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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 315

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 22, 2024 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 315 - May/22/24
Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)
  • May/22/24 9:56:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is much in my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby's speech that I want to support, but I was particularly drawn to his reminiscences, believe it or not, of a better time that I think of quite often: the degree of co-operation that happened in this place during COVID. I distinctly remember the work we did. There were all of the finance critics from every party, including me for the Green Party and the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby representing the NDP as finance critic. The member for Carleton was, at the time, finance critic, but he is doing something different now. We all met on a regular basis with a former colleague, the hon. Bill Morneau, who was minister of finance. We met every other week. We brought news from the ground of what was not working for our businesses locally, and what was working. As we could not vote in this place, every bit of the $80 billion in emergency spending to help Canadians was passed unanimously every time. I want to stop for a moment and thank all of our colleagues for the ability to pull together to help Canadians in crisis. Please, let us do it again.
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Context: House Hansard - 315 - May/22/24
Mr. Peter Julian
  • May/22/24 9:58:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, who is a good friend, for raising that point. It is true that during COVID we saw the best of parliamentarianism in this country. All members of Parliament were working together. We will recall that we did not have the virtual Parliament to start. We had a scant number of MPs in the House because of social distancing. At the same time, we were able to agree on a variety of supports that made a big difference in the lives of Canadians. I would suggest, and I think my colleague would agree with me, that the climate crisis now calls upon that same level of co-operation. We need to work together. There are the wildfires in northern Canada. The fire season is starting earlier than ever. In British Columbia, we lived through the heat dome that killed 600 people, including 60 people in my riding. Atmospheric rivers have cut off portions of Canada from other portions of Canada. There is absolutely no doubt that the climate crisis is at hand. We all need to work together, and I would hope that we would find a renewed sense of co-operation among all members of Parliament to combat this crisis that requires a degree of co-operation never seen before in our country's history.
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