44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 10, 2022 10:00AM
- May/10/22 10:03:00 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), I have the honour of tabling, in both official languages, the following reports: the Leaders' Debates Commission report entitled “Democracy matters: Making debates count for citizens, a report on the Leaders' Debates Commission 2021 federal election experience”, the departmental results report for 2019-20 of the Leaders' Debates Commission, and the departmental plan for 2021-22 of the Leaders' Debates Commission.
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- May/10/22 10:34:40 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to respond by telling my colleague that there are indeed issues in the world that deserve our full attention, as they are more worrisome and more serious than prayer in the House of Commons.
However, the very purpose of an opposition day is to hold debates on topics that may not be as urgent as those we normally discuss in the House of Commons.
In 2019, the Bloc Québécois sought unanimous consent to adopt a motion with the same objective as the one we have today, but that motion was rejected.
That is why I think that opposition days—and the Bloc only has two in each parliamentary session—are a good occasion to introduce such a motion and to have healthy, honest and respectful discussions with my colleagues in the House of Commons.
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- May/10/22 11:35:30 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the opposition House leader made reference to the month of June, when we will be witnessing a number of debates taking place, all of which will no doubt be making suggestions for Standing Order changes that would ultimately then go to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
I am wondering if the member could provide his thoughts. Could a motion have been brought directly to PROC before it would even be entertained to come here?
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- May/10/22 1:14:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there are a number of points I want to address in the speech by the hon. member for Kings—Hants, but first I want to congratulate him because he is just about the only member of the Liberal caucus who took the time today to discuss the substance of the motion, and I appreciate that. In fact, I believe he received the same memo from his party as his colleagues, warning that the Liberals were going to steamroll over the Bloc by saying that it was not the time to talk about this issue because there were so many other pressing issues.
I would like to come back to the matter of the lesson the Liberals want to give us on the relevance of the issues we debate in the House of Commons. If my colleague's government would take the time to answer the questions we have been asking for months on these pressing issues, such as the war in Ukraine, perhaps we could take a lesson from them. For the time being, however, that is not going to happen.
I am going to give a little lesson of my own. The role of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs is to make recommendations, so it could very well take up this matter and make recommendations to the House. However, it is up to the House to discuss it and amend the Standing Orders. Therefore, the motion we put forward today is very relevant and has its place.
If my colleagues took the time to read the motion and said to themselves that the House has a great opportunity to discuss a sensitive and interesting issue, we would perhaps have more constructive debates today.
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- May/10/22 1:46:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, they presented a very thin budget in which they overlooked health care, seniors, the provinces and just about everyone else. They missed a budget day, as well as a budget debate. Because budget debates annoy them, they want to cut them off.
They feel that they can judge how we use our time. Shame on them.
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- May/10/22 5:03:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have been listening to the debates since this morning, and we are perpetuating the fact that we discuss form, opportunity and relevance rather than substance.
One thing is clear to me today. When a political institution—Parliament—institutionalizes a denomination, such as prayer in a particular denomination, we should not talk about it. No one here wants to debate it. We introduced a unanimous consent motion. We were told no.
Why were we told no?
No one wants to discuss it. We say we will talk about it another day, perhaps. However, now is the time to discuss it. We understood our colleagues' objections. Do they want to discuss the substance or not?
Why make a discussion on the separation of church and state taboo? How does that contribute to diversity of voices and respect for it?
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