SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Alistair MacGregor

  • Member of Parliament
  • Caucus Chair
  • NDP
  • Cowichan—Malahat—Langford
  • British Columbia
  • Voting Attendance: 66%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $140,733.69

  • Government Page
  • Feb/13/24 6:54:46 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-62 
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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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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  • Feb/12/24 1:48:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is well aware of all our work on the special joint committee. We sat together on that committee from the beginning. In our recommendation of our most recent report, we put in that recommendation “qualitative benchmarks”, not any kind of a reference to a time frame but more based on whether we had appropriate recommendations from departments and on consultation with provincial and territorial governments, and also the indigenous peoples of Canada. Similarly, in the letter that was received by the federal government from seven out of 10 provinces and all three territories, there were more qualitative benchmarks, in that the ministers were asking for an indefinite pause based on further collaboration and consultation. I know Bloc members have asked for a one-year delay, but how do they reconcile that with the fact that so many are calling for these qualitative benchmarks to be established rather than an arbitrary timeline?
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