SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 319 - May/28/24

Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.)

May/28/24 1:03:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I note that the member is admitting that it was an error on the part of the Liberal Party. Political party business is of no concern to the House of Commons. In fact, when a member rises during question period to ask a question dealing exclusively with party business, the Speaker rises to say that this is out of order in the House. I would ask, therefore, why the member and her party want an error by a political party, whose activities fall outside the scope of the House, to thwart the will of the House that the member for Hull—Aylmer be Speaker? This was settled by a vote a few months ago.

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Error

Mrs. Julie Vignola

May/28/24 1:05:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would have liked my full remarks to be taken into account. I mentioned, and I even repeated it a few times, that the Liberal Party had erred, not just by sending a hyper-partisan release but by failing to ask the member or his team for authorization as to the content. I also mentioned that a mistake had been made, in that no one followed up and it took six days before someone woke up. Apologies are fine, but I will use the analogy of a Kleenex box to illustrate my point. Someone takes a pin and pokes hole after hole in the Kleenex box. At some point, someone apologizes, so each of the holes is plugged. When all is said and done, has my box of Kleenex been fixed? The answer is no. The same is true of confidence.

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Mr. Jeremy Patzer (Cypress Hills—Grasslands, CPC)

May/28/24 1:06:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it seems that the Prime Minister and the Speaker are having a personal competition to see who can break the most ethics laws and continue to get away with it. The Prime Minister has three in his name. The Speaker has one ethics violation in his name, and there are now three instances where he violated the chair with partisan activity. Would my colleague from the Bloc agree that the time has finally come for the Speaker to do the honourable thing and resign?

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Mrs. Julie Vignola

May/28/24 1:06:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will again use an analogy to explain how apologies are no cure-all. This will be in response to my colleague`s question. If I take a sheet of paper and crumple it up, this represents all the harm, all the mistakes, all the ethics breaches and all the lack of judgment a person is guilty of. Then, each time the person apologizes, I try to flatten out the sheet of paper so that it reverts to its original shape. The paper will still be creased all the same. That is what is happening. People will remember, and here in the House, we remember that despite the 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8,000 apologies and some $500 fines here and there, the sheet of paper remains creased and the confidence is still gone.

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

May/28/24 1:07:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is nothing new about the fact that reflections on the character or actions of the Speaker could be taken as breaches of privilege and punished accordingly. It is even written in our procedural bible. This evening we are going to hold a vote. An overwhelming majority of members will say that the Speaker should not be attacked, because we understand the context of this situation. Will the Bloc Québécois accept the result of a democratic vote this time? It is going to lose. It is once again calling the Speaker's position into question when we know that the Conservatives have done everything they can to oust him and try to attack him as Speaker.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola

May/28/24 1:08:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, are we attacking the Speaker personally? No. We are just trying to ensure that the person in that role is impartial and neutral and that we do not have to wonder, every time the Speaker opens his mouth, whether his decision is impartial or neutral. This is not a personal attack. I really like the member for Hull—Aylmer. However, he is not doing so well in his current role. We are not working with the Conservatives. We respect our values and decorum.

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

May/28/24 1:09:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is my sad duty to rise in the House with another Conservative blocking motion, as the Conservatives have done for the last couple of years. Ever since Erin O'Toole left as leader of the Conservative Party and the member for Carleton became the leader of the Conservative Party, the Conservatives have brought chaos into the House of Commons, and constant delays. We saw this with the issue of dental care, which the NDP provoked the government to put into place. So far, 100,000 seniors in the first three weeks of the program were able to access dental services, in many cases for the first time in their lives, and many of them in Conservative ridings. Two million seniors have signed up and tens of thousands are signing up each week. We know that, starting next week, people with disabilities and families with kids under 18 will be able to sign up for dental care. The Conservatives have blocked that systematically. Now we have another procedural move by the Conservatives to try to block passage of pharmacare, which would help six million Canadians suffering from diabetes and nine million Canadians who are looking to control their own reproductive health without huge financial costs. Particularly, women's reproductive freedom is absolutely fundamental. The Conservatives have been blocking that bill since February 29. They know that it is back in the House today and instead of allowing a vote to take place, they have been steadfastly blocking this with consideration of this procedural motion that will be voted on tonight, thanks to a procedural move that was made a few hours ago. Then we will finally be able to move on to issues that are of real concern, like putting in place pharmacare for six million Canadians with diabetes and ensuring that nine million Canadians have access to contraception. This is fundamentally important. There is also the issue of affordable housing that the NDP, the member for Burnaby South and the entire NDP caucus, has pushed the government to put into place. Therefore, we will start to see the construction of affordable housing after a dismal two decades, first under the Conservatives, when we saw housing prices and food bank lineups double. Tragically, the Liberals did the same thing, keeping in place many of the Harper-regime policies that have had such a profound detrimental impact on Canadians. I would point out the infamous Harper tax haven treaties that cost Canadians $30 billion each and every year, according to the PBO. It is sad beyond belief that we are unable to pay for so many important things that would make a difference in lives of people and NDP initiatives that are blocked constantly by the Conservatives. At the same time, the Conservatives seem proud of the fact that they continue to give $30 billion a year to overseas tax havens and the very wealthy. Those are my concerns. We know that this is a procedural delay. It is designed to block pharmacare. However, there is an underpinning that I find extremely disquieting, which is that the Conservatives are trying to run roughshod over our independent institutions, writ large. What happened in the Saskatchewan legislature over the last few months is absolutely despicable. No Conservative has apologized. No Conservative has stepped forward and talked about what happened with a former member of the conservative Saskatchewan Party. The House leader of that party has been intimidating the independent Speaker of the Saskatchewan legislature. Not a single Conservative has stepped up and said “That is unacceptable.” Saskatchewan MPs sat with that member, Jeremy Harrison, who has been both physically and mentally intimidating the independent Speaker of the Saskatchewan legislature and not a single Conservative has stood to say that it is wrong. Therefore, this ongoing attack against the Speaker at the federal level—

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Mr. Warren Steinley

May/28/24 1:14:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member has been here a long time. I did say that harassment is wrong—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/28/24 1:14:16 p.m.
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I am sorry, but the hon. member is rising on a point of debate, not a point of order. If the member is not in agreement with what the hon. member is saying, then he needs to wait until questions and comments and he can make his comment then. Members may want to look at the procedures manual and policy manual to ensure that they are rising on proper points of order, so we can keep the House going. I do have a point of order and I hope that it is not with respect to what I have just ruled. The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

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Mr. Charlie Angus

May/28/24 1:14:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my concern is that when we are talking about someone bringing a gun into the legislature, it would be nice if the Conservatives all signed something, but they refuse to, and they continue to tacitly go along.

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Mr. Rick Perkins

May/28/24 1:15:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. That hon. member knows that this is debate and not a point of order. I would ask that those kinds of interventions stop, as the deputy government House leader does.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/28/24 1:15:14 p.m.
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Everything that is being said is points of debate. Again, I would ask members to please allow members to do their speech without interruptions, unless they know for sure that it is truly a point of order on which they are rising. The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

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Mr. Peter Julian

May/28/24 1:15:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is exactly the point. The Conservatives threaten; they cut people off. As for the decorum in the Saskatchewan legislature, I need to read into the record what Conservatives in Saskatchewan have done to the independent Speaker, because it is very germane to the kinds of ongoing attacks against the speakership of the House of Commons. We elect a Speaker. We ensure that the Speaker continues on good behaviour. What we have seen is the Conservatives attacking in a way that we have never seen before. I have raised constantly points of order about the social media posts that have been the most disgusting, disrespectful material possible, attacking the speakership of the House of Commons. It is unbelievable. It is something that Conservatives in the past ruled very clearly on, saying that in no circumstances was it appropriate to attack the Speaker or the speakership, yet Conservatives now do this routinely, as if destroying the speakership is some kind of childish game to them. What happened just a few days ago in Saskatchewan is indicative of that lack of respect for our institutions that we see routinely now from the member for Carleton and the entire Conservative caucus. No members speak up. Only the member for Richmond—Arthabaska had the courage to stand and say that what was happening in the Conservative Party was unacceptable. He now sits as an independent. Thankfully, at least one Conservative was willing to do that. I know that other members of the Conservative caucus have strong misgivings about what Conservatives are doing now in the House and the attacks that they are levying against all our institutions, whether it is the Bank of Canada, or the Parliamentary Budget Officer, or the Auditor General or the speakership of the House of Commons. There are Conservatives that have profound misgivings but they are not voicing them. I would ask the Conservative caucus to reflect on what the member for Carleton has done and the kinds of attacks the Conservative Party and Conservative members are levying against our parliamentary institutions, our democratic institutions, our independent institutions, and speak out. It is fine to convey misgivings privately. It takes courage to speak up publicly. I would encourage them to speak publicly. What happened in Saskatchewan is happening here. We will be able to get through, with a vote this evening, this procedural game the Conservatives are playing to block pharmacare. What happened in Saskatchewan is even more distasteful. I will read now into the record the comments by the independent Speaker of the Saskatchewan legislature, directing his comments toward the attacks of the conservative Saskatchewan Party, including from ex-members of the Conservative caucus. He talks about the obsession in Saskatchewan of the government House leader, former member Jeremy Harrison, former member of the Conservative caucus, saying that what is “more disturbing is his obsession with guns and his use of intimidation both verbally and physically. His desire to get permission to carry a handgun in the legislative assembly is particularly disturbing.” He also said: Another incident reported by a former special constable was when the Government House Leader [Jeremy Harrison] flaunted the rules concerning weapons when he brought a hunting rifle into the Legislative Building. He owns many weapons including a .223 AR-style 4-shot clip lightweight which looks like an assault weapon. Weapons like these can be easily converted to more than four shots As I stated before, my experience with the Government House Leader includes threatening gestures whenever I rule against him in the Assembly. He will start yelling at me and standing up and flashing his suit jacket. As the gestures and behaviour became more aggressive, I worried that he might be carrying a handgun. My concerns over his mental stability and his obsession with guns was only confirmed—

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Saskatchewan

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/28/24 1:20:03 p.m.
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The hon. member for Longueuil—Saint‑Hubert is rising on a point of order.

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Mr. Denis Trudel

May/28/24 1:20:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not know where this is going. I have been listening to my colleague for a while. Now he is talking about the legislation of Saskatchewan. I am not sure what he is trying to prove. Today, we are having a debate on the integrity of the Chair, but I am not sure that my colleague is on topic.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/28/24 1:20:20 p.m.
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The hon. member for Longueuil—Saint‑Hubert knows full well that members can discuss different things during a debate and raise different points. To be sure, the discussion has to be based on the motion that is being studied. I am sure that the hon. member will link the different elements together. The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

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Mr. Peter Julian

May/28/24 1:20:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will finish the quote before I was so rudely interrupted. He said, “My concerns over his mental stability and his obsession with guns was only confirmed when he heckled after the passing of the motion to devolve all relevant parts of the Firearms Act to the province. He twice yelled, open carry, open carry next.” The attacks against the Speaker of the Saskatchewan legislature by the conservative Saskatchewan Party are very similar to the attacks we are seeing now against the speakership of the House of Commons. This is not something that is innocuous or innocent. It is something that needs to be taken under consideration. I have repeatedly risen in the House, talking about the incessant attacks that we are seeing on social media from the Conservative Party against the speakership of the House of Commons. I will give credit where credit is due. The members of the Bloc Québécois, despite the fact that they continue to raise procedural blockages to the House of Commons, have not attacked the speakership of the House of Commons openly on social media. Why? Because it contravenes the rules of our House. The rules of our House were set by the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, the former Speaker of the House of Commons, the now House leader for the Conservative Party. He said, “Reflections on the character or actions of the Speaker—an allegation of bias, for example—could be taken by the House as breeches of privilege and punished accordingly.” The Speaker also said at that time, in this ruling that dates back to 2014, “I urge all members to be judicious in the expressions they choose to use.” That was the Conservatives when they were in power, saying that there was no transgression against attacking the speakership of the House of Commons. Now we see them in opposition not doing anything that actually helps anybody. They are blocking dental care, pharmacare, affordable housing and the consumer protection provisions that the member for Burnaby South has brought forward, which would start helping Canadians against food price and gas price gouging, which has happened with corporate CEOs determining the prices and the gouging they do with impunity. Those provisions are something the NDP has been pushing for years, and finally they are coming into being. However, all of those pieces of legislation have been blocked by the incessant attacks by the Conservative caucus against the speakership of the House of Commons. The Conservatives would have loved to have spent the next three weeks debating this, rather than getting pharmacare in place, which would help six million Canadians who have diabetes, and I will come back to that in a moment, and nine million Canadian women, who want their full reproductive rights and freedoms, to have access to contraception. For diabetes, the Conservatives' constant blocking since February 29 of the pharmacare act that the NDP initiated, pushing in this minority Parliament to get it done, hurts people like my constituent Amber, who is paying $1,000 a month for diabetes medication. She is paying that out of pocket. She is struggling because of the lack of affordable housing, because of the Harper government's refusal to build affordable housing and the current government's reluctance, until the NDP forced it to finally budget that. All of the other provisions that would help Canadians, the Conservatives have blocked. We are seeing, systematically, an attack not only on the speakership of the House of Commons, but also on all our institutions. People would say, and they would be right, that the NDP MPs are the worker bees of Parliament. We get things done for people, even people in Conservative ridings. In fact, Conservative ridings have benefited from the NDP's work perhaps more than any other, because of the success of the dental care program within even the first three weeks. More Conservative ridings are benefiting from dental care, because the seniors who have signed up are finally accessing, sometimes for the first time in their lives, it. Therefore, we are the worker bees, but we are also the adults in the House of Commons. We saw this last fall when the former Speaker made a choice that, to our minds, simply compelled that Speaker to step down. Members will recall that no other party was calling for the Speaker's resignation. We put it forward with dignity. We did not criticize or attack the Speaker. In fact, we thought the former Speaker had done a decent job. However, given its magnitude, we believed that what unfolded last fall necessitated the Speaker's resignation. We clearly communicated that; eventually, other parties agreed with us, and the Speaker did resign. We went through a process that took a couple of weeks, and we elected a new Speaker. However, the new Speaker initially made a number of errors that forced the House to consider the matter and refer it to PROC, which then referred it back to the House, and we voted on that. There were a number of sanctions and some solutions that were put into place. However, since then, we have not seen the kind of behaviour that would necessitate any kind of motion such as this, quite the contrary. The Speaker has stood up and maintained decorum, but Conservatives have not liked that. The fact is, the member for Carleton was called to order when he used an atrociously unparliamentary, disrespectful term, attacking another member of the House. He was asked to withdraw it and refused; he was then asked to withdraw for the day. That happens, and we have seen it happen with other members of Parliament. When we use unparliamentary terms, we have to ensure that we are willing to undergo the consequences that come from that. It is a question of basic personal responsibility. I know that is alien to members of at least one party in the House, but when one makes such an error, one has to be willing to accept the consequences of one's actions. However, the member for Carleton did not accept the consequences. He renewed his attacks on the Speaker. Now, we have a situation where the Liberal Party of Canada was clearly at fault and clearly disrespected the speakership by posting something without the knowledge or the authorization of the Speaker. However, the Conservatives did not attack the Liberal Party of Canada, which is what they should have done. They love to attack, so why did they not attack the author of the error? It was only the NDP that called on the Liberal Party of Canada to fully apologize to the speakership, which is ultimately, thankfully, what members of the Liberal Party did. They should have apologized right away, but they did not. However, pressure from the NDP meant that the Liberal Party of Canada apologized, which should have closed it and ended this. We should not be spending days talking through this procedural delay when, at the same time, we have pharmacare pending. The sooner pharmacare is approved, the sooner the benefits can go to people such as my constituent, Amber, who is paying $1,000 every month. Conservatives do not seem to care about that, but for her, those costs are enormous, and six million Canadians like her struggle every single month. Therefore, to delay pharmacare by putting forward procedural motions that delay the adoption of the bill means that it takes that much longer to help Amber and people like her. In this case, we are seeing a deliberate attempt by Conservatives not to look at the speakership in an impartial way, in an adult way, and if an error happens, to ensure that there is the appropriate consequence. That is what happened last fall and last December. No, they now want to invent, push and expose anything they feel they can, attack the independent speakership of the House of Commons and, in a very real way, diminish our parliamentary institutions. I lived through the incredibly dismal decade of the Harper regime, when Parliament was shut down and padlocked by Conservatives, when procedural things and the normal give-and-take of parliamentary debate ended, and when Conservatives forced through bills that were promptly thrown out by the courts. I do not want to live through that again. Most Canadians would not want to. I want to get on with helping Canadians, and that is why I will be voting “no” on this motion and “yes” to getting back to the debate on pharmacare.

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

May/28/24 1:31:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the manner in which the member indicated that, with respect to the incident that ultimately led to the debate we are having today, it very clearly had nothing to do with the Speaker. It was the Liberal Party, which has given a formal apology to the Speaker's office and, through that, to Canadians. This is widely known; it has been publicized. The issue, then, is this: Why would the Conservative Party want to continue trying to punish the current Speaker when, in fact, it was the Liberal Party that made the posting? I have drawn the conclusion that it is because the Conservative Party wants to continue to play a destructive force inside the chamber, preventing the debates on important issues. The member referred to the pharmacare—

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Debates

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/28/24 1:32:47 p.m.
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I want to make sure that the hon. member has an opportunity to answer; there are others waiting to ask questions. The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

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Mr. Peter Julian

May/28/24 1:32:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is my point. The independent officers of Parliament, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, the Speaker of the House of Commons, and the independent Speaker in the Saskatchewan legislature, obviously showing too much independence for the conservative Saskatchewan Party, are all symptoms of a party that has lost its way. The Conservative Party simply does not have the ethics, morals and scruples that it did under previous leaders, who upheld parliamentary principles. We saw that in the past. We are not seeing it today, and I regret that profoundly. I think the Conservatives need to reflect on their behaviour in the House of Commons and in undermining institutions that matter to all Canadians.

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