44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 28, 2024 02:00PM
- Feb/28/24 5:16:24 p.m.
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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.
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- Feb/28/24 5:18:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not sure whether the member is the government House leader or whether the member for New Westminster—Burnaby is the government House leader; I have not had that clarified. However, I have listened to his comment.
Our job is to be the opposition. With all due respect to my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands, I listened to her saying we need a doctor and we need a nurse, but these are the very things we are in the House of Commons fighting for. The people in York—Simcoe cannot even ask for that. They do not have a doctor. They do not have a nurse. It is the very government across the aisle that is shutting down debate.
In my riding, we are sitting there fighting, wanting to talk about getting the rural top-up on the carbon tax. Here we are, and the current government is classifying my first nations, our first nations in York—Simcoe, as urban and part of Toronto. These are the debates we want to have, and again we see the government shutting down debate.
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- Feb/28/24 5:19:23 p.m.
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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—
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- Feb/28/24 5:19:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. I have to clarify that. With all due respect, I did not ridicule the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.
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- Feb/28/24 5:19:53 p.m.
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Even though that is a point of debate, I appreciate the clarification.
The hon. government House leader has the floor.
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- Feb/28/24 5:19:59 p.m.
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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.
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- Feb/28/24 5:21:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I find it comical when I come in here and hear my Conservative colleague talk about people working hard, like my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands, for whom it takes 12 and a half hours, as it does for me, and three flights, on average, to get here. Members know we will be here tonight in late Adjournment Proceedings, dragging the Speaker and the government here. It is not a question of working hard. It takes some Conservative colleagues two hours to get here, and they are complaining about how hard we work.
The Conservative member talked about health care. Conservatives cut funding to health care. Ask people who live in Ontario, where Doug Ford lives, or people where Danielle Smith of the UCP lives. They do not stand up for workers. What we are talking about here is ensuring that workers are not working 30 hours, or from midnight to 9 a.m.
The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands talked about ensuring health supports for somebody. We cannot wait until somebody dies of a heart attack. “It is not worth the cost” is what the Conservatives keep talking about. Someone losing their life here by working from midnight until nine in the morning is not standing up for workers' rights. It is not being responsible and is not showing leadership.
If we listen to experts, a medical doctor or a mental health doctor, they would say this is not sustainable and is not appropriate. If we are going to show leadership in this country, it is time we stop sitting all night, from midnight until nine in the morning. I want to be here until midnight. I want to work; I came here to work, but we have to take responsibility and show leadership. This is the right decision and long overdue.
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- Feb/28/24 5:23:13 p.m.
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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.
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- Feb/28/24 5:25:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member was a lobbyist for numerous multinational corporations, and has since been in the House for a long time and knows he cannot refer to whether a member is or is not in the House.
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- Feb/28/24 5:25:28 p.m.
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On that point of order, Mr. Speaker, it is of public record how a member voted, whether in person or on the app. All the House leader did was reference that.
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- Feb/28/24 5:25:38 p.m.
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I think I have said on many occasions in the last few days that the record is fair game. If it is on the books, it is actually on the public record, but we just cannot say whether somebody is in the chamber or not.
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- Feb/28/24 5:25:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when I look at what is being proposed by the government, one thing is the response to the need to have additional debate time on government legislation. That is really what this is all about, in addition to not having to sit or vote for 30 hours straight, including between midnight and 9 a.m.
This would be to enable members to address and debate more on government legislation. I would think that having more time would be a good thing that members opposite would want to support, because I often see them on the other side crying and saying they want more time. We would be giving them more time, and I would think they would support the motion to extend the time. Many Canadians from coast to coast to coast work into the evenings. There is nothing wrong with members of Parliament having to work a few extra hours in the evening to allow for more debate.
Could I get the government House leader's thoughts on that?
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- Feb/28/24 5:27:12 p.m.
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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.
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- Feb/28/24 5:28:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, hopefully we will get an answer on this, because I know, working on the subcommittee and as the chair, that I saw a lot of cancellations of committee meetings due to the fact that resources were tight. Committees are where we find out about some of the horrible things that are happening, sometimes in the community and sometimes because of the government's actions.
I wonder how much time would be cancelled from committee work, where we are unfolding and finding out all of the information on government programs and scandals. How much would the government be taking away from committee work to be able to resource this?
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- Feb/28/24 5:28:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the answer is this: not nearly as much as was taken away by making interpreters work for 30 hours straight.
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- Feb/28/24 5:28:49 p.m.
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- Feb/28/24 5:28:57 p.m.
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Questions and comments, the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.
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- Feb/28/24 5:29:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a rhetorical question for my colleague, which is simply this: What boss would force their employees, the interpreters, administrative assistants, clerks and parliamentary security staff, to work 30 hours straight, but would run off after one hour of voting? I am not pointing fingers at anybody in particular, like the member for Carleton, but it does seem to me that is an abusive boss.
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- Feb/28/24 5:29:37 p.m.
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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.
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- Feb/28/24 5:31:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are the opposition. We are here to protect all Canadians. They talk about health. They talk about the fact that 3.17 million meals were served by a food bank in Toronto, and 3,000 deliveries made to seniors because they cannot afford to buy food because of the tax implications.
They have to axe the tax. If they care about health, then they should care about feeding the people who cannot afford to eat.
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