44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 27, 2024 11:00AM
- May/27/24 5:05:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I request that the ordinary hour of daily adjournment of the next sitting be 12 midnight, pursuant to order made on Wednesday, February 28.
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- May/27/24 5:05:15 p.m.
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Pursuant to order made Wednesday, February 28, the minister's request to extend the said sitting is deemed adopted.
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- May/27/24 5:05:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague from La Prairie's speech, and I completely agree with what he said. I could try to give some more arguments, but I think that the Bloc Québécois's position is fairly clear.
I do have to say that I am deeply saddened to rise to speak today. It is sad that the member for Hull—Aylmer is once again in the spotlight, a distraction that is diverting attention away from the work of the House and slowing it down. I am trying to put myself in his shoes and I can imagine that it must not be very pleasant for him to hear what we are saying today.
As the member for La Prairie said, we do not have anything against the member for Hull—Aylmer. On the contrary, as I said many times when he testified before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, the member for Hull—Aylmer is certainly a good person. It is just that he does not have the right qualifications for the job. He is not the right person at the right time to preside over this House, a job that requires a high degree of knowledge, skill and judgment.
It is not easy to become the Speaker without first putting in time as a deputy speaker, without having learned the rules of procedure, without having learned how to do that job or give rulings first. That takes experience. It is not easy to become the Speaker overnight without having gained that experience, like the Assistant Deputy Speaker has been able to do. Thanks to all her knowledge and experience, she now has the ability to one day hold the position of Speaker. It takes experience.
At the risk of repeating myself, after today I do not want people to think that the Bloc Québécois is attacking the member for Hull—Aylmer. It is the complete opposite. We reached out to him several times to ask him to step down of his own accord and realize that he has lost the confidence of the majority of members in the House. After the most recent event that was the subject of the motion we are debating, the Speaker made some calls. He contacted me to say that what happened was not his fault and explained to me at length what really happened.
I told him that if I were in his position, given the situation and the fact that he did not have the confidence of 149 members of the House, I would not have taken part in that event to thank volunteers. I would not have publicized it or organized it. I would not have done so to prove to the members of the House that I wanted to finish out the parliamentary session on as good a note as possible. The fact that he went ahead with the event demonstrated to us once again that he showed a lack of judgment. If I were in his place, I would have said to my people that we would not hold the event to thank volunteers this year, even if the Clerk of the House had given me permission to do it.
As we all know, the Clerk of the House advises the Speaker. The Deputy Speaker knows this, because she herself has received advice from the procedural clerk and his team. However, the Clerk cannot advise the Speaker on his political judgment. He provides guidance on procedures and refers to precedents, but he cannot advise the Speaker on any political decisions involving any activities. Once again, the member for Hull—Aylmer, even as Speaker, has the right to thank his volunteers, because there will be an election next year. Let us just say that this was all very sloppy and unprofessional in terms of how it was organized and advertised and how communications were handled between his office and the political party leadership.
I think the member for La Prairie would agree that if one of us had been in the Speaker's shoes, our teams, the people around us, would have been monitoring the website where the information was going to be posted. From the moment an invitation or press release was imminent, my team would have been making calls and sending texts to ensure that what was published matched my intentions, so that this activity would not be seen as partisan or as an ad attacking the official opposition party. That was the mistake. It was not an error in terms of rules or procedure. Rather, it was an error in judgment.
In our discussion with the Speaker, he told me that meeting with volunteers in the middle of July or August was not easy and that is why he decided to do it in early June. That was a poor decision on top of all the other poor decisions that he has already made and that engendered mistrust.
We take no pleasure in having this discussion today, but we are all wondering what will be next. We are appealing to the judgment and the competence of his team to advise him well because the Speaker is walking a fine line, as the saying goes. He has reached the limit. There is no more room for error. He did not take the opportunity to cancel or postpone this annual event, even though he knew he was putting himself at risk. He is at risk. If we keep making the same mistake, at some point enough is enough. There is a limit, as the member for La Prairie said.
There was already a lack of trust, but to be quite frank, it is as though the Speaker and his entourage were doing everything in their power to once again make themselves the object of debate, the focus of discussion and a major distraction at the end of an intensely busy session.
Earlier, a minister said that we would have to sit until midnight to get our work done. However, what we are doing today—debating and dealing with a motion asking the Speaker to step down and seeking to hold an election on Monday—is delaying the passage of bills and our legislative agenda. Members will be rising until midnight to support the motion moved earlier. As a result, we will be losing an entire day discussing the Speaker's errors in judgment.
I understand that this is a difficult situation. It is easy for the Liberals to point fingers at the Conservatives and say that, even if the Speaker had the wisdom to leave and another Speaker were appointed, the House would not change its behaviour. They would argue that no Speaker could manage the House as it currently stands because its members are so unruly and deeply disrespectful toward the Speaker and each other.
Personally, I do not subscribe to that theory. I think that if the Speaker wisely steps down of his own accord, members of the House will trust the new process and give the new Speaker a chance. It would be good to have a female Speaker to end the session, to have a woman with experience presiding over the end-of-session proceedings. The elastic has been stretched so thin for the current Speaker that, if a new Speaker were elected, I trust—and I do not say that often—that my opposition colleagues, mainly the Conservatives who, sometimes, find it hard to chill out, as the member for La Prairie would say, would understand that we are on the homestretch, and if a new Speaker took the chair, we would end the session much more calmly and with more discipline.
The government needs to realize that it has dragged things out for so long that the person who is suffering right now is the member for Hull—Aylmer, who feels judged and truly unliked. The truth, however, is that that is too bad for him.
He did not become Chair at the right time, in a context that suits the arrival of a new Speaker. We therefore ask him to leave the chair.
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- May/27/24 5:15:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to quote a letter that came from the Liberal Party of Canada. It is addressed to the Speaker. It says, “I am writing to you today about an event that was posted to our Liberal website for your riding, which had language that was partisan in nature.” It goes on, at the end stating, “The Liberal Party of Canada unequivocally apologizes to you for this mistake, and we take full responsibility.”
The reason we are having the debate today is that incident. This letter is very clear as to who is responsible. Why has the Bloc made the decision already that because of this incident, because the Liberal Party made a mistake, the Speaker has to be censured?
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- May/27/24 5:16:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will try to speak slowly so that the member for Winnipeg North can hear the interpretation of what I am saying.
With respect to the latest events that have taken place, yes, the party president apologized for publishing an invitation to a volunteer appreciation event that had not been approved by the Speaker. What we do not understand, and what the member for Winnipeg North does not understand, is why the Speaker decided to organize this event. The second question is, why did he or his team only learn, six days after this invitation was published, that the Liberal Party had made a mistake and that it would be at the Speaker's expense because it proves that he was holding a partisan event? It seems that the team surrounding the Speaker and the Speaker himself were not paying attention; they did not sound the alarm bells. They did not explain that he was already in the hot seat and ensure that the invitation that got sent out was the one he wanted to send for the volunteer appreciation event. No, they sent out the press release and then did not pay attention. The wrong press release was published.
That is why we do not trust the Speaker. He lacks judgment and competence and he has surrounded himself with the wrong kind of people.
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- May/27/24 5:18:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is quite a scenario when not just on this issue, but on numerous other issues that have been before the House the Bloc Québécois is doing more to support Canada and the institutions of our British parliamentary system than the NDP and the Liberals are. This is quite a situation we find ourselves in.
I do not know what my colleague's true intentions are. Perhaps she wants her colleague from Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel to be the Speaker twice in one session, even on a temporary basis. However, all kidding aside, because everybody likes Louis—
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- May/27/24 5:19:30 p.m.
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The hon. member cannot use the name of a member.
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- May/27/24 5:19:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know. I am sorry.
We all have EDAs, we all have riding associations and we all have care and control of these things. How hard is it as a politician not to do something, like not be partisan? How hard is that?
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- May/27/24 5:19:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we shared the duties of whip when he was whip for the Conservative Party.
It is a combination of events. It is a string of events that have undermined and continue to undermine many parliamentarians' confidence in the Speaker. Things build up. We wonder how long the NDP and the government will tolerate these kinds of events. It is really becoming, and inordinately so, the most discussed topic in a Parliament that is supposed to finalize and complete a legislative agenda by June 21.
I will take advantage of my colleague's question to say that the Bloc Québécois wants this institution, Parliament, to work because it has the interests of Quebec to defend. Every minute that we waste, we are not present to move our issues forward and to move Quebec forward.
We have a profound respect for the institution. However, we have no tolerance for a Speaker in the chair who is not worthy of the office.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pretty critical point in the legislative agenda that has come up.
I agree with the Bloc Québécois member and her argument that there are many bills we would like to discuss.
I appreciate that this is a critical time right now. We have a lot of legislation that we need to discuss in the House, legislation that our constituents have sent us to this place to get through. It is serious things that are so important, such as Bill C-49, Bill C-59, Bill C-70 and Bill C-64. We have two opposition day motions just this week. We are trying to deliver the help that Canadians so desperately need, including through legislation like the fall economic statement, which the official opposition has filibustered at committee for months and which is something that would deliver a great deal of support in terms of housing.
Something I am particularly proud of as a part of that piece of legislation is actually the removal of the HST on psychotherapy and counselling services. It is something that would help those who are working within that profession, and something that I actually had a conversation about just yesterday with a psychotherapist who asked me when we would be getting the legislation passed. I said we are working on it and trying to make sure it goes through. The person I spoke to needs the fairness for the removal of the federal tax to occur. She spoke to me about how important it was for her clients to have equality within the services that are provided to them. We know, of course, that we are in a mental health crisis and that every bit of assistance helps in that regard. That is one piece of legislation that the official opposition has filibustered at the committee.
There are, of course, amendments to the Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia accord act that we need to get through. There is the foreign interference act, which is of course becoming more and more important as we move through this parliamentary session.
I do not know how many times New Democrats have to talk about how incredibly important pharmacare is. We certainly know that the official opposition does not believe that. I think about the millions of Canadians who rely upon that piece of legislation to help them afford the medications they need, diabetics in this country, and I believe there are 3.7 million of them, who need the legislation to go through so they would not have to worry about the cost of their diabetes medications and devices. So many constituents have written to me thanking me for moving that forward.
Those are the key pieces of law that we need to get moving in the House. Yes, we are sitting until midnight most nights to do that. New Democrats believe in that absolutely because it is for people that it is important. There is an opposition party determined to delay every single one of the bills. Time again, the Conservatives have obfuscated, filibustered, screamed and yelled in outrage and then attempted to delay and stall all of that progress, all of those supports. I find it unacceptable.
The fact is that what the Conservatives are now calling out, in terms of their outrage, is that the Speaker seems to have been caught up in supposed partisan activity that clearly was not of his doing. He did everything he was supposed to do, ran through the permissions that he was supposed to get, and yet mistakes were made. The partisanship that the Conservatives are so outraged about actually fuels their own partisanship fire of trying to find yet some other thing that they can hold on to, so much so that it will delay again all of the incredible supports that we need to get to people.
I see this every day, whether I am at the procedure and House affairs committee or here in the House. The Conservatives are desperate to cling on to anything they can, and destroy whatever we are trying to do in the process, to show that this place does not work, because that fits into their communication strategy. I am sorry, but I am not going to allow something to fit into their communication strategy to disrupt what needs to happen for my constituents.
The member across the way for Winnipeg North did quote the letter, but I want to mention it again. We are here, in this case, over a tweet that was sent out by the Liberal Party without having consulted the Speaker. The letter is very clear. It is from the national director of the Liberal Party, apologizing very clearly to the Speaker. It states, “The Liberal Party of Canada unequivocally apologizes to you for this mistake, and we take full responsibility.”
Was there a mistake made? Absolutely. Is it horribly unfortunate? Absolutely. Are we punishing the right person in this instance? No. Should there be more vigilance on this issue? Absolutely, of course. However, calling for the Speaker's resignation is clawing to the communication strategy that benefits one group. It does not benefit the entire House. I do not agree with that. We on this side of the House do not agree with that.
We have to work on the legislation that the people have sent us to work on. We have a very important job, and I have no time for all of the bickering and squabbling. Canadians need this place to work. They need us to get to work. We can make this all about ourselves or we can make it about them. Canadians deserve that. New Democrats want to help deliver the supports they need. The work is urgent, and the official opposition just wants to delay. That is all I have to say on this matter.
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- May/27/24 5:28:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in listening to the member, I was thinking about programs. Through co-operation, the Liberals and New Democrats have been able to achieve some wonderful things for our constituents in dental, pharmacare, child care, disability and housing-related issues
Today we are supposed to be debating the fall economic statement, which has within it the doubling of the rebate top-up for rural Canadians. There are a lot of substantive things we could be doing to support Canadians. In good part, things are happening because of the co-operation we are getting from New Democrat members.
We can disagree on legislation, but can the member expand on why it is important to at least allow the majority of the House to get the important stuff through?
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- May/27/24 5:29:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are not in a unique situation in the House of Commons in trying to work collaboratively on legislation. It is not a wild idea. There are so many governments, legislatures and parliamentary institutions around the world that figure out ways of coming together to make things better. They do it through different forms of proportional representation, an issue I would love the government to have taken seriously. There is a partisan dig.
However, this is not unusual. I have said many times throughout my career that there are members within this place who think this is about them. They are here because it benefits them. It benefits a very small number of people who already have a great deal of power and privilege. I am here in this institution to represent the people who do not have that power or privilege. I am here to try to redistribute wealth and power, because that is what democracy truly calls for. As lofty as those goals may be, and as difficult as I find incremental progress, those are the things we work together on to ensure that Canadians truly benefit.
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- May/27/24 5:31:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know when I hear somebody give an intervention in the House and they have already arrived at a conclusion, that they fill it with blanks as to how they got there. The fact is that the New Democratic Party is an ally to the Liberal Party here in the House of Commons and is not going to vote it out at this point in time. It is not going to do anything against the party that is its lifeblood at this point in time, so let us not pretend there was any rationale there.
I will say that when I come into the House and look at the way it operates, it is ridiculous. There is a whole bunch of stuff that the government is getting completely wrong, and parliamentarians have much less input, in my opinion, than they used to have. That is wrong.
The main thing that we are talking about today is the person who sets the rules for the House. Our job as the opposition, and the member's job as part of the opposition supposedly, is to make sure those types of things, like the way this place functions, happen appropriately. That is not happening. Why will the member not admit that and try to get to a path of fixing what is becoming more and more broken? I say that with absolute clarity.
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- May/27/24 5:32:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is a clear perspective I was talking about in my speech on what Conservatives believe is broken or what they are trying to make appear to be broken. This institution can run quite well if they allow it to do so.
What I find ridiculous is the insulting manner in which the member tried to ask his question. It is up to all of us to create the rules that govern this place, so he is wrong with respect to what he said about the Speaker's creating those rules.
We as a caucus will, absolutely, look at the motion. We will take it to caucus on Wednesday. We will discuss it. We will take the time to do so. What I find offensive is Conservatives' use, which I do not appreciate or agree with, of this institution for their own partisan games.
I am entirely clear in my mission here in the House to deliver what my constituents and the people of Canada need, and I do not believe that is the Conservative Party.
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- May/27/24 5:34:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with many of the things my colleague said.
I especially agree with the fact that we are here to work for people and to get results. I am always saying that, every day. My colleague knows me well enough to know that I believe what I am saying. I am appalled by the fact that members are playing partisan politics.
However, we are currently dealing with a loss of confidence. I understood the explanations that she gave about the much-talked-about letter or message. Nevertheless, we had already lost confidence in the current Speaker because of the previous incidents that occurred. Once members' confidence has been shaken, that is a problem. We cannot look at this new situation and say that maybe it is just a little mistake because it is the first time that such a thing has happened. No. This is the third time, the fourth. With each new mistake, the doubt grows. Do we believe it when we are told that he did not see the message? I do not want to insult anyone, but I am going to give members of the House the privilege to have doubts. That is the problem.
I agree with the member that we need to get to work. Does she not think that we should deal with the confidence issue and elect a new Speaker to resolve this issue so that we can work for ordinary citizens?
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- May/27/24 5:35:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's question.
The Liberal Party of Canada made a mistake. That is what is at issue here. The Speaker did not make a mistake. The Speaker verified all communications related to this matter and got permission. It was an error made by the Liberal Party.
That is the crux of the issue today.
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- May/27/24 5:36:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's speech. I know that neither she nor I normally likes sports metaphors, but we have something going on here that seems quite obvious: When the game starts to go badly, as it is for the Conservatives in the current Parliament, then one has two choices. In Parliament, one can either take the ball and try to disrupt the game by pulling the fire alarm or—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- May/27/24 5:37:14 p.m.
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Order.
The hon. member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke has the floor.
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- May/27/24 5:37:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, when things are not going well, in terms of getting things done in Parliament, we can try to up our game, make positive suggestions and seek co-operation with other parties; otherwise, we can grab the ball, pull the fire alarm, go for distractions and delay, and hope that we will somehow benefit from that in the long term. In her speech, the hon. member made the good point that, in the meantime, Canadians suffer from inflation, health crises and all kinds of other things. There is important work we can do here to help them.
As such, despite not liking sports metaphors, would the hon. member agree with me that what we have going on here is a failure to actually work on behalf of Canadians?
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- May/27/24 5:38:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not mind sports metaphors. It is true that the Conservatives are trying to take their ball and bat and run home, but the member hit it out of the park in terms of his question. I was on the doorsteps in many elections, but in the last election, I promised my constituents that I would get real things done for them. While it is not exactly perfect, and I certainly do not love all the things that Liberals have put forward, we are doing some core, key work that will help people. Again, millions of Canadians will receive medications that they desperately need. Let us focus on that instead of ourselves.
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