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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 208

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 7, 2023 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 208 - Jun/7/23
Hon. Pierre Poilievre
  • Jun/7/23 11:11:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent, our shadow minister of the environment, reminds me about the green floors in this place. One might wonder why it is green and why the other place is red. Of course, this place is green because the first commoners met in the fields of Runnymede. In fact, the first House of Commons, the first Parliament, happened in the fields and the commoners represented those who worked and harvested the fields. They were the ones responsible for the bounty. Of course, it was the aristocrats on the inside of the castle walls who made their way by taking what others had earned. Obviously, the greed of those within the castle walls was insatiable. The commoners pushed back and fought back for their ability to control what they had earned and to limit what could be taken from them, that nothing could be taxed from the people without the consent of the people. That is why we are debating this budget here today. We debate something called the estimates. It seems like a technical procedural detail but it is not. No dollar can be spent or taxed by government without it being voted on in this place. That is because it is the people, it is the common people in the fields, who earned it whose consent is required before it can be taxed or spent. That is a powerful tradition. We should never forget. Every time we look at the green, let us think of the people who continue to work figuratively and literally in the fields in order to deliver the harvest, the abundant harvest that is our blessing in this country, the prodigious harvest of Canada's workers, its farmers, its truckers and the people who dig stuff, fix stuff and move stuff. Those are the people who produce this great bounty, with God's help, and it is our duty to be custodians of their freedom and to work on their behalf.
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