44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 3, 2023 10:00AM
- Nov/3/23 10:31:00 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill for her speech. I heard her make various comments about the content of the agreement.
More generally speaking, we know that MPs have almost no power to change the content of international treaties. They can only agree or disagree with the agreement. We are not able to propose amendments. The role of parliamentarians is very limited.
Members will recall that, in November 2020, during the renegotiation of the post-Brexit agreement with the United Kingdom, members of the Standing Committee on International Trade were asked to debate a text that they did not even have a copy of.
I would like to hear my colleague's comments on the fact that parliamentarians have almost no power to influence the negotiation of international treaties and that such negotiations are left exclusively up to the executive branch.
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- Nov/3/23 11:25:44 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, yesterday, TVA announced the elimination of 547 jobs. This is a dark day for both the company and Quebec television. The Bloc Québécois stands in solidarity with the men and women who are being laid off today after giving of their time and talent to TVA for years.
Traditional television has been threatened for a long time. Everyone knows it, but nothing has been done. What more will it take for the government to wake up and realize that the future of our television is in jeopardy?
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- Nov/3/23 11:26:49 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, yesterday, Pierre Karl Péladeau made it clear that the traditional television business model is broken. We have to go back to the drawing board. Television, radio and newspapers all face the same dilemma. Unless we make a fresh start and acknowledge the scope of the crisis facing our media industry, our access to information, to our creators and to our culture will come under threat. We have reached a crossroads.
My question is simple: What is the plan? What does the government intend to do to save our traditional television and print media?
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- Nov/3/23 12:43:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to serve with my colleague on the Standing Committee on National Defence, where something rather remarkable happens often, that is, members reach a consensus.
One thing that came up a lot during our study on the Arctic and other studies we have done, particularly during discussions of the spy balloons intercepted over Canada, is the fact that Canada's Arctic radar coverage is very poor. We heard in committee that less than half of the Arctic region is covered.
I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about the risks arising from the fact that we have no way of knowing exactly what is going on in an area as vast as the Arctic. As we know, climate change is expected to make the Arctic increasingly accessible to people from outside the country. It could well become an area of growing interest to countries other than Canada as well.
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- Nov/3/23 1:00:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Winnipeg North because he always finds a way to wake up the House, even on a Friday afternoon. We appreciate that very much.
I heard him ask the Conservatives where they would get the money if they wanted to increase defence spending. The consensus in committee is that defence spending cannot be cut. We have a lot of questions about how the $900 million in cuts that were announced will be made.
Setting that aside, I might have a recommendation or suggestion for the hon. member regarding where the government could make cuts. Why not simply eliminate subsidies to oil companies, which are already making $200 billion a year in profits and yet continue to receive money? I would like him to comment on this proposal.
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Madam Speaker, before I begin my remarks on the report of the Standing Committee on National Defence concerning the Arctic, I would like to briefly touch on the other debate that was supposed to take place today, on Bill C-57, which implements a free trade agreement between Canada and Ukraine.
In the questions I asked earlier today, particularly to the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill, I mentioned that, unfortunately, even if we do take time to debate bills meant to implement international trade agreements, the role of MPs is, after all, quite limited. We can basically only agree or disagree with the content of the treaties, since they are negotiated and drafted by the executive branch. The role of MPs—who represent the people and are supposed to play the most democratic role of all—is rather limited. It is so limited that, as I mentioned earlier, when an interim agreement between Canada and the United Kingdom was being negotiated after Brexit, the members of the Standing Committee on International Trade did not even have the text of the treaty in front of them when they were supposed to be debating it. This shows just how limited the role of Canadian members of Parliament is in drafting, negotiating and improving international treaties.
Even though we have clearly not had much time to debate Bill C‑57, from what I understand we will have even less given the announcement that was just made about a time allocation. I still have questions about what MPs are even able to do with the time they are allocated for debates on international agreements.
That said, I want to make a few comments on the Arctic committee's report. First, I would say that the content of this report, no matter what other debate might be overshadowed by the Arctic debate, is extremely important and is bound to change over time. Since this report was first debated, there have been articles in the media that have made me rather pessimistic about the importance the government places on monitoring in the north. During questions and comments today, there was a lot of talk about climate change in the north. We know that traffic in the north has increased by approximately 44% between 2013 and 2019. That is the result of melting glaciers and the fact that the Northwest Passage is opening up even more.
In the meantime, the government is decreasing its investments in environmental monitoring and follow up. This summer, we found out that some weather stations are closing. Since 2017, some of these stations have no longer even been able to send information on what is happening weather-wise in the north. That is problematic in terms of ship navigation and knowledge of the area. It even affects the statistics collected by Environment Canada since the data that is collected in the north is no longer being taken into account.
In the meantime, we see that Russia is investing heavily in weather stations. In the past year, Russia installed 42 new weather stations to learn more about the land because it is interested in that land. There is a major gap between these two Arctic nations, Canada and Russia, when it comes to their interest in what is going on with the climate. This is going to be a critical issue in the next few years.
Madam Speaker, I see that you are about to cut me off.
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