rules are good for the institution.
I can say that for me personally, these hybrid rules have made my life a lot more comfortable. They have been convenient for me personally, and I have used them from time to time, but I also think they diminish the institution. While they are in place, I will use the voting app, but I think this place would be better off if some of the hybrid provisions were not in effect, which is an important distinction between whether members are using it today versus whether members view these rules as being good for the institution in general.
The biggest problem I have with a hybrid Parliament is the strain it has created on our resources. Before these rules were in place, parliamentary committees could sit basically when they wanted to sit. They could sit into the evening. We have a situation now in the public accounts committee, where Liberals are filibustering a motion, and the committee cannot move forward because it is stuck in these limited time slots.
I will acknowledge that other parties engage in filibusters as well and that it is not just one party, but if committees have work they need to get done or if there is an urgent issue, they should be able to sit more. When I was a staff member, the industry committee sat in the evening for five hours at a time for three nights in a row because there was an issue that justified it.
These rules no longer allow committees to be masters of their own domain. They make committees subject to determinations by the whips in the House about those resources—
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- Jun/13/23 8:35:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would encourage members who are so eager to debate the new rules to learn the old rules first, about how questions and comments work.
I have a serious question to the Parliamentary secretary. How does he get around this significant problem, in terms of resources, and the fact that it makes committees, which are supposed to be masters of their own domains, now subject to resource decisions that are made external to those committees?
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- Jun/13/23 9:34:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his speech. I will say that, as a father of a young family and as someone representing a riding in western Canada, I see personally, from a lifestyle perspective, the advantages of the current provisions, although I have concerns about their impact on this institution. I do support the voting app, because I do not think voting is the same as giving a speech.
I want to put to him a question I put to a government member. The biggest problem I have with how things are working right now is the way the resource crunch associated with hybrid has totally undermined the ability of parliamentary committees to be masters of their own domain. Parliamentary committees used to be able to sit when they thought it was necessary for them to sit to do the business of that committee. It meant that if the industry committee was dealing with a crisis related to industry, that committee could decide to sit, fundamentally, whenever it wanted in order to do its work. Now, it is some kind of process involving party whips that determines who gets resources and when. It is not the committees, it is not the members of the committee, and there is not the same ability to actually pursue the work that is required.
The parliamentary secretary acknowledged this problem and said we can figure it out at some point. The concern I have is that we have not figured it out. We have had this problem persisting for years. I think it is a fundamental enough problem for democracy, ensuring that parliamentary committees can do their job, that we need to actually consider that when considering how to vote on these provisions.
Does the member have concerns about the way parliamentary committees have been constrained by resources and the way they are effectively controlled in their ability to sit by those outside of those committees? Does he think this is a fundamental enough issue to say that we need to fix that problem before we move forward in any way with the rest of these provisions?
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- Jun/13/23 10:52:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, respectfully, I am quite struck by some of the language the member used, like that we have to modernize like other industries. We are not actually just an industry. We play a critical role as the deliberative heart of a nation, which is not an economic activity. It is a fundamental cultural and political activity.
It is also not correct to say this is happening in every industry. There are plenty of people who, by the nature of their job or because they are involved in physical work, such as pilots and members of the military, in many cases do not have the flexibility to not be in a particular place at a certain time because that is what is required for the job.
Of course in every space we look for ways of modifying that work and function well. I support, for instance, the voting app. It is a reasonable modification. However, it cannot be ignored or glossed over that fundamentally something is lost when one is sitting down speaking to a screen compared to when one is participating in deliberation in a chamber as we are.
Does the member acknowledge that?
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- Jun/13/23 11:07:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I sympathize with some of the very human circumstances the member talks about. There are obviously things that, in different forms, all members of Parliament deal with.
I take issue with the general assertion from a number of members that things are working well now. The government's premise seems to be that it has been doing this for years and everything is fine, so why not continue it? Even if relatively few members take the opportunity to speak using a hybrid system and use it in a limited way, the hybrid provisions are creating massive resource challenges that make it difficult for parliamentary committees to function in any way resembling the way they used to function. They are not able to set their own agendas or sit for longer periods of time when necessary. They are not able to control their use of time in order to move items forward. It makes it easier for members to delay committee proceedings if committees cannot sit for extended periods of time at will. That is the reality.
I wonder if the member will acknowledge the existing problems and the need to get a handle on them before we move forward in a permanent way.
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- Jun/13/23 11:29:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very grateful for the opportunity to address the assembled House tonight on this government's proposal to make permanent changes that it has been tinkering with, experimenting with, over the last number of years on hybrid Parliament, which would allow members of Parliament to address the House both from the floor of the chamber and via Zoom.
I think we have a role, as Conservatives, to advocate for conserving the best traditions of our past, but that does not mean that we oppose change in all its forms. It means that we are appropriately cautious, I would say, about change in that we want to ensure that, in the process of changing fundamental institutions and other aspects about our national life, we do not lose things that were important about the previous forms of those institutions, which we were maybe not always fully conscious of.
Members of the government and of the NDP have repeatedly asserted that the current system is working. I think many members are relatively new in the House, and I was only elected in 2015. Those who have been here for a long time I think will notice how these changes have fundamentally changed aspects of our institution already and generally for the worse. It is important that we notice the ways in which the current provisions are not working and the problems that they are creating. As we deliberate about what the new rules should be, we ensure that we are pushing for solutions to these problems instead of allowing these problems that the government has created with this new model to simply continue to exist and fester.
The most critical concern I have about the way the current approach to hybrid Parliament operates is the way that it has shifted the role and powers of committees in this place. Previously, without the hybrid provisions in place, committees could sit largely whenever they wanted. They had designated time slots, but they had a great deal of flexibility in terms of going beyond those time slots.
As a political staffer, I recall times when we were dealing with critical issues in this place where committees would say “We decreed a new subcommittee and that subcommittee is going to meet for five hours Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night to deal with whatever the issue is.” There was flexibility for committees to do what they wanted to get to the bottom of issues that had to be addressed. Committees could also extend if there was some unresolved issue, and I am thinking here, to some extent, of the filibuster that has been alluded to.
Yes, the filibuster is a legitimate technique that is used by all parties. I think Mr. Christopherson of the NDP still has the record for it. We have a filibuster ongoing with the Liberals at public accounts and, yes, from time to time, some people I know in our own caucus may have used that tool once or twice. However, the point is that the filibuster is a tool that seeks to create a balance between the majority and the minority in committee. Generally, filibusters are resolved by committees sitting for extended hours, which forces members who are filibustering to maybe come back to the table. However, when we have hybrid provisions that limit committees to only sit in narrow time slots, it actually makes it much easier for members to filibuster. That is why there has been an explosion of the use of the filibuster by all parties in the House since these rules have been put in place.
These resource limitations constrain committees in their ability to sit for extended periods of time to actually resolve conflict that may exist in the context of those committees and to dig deeply into issues of concern for our national life. An example I remember vividly from my career is the process by which the Uyghur genocide was recognized in this Parliament. It was the subcommittee on international human rights sitting for two days solidly, because the committee members wanted to look at the situation of Uyghurs in China. At the end of those two days of intensive sittings, the committee was able to come to a particular conclusion. Now, with the hybrid provisions in place and the resource limitations, it would be much more difficult for any committee that wanted to look in a deep way at any issue to be able to do that.
Committees, in order to access resources, need to go to the whips of the various parties who then are able to make determinations about the allocation of resources. So, control over committees is no longer in the hands of the members of those committees to decide when they sit. Control about when committees sit, how they sit, what time slots they have available to them are made by the central controllers of the resources that are going to be available. These central controllers, the whips, in some form, decide if they are going to allow industry, public accounts or foreign affairs to have that narrow slot, and committees have to get that approval to get access to those resources in order to sit.
So, the way this place has changed is that committees no longer have autonomy. They no longer have control. They no longer have the ability to delve deeply into issues as required, because it is the central controllers as opposed to the members of the committee who decide who gets resources. I think there has been some acknowledgement that this is a fundamental problem, a fundamental change in the way our institution operates. However, members opposite have said, “Well, this is a problem. We need to solve it, but we should just move forward anyway.”
I would submit to the House that we have been dealing with this problem ever since we have had hybrid Parliament. Members have repeatedly raised concerns about it. It may be an issue of available dollars, or it may be an issue of available people who have the experience and expertise to do interpretation. I do not know exactly what the source of the problem is, but the point is that we have been doing this for years, and we still have that problem persisting.
I would say, if we are going to move forward with some kind of a hybrid framework, we have to do so in a way that protects the fundamental rights of committees to be able to do their job. That means resolving these resource issues in some way. This is the most important point that I want to make tonight. The hybrid provisions undermine the ability of committees to act autonomously. For all members, in all parties, who care about the functioning of parliamentary committees, we cannot push forward with these permanent changes to the Standing Orders without resolving that issue of committees.
I want to make a few other points as well. It is inescapable that a member standing in this place addressing members of Parliament is fundamentally different, in terms of the kind of communication that takes place, than a member sitting at home, in front of their screen, often reading off the screen, and able to completely shut out any other noises or interruptions. The back-and-forth taking place now, as Liberal members gesture and communicate, is part of what has made the House of Commons a great institution for over a hundred years. I relish that. I welcome the heckling. I welcome the back-and-forth.
If I were sitting at home, sitting in front of a screen, reading off the screen, and able to shut out any noises from the member for Kingston and the Islands and others, that would be a completely different kind of exchange. Something is lost. Something is being lost in the tone, in the lack of exchange that exists in Zoom calls and speeches.
I support the move to a voting app because I think we have seen how nothing is lost in the transition from standing votes to a voting app. However, I think we can see very clearly how a great deal is lost in the quality of exchange that takes place when we go from what is happening right now between members on the floor of the House and what happens when someone sits in front of a screen, shuts out any kind of other sound or noise or interaction, and simply delivers what is front of them.
On the issue of family friendliness, I live in western Canada. I have five young children, and this is hard job. There are many hard jobs. There are many jobs in this country where it is simply a reality that, to do the job properly, people have to travel and spend time away from family. There are certain opportunities that we have as members of Parliament that many do not, by the way, and we are able to have our families travel with us from time to time. However, the reality is that there are challenges.
There have been ways in the past that the House has accommodated these challenges. There has been the convention of pairing, for example. If a member needed to be away, they would engage a member of another party and both would agree to mutually absent themselves to preserve the balance. Members would cover for each other. This is what happened in the past.
However, as we move forward, I think the voting app reduces the need for pairing. Members could still vote. Only one member can speak in the House at a time, one out of 338. If a member needs to be away for a couple of weeks, and they are not able to give speeches but are still able to vote, I think they could effectively represent their constituents for that period of time without being able to speak remotely. We could preserve the flexibility and the family friendliness by having that voting app, while still preserving the idea that speeches in the House of Commons should be delivered from the floor of the House of Commons.
Finally, there has been discussion about diversity, about getting people with young families and more women in politics and such by giving more flexibility. However, it is important to note that changes to the Standing Orders the government is proposing still have a preference for members who are in person. It is odd to me that the government says people should be able to participate fully virtually, yet we can see in the changes to standing orders 26(2), 45(1), 53, 56(1), 62, 98 and one new standing order they are proposing, there are many cases where the Standing Orders say that members have to be in person to stand to object to the passage of a particular motion.
I think it is quite unfair that the government would say that we are going to bring in more women and more working parents as members of Parliament, yet subtly putting in place, in the Standing Orders, measures that would limit the full participation of those individuals.
We need to conserve the critical aspects of this institution that we have had for a long time. We can make some changes, but we should conserve the essential aspects of being in person, especially for speaking and for deliberating. This is the heart of our deliberative democracy, and something is lost with these hybrid provisions, something we need to conserve.
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- Jun/13/23 11:40:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not think the member knows what the word “hypocrisy” means. I have been clear that I think the rules, as they presently exist, weaken this institution. As such, I do not think those rules should be in place.
I also believe, though, that it is legitimate for the members to use the tools as they exist. I do not think it is hypocritical at all to observe that these rules should not be in place, but insofar as they are in place, members can use them. The fact of the matter is that a speech is qualitatively different when it is delivered on the floor of the House of Commons. That is why I think all members should endeavour to be here as much as they can and that the rules should maximize the presence of members in the House.
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- Jun/13/23 11:42:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I share the concern the member raised about interpreters, and I think this is linked to the resource challenges we face. From what I understand, the pressure this has created on interpreters is what has reduced the availability of time and resources for committees to be able to sit.
The most important point I raised in my speech was around the issue of how this new system is limiting the autonomy of committees and the ability of committees to do their job. That is linked to the point he raised, which is the impact on interpreters. The government's solution that we can just hire a bunch more interpreters and that money can just solve the problem shows a misunderstanding of why we have this problem. The problem of resources is not just about putting more money into the system; it is about the pressure on interpreters that is created, which makes it difficult to have the kind of flexibility with committees that we used to have.
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- Jun/13/23 11:44:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the problem is when we use the exceptional case to justify what is not actually going to be the median case. We can try to find ways of dealing with the exceptional case. For example, in exceptional circumstances, we could consider a member present who is not physically present. However, the vast majority of uses of these provisions are not going to be members in that situation. I believe that, in the future, we are going to see ministers who find it more convenient to have officials sitting beside them and handing them a paper instead of being in the House of Commons. These kinds of cases have to be dealt with, and they are not dealt with in this motion.
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