SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

James Bezan

  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman
  • Manitoba
  • Voting Attendance: 68%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $140,796.07

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 212 - Jun/13/23
Mr. James Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, CPC)
  • Jun/13/23 7:05:57 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my colleagues across the way, they might want to see the flexibility that hybrid brings, but in reality, as they just pointed out, it can be abused as well. The sense of honour of being in this chamber has always been to protect the individual member and to ensure that changes to the rules were done through consensus of every member of this House. I have been here for 19 years and I have actually seen, when changes to the Standing Orders were attempted, one member deny that change. We went for unanimous consent, and it was not there. In light of the fact that these changes to the Standing Orders, the way our Parliament functions, have nothing to do with party affiliation, they should be done through consensus and not through this hammer-fisted unilateral move that we are seeing right now from the Liberals and the NDP.
156 words
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  • Rabble!
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Context: House Hansard - 212 - Jun/13/23
Mr. James Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, CPC)
  • Jun/13/23 6:47:27 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, I am quite disturbed that we are sitting here having this debate tonight on changing the Standing Orders through a forced vote. I have been around this place for some time, since 2004. Whenever there have been changes to the Standing Orders, they have been done through consensus, not by having one party or its collaborators, this time the NDP, ramming it down the throats of all the other parties. This is a dangerous precedent that the Liberals are trying to set. The member mentioned that we needed to do this during the pandemic. First of all, if she missed the news, the pandemic has officially ended, according to the WHO. Second, we know there was an opportunity during the pandemic, when we were all here, to make the changes that happened to ensure that Parliament can exist through virtual Parliament. Third, the one thing that happens in virtual Parliament that does not happen here is that there is a lack of empathy. We cannot interact with other members on Zoom like we can in the House. We miss out on the sidebar conversations that happen between all members of the House, not just within their own caucuses. That is the way we build personal relationships. Those relationships were destroyed because of the pandemic, especially for those who were elected after 2019. I can tell members that if we want to repair that and make this place a more inclusive, collaborative chamber, then we need to get rid of virtual Parliament and work side by side on dealing with the issues that are important to all Canadians.
269 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
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