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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

May/16/22 4:58:50 p.m.
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The question is on the motion. If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the motion be adopted on division, I invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair. The hon. member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex.

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Division

Ms. Lianne Rood

May/16/22 4:59:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division, please.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

May/16/22 4:59:16 p.m.
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Call in the members.

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Call

The Deputy Speaker

May/16/22 5:43:26 p.m.
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I declare the motion carried.

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Mr. John Brassard (Barrie—Innisfil, CPC)

May/16/22 5:44:53 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on this and to advise you that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, a beautiful part of the country. Of course, the predecessor of the hon. member was a good friend of all of us, Gord Brown, who passed away tragically. He was an hon. member of Parliament and conducted himself with great integrity, at one point as the opposition whip, and he is greatly missed in this place. The reason why I rise today is to discuss a curious part of the bill, the budget implementation act, which, of course, as we are aware of, is an omnibus bill, a bill that includes many provisions in it. It totals, roughly, well over 400 pages, and it is a difficult bill to comprehend, in the sense of the volume of the bill and the amount of information that is in it. There is one curious issue about this bill that I think requires further consideration by the committee. That is why I stand here today to propose splitting this bill, to really give the committee an opportunity to look much deeper into this aspect of the BIA, an act to enact the civil lunar gateway agreement implementation act and amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Criminal Code, the Judges Act, the Federal Courts Act and the Tax Court of Canada Act, containing certain divisions. Effectively, what this means is that what the government is proposing on this, and this is why it is curious and why it needs to have further study at committee, including the potential for further witnesses to talk about the consequences of this bill, relates to travel to the moon. We are assuming that, obviously, astronauts are going to the moon. I do not think, and I stand to be corrected, that there has been a situation where a Canadian astronaut has been to the moon, but of course we have had several who have been on the space shuttle and have circumnavigated the earth, and we are very proud. One is in the House right now and I congratulate the hon. member for that. I will note, Mr. Speaker, that you pointed him out, not I, but we are all proud of Canada's involvement in the space program. The hon. member conducted himself very distinguishedly and proudly as an astronaut, and there have been several others before and certainly after. In fact, I recall that, just a couple of weeks ago, the hon. member rose and paid tribute to a fellow astronaut who was part of the space program. When we lose that legacy, it is difficult. Curiously, I am not aware of any plans. I know there are plans to go to Mars, for example. This part of the budget implementation act did not address the part about Mars, but I am not aware of any plans for lunar landings. I am not aware of any plans that there are going to be any bases on the moon to which these provisions, not just of the Criminal Code but of the tax act, would apply. I assume that if astronauts do land on the moon and they are paid, they will have to pay tax on it. We are just not sure of that and what impact this would have. I think this speaks to a broader problem, as I speak to the budget implementation act. I am not even sure what the tax rates on the moon will be. I suspect that maybe they would be higher than they are currently. The only good thing is that there may not necessarily be an affordability crisis on the moon that I am aware of. Of course, if the government is still in power when astronauts do land or live on the moon, I suspect it will be looking at ways to increase levels of affordability on the moon. We are trying to give the committee, seriously, an opportunity to take this part of the bill and look at it in more depth. As I said earlier, the budget implementation act is an omnibus bill. Despite the fact that the Prime Minister said in 2015 that he would end omnibus bills and there would be no more omnibus bills, there are hundreds of provisions in this bill, which does constitute and classify it as an omnibus bill. What the Prime Minister did in 2015, as he has done many times over the course of the last several years, was break another promise. This is another broken promise not to have any more omnibus bills, yet we have an omnibus bill with this type of provision in it, and it is difficult to understand what the impact of that is going to be. Therefore, having the committee analyze the bill and extract it from the budget implementation act, basically separate it out to be able to study it a bit further, is important, and it is important to understand what its implications are. As I said, we are not aware of any lunar plans for Canadians to either land or cohabitate on the moon. However, if they are going to be paying taxes and doing some of the other things that this part of the budget calls for, then I think we need to have a better understanding of that. I want to speak as well to the types of actions by the government. We see an omnibus bill when the government ran on saying it would not be implementing omnibus bills. We are seeing some other things happening, for example Motion No. 11, which we have talked about in this House previously. This all adds to a further decline in democracy and really speaks to the trust in our democratic institutions. Recently, and I have said this previously in the House, the Ethics Commissioner came to the procedure and House affairs committee and I asked him about the decline in democracy and the decline in the faith that Canadians have in their institutions, all institutions. When we see these types of motions, like Motion No. 11, and promises not being kept with respect to acts like the budget implementation act, which is clearly an omnibus bill, it further adds to that decline in democracy, and I think all Canadians and certainly all parliamentarians are concerned that we are heading in that direction. Therefore, we should give the committee an opportunity to look at this part of the bill, and there are many other parts of the budget implementation act that in my opinion should be separated and pulled out from the entire act so that the committee can do its job. On the subject of the debate we have had, perhaps we could have been talking, debating and asking questions of the government as to what this particular part of the budget implementation act means, but the reality is that we were given very little time to discuss the BIA. The government imposed time allocation. I believe there were only five hours of debate on a 400-plus-page omnibus bill and 11 speakers who had an opportunity to speak to it. If not on this, then perhaps on other parts of this budget implementation act we could have asked the government what it means and perhaps debated it and offered suggestions. What I am trying to do is make sure the committee is able to do its work and look at this particular part, and there are many parts of this bill. I hope it does, for the sake of the faith in our institutions and certainly the faith in our committees. We see other committees that are doing very important work right now, for example the foreign affairs committee, which is studying Ukraine and what is going on in the South China Sea and how Canada can be better prepared for those things. We see games being played by the government, which is adding to this further erosion in the trust and confidence Canadians have in our institutions, and it is certainly adding to a decline in what we are seeing in many western democracies around the world. We are going to continue to make sure that Canadians have answers. In terms of the level of importance, I would say it is probably not at the top, but there are questions that need to be answered with respect to this part of the budget implementation act, which is why I stand today to ask that we separate this part of the BIA.

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Mr. John Brassard (Barrie—Innisfil, CPC)

May/16/22 5:44:53 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

moved: That it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Finance that, during its consideration of Bill C-19, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022 and other measures, the committee be granted the power to divide the bill into two pieces of legislation: (i) Bill C-19A, An Act to amend the Civil Lunar Gateway Agreement Implementation Act, Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Criminal Code, the Judges Act, the Federal Courts Act and the Tax Court of Canada Act, containing divisions 18, 19, 21 and 22 of Part 5 of the bill, (ii) Bill C-19B, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022 and other measures, containing all the remaining provisions of the bill.

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The Deputy Speaker

May/16/22 5:54:45 p.m.
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Before I go on to questions and answers, I apologize to the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount for pointing him out. He is my favourite astronaut, so I took the opportunity. When great Canadians are here, I have to do that. It looks like he might have a question. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount.

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Hon. Marc Garneau (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, Lib.)

May/16/22 5:55:06 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the very generous comments with respect to my previous career. This is more of a comment than a question, although my colleague may wish to comment on it. Just for his information, Canada joined the Artemis program, which is a NASA program and, as a result of that, we will have a chance to send a Canadian to the moon. The first time it will be to orbit, not to land, but with the expectation, because the U.S. is returning to the moon, that eventually a Canadian will also have the opportunity to land and work on the moon. We are being forward-thinking in trying to plan the necessary legislation that would apply to that lucky individual who would one day go to the moon.

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Mr. John Brassard

May/16/22 5:56:08 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Mr. Speaker, I remember when I was a very young boy— Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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Mr. John Brassard

May/16/22 5:56:25 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Mr. Speaker, I just turned 58, so I was not that young, but I remember watching the hon. member and feeling that sense of Canadian pride, and seeing that patch on his shoulder as he flew into space on the space shuttle. It was a terrific moment, a very proud moment as a Canadian to see the hon. member and his colleagues, many of whom have followed in his footsteps. The Artemis program is probably years away. There are some curious questions in here, as I said, around the amount of tax that astronauts are going to be paying if they are living on the moon, and the relation to the tax court and the Criminal Code and how that applies. These are the kinds of questions that I think we could have had a fulsome debate on in this House, if the government had not moved time allocation and restricted debate on all parliamentarians.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

May/16/22 5:57:35 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Mr. Speaker, I want to echo some of the member's words in regard to my colleague, Canada's first astronaut. I believe that on all sides of the House, we are all very proud of him. An hour ago, the Conservatives were arguing that they wanted to spend hours of debate talking about Taiwan, and now they want to spend hours of debate talking about the moon. I wonder if the member could explain to people who might be observing why the Conservatives are going out of their way to prevent us from talking about legislation that would enable the Province of Quebec to have a guaranteed number of seats.

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Mr. John Brassard

May/16/22 5:58:28 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Mr. Speaker, that is a great question. I want to thank the hon. member. I am not going to thank the government for imposing Motion No. 11 on us, which extends hours to midnight so that we could debate very important topics that Canadians are seized with. If the hon. member wants to spend time debating these, if he wants to extend sittings to midnight, Conservatives, and I said this the very day we debated Motion No. 11, will be here every single night, as the government requires, to debate those issues that are important to Canadians. We are also going to be debating government legislation tonight, right up until midnight, Bill C-14. When I rose earlier, how many speakers from the government side were willing to debate that? None. Just as we predicted, it will be the opposition debating government legislation. It will be the opposition asking the opposition questions on government legislation. The government put us in this position to debate these issues that are important to Canadians, just like taxes on the moon and the Criminal Code on the moon, and we are going to be here to debate them as long as we need to.

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Mr. Mel Arnold (North Okanagan—Shuswap, CPC)

May/16/22 5:59:45 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil for putting this motion forward and the discussion on splitting up the budget implementation act. There are so many pieces in that bill that really should be separated and discussed, debated and considered at committee separately, not pushed through the way the government has pushed legislation through in the past. I recall Bill C-69, when there were literally hundreds of amendments proposed that could not even be debated. Does the member for Barrie—Innisfil expect the same is going to happen with the budget implementation act?

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Mr. John Brassard

May/16/22 6:00:26 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Mr. Speaker, I hope when it does get to committee we are going to be able to deal with that. I know there has already been a programming motion put forward at committee, but again, this is a government that said it would not implement an omnibus bill. It has done it now consecutively for I do not know how many years in a row, but that is what we get when we have omnibus bills: the difficulty of dealing with these particular issues when they need to be dealt with. There are many others.

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Mr. Michael Barrett (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC)

May/16/22 6:01:02 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in this place and speak to the important issues facing Canadians. Of course, the budget implementation act, and the implications it will have for Canadians going forward, are of the utmost importance. In the context of the affordability crisis Canadians are facing, we could not be talking about anything more important. The opposition House leader, the hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil, articulated well the issues we have with a government that introduces omnibus legislation. It really demonstrates its lack of focus on the issues that are most important to Canadians, and that is why separating these issues is important. If we put into two buckets the issue of affordability and the issue of lunar crimes, it is important we hive those off. I want to talk about affordability, but it is important to note that when we talk about the aspiration the government is putting forward, with respect to enforcing the Criminal Code of Canada on the lunar surface, it is really important we manage expectations here. We have some challenges as a country. We have seen them. They have been discussed in this place. We had a great example with even the rules that govern members of this place. There is the Conflict of Interest Act for members. The Prime Minister took a trip: He did not take the space shuttle, but he travelled by jet and then he travelled by, and this is important to underscore, private helicopter to accept a gift valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars from an individual who had dealings with the government. It was a lobbying business with the government, and we could not even address that as a country. There has been a lot of conversation even of late that included documents we obtained under access to information laws that detailed the RCMP's struggle with its decision on whether to pursue an investigation that would ultimately lead to charges. The only piece of the test that was missing to lay a charge was to determine whether the designated public office holder, in this case the Prime Minister, had received written permission from the head of the department to accept the gift. We heard confirmation from the Prime Minister that, in fact, the written permission was not given. That is instructional to the RCMP on how to address the issue of whether an investigation, and ultimately charges, should follow. That is an issue dealing with the Criminal Code, and fraud on the government specifically, and enforcing those laws. We have all the resources and infrastructure here in Canada on planet earth, yet the government looks afar and to the skies to see about enforcing the Criminal Code on the moon. Let me turn to affordability, because we are in a situation where Canadians are having a terrible time. I spoke about basic affordability earlier today, when I addressed the House. The decision families are facing across our country today, from Victoria by the sea in Prince Edward Island to Victoria, British Columbia, all the way to the North Pole and all points in between is how they are going to make ends meet. They must decide if they are going to buy nutritious food for their families or heat their homes in one of the world's coldest climates. That is an impossible choice. Summertime should be a time for parents to pick which summer activity or program they are going to enrol their children in. Instead, they are saying they cannot afford the gas to drive their children to these events, to say nothing of whether they can afford the gas to get to work. That is an impossible position we are putting families in. This is a feature, and not a bug, of what the government has put forward. We know that, given the opportunity to give Canadians a break, give them a GST holiday and not increase the carbon tax, the Liberals said no. They want to discourage what the Prime Minister described as a bad behaviour. That bad behaviour is driving a car in a rural community, driving a truck on a farm and heating a home in one of the world's coldest climates. In this budget implementation act, the affordability question that is facing Canadians is unbelievably important. I hear from people who have these struggles in their daily lives, and they just do not understand who the government members are talking to who is not making this real for them. The issue does not just affect families. It affects single individuals. It affects seniors. They just cannot make ends meet. We will hear from the government members that inflation is a global phenomenon and that the price of fuel is being affected by Russia's illegal war of aggression in Ukraine. That does not do anything to feed the families of Canadians. Our net debt-to-GDP is best in class, is what we will hear from them. People cannot feed their families with word salad. This is what my constituents are so concerned about. This is what Canadians who are writing to me are so concerned about. The government needs to focus. The Liberals are sitting across from an opposition that is able to do more than one thing at a time, which frustrates them. We are able to talk about more than one issue, while the government is going to have the House sit until midnight and put up a paltry number of speakers or no speakers on these issues. We are able to do that, but also to advocate for issues that are important to Canada, that represent Canada well on the world stage and that stick up for our friends and allies and the global order of peace and security, with democracies supporting democracies just like the conversation that was adjourned by the government with the help of its partners in the NDP-Liberal coalition, the NDP. The Liberals refused a standing vote on having Taiwan join the WHA and the WHO. Why was that? We pronounce the importance of issues by having standing votes in this place all of the time. It sends a very strong message. We are going to be here until midnight. We are going to put up speakers. Conservatives will ask other Conservatives questions about why the government is failing Canadians on these important issues and why the government is ignoring what is important to Canadians. We are prepared to put in the work, but the government wants to, at the same time, jam a bunch of things into one bill and pass it through the House as quickly as possible. It moves closure more than anyone ever has, and then gets cute with Motion No. 11 and changes the rules of this place, which is usually only done by consensus, and sets a terrible precedent. It will have a choking effect on democracy. After the stunt the Liberals pulled with our motion on Taiwan, with these omnibus bills and the repeated closure motions that they move, while I am on my feet, I move, seconded by the member for Kildonan—St. Paul: That this House do now adjourn.

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The Deputy Speaker

May/16/22 6:12:19 p.m.
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The question is on the motion. If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the motion be adopted on division, I invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

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