44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 6, 2023 02:00PM
- Dec/6/23 5:18:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have two petitions to present today.
The first has to do with the environment. I believe this is the 17th or 18th petition to this effect that I have been asked to present on behalf of Canadians. It calls attention to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's most recent report, which warns about the next two decades and the widespread devastation and extreme weather that will occur as result of global warming.
The petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to immediately move forward 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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- Dec/6/23 5:19:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the second petition I am presenting today comes from the Lord Strathcona Public School community in my riding of Kingston and the Island.
The petitioners are specifically calling upon the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to develop and prioritize funding for a national school food program through budget 2024 for implementation in schools by the fall of 2025.
The petition draws attention to the fact that Statistics Canada data from 2022 indicates that one in four children in Canada lives in a food-insecure household, that Canada is the only G7 country without a national school food program, and that school food programs are recognized around the world as essential to health, well-being and education of students, with over 388 million children in at least 161 countries receiving free or subsidized school meals at their schools.
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- Dec/6/23 5:27:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, did I hear correctly that you are going to be coming back to the House with something on that? If so, I would like to contribute.
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- Dec/6/23 5:39:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member has already made up his mind. He sits on the procedure and House affairs committee, like I do. I am going to vote in favour of the motion to send it to committee for committee to do the work. However, if he has already made up his mind, what is the point of even supporting the motion? He already knows what the outcome is going to be at committee. He is not going into it from an objective point of view of listening to all of the information and then making a decision. He is, effectively, a judge in this case. As a judge, he is coming before the defendant and saying that he already knows they are guilty but that he wants to hear what they think so he can make a decision. It is absolutely ludicrous.
Why even bother voting for the motion if he already knows the outcome he plans to execute when he is at committee?
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- Dec/6/23 5:59:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to this amended motion, a motion that I voted in favour of amending earlier today. Now we are speaking to the main motion, which I also plan to vote in favour of. For full disclosure, I will say that I am also a member of the procedure and House affairs committee. I spoke to this yesterday, and I discussed during my time speaking yesterday how I do feel there is a particular need for the committee to undertake this work, so I am supportive of this.
I was very careful in my words yesterday, as I will be today, not to cast judgment on the issue. It would be almost a conflict of interest for me to try to pass some form of judgment on this matter and then go before committee and sit there and try to pretend that I am being completely objective to what is going on. That is where I see problems arising in comments that we are hearing from the other side of the House.
The member for Calgary Rocky Ridge may not specifically have said that he thinks the Speaker should resign, and he might not be specifically calling out what he sees as the justified action. I give him credit for that in the sense that perhaps he is trying to be more objective in terms of assessing the matter and letting the committee do its work. However, he should take great offence to the fact that the member for Red Deer—Lacombe, who is a sitting member of that committee, stood in this House and went on for 10 minutes about how he has already come to a conclusion in terms of what the results of all this should be.
We have the member for Red Deer—Lacombe, who, full on, has already said that the Speaker is guilty, that the Speaker should resign, and that is his position, but said to bring it to committee and he would be as objective as he possibly can and he would sit down and listen to all the evidence and try to be persuaded one way or the other. The gentleman has already made up his mind.
I heard my colleague from the NDP moments ago say that he did not see a problem with a party taking a position—
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- Dec/6/23 6:02:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Conservatives are very sensitive. It is becoming a common theme. Every time I get up to speak, different Conservative members come out here, most likely at the direction of somebody sitting behind a desk in the lobby who is telling them to come out here and raise these pointless, ridiculous points of order.
I will let the member know that I actually take great pride in knowing that what I say obviously impacts him enough to have to run back into the room to call points of order on what I am saying. What I am saying is true. The member for Red Deer—Lacombe stood in this House for 10 minutes and went on about how he supports this motion and that he needs to see the work happen at PROC, even though he already knows what the outcome is.
What I was saying a few moments ago is that my NDP colleague said that he does not see a problem with somebody having a position on something and then still undertaking the work. The difference here is that it was the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, a Conservative member, who put forward this motion.
I will go through what happened, so that Canadians really, fully understand what is going on here. This shows a bit of the partisanship and the game-playing.
The member for Regina—Qu'Appelle came in a couple of days ago, stood in front of this House and put out a lengthy point of order on the issue. I think it was a valid point of order. Perhaps I do not agree with every detail of what he said, but I think he brought forward a valid point of order that the House needed to reflect on. He left. The point of order was over.
Then the Bloc Québécois stood up and called on the Speaker to resign. Then, as if he just could not possibly be outdone by the Bloc Québécois, the Conservative House leader, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, ran back in here on another point of order and said that he thinks the Speaker should resign, too.
That is what is going on here. This is an issue of one opposition party not wanting to be outdone by the other opposition party. Here we have this motion that has been put in front of us by the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle. The motion at this point is pointless from his perspective, because he already knows the outcome of what he wants from this. He has already predetermined what he believes the outcome should be, and that is that the Speaker should resign.
For me, being a member of the committee, I have problems with being able to walk into that room to sit at the table with my colleagues, like the member for Red Deer—Lacombe, and genuinely talk about who the witnesses would be. Perhaps one would be Peter Milliken, a great former speaker of this House, the longest serving speaker of this House, who is from Kingston and the Islands—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Dec/6/23 6:05:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from north of the 401 has properly pointed out that Mr. Milliken no longer resides in Kingston and the Islands. He now resides in Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston. However, Mr. Milliken was one of the people who felt so under-represented by their MP they demanded that with the new redistribution they once again be included in Kingston and the Islands. We are very excited to see that the commission made that recommendation.
My point is, how am I supposed to go into that room with the member for Red Deer—Lacombe and other Conservative members? They have stated in here that they will be objective, that they are going to look at all the evidence, work on getting witnesses together, bring them in and listen to the evidence, and then they will make a recommendation, but they have already stood in this House and said that they think the only outcome is for the Speaker to resign.
It is absolute hypocrisy. It is just like a defendant going before a judge, and the judge says, “Listen, I know you're guilty, but I want to hear from the prosecution and defence. Put your case forward so I can make a judgment.” That is basically what Conservatives are doing.
If Conservatives want to at least have the appearance of being objective, they should have just said that they support this, that it is the right motion and we should do this. Then they could have let it go to committee and then started putting their hyper-partisanship into it. However, they could not resist for even just a few moments to allow a little self-reflection and say that maybe it is not a good idea to be so partisan right now, that maybe they should at least wait until the committee hears something to suggest, and then they could pick a piece of evidence that would support their predetermined notion.
However, the member for Red Deer—Lacombe could not even do that. He had to get up right away and say that he knows the outcome of this, that the man has to resign, end of story.
I will support this motion. I will vote in favour of this. I will go to the committee. I will listen to the evidence. I will contribute in any way I can. Then, with the committee's work, I look forward to producing a recommendation or recommendations that we can deliver back to this House for the House to act on.
I believe that is why committees are formed. I believe that is what our role is. I look forward to my participation and being able to do that.
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- Dec/6/23 6:09:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I actually do not disagree with a lot of what the member said, and in particular, when he talked about the fact that people can have opinions and still be influenced. That is absolutely correct.
The error here was in the member for Red Deer—Lacombe stating that publicly. The perception now is that the member cannot be objective. Whether or not he has an ability to do that, he has made it very clear what he thinks the outcome should be. It would have been in his best interest and in the best interest of all Conservative members, especially those who sit on the procedure and House affairs committee, to have restrained themselves from putting forward what they believe the outcome should be.
Do I agree with him that it is possible for people to be influenced? Of course I do. Everybody is human. In my case with the judge, a judge is human. A judge might have a thought in their mind about what they think about a case when walking into it, but the offensive part is when the judge would sit there and say that he already knows the person is guilty but to let him hear the facts so he can make a decision. It does not show any semblance of trying to be impartial, and that is what one has to at least try to demonstrate one is doing, which the member for Red Deer—Lacombe failed miserably on.
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- Dec/6/23 6:12:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not disagree. I learned early in my political career never to try to answer hypothetical questions, but the member raises a good point. I actually do not have an issue with Conservatives who have already made up their mind. What I have a problem with is that Conservatives have already made up their minds but are simultaneously tabling a motion sending this to a committee, so it can presumably do the work in an objective fashion.
Why would they bother tabling this motion if they already know what they believe the outcome should be? That is my point. I do not disagree that there are people out there who might already have their position on this, which is fair and fine. I have a problem with members of the committee who stand here, say what their position is and then go to the committee room and try to be objective on the matter.
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- Dec/6/23 6:15:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one thing that committees struggle with quite a bit is having those resources. I recognize the fact that the amendment to the motion instructs the House to put all the resources necessary towards the committee, and I hope that is enough; it is a short timeline. The chair of the committee would know how difficult it is, sometimes, to get witnesses to come when they are given a two weeks' notice. Now we are talking about a day or two in order to do all this properly. However, I do have great faith in the people who work here, our interpretive services and the people who translate the documents for us. A lot of people work behind the scenes, and they do this incredible work so that our country can continue to operate in two official languages, as it is supposed to do.
Another thing I will promise the chair is that I will not ask a witness to answer in any particular language. I will allow them to answer in the language they choose.
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- Dec/6/23 6:17:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think it is very important that Canadians know exactly what we are voting on.
We are voting on a motion that is asking the procedure and House affairs committee, which deals with issues relating to the House, to members and to the working of our Parliament for that matter, to look into this. As part of that, we will listen to evidence, hear from experts and, hopefully, hear from some former speakers, as I suggested earlier. Then we will be able to find out how we can properly deal with this particular situation.
I will be the first to admit that, when I heard about this situation, I thought, “Oh, that does not seem right.” I wanted to get the context to understand how this actually came to be. However, let us deal with what our recommendations are for this Speaker; more importantly, let us try to set some parameters and put rules in place that dictate what the expectations would be moving forward.
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- Dec/6/23 6:19:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my first question at the procedure and House affairs committee would be to understand the context in which the video was made. Did the Speaker know when he was making that video and sitting in that room that it was going to be broadcast to thousands of people on a big screen, or did he think it was going directly to the individual who was the recipient? I do not know. It is not that it particularly makes one situation better or worse, but did he know that it was going to be used in the context in which it was used? I actually really do not know the answer to that question and I would like to know the answer.
Second, I would like to know what exactly the rules are that we currently have in place, but also how those have been followed in the past. For example, in the four years that the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle was the speaker, were there instances? We know that the Leader of the Opposition showed up to a Government of Canada event wearing a Conservative jacket, and we know that was not right. It is important to understand the context to get to the bottom of this and then pass judgment.
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