- Member of Parliament
- Minister of Health
- Liberal
- Ajax
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $134,982.00
- Government Page
- Jun/15/23 4:22:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would respond in the following way.
The history is important. Let us remember that this system was created, with unanimity, in the depths of the pandemic. All parties agreed to how it would function and how it would work. Then those provisions started to live, and those provisions have lived for the last three years. In fact, the proposal that is on the table now is a continuance of an existing system that the member uses regularly, that I use regularly and that I think every member of this House has used. I see members rail against the utilization of these provisions, and then they turn on their application and vote electronically or they turn on their screen and use it.
After this system was unanimously created and had existed for three years, the procedure and House affairs committee heard from witnesses and did very detailed work, exactly as the member is describing. What came out of it was that it became very clear that two parties were against this under all conditions. The parties were asked numerous times what it would take for them to support it and if there was any flexibility: The answer was “no”. They do not support it in any form and they do not support it in any function.
As a result, we are at the point where continuing the debate means just listening to “no” a thousand times over. That does not make sense. At some point, we have to proceed to implement it, and that is what we are doing today.
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Madam Speaker, what I absolutely will offer is the opportunity to sit down, as I have always said from the beginning of this, to work as we did on, as an example, Bill C-3. I have to say that the Conservatives came forward with a number of proposals on Bill C-3 to improve the bill, and we were able to do that. In so doing, we also created a calendar for when we were able to adopt it, to make sure we got Canadians the support they needed, both for the pandemic and to make important changes that the Conservatives brought forward.
I would say to the member opposite, as I have said to their House leader many, many times, that, if they want to bring something forward, if they are looking to improve a bill, or if they are looking to give us concrete information on how long they want to debate something, we would absolutely work with them.
I can tell members that in my time as House leader that has happened exactly zero times. Since we started this session in January, there has not been a single offer of that nature. There has been nothing put in front of us to improve a bill or to work with us on anything.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Hon. Mark Holland: Madam Speaker, the only thing, unfortunately, we have seen is obfuscation and blocking.
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- Mar/2/22 4:36:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague across the way is absolutely right. It is important to create the committee as soon as possible. It is discouraging that the Conservative Party continues to block its creation when the committee is receiving a lot of support from the other parties, not just here in the House of Commons, but also in the Senate.
The second point I want to raise is the process in the Senate, the other place. The Senate also needs to start its work, but it is waiting for us to adopt our motion to create the committee. The longer the House of Commons waits, the longer the Senate also has to wait.
It is time to start our work because this is so important. There is a very reasonable proposal on the table, and now it is time to create the committee.
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- Mar/2/22 4:30:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the impasse seems to be on that very point. My hon. colleague is correct that the impasse is on the Conservatives' insistence on chairing a process when they had taken such a clear side. One of their members called it “Canada Day times a thousand”.
They are yelling across the aisle because I understand they do not want to wait for their questions. Neither do we, and that is why we are not chairing. Perhaps the hon. member will understand that we have given up the chair and that they have taken a strident position of being in favour of the illegal activities and cheerleading those activities and that therefore they would be inappropriate to be the chair. That is why we have moved this reasonable proposal.
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- Mar/2/22 4:25:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have some of the same reflections. It is confusing to hear the official opposition demand on the one hand that the process get started and on the other hand obfuscate and delay the process from starting.
I would hope the hon. members across have not just adopted a position that they want and are not listening to anybody else. They got to do that when they had a majority with Stephen Harper, but they do not get to do that now. They need to listen to other parties. We have a proposal that is supported not only by two other parties in this House but also by the independent Senate group, the progressive Senate group and, we hope, by the Canada Senate group as well.
We have worked on a proposal whereby we all compromise and we all got together so that we could move forward with this oversight. The Conservatives are saying they want oversight, and yet they are delaying the said oversight. It makes one wonder why they do not want to have this oversight move forward.
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- Mar/2/22 4:23:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said, I am here for 30 minutes, so they have lots of opportunity to ask questions when they stand.
One of the things I would say that I think is unique and positive about this proposal is that it does put two opposition parties in the chair, one that was for the act and one that was against the act, and it allows the Senate to appropriately choose its co-chair. The Conservatives on this committee actually have the same number of caucus members as the government. They have three caucus members and we have three caucus members. I see this as a pre-eminently fair, reasonable proposal.
It is time to get on with it. In fact, this committee has to report back within seven sitting days. We do not have a lot of time to waste.
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