SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 285 - Feb/26/24

Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

Feb/26/24 1:11:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting to see Liberals and Conservatives pointing fingers at each other. They are both bad, in our book, and we believe what we really need is a government of New Democrats that actually puts into place the kinds of practices most Canadians want to see. We have certainly proven that in the House by pushing for pharmacare, dental care, anti-scab legislation, grocery rebates and affordable housing, and I could go on and on, while Conservatives are fighting to cut all of those things. My friend was mentioning in his speech, which really did not touch on the motion before us, the fact that he opposes the government's agenda, which is his right, and that is why he is opposing the motion. However, the motion calls for extended hours, which the NDP has always called for. I would remind the member, my colleague, that under the Harper regime, the Harper Conservatives extended the hours in the evening for week after week, unilaterally. This motion would require the consent of at least two parties in the House to do that. However, there is also the issue of the health impacts of voting marathons. His leader, the member for Carleton, did not even show up for the 30-hour marathon. He showed up for one hour out of 30 hours.

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Context: House Hansard - 285 - Feb/26/24

Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

Feb/26/24 1:33:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as always, I enjoyed the speech by my friend and colleague from La Prairie. My colleague wondered what he would say to his constituents if he were a member of the NDP. I think that what he should be wondering is what he would say to his constituents if he were an NDP MP. Of course, he would tell his constituents in La Prairie that it was the NDP that proposed the pharmacare plan. It is a better plan than the one currently in force in Quebec, since there are holes in Quebec's plan. It was also the NDP that proposed a dental care plan, and it is thanks to the NDP that the extremely important anti-scab bill was introduced. There are also the legislative measures to crack down on grocery chains' price gouging. My colleague would be proud to tell his constituents about all of these measures. The fact is that the NDP is an effective opposition party and has made far more gains than any other opposition party in the House of Commons since our country was founded. My colleague also mentioned the issue of time allocation motions. The member for La Prairie was not here during the Harper regime, so I would simply like to remind him that the Conservatives imposed more than 100 gag orders in Parliament from 2011 to 2015. They did it more than a hundred times. The Liberal government has done it eight times. Compare that to the Conservative number and it is clear that Parliament can work when an opposition party is willing to do its job in Parliament. I would now like to ask my friend a very simple question. There are two aspects to this motion. On the one hand, we are going to work in the evening, a principle that the NDP has always supported, but on the other hand, this motion aims to put an end to the possibility of working all night, like the time we voted for 30 hours. We experienced that in December. The Leader of the Opposition was not actually here, but we voted for 30 hours straight. Interpreters and House employees are then forced to work for 30 consecutive hours. I would just like to know why the Bloc is not standing up for interpreters, House employees and all those people who are subject to the disrespect shown by the Conservatives when they impose votes for 30 hours to make cuts to all government programs.

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Context: House Hansard - 285 - Feb/26/24

Mr. Peter Julian

Feb/26/24 1:58:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do want to leave the House, and those people who are interested in the debate that is taking place today, with this: I mentioned the 101 time allocations, or closures, imposed by the Harper regime over four years. That is a record that no other government or Parliament has ever come close to, but I actually neglected to give the full weight of the Harper regime in its imposition and in its ripping apart of our democratic structure. It actually moved 111 motions of closure in four years. It moved closure every week, on average, over four years before it was thrown out because of its bad governance and corruption, its incredibly bad financial mismanagement, its mean-spiritedness in forcing seniors to work longer and in ripping away affordable housing. We lived through that. The member for Timmins—James Bay and I lived through every week of the Harper regime, the most dismal decade in Canadian history, so I think it is fair to say that Conservatives have no lessons to give to anyone.

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Context: House Hansard - 285 - Feb/26/24

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

Feb/26/24 6:21:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of things to say. First, to answer specifically, the member tried to say that, for eight years, the Government of Canada has not done anything with the project. I can tell the member that there are numerous projects across the country the Government of Canada has moved forward on. It is not quite as simple as seeing a square block of land, clicking our heels and making it happen. Sometimes things take time. The member opposite did not tell the House what some of the complications are. I suspect there are some complications, and he might even know of some of those complications, but he is being very selective in what he is saying. Rather, he wants to pass the blame. He started off talking about how housing is in such a crisis. His current leader was the minister of housing under Stephen Harper and did absolutely nothing on housing. In the last 50 years, there has not been a government more proactive on the housing file than this government. We finally have a government that developed a housing strategy. We finally have a government that came out with new programs, such as the housing accelerator fund. We finally have a government that is working with other levels of government. What does the Conservative Party do? It votes against every measure we have. We have had agreements with municipalities and so forth, far superior and in greater numbers than the Conservative Party could ever imagine, let alone put into place. At the end of the day, there is absolutely no consistency coming from the other side. I can say that, as a national government, we have led very strongly on the housing file. It is not just the federal government alone that is responsible. It takes provinces and municipalities. The good news is that we are working not only with provinces and municipalities but also with non-profit organizations and other stakeholders because we recognize the need for and importance of housing, unlike the Conservative Party, which wants to try to paint a picture that is not complete. The government will continue to work where it can to provide ongoing support for housing. Our actions to date have seen and will continue to see the development of tens of thousands of new housing units. However, every time we bring in some sort of initiative, the initial response from the Conservative Party is to criticize it. Then it wonders why it is that we are not co-operating or doing some of the projects it is identifying. I can assure the member that the department is aware of the request and that there are discussions and dialogue in the Cornwall area on the issue. We waited for a while to try to get the Kapyong Barracks in Winnipeg, a large parcel of land that involved a great deal of negotiations. It took several years to make it happen. We know that the government, through its different departments, is looking at ways we can enhance housing opportunities. We are looking at ways we can work with municipalities. We can contrast that to what the Conservative Party is talking about or what it did when it was in office. I can tell members that it is literally night and day. Therefore, it is a bit much to sit and listen to a member being critical of the government and trying to give a false impression that we are not doing enough on the housing file when I witnessed for a number of years, when I was in opposition, a government that did nothing. We can contrast that to a government that has made historic funding and has worked with other levels of government, unlike any other government in the last 50-plus years.

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