Michel Gauthier

[Canada Elections Act, September 18th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the legislation before us is certainly worthwhile. Everyone will benefit a great deal from having elections held on a fixed date in the Canadian parliamentary system.

I would like to tell the government that the Bloc Québécois members will definitely support this legislation because, in our view, it represents a step forward. People need to understand that we again have a minority government. In recent years, we have had several elections in a short space of time. Canadians need to know that since I became a member of Parliament in 1993, no majority government has completed its full mandate, which should run between four and five years. Choosing an election date has become a political plaything for a prime minister, who tries not to find the best way of accommodating voters, but to find a time when public opinion may give him popular support. It has become a guessing game, with absolutely disastrous consequences.

First, people get fed up with having hundreds of millions of dollars of their tax money spent to hold an election four, six or eight months before it is required. Holding elections on a fixed date is sound fiscal policy. It is wonderful. A normal mandate runs for four years. This gives the government time to do things, and no one has to deal with the stress of an unexpected election campaign.

There is a serious shortage of women in politics. But let us look at what is required of candidates who want to join us here in the House of Commons or serve in the provincial legislatures. We are talking about professionals, business people, people who have some responsibility in society. They are expected to announce six, seven or eight months in advance that they intend to run for office. Imagine a wife and mother or a career woman who also has family obligations. She has to tell her husband and children that she plans to run as a political candidate in the next election, with all that involves.

This is fine if the election is called a month later: people announce their intention to run, then they start campaigning. We know how it works on the ground: we campaign daily, selling memberships leading up to a convention and convincing the organizers. That is how we work. However, the election might not happen until seven months later because the Prime Minister decided to put it off since the polls were not looking very good. Then people find themselves in a pseudo-campaign situation for six or seven months while they prepare and wait for the big day. Obviously, they have to keep working at it because everyone knows they intend to run.

This kind of cat-and-mouse game is detrimental to recruiting candidates. If we know that the election is to take place on such and such a Monday in October of such and such a year, people can plan for it, at a time that suits them, and then announce their candidacy.

I sincerely believe that one of the major advantages of this bill is that is would simplify life for people who want to enter public service, but who are not prepared to play around with their careers for five, six, seven months, or maybe even a year while they wait for a general election to be called. This is an extremely important part of planning the transition from private life to political life for people who decide to take the leap. This is an important element.

The second very important element is that democracy works best when everyone, even the men and women in politics, knows that there are fixed elections. Fixed elections enable us to take more coherent, organized action rather than playing the will-he-or-won't-he game with the Prime Minister.

I believe that there is nothing worse for democracy than letting the Prime Minister decide when to hold an election based on when public opinion tells him he is at his best, and then surprising everyone with the election announcement.

In my opinion, an election is not a game. An election must be taken seriously, approached honestly and not be a surprise. It must take place in its own time in order to allow citizens to express their opinions. This is another extremely important consideration.

Past prime ministers toyed a great deal with election dates. Oddly enough, this card has almost always been played in the month following the arrival of a new leader of the opposition. That indicates that the prime minister would take stock of the situation. If the Bloc Québécois was holding a leadership convention, the time was right to call an election two months later. How considerate. There is no time to organize as everyone is caught off guard.

A leadership race is currently underway in the Liberal party. It would be tempting for a prime minister, in these circumstances, to call an election perhaps two, three or four months after the new leader is chosen so as to not give this individual the time to organize.

I must say that the Prime Minister is being reasonable and sensible when he tells citizens that he is setting aside this prerogative, which is his to exercise, and doing so deliberately. He says that he will not play games with the opposition parties or public opinion. He will simply respect the mandate given. Obviously this bill does not and cannot change the constitutional powers of the Prime Minister and the Governor General, particularly those of the Governor General.

A responsible government assumes that the Prime Minister could, at any time, if defeated in the House, go to the Governor General and advise him or her that he no longer has the confidence of the House. That goes without saying.

The Constitution has not been amended. However, the Prime Minister, by putting forward this legislative measure, and even if he does retain the authority to act otherwise, places considerable political pressure on himself and on those who will follow .

People would not understand, for example, if the Prime Minister, after tabling this Bill providing for elections in October of 2009, should decide to call an election in 2008, with three months notice—because the polls were favourable or because of some other circumstances—perhaps because he was hoping to achieve a majority government. That would not be well received. The voters would say he was two-faced, saying one thing when talking about principles but acting in an entirely different way when it is time for action.

It is no secret that in tabling this bill, the Prime Minister is creating a framework that he will have to respect in all situations and that he must accept. In addition, what he is doing will have consequences for others. He is agreeing, for himself, to give up that prerogative of playing with election dates. As a result, it won’t be done any more.

Once he has taken this step, the path will be marked out for subsequent prime ministers, who will have to respect this legislation which is a very clear expression of the will of the House of Commons.

Moreover, the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer has very complex work to do to prepare for an election. At present, the possibility that there might be an election at any time during the government’s mandate requires Elections Canada officials to be in a state of constant readiness. Some rather large expenditures are linked to that state of affairs. I am not just talking about the mandate of a minority government. It is true even in the context of a very strong majority government, as we have seen in the past.

It seems to me that with a fixed election date, in the context of a majority government, Elections Canada could better plan its work and its schedules and be better prepared, more adequately prepared, when the situation required it. That is also an absolutely remarkable benefit.

In addition, elected members have many other matters to be concerned with than the need to be re-elected, perhaps in a year-and-a-half, two years, or three-and-a-half years. They have a great deal of parliamentary work to do and lots of work in their ridings. Having a certain, predetermined room for manoeuvre will allow members, through agreement with all parties, to plan the work of parliamentary committees and the legislative agenda to be accomplished. The government and the opposition will be able to plan better and work more effectively. It avoids unpleasant surprises and enables parliamentary committees to schedule their work so that within one mandate a number of problems could be dealt with. Parliamentary committees will be able to plan their work and establish a schedule that respects dates known to everyone.

A clear democratic advantage ensues, for this leads to improved democracy. As for the practical organization of elections, this will also allow for a better electoral process. It also has the advantage of making it possible to better organize the work of Parliament. It also allows very worthy candidates to better plan the announcement of their candidacy, which is not currently the case. This could draw more women to political office, and certainly more senior level professionals who cannot risk putting their careers on hold for months at a time.

Furthermore, researchers looked at approximately 40 parliamentary democracies from around the world and found that only 12, including Canada, do not have fixed election dates, or at least an electoral period established within a couple of months. In short, only 12 out of 40 do not have elections on a certain day or during a certain period. This means that accepting fixed election dates would be a step towards progress. It would mean joining the 28 other parliamentary democracies that have established this rule. This also prevents overlapping with unsuitable periods for an election, such as during holidays or during periods that could interfere with elections being held in other areas of our public life. This allows us to simply declare late September and October, every four years,as the election period for the House of Commons, as we would all know that the election is held the third Monday in October. Everyone could then plan their schedules based on this information.

We therefore support this bill. It does not change our democratic habits in any drastic way; it merely specifies the importance of fulfilling four-year mandates.

I have served several terms in this House since 1993, and I have never seen a government complete its mandate. When a minority government was elected, reporters asked me whether I was disappointed that we had another minority government, because that could mean an election in the relatively near future. I told them that whether we have a minority or a majority government, it never completes its mandate. The legislation before us will allow governments to complete their mandates. That is what we hope and want. For a minority government to complete its mandate, it needs to do one very simple thing: respect the members of this House.

Any government that decides to respect the will of the House of Commons will easily be able to complete its four-year mandate. From now on, the Prime Minister and the cabinet—the executive—will have to agree to govern by consensus. The opposition has the power to allow the minority government to continue or to defeat it. Of course, our goal is to allow the government to govern. But the government has the responsibility to develop the tools it needs in order to govern. With a minority government, an election might be held in October 2009. This government would have to try to govern more openly to rally the forces of the NDP, the Bloc Québécois, the opposition as a whole or the Liberal opposition. This is possible. It has happened in the past, and it generally means more responsible governance.

Fixed election dates can benefit both majority and minority governments. We all try to the best of our ability to ensure that the government governs properly, over the course of a full mandate. Canadians do not like having too many elections and want us to act responsibly. The bill will make that possible.

Again, without eliminating the Governor General's prerogative to dissolve Parliament, the Prime Minister has set an extremely rigid set of parameters for himself, and he will have to abide by those parameters or else lose all credibility. When he has followed those parameters once, his successors will be morally obliged to do the same. This is a step forward. I salute this initiative. The Bloc will support it on its merits, as it approaches every piece of legislation tabled in this House.

[Points of Order, June 13th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the second point of order, I would simply say that the situation is deteriorating and it is unacceptable to give the finger. In the first case, it was a parliamentarian; in the second, the gesture was repeated.

The finger has been given to all Quebec and Canadian farmers and dairy producers.

[Health, June 12th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, in November 2004, the Europeans faced the same problem, the same price increase for the same product, and they did not hesitate for an instant before taking action. They launched inquiries into the drug industry's abuse of its dominant position.

This government has been in power for four and a half, nearly five months. The problem is not a new one. When will the government follow the European example and protect consumers?

[Health, June 12th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health.

The price of nitric oxide, which is used to treat babies with respiratory problems, has jumped 400%. By approving only a single product, Health Canada has eliminated competition overnight, which has caused the price to jump.

How can the minister explain the fact that the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board has allowed the price to increase by 400%, knowing of the monopoly held by the American company?

[Canada Labour Code, June 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to raise a point of order in this House. I would like to be allowed to proceed calmly, because this is a matter that has very important consequences for the House and the future of our work.

First, I should say that my comments will pertain to the royal recommendation. Recently, and primarily because of the new context we find ourselves in, with a minority government, the issue of the royal recommendation has become much more important.

What we have to understand is that, in the case of a majority government, since the royal recommendation is considered less indispensable, the government can always rescue a private member's bill by a majority vote of its members. But in the case of a minority government, as the two most recent governments have been, the royal recommendation becomes very important.

When a bill is passed and accepted by the House of Commons, it becomes effective, and the government has no choice but to comply with it. If the bill involves additional expenditures of public funds, you will understand, Mr. Speaker, that it could be problematic for the government to allow the House of Commons to commit public funds without executive power. This is a privilege of the executive, the government, not the House of Commons.

However, Bill C-257 introduced by my colleague from Gatineau, which is an anti-scab bill that applies to workers who come under the Canada Labour Code, was initially deemed by the clerk to require a royal recommendation. Mr. Speaker, I know that you intended to review this whole issue in light of the complexity of the implications. You will understand my surprise when I realized that this is the first time in 17 years, during which time 10 such bills have been introduced here in this House, that the anti-scab bill has required a royal recommendation. I therefore checked the record. Mr. Speaker, I looked to your own decisions for material to use in my argument today.

When Bill C-263 was introduced by my former colleague, Roger Clavet, the Speaker said, right here in this House—you were in the chair: “Royal recommendation is particularly important, and as Speaker of the House of Commons, I must say that you have to be extremely careful, and we have to be extremely vigilant, not to commit public moneys under a minority government that could be overturned by a vote in the House of Commons”. Mr. Speaker, you were absolutely right. Except that last year, when Roger Clavet introduced his bill despite that warning—you were well aware of the dangers—you did not ask for royal recommendation for that anti-scab bill, which was exactly the same as the one introduced today.

The clerks told us that two types of expenditures may be considered for royal recommendation. The first is operational expenditures for running departments. The second is statutory expenditures, that is, expenditures automatically incurred upon the implementation of a bill.

Mr. Speaker, according to your clerks, operational expenditures do not require royal recommendation because they are part of the overall cost of running the Government of Canada. Statutory expenditures, on the other hand, require royal recommendation because they are additional expenditures made when the bill is adopted.

In our view, Bill C-257, tabled by my colleague from Gatineau, requires no royal recommendation. No one indicated to my colleague, either at the time his bill was being prepared or at the time it was tabled, that a royal recommendation would be necessary. I understand that he was not told this. Last year, you yourself deemed the bill receivable, and the context was that of a minority government. Nothing has changed in that regard. I therefore assume that everyone believed, at the time of tabling, that no royal recommendation was necessary, and no one required one of my colleague.

Now we are told in mid-course that, as the bill provides for an investigator who may be designated by the Minister of Labour—whom I salute, as he is now present in this chamber—this is a new role, and therefore an expenditure inherent in the bill. So the bill requires a royal recommendation. I point out that the work of a Department of Labour investigator, ordered by the minister, depends on the needs of the situation. Sometimes he works on this, sometimes he investigates that. That is what we call operating expenses, not statutory expenditures.

Since we are passing an antiscab bill, with due respect for the preliminary decision of the clerk, no additional inspector may be hired at the Department of Labour. There are already staff in place to perform this very work, whose job description corresponds in every respect to the investigations that the minister might request. He will not necessarily request them. So this is an expense that is possible, but possible within the operations of the department. Hence there is nothing that requires what we call a royal recommendation.

I checked, and under the Canada Labour Code, labour relations officers have this very mandate. The minister is quite aware of this. He has a certain number of tasks performed by this personnel.

I searched a little further. On March 21, 2005, you yourself rendered a decision in the case of Bill C-331 which provided for negotiations with the Ukrainian community. That bill allocated so-called public money and could have required a spending authority. In your great wisdom, you declared that the bill provided for the conduct of negotiations with the Ukrainian community, and that it could not be established in advance that there would necessarily be costs related to those negotiations. Since a royal recommendation is not necessary for things which may never in fact occur, it was not necessary for section 3 of that bill. It was thus ordered by the great wisdom of the House, your own and that of the clerk, that in the case of a bill which provided for negotiations with the Ukrainian community, it could not be predicted that there would inevitably be costs. Furthermore since the costs generated would not be immediate, they would be operating costs, costs which—according to the clerks—never require royal recommendation. So this is a good decision you made. You have made others that were just as good, about which I would like to speak to you.

On October 29, 2003, in your great wisdom, when examining a bill on restoring the lighthouses of the St. Lawrence, you recognized that:

—when heritage lighthouses are designated, there may be an expenditure of public funds. However, I would characterize those expenditures as falling within departmental operational costs, for which an appropriation would have been obtained in the usual manner. From year to year, such expenditures would vary depending on the condition and number of heritage lighthouse structures and on the effects of weather. Such operational expenditures are covered through the annual appropriation act that Parliament considers and approves.

You spoke wisely when you stated:

Therefore, after listening to the submissions of hon. members and after reviewing my previous ruling and the provisions of this bill, I would conclude that Bill S-14 does not require a royal recommendation.

In your wisdom you recognized that, for this bill, royal recommendation was not required since it involved an operational cost and not a statutory expenditure arising from the bill.

You recognized, for Bill S-14 and a number of bills, that a royal recommendation was not required when the expenditure arising from adoption of the bill was not immediate.

For 17 years, you and your predecessors recognized that the anti-scab bill did not require royal recommendation. Last year, despite your vigilance and warning to the House of Commons, you did not request a royal recommendation for the same bill.

It would not make sense that suddenly, this year, parliamentary law, tradition and rulings no longer apply and that everything has changed.

I have the utmost respect for the role played by the office of the Clerk of the House of Commons. It is to advise and support members, to ensure that they are able to enforce the rules calmly and fairly, and, in the context in which they work, present parliamentary initiatives that will serve their fellow citizens, as my colleague from Gatineau has done.

I know that this idea would not occur to you, but at no time is it the role of the Speaker or the Clerk of the House of Commons to protect the government. You are above the political fray, as we know. You are here to ensure that the rights of all members, including independent members, are respected, and to ensure that we are able to represent our fellow citizens in an atmosphere of complete serenity, comfort and security.

I do not think—based on earlier rulings and the 10 bills tabled that never, after being assessed, needed a royal recommendation, and based on the role of an inspector—that it can be said, today, that this calls for a royal recommendation, when the inspectors exist and are already doing this work, and there is nothing to say that any more inspectors will be needed after this. Nor is there anything to say that the Minister of Labour will be having to order investigation after investigation to enforce an antiscab law.

Based on all these considerations, and relying on your earlier rulings, on the wisdom of the House of Commons, on our desire that our rules be followed and, most importantly, on the fact it is not the job of anyone here, other than the government itself, to protect minority governments—any more than it is the job of the Speaker to support the opposition, other than to ensure that it is able to use the rules properly and do its job—I am certain that in a few days you will deliver a ruling on the antiscab bill. As was the case on 10 occasions in the last 17 years, you will find that this bill does not call for a royal recommendation, that it can be voted on in the House of Commons and come into force to provide the best protection for working men and women covered by the Canada Labour Code, as is the case in Quebec for workers protected by the province’s labour code.

I am certain that the Minister of Labour, who comes from Quebec, is familiar with Quebec's legislation and is not unaware of what is happening there in terms of labour relations, and that you yourself, all of Parliament, our colleagues in the Liberal opposition—who in fact gave us fairly broad support in our first attempt, as our friends in the NDP will certainly do— we will together vote to enact an antiscab bill, legislation that you will allow us to vote on and bring into force because we are in compliance with all of your earlier rulings.

[Business of the House, June 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I think we can admire the government's argument about the sort of decision you just made.

However, with all due respect, Parliament has a formal tradition. It has always been this way, and it is even fundamental because it allows for debate and parliamentary decisions at the appropriate time, both for the official opposition and for other opposition parties. Since Parliament began, a request for unanimous consent has always been dealt with directly on the floor of the House, without delay.

Any other decision you might make would place you, as Speaker, in the thick of the political debate and political power game that is taking place with the request for unanimous consent. It would therefore be inadvisable for you to decide to call for the question of consent in 20 minutes. You must put the question immediately, in keeping with parliamentary tradition.

If the government House leader wants time for discussion, then when the question is called, he is free to rise and tell the Speaker that his party may be ready to consent but that he would like a few moments to consult.

However, with all due respect, the Speaker cannot make this sort of decision.

[National Revenue, June 1st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the Government of Quebec has announced that it will relinquish the $24 million in taxes owed by Vincent Lacroix and use the money to compensate the people who were defrauded in the Norbourg case. We know that Vincent Lacroix also owes the federal government $12 million.

Does the Minister of Finance intend to follow Quebec's example, relinquish its $12 million and use the money to compensate the people in Quebec who were defrauded by Norbourg?

[Child Care, May 30th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know when the federal government will understand that child care is a provincial responsibility. I will tell the federal government that Quebeckers are already penalized to the tune of $250 million a year because they do not have access to the child care deduction, since they subsidize their own child care system. Now, because of the government's inflexibility, they are about to be deprived of an additional $60 million a year.

I ask the Quebec ministers in this government whether someone can make the government see that in Quebec, we have paid for our child care system and that—

[Child Care, May 30th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, on the issue of child care, the Government of Quebec is calling for the right to withdraw, with full compensation, from the tax credit program intended to create new spaces because Quebec already has its own child care system.

Is there not a single Quebec minister in this government who can make the government understand that Quebec will be penalized again because it already has a child care system in place?

[Francophonie, May 15th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, as a good diplomat, His Excellency thought it best to put the emphasis on what worked, not what did not, but for which the government is to blame.

I want to ask the following of the Minister for la Francophonie and Official Languages, who is responsible for this issue. What did she have to do that day that was more important than welcoming the highest official of the worldwide Francophonie?