SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 265 - Dec/11/23

Dec/11/23 3:43:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the House of Commons standing orders provide various opportunities for the government to put forward its legislative agenda, and they also provide various opportunities for opposition members to put forward ideas for debate that are priorities for them and their constituents. The way the schedule works on Mondays is that we have an hour for Private Members' Business, the government has available two hours for Government Orders and then we have Routine Proceedings, which is a time when members can move motions and table petitions. I could go through all the mechanics of that, but the hon. member knows them well. He knows that concurrence motions and debates are part of the process. Fundamentally, this is an extremely important issue. There are Afghan Canadians and people of goodwill around the world who I know are watching this debate and are interested in the outcome of this debate, because they are concerned with the cause of freedom, human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Afghanistan. This is not about raising that issue only but about raising the broader issues of this new cold war we are in and the lessons we can learn from what happened in Afghanistan for other situations. I think this is an extremely important issue to be raised in the House of Commons. It is the right place to debate it. It is the right time to debate it. I certainly will make no apologies for putting that idea forward at this time.

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Context: House Hansard - 265 - Dec/11/23

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Dec/11/23 3:45:44 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-56

Madam Speaker, I think the most appropriate place to start off is the line of questioning that I just asked the member opposite. Prior to question period getting under way, we were having a healthy discussion at the third reading stage of Bill C-56. I know I was not the only one prepared to come to the House to debate Bill C-56. What I would like to talk about for the next number of minutes is the purpose of moving concurrence reports such as this particular report. It is not necessarily to have the focus of the House of the Commons on debating the issue the member has attempted to bring forward. As we saw in a number of questions, issues aside from Afghanistan were raised. Rather, it is about a rationale and reasoning that I believe, as many others believe, we see from this particular member: He stands in his place time and time again in order to prevent debates of the government agenda. One only needs to look at the timing of when the member brings forward concurrence debates. They are all on the government's legislative dates when we are going to be debating substantive legislation. This morning, as members would know, we brought forward Bill C-56. Prior to question period getting under way, I was the one speaking to it. Bill C-56 is very important to Canadians in a very real and tangible way. It is about an issue that Canadians are very much concerned about from coast to coast to coast. To amplify that, all one needs to do is take a look at the last remarks, because as we were getting to question period, I had to stop speaking on the legislation because we were entering into members' statements, followed then by question period. It is interesting that a big focus of question period was in fact the issues I was talking about in the lead-up to members' statements. Also, if we go through members' statements, we will find that these were the issues being amplified. Members of the House, outside of the Conservative caucus, came to the House believing that we would be debating Bill C-56. That is not to say that what is happening in Afghanistan today and what has taken place since 2001 are not important issues. We recognize many of the horrors that have taken place in Afghanistan. We understand the important role that Canada has to play in it. However, we also need to recognize at this point in time the types of tactics and efforts from the official opposition, the Conservative Party, a minority inside this chamber, today to prevent debates and legislation from passing. A very good example of this is in a question raised by the New Democrats. We talk about Canada and its role in Afghanistan, and the member talked about the alliance that seems to be out there, indirectly referring to Russia, Afghanistan and like-minded countries. Then he posed a question about the Conservative Party with respect to Ukraine. I think it was a legitimate question to be asking the Conservative Party. Again, we saw the tactics it used last Thursday and Friday. The response was laughable. The question was why the Conservative Party not once, not twice, but I believe three times in total voted specifically to deny Ukraine funds. One of those funds was with respect to the—

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Context: House Hansard - 265 - Dec/11/23

Ms. Heather McPherson

Dec/11/23 5:16:21 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-41

Madam Speaker, I do believe I spoke quite extensively during my speech about how Bill C-41 has failed women and girls in Afghanistan. I also spoke about the low ODA, or official development assistance, and how that has failed. One thing I would also bring up is that we debated this in June. This is an issue the Conservatives are simply bringing up because they want to distract from what the House had on its schedule and was going to be working on. They can put a million concurrence debates up before the House and, frankly, none of them will actually move forward the agenda Canadians have asked us to come here to do. We did this debate. We have already talked about this. I am more than happy to talk about international development, and the member is right, this did give me an opportunity to talk about my very favourite subject of all, which is human rights in Canada and around the world, particularly the rights of women and girls. If they really wanted to support women and girls in Afghanistan, around the world and in Canada, they would not have voted against those supports for women and girls. They would not have voted against supports for the gender equity work being done. They would not have voted against foreign affairs being cut. They would not have run in the 2019 election on the 25% cut to development. They are not who they are trying to make themselves out to be today. It is very clear to me they want to be seen as something their voting record proves they are not.

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