SoVote

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

May/28/24 12:52:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let us be clear. I am not giving a speech here to slow down or block the pharmacare program. Personally, I would like every individual and every citizen to have access to the medication that they need. That is very important, and we want that to go forward. That being said, we have serious concerns about the way that is being done, and rightly so. For example, Quebec is not being consulted, and the program is not being aligned with the existing program. The work keeps being done in layers of silos. I am not rising today to delay the passage of the bill, quite the contrary. We are debating a fundamental issue: the partiality of the Speaker. Can he be trusted to do his job in the House? Even though I get along really well with him, we see that he is unable to be neutral and use good judgment when deciding on his activities. That is serious. Members can use sophistry and say that another Speaker before him was even worse, but that is not the issue. Today, we are looking at the actions of the current Speaker.

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

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

Mr. Peter Julian

May/28/24 1:41:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the insults and how Conservatives are handling this ultimately shows what their real goal is. The reality is that we have, and I said this in response to my Bloc colleague who was giving the same disinformation, one incident where it turns out it was the Liberal Party of Canada's fault. It has apologized. It never should have done that. It was disrespectful to the Speaker, to the House of Commons and to Parliament and it has apologized. Conservatives are using this as a pretext to hold up other legislation in the House and I find that untenable. The member has thousands of people who are benefiting from what the NDP has done in his riding with respect to both dental care and pharmacare. Rather than pretending they are not trying to block this legislation, they should just come clean with Canadians.

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