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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 117

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 25, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 117 - Oct/25/22
Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)
  • Oct/25/22 4:03:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today, I will be sharing my time with the member for Hochelaga. I want to start off today's discussion by reflecting on exactly what we are doing here today. Those who are watching, perhaps who do not tune in regularly and may have happened across the channel today displaying the parliamentary proceedings, might wonder what is going on. In a calendar year, based on the composition of the House of Commons, the Bloc Québécois gets three sitting days of the House to bring forward issues that are important to the individuals and communities it represents. Today is one of those days, and today is not unique, unfortunately. This is not the first time the Bloc Québécois has done something like this. Today, it has decided to bring forward a motion that we somehow start this constitutional process of removing the monarch from the framework that sets up our parliamentary democratic system. However, the Bloc did something very similar with respect to being completely out in left field just last spring when it brought forward a motion to remove the 15-second prayer at the beginning of the proceedings every day in the House of Commons I mention this not because I do not think these two issues might be important to Bloc members, but I bring these up because I wonder how, when the Bloc Québécois gets three days in a calendar year to bring issues forward, it uses two of those days to talk about the 15-second prayer we have at the beginning of the day and this motion about the monarchy and the current framework of our parliamentary system. This is important to Bloc members, but I cannot believe for one second that it is the most important thing about which their constituents care. I have been the member of Parliament for Kingston and the Islands for seven years, and I have never once had somebody come up to me and tell me that I need to do something about the state of our democratic institution, that the head of state needs to be removed. It has never happened, but maybe it is a Quebec thing, and that is fine. My wife and I, and our kids spend a lot of time an hour north of here in Lac-Sainte-Marie, Quebec. I got to know a lot of the locals around there. After a bit of time of interacting with them and some of them finding out I am a member of Parliament, they quite often bring up issues with me. To be fair, they are not always complimentary of the government. They bring up things that the government is up to and they ask me questions about them, but never once have they brought up the issue of the head of state. The Bloc Québécois members will come in here and trumpet on about how it is important that they are able to represent their constituents and whatnot, but they are not representing their constituents. This is a personal and political agenda of the Bloc Québécois. That is why we are doing this today. We are not doing it because they want to represent their constituents and they feel it is very important for them. They are doing it because they feel it is important for their political agenda. For that, the Bloc Québécois members should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. They have wasted two supply days allotted to them in any given year to talk about absolutely irrelevant issues as they relate to what is on the minds of Canadians and Quebeckers. I am not saying people do not have opinions on the head of state or how our parliamentary system and our government should function. All I am saying is that there is no way those members can tell me this is even among the top 20 issues. We just came out of a global pandemic. I criticize the Bloc members quite a bit for the issue around health care transfers and how they always bring it up, but at least it is an issue that has substance to it with respect to what the Quebec provincial government would like to see. However, I cannot accept the idea that somehow this particular issue is one of the priorities of the constituencies represented by Bloc members. Let us just say that Bloc members are fully doing their responsibility to represent those people. I cannot help but ask myself, if they were successful in this, and let us say we could instantaneously, without all the constitutional nightmare around it, be rid of the monarchy, how would this change the lives of Canadians tomorrow morning? How would their lives be any different than they are right now today? Our head of state does not have supreme power. Our head of state, by and large, is a symbolic figure who is there to help guide the manner in which our parliamentary democracy, and our democracy generally speaking, works in our country. The lives of Canadians and Quebeckers, for that matter, would not be different tomorrow morning if the head of state were suddenly not there. I am asking myself why. I cannot help but continue to go back to the same thing. This is not about the constituencies that the Bloc represent. This is about a political wedge issue. It is using one of its three supply days as an opportunity to drive a political wedge in constituencies in Quebec. It should be ashamed because it had an opportunity to actually come here and bring forward ideas, hold government to account, set up and initiate policy that could genuinely improve the lives of Canadians. We heard something quite astounding earlier today in question period. It actually happened twice today. The time that really resonated with people was when the leader of the Bloc Québécois rose in the House and said that he did not mean it. He was, I guess, crossing his fingers. His fingers were crossed behind his back when he swore allegiance to Her Majesty when he was elected. Can members imagine if this were a court of law. He would literally have been committing perjury. He would have perjured himself. That happened earlier as well. The member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert earlier said the exact same thing. His words were even more egregious. If members of the Bloc Québécois have now finally come to a position where they are willing to admit that they did not mean it, why do the rest of the members not stand up to say the same thing? Did they mean it when they swore allegiance, or were they just pretending too? I would love to hear some of the other members, when they get up to ask me a question, to let me know if they meant it or if they were crossing their fingers too. What a system we live in where it is so expedient for their leader to just get up and say that as though he suddenly can now wipe his hands clean of the responsibilities that he swore allegiance to not even one year ago. It goes without saying, but I certainly will not be voting in favour of this. I think that the Bloc Québécois has done an extreme disservice to the constituents it represents to try to politicize an issue that might play well in Quebec, but it does not anywhere else. I realize that it is only focused on Quebec. I get that it might play well there, but I think the fact that the Bloc Québécois has three days in a year to bring forward very important issues should not be lost on anybody. Rather than bringing forward an important issue, it has used this as an opportunity for political advantage for its own party, which should single out to the constituencies it represents how it actually feels about representing them.
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