44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 27, 2023 11:00AM
- Nov/27/23 3:25:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on this point of order, I certainly recognize and do not entirely disagree with what the member said. We have a rule that seems to suggest it is okay to imply that somebody is not telling the truth, yet we are unable to call out members on that.
I would be open to suggestions on how to properly adjust our rules to reflect this fact, because I think quite often it happens on both sides of the House that people feel exactly how the member is suggesting. If there is an opportunity to do so, I would strongly encourage her to bring that forward.
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- Nov/27/23 3:47:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present what I believe is the 18th petition like this that I have presented. I am not quite as far along as my Conservative colleague across the way.
The petition brings to the government's attention the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's most recent report, which indicates that the next two decades will bring widespread devastation and extreme weather. Petitioners indicate we are certainly feeling this in Canada now with increased flooding, wildfires and extreme temperatures, and that addressing the climate crisis requires a drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
Petitioners therefore call on the Government of Canada to move forward immediately with bold emissions caps for the oil and gas sector that are comprehensive in scope and realistic in achieving the necessary targets that Canada has set to reduce emissions by 2030.
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- Nov/27/23 5:12:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I noticed that the Conservative colleague who spoke prior to the member was asked three times whether or not the Conservatives would vote in favour of the bill. When the member spoke, she debated whether Conservatives would be supporting it. I think they should have learned their lesson after how they treated the Ukraine-Canada free trade deal. They were basically silent on it the entire time, would not make a commitment and then suddenly started voting the way they did last week, to the surprise of the entire country.
I am wondering if the member would like to tell the House and Canadians whether she will be voting in favour of this bill or against it. Will we see a repeat of what we saw on other issues?
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- Nov/27/23 5:18:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I believe if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to allow the member for Labrador to finish her speech and Q and A, which were interrupted due to technical challenges.
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- Nov/27/23 5:28:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this was one of the commitments that the Liberal Party made in the last election. Of course, it is always good to be able to, in a minority Parliament like this, have other players who are willing to look for progressive ideas and policies as well.
I wonder if the member wants to talk about how important that was for workers in Canada, how they demonstrated that prior to the election and why, as a result, we put it into our campaign commitment.
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- Nov/27/23 5:53:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am sure the Conservatives will find some rare excuse to link it to the price on pollution, as we have seen with other pieces of legislation.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
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- Nov/27/23 5:54:04 p.m.
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To be fair, Madam Speaker, I did not even notice it; I am used to a lot of yelling on that side.
The Liberals ran on this idea, as did the NDP. I genuinely believe that, because of the partnership we have with the NDP, we have a better piece of legislation now that Canadians can feel very proud of. Could the member for New Westminster—Burnaby inform the House of what it is like to be an adult in the room?
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Nov/27/23 6:30:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the ruling that came from the Chair was very clear on the language that can be used and should not be used in the House.
For any member to use the term “corrupt Prime Minister”, or “corrupt” in reference to anybody in here, violates the rules the Chair has put forward in the House. I would suggest that the member needs to either retract the the comment or be properly censured until he does.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Nov/27/23 7:06:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to a concurrence motion. For those who are just tuning in, to understand the context of what we are doing right now, back on November 3, the government had on the Order Paper that we would continue to debate the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement. However, as was becoming very consistent around that time, every time we brought forward that particular bill to be debated, Conservatives would put forward concurrence motions to basically prevent us from discussing the bill. The reason I am willing to go out on a limb to say that they were intentionally preventing us from debating that bill is not only that they had done it a number of times already, but also, and more importantly, that they were continually doing it with reports from committees that were unanimous. This was another unanimous report that came from committee.
Just so the public knows, when a report is tabled in the House by the chair of the committee, there is no obligation to debate it as it is considered received. As a matter of fact, the government responded to this particular report from the committee, so there was really no need to have a debate on it. The committee report was unanimous. The government, in its introductory reply, thanked the committee, said that the majority of the committee's recommendations were in line with work already being undertaken by the government, and went on to address each and every specific recommendation in the report.
On Friday, November 3, Conservatives put forward a motion to concur in this unanimous report from the committee, which had already been responded to by the government. It was just to delay and prevent us from talking about the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement. Of course, at the time, none of us really understood why. We could not fathom that Conservatives would be against that piece of legislation, which was the result of a trade agreement that had been signed by President Zelenskyy and the Prime Minister. It also has the endorsement of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and had all of the important elements built within it to help Ukraine rebuild. This side of the House, and probably all parties but the Conservative Party, were under the impression that it was going to be a pretty easy debate. We thought that everybody would agree and then we would pass it.
However, very early on in the debate process, the member for Cumberland—Colchester rose and referred to the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement as being woke. That was the first sign for us on this side of the House. At that point, we started asking what was going on and if it were possible that the Conservative Party of Canada does not support this very important piece of legislation.
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- Nov/27/23 7:11:00 p.m.
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It is relevant, Madam Speaker, and I should remind the member across the way what we are actually debating is not the report. We are debating a motion to concur in the report. The report has already been established, the report has already been unanimously supported by committee and the motion was to concur in it.
My analysis and my reflections on why Conservatives chose to put forward that motion is extremely germane to the debate and specifically speaks to why I think they did this, which is very important. The member can get up and call a point of order as often as he wants. He probably does not want to hear the truth from me, and that is fine. He does not have to accept what I say and I am happy to answer his questions on the subject matter afterward.
However, I would remind him we just spent the whole afternoon talking about a bill on scab labour that the Conservatives never even mentioned in any of their speeches. They just talked about everything other than the bill, and would not even say whether they thought the bill was good or not. They were asked the question probably about half a dozen times and never even indicated whether they support the bill. It is very rich coming from a Conservative member right now, who is trying to call me out on relevance, when I have established how the relevance of my speech is related to this concurrence motion.
What we saw is Conservatives eventually vote against the Canada-Ukraine free trade bill, after continually putting up concurrence motion after concurrence motion on various different issues. The reality is we started to hear them talk about it being woke. I know there has been a lot of buyer's remorse since we had that vote, and a lot of Conservatives have stood up in the House and talked about how much they supported Ukraine. I know four, five or six of them stood up right after question period today and said that.
My sense is they are probably feeling regretful for their decision. They are probably feeling a bit upset with their leader for forcing them to do that and now are trying to justify to their communities why they voted that same way.
However, it does not end there. I say this to my Conservative colleagues who are in the House and who stand up and say that they unequivocally support Ukraine at any cost, no matter what. The member for Provencher, in the remaining few speeches we had before we voted on this, actually said:
That said, the Prime Minister and the government have been consistent and unequivocal in saying, “We will...support Ukraine with whatever it takes, for as long as it takes.”
Then he went on to say, “That concerns me a bit”. That is in Hansard; one can go find that. That does not sound like somebody who is unequivocal and stands with Ukraine right until the very end.
When we talk about this report and we talk about Arctic sovereignty and who we are really concerned about maintaining our sovereignty from, it can only be our neighbours that share the Arctic region with us or that impede upon the Arctic region. I know this because I was on the Standing Committee for National Defence for three years, where at the time we studied Arctic sovereignty, and there were some real concerns over it. Of course, one of those is Russia.
I have a problem with listening to my Conservative colleagues talk about Russia, because we know Conservatives are also getting very close right now to Prime Minister Orban, who is the Prime Minister of Hungary, who is very close to Vladimir Putin. Recently, there is a story titled “Putin and Orban reaffirm Russian-Hungarian ties amid international strains.”
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- Nov/27/23 7:16:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I had been quite relevant there and will draw the direct link for the member: Canada, Arctic; Arctic, Russia; Russia, Hungary. Vladimir Putin and the Hungarian prime minister are very close right now. Stephen Harper is very close with the Hungarian prime minister. One Conservative member travelled at the expense of the Danube Institute, a right-wing Hungarian think-tank, which paid for all of his expenses. Coincidentally, right around that time, Conservative members started talking about exactly what they have written about in their most recent report on what a Conservative world looks like in 2023. Right after Conservatives went on this trip to London, paid for the Danube Institute, they came back and started talking about a free trade agreement with Ukraine as though it is woke, which is a direct link.
This is my concern. There is a mega faction among the Conservatives, probably including their leader, who have stood up and said that they will not support Ukraine and have won over the more progressives in the Conservative Party. I know there are progressives in the party who care about Ukraine. I have travelled with them to Ukraine to study Operation Unifier and Operation Reassurance. I did that back in 2017. I know where their commitment is, but I do not believe the commitment is within the entire Conservative caucus. Those who are not committed just need to stand up and say so. Those members should, out of decency for their colleagues who do stand up for Ukraine, publicly say that they do not so their colleagues can say they do and then there would be no confusion among the Canadian population, because there is a lot of confusion right now. That is the reality of the situation.
When we talk about this concurrence report, which is about Arctic sovereignty, it is something we have debated and studied on a number of occasions. When I was on the defence committee, we studied it back in 2017-18, I believe. When we talk about our Arctic sovereignty and the importance of ensuring that we have everything in place to provide that security, we have to reflect on the fact that there are some who might be buying into Russian propaganda that suggests that Ukraine does not have the best intentions with respect to its sovereignty. That is what my concern is.
When Conservatives brought forward this concurrence motion on this topic, it was very clear to me and everybody else that what they were doing was trying to prevent a debate on something else. It is not the first time we have seen that and we are witnessing it again right now. When it comes to scab labour, Conservatives will not stand up and say how they feel about a piece of legislation. They wait until it has gone well down the road, avoid talking about it, and then think they can just slip their vote in, get it on the record and then move on to the next subject. That did not happen with the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement, but guess what? There is good news. There is still another opportunity because we only voted on it at second reading. They have another opportunity at report stage to do the right thing and stand up for Ukraine the way that every other member in this House is doing, so I would strongly encourage my Conservative colleagues to do that when we get to that point.
This goes to a larger point that I was talking about, which is that the Conservative Party of Canada today is not what it used to be. If we look back to Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney and Kim Campbell, they were Progressive Conservatives. They had important issues top of mind that genuinely meant something for Canada. They did not complain about what they thought would win them a couple of votes. It was Brian Mulroney who dealt with acid rain and the depletion of the ozone layer. He led the world literally in the Montreal accord. He brought 42 countries to Montreal to talk about how we could save our planet. That is not what we are seeing now.
I am not the only one who is saying that. This is what Joe Clark said, “I think it's a party that does not respect the progressive traditions of the Progressive Conservative Party and, consequently, does not reflect the country. ... My party is over. This was not just a change of decision about a policy; this was a change of decision about life or death, the party to which I had an obligation has been taken out of existence.”
Brian Mulroney said something very similar. He said, “I led a Progressive Conservative government. We were very progressive in areas like international affairs...and human rights, the creation of the...Francophonie and all of those things, and in social policy as well. We were more Conservative. Radio-Canada established last night, [with] privatization, deregulation, low inflation, cutting government expenditures, we were more Conservative than the Harper government. I thought that was a good mix.”
This is what Kim Campbell said. She said, “Well, I have never joined the Conservative Party of Canada. I think Joe Clark expressed that he did not leave the party, the party left him. It is not the Progressive Conservative Party, and our party was the party of the acid rain treaty, the Montreal Protocol. I am sorry. I have no time for climate deniers and anybody who is trying to pussyfoot around it.” Those are the words of Kim Campbell.
I guess what I am saying is that we have seen a huge shift in the Conservative Party of Canada. It is not what it used to be. I am very concerned that the shift is continuing further and further right. It is emulating what comes out of the United States and the Donald Trump politics of the MAGA movement. I find that to be very alarming. I think that Canadians should be seriously reflecting on the path we are going down.
I do not believe Conservatives need to occupy that space. I believe they are choosing to occupy that space. I really encourage them to stop doing that, come back around and start looking at our country as a whole in a way we can genuinely improve it together.
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- Nov/27/23 7:24:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I never said that Arctic sovereignty was not important. It is quite the contrary. I said it was important. I said my concern was that the Conservatives were just using this report as a way to block something that they did not want to talk about. It was something that they did not want to talk about so badly, the Canada-Ukraine free trade deal, that they ended up voting against it later on.
Arctic sovereignty is extremely important. I do not believe I was on the committee, and I do not believe I filibustered as he referenced. I will say that, when I was on the committee and we studied it, we looked into the different things we could recommend to the government. When it comes to recommendation 24, I would have him note that the Government of Canada agrees, in principle, with these recommendations. Nobody is disagreeing.
This is my point: Why is it so important that we talk about this report on the floor of the House of Commons when the reality is that the government agrees with the majority of the report?
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- Nov/27/23 7:26:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I cannot tell the member what the government's plans are specifically, other than to let her know that the government has noted the recommendation.
I can tell her, though, that when I was on the committee, and after I went with the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman to NORAD headquarters and was able to see the manner in which Canadians and Americans were working so closely together, I found it very confusing that there was a particular program in North America that impacted Canada but that Canada was not involved in. No one should quote me on this, but I believe it was Paul Martin who said that Canada would not be in the program, but, at the time, I questioned that. When I was on the committee as an independent member, not speaking on behalf of the government, I questioned why Canada was not in the program and challenged that perhaps we should be looking into whether or not that was a good decision.
I do not disagree with the recommendation. I know that the government does not disagree with the recommendation, because it said it would take note of it, and then went on to explain the basis behind it. Unlike the member from the NDP who asked me the question, I am a little more open to seeing what Canada's role should be in the program.
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