44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 3, 2024 10:00AM
- May/3/24 12:28:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, where we left off this morning, Conservatives were saying that they wanted the bill to pass. In fact, they even chastened the Liberals for not passing the bill.
Just prior to question period, I asked for unanimous consent to move beyond this dilatory motion, delay motion, obstruction motion, that the Conservatives have put. What they are asking Canadians to do is to pay $70,000, which is the cost of one hour of parliamentary time, for a parliamentary debate around whether the short title of this bill should be deleted. Now, $70,000 is a lot of money where I come from. For most Canadian families, $70,000 is what they earn in a year. Conservatives have burned that money just in the last hour.
What I did was that I asked for unanimous consent to move to third reading, because at this point, in report stage, all we are doing is debating the Conservatives' stupid amendment, a wacko amendment, that simply says that we are going to delete the short title of the bill. There is no substance to it. It does not improve the bill in any form. It does not make any difference in terms of the public commission that so many people have been crying out for and that is so badly needed.
All it does is delay and cost Canadians $70,000 for each and every hour of this absolutely useless obstructionism. It is wacko obstructionism from an official opposition that is not a serious party. The Conservatives had the opportunity to move on that—
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- May/3/24 12:30:49 p.m.
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The hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier is rising on a point of order.
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- May/3/24 12:30:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our leader was expelled earlier this week for using the word “wacko”. My colleague has already said it twice, and has only been speaking for maybe two minutes.
Is this considered unparliamentary language, yes or no? I would like to have a decision.
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- May/3/24 12:31:20 p.m.
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I would ask for a bit of decorum in the House.
I thank the hon. member for his point of order. Obviously, there is a difference between using that unflattering term to characterize a policy or a decision and using it to describe a person. That is how the Chair has interpreted the Standing Orders. I therefore invite the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby to continue his speech.
The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.
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- May/3/24 12:31:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I like your interpretation a lot because it corresponds to what the member and the Conservative members could read in the rules of the House. We are not allowed to attack other members. That is what the Leader of the Opposition and member for Carleton did. He attacked the Prime Minister, he insulted him and he refused to withdraw his comments.
The member for Carleton, who has been here for 20 years, should at least understand how things work in the House. He did what everyone knows and that is exactly the opposite of how we are supposed to behave under our rules. We can criticize ideas and actions, but we cannot criticize people. Every Conservative member should know that.
In the last hour, the Conservatives have burned $70,000 of Canadian taxpayers' money.
Members will recall how woefully terrible the Harper regime was at managing money. It gave $116 billion in the big bank bailout on liquidity supports. Each and every year, $30 billion was given in the infamous Harper tax haven treaties. It was a sweetheart deal for Canadian billionaires and the most profitable corporations in the country, and the Conservatives just splurged that money because money does not mean anything to them.
They are terrible financial managers. Conservative financial management is an oxymoron. They are the worst financial managers anyone has ever seen, and the 10 dismal years of the Harper government will remain, in infamy, the worst years of financial management in our country's history: consecutive deficits throughout that period, massive handouts to the banks, massive handouts to the oil and gas CEOs and massive handouts to overseas tax havens. At this same time—
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- May/3/24 12:34:03 p.m.
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The hon. member for Calgary Centre is rising on a point of order.
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- May/3/24 12:34:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am shocked. The member has called me and my party bad fiscal managers. I assure him that I was a money manager before I came to the House, yet I do not see any money managers over there. He is suggesting that I and other members of my party do not know how to do this, but I would strongly suggest that we have, personally, much better fiscal plans and much better economic plans than I have ever heard come out of the member's mouth.
As such, I would like him to retract that remark, please.
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- May/3/24 12:34:38 p.m.
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I thank the hon. member for Calgary Centre for his intervention. However, that is a matter for debate.
I invite the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby to continue his speech.
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- May/3/24 12:34:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have won consecutive business excellence awards, so I have no lessons to learn from any Conservatives in the House. The reality is that the member can consult the fiscal period returns produced by the Department of Finance. It is not a hotbed of social democracy, but the federal Department of Finance, over the last few decades, produced the fiscal period returns. They say that Conservatives and Liberals are terrible financial managers and that the best governments are NDP governments.
Year after year, the fiscal period returns, which every MP, Conservative, Liberal or of any other persuasion, can consult, will show that NDP governments have the best record of managing money and of paying down debt. We do that because we are able to run programs like health care and education, and we do not fritter away money like the Conservatives are doing today. For $70,000, there is this debate around this frivolous distraction of deleting the short title of this bill rather than getting on to third reading so that we can actually get in place the—
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- May/3/24 12:36:10 p.m.
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I thank the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.
Unfortunately, his time is up. We will move on to questions and comments.
The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
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- May/3/24 12:36:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I was rather enjoying a good portion of the member's comments.
I want to pick up on one aspect, when he talked about the short title because, for those who might be following the debate, there is a valid argument to be made that the Conservatives are doing nothing more than playing an obstructive role. Even though they say they want the legislation passed, they go out of their way to prevent the legislation from passing.
When the member makes reference to the short title, this is what the Conservatives are proposing to delete: This act may be cited as the “Public Complaints and Review Commission Act”. They want that aspect of the legislation deleted.
I am wondering if the member could provide his thoughts in regard to the obstruction that the Conservative Party is playing on such important legislation.
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- May/3/24 12:37:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the point. It is not that they want to spend hours and hours debating that one sentence and whether we remove it, when it has absolutely no impact on the legislation or on the public complaints commission, but that they want to spend. They want to waste. I see the finance critic for the Conservatives in the House right now, and they want to waste $70,000 for each and every hour—
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- May/3/24 12:37:53 p.m.
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The hon. member for Calgary Forest Lawn on a point of order.
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- May/3/24 12:37:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not think we are allowed to mention who is or is not inside the chamber.
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- May/3/24 12:38:05 p.m.
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The hon. NDP House leader knows the rules of the House. He cannot say who is present in the House and who is not. He has a few seconds left to finish his answer.
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- May/3/24 12:38:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, they have wasted $70,000, so far, on this meaningless debate and delay tactic. I think Canadians would say to get on with the public complaints and review commission.
Why did they not accept the UC that I moved prior to question period, which would actually allow us to move to third reading debate on this bill?
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- May/3/24 12:38:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member talked a lot about, really, restricting or censoring the ability of members in the House to speak and voice their concerns about legislation.
Does the hon. member think that all members of the House should have an equal right to speak to any bill at any stage of the debate, and if he does not, as the House leader for the New Democratic Party, how does he censor or restrict his members when they are speaking in this chamber?
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- May/3/24 12:39:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment my colleague for his French question a little while ago. I was quite impressed with that. His French is coming along well.
The reality is that there is no censorship, when one is paying $70,000, to debate deleting one line that has absolutely no impact on the bill. The short title has no impact on the bill itself. This is nothing but a delay tactic.
I point out Conservative hypocrisy, when Conservatives rise in the House and say that it is really important that this bill passes and wonder why this bill has not passed, and it is their fault that it has not passed. They held this bill up for months in the public safety committee by bringing forward meaningless motions, constantly, so that we could not actually get to the nuts and bolts of the bill.
I spoke earlier about the many amendments and improvements that the NDP brought. As the worker bees of the House of Commons, as the adults in the room, we wanted to improve the legislation so that it was better. However, the Conservatives just want to block it and block it.
If one blocks legislation, at least step up and have the guts to say that they have been blocking it for months, that they are going to block it even more and that they do not mind if Canadians are spending $70,000 an hour listening to us debating this meaningless amendment that deletes the short title. If one is going to block legislation and stop good things from happening, at least have the guts to own up to it.
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- May/3/24 12:40:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is an important bill. The accountability and transparency of many agencies, including the CBSA and the RCMP, is fundamental.
I would like my colleague to explain to me in French why the Conservatives are delaying the passage of this bill right now, even though they say they support it.
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- May/3/24 12:41:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie is one of the best MPs in the House. He does a tremendous amount of work and is always very productive. We listen carefully when he asks questions.
Honestly, I do not have an answer. Why are the Conservatives saying that this bill is important while doing everything they can to block it, even though their filibuster costs $70,000 for every hour of useless debate?
They do not want the bill to go to third reading. That is a useful debate, but they do not want to do it and I cannot explain why.
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