44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 15, 2023 10:00AM
- Jun/15/23 10:42:00 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, how do we work together? It is incumbent upon me to stress that collaboration on these issues ought to never be partisan. If we all come from a goal of protecting this community known as Canada, from coast to coast to coast, we have to put aside our ideological differences. We have to strive to not only talk about issues that are germane to the concerns of victims but actually implement them. It is listening to victims groups. It is not being dismissive of their concerns.
The fact that so many victims rights groups now do not see this as a justice system but as a legal system should be an alarming call to my colleague and to members of this government.
That narrative needs to change. It changes by not only talking the good game, that you are serious about holding offenders accountable and you are concerned about victims' rights, but walking the walk. When your minister who, in my opinion, has deliberately misled this House—
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Madam Speaker, I can honestly say that, when I came in this morning, I had no speech prepared whatsoever. I had full intentions of seeing Bill C-35 pass through the House. It was not only going to be a majority; my understanding is that every member in the House is going to be voting in favour of Bill C-35. I honestly believed that we were going to be debating that and then going on to the next item.
I have been in opposition. Most of my political career has been in the opposition benches. Even when I was in opposition, and it can be found in a Hansard search, members will find that I have said in the past that something like time allocation is a necessary tool in order for governments to be able to pass legislation.
Filibustering for no real purpose, other than to frustrate the system, does a disservice to the chamber. I think we need to put Parliament ahead of politics. I have given the odd partisan speech, I will admit that. Having said that—
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- Jun/15/23 11:09:34 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is a good question. I suggest the member raise that question during question period. If he addresses it to me, I might even have the opportunity to answer that question directly.
The debate that we are talking about today is about the concurrence report on 13 recommendations. Those recommendations, I would suggest, as in many other reports, would normally be looked at and responded to, as this report has been responded to. Then we would continue on.
In this situation, the Conservatives wanted to bring it forward to the House this morning in order to pick up on a totally different issue. We saw that in the amendment they put forward, which politicizes the report. They are more interested in the politics than they are in the issue.
Once again, we have seen a very clear demonstration by the far-right Conservative Party today on just how far they are prepared to go on the issue of playing partisan politics.
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- Jun/15/23 11:11:41 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will tie that into the issue of a healthier democracy. We underestimate the real value of what takes place in our standing committees. On occasion, we get reports that are unanimously supported. I do not get to spend very much time in committees myself, but I know about the passion I have seen from a number of colleagues who go to committee to deal with reports. I see the amount of energy, resources, time, passion and love of an issue. Reports come from those committees, and when they are unanimous, we do a disservice to the work committees have done on reports when we politicize them.
I believe the amendment being proposed today does just that. It takes a partisan slant and poisons the well, in my opinion.
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- Jun/15/23 11:16:03 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member is correct in her assessment, when she says that it is weaponizing a report that was supported unanimously by all parties in the House. Filibustering, and ultimately making it a very partisan issue, does not do a service to the work that the committee members have put in.
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- Jun/15/23 12:00:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate the tone of the debate in the past hour. I find that the report contains good recommendations. The focus is clearly on the victims, and that is really important.
The problem is that the report was brought up this morning when we were supposed to be talking about something else. That has been happening a lot in recent weeks and months in the House. We are behind in much of our work. There are always distractions. There are always attempts to obstruct our debates. For that reason, we will be working until midnight until June 23. Important bills were supposed to be passed, but may not be before we adjourn for the summer.
I would like to hear what my colleague thinks about the partisan game that has been going on between the Conservatives and the Liberals since the beginning of the session.
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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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- Jun/15/23 2:31:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very encouraged by the exchanges between my hon. colleague, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, and the Bloc and the NDP. I hope there will be other conversations with the Conservatives. Fighting foreign interference is not a partisan issue. If we work together, we can create new authorities, provide resources and strengthen them to fight foreign interference. That is the most important thing.
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- Jun/15/23 2:59:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with great respect to my colleague, he needs to listen carefully to the RCMP, which has consistently updated Canadians that it is taking action in regard to foreign interference associated with these so-called police stations.
If the Conservatives are serious about fighting foreign interference, they will stop with the partisan attacks. They will support the government's agenda to tackle this issue and do so in a way that is unifying, because we must protect our democratic institutions, and most importantly Canadians, from this phenomenon.
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- Jun/15/23 3:00:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are getting the job done by making sure that we equip our national security establishment with the tools that it needs to fight foreign interference, by adding resources for the RCMP, which we put into the budget, by raising the bar on transparency through the creation of NSICOP and NSIRA, and by continuing to engage Canadians on this.
That is what we are doing. What the Conservatives are doing is continuing on with an agenda that focuses on partisan attacks. They should stop that and do the work with all members in the chamber so that we can fight against foreign interference and protect our democratic institutions.
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Mr. Speaker, what Canadians are sick and tired of is the Conservatives' hypocrisy that they care about affordability for Canadians. Right now in the House they are holding up BillC-35, an act respecting early learning and child care. There are only 19 minutes left in debate to get this bill passed through the House to go to the Senate.
Conservatives keep saying they care about affordable child care, but all they have done is play partisan games to hold it up. When will they finally be honest with Canadians and tell them they do not care about it, instead of playing silly games?
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- Jun/15/23 4:21:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to start by recognizing that we are in the midst of never-ending partisan procedural games right now, so I get why this motion is being introduced, but let us also recognize that this is pretty serious.
We are in the midst of debating the very nature of how our Parliament functions. It is not legislation, so there is not even a chance to propose amendments. It is already a take-it-or-leave-it approach, and on top of that, we are now being limited in our debate. I believe it was just on Monday night that we began this conversation. I can speak for myself in saying that I am still researching, reading and listening to inform my own vote on this measure.
Therefore, I have this question for the member, whom I respect deeply and who I know is thoughtfully considering how best to move this ahead: If the official opposition were in government and put forward what is being put forward right now, how would he respond?
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- Jun/15/23 4:35:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would encourage the House leader to go listen to my speech from Monday night on this, because I do not accept his argument that, just because certain members of opposition parties have used hybrid, it is somehow hypocritical of us.
It is the rules. It is like the analogy I used on Monday night. It is like playing hockey 100 years ago, when they could not pass the puck forward. It is like we are going to play with the same rules that were in place 100 years ago, although the rules have changed. We have to use the rules that are present, and it was decided that hybrid would be in place, but I just want to get to two quick points.
One is that the Conservative Party was in agreement, with even the Bloc on board, if a sunset clause was put in. We could have gotten to unanimity. Hybrid would have remained here for the remainder of this Parliament and into one year of the next Parliament, and then whatever government would have to come back and approve of keeping it in place.
My second thing, and I know the House leader has been around a heck of a lot longer than me, is that this place is partisan and divisive enough. The best way we can get things done in this chamber, especially for those of us in opposition, happens when we can talk face-to-face to ministers and parliamentary secretaries who ultimately have the privilege to be in government.
Would he agree, even as another step forward, to not just having the ministers and the parliamentary secretaries present for question period, but that the only way they should be allowed to participate in the House in debate is to be here in person, because it is such a privilege to be in government?
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- Jun/15/23 10:26:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I completely agree that the appointment of judges and people to the Canadian Judicial Council should be non-partisan. One of the problems we have seen is that it has become too partisan, so I completely support that.
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