SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 214 - Jun/15/23

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Jun/15/23 1:47:10 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-35 Bill C-27 Bill C-22

Mr. Speaker, I always welcome the opportunity to point out the hypocrisy of the Conservatives. Sometimes they just make it too easy. When I first walked in this morning, honest to God, I really thought we were going to be passing historic legislation. I really thought we were going to be talking about Bill C-22. After all, if anyone went on the Internet and looked at what is happening in Ottawa, what would be debated in the House of Commons, the first thing in government business was Bill C-22. I am sorry, Bill C-22 is another national program, that is the disability program. We do so much good stuff, there so much out there. We are supposed to be talking about Bill C-35, and it did not take a Conservative to point that out. They kind of get lost in the numbers. At the end of the day, we were supposed to be talking about Bill C-35 today. It is a national child care plan, from coast to coast to coast, and we are enshrining it into law. We had 20 minutes to go, and then it would go into law. However, no, the Conservatives had a different agenda. They have a partisan agenda. They have an agenda that says “cause frustration, do not allow legislation to pass.” The previous speaker stood up and said that we needed to have more legislation, referring to Bill C-27. He wants to multiply Bill C-27 into three bills. He wants us to introduce three more pieces of legislation so that the Conservatives have more to filibuster. The member is criticizing the government, saying that it has been months since we last called this legislation. A lot of issues are happening on the floor of the House of Commons, even with the frustrations caused by the Conservatives, and they cause a lot of frustration. I will give them that much. They know how to play a destructive force. Never before have I seen an opposition, and I was in opposition for 20 years, so focused on playing a destructive force with respect to legislation. Earlier today, I reminded the opposition that it was a minority government, and I acknowledge that. We accept the fact that we were elected as a minority government, and we thank Canadians for recognizing us and allowing us to continue in government. We take that very seriously. I kind of wish the Conservative Party would recognize that as well. Do they not realize there is a sense of “responsibility” for opposition members as well. Providing endless filibusters and trying to prevent every piece of legislation from passing is the goal of the Conservative. Just last week, and I referenced it this morning, the Conservative leader made a strong statement, and it made the news. It was on Newswatch in fact, not to mention other news agencies. The Leader of the Conservative Party said that he was going to speak and speak and speak, and he might have said “speak” a few more times, to filibuster our budget implementation bill. Let us think about all the things in that the budget implementation bill, and there is not enough time to elaborate on that. That was his intention. He was going to speak until we changed it, and four hours later it passed. We have these mechanisms to ensure that at least, even with the destructive force of the Conservative Party, we can still get things done for Canadians. Let us fast forward things here. The Conservatives did not want to debate the child care bill this morning. Instead, they wanted to talk about an issue that now brings us to Bill C-27—

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Context: House Hansard - 214 - Jun/15/23

Hon. Mark Holland

Jun/15/23 4:24:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is precisely right. If on the one hand members say they are against something and on the other hand 80% of them use it just in a single vote, it is a little hard to believe the rhetoric. We have to step back from that rhetoric and talk about the conversations that we have in hallways in this place. I have conversations with members from all parties who talk about how meaningful it is for them to be there for key moments in their families' lives or how they they personally are dealing with incredibly difficult health issues or how someone in their family is, and they are able to be there for them. This measure provides a bit of flexibility and would change nothing. Our committees continue to work, the House continues to function and of course members from all parties, as the parliamentary secretary rightly pointed out, are using these provisions themselves. That hypocrisy is a little jarring.

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Hypocrisy

Context: House Hansard - 214 - Jun/15/23

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Jun/15/23 6:41:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have to point out the hypocrisy here. Let us really stop and think about this. The Conservative Party says no to the hybrid and the voting application. However, in the last vote we had, 65 Conservative members of Parliament, the member's colleagues in his party, voted using the hybrid application; 43 of them voted in person. Can members imagine? A person is voting against the voting application in the hybrid format, and they are on their phone, saying, “I do not want to be able to vote with my phone.” It sounds pretty stupid to me. Does the hon. member believe that he really has the full support from his entire caucus, in terms of the statement he has just made?

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Context: House Hansard - 214 - Jun/15/23

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Jun/15/23 7:56:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let me suggest a different reality. There were 108 Conservatives who voted in the last vote we had. Out of those 108, get this: 65 voted virtually. Imagine them saying, “I don't want virtual Parliament” as they pull up their phone apps to vote virtually. Sixty-five out of 108 did this, and 43 of them actually showed up to vote inside the chamber. I am not an actuary, but I do believe that is less than half. Many might see a bit of hypocrisy there. I, for one, see a whole lot of hypocrisy. Can the member explain why he cannot even get a majority of his own members to come in here as a way to make a statement that they do not want hybrid and will not participate in it?

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