Bill C-24 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act

This enactment amends the Salaries Act to authorize payment, out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, of the salaries for eight new ministerial positions. It authorizes the Governor in Council to designate departments to support the ministers who occupy those positions and authorizes those ministers to delegate their powers, duties or functions to officers or employees of the designated departments. It also makes a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act.

Salaries Act

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague infers that the idea of having ministers of state and ministers was somehow Stephen Harper's idea. This system has been in place for a long time. All Canadians, other than the Liberals, who are now bent on correcting this mistake that the Prime Minister made, recognize the huge difference in workload. It is one thing for members to sit around the cabinet table and give their input, that is great, but there is a lot more to being a minister than sitting at the cabinet table. To manage a department with a deputy minister and a full complement of staff is a huge responsibility.

My colleagues on this side of the House, who have served in both of those capacities, as ministers of state and full ministers, are insulted by this thinking that a junior minister, a minister of state, would now be artificially elevated to this full minister status.

My colleague talks about the great cabinet that Prime Minister Harper had. I want to congratulate him. I would ask my colleague this. Why in the world would the Prime Minister and the Liberal government not have appointed a minister for seniors at this point, almost two years into their mandate?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise because I am deeply disappointed in what I see in this bill.

When the new cabinet was appointed in 2015, I was disappointed to see that the position of minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec had been abolished. I was extremely disappointed because even though we did not always agree with having the hon. member for Roberval in that role, at least I knew that the people who talked to him about a plan could do so in French and be understood. Now we have a minister who barely speaks any French, who is from Ontario and does not understand the nuances of Quebec, and that is who people have to deal with. In other words, we have a minister in Ontario overseeing the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, who lacks the understanding of the dynamics—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order. The hon. member for Kitchener—Conestoga.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, would you check to see if we have quorum at this point in the deliberations.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

We have quorum.

The hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, one of the problems with having a minister from Ontario oversee the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec is that he does not understand the dynamics of Quebec and how it is the only province where we cannot negotiate directly with municipalities. Agreements need to be reached with the Government of Quebec. As a result of the minister's lack of understanding on this, Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec programs are not going so well.

The bill proposes simply to abolish the position. First the government appoints a minister from Ontario and then it insults Quebeckers by telling them that not only is a minister from Ontario going to take care of their province's economic development, but after that the position will simply cease to exist.

This does not make sense to me. I believe that we absolutely must go back to the arrangement where the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec was the responsibility of a Quebec minister or a minister representing this region. I believe that we must absolutely go back to that.

One thing is for sure: this provision alone is reason enough for me to oppose the bill. Not only does this make absolutely no sense, but ministers of state will now be paid the same as ministers, even if they do not have the same duties, responsibilities or officials to manage.

Why are they doing this? In truth, it is not out of fairness, but simply to correct the mistake that the Prime Minister made when he unveiled his original cabinet. It is all well and good to say that a gender parity in cabinet has been achieved because there are as many women as there are men; nonetheless there is still the issue of the responsibilities given to the women. That was problematic from the very beginning.

The six most important positions in cabinet, apart from the Prime Minister, are the following: the Minister of Public Safety, a man; the Minister of Foreign Affairs, a man, Stéphane Dion, when the Prime Minister formed his cabinet in 2015; the President of the Treasury Board, a man; the Minister of Finance, a man; the Minister of National Defence, a man; and the Minister of Justice, a woman. Of the six most important positions in the Government of Canada, there was originally only one woman. A cabinet shuffle rectified this. Now, the Minister of Foreign Affairs is a woman, because they decided to send Mr. Dion abroad. There is that at least, but there is still no gender balance when it comes to the six most important positions.

There are three House officer positions. When the cabinet was formed after the election, in 2015, the chief whip was a man, the member for Orléans; the Leader of the Government in the House was a man, big surprise, the name of his riding escapes me, but he is the current Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard. Lastly, there is obviously the leader, a man; the caucus chair, although chosen by the caucus, not the Prime Minister, is also a man. Originally, the House officers were men.

The Prime Minister made a mistake. For him, gender balance is as easy as putting 15 people on one side and 15 people on the other. However, we must never forget about the responsibilities that are given to women.

Madam Speaker, your title is the assistant deputy speaker. I do not believe that you would expect to have the same salary as the Speaker of the House, because you do not have the same duties or responsibilities. However, we recognize your role and importance. The House held an election. We have to stop thinking that, for true fairness to come about, all it takes is to give everyone the same pay. Equality must also involve the responsibilities given to people. That is the problem we have at the moment.

The government did not decide to create departments and expand job descriptions so that ministers of state would be ministers in their own right who deserved the same salary. No one can tell me that the Minister of Sport and the Minister of National Defence deserve the same salary because their responsibilities, at least as they stand now, are completely different. Just think about their budgets and how many public servants they have working for them. It is obvious that they are not the same at all.

Let us also remember that there are many qualified women that the Prime Minister could have appointed. He could have made different choices. For example, the member for Vancouver Centre has been here since 1993. She has been in the House longer than any other female MP. However, the Prime Minister chose to appoint other people. Those are his personal choices. The member for Kanata—Carleton has a great deal of experience as a member of the military. The Prime Minister could have appointed her to be the defence minister instead of the member for Vancouver South, but he did not.

Now the Prime Minister needs to take responsibility for his decisions. He is the one who appointed his cabinet as he saw fit and created the inequality in the duties and responsibilities entrusted to women. The solution is simple, and it is not a bill to change people's salaries, but rather a cabinet shuffle.

If the Prime Minister would like, we could name some ministers who were so-so, such as the Minister of National Defence who decided to take credit for the success of an operation. The Prime Minister could put a woman in that position. Only once in the history of Canada have we had a woman defence minister, namely, Kim Campbell, who was appointed to the position following the massacre in Rwanda because it looked better to have a woman managing such a file.

After thinking things through over the summer, the Prime Minister could decide to appoint a woman defence minister. In fact, if he were to do so, it would bring some balance to the six top posts in the Government of Canada. There would be three women and three men, so that would be an improvement. However, he could do even better and be even more ground-breaking by appointing a woman finance minister. That has never been done before. He could decide to do that.

Rather than trying to have its bill adopted by force, by using time allocation motions, he should simply use the good old method of a cabinet shuffle, reflect on the ways he wants to distribute additional tasks, and ensure that women have real leadership roles in the Canadian government, instead of trying to raise their salaries and minimize the mistake he made when he put together a cabinet that has equal representation solely in terms of numbers, and not in terms of responsibilities.

I hope that the Prime Minister will seriously consider my question, ask that Bill C-24 be withdrawn, and do what everyone would do: shuffle the cabinet to rebalance the distribution of responsibilities between the men and women in his cabinet.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, the member mentioned the most important positions, and I am wondering how she came to the conclusion that those were the most important positions. For me, health is one of the most important positions, and it is held by a woman. Labour is an important position, and it is held by a woman. International development is an important position, and it is held by a woman. How does she determine the most important positions?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, those positions are important in Canada because of our constitutional system.

At present, health is primarily managed by the provinces. For that reason, the role of the Minister of Health at the federal level is a little less important than the role of the Minister of National Defence, for example, since health budgets are managed primarily by the provinces. In the case of labour, 90% of employees in Canada fall under provincial jurisdiction rather than under federal jurisdiction.

When I talk about the six key positions, they are the ones that journalists and Canadians are most interested in when there is a cabinet shuffle. They are also the six ministers that people are most often familiar with. There is a good chance that people know who the Minister of Finance is, but when it comes to International Cooperation, for example, even though I would like it to be otherwise, people have a lot more trouble giving us a name.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I would remind members that instead of yelling out, if they would like to stand and contribute to the discussion, they can do so. It would be a much more proper way of doing things here in the House.

We will continue with questions and comments. The hon. member for Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I entirely agree with her. Pretending that we have parity in a photograph is not going to give us true parity in the government. A minister of state and a minister are not the same thing. They do not have the same responsibilities.

Would raising the salary of a minister of state and making it equivalent to a minister’s salary actually mean that the ministers are “of lower quality”?

A minister's responsibilities are different from those of a minister of state. They seem to be telling Canadians that a minister is no longer as important as before.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, when a minister of state is given a more important portfolio because he does good work, that is a promotion. People are motivated by greater responsibility and higher pay. Very motivated, in fact.

I am sure that if a minister of the Francophonie were offered a ministerial position with a whole department to look after, she would be pleased. If we pass this bill, there goes that motivation. People will simply be told that they have more duties, more responsibilities, and a whole lot more people to manage, but cannot expect a pay raise for it.

Is it motivating to get a promotion that is not really a promotion because the government says all ministers are equal?

That is not very motivating. We need two different pay grades for ministers of state and ministers because their jobs are really very different.

If the government decided to completely change the job description for ministers of state and give them a department and a budget, then maybe it would make sense, but that is not how things are right now, and that is not the way things are going.

We need to maintain these distinctions for now. I encourage the Prime Minister to appoint more female ministers. If he needs help with that, I myself can give him a little advice about some outstanding women in his cabinet who could replace a few of the men who have been doing a lacklustre job.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to Bill C-24. I find it absolutely amazing, and it really speaks to the contempt that the Liberal Party has for this hallowed place of Parliament, that when members are speaking and members on the opposite side do not agree with the position of the opposition, which is really the job of the opposition, to hold the government to account, that gang over there starts chirping at members on this side. It is quite funny to see.

Leave it to the Prime Minister to waste Parliament's time in dealing with this piece of legislation, not unlike the changes to the election financing bill that is being proposed by the government. The government creates legislation, in this case breaking its own rules, and now has to bring legislation to the House to keep itself in line. It is absolutely ridiculous. We are now dealing with a bill, Bill C-24, that the Prime Minister created when he created his cabinet. I agree with the member who sits beside me that this is a complete waste of government and parliamentary time.

Let us look at what Bill C-24 would do. It would allow for the creation of eight new Liberal ministerial positions, including three Liberal ministers who are yet to be named. When I think of ministers yet to be named, it is almost as if the Liberals have become general managers of a hockey team. They are making trades, and part of the deal is for a player to be named later or future considerations. It just does not make any sense.

Liberals are asking us to vote on something that is not even defined. They tell us to trust them. Canadians are surely starting to learn what trusting the Liberals means. What is the potential of these new ministerial positions? They have not told us in this piece of legislation. Maybe they are looking at creating a ministry of social media. Who knows? We all know that the Prime Minister has an affinity for social media. In fact, I would suggest that the Prime Minister believes more in Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram than he does in showing up in this place. Maybe there will be a minister of blaming others and accepting no responsibility. Maybe that is one of the ministries they will look at creating later on. Maybe there will be a minister of taking care of Liberal friends, families, donors, partisans, hacks, and cronies. Who knows? We do not know, because it is not defined in the legislation.

The interesting thing with the creation of ministries is that it also comes, potentially, with dollars. We are being asked to vote on something that is not defined within this legislation, that could potentially cost Canadian taxpayers millions of dollars, and the other side expects us to support this. How ridiculous is that? It just does not make any sense.

Another thing this bill would do is formally eliminate the positions of the former government's six regional development agency ministers. That is an important point. The government, effectively, wants to consolidate all of these regions into one centralized area, the greater Toronto area, and that would cause problems for a lot of reasons. Hopefully, if I have enough time, I will speak to some of the concerns within Atlantic Canada. Quite frankly, it is surprising to me that Atlantic Canadian members of Parliament are not enraged by this. We are certainly hearing opposition from those in the west that this would be consolidated in Toronto and some of the problems that would create. Probably the only advantage is that Pearson airport is nearby and people could get there easily.

Each regional development office had the expertise. The government would be forcing those regional investors to make their way to Toronto to deal with the minister responsible for ACOA, for example.

Again, it does not make any sense. When there is regional representation and there are boots on the ground, they are able to deal with businesses and individuals in those areas. It creates better efficiency. It allows the lines of communication to be open. One would think that the Liberal members from Atlantic Canada in particular would be outraged by what is going on.

The big thing in the bill is the increase in the salaries of the ministers. On the surface, that might not seem like much. Again, this is a problem created by the Prime Minister when he decided that he was going to have a gender-equal cabinet. I guess someone in the Prime Minister's Office raised the fact that he made a mistake, because he named them to the positions, but the positions did not go with the salaries of cabinet ministers. Why should they? When we look at the responsibilities of the health minister and the Minister of National Defence, and I know this has been brought up, these are responsibilities that have tremendous budgets. Tremendous numbers of people work in those departments. The responsibility assumed by those ministers should be paid commensurate with those responsibilities. In the private sector, payment is commensurate with the amount of responsibility individuals have.

The Prime Minister, by moving toward this gender equity situation, has created this problem for himself. Here we are tonight, spending Parliament's valuable time, late at night, to push through this piece of legislation the Liberals want to create this equity.

One of the things that has impressed me the most since I became a member of Parliament, particularly on our side of the House, is the strength of the females in our caucus. I would put every single one of our females up against any male in this Parliament, and I would put them on the front benches, not based on gender equity but based on their capability and their ability to perform. Since I became a member of Parliament, I have been impressed by the strength of the women in our caucus. I have said that publicly a number of times.

To conclude, this is a complete and utter waste of Parliament's time. It is a problem that was created by the Prime Minister, and here we are as a Parliament trying to fix this problem, a problem that did not need to happen. I will not be supporting this, and I know that other members of our caucus feel the same way.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to say to my hon. colleague across the way that I am very impressed that he has found religion when it comes to decorum in the House. I look forward to the improved decorum in this place, especially in question period. Maybe he can speak to some of his colleagues with regard to their heckling behaviour in the House, which for the last two years, I have been very disappointed to see.

The member is talking about the qualifications of the women in his caucus, and I would agree--

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!