House Hansard - 52

44th Parl. 1st Sess.

April 4, 2022 11:00AM

Apr/4/22 4:36:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have to ask what we are doing here. Honest to God, what are we doing here? Yes, today we are debating a concurrence motion on a report from the finance committee. In three days, we are going to table a budget, and there will be a whole host of debates on the different elements in it.. Every time I have come into the House in the last two weeks and tried to figure out what is going on, it is a repeat of Bill C-8 continuously. We have debated this bill, and then the Conservatives bring this forward. They then stand and talk about measures that matter to their constituents, measures that the member rightly points out are in the legislation that they keep delaying. I love hearing from the member for Winnipeg North, but I do not need to hear him again talking about the government's good work. I do not. I want to hear something else. Can the member opposite at least talk about the delay? We need to get on with the legislative agenda of the government and this Parliament, and Conservatives need to stop delaying it.

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Context: House Hansard - 52 - Apr/4/22

Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)

Apr/4/22 5:41:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to this concurrence motion regarding a report that was done by the finance committee and then tabled. For those who might be tuning in today to watch and who are asking themselves what the motion is all about, basically the Conservative Party has decided to table a report that I bet will pass unanimously in this House when we get to the time for voting. People might ask why the Conservatives would do that. In my opinion, it is for no reason other than to just delay the work of this House. Of course, they will give us their fake outrage about how the democratic process entitles everybody to speak forever and ever, and they are not wrong about that. However, the reality of the situation is that there are things we need to deal with in this House. One of those things is passing the fall economic statement. We are unable to do that because the Conservative Party is putting up speaker after speaker to drag out the process. The Conservatives are probably starting to run out of speakers now, but one of the reasons they had to bring in this concurrence motion is to add a little more time, at least three hours, to this debate. That is my opinion on why we happen to be debating this concurrence motion right now. Although the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberals all realize that maybe it is time to pass the fall economic statement, and it would be great if we could pass it before we pass the spring budget that will be introduced in a couple of days, the Conservative Party is relentless, quite frankly, because it figures this one motion is going to be its pathway to victory in the next election. I am sure that is what the Conservatives are thinking, and that is how we have ended up here. It is either that or just to tell Canadians later on that the government was unable to conduct its business, all for reasons of its own making, and that of course none of that had to do with the Conservatives. We are here because our procedural rules permit this to happen. We are talking about a report that I am very confident will pass unanimously in this House when we get to it. There was a comment earlier, when one of your counterparts, Madam Speaker, was in the chair, by the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, who got extremely excited when the member for Winnipeg North accused some of the Conservative bench of being far right. I would point out that the member for Winnipeg North did not even say “alt right”; he said “far right”. I would say that the member for Winnipeg North was being extremely generous when he made that comment about being on the far right. If the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon is so concerned about members of his party being labelled “far right”, he might want to, I do not know, talk to the member for Lethbridge or the member for Saskatoon West. He could talk to them about maybe not coming into the House and calling the Prime Minister a dictator. That kind of rhetoric and language certainly leads in the direction of understanding why they might really be considered far right. I will give another example. How about on February 17 in this House, when the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke said, “Canadians want foreign interference”—

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House Hansard - 52