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May/2/22 12:04:45 p.m.
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I am now ready to rule on the points of order raised on April 28, 2022, by the chief opposition whip and the House leader of the official opposition concerning, respectively, the admissibility and division of Government Business No. 11. The chief opposition whip challenged the admissibility of subparagraph (b)(ii) of the motion which will prohibit quorum calls after 6:30 p.m. on extended sitting days. The member argued that a 20-member quorum is a constitutional requirement, explicitly stated in section 48 of the Constitution Act, 1867. To this I would add that this quorum obligation is also found in Standing Order 29. The member alleged that the motion would render this requirement meaningless, as there would be no means of enforcing it. He also suggested that the House cannot, by motion alone, alter a constitutional requirement in regard to the minimum presence of members. For his part, the House leader of the official opposition maintained that Government Business No. 11 is an omnibus motion, consisting of several parts, each capable of standing on its own. In his view, the motion could be divided into seven separate questions, each debated and voted on individually, while noting that some parts could be grouped together for debate. Citing instances when this had happened, he asked the Chair to exercise its authority and divide the motion as per his suggestion. The Parliamentary Secretary to the government House leader countered that the motion does not require any division since the unifying theme is to organize the business of the House for the remaining weeks before the summer adjournment. He submitted that similar motions containing many provisions relating to the business of the House have been adopted in the past, without being divided. The Chair will begin by addressing the elements brought forward by the chief opposition whip. While he is correct in stating that certain elements of our procedure are provided for in the Constitution and are not subject to amendment or suspension by motion alone, the Chair does not believe that this is what the motion does. It instead prevents members from drawing the Chair’s attention to the absence of a quorum during a particular part of the sitting. As the chief opposition whip readily concedes, there is ample precedent for such motions, as they are regularly adopted by unanimous consent in relation to debates taking place in the evenings. I find it difficult to conclude that such motions are constitutional when adopted by unanimous consent, but unconstitutional if proposed in a debatable government motion. Secondly, members will recognize that there are already circumstances during which quorum calls are not permitted. For example, Standing Order 29(5) authorizes the Speaker to take the chair when the Usher of the Black Rod is at the door whether quorum is present or not. Moreover, it is a well-established practice that a quorum call is not permitted during Oral Questions, Statements by Members, Adjournment Proceedings or the taking of a recorded division. Therefore, in the Chair's view, this provision alone does not render Government Business No. 11 inadmissible. As for the second matter concerning the division of the said motion, I would like to reiterate the ruling of one of my predecessors, cited by the House leader of the official opposition which can be found at page 65 of the Debates of October 17, 2013: In adjudicating cases of this kind, the Chair must always be mindful to approach each new case with a fresh eye, taking into account the particular circumstances of the situation at hand. Often, there is little in the way of guidance for the speaker and a strict compliance with precedent is not always appropriate. I would suggest, like my predecessors, that the Chair should exercise caution before intervening in the business of the House and, more precisely, before dividing a motion. With this in mind, the Chair has considered the arguments put forward and reviewed the provisions of Government Business No. 11. There is indeed an overall theme to the motion, relating to the management of the House’s schedule and its business, and therefore the Chair does not believe it meets the threshold required to be divided for the purpose of individual debates. However, the Chair does agree that some provisions of the motion are sufficiently distinct to be the subject of a separate vote. Therefore, I rule that the motion will be divided in three parts for the purpose of voting, which are as follows: part I, consisting of paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d), relating to the business of the House for the remaining sitting weeks until June 23; part II, consisting of paragraph (e), which relates to deadlines set for the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying; and part III, consisting of the last paragraph that seeks to permanently amend Standing Order 28(1), listing the days on which the House shall not meet. I thank all members for their attention.

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Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.)

May/2/22 12:10:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in relation to the consideration of Government Business No. 11, I move: That the debate be not further adjourned.

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Mr. John Brassard (Barrie—Innisfil, CPC)

May/2/22 12:11:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, obviously I stand with profound disappointment, for two reasons. The first is that we are even in a position where Motion No. 11 is needed by the government. The second is the fact that the Liberals have invoked closure after just two hours of debate. This is an admission by the government. What makes it worse is the fact that I suspect that the NDP is complicit in the government's action. This is a mismanagement of the government's House time on the part of the government House leader and the government. There has been a decline in democracy in this country, and it is a pattern that has existed with the current government. We saw it with Motion No. 6 in previous Parliaments. In fact, when COVID first hit, there was an introduction of a bill that would have given the government complete taxing power and power over Parliament. This pattern of disdain and contempt for this Parliament is consistent with the current government. Now that the Liberals have the NDP in their hip pocket, while this is outside the scope of the supply and confidence agreement, I suspect that we are going to see this pass. Given the circumstances and the confidence that Canadians have with respect to their public institutions and with respect to the way this place operates, how can the minister expect that this is going to create any greater confidence in the face of the decline in our democracy, when the Liberals are pulling stunts like this?

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Hon. David Lametti

May/2/22 12:13:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I, too, am disappointed. However, I am disappointed in the behaviour that is being shown by the Conservative Party in this House, obstructing, at every single turn, every single piece of legislation. We are doing this in order to facilitate debate, in order to allow the hon. members the time in which to speak. We spent 12 days debating Bill C-8. Among the things the bill would do is to help farmers get their tax credit on the carbon tax, the price on pollution. There would be billions of dollars for rapid tests. There would be ventilation for our schools. We all know a lot of parents who are concerned because their kids are going to school in the pandemic context and they want better ventilation for their schools. We had 12 days of debating a fall economic statement that includes measures to aid the lives of human beings. Can they imagine what will happen when we get to the budget? We are doing this to facilitate debate because of the obstructionist tacts by the Conservative Party.

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Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ)

May/2/22 12:14:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, time and time again, this government has obstructed democracy with the help of its NDP pals. That has to be getting a little embarrassing. They have moved an omnibus motion to run roughshod over democracy, and now here they are with a closure motion that does the same thing. The Liberals are brazenly running roughshod over democracy, which is a big deal, and it is all because they cannot for the life of them manage the legislative calendar. They are amateurs. During question period, we always point out how amateurish the Liberals are, and when we look at debate in the House, that is abundantly clear. My question is simple. Are they not tired of being such amateurs?

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Hon. David Lametti

May/2/22 12:15:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from La Prairie for his question. I am surprised that he is aligning himself with the Conservatives, who are blocking the work of the House. What we are doing here is giving members time to debate issues as they are presented. That is all. We are here to organize the legislative calendar. Canadians and Quebeckers elected us to get things done. We have an ambitious agenda, and we want to implement it. We want to work with the members of the House, but the obstructionist tactics of the Conservative Party, supported by the Bloc Québécois, are creating obstacles. That is why we want to put an end to the procedural gridlock to bring more democracy and respect to the House. As I said, I am surprised to see that the hon. member for La Prairie does not support us.

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Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

May/2/22 12:16:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am surprised at the Conservatives' attitude. They have been blocking bills that would actually provide supports, talking about Bill C-8, to teachers and farmers, and around COVID. The Conservatives have been blocking these bills for months without any explanation, except that they want to block everything that comes through the House. The solution that is being offered is that we extend debate and sit until midnight. Past Conservative governments did the same thing, with one notable exception: The Conservatives never showed up. We remember that during the dismal decade of the Harper government, we saw these kinds of motions brought forward, and over 200 times, Conservatives who were scheduled to speak did not show up to work. It is unbelievable that they would let down Canadians in the way that they have. For the life of me, I cannot understand why Conservatives object so strenuously to sitting until midnight, because that is the solution. Let us sit longer. Let us work harder. Let us get bills passed to help Canadians. My question for my colleague is simply this: Why do Conservatives object so strenuously to sitting until midnight?

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Hon. David Lametti

May/2/22 12:17:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I share that frustration. I saw it with Bill C-5 in the previous Parliament, which is now being slowed down in this Parliament, again by the Conservative Party, for ideological reasons that actually have nothing to do with the empirical evidence behind the bill. The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby, like all Canadians, wants to get things done in this House. He wants to see us accomplish measures that better the lives of Canadians, and that is what we are doing. That is what we are doing with this bill. As the hon. member pointed out, we are here to extend hours. We are here to give every issue adequate time to be ventilated and for adequate discussion to be had in order to move forward with a progressive, substantive agenda. That is why we are here. We are here to organize that. These are measures that have been taken in the past in this House. We are doing it again, and we are doing it to facilitate and prolong debate. I, too, share the surprise at the Conservative Party's not wanting to stay for fulsome debate.

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Mr. Bob Zimmer (Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, CPC)

May/2/22 12:19:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is an example of the Liberal-NDP marriage, the NDP in the corner, carrying the water for the government, when it should be debating and acting as the opposition, fighting the government. We are prepared to work, and we have been working. What the minister has set up as holding up debate on this is actually debating, doing our job as a democracy, speaking against bills when we think we should be against bills. Canadians are expecting us to be against this terrible budget, yet the government says that is obstructing Parliament. It is called debate. That is our job. This is from the Minister of Justice. It just baffles me that he would come with that as the foundation of his argument. I would ask him one simple question. This is going to have major effects on committees. How many committee meetings is he planning to stop with Motion No. 11?

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Hon. David Lametti

May/2/22 12:20:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know that our House leadership has been careful to make sure, in proposing this motion and moving forward with this plan, that the various kinds of work being done in Parliament outside of this chamber are also done in a safe, secure and healthy fashion. I am not worried about working harder. I know that members opposite like to repeat the same arguments over and over again. That is what they call debate, but they do not add anything new. We are going to give them a chance to do that for as long as they want without impeding the work of this place. It is critically important that we get legislation through. We have seen, as I have said, 12 days on the fall economic statement, which contains real measures to aid the lives of Canadians, including people they claim to want to represent, like farmers and parents. It is baffling to see the way they block and block. We are taking measures to make this place work better.

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Mr. John Brassard (Barrie—Innisfil, CPC)

May/2/22 12:21:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what is baffling is having the justice minister actually stand in this place and talk in the way he is. Bill C-8 was not introduced until December 16, so he is playing around a bit with the facts here. It went to committee February 1 and came back from committee on March 1. After December 16, the House was not sitting for six weeks, so there was no obstruction going on. Nobody on this side of the House is afraid to work. These are multi-billion dollar bills that the government for some reason expects the official opposition and the third party just to simply rubber-stamp without questioning, without proposing and without amending. How can the Liberals contribute to the further decline in our democracy? People in this country are looking at this place as its symbol, yet the government continues to contribute to the decline in democracy. I do not understand how the justice minister can stand here and defend this action by his government.

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Hon. David Lametti

May/2/22 12:22:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I dispute the hon. member's narrative of events. I have been here since 2015, and I have watched the Conservatives' systematic obstruction time and time again. I have seen it on my own bills as minister, and now we are seeing it again. I welcome the day when cameras show all the members of the House of Commons at the same time, so that Canadians can actually see the kinds of things that are happening when there is somebody speaking. It is critically important that we get our legislative agenda through. It is what the vast majority of Canadians elected us to do, and it is what we are going to do. We are using measures that have been used in the past by governments of all political stripes. The measures are going to allow for debate to happen. They will incentivize members of Parliament to use their time better, and we will get our progressive agenda through, working with other members of Parliament in good faith.

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Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

May/2/22 12:23:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we just had the opposition House leader admit to the Conservatives' blocking these bills for two months. He just stood up, went through the timeline and admitted to everybody that for two months, Conservatives blocked the bills, despite the fact that Canadian teachers have been writing to them wanting to get the tax credit that is in Bill C-8 and Canadian farmers have been writing to them. The Conservatives have thrown aside any kind of public input. They are just running rogue. They are renegades, yet they reference democracy. This is the same party that had members of its caucus endorsing the so-called “freedom convoy”, whose vowed objective was the overthrow of constitutional government. We then have Conservatives standing up in this House and trying to say that somehow they actually support democracy, with that as their track record. What a joke. What happened to the Conservative Party that in December endorsed the ban on conversion therapy, that was productive and working well in this minority Parliament? What has happened to the Conservatives over the last few months that they will even refuse to sit late and refuse to pass legislation that Canadians are asking for? What is it about the Conservative Party that has turned?

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Hon. David Lametti

May/2/22 12:25:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member indeed reminds me that Conservatives, whether inside or outside the House, seem to have fallen in love with blocking and blockades. We are here because we have many other pieces of legislation, including a budget. There is not just Bill C-8, which, as we have mentioned, has had 12 days of debate and obstruction and concurrence motions and everything else that the Conservatives can throw up in order to delay it, but also Bill C-7, which we have not debated yet, and Bill C-9, which we have not debated yet. There is Bill C-18 and there is Bill C-19. There are all kinds of things that we have yet to debate, as well as the budget, and that is because the official opposition simply wants to run out the clock; delay, delay, delay; and use every tactic at its disposal to throw this government off its agenda. Canadians do not want that. They want us to work together.

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Mr. Kyle Seeback (Dufferin—Caledon, CPC)

May/2/22 12:26:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was here from 2011 to 2015. The most shocking thing I have seen today is the member for New Westminster—Burnaby swallow himself whole. He routinely raged against any motion for closure and routinely raged against any motion for time allocation. It was as if the sky were falling. Now he is in the Liberals' back pocket, saying this is a great thing. Growing up, my parents always told me that when someone shows us who they are, we should believe them. Let us look at some things. Who would bring forward this kind of a time allocation on this motion? Perhaps it would be someone whose leader said he admired China's basic dictatorship and a justice minister who said that debate is obstruction. We see where these people are going. If this is all about debate and we want more time for debate, why does the motion include the ability for a cabinet minister to move to adjourn the House for the summer? If it is about debate, why do the Liberals not take that out and prove it is about debate? I can tell members that they will not.

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Hon. David Lametti

May/2/22 12:27:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I found the hon. member's intervention quite amusing, and I am sure he meant it that way. The House leadership, and our government House leader, have made it clear that particular provision is a common motion that is used at the end of every parliamentary session. We have put it in now with the engagement to not use it until the very last week when it is commonly used. It is there as part of this package in order to get more pieces of legislation through, and get us through to the end of June. It is there to be used at the end of the session, when it is traditionally used, on consent by all the parties, working together. That is how it will be used again.

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Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)

May/2/22 12:28:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this debate is an embarrassment. I have listened to the debate on Motion No. 11. I listened to the very lengthy speech my colleague from Winnipeg North gave on this motion last week. Everything in the rhetoric we hear from the Liberals and NDP seems to suggest that there are good democrats, in other words, those who support Motion No. 11, on one side of the House, and then there are bad democrats, basically the Conservative and Bloc Québécois members who oppose the motion, on the other side. Motion No. 11 is not just about extending our sitting time. It also contains a number of measures to muzzle the opposition. The funny thing is, when I think about the Liberals and democracy, I remember the Prime Minister, with his hand on his heart during the election campaign, talking about electoral reform, saying he was going to do this and that. Is that what democracy is? When are those things going to happen? Who prorogued Parliament in the summer of 2020? Who sent the country into an election when there were lots of bills close to being voted on that were important to Canada? The Liberals called an election and wiped the slate clean, killing bills like the one on the Official Languages Act, which is an important piece of legislation. There was also the bill to reform the CRTC, which was very important, but it too was killed. Are those folks over there really the democrats they claim to be?

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Hon. David Lametti

May/2/22 12:29:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his presentation. Obviously we must never forget that the Bloc Québécois is the master of obstruction. That is their whole purpose. We know that we must work together to advance legislation and reforms that are supported throughout Canada. We want to ensure that we have enough time to hold real debates on real issues without obstruction. We are here precisely to set out a process on how to proceed until the end of the session in June, one that will give all parliamentarians the opportunity to have their say and help to pass good bills.

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Mr. John Brassard

May/2/22 12:30:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I want to give the justice minister an opportunity, because I believe he did misspeak. Perhaps he did not understand that there is a constitutional obligation for quorum to be held in this place. He said that this has happened before, but it only happens in take-note debates. It also happens in emergency debates when no vote on government legislation is held. In fact, this has never been held before. I would give the justice minister an opportunity to correct himself and not mislead the House.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

May/2/22 12:31:14 p.m.
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If I may, hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil, it was the ruling of the Speaker. It was not the Minister of Justice who made the case.

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