Government Orders
Here are the facts, Madam Speaker. Two concurrence motions have been moved: one on fisheries and one on ethics. There was an important issue with respect to fisheries coming out of committee and, of course, important issues as they relate to the scandalous behaviour of the government on ethics. Bill C-8 was introduced December 16, and we had 10 weeks when the House was not sitting. What did the Li…
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Madam Speaker, I noticed at the onset of his intervention that the hon. member spoke about coming from a policing family. Of course, he said his father was a homicide detective. One of the things in the bill that is disturbing, and should be disturbing for all Canadians, is the reduction of mandatory minimums for gun-related criminal offences, gang-related offences and the use of a firearm in the …
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Madam Speaker, in the short time that I have, I will just remind the House that all of today could have been avoided had the question been put. We would have had a vote on Monday. We could have resumed the government legislation and debated Bill C-19, but instead, in a shockingly funny situation, the government moved time allocation on itself. I know that the member for New Westminster—Burnaby sho…
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Madam Speaker, I really respect and honour the hon. member's intervention on a debate that we, quite frankly, really should not be having. The hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton, as is his right as a member of Parliament, proposed in routine proceedings, in a motion, to split the bill. I asked that the question be put, which meant that we would have voted for it on Monday and, as is the hon. memb…
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Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Prime Minister would be proud of this member for his intervention today. The Prime Minister refers to spreading disinformation quite a bit. Let us go back to what actually happened here. The member for St. Albert—Edmonton, who is a member of the justice committee, proposed the motion during Routine Proceedings to split Bill C-5 at committee to allow the committee to effe…
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Madam Speaker, I am seeking your guidance on this and perhaps the guidance of the Table. When you asked for debate, I asked that the question be put. I believe I was first to say that. Please seek the guidance of the Table.
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Madam Speaker, let us be honest. This whole mess and the inability to provide even the most basic government service like a passport renewal are entirely on the minister and the Liberals, not the public service. Everyone knew people would want to travel coming out of COVID. Everyone knew that the 10-year passports were expiring. Everyone knew, it seems, except the government, and here we are with …
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Madam Speaker, the passport situation in this country is so bad that people are actually camping out overnight outside of Canadian government passport offices just to receive service. It is a complete failure on the part of the Liberals, not our public service, to plan for a surge of renewals that everyone knew was coming. Canadians are angry and they are anxious, having to cancel long-anticipated…
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Madam Speaker, gas is 194.9¢ per litre in Barrie today. Enbridge Line 5 provides more than 50% of the fuel to eastern Canada. An application was filed in the U.S. federal court to shut down this pipeline, and so far the Liberals have done nothing to oppose this U.S. court action. If Line 5 is shut down, there will surely be gas shortages and spikes in the price of gas that will cause an already un…
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Madam Speaker, I have a point of clarification as to what the member's role is. Is she considered a parliamentary secretary? As you know, parliamentary secretaries cannot ask questions. I just need clarification.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. For your benefit, I just want to advise that the official opposition offered three more hours of debate. The Liberals and the NDP rejected that.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to get up on the Thursday question today. There are just a couple of points I want to make. This morning, in case the government House leader was not aware, I did offer to extend hours for this evening so that we could have three extra hours of debate on government business if we had a concurrence motion. I made that offer to the deputy House leader. Unfortunately, t…
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Mr. Speaker, it is not lost on any of us that the NDP House leader is parroting the Liberal government's talking points, since they are now connected at the hip and have been connected since the start of this Parliament. Subsequent to the coalition agreement, the NDP has supported the government on 95% of the legislation. Before that, from the time Parliament resumed up until the point of the coal…
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Mr. Speaker, we absolutely want a recorded division.
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moved that the third report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, presented on Thursday, March 31, 2022, be concurred in. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise this morning to speak to the third report of the committee, and I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot. All of us can recall the summer of 2020 when news was …
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Mr. Speaker, maybe the hon. member missed what I proposed. What I proposed was that we get to a vote on this, that we move concurrence on this, get it back to committee and extend the hours so that we can do the work on Bill C-19. Conservatives are willing to work. We are willing to work, and that is why I put that proposal. Only a Liberal would think that accountability and transparency are a cha…
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Mr. Speaker, we would like a recorded division.
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to respectfully ask that you check Hansard. The hon. member for Foothills rose about the Prime Minister using unparliamentary language, and I can assure you that we all heard it. It was unparliamentary. I am asking you to check Hansard to see if it was recorded and, if so, take the appropriate measures.
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Mr. Speaker, I can assure you that nobody on this side of the House dropped an F-bomb in this place.
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Mr. Speaker, we request a recorded vote.
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Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.
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Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties and I think if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the following motion, that, in regard to the government's Motion No. 11 and out of respect for the hard-working and dedicated employees of the House of Commons—
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians do care that they are treated equally under the same laws that apply to the powerful and privileged in this country. The criminal brief released by the RCMP made it clear that, if this were a civil servant or any other Canadian, they would be facing serious criminal charges in this case. There are new known facts that warrant a full investigation. Does the Attorney General b…
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Mr. Speaker, the main pillar of our justice system is that all Canadians must be treated equally under the law. When new evidence of fraud comes to light, law enforcement has a duty to investigate, regardless of how powerful or privileged any individual who committed the fraud may be. The Attorney General has an obligation to make sure this applies to everyone, including a sitting prime minister. …
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Mr. Speaker, it is such a wonderful amendment that we need a recorded vote.
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Madam Speaker, I know there has been a lot of discussion on Bill C-8 and the accusations of obstruction and obfuscation of the bill. On April 4, the government put a notice of time allocation on Bill C-8. When I asked the government House leader why he did not move that notice of time allocation, he said it was because the NDP House leader said no and that they were waiting to see what was in the …
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Mr. Speaker, time and time again, as we have heard, the problem specifically with regard to the interpreters, which I suspect affects other parts of the operation of the House of Commons, is the issue of hybrid Parliament. Let us stop this. Let us stop hybrid Parliament and let us get back to normal. Let us do what other legislatures around the country are doing and return to being here in person.…
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Mr. Speaker, we would like a recorded vote.
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Madam Speaker, the Minister of Justice just said that this has happened before when in fact it has not happened before, with the exception of emergency debates and take-note debates. That is what I am seeking clarification on.
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Mr. Speaker, obviously I stand with profound disappointment, for two reasons. The first is that we are even in a position where Motion No. 11 is needed by the government. The second is the fact that the Liberals have invoked closure after just two hours of debate. This is an admission by the government. What makes it worse is the fact that I suspect that the NDP is complicit in the government's ac…
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I want to give the justice minister an opportunity, because I believe he did misspeak. Perhaps he did not understand that there is a constitutional obligation for quorum to be held in this place. He said that this has happened before, but it only happens in take-note debates. It also happens in emergency debates when no vote on government legislation is h…
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Madam Speaker, what is baffling is having the justice minister actually stand in this place and talk in the way he is. Bill C-8 was not introduced until December 15, so he is playing around a bit with the facts here. It went to committee February 1 and came back from committee on March 1. After December 16, the House was not sitting for six weeks, so there was no obstruction going on. Nobody on th…
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Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.
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Mr. Speaker, once again, it gives me pleasure to rise and speak to government Motion No. 11. However, before I get into the specifics of it, let me just address a couple of issues that came up during the closure debate earlier. It was a very vigorous debate. I want to address one issue. There were several claims, both from the government side and the NDP side, which is the same side, about members…
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Mr. Speaker, that is an important question. Those were appropriation bills. If members recall, at one point we were very close to seeing the government fall. It was 4:30 in the morning and it was very close to actually falling. These are legislative bills and a failure on the part of the government to propose its legislative agenda. It is actually a massive failure on the Liberals' part. We have o…
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague. The four House leaders jointly proposed extending the committee until June 23. We actually did that. As I hope the hon. member understands, this is another example of a failure of the legislative agenda. That committee was supposed to legislatively report back in May. It was not until the end of March that we actually started talking about it. We agreed with…
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Mr. Speaker, we can respectfully disagree on that.
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Madam Speaker, I have said this numerous times. The government has failed miserably in dealing with its legislative agenda. It is going to make everybody around this place pay a price. Conservatives are prepared to work 24 hours a day if we have to, and we will.
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Madam Speaker, we have already agreed to a schedule, which all of the parties agreed to last year. The last two weeks of June were proposed for extended sittings. The hon. member is quite right. This has never happened before. What Canadians need to ask themselves, and certainly what the NDP members need to ask themselves, is why. Why are we doing this at the beginning of May? It is because the go…
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Madam Speaker, what a week it has been. It is a week that has seen a further decline in Canadian democracy. Yesterday, with the support from their NDP partners, the Liberals introduced Motion No. 11, which gives the NDP-Liberal coalition complete control over Parliament until June 23. With the NDP's help, the Prime Minister now has exactly what he has always been looking for, which is an audience,…
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Madam Speaker, this is what Motion No. 11 does. The NDP-Liberal coalition is scrapping the constitutional requirement of quorum in the House of Commons. That means that NDP and Liberal members do not even have to show up to work. They can sit at home in their PJs and their fuzzy slippers watching reruns of This Is Us or socialist documentaries. It also gives the power to the Prime Minister to shut…
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Mr. Speaker, I have a question. I am trying to figure this out now. Is the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader actually trying to filibuster his own motion here? I just need to know because I am hungry. I could go for lunch and then come back later.
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Or it could be by the unholy alliance.
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Mr. Speaker, I spoke at length earlier about the government mismanaging its legislative agenda. This bill was introduced back in December. The second reading was in February, it went to committee and was approved March 1, and it came back to the House in April at report stage. Not only members of the opposition, but also members of the Bloc had significant concerns about this piece of legislation …
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Mr. Speaker, it is great to be back after a couple of weeks in the riding. We have a busy time coming up in the legislative agenda. I am sure the NDP is already aware, but for the sake of my colleagues and the Bloc, would the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader please advise the House what the business will be over the next week?
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Mr. Speaker, we would like a recorded division.
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Mr. Speaker, I have some stuff that Peter said. I may get to them. I have six minutes. I hope the member is keeping time. I will move to the former House leader of the NDP. This is part of this unholy alliance and the fact that they are working together on this. Nathan Cullen, the former NDP House leader, said this on extra cost, on the same day as the member for Winnipeg North: “The fact that the…
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Mr. Speaker, I really want to thank the hon. member for bringing up that point, because it gave me an opportunity to take a drink of water. I certainly do not wear it as a badge of honour that I have spoken longer than the member, but I hope members have found that I have something substantive to say and not just ramble on. I did some research, as I said. The hon. member for Winnipeg North, who ro…
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. member just asked if I am trying to con them to support us. I think Bloc members are actually smart and see how ridiculous this motion is. I think they do. I have dealt with the member for La Prairie and he is a pretty smart guy. He understands exactly what government members are doing, as we do. They do not want an opposition; they want an audience. That is what they want. W…
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Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader just said to me that this has never been done before. It has never been done in a circumstance like this, and it has always been done with the agreement of all recognized parties through unanimous consent. This is a motion the Liberals are ramming through Parliament, so yes, this has never been done before without the expresse…
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