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Garnett Genuis

Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
Conservative

Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan
Alberta
Voting Attendance: 67%
Expenses Last Quarter: $170,231.20

Government Page

Apr/8/24 1:03:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question from my colleague. We are seeing democratic decline in this country and a lack of respect for our democratic institutions. The Prime Minister recently announced that the government is spending millions of dollars to look at the link between democratic decline and climate change. If he wants to learn more about democratic decline, my suggestion is that he just buy a large mirror, though he probably already has a few of those. He can learn a lot about democratic decline if he just buys a large mirror.

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Context: House Hansard - 98 - Sep/20/22

Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Sep/20/22 7:10:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here tonight. Objective International analysis shows that Canada faces democratic decline. Our democracy in Canada is not about to cease to exist, but it is weakening under pressure from the Prime Minister. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, or IDEA, in Stockholm is the global authority on democracy evaluation. Its data underlines that Canada's score on key variables has dropped precipitously since 2015 when the Liberal government took office. This is not just what Conservatives are saying. The Objective International monitor shows that the Liberal Prime Minister is bad for democracy. According to IDEA, Canada's performance is particularly dropping as it relates to checks on government, which are the constraints on arbitrary executive power. On this metric, we are now lower than the United States and every single country in western Europe. It may be that we have always had a strong executive branch in Canada, but the Prime Minister is presiding over a dramatic increase in his own ability to exercise arbitrary power, regardless of the concerns raised by citizens and other institutions. This data particularly shows that the weakening of Parliament and the capacity for Parliament to scrutinize government action is driving that democratic decline. The government increasingly sees Parliament as a rubber-stamp body instead of a meaningful check on government power and the beating heart of a genuinely deliberative democracy. There are many specific events that underline this decline and the ability of Parliament and other institutions to constrain arbitrary executive power: the SNC-Lavalin scandal, where the Prime Minister's Office sought to influence then attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould; the suspension of debate and committee study on key legislative items; the prolonged suspension of Parliament during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic; the refusal of the government to hand over documents ordered by parliamentary committees; and the use of the Emergencies Act by the government to freeze the bank accounts of citizens they disagreed with without due process. These are some of the examples that mark the clear expansion of the use of arbitrary executive power and, therefore, the weakening of democracy. The key institutions that check government power in healthy democracies are Parliament, the media and the courts. The Liberal government is undermining Parliament through its abuses of process here and the NDP has been complicit along the way. Liberals are also undermining the independence of the media through public subsidy and through efforts of social media control. The media play a critical role in a free democracy, yet the government is trying to bring the media under its influence by introducing state subsidies for private media and proposing legislation to control social media algorithms. Needless to say, the government's efforts to co-opt and control the media are a much greater threat to democracy than simple media criticism. Trust is being lost in our institutions precisely because, according to the international data, our institutions are losing their ability to constrain government and a particular executive action. The threat to democracy in Canada is from those who are causing this phenomenon, not from those who are pointing it out. Trust in our institutions is declining because our institutions themselves are weakening in their ability to check government power under increasing pressure from the growing arbitrary power of an undemocratic Prime Minister's Office. The Liberals need to face up to the problems they are causing. We cannot solve the problems we are facing together if we do not have a functioning independent Parliament and free media that depends on viewers instead of on the state for its support. Therefore, I ask these questions tonight: Is the government prepared to recognize the damage it has done in the last seven years? Is it prepared to change course and support the strengthening of Parliament, free media and Canadian democracy?

649 words

Context: House Hansard - 80 - Jun/2/22

Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Jun/2/22 3:05:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Stockholm is the global authority on evaluating the performance of democracies. It provides objective analysis on the health of democracies. In the key category of checks on government, Canada’s score has dropped precipitously since 2015. We are now lower than the United States and every single country in western Europe. Weakening checks on government power is weakening Canadian democracy, and international experts are noticing. When will the government face up to the problem it is causing and commit to reversing democratic decline in Canada?

97 words

Context: House Hansard - 80 - Jun/2/22

Mr. Garnett Genuis

Jun/2/22 12:52:30 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-14

Madam Speaker, the hon. member did not listen or he did not want to listen. IDEA, the organization I referred to that ranks global democracies across a series of metrics, draws on various metrics, and Freedom House is part of the input data that IDEA uses. IDEA ranks democratic performance across a range of metrics including civil liberties, checks on government, pluralism and other metrics. What I said is specifically on the metric of checks on government. I did not talk about civil liberties. There are issues there but I did not talk about them. On the issue of checks on government, our objective ranking is declining. The member's question completely ignored my comment on how checks on government and metrics on effective Parliament are in decline. On checks on government and effective Parliament, we have dropped massively in international ranking since 2015. That is a different metric from civil liberties. It is an extremely important metric and the member should be aware of the difference.

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Garnett Genuis