44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 13, 2023 10:00AM
- Jun/13/23 3:53:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is precisely it. Some parties in the House are filibustering debate.
What we are talking about here is a motion to change the title, adding time to the debate so that we are taking away important time to deal with other issues. This is repeated ad nauseam, over and again, to the point where we have to move forward on things, for example, the budget bill, to ensure that people get the dental care supports they need and the various other supports included in the budget. That is the reality.
We do not like to cut off debate, but in the face of some parties wanting to play partisan games and delaying the passage of important bills, we have no other choice. We have to get the job done. Therefore, I urge all members of the House to stop playing games. Let us get on with the job we are supposed to be here to do and get the bills passed.
If members have legitimate questions to ask, they should ask them and debate them, not play games to delay the passage of bills for the purpose of partisan politics.
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- Jun/13/23 7:39:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, those of us in opposition have very few weapons to use against the government, which has all kinds of ways to control what happens in the House. Some of those weapons are time management, filibustering and opportunities to oppose all kinds of motions.
In this case, the government is sneakily taking many of those tools away from the opposition in this bill. Does my colleague think that this is a mistake on the part of the government, or is it a deliberate tactic to weaken the opposition?
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- Jun/13/23 8:08:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague keeping it to two questions and not going on for a full 10 minutes, as she had commented.
To the first issue, I would say that those in glass houses should not throw stones. I sit on the operations committee, and I watched the NDP join the government in a filibuster to block our ability to bring a privilege motion to the House. Our rights and responsibilities had been taken away by bureaucrats who refused an order of the House, and we had the NDP filibuster it. Therefore, I can understand the member's frustration with voting, but it is no different than filibustering to prevent members of Parliament from exerting their privilege.
With respect to the comment on privilege, Canadians do have equal access to be able to run. People are in different stages of their life and in different circumstances. Certainly, we should encourage everyone we can to run. I agree that, if there are ways we can improve access, that is wonderful, but it should be decided among the parties, not just the by the government, with its enablers in the NDP, forcing these changes down our throats.
It used to be tradition that changes to the Standing Orders were done through a consensus in the House. If one person said no, the government would back away. We are not seeing that. At the operations committee, we saw the government try to change the process with the estimates to allow it to have access to I think it was $7 billion of spending on vote 40. When Scott Brison was the president of the Treasury Board, he tried to change the Standing Orders on the main estimates, which is the reason Parliament exists, to suit himself and the government. Again, it is moving away from consensus to deciding and ramming it down the throats of others, and I do not think that is right.
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- Jun/13/23 8:33:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his reflections on this issue.
I think an important distinction should be made between whether the rules are being used and whether the rules are good for the institution.
I can say that for me personally, these hybrid rules have made my life a lot more comfortable. They have been convenient for me personally, and I have used them from time to time, but I also think they diminish the institution. While they are in place, I will use the voting app, but I think this place would be better off if some of the hybrid provisions were not in effect, which is an important distinction between whether members are using it today versus whether members view these rules as being good for the institution in general.
The biggest problem I have with a hybrid Parliament is the strain it has created on our resources. Before these rules were in place, parliamentary committees could sit basically when they wanted to sit. They could sit into the evening. We have a situation now in the public accounts committee, where Liberals are filibustering a motion, and the committee cannot move forward because it is stuck in these limited time slots.
I will acknowledge that other parties engage in filibusters as well and that it is not just one party, but if committees have work they need to get done or if there is an urgent issue, they should be able to sit more. When I was a staff member, the industry committee sat in the evening for five hours at a time for three nights in a row because there was an issue that justified it.
These rules no longer allow committees to be masters of their own domain. They make committees subject to determinations by the whips in the House about those resources—
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- Jun/13/23 9:35:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I guess if I were going to speak to the problem, I would say the problem, certainly to some degree, is the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, who just loves to filibuster a committee to stop questions on women's rights and would use up every possible parliamentary tool to block the work of committees.
The work of committees is about getting answers; it is not about a Conservative member filibustering endlessly because of his opposition to women's rights to their own bodies. I think we are probably in a better position now, in that the member cannot go all night, all week and all month to do a stunt.
As for whether it is a very important issue, as in the case of the one that he mentioned the industry dealt with, I would certainly be willing to look at that as a reason to make sure that we had resources for him, but I certainly would not spend any more resources so that the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan can run his endless filibusters against women's rights.
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- Jun/13/23 11:09:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one of my hon. colleagues in the NDP from Edmonton hit it right on the head. It is a bit ironic that the hon. member opposite is asking this question when his party has been involved in a lot of filibustering. If he wants to talk about resources, he should think about the ad nauseam delays at the finance committee. We just finally got our budget bill through.
I sympathize with the member's point. If he feels as though committees do not have the ability to chart their own course, I think that is a conversation about trying to hire additional resources to support them. However, let us not compromise what he admitted was not necessarily a problem. Very few members of Parliament are utilizing the virtual provisions. It is not compromising his ability to hold this government to account. Let us hire more resources if he is concerned about committees, and maybe let us not filibuster.
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