44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 28, 2024 02:00PM
- Feb/28/24 3:22:07 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think we just witnessed a very disgraceful, disrespectful display in question period today, which is clearly against the Standing Orders. The members across the aisle here owe an apology to the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, who gets to ask a question just like everyone else in this House.
I ask that you, Mr. Speaker, consider what you might do in the event that this occurs again.
78 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:01:45 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, in relation to the consideration of Government Business No. 35, I move:
That debate be not further adjourned.
22 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:04:01 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, first of all, I reject the premise of the member's question. I fail to see how a motion that expands the time available for members to debate bills, budgets and motions in this chamber is somehow undemocratic. In fact, we would be giving the opposition more opportunity to do so.
However, as the member well knows because he attends caucus meetings, the word from on high, from the Leader of the Opposition, is to block everything and not allow any progress on any bill. It does not matter if it is child care. It is does not matter if it is for supports for Canadians. It does not matter if it is dental care. It does not matter if these things are positive and could positively impact Canadians' lives. They are to obstruct all the time.
We would be allowing members of the opposition to debate these things for a longer period of time, and I fail to see how that creates anything but a healthy precedent of the hours we spend in this chamber.
178 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:07:46 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to thank my colleague for his excellent summary of what this motion would accomplish. It would, simply put, allow more time for debate.
Every time we have discussions among parties, it is often stressed, from parties in any corner of the House, that we require more time to debate bills. Sometimes that is constructive, but sometimes it is obstructive. Sometimes members across the way simply talk things out that they know perfectly well would be good for Canadians and would impact positively on Canadians' lives in an immediate fashion, but they still persist in blocking and obstructing. Therefore, we are looking to give them more opportunities to speak and we will see whether they can, in fact, bring some constructive elements to the debate.
As to the health break, as with long-haul truckers, nurses and hard-working Canadians, and with the advances of the past few years in working conditions, no Canadian is expected to work 30 hours around the clock, much less to vote on billions of dollars of public expenditures. If we want to talk about irresponsibility with public expenditures, that would be the Conservatives asking 338 members of Parliament to opine on important matters at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. That is not a reasonable proposition. No Canadian expects that. It is unhealthy, and it is unhealthy for the people who are forced to be in the chamber or around the parliamentary precinct to protect and support us as we do our work. Therefore, it is important that we move from this very toxic, obstructive environment to one that is healthier for all members in the House.
278 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:11:29 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for her observations. I know all of us are happy that she is back, hale and hearty, and that she is participating in this debate.
I would also say that, like so many other members on this side of the House, the member is not afraid of hard work and, more importantly, of putting in the preparation and study required to bring constructive ideas to the House and positive contributions to debate. Way too often, we fall into the trap of what we call dilatory motions. Those are things such as proceedings to consider committee reports from six months ago. They are designed just to block and obstruct, and obstruct what? They are designed to obstruct positive things, such as child care.
We are on the cusp of adopting a national child care plan for Canadians. Conservatives even voted for the bill in previous iterations, yet they will refuse to allow these things to come to a vote. Moms and dads out there watching need to know that the people standing in the way of putting a national child care program into law are Conservatives.
197 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:13:17 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I think we will all note that, once again, the member is standing up and refusing to allow a debate on child care and a vote on child care to occur in this chamber.
I want to finish my remarks and my thanking the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for her many contributions and for her eternal concern for the respect of the rules of this place, as well as for the health and well-being of the people who inhabit this place from all parties and those who support us here. I think that her contributions have been very positive.
105 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:14:03 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the House that the opposition day designated for Thursday, February 29 has been undesignated and will now take place on Friday, March 1.
33 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I give notice that, with respect to the consideration of the motion relating to the Senate amendment to Bill C-35, an act respecting early learning and child care in Canada, at the next sitting of the House a minister of the Crown shall move, pursuant to Standing Order 57, that debate be not further adjourned.
60 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:16:24 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I do not reject the premise of that question. I cannot speak to their motivations, but I can speak to the phenomenon we see. We see it south of the border. We see it in some parts of Europe. We see it in the populist right wing that seeks to toxify our democratic institution, that seeks to conflate minor things and that seeks to make so toxic and so negative the proceedings of places like this, the most solemn of our democratic chambers in this country, so that Canadians turn away in anger or in sorrow from the debates we have in this place and tune out the very important things we discuss here. That is because the Conservatives think that if they make it toxic and negative, throw in enough vitriol, Canadians will turn away.
That is why we want to give more space for debate in this place. That is why we want to make sure members come to work healthy and prepared to seriously debate the issues, as many members choose to do in this chamber. However, on the right, we see more and more unfortunate efforts to toxify our politics, to make it negative and to make Canadians turn away and recoil in horror from the very important democratic debates we have in the chamber.
221 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:19:23 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the member ridiculed the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for her very appropriate concern for the well-being of all members of the House. Let me point out to him once again a very ironic fact—
40 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:19:59 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member, however, for his concern for health care. I would really have appreciated it if he had been concerned enough about health care to go to his leader, on the eve of the estimates we just finished voting on before Christmas, to tell him to not vote against the 3.1 billion additional dollars we have provided for doctors, nurses and personal care workers in the member's home province of Ontario. This makes the point so eloquently.
He talks about health care; we have addressed health care. Who else thinks we have addressed it in Ontario? Doug Ford does. He was at the hospital with the Prime Minister, signing for the $3.1 billion that the member, who professes to care about doctors and personal care workers, voted against. That is shameful. It is obstructive. It is toxic. It is cynical, and it does not help the people in York—Simcoe or the people anywhere in this country.
165 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:23:13 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Courtenay—Alberni, because it is time to actually address this in a very serious manner.
There are 338 members of the chamber. It is not healthy for any single one of us to be forced to vote on billion-dollar items for 30 straight hours. It is not healthy for anyone, and there are members of the House with health conditions, issues that quite predictably make their families, friends and constituents anxious because they should not be here voting for 30 consecutive hours, forced by the Leader of the Opposition and an obstructive, toxic force across the way. That is not okay. Someone could be seriously harmed by that.
I used to be the chief government whip, and the welfare of the members was very important to me, as it is to our current chief government whip and, I am sure, to all whips. The fact is that we cannot make sure the resources such as the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands was calling for, or any of the other supports that are required, are here so we can be certain all members are safe. We need members to be safe. No one sends us here to be unsafe and to enjoy unsafe working conditions. Those are unsafe working conditions. Who knew they were unsafe? The Leader of the Opposition did. He did six votes from his seat and 124 of them from a McDonald's franchise and a Conservative fundraiser.
252 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:27:12 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, that is of course exactly why we reject the premise that this in any way would undermine the rights of parliamentarians; in fact, it would expand them. It would allow members more time and more opportunity, potentially, to debate bills that are contentious.
We hope the time available and afforded to the members of the official opposition would allow them to participate in debate a little more constructively rather than obstructively and putting up all of the fake roadblocks and obstacles they like to put up to toxify the environment here and have Canadians turn away from the proceedings of this institution and disengage from the public life of our country. We do not want that. We want members of the opposition to make positive, constructive interventions in the debate, and we would be allowing them the time to do that.
143 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:28:45 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the answer is this: not nearly as much as was taken away by making interpreters work for 30 hours straight.
22 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:29:37 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, to extend the hypothetical situation, what kind of boss says that he is not letting anyone leave the chamber until Christmas, that he is going to make sure that everyone stays in the House and votes until Christmas until he gets his way, then five minutes later, hypothetically, goes to a fundraiser on the Island of Montreal, and on his way back visits a McDonald's franchise and makes a big, gaudy spectacle of coming in here with bags of french fries and hamburgers for the skeleton crew that is left behind?
While 158 or so Liberal members and people from the Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party were here protecting the things Canadians hold dear, the guy who wanted to keep us here until Christmas and was not going to flinch flinched awfully fast.
142 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:31:38 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, that member voted against the Canada child benefit or her party did. That member voted against dental care for our most vulnerable children and seniors. That member voted against child care. That member regularly obstructs and voted against 130 measures before Christmas that would have supported the very people she professes to want to help.
This will be a recurring debate in this chamber. These people like to talk in slogans with glib lines—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
82 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:32:44 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, those members are good with the fake outrage, but they are also very good at blocking needed supports for the people they profess to care about, but do not. They are very good at obstructing all of the things that this government proposes that will help those very people.
51 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/24 5:35:06 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my former counterpart, who was the chief opposition whip. I know of his very legitimate concerns for members and I thank him for pointing out that perhaps he too objects to all-night voting. I know that, in an honest moment, that member would probably agree that it is a very bad idea.
I will say this, though. I do reject the premise that giving that member and his colleagues more time to present their constructive ideas to Canadians is somehow a danger for the rules of this place. We are allowing time for more debate and allowing that member more time to put his ideas across.
113 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
