44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 23, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I will first say that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge.
I am honoured to speak to this programming motion, Government Business No. 30, and its amendment today.
Before I start, I would like to pay tribute to a great constituent by the name of Dot Thompson, the spouse of the late member of Parliament Myron Thompson, whose funeral I attended this past weekend. The two were inseparable and always had the community of Sundre in their hearts. Myron was an unforgettable MP who served on town council, was the high school principal and, through his athletic prowess, taught many youth how to play ball. Sundre was lucky to get him as his New York Yankees professional ball career was put on hold as he played backup to Hall of Famer Yogi Berra.
I am sure that Myron Thompson would have seen many pieces of legislation over his time with bills like Bill C-56, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Competition Act, as well as motions that would have found their way to the floor of Centre Block for discussion. During his 1993 to 2005 era, there were many “suggestions” that the official opposition had lifted by the Chrétien and Martin Liberals in order to minimize the economic damage that had occurred from the era of stagflation caused by Trudeau, the elder.
Sadly, that Liberal government chose to drastically cut the transfers of health funding to provinces, which has haunted our provincial health care services for decades. Handcuffing the provinces was an easy fix to change the federal government's bottom line, but downloading the costs onto other levels of government simply took the heat off the feds and pushed it onto the provinces and their local authorities.
I am well aware of how federal neglect and financial shell games work because I was a hospital board chairman during those dark days. The federal Liberals of the 1990s artfully joined with the Friends of Medicare to back provinces into a corner when they were forced to rationalize services. There is no better example than the daily attacks on former premier Ralph Klein when he was faced with the economic reality of federal cuts to health transfers. The effects of that federal action are still evident, but, thankfully, no government has returned to the era of cuts to health care transfers since the Chrétien era.
The reason that I give this historical reference is that there are different paths governments can follow when trying to work their way through, or out of, a crisis. They can download the problems onto other levels of government; they can analyze policies of other parties in the House and, as is usually the case, claim them as their own; or they can at least acknowledge that the official opposition takes its responsibilities to Canadians seriously and that by usurping the learned advice, the government is ignoring the views of a large number of Canadians.
I will get to some of the specifics in the legislation in a minute, but, as many have stated, it is the heavy-handedness of the government and its inability and unwillingness to work with other partners, unless they are willing to rubber-stamp initiatives in exchange for propping up a minority government, that are at issue here.
What we are seized with today is the government's programming motion, Government Business No. 30. Programming motions have the effect of not only limiting debate in the House, which to many is an affront to democracy in itself, but also dictating instructions to the committee as to how it will deal with this legislation once it gets to committee. Issues related to Government Business No. 30 have to do with the expanded scope that the committee must consider. I will read from Government Business No. 30, which says:
(c) if the bill has been read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance,
(i) it be an instruction to the committee, that during its consideration of the bill, it be granted the power to expand its scope to,
(A) increase the maximum fixed penalty amounts for abuse...,
(B) allow the Competition Bureau to conduct market study inquiries...,
(C) revise the legal test for abuse of a dominant position prohibition order to be sufficiently met if the Tribunal finds that a dominant player has engaged in either a practice of anti-competitive acts or conduct....
If those points were important, perhaps they could have been in the bill in the first place.
Also, we will then start with a marathon sitting of two days, after the motion's adoption, to gather witness testimony, with amendments to be submitted within 12 hours at the end of the marathon sitting. Then, at the next meeting, once that time is up, no further debate or amendments will be entertained. Finally, after a few other points, we will have closure after the bill is reported, which will once again be guaranteed.
The Conservative amendment tries to infuse some credibility by at least ensuring that the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry and the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities will be ordered to appear as witnesses for no less than two hours each. At least some level of accountability will be salvaged if this amendment is adopted.
By forcing Motion No. 30 to the committees through the House process, the Liberals avoid the other option, which is to force a programming motion through the committee. They always say that committees are masters of their own fate, which is true, until, as we see with Motion No. 30, it is not. Programming motions are usually enacted when the government knows it has messed things up royally.
Our responsibility as legislators is manyfold. First, we must thoroughly analyze legislation to minimize potential unintended consequences. As a country that boasts six time zones, the need to have regional voices heard is paramount in order to head off such negative consequences.
Second, it is important that Canadians get an opportunity to have input as well. Those who live in the real world understand how legislation will, good or bad, affect them.
Third, and this is so evident presently at our natural resources committee, once federal legislation has been challenged, once the regions take on their responsibilities to protect their citizens through such initiatives and once such legislation has been deemed unconstitutional, the government must stop using the challenged parts of legislation in its development of new legislation. This procedural motion, Motion No. 30, is to be determined through a vote in the House. Since the Liberal government has found various willing dance partners, that has been virtually assured.
The only time I saw this process sidetracked, ironically, was when the Liberals had a majority government. It became quite evident at the time that the Liberals never really showed up for duty on Monday mornings. The Mulcair NDP managed to create a second reading vote on a prized Liberal bill. It was quite the scramble, but the vote ended in a tie. Because it was at second reading, the Speaker voted with the government so it would live to fight another day, and, oh my, it did fight. It produced a motion that would have stripped the opposition of all tools to do its job of holding the government to account. That motion dictated how things would transpire in the House and would have been one of the most egregious motions ever moved in our Westminster system of government.
When the vote on that motion was to take place, once again, the members of the NDP were milling around and were in the path of our whip Gord Brown. There is a tradition we see all the time where the whips walk toward the mace, acknowledge each other and then, once their members are settled, take their seats to start the vote. The confusion in the aisle caused one of the most unhinged actions I have seen anywhere. The Prime Minister rushed through the crowd, grabbed our whip by the arm and told him to get the “f” in his place. As he did that, he swung around and hit a female NDP member in the chest, which forced her to leave the chamber. That bizarre action caused a question of privilege that continued for days, whereby the juvenile actions of the PM were constantly on trial by his peers. In order to prevent the continued series of questions of privilege, the government relented and withdrew the egregious motion.
Now, with voting apps being used, perhaps the Prime Minister can avoid such a conflict in the future. Of course, maybe by now the government is also aware that there is a time-out provision whereby the vote would take place whether the whips walk down the aisle or not. Hopefully this motion can be defeated without the theatrics.
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- Nov/23/23 3:55:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member can continue to insult. Nothing in what I said indicates in any way, shape or form that I approve of any of his far right allegations. It is something the Liberals chose to talk about today, as they felt this was one of the good things they could do during question period. We have heard it all day. It is just as ridiculous now as it was earlier in the day. Quite frankly, perhaps the member should consider the role and actions of his Prime Minister, because, believe me, everything I said was accurate.
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- Nov/23/23 3:58:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, have I spoken to them? Yes, I absolutely have. As a matter of fact, this morning people from FCM, from my riding, were visiting with me and we were talking about all of these issues. We were talking about homelessness issues. We were talking about affordability in housing. We were talking about all of the different initiatives that have been part of governments for years. I speak to constituents constantly about the issues of affordability. I am not sure exactly where the member was going, but, believe me, that is always uppermost in our minds.
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- Nov/23/23 4:00:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that was one of the discussions I had when a number of members of the FCM were with me this morning, and I know how important it is. Communities have some very good initiatives that they are already incorporating. It is more a case of how we take the good ideas we see from our municipalities and help incorporate them into major ideas that help the provinces and then help the federal government. Believe me, thinking that—
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- Nov/23/23 4:39:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, just so the member is aware, we are talking about Motion No. 30. Therefore, there is no reason why anybody should be chastised for not talking about some of the other issues. Of course, they are important and have been described before.
One thing I would like to mention, because the Liberals seem to feel they have found something special to speak about, is that, yes, Ukraine is part of carbon pricing in the European Union, but that is so it can participate. In 2019, and this comes from McKinsey and Company's Ukraine carbon pricing policy, in Poland it was $1.00, in Sweden it was $139, in Ukraine it was 36¢, and in Canada at that time, to be fair, was $20, which is 55 times more. That is what we are talking about. Therefore, I think it is somewhat rich that the Liberals are taking that position.
The point I wish to make is that I have gone to OECD meetings in Europe where they were discussing the concept of the carbon tax. The major push from this country was that those countries must make sure to put their stamp on Canada's carbon tax. That happened both in Berlin when I was there and in Birmingham two summers ago. These are the types of things the government is pushing, and it continues to do it now.
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