44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 13, 2024 10:00AM
- Feb/13/24 2:14:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there are some incredible challenges facing Canadian farmers: changing markets and price fluctuations in commodities; rising debt levels; and climate change-driven extreme weather events. Despite these challenges, farmers in Canada continue to confront and to overcome adversity while showcasing the innovative ways they are leading us into the 21st century with advances in food production.
Farmers are certainly not fans of the “Ottawa knows best” approach. Instead, as New Democrats, we want to partner with our farmers to help them build their resilience against climate change and confront the corporate greed that is driving up their input costs to unsustainable levels. To help our farmers, we need a government that is ready for action on a sustainable agriculture strategy, a critical input strategy and a mandatory grocery code of conduct.
Today is Canada's Agriculture Day. On behalf of the NDP caucus, I hope we can all take a moment to celebrate both the hard-working Canadian farmers who grow the food we love and the essential contributions of agriculture to our nation's prosperity and well-being.
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Mr. Speaker, following up on the question from the member for Fredericton, I was a member of that special joint committee, and I agree with her that its work was quite important. I think that every member, both from the House and the Senate, approached the subject matter with the responsibility and gravitas it demanded. However, I will put an asterisk beside that because the committee, in its last iteration, was afforded only three meetings of three hours each with witnesses. Unfortunately, there were a lot of witnesses we could have heard from. We did not even have time to go over the briefs that were submitted because there were so many of them and there simply was not time to translate them into both official languages.
This is mainly a comment for the parliamentary secretary to respond to: I am glad to see that we actually have a legislative requirement built into Bill C-62 that the special joint committee would be reconvened. I hope it would be done with plenty of runway to give this particular subject the time it deserves, which I frankly would say most Canadians expect.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with many points my hon. colleague made in her speech. It is why I voted against the Senate amendment to Bill C-7 in the previous Parliament. It is why I voted for the member for Abbotsford's bill, Bill C-314. It is why I agree with the recommendation that came out of the special joint committee.
There is more than enough blame to be assigned to the Liberals, but we are dealing with a March 17 deadline. This is a time the House collectively has to stand up and get this bill through because we also have the Senate to deal with.
Why, with that context upon us right now, did the Conservatives vote the way they did this morning when it is imperative that this bill get passed before March 17?
We do not yet know what is actually going to happen in the Senate. We can only really say for certain what is going to happen in the House, but this is a critically important bill to pass before March 17.
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- Feb/13/24 4:17:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as the parliamentary secretary well knows, we really only have two sitting weeks left for this bill to reach the Governor General's desk. We are already pretty much halfway through one of those two. I think that the House of Commons is going to do its duty and pass the bill this week, but there are reports in the media of senators openly defying the intent of this bill and threatening to block it.
What steps is the government taking to ensure that the Senate does not thwart the will of the democratically elected House and that it makes sure the bill reaches the Governor General's desk in time?
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Mr. Speaker, on the situation we find ourselves in this week, and last year with Bill C-39, we can draw a direct line back to the Senate amendment that was placed on Bill C-7. The government did a complete 180. It came out with a charter statement explaining why it was excluding mental disorders, and it then went and accepted the Senate amendment.
Bill C-39 last year had to punt the ball down the road by a year. Now we have Bill C-62 trying to do that by another three years. It feels like everything we have been doing has been trying to play catch-up to that change in the law. The law was changed before we had done the work.
Does my hon. colleague regret voting for that Senate amendment, given all he knows now and all of the catch-up we have been trying to do on this very important and sensitive issue?
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Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that we have gotten ourselves into trouble with the use of arbitrary timelines. The Senate amendment to Bill C-7 kicked the can down the road two years. Last year's Bill C-39 added a year, and now Bill C-62 would add three years.
I just want the member to put that into the context of the fact that the health ministers of seven out of 10 provinces and all three territories have asked for an indefinite pause. The special joint committee, likewise, was very careful not to put a timeline in its recommendation for a pause.
How does the member reconcile this three-year pause with the fact that those institutions, those provincial governments, would rather put more of a qualitative benchmark than a timeline on it?
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is mixing up the timelines here. He keeps referring to eight years; in fact, the essence of the bill we are talking about happened three years ago.
Now, if the member wants to talk about someone suffering from stage 4 cancer and just taking some painkillers, I will let him defend himself. However, on what Bill C-62 is doing, we are dealing with a March 17 deadline. This morning, the Conservatives voted against time management of the bill. However, he must understand that we only have two sitting weeks to get the bill to the Governor General's desk.
Why did Conservatives vote against that when we are dealing with a hard deadline, understanding that the law will change if we do not get the bill passed?
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Madam Speaker, the New Democrats actually also voted against what I thought was an ill-advised Senate amendment to Bill C-7. There is plenty of blame to be thrown around. I understand that. I have done more than my fair share this week against the Liberals, but the fact of the matter is that we are at a moment right now when time is critical. We have about a week and a half left, in terms of sitting weeks, until the March 17 deadline. It is imperative that this bill gets passed through the House this week, so that it can go to the Senate.
I am glad to hear the member's support for that measure, but I am curious as to why, when we had a vote on time management of this motion, which is programming the bill, the Conservatives voted against it, knowing that it could have actually jeopardized the time we had available to us this week to get Bill C-62 passed.
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Madam Speaker, it has been reported in the media that some senators have been openly musing about blocking Bill C-62. Given that we are dealing with such a short timeline, I am just wondering whether my colleague has any thoughts about the unelected Senate's openly voicing blocking the democratic will of the House of Commons on such an important issue. What does he think the government should be doing to try to prevent that from happening when the bill makes its way to the red chamber?
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