Debates of May 3rd, 2024

(Return tabled)

Question No.2448—

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

With regard to the items listed in the Main Estimates, 2024-25, under Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs: (a) of the $94,603,783 and the $4,151,000 respectively listed under "Contributions for promoting the safe use, development, conservation and protection of the North's natural resources, and promoting scientific development" and "Grants for promoting the safe use, development, conservation and protection of the North's natural resources, and promoting scientific development", what are the details of projects funded with this allocation, including, for each, the (i) name of the recipient, (ii) amount, (iii) purpose of the funding, (iv) project description, (v) location; and (b) what criteria were used to determine which projects would receive funding, and how much funding each project in (a) would receive?

(Return tabled)

Question No.2449—

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

With regard to the Northern Responsible Energy Approach for Community Heat and Electricity program: (a) what is the government estimate of the total costs required to achieve the stated goal of reducing diesel consumption by 7 million litres; (b) how much has this program spent to date, and what amount and percentage of this were spent on administration expenses; (c) how many employees or Full Time Equivalent's have been hired for the program to date, in total, and broken down by year; and (d) what are the details of all projects funded to date, including, for each, the (i) recipient, (ii) location, (iii) amount of the funding, (iv) project description?

(Return tabled)

Question No.2452—

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

With regard to nurses employed by Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) to provide health care to rural, remote and Northern communities, broken down by province or territory: (a) what is the current number of nurses employed by ISC who are (i) full-time, (ii) part-time; (b) what is the total number of new nurses hired since September 1, 2022; (c) what is the current number of vacant nursing positions; and (d) which nursing stations had their capacity reduced due to staffing shortages in other communities?

(Return tabled)

Question No.2454—

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

With regard to funding programs managed by Indigenous Services Canada (ISC), and broken down by fiscal year since 2015-16: (a) what are the details of each funding program, broken down by (i) name of program, service, fund, or initiative, (ii) amount of funding allocated for funding program, (iii) amount of lapsed funding, (iv) number of applicants to program; (b) which of the funding programs in (a) have been identified by ISC as part of budget 2023’s commitment to refocus government spending; and (c) what is the total amount of funding reduction that each program or grant in (b) will experience?

(Return tabled)

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, finally, I ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand at this time, please.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-20, An Act establishing the Public Complaints and Review Commission and amending certain Acts and statutory instruments, as reported (with amendments) from the committee, and of Motion No. 1.

Public Complaints and Review Commission Act

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, where we left off this morning, Conservatives were saying that they wanted the bill to pass. In fact, they even chastened the Liberals for not passing the bill.

Just prior to question period, I asked for unanimous consent to move beyond this dilatory motion, delay motion, obstruction motion, that the Conservatives have put. What they are asking Canadians to do is to pay $70,000, which is the cost of one hour of parliamentary time, for a parliamentary debate around whether the short title of this bill should be deleted. Now, $70,000 is a lot of money where I come from. For most Canadian families, $70,000 is what they earn in a year. Conservatives have burned that money just in the last hour.

What I did was that I asked for unanimous consent to move to third reading, because at this point, in report stage, all we are doing is debating the Conservatives' stupid amendment, a wacko amendment, that simply says that we are going to delete the short title of the bill. There is no substance to it. It does not improve the bill in any form. It does not make any difference in terms of the public commission that so many people have been crying out for and that is so badly needed.

All it does is delay and cost Canadians $70,000 for each and every hour of this absolutely useless obstructionism. It is wacko obstructionism from an official opposition that is not a serious party. The Conservatives had the opportunity to move on that—

[The Acting Speaker, Bloc, Gabriel Ste-Marie]

The hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier is rising on a point of order.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, our leader was expelled earlier this week for using the word “wacko”. My colleague has already said it twice, and has only been speaking for maybe two minutes.

Is this considered unparliamentary language, yes or no? I would like to have a decision.

[The Acting Speaker, Bloc, Gabriel Ste-Marie]

I would ask for a bit of decorum in the House.

I thank the hon. member for his point of order. Obviously, there is a difference between using that unflattering term to characterize a policy or a decision and using it to describe a person. That is how the Chair has interpreted the Standing Orders. I therefore invite the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby to continue his speech.

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I like your interpretation a lot because it corresponds to what the member and the Conservative members could read in the rules of the House. We are not allowed to attack other members. That is what the Leader of the Opposition and member for Carleton did. He attacked the Prime Minister, he insulted him and he refused to withdraw his comments.

The member for Carleton, who has been here for 20 years, should at least understand how things work in the House. He did what everyone knows and that is exactly the opposite of how we are supposed to behave under our rules. We can criticize ideas and actions, but we cannot criticize people. Every Conservative member should know that.

In the last hour, the Conservatives have burned $70,000 of Canadian taxpayers' money.

Members will recall how woefully terrible the Harper regime was at managing money. It gave $116 billion in the big bank bailout on liquidity supports. Each and every year, $30 billion was given in the infamous Harper tax haven treaties. It was a sweetheart deal for Canadian billionaires and the most profitable corporations in the country, and the Conservatives just splurged that money because money does not mean anything to them.

They are terrible financial managers. Conservative financial management is an oxymoron. They are the worst financial managers anyone has ever seen, and the 10 dismal years of the Harper government will remain, in infamy, the worst years of financial management in our country's history: consecutive deficits throughout that period, massive handouts to the banks, massive handouts to the oil and gas CEOs and massive handouts to overseas tax havens. At this same time—

[The Acting Speaker, Bloc, Gabriel Ste-Marie]

The hon. member for Calgary Centre is rising on a point of order.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am shocked. The member has called me and my party bad fiscal managers. I assure him that I was a money manager before I came to the House, yet I do not see any money managers over there. He is suggesting that I and other members of my party do not know how to do this, but I would strongly suggest that we have, personally, much better fiscal plans and much better economic plans than I have ever heard come out of the member's mouth.

As such, I would like him to retract that remark, please.

[The Acting Speaker, Bloc, Gabriel Ste-Marie]

I thank the hon. member for Calgary Centre for his intervention. However, that is a matter for debate.

I invite the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby to continue his speech.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have won consecutive business excellence awards, so I have no lessons to learn from any Conservatives in the House. The reality is that the member can consult the fiscal period returns produced by the Department of Finance. It is not a hotbed of social democracy, but the federal Department of Finance, over the last few decades, produced the fiscal period returns. They say that Conservatives and Liberals are terrible financial managers and that the best governments are NDP governments.

Year after year, the fiscal period returns, which every MP, Conservative, Liberal or of any other persuasion, can consult, will show that NDP governments have the best record of managing money and of paying down debt. We do that because we are able to run programs like health care and education, and we do not fritter away money like the Conservatives are doing today. For $70,000, there is this debate around this frivolous distraction of deleting the short title of this bill rather than getting on to third reading so that we can actually get in place the—

[The Acting Speaker, Bloc, Gabriel Ste-Marie]

I thank the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

Unfortunately, his time is up. We will move on to questions and comments.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I was rather enjoying a good portion of the member's comments.

I want to pick up on one aspect, when he talked about the short title because, for those who might be following the debate, there is a valid argument to be made that the Conservatives are doing nothing more than playing an obstructive role. Even though they say they want the legislation passed, they go out of their way to prevent the legislation from passing.

When the member makes reference to the short title, this is what the Conservatives are proposing to delete: This act may be cited as the “Public Complaints and Review Commission Act”. They want that aspect of the legislation deleted.

I am wondering if the member could provide his thoughts in regard to the obstruction that the Conservative Party is playing on such important legislation.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the point. It is not that they want to spend hours and hours debating that one sentence and whether we remove it, when it has absolutely no impact on the legislation or on the public complaints commission, but that they want to spend. They want to waste. I see the finance critic for the Conservatives in the House right now, and they want to waste $70,000 for each and every hour—