44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 28, 2024 02:00PM
- Feb/28/24 7:28:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I just want some clarity here in terms of identifying people who we know are voting virtually, which is seen by the public, and people who are voting in the House. When two-thirds of the Conservatives voted virtually to end virtual Parliament, for example, people saw that Conservatives were voting virtually against something that they want to use. They were against using the app, but they used it to vote against.
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- Feb/28/24 7:28:44 p.m.
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I take the hon. member's point, and I did mention that, obviously, virtual Parliament has blurred the lines a bit. However, it remains a fact that we do not, on purpose, make reference to absence or presence in the House.
Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
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- Feb/28/24 7:29:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the question I have for my colleague across the way is on recognizing that there is a finite amount of time that is available for debate on government bills and that the motion we are actually debating would greatly enhance the amount of time for members of Parliament to debate. This way, with respect to government legislation and budgetary matters that come before the chamber, members on all sides of the House would be provided a lot more time. Given that many Canadians work well past six or seven o'clock in the evening, does he see anything wrong with extending the hours to allow for more debate time and being reasonable by saying that it is not going to go past midnight? I see that as a positive win for democracy. Could the member provide his thoughts on that?
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- Feb/28/24 7:30:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is no doubt that we need to work harder and smarter. New Democrats have always said that; this is why we believe in, and I have always supported, having evening sessions. This is not new for New Democrats.
However, what I find perplexing is the Conservatives' opposition to the idea that we would provide health breaks for employees and that we would work through evening sessions. I find it equally perplexing that Conservatives oppose dental care. The NDP's plan for dental care helps, on average, 30,000 constituents of each and every Conservative MP, yet they voted against it. Affordable housing helps thousands of people. We saw, under the Harper regime, that they destroyed 800,000 affordable housing units. Now, the NDP is fighting to put those housing units back, and Conservatives vote against it. They voted against the grocery rebate, and I gather that they are going to vote against pharmacare, which would help, on average, 15,000 constituents in each and every Conservative riding.
If Conservatives are not standing up for their constituents, why are they here?
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- Feb/28/24 7:31:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what has been very interesting in this discussion is that we are seeing the NDP desperate to distract from the fact that its members are forced to abandon their principles and prop up one of the most corrupt regimes in Canadian history. We have corruption on one side and lazy corruption in the leader of the NDP over there.
Why is that member forcing, through limiting debate on standing orders, something that should be done through consensus? Why is he showing Canadians that the NDP and the Liberals are allergic to work? That member has obviously never pulled a calf on a cold March morning, and he certainly never sat in a combine at 3 a.m. in September, when we know that the weather is turning. Why are they so terrified of working for Canadians in this place? Why is that member specifically so bent on propping up the corruption we see within the Liberal Party?
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- Feb/28/24 7:33:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, first off, the Harper regime was the most corrupt in Canadian history. I do not need to mention that members of that regime went to jail. Does the member not remember Conservative members of Parliament being led away in handcuffs?
Second, for that member to raise the issue of working people to a person like me, who worked as a labourer for many years, worked the midnight shift in factories, worked in an oil refinery and did real, hard work, when the member for Carleton's sum total of work experience, before he arrived at the incredible Conservative milk machine of pouring all kinds of money into Conservative candidates, was one month at a Dairy Queen. That is all he brought. He had no work experience whatsoever, yet the member tries to question the work experience of real working MPs who are here. There is a member who worked as a farmer behind me, and the member for Elmwood—Transcona worked as an electrician. These are people who did real work, who got their boots dirty. Meanwhile, the member for Carleton actually shows, on Twitter, his boots with a little bit of mud—
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- Feb/28/24 7:34:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, Canadians demand an answer from the MP as to whether or not he is saying that younger Canadians should not be involved in politics because that is an absolute disgrace—
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- Feb/28/24 7:34:36 p.m.
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That is debate. That is not a point of order.
I will allow the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby to finish his answer.
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- Feb/28/24 7:34:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the sum total of his work experience, outside the Conservative Party and all this money that comes from billionaires for Conservatives, was a month in a Dairy Queen. For somebody to run, saying that they have the experience to run a country, when all they have done, aside from work in the very Conservative infrastructure, is worked in a Dairy Queen, is a little too rich.
The member for Burnaby South, who is the leader of the NDP, brings a rich work experience, not only working from in a whole variety of manual labour and service jobs, but also from working as a lawyer.
We will put our—
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- Feb/28/24 7:35:25 p.m.
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It is time for the next question.
The hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to try to lower the temperature.
I really want to put today's motion in the context of Bill C-50 because I think that bill in particular illustrates the reasoning behind the motion. When Bill C-50 was at committee, the Conservatives, I highly suspect, used ChatGPT's AI technology to generate 20,000 amendments. Their plan failed, and those amendments were actually cleared in about an hour's time because they did not do their homework. The Conservatives are now trying the same thing at the report stage with 200 amendments.
I think some people watching this debate may get the incorrect idea that we are doing away with votes. I am wondering if the member for New Westminster—Burnaby could be clear that we are still going to have those votes, but the motion would allow members to have those health breaks and would allow the important staff who support this place to have those health breaks as well, so we are not putting anyone's health at risk while still conducting the democratic needs of the nation in the House.
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Madam Speaker, the member is asking the kind of thoughtful questions that should be asked in this place.
Unfortunately, the Conservatives never seem to ask a question that has any depth at all. In the case of the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, he does extraordinary work in the agriculture committee, and he has done work in a wide variety of areas that help to really advance public policy in Canada.
The member is absolutely right, that what the Conservatives are endeavouring to do is to basically stop Parliament and stop getting legislation through that would actually help people. They want to block everything. Bill C-50 would actually provide for energy workers good well-paying jobs in the energy industry. I come out of the energy industry, having worked in an oil refinery, the Shelburn oil refinery, sadly now closed, in Burnaby, B.C. I know for a fact that it is important for energy workers to have access to good, unionized, well-paying jobs.
What was the Conservative response? A little like Danielle Smith in Alberta, who wants to shut down clean energy and ensure that those jobs do not come to Albertans, Conservatives want to block legislation and make sure that those good, clean energy jobs are not available.
That is why it is important to get it right. That is why it is important to have the health breaks when the Conservatives provide for obstruction. The members of the NDP, as the adults in the room, are going to make sure that we get the job done, and we do it in a way that does not harm the health and safety of the many employees who keep this place running.
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- Feb/28/24 7:38:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, something needs to be cleared up here.
The member is suggesting that somehow young people should not be involved in politics. The Leader of the Opposition is proud to be involved, in this case, in Conservative politics. That member is suggesting, somehow, that young people do not have a role to play in our democracy. That is certainly disgraceful and something that the old NDP, which used to have principles, would have resoundingly rejected.
When is the NDP going to stand up for the namesake of its party and actually defend democracy, as opposed to simply being lackeys for the Liberals and supporting their corruption?
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- Feb/28/24 7:39:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is hard to take that question seriously.
The point I was making is that the member for Carleton is simply a workplace tourist. When he shows videos of himself with a little mud on his shoes, and he has only worked in a real private sector job for one month of his life, in a Dairy Queen, he does not bring a lot of depth or gravitas to the job of running what is a G7 or G8 country. That is the point I was making.
Also, in contrast to the member, I started volunteering for the NDP at the age of 14. I did not have money poured on me. I worked by day in a brewery. At night, I was a volunteer, knocking on doors—
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- Feb/28/24 7:40:04 p.m.
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We are out of time.
Resuming debate, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
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- Feb/28/24 7:40:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to talk about how this motion is good for democracy. It is good, and I would anticipate that we should actually be receiving—
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- Feb/28/24 7:40:27 p.m.
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I have to interrupt the hon. parliamentary secretary.
The hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil is rising on a point of order.
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- Feb/28/24 7:40:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would gladly accept if the hon. member wanted to split his time with me.
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Maybe on another day, Madam Speaker.
I am pleased to talk about the motion we have before us, which one would think every member of the House of Commons would support. People who are following the debate should have an appreciation of what the motion would do, which is fairly straightforward.
On the one hand, we are seeing a lot of legislation. The government has a very healthy and progressive legislative agenda, and there is a limited amount of time during normal work hours, because the hours are set. The motion would give the opportunity, where there is a great level of interest, to have more debate on specific legislation or an agenda item from the government by allowing an extended sitting. This means we would have the evenings to continue debate.
Why would anyone believe having more debate is not a good thing here on the floor of the House of Commons? When we factor in all the whining and complaining we hear from the Conservatives at times about wanting more debate time on legislation, we would be giving them what they want. However, I suspect the Conservatives are likely going to be voting against that. When they take their time to stand or register their vote on the hybrid system, they will likely be voting against having more time for debate.
This is one important thing that the legislation would do.
The other thing it would do is provide the opportunity for us to prevent 24-hour voting sessions. The last time this happened, back in December, I can recall coming into the House early in the morning, starting debates and so forth and then the Conservatives saying that they wanted a standing vote and were going to force everybody to vote for the next 20 hours or so. I am going to go into this in a bit and talk about some of the things we voted on.
At a workplace where one is literally dealing with billions and billions of tax dollars and is expected to be aware of the content being voted on, or at least I would like to think members are aware of what they are voting on, it would be reasonable to expect one would not have to vote around the clock.
I had seen a nice graph provided by the member for Kingston and the Islands. If one looks at the graph, one sees there is fairly good participation until it became bedtime for the Conservatives. All of a sudden, instead of having 90% participation, it starts to drop. Once 11 o'clock hit, or getting close to midnight, it really plummets on the Conservatives' side. The good news is I think they stayed just above the 50%. I am not 100% sure of that, but I think it was just above. It might have dipped below, but I do not know for sure.
The point is the Conservatives saw the light back then, because at least half of them did not have a problem taking a health break so they could be more awake for the remaining votes. What we are proposing is to put in place a rule that would enable not only the Conservative Party members to have their sleep time but all members of the House to have a health break. I see that as a good thing. At least half of the Conservatives should be voting in favour of that one; otherwise, they may have a tough time looking in the mirror because that is exactly what they did the last time we had a voting marathon.
The other thing it provides for is for third reading to take place on the same day for which report stage is approved. That is an important aspect. Let me make it relevant to something that happened today where we had a sense of co-operation. There was, for example, a Conservative private member's bill that came up for report stage. All it would have taken was for any group to stand up when report stage was called, and say they would like a recorded vote. In fact, that happens. As a direct result, debate ends, or technically, does not even start, and then it is dropped until the next time it appears for third reading.
Instead of doing that, because we understood that the member wanted to have the private member's bill, Bill C-318, debated, we agreed, and then debate started at third reading. If we as a government recognize the value of that, and if private Conservative members recognize the value of it, then one would think there has to be a good percentage of Conservatives who would agree that the government should be able to have the same sort of treatment. It is a common courtesy. It was in the best interest of all concerned to have that take place.
From my perspective, those are the three big things taking place in the motion. It begs the question why any member of the House of Commons would vote against the measures being proposed. The short answer is that there is, I will not say a hidden agenda, because it is actually quite obvious, but a tactic that the Conservative Party has been using for years. I often refer to it as a destructive force here on the floor of the House of Commons. There are some people, especially from the far right, and we can call them the MAGA element or whatever we want, who at times have a disdain for institutions like the House of Commons. They want to show as much as possible that it is dysfunctional, believing they benefit by that.
I want people to think about this: There is an opposition party that criticizes the government for not getting its legislation through, but the reason we cannot get it through is that the Conservative Party, the opposition party, is playing games and preventing it from going through. It does not take much to prevent legislation from going through in the normal process. We could allow 12 students from Sisler High School, Maples Collegiate, R.B. Russell, Children of the Earth or St. John's High School, any school in my riding, to sit in the chamber, and that could prevent legislation from passing. It does not take much at all.
I remind my Conservative friends to realize what a majority of members in the chamber have realized, and that was that in the last election, a minority government was elected. That means that the government has to, as there is no choice, work on consensus and build with at least one willing partner in order to get things through. Otherwise it is not going to happen. That is one of the things the government should take away from the last election.
The official opposition also has a role to recognize. The official opposition, in particular its current leader, has not recognized the responsibility given by the people of Canada back in 2021. That member has a responsibility that I have not witnessed. I have seen the games by members of the Conservative Party. They do whatever they can to prevent legislation from passing and then criticize the government for not getting legislation passed. There are so many examples of that. We just finished an hour of debate on Bill C-318. In fact, I was the last to speak to it. There is no doubt that Bill C-318 is a very important piece of legislation. Listen to what people actually say about Bill C-318. Is there anyone in the chamber who does not support the principles being proposed? I would argue no.
We understand the value of Bill C-318. That is why, as a political party, with the Prime Minister, we made an election promise to follow through with the principles of Bill C-318. Let us look at the last budget. There was some preliminary work a year ago on this same issue about adoptive parents and how we could ensure they would get EI benefits. If we look at the mandate letters the Prime Minister gives to ministers, we can see that those principles are incorporated in them. Everyone knows that the government is moving forward on the issue.
The kicker is that it is actually in legislation today, Bill C-59, the fall economic statement. It is a very important piece of legislation that would support Canadians in a very real and tangible way. Where is that legislation today? It is still in second reading. The Conservatives refuse to pass it. When we call it forward, they come up with games. They do not want that legislation to pass.
Let us look at what happened during the previous fall economic statement. We were debating the budget of 2023-24 while we were still on the 2022 fall economic statement. That is bizarre. The Conservative Party members refused to pass the legislation. They would rather filibuster, knowing full well that there is a limited amount of time. Any group of grade 12 students would be able to do what they are doing, so it is no great achievement, unless, of course, they are trying to prove something. They are trying to say that the government is ineffective because the institution is broken.
The problem with this institution is that we do not have an opposition party that recognizes its true responsibilities. Conservative members' major objective is to be a destructive force on the floor of the House of Commons. What is the impact of that? Let us go back to the private member's bill, Bill C-318. If they had passed the fall economic statement when it should have been passed, then Bill C-318 would be virtually redundant and not be a necessary piece of legislation. In fact, it would have provided even more for adoptive parents in a family unit than Bill C-318.
However, it is not the first time, if we think of the types of legislation we have brought through. Sometimes, Conservatives will even filibuster legislation they agree with, as well as legislation they oppose. I remember my first speech on the Canada-Ukraine trade agreement. I was very generous with my comments. I honestly thought everyone was going to support it. It is a trade agreement that even the NDP, the Bloc and the Green Party supported. For the first time ever, Conservatives voted against a trade agreement and slowed down the debate on that legislation. Here we have a country at war, whose president came to Canada in September to sign the first trade agreement for Ukraine, sending a powerful message during a time of war, and the Conservative Party turned their backs on Ukraine and ultimately prevented the bill from passing as soon as it can—
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- Feb/28/24 7:56:59 p.m.
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I believe we have a point of order. The hon. member for North Okanagan—Shuswap.
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