44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 12, 2023 11:00AM
- Jun/12/23 12:05:35 p.m.
- Watch
Pursuant to Standing Order 67.1, there will now be a 30-minute question period. I invite hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise in their places or use the “raise hand” function so the Chair has some idea of the number of members who wish to participate in question period.
The hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil.
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Mr. Speaker, here we go again. This is the 37th time allocation motion that the NDP has supported thus far, showing that it is yet again a willing partner to the Liberals, aiding and abetting them in pushing time allocation.
I did a little research comparing this NDP to the more historically principled NDP, from Tommy Douglas to Thomas Mulcair, and over the span of 17 Parliaments, it only supported time allocation and closure 14 times, averaging 1.2 times per Parliament. Here we are, for the 37th time, with the NDP supporting time allocation. Tommy Douglas must be rolling over in his grave.
Five hours of debate is all we have had on this consequential piece of legislation. Why?
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Mr. Speaker, I want to remind the hon. member that each and every member of the House is elected by their constituents, and when the majority of the House of Commons is trying to advance bills that are in the best interests of Canadians, it is unfortunate that only the Conservative Party is standing in the way of this progress. Had the Conservative Party been more co-operative and willing to work together on advancing the public interests of Canadians, we would have seen the smoother passing and studying of bills.
Today we are advancing an important bill for improving our supply chains and enhancing transparency for port management and port congestion, and I encourage all colleagues to work together on making sure that we pass a good bill for Canadians.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to express my disappointment with the closure motion on Bill C‑33.
It is disappointing because I believe that this bill has some potential and could improve things to some extent. In the past, I have had discussions with the minister that seemed very encouraging. I hope that we can continue to work in that spirit. I particularly hoped that we, as parliamentarians, would have the opportunity to debate the bill before sending it directly to committee.
I have a simple question for the minister. Why did the Liberals think it was necessary to invoke closure for Bill C‑33? Regardless of whether the bill is good or not, I hope that we will eventually have the opportunity to debate it.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his work on the transport committee and his co-operative attitude in making sure that we work together collaboratively to ensure that all laws passed in the House of Commons, including Bill C-33, are intended to serve Canadians.
To his question, the answer is obvious if we follow the words of the leader of the official opposition. He publicly said that he is going to use all tools, tactics and tricks to delay our agenda, which is necessary to serve Canadians, from passing through the House of Commons. If the leader of the Conservative Party were following a co-operative and positive attitude to vigorously debate bills but ensure that we pass them for the service of all Canadians, we would not be here.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a bit rich hearing these protestations from the Conservatives regarding time allocation. If memory serves, the former Conservative government used time allocation 115 times. The Conservatives even had a cake in the lobby to mark the 100th time they invoked time allocation.
I understand that the Conservatives have already decided they are going to vote against this bill at second reading. Has the minister had any conversations with the Conservatives that convey an intention to work in good faith to improve this bill on behalf of all Canadians?
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his work and diligence at the transport committee. As he is the transport critic for the NDP, we have been working together on advancing the public interests of all Canadians, including on safety in the rail network.
I had conversations, including here in the House of Commons, in the chamber, during the first debate on Bill C-33 with my hon. colleague, the transport critic for the Conservatives. I encouraged him to work together on making sure that we pass a good bill for Canadians. Unfortunately, as my colleague said, I have seen no sign of their willingness to work together on a bill that is of paramount importance to Canadians and our supply chains.
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Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister could expand. When we look at the importance of the legislation to our ports and our rail yards, which are important to our whole supply chain, this is a critical updating of legislation that would make things that much more safe for Canadians from coast to coast to coast, quite frankly.
The fear was that, if we did no bring in time allocation, this legislation would never pass. At least, at the very minimum, it would not get through until sometime in 2024 or 2025, and only if the Conservatives were prepared to do so. That is the reason we had to bring in time allocation.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for bringing this issue back into focus.
Canadians know that over the last couple of years, because of COVID, extreme weather events, labour shortages and the illegal war in Ukraine, we have seen tremendous disruption in our supply chain. Our government established a supply chain task force last year, and it came back with a solid number of recommendations, 21 to be exact. Some of them were focused on port congestion. This bill would enhance the ability for ports to manage and ease congestion. In fact, it would enable ports to create inland terminals. Ports were not previously encouraged to do so. We are now empowering ports to manage vessel traffic in their jurisdictions.
Those who live on the west coast know about the issue of traffic jams along the west coast, where for a long time no one has had the responsibility of managing traffic. This bill would create that ability. It would also enhance rail safety. This is an important bill for the safety of Canadians and for the resilience of our supply chain.
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Mr. Speaker, leave it to this minister to be the one to tell Canadians that they have never had it so good when it comes to our ports, air travel and rail.
Our airlines are still a disaster under the minister's watch. He is going to blame that on COVID. Our ports over on the west side of the country are the third worst and ninth worst in the world under his watch. That is his track record.
This bill is about 109 pages of nothing. All it would essentially do is establish a couple of committees that would not accomplish anything. It has nothing to do with setting up production. It is only about setting up more committees that would have more Liberal insiders to give more recommendations that are never going to be acted upon.
Why will the minister not do the right thing, scrap this bill, start again, actually listen to Parliament and give us time to debate it? Time allocation after five hours is brutal. This is a minority Parliament, and the Liberals think they still have a majority. It is time to get back to democracy. What does the minister think?
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians would take that member seriously if he knew what he was talking about.
Canadians do not believe the Conservatives when they say the government is responsible for all of the problems happening around the world. I would take the member seriously if he could provide some common sense in his questions.
Having said that, this bill has been tabled in the House of Commons for months. We continue to want to work with our colleagues across the aisle from all parties to make sure that the bill, when it is ready to pass in the House of Commons, has been fully debated. The committee would have the chance to welcome witnesses and experts to debate the bill.
I am looking forward to having a constructive discussion not only with members of the NDP, the Bloc and the Green Party, but also with the Conservative Party. That is what Canadians expect of all of us.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the benefits of having been in the House for a while is I do have recollection of previous Conservative governments. I watched the Harper government bring in time allocation time and time again. Therefore, it is quite rich to see Conservatives stand up in this House and complain about the use of time allocation. I would point out as well that the Conservatives are correct that time allocation can be an abused process by a government if it is using it to limit debate. However, of course, it is not abusive if it is doing it when the opposition is trying to filibuster and is trying to frustrate the legitimate business of the House, which is what Conservatives are doing in this House. Canadians need to know that.
I was in the House the other night when the Conservatives put up 15 speakers to debate their motion to strip the short title of a bill on child care. That was the entire debate. Therefore, when the opposition is using that kind of process to frustrate the will of the democratically elected majority in the House, which is what is happening in this place, that certainly justifies the use of time allocation. I wonder if my hon. colleague would agree.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree. Do not take it from me; it is the leader of the Conservative Party who has publicly been telling Canadians that he is going to filibuster and delay and cause havoc here in the House of Commons, instead of focusing on the country's business and on what Canadians need and deserve.
This is an important bill for our supply chain. If hon. colleagues have any objection to some provisions of the bill, that is great; that is what the House of Commons debates are for and that is what committees debates are for. However, this is just to delay for the sake of delaying and just to filibuster for the sake of being unhappy about the fact that members of different parties are working together. What is wrong with that? When we see members from different parties working to advance the interests of Canadians, that is what Canadians expect.
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Mr. Speaker, I have heard the arguments from the government, the members of the Conservative Party and the NDP. I find them all interesting.
The government says that the Conservatives have been filibustering the whole time for a while now. That is true. I can say that I have seen the Conservatives filibuster a lot and try to slow down procedures over the past few weeks.
The NDP members are telling us that the Conservatives were worse than the Liberals and they too kept using closure motions. That is also true. The Conservatives used to impose closure motions all the time. The question is, what type of Parliament and environment do we want to work in?
I wonder if, given that the Conservatives abused closure motions in the past, the government really needs to do the same. We can also talk about what is happening now and wonder whether we should short-circuit procedure and the functioning of Parliament because the Conservatives are abusing procedure to slow down the work of parliamentarians.
Those are questions I have. The government may have some good answers for me because I am not convinced that the best way to deal with this is to respond with “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” and do the very thing they criticize.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree that this is not the idea of an eye for an eye at all. We continued to exhaust all options, including sitting until midnight. We have been providing members of Parliament here ample opportunities to debate, to express their opinion and express the opinion of their constituents on many occasions. MPs are working hard around the clock. We are also here in a minority Parliament; we need to work with other parties to advance the agenda of Canadians. That is why we have provided members of Parliament all opportunities to debate, to engage in a healthy and rigorous discussion. We are also working with our colleagues from other parties to advance and improve bills that go through the House to ensure that we address the pressing interests of Canadians today.
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Mr. Speaker, all of this is quite interesting. Historically speaking, since the time of Tommy Douglas right up to Thomas Mulcair, the NDP has supported time allocation motions only 14 times in 17 Parliaments. If we multiply 17 Parliaments by four years each, that is a lot of years. It averages out to 1.2 times per Parliament, which is very reasonable.
Today marks the 37th time that the NDP has supported a Liberal time allocation motion in Parliament. I do not know what kind of bug bit the NDP, but, honestly, it was big and it bit hard.
A total of 37 times. That is pretty incredible considering that this political party used to have a very different sense of autonomy and political awareness than what we are seeing now. Can the minister tell us how it is that the NDP, an independent political party that very much leans to the left politically, can support the government in this kind of procedure so often and so consistently?
For years, the Liberals have said that the Conservatives abused this procedure. Now, they use it more often than we ever did.
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Mr. Speaker, we would expect Conservatives to at least use some humility when they talk about time allocation, because we know what the Conservative Party did when it was in power. How many times did it use or misuse time allocation? Now it is upset to see different parties within this chamber working together on a plan to improve the lives of Canadians.
If the Conservatives are serious about advancing the interests of Canadians, we would think that instead of filibustering for days on end they would focus on the agenda of Canadians. We would think they would work together with other MPs on making sure that the bills that come through the House of Commons are focused on what is best for Canada and Canadians.
Therefore, while I understand they are the official opposition, I would ask them to show a little humility.
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Mr. Speaker, in his speech on Bill C-33 on March 10 of this year, the member for Chilliwack—Hope remarked:
There is nothing in this bill about what would happen to our supply chains and our international reputation when there are labour disputes that impact the supply chain either at the ports or on our railways.
It sure sounds as if he wants the government to interfere in the collective bargaining process, which often happened when the Conservatives were in power.
Can you comment on this and, in general, on how they treated workers at our ports and railway systems compared to our government's approach?
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- Jun/12/23 12:24:06 p.m.
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I cannot comment on it, but I am sure the Minister of Transport could.
The hon. Minister of Transport.
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Mr. Speaker, it is really important to remind Canadians of what the Conservative Party stands for. The Conservative leader claims to speak on behalf of the working people. He claims to employ common sense. That could not be further from the truth.
The Conservatives are trying to undermine the role of unions in protecting the interests of Canadian workers. As my hon. colleague commented in his quote, it is clear they support the idea of limiting the ability of unions to negotiate their own collective bargaining agreements.
Our government has said before and will continue to say that we believe in the power of collective bargaining agreements. We believe that when the parties reach an agreement at the negotiating table it will last longer and be fairer for workers and our economy.
That is our position. However, the Conservatives have revealed that they do not believe in the power of collective bargaining agreements.
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