SoVote

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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Context: House Hansard - 62 - May/2/22

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

May/2/22 1:59:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have to ask the hon. House leader of the official opposition to reflect on this: that the dysfunctionality of this place cannot be blamed on one recognized party. When the House does not work well, it is because we have brought the partisanship of election campaigning into the daily work of the House, which is not how it should be. It is not how it always was in the past. I think it would go away if we changed to proportional representation as our voting system to increase co-operation in this place. Since the Conservatives had more votes in the last two elections, are they ready to consider perhaps changing our voting system?

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Context: House Hansard - 62 - May/2/22

Mr. Luc Thériault

May/2/22 5:06:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I was saying, I rise in the House feeling extremely disappointed. I am disappointed with the government's vision of parliamentary democracy. What a waste of time and energy. Since securing the support of the NDP, the government has been acting with the arrogance of a majority government. Some will ask whether I am truly surprised. I will answer that I entered politics because, first and foremost, I refuse to be cynical. Last Thursday, I heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government brazenly state that this type of motion was nothing out of the ordinary. A brief review showed me that, indeed, this happens too often in the House. The Liberals said that it was not uncommon and that it was not a big deal, because the Conservatives did it before. Just because the Conservatives did something once, that does not mean that another party is justified in doing the same thing once in power. There is no reason to normalize parliamentary mediocrity and an inability to manage the parliamentary agenda. The government has been lax, not to say lackadaisical, in administering its legislative agenda, especially when it comes to medical assistance in dying. There was an election, there were three sessions before the election, and a committee was created, but the committee was not recalled until late March, and its first meeting was held on April 8. That is totally unacceptable. In my view, this motion is unworthy of a democratic Parliament. It is despicable. Either this motion is malicious, deceptive and twisted, or it is astoundingly insensitive toward people who are suffering. Today, with this motion, not only is the government limiting the powers of the opposition parties, but it is doing so for partisan reasons. This is end-of-session quibbling over matters of life and death. The government is exploiting the issue of end-of-life care and capitalizing on the suffering of people who are dying, who are experiencing intolerable suffering, who would like to have access to support in dying with dignity and who would like the proper respect to be shown for their right to make a free, informed choice. These people trusted us last year when we passed Bill C-7. They assumed we would spend the next year conducting a rigorous, thorough cross-party analysis and produce a credible report on the revision of the act. In our opinion, the Liberals’ strategy is the epitome of cynicism. They are preparing to trample on the powers of the opposition parties with the NDP’s complicity, while in 2017, 2018 and 2019 the NDP voted against this type of motion. The Liberals are muzzling the opposition parties, something we have always voted against. They are imposing closure, but they are careful to add in the same motion what the Bloc Québécois wants, namely to extend the mandate of the joint committee until October 17. On the one hand, they are giving us less time. On the other hand, they are extending the deadline. Fortunately, knowing that we could not divide the motion, the Speaker allowed us to divide the vote. By tabling the motion last Thursday, however, the government placed the Bloc Québécois in a position where it had to vote against its desire to implement a rigorous and credible process to review the act respecting medical assistance in dying in order to allow the joint committee to submit a report worthy of expectations or alternatively compromise its principles of parliamentary democracy. This is the Liberals’ twisted way of governing. Since the last election, the government has dragged its feet when it came to reconstituting the special joint committee. It did so not in a separate motion, but—nice going—in a motion adopted under a gag order, which muzzled the opposition. Since the beginning of the 44th Parliament, the Bloc, represented by myself and my excellent House leader, has told the government that we were short on time and that we should proceed by consensus to extend the deadline for the joint committee’s report. A first compromise was made, and the deadline was extended until June 23. Unfortunately, to succeed, we would have had to sit continuously, and intensively, more than once a week, starting with the first meeting. The way we conduct this process is important for ensuring the credibility of the findings. This part of Motion No. 11 should at least have been moved separately. Discussions could have continued with the Conservative party; so far, the Conservatives are claiming that the June 23 deadline is reasonable and sufficient. Obviously, the schedule can be reorganized at the end of the session. Obviously, with this hybrid parliament, resources cannot be optimized to accommodate more work, even until midnight. Obviously, this limits the organization of business. Claiming that we can call witnesses and ensure—

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