Evidence of meeting #98 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was investigation.
A video is available from Parliament.
3:35 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.
Is there relevance? I'm speaking of relevance here in terms of the CEBA loan deadline today for 200,000 small businesses that are sweating it out. What is the relevance?
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I have the floor, Mr. Chair.
It's not a point of order.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
It's not your turn to speak. It was a point of order.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Mr. Genuis, please.
Mr. Johns, are you finished with your point of order? I'm sorry. There's been a bit of conflicting—
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thanks. I appreciate your point of order. We always allow wide latitude for relevance.
Mr. Genuis, continue.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you, Chair.
If this were about a sincere attempt to address both issues, we could have addressed both issues. I would have been happy to work with Mr. Johns to adopt an agreeable privilege motion, and then to work on a motion that addresses the very serious issues he's raised with respect to CEBA. Instead, we have before us this nonsense Liberal amendment designed at inserting explicit political attacks into the text of a committee motion. This is obviously ridiculous. Liberals would no doubt much rather be throwing nonsense attacks at the Conservative leader than doing the hard work of governing the country or helping us get to the bottom of what happened in the ArriveCAN scam. Unfortunately, Mr. Johns is playing into their hands here.
I would prefer that we adopt the privilege motion and kill these silly amendments from Mr. Sousa. Then we can—
3:35 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.
The Conservatives went for the throat with Mr. Utano and Mr. MacDonald, and today they're saying they're here to protect Mr. Utano and Mr. MacDonald.
3:35 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
He's talking about a question of privilege, but seriously, you can't make this stuff up.
Anyway, that's my point of order.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
That's not a point of order, but I appreciate your comments.
Continue, Mr. Genuis.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Chair, although it wasn't a point of order, I will respond to what Mr. Johns said.
Conservatives on this committee are committed to getting to the truth and to establishing the conditions in which witnesses can come and deliver frank testimony, in which hopefully they deliver honest testimony, in which, yes, they can be asked hard and tough questions. I think Conservatives have asked tough questions of every witness who has appeared before this committee. We've pressed Mr. MacDonald on his claims. We pressed Mr. Doan on his claims. We pressed Mr. Firth, and so on and so forth.
It's not about being for or against one witness or another witness. We believe, though, that every witness should be protected in their ability to come before this committee, to receive appropriate support in the process and to not be subject to retaliation after that. If a witness comes here under conditions such that they worry about employment consequences for telling the truth, then we have a grave problem for the health of our democracy.
I think what ArriveCAN revealed is that we do have a grave problem for the health of our democracy.
We have Liberals and New Democrats working together, prepared to prevent questions of privilege of parliamentarians from being considered and going forward. The idea that this was about getting to CEBA.... We were already on the vote. Whatever happened at the vote, it was going to be done after that anyway. Mr. Johns still chose to vote against the privilege motion, so he has to be held accountable for being part of this cover-up, part of failing to support our motion to actually allow this issue to be properly considered.
Further to that, we have these amendments.
Mr. Sousa was a finance minister in Ontario at one time, and I'd certainly be happy to discuss the record of the Wynne government when it came to negative impacts on small business. I wonder if some of my Ontario colleagues will have things to add to that. He has put in this motion and tried to make it partisan by adding obvious nonsense, political-attack language.
It's clear that the Liberals would rather be purveying these kinds of attacks than allowing the committee to continue to do the important work it has been doing on ArriveCAN or doing the necessary work towards achieving consensus around this issue.
Just to reiterate, in terms of the timelines on CEBA, extending the CEBA loan deadline is a decision that would have to be taken by the Government of Canada. The executive would have to take that decision. Nothing this committee could do would prevent the government from making that decision one way or the other. Small businesses that are concerned about any aspect of the agenda of this government, including the CEBA extension, need to know that it is the Liberal government that is responsible for setting and maintaining this deadline. It is the Liberal government, supported through a coalition agreement with the NDP.
Mr. Johns wants to be up on a high horse and say that we need things for small business. The Liberals are ignoring small business. He needs to go talk to his leader, his House leader, and he needs to ask them why they continue to give the Liberals a blank cheque
Why is the NDP so terrified of facing voters that they will give Liberals a blank cheque? That's what this really comes down to. Mr. Johns can say all he wants about motions at committee, but it is a decision of the executive whether or not it will grant this extension. It depends only on the House insofar as the House decides whether or not it has confidence in the executive.
Our position is clear as it relates to confidence. We do not have confidence in this government. We have voted non-confidence, I think, more or less, at every opportunity we've had. We did it hundreds of times in the fall, and the opposition is clear: We do not have confidence in this government. We think Canada needs a new government.
The NDP members have a different position. The NDP members have confidence in the government and they repeatedly vote confidence in the government in spite of their crocodile tears over the impacts of this government's policies on small businesses.
I would challenge the NDP members that if they are serious about wanting to do something for small business, they should join us in expressing non-confidence in the worst government small businesses have ever had to deal with.
Again, anybody who is concerned about the impact of this government's policies on small business should join us in voting non-confidence in a government that has been the worst for small business of any government in Canadian history. The NDP members will not do that but will instead try to cover for their failures.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Mr. Genuis, I'm going to interrupt. Unfortunately we are past our time and we are out of resources.
I am adjourning.