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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/4/23 6:28:08 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-318

I am sorry, but I do have to cut the hon. member off. The next time this matter is before the House, he will have two minutes left for his speech. The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.

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Mr. Alex Ruff (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, CPC)

May/4/23 6:28:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am here to follow up on a question I asked the government last week that is tied to a number of issues. It was tied mainly to the ongoing strike, but highlighted a key concern that I and many Canadians have right across this country in a number of areas. The current government has increased the public service by, I believe, 53% over the last few years, to the tune of over $21 billion, and unfortunately, service has declined. The strike that just happened is the largest strike in Canadian history. While I will acknowledge it has tentatively come to a conclusion, it does not really get to the point of my main question, which is why it has taken the government two years to get this situation resolved. That strike, and just the general lack of service support across federal government departments, has impacted, for example, Afghans, who helped Canada, get here because the IRCC has been proven incapable of processing the necessary paperwork. In particular, in the last month, the strike has had an impact on Canadians trying to get their tax returns done on time and, with the challenges many of them are facing due to pandemic benefits that were paid out and now, in some cases, being clawed back, trying to get clarity to understand what they owe and how fast they have to pay it back or work out an appropriate level of support. I personally took issue with the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development having the audacity to tell Canadians, while the strike was going on, that their passports were not essential and not to bother applying. There is another issue that specifically impacted my riding. Georgian College runs a marine program and Transport Canada reassured the college, and the 40 students in the process of finishing the program, ahead of time that they would still have the ability to write their exams and they would be administered on time. Unfortunately, there was a change in tune by Transport Canada while the strike was going on, and those students, who are to become much needed navigators or marine experts in our labour force, were not able to be qualified and get out there as quickly as possible. I am hopeful that will be resolved in a very short time frame. The fact of the matter is that the strike had a huge impact, and I really just want to understand better why it took the government two years to resolve this situation with the unions when it could have been resolved before a strike even needed to occur.

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Hon. Greg Fergus (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the President of the Treasury Board, Lib.)

May/4/23 6:32:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate the question from my colleague from Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound. Before I answer his fundamental question, I would first like to provide an update to all my colleagues in the House of Commons and to Canadians. As I am sure everyone is aware, we have reached a tentative agreement with the Public Service Alliance of Canada, or PSAC, for the four bargaining units in the core public administration. This is great news for employees and for Canadians. It was not easy. We negotiated, we compromised and we found creative solutions. After long days, nights and weekends of hard work, we reached fair and competitive agreements for employees, with wage increases of 11.5% over four years, consistent with the recommendations made by the Public Interest Commission. These agreements are also reasonable for taxpayers and provide an additional year of stability and certainty. The Government of Canada values the important role that public service employees play in providing services to Canadians. PSAC members play an essential role in this work, and these agreements will provide them with important benefits and improvements that recognize their vital contribution. Now I would like to address the issue of services raised by the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound. There are a couple of things I will do. First, I would like to directly answer why it took this long to have negotiations. I would like to inform the hon. member that the Government of Canada tabled its negotiations just over a year ago. Unfortunately, PSAC chose not to negotiate with us. It walked away from the table. We were always there and ready at the table to start the negotiations so we could have avoided what we experienced over the last two weeks, but it was not to be. It was not until after the publication of the public interest report, as well the public interest commission's report, and some other processes related to the strike mandate before the unions returned to the table. We then negotiated night and day with the bargaining units at the table and came up with a deal that is not only fair and reasonable for public service employees, but also competitive, fair and reasonable for Canadians. Therefore, I would be happy to talk to the member about the consequences of what has happened and the effects that this two-week strike has had on various services, but I see that I am running close to time, so I will wrap up here. I hope my colleague will allow me to continue providing him the response that he has sought.

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Mr. Alex Ruff

May/4/23 6:35:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will definitely give the parliamentary secretary a chance to follow up in his remaining minute to really address the issue. I would like him, as well as the government, to acknowledge the terrible impact the strike has had in general, and on the lack of services to Canadians over the last number of months or years in some cases. Also, I would ask for his advice with respect to what they have learned so that future governments, regardless of political stripe, can get to a resolution prior to a strike reoccurring. Does the parliamentary secretary have anything to offer so that in the future we do not have to get to the same point where our hard-working federal employees have to go on strike?

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Hon. Greg Fergus

May/4/23 6:36:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the advice I would have is to start the negotiations as early as we can. There are times where it would be unreasonable to expect any future government to start negotiations years in advance of the ending of a contract because conditions will change over time. If we go back three years, I do not think people would have predicted that we would have seen interest rates rise to 5% or 6% as they have. At the time, we were staying at historically low rates for almost a decade, so it would be unreasonable to expect that. However, as soon as they can, say a year out, it makes a lot of sense for governments to do that. I would encourage all future governments to ensure they sit down and negotiate an offer in good faith, and I hope the bargaining units will do the same, because it takes two to tango.

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Mr. Kevin Vuong (Spadina—Fort York, Ind.)

May/4/23 6:37:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my question to the government on February 9 quoted the government House leader's statement in the January 25 edition of The Hill Times that “protecting Canada’s economy and infrastructure from foreign interference and from the rise of despotism” would be the government's third priority in the upcoming session. Today, we can also add the government's repeated promise to protect all members of this House from foreign interference and threats. One hopes that protecting democracy, upholding Canadian laws and ensuring the safety of MPs would ordinarily be a priority for any government. Therefore, I would again ask the government how its stated priority is coming along, especially in light of the matter involving the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills. For some unknown reason, the government is incapable of taking immediate action and kicking out a Chinese diplomat, irrespective of the fact that the individual is a poster child for persona non grata under article 9 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961. The section says, “The receiving State [Canada] may at any time and without having to explain its decision, notify the sending State [China] that the head of the mission or any member of the diplomatic staff of the mission is persona non grata or that any other member of the staff of the mission is not acceptable.” It is pretty straightforward. Is there any ambiguity here? A threshold appears to have been met several times. Why, then, has there been such a delay? Also, why is there no movement on creating a foreign agent registry similar to those in the United States and Australia? In fact, speaking about Australia, I want to read into the record something that Vice-Admiral Paul Maddison, now retired, former commander of the Royal Canadian Navy and Canada's high commissioner to Australia, has said. He points out that relative to Australia, Canada's “[e]xposure to economic coercion is much less than in [Australia], yet Australia has stood up to the CCP [the Chinese Communist Party], absorbed the costs, diversified trade, and made it clear that no foreign power will be permitted to undermine its democracy and values.” Is it the government's intention to send a clear signal to Beijing that Canada is a doormat? How difficult is it to create a registry? Did the PSAC strike set it back a few weeks? Moreover, how beneficial is it to place an RCMP car outside two illegal Chinese police stations in Quebec? Why can the federal government not shut down these stations? How long would it take the Americans or the Chinese to eradicate illegal police stations in their country? It would not take very long. How has the government stood up and confronted, head-on, Chinese interference in Canada? Given its feeble record, I am sure its action is not on a sound foundation. With such an abysmal record, how safe should any member feel about the government working to guarantee their safety? Can the parliamentary secretary inform Canadians if we can expect the creation of a foreign agent registry in our lifetime?

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Ms. Jennifer O'Connell (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, Lib.)

May/4/23 6:41:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak about our government's record when dealing with foreign interference. However, I want to start with where the member seemingly left off. He asked how long it would take for the U.S. or China to react to these things. I am surprised that he would suggest in the House that we should follow the lead of the Chinese government in how it handles things, whether it is foreign interference or the rules of law and order in its country. We will not take lessons from the Chinese government on that. Instead, we will follow the rule of law in this country as parliamentarians. As we have heard throughout the debate today, when it comes to illegal police stations, it is absolutely unequivocal that they need to be shut down. However, the suggestion that it is the federal government that polices them in this country shows how naive the member opposite is in terms of the role of the RCMP. I have every bit of faith and trust that the RCMP will do the right things to ensure not only that any illegal police stations that are open will be shut down, but that any additional police stations would be shut down as well. The suggestion that the police require this House to tell them to enforce the law is frankly insulting to our very capable RCMP members. When it comes to foreign interference, it is not a new phenomenon. It is not unique to Canada. In fact, we have seen many examples of it around the world. The member opposite raised the issue of Australia. We also saw very public cases in the U.S. in the 2016 presidential election, as well as in France, Australia and New Zealand. We hear often of incidents in Estonia of foreign interference by the Russian government. This is not new. In fact, it was the 2019 NSICOP report in this very House that raised issues of foreign interference and the targeting of MPs. As I have said in the House time and time again, reports are tabled in the House, and even though the suggestion is made that the government somehow never took this seriously and never addressed it, it was in those very reports that all members of the House had access to. It was actually our government, right from the beginning, that took serious action on foreign interference by creating NSICOP and the oversight body NSIRA. We are also moving ahead with a foreign agent registry. We continue to take serious action on this. If the member opposite thinks there is a silver bullet to solve foreign interference, I would like to inform him that foreign interference is always going to be a threat that all governments must take incredibly seriously. We must be diligent. The forms that foreign interference takes may be changing. All governments and all parliamentarians need to be very aware of that, and all Canadians need to be able to trust the democratic institutions in this country. All governments must take this extremely seriously and continue to combat it.

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Mr. Kevin Vuong

May/4/23 6:45:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the issue of foreign interference touches all Canadians in Canada, and over the last year, I have closely examined circumstances and events involving my situation in Spadina—Fort York. I have reached the conclusion, which is certainly within the realm of possibility, that I may have been subjected to Chinese interference in 2021 such that it destroyed my name and worked to prevent my election in 2021. I have had a substantial meeting with CSIS of over two hours to discuss my thoughts and concerns. I also plan to meet the Hon. David Johnston to provide him with my information and things that I had shared with CSIS. I want to assure the government and anyone else that, having put up with racist comments, innuendos, false accusations, threats and sketchy political machinations, I will go forward to determine what and who was behind the despicable takedown effort against me, my name and my reputation, whether they be of Chinese origin or otherwise.

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Ms. Jennifer O'Connell

May/4/23 6:46:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think that, if any members feel they are subject to foreign interference or are in any way being intimidated, then that absolutely should be raised. I also want to caution that the threats around foreign interference are extremely serious, and that using instances without being able to provide credible evidence is also not a way to simply rebuild a reputation. I read the article in the National Post from May 3, wherein the member opposite makes some of these allegations as to what he believes. I will just point out that, if what was reported in the article was, in fact, true, then it would mean that a foreign entity would have had to have known that he might be potentially a candidate in Spadina—Fort York over three years in advance of the sitting member ever deciding he was not going to run again.

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Ms. Lori Idlout (Nunavut, NDP)

May/4/23 6:47:37 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, before colonization, Inuit, first nations and Métis were self-governing nations that each had their own forms of keeping well with each other. They had their own laws governing behaviours. They had their own laws governing land and wildlife management. Indigenous peoples were independent nations. Since about 150 years ago, the ravages of colonialism and the genocide against indigenous peoples have resulted in too many examples, such as what we saw in the tragic story of Dale Arthur Culver. To his family and friends, some of whom I had the privilege of meeting, I again send my sincerest condolences. For those who may have forgotten, Dale Arthur Culver was a first nations young man from British Columbia. He was racially profiled, which led to his untimely death. I still find it appalling that it took six years to have charges laid against the five RCMP officers who were responsible for his death. Dale and his family deserve justice. One hundred fifty years later, even after the ravages of colonialism, we are seeing indigenous self-determination. Most nations are starting to be self-governing again, which I am so proud of. When I first asked the government when it would finally introduce an indigenous policing bill, which it promised it would introduce years ago, instead of answering the question, the government responded by saying it has provided funding. As such, I will repeat my question: When will the current government pass legislation so indigenous peoples can keep themselves safe?

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Ms. Jennifer O'Connell (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, Lib.)

May/4/23 6:49:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for her strong advocacy. Indigenous communities, like all communities in Canada, should be places where people and families feel safe and secure. Culturally sensitive, respectful and properly funded police services are essential for community safety and well-being. The Minister of Public Safety has been mandated to co-develop first nations police services legislation. This legislation is an opportunity to recognize first nations police services as an essential service and provide funding that is adequate, stable, predictable and responsive to first nations police services needs. We recognize the federal government cannot do this alone, especially given provincial and territorial jurisdiction over the administration of justice, including policing, and the role of first nations in managing their first nations police services. Over the past several months, department officials, the minister and the parliamentary secretary have continued to work with the Assembly of First Nations, provinces and territories, the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association, the First Nations Police Governance Council, first nations police services, and modern treaty and self-government agreement holders on the first nations police services legislation. I also want to note the legislation would be focused exclusively on first nations policing services. However, we know there are needs from coast to coast to coast. Everyone on this land deserves to live in safe and healthy communities. Without safety, we know people cannot thrive. Police services that are professional, effective, culturally appropriate, responsive and accountable are critical to building safe and healthy communities. For this reason, in budget 2021, the Government of Canada invested $540 million over five years, and over $126 million ongoing, to support communities currently served by the first nations and Inuit policing program, and to expand the program to new communities. As part of this expansion, I am pleased to note that, for the first time, Nunavut would be receiving dedicated RCMP resources under the program, filling a long-standing gap given Nunavut's majority Inuit population. In addition, funding was announced as part of indigenous policing investments in budget 2021 for Public Safety Canada's crime prevention and community safety planning programs, and Indigenous Services Canada's pathways to safe indigenous communities program. They continue to provide options to Inuit communities and populations to address their community safety needs. We also continue to dialogue with Inuit partners on their distinct policing and community safety priorities consistent with the Minister of Public Safety's commitment to continue to engage with Inuit and Métis on policing matters. This comes with support from the Minister of Indigenous Services and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations so that we can continue to meet the diverse needs of Inuit into the future. Financial investments are one step toward increasing the equity of indigenous police services across Canada. Though the work is not done, we continue to work closely with Inuit partners to identify and explore the policing and community safety solutions that they need.

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Ms. Lori Idlout

May/4/23 6:53:38 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, I appreciate the response, but I still consider the response to be quite piecemeal. The government has had years to be guided by important works led by indigenous peoples. Two of the major works include the calls for justice and the calls to action. Both of these reports provided comprehensive frameworks that can lead to positive change and can lead to the overall improvement of indigenous well-being. Meeting these calls would ensure systemic changes so that Inuit, first nations and Métis can finally experience the reconciliation they deserve and so they can finally experience the justice they deserve. Despite these great works, the government continues to take incremental steps. These incremental forms of justice only perpetuate Canada's genocide against indigenous peoples. When will the government finally implement what it touts will be its whole-of-government approach, rather than the incremental steps it—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/4/23 6:54:54 p.m.
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The hon. parliamentary secretary has the floor.

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Ms. Jennifer O'Connell

May/4/23 6:54:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I understand the need for an all-of-government approach. Again, I appreciate the comments made by the hon. member and will certainly continue to work with her on ways we can improve this. This is also why the Minister of Public Safety has mandated to co-develop first nations police services legislation. In addition to this, the government is funding the first nations and Inuit policing program, including expanding the program to new communities. As part of this expansion, I am pleased to note that Nunavut will be receiving dedicated RCMP resources for the first time under the program. Given Nunavut's majority Inuit population, this will fill a long-standing gap. In addition to other programs, such as crime prevention, community safety and planning, we will be working with Indigenous Services Canada's pathways to safe indigenous communities program to continue to build—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/4/23 6:56:03 p.m.
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The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Pursuant to order made on Thursday, April 20, the House stands adjourned until Monday at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1). (The House adjourned at 6:56 p.m.)

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