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

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

moved that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the government House leader, I stand today in order to begin second reading debate on Bill C-24, which would amend the Salaries Act and formalize the equality of all ministers in this ministry to better reflect the operating reality in the current cabinet since its swearing-in last November. This would in fact formalize that.

These changes to the Salaries Act would fulfill the commitment made by the Prime Minister last November when he said he would introduce legislation to formalize the equal status of his whole ministerial team. From the beginning, the Prime Minister has created a ministry in which every single minister around the cabinet table has an equal voice, an equal capacity to perform his or her duties and functions, and leading roles to deliver on the important priorities of this government. The ministers are equally accountable as well, individually and collectively, to the Prime Minister and to Parliament for the performance of their duties.

The ministers have also been receiving the same salary since day one. However, without legislative change, it is not possible to accurately reflect this parity among ministers because the list of ministerial positions in the Salaries Act is fixed and inflexible. While that list may have served previous administrations well, it needs to be updated to reflect the priorities of this government. It needs to be modernized to make it a more flexible and adaptable tool for the design of future ministries. This is nothing new. Indeed, the Salaries Act was amended in 2005, 2012, and 2013 so as to reflect the reality of ministries at those times. As time goes by, realities change and new priorities emerge, and the government has the responsibility to ensure it has the ability to respond adequately.

Let me mention for members of the House that the Salaries Act authorized payment out of the consolidated revenue fund for ministers' salaries to individuals who have been appointed to ministerial positions listed in the act. The current ministry has 30 ministers, including the Prime Minister. However, five of these ministerial positions are not listed in the Salaries Act, namely the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, the Minister of Small Business and Tourism, the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities, and the Minister of Status of Women.

Because the Salaries Act could not accommodate those important priorities of this government, the five ministers had to be appointed pursuant to the Ministries and Ministers of State Act, and their legal title is minister of state. Many observers thought that the Prime Minister had created a two-tiered cabinet comprised of senior and junior ministers. Let me assure the House that, as one of those ministers of state in her capacity as Minister of Small Business and Tourism, our current House leader, just like all ministers in the Prime Minister's cabinet, from day one has had full standing and authority. The spirit and intent, and indeed the wording of the oath of office taken by each and every minister, conferred an equal status. Even though some positions are not listed in the Salaries Act, it is a team of equals. It has been well understand among all cabinet colleagues that the use of minister of state provisions was a temporary measure that would be addressed by legislation. The legislation is indeed before us today.

Before I turn to Bill C-24 to outline the important proposed amendments it contains, I would like to mention that the bill would not affect the Ministries and Ministers of State Act. Appointing ministers of state pursuant to the act will remain an option should the Prime Minister wish to exercise it.

Now I would like to give the House an overview of the bill. There are essentially two components to the bill: adjustments to the list of ministerial positions in the Salaries Act, and the creation of a framework to support certain ministers in the carrying out of their responsibilities.

I will begin with the adjustments of these positions. Bill C-24 would adjust the list in three ways. First it would add eight ministerial positions to the Salaries Act. Five off those positions are already filled by ministers and would replace the current minister of state appointments.

Again, those five positions are the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, the Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, Lib.), the Minister of Small Business and Tourism, the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities, and the Minister of Status of Women.

The other three positions would be untitled and are not filled in the current ministry. These flexible positions could be used and titled by a prime minister at his or her discretion, in response to future priorities and emerging challenges and opportunities. In this way, the bill would not simply amend the Salaries Act to reflect the current ministry, it would also look to the future. Prime ministers would have the flexibility to adapt their ministries to the priorities of their time.

I want to stress that the increase in possible ministerial positions in this bill does not mean that the cabinet would expand. In fact, we now have a cabinet of 30 full ministers, including the Prime Minister, though the Salaries Act would allow for a cabinet of up to 35. Second, the bill would remove the titles related to the six regional development positions in the Salaries Act.

I want to emphasize that this would not impact in any way the regional development agencies, nor would it eliminate the need for ministerial oversight of them. It is quite the opposite. The positions would continue to be filled by a minister to oversee the regional development agencies and fulfill the statutory responsibilities related to them. This could be done, for example, by cross-appointing Salaries Act ministers to these positions.

My hon. colleague, the member for Mississauga—Malton and the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, is the responsible minister for all of the regional agencies. Regional development is and remains a major priority of our government to help grow our economy, strengthen the middle class, and help those who are working so hard to join it.

To recap, Bill C-24 would spell out five titled positions, which are already occupied by individuals who are paid a ministerial salary. It would create three new untitled positions and remove six positions. The maximum number of ministerial positions that could be paid out of the consolidated revenue fund would be capped at 37, including the prime minister. This represents an increase of two positions over the current 35.

The final adjustment to the list of ministerial positions is a housekeeping matter. The bill would change the title of the minister of infrastructure, communities and intergovernmental affairs to the minister of infrastructure and communities. The minister of infrastructure and communities has no overall responsibility for federal-provincial-territorial relations. The Prime Minister has assumed responsibilities for intergovernmental affairs. Removing that phrase from the minister of infrastructure and communities title better reflects the responsibilities of the position in order to avoid confusion. Those are adjustments that Bill C-24 would make to the list of ministers.

Now I would like to briefly explain the framework that Bill C-24 would add to the Salaries Act to provide support to ministers appointed to any of the new positions.

The bill would authorize the Governor in Council to designate departments to provide support to any of the new Salaries Act ministers in the carrying out of their responsibilities. The Governor in Council would have the flexibility to designate the department to provide support to a minister with respect to some or all of the ministers' responsibilities.

The Governor in Council would also be able to designate more than one department to provide support to a minister while maintaining clarity with respect to which departments support the ministers for which matters. The bill would authorize the ministers to use services, facilities, and employees of the department or departments who have been designated to support them.

The framework means that no new departments need to be created to support these ministers. This departmental support authority is an important element of the bill. I would like to explain why with a concrete example, that of the House leader.

In her role as Minister of Small Business and Tourism, she is currently appointed pursuant to the Ministries and Ministers of State Act. The act authorizes her, in carrying out her small business and tourism responsibilities, to use the departmental services, facilities, and employees of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, the portfolio to which she is attached.

Once the position moves to the Salaries Act, the automatic link to the department through the Ministries and Ministers of State Act will not be available. Bill C-24 would authorize the Governor in Council to essentially re-establish that particular link.

In her case, of course, she is both the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, which is already a Salaries Act position, and the Minister of Small Business and Tourism. Under Bill C-24, the Governor in Council would be able to designate the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development to continue to support her in relation to her small business and tourism responsibilities. As is the case now, she would be supported by other public servants with respect to her government House leader responsibilities.

The bill would amend the Salaries Act to authorize ministers whose departments are designated to support any of the new positions, if occupied, to delegate their financial and procurement authorities to the new ministers to exercise and be accountable for within their areas of responsibility. Let me state again that this bill would enable these new ministerial positions, if occupied, to be supported by an existing department. No new departments would need to be established.

Finally, I would like to address the question of costs associated with Bill C-24. This bill would not increase the cost of the current ministry. The five ministers currently appointed as ministers of state receive the same salary as their cabinet colleagues and have office budgets that match their responsibilities. This will not change under the bill before us. What this bill simply does is enshrine in law what is current practice within the ministry.

To conclude, since the cabinet was sworn in last November, all ministers have taken their places as equals at the cabinet table. It is unfortunate that the statutory differences between Salaries Act ministers and the Ministries and Ministers of State Act ministers created for some an incorrect perception that some had a lesser status.

By bringing this entire cabinet under the Salaries Act, we are sending a powerful signal that there are no second-tier ministers in this government. Each and every minister's voice is being heard. They all have equal authority. As a result of this bill, the equality that is felt at the cabinet table will also be reflected in the law. Such a simple bill can carry a powerful message.

For the purpose of the business of this House, this is indeed a simple and straightforward housekeeping bill. Nonetheless, this is a matter that must be attended to. I hope my colleagues from the other side of the floor will agree with me that we should proceed expeditiously. I hope all members of the House will join me in supporting this bill to resolve the discrepancies between the legislation and the current reality while allowing enough flexibility to respond to future events.

I know that the government House leader would welcome the opportunity, no doubt, to express her gratitude to all those who assisted her in bringing forward the legislation I was able to present today. I would also like to thank the Conservative and New Democratic representatives at the technical briefings. I found them to be quite informative, and I appreciated their interest in listening to the technical support provided by the department.

With that, I appreciate the opportunity to introduce the legislation.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the parliamentary secretary in regard to Bill C-24. He was pretty vague, and the government has been very vague, on these three new positions. We understand that it would end up being two net new positions. However, there really was no explanation and no reason given as to why the government feels it has to create two open positions. At any point in time, if the Prime Minister decides he needs another member, or two members, or however many, in his cabinet, he is free to appoint them and swear them in very easily and create those positions.

There really is no explanation, so we are at a loss. We have a lot of concerns about the bill, which I am going to be articulating shortly, but one of the questions I have is why there are three empty positions with no accountability and no answer as to why this is needed.

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

Mr. Speaker, the current size of the cabinet has not been maximized. In other words, if the Prime Minister wanted to appoint more cabinet ministers, he could have, but he chose to appoint 30, including himself as the Prime Minister.

Making the changes to the legislation is more about the future than it is about what we have today. It builds in a little more flexibility. As to why we have added the three new untitled positions, the untitled positions provide flexibility in the structure of future ministries to reflect the priorities of the government, whether it is the current government or future governments. It is best when we are bringing in the legislation to do it in this form.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to follow up on my Conservative colleague's question and talk about the vagueness and some questions I still have, even after the speech, about what we are talking about today and voting on at a later date.

First, what is the difference between the designation of minister for a department versus a minister in respect of whom a department is designated, which is what we formerly called ministers of state?

Have those in cabinet currently known as ministers of state, who are now all women, been given more responsibility than previous ministers of state in previous governments?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a good question. That is one reason we wanted to bring the legislation in as quickly as we have. Ministers of state had a perception that they were second-tier ministers. The Prime Minister made a commitment, when he announced the cabinet, that all cabinet ministers would be equal and that one should not think any less of a minister appointed as a minister of state. What we are doing with this legislation is affirming the commitment the Prime Minister made when he announced the cabinet. That is the essence of what we have done.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in terms of equality, I may have misunderstood the comments the member made earlier. Could I presume that these new ministers of state, or whatever they are called, would have the same office budgets and employ the same number of people? I know, for instance, that the Minister of Finance may have as many as 20 people, so would each of them have the same budget in terms of promoting equality?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, depending on the department, the budgets of each department, and what it is they are responsible for administering, different ministers will have different complements of staff. We are talking about the sense of equality around the table and the way departmental staff can be brought over to one or two different ministers. As I indicated, there is no increase in the number of departments. This strictly deals with ensuring that we have a one-tier level of cabinet ministers.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am a little surprised and disappointed. I hope we do not spend a lot of time on this. I totally support the bill.

I have been through four prime ministers, and I just assumed that the Prime Minister chose the cabinet and how the cabinet ministers are paid, whatever the numbers are, and that the public would hold the government to account for that. I am sure that all members in the House have some pressing issues in their ridings they would rather be discussing. I hope the powers that be in the future look at structuring this so that we do not need the whole House of Commons debating such technical changes.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the ways I can highlight what it is we are doing is by looking at the minister responsible for the status of women. The government, and particularly the Prime Minister, believes that the status of women minister should not have been designated a minister of state. We are saying that at the cabinet table, that particular minister is equal to the Minister of Finance and that all ministers carry equal influence around the cabinet table. A minister and a minister of state are equal.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what I find disappointing about the speech and the answers the member opposite is giving us is that all the information we are trying to get about the responsibilities of ministers of state and ministers, and about the resources that will be allocated to ministers of state under this new salary bill, is vague and random.

If the Prime Minister wanted women in positions comparable to those of their male colleagues, why did he not appoint as many female ministers as male to begin with? Why did he appoint only female ministers of state and not as many female ministers initially?

If the goal is to achieve pay equity for all Canadian women, why is the government putting the pay equity bill off until 2018 even though a report was presented 12 years ago? Why hold more consultations? If pay equity really is important to the Liberals, then why is pay equity for all Canadian women not yet a reality?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is, in essence, reflecting on one of the examples that I provided, that being the minister responsible for the status of women. There is a leading role for her on that particular issue.

When our leader became Prime Minister and announced his cabinet, he clearly indicated to all Canadians that he does not distinguish between two tiers of ministers. What he sees is one tier. This legislation fulfills the commitment he made to Canadians when he appointed his gender equal cabinet.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act.

I want to talk briefly about what it looks like the bill would do, and then a little longer about what it would actually do, and its implications.

As my hon. colleague across the way said, the bill attempts to make all cabinet ministers equal. It would also allow the creation of three new cabinet posts, without actually naming what those cabinet posts would be. It then eliminates all of the ministers for the regional economic development agencies. Those are the three main things that the bill proposes to do, as well as some housekeeping issues tied to the financial implications of doing that.

I will talk a little about those three things, some of which are more important than others. I will start with the issue of making all ministers equivalent.

Some would argue that there was a fairly good system set up under previous governments, including our previous Conservative government. In that system, there were ministers of state who had smaller portfolios without the same scope, and perhaps not the same impact on the country or the same status as other ministers' portfolios. For example, the minister of sport, although running a very good ministry, was considered and styled as minister of state, because that minister probably did not have the same impact on the country as, let us say, the minister of defence.

I was a minister of state, so I can tell everyone in the House directly about my experience. I was a minister of state for social development. When I sat at the cabinet table with the minister for foreign affairs, the minister of health, and the minister of finance, I had completely equal status with them in terms of what I said. I had equal time to speak to the Prime Minister. My opinions had equal weight, and it was a great experience.

That said, the fact was that the minister of state portfolio I had was different. It was important, but it was different from that of the minister of defence, for example. Some would argue that that distinction is important to recognize. However, the Liberals have said that they want to make all ministerial portfolios equal. They have proposed doing that because, let us fact it, they have gotten themselves into a bit of a state. They have a bit of a problem because they put a number of people in as ministers of state and were criticized for it, and now they want to fix it all.

I am not going to spend a lot of time on this. I think it is a shell game. Frankly, I would have been immensely insulted and refused to be one of these ministers whom the government has used as tokens and told, “Sorry, we put you in the wrong position, but don't worry, we're going to pay you as much as every other minister, but you actually won't have that responsibility, you won't have a deputy minister, and you won't have the same scope. But don't worry your pretty little head about it, because we're going to pay you the same amount”.

This is the shell game that we see the Liberals do time and time again. They did it on Bill C-22, when they introduced that bill to create oversight over CSIS. It is a shell game. We see it in their consultations with the provinces. It is a shell game. It is window dressing.

This part of the bill is all window dressing. It is an insult to the ministers who are now ministers of state but will soon be full cabinet ministers, and frankly, it is an insult to Canadians, but it is not a surprise.

I am going to leave that part. There are other things I want to talk about that are more important in their impact on our country.

The second part of the bill that I am concerned about is these three blank ministerial positions that would be created, but which no one knows what they would be for. The bill was introduced about a week-and-a-half ago, and so I have had a little time to look at it. When I was reading the bill, I thought that maybe they have a couple of friends in high places that they need ministerial portfolios for.

Maybe it is for Gerald Butts? Maybe the Liberals need a minister for moving expenses. Maybe they need a minister for increasing taxes, but then I realized that every one of their ministers are ministers for increasing taxes. Maybe they need a minister for photography. Obviously I am being facetious, but the point is that we do not know what these ministerial spots would be for and, frankly the answer that the parliamentary secretary gave me was not sufficient. In fact, he answered his own question.

The Prime Minister right now has not even used the full scope of the ministers he has available. There is no reason that these three empty spots have to be created, and one has to wonder what game is going on. What is the plan? We do not have an answer for that. We do not know what these posts are for.

The third reason, and frankly the most important one, that we cannot support the bill is that it would eliminate all of the ministers for the regional economic development agencies.

Let me explain what this would do. It would not eliminate the regional economic development agencies themselves. I want to read them off for the record. There are currently six regional economic development agencies, and under our government and previous governments, there were ministers from each of those regions who oversaw these economic development agencies.

For example, we still have Western Economic Diversification Canada. Under our government, we had an individual from western Canada in charge of that portfolio, who understood and represented the region, and could get feedback from people from western Canada. Right now, under this legislation, that minister would be gone.

As for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the region of Quebec, there was always a minister from Quebec who oversaw that regional agency. When there are so many Liberal members of Parliament from Quebec, what an insult it is that not one of them could now be named to this portfolio. I am from Manitoba. I cannot tell people in Quebec what would benefit them, what they need for economic development, but what an insult it is to those in Quebec to say it will not have its own regional minister for Quebec.

As for the federal economic development initiative for northern Ontario, or FedNor, being from Manitoba, I understand northern Ontario. I am sorry, but some members are from Toronto and some of the members across the way are from northern Ontario. Northern Ontario is a little bit like Manitoba in some ways. We have a lot in common. It is not like Toronto at all, or Mississauga.

Then there is the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario. Okay, we have one from Toronto, which makes sense.

As for Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, my colleague from Yukon just said that we should quickly get this bill through. Does he realize that without having a minister from the north watching over it and being accountable and listening to people from his region, he is being hamstrung in the job he needs to do? Instead, it is a minister from Toronto.

Then we have the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agencies, ACOA. Here we go again with Atlantic Canada. There are 32 competent members of Parliament from Atlantic Canada. Could one of them not have been named as the minister overseeing ACOA? Instead the government has centralized power in one member of Parliament, one individual MP, and that is the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development from Mississauga.

We are seeing regional interests and accountability for these agencies being ignored. There is a lot of money going through these agencies. There was a reason there needed to be a minister to oversee each one of these agencies. There is a reason there is a minister looking over the money that is flowing through and where it is going. Now there is one minister who also has Innovation as his responsibility. He is in a pretty good portfolio, but he is in charge of each one of these economic development agencies.

Regions are being ignored, accountability is being ignored, as we see the very worrisome trend of regional ministers being taken away in practice already, before this legislation. Under previous Liberal governments and under our previous government, there was always a regional minister in each province.

For example, in Manitoba we had a couple of very good regional ministers, one being the former member of Parliament and minister, Vic Toews, now Justice Vic Toews. He served as our regional minister for a number of years. We saw regional ministers in B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Quebec.

However, now that these ministerial positions have been eliminated, there is no one in the provinces for the provincial governments to go to when they are having a problem and need a regional minister to connect his or her cabinet with in Ottawa to bring their issues forward. The municipalities have no one to talk to.

In Manitoba, we are hearing it over and over again. Municipalities are asking us who the regional minister for Manitoba is. They wonder if it is the Minister of Natural Resources, because he says one thing and the Minister of Labour says something different. In Quebec, there is no regional minister. That is what I am hearing from my colleagues in Quebec. Municipalities and provinces do not know who to go to. What is happening is a massive sucking noise of the centralization of power.

Last Monday, we saw the provincial ministers for environment meet with the federal minister. However, it is pretty scary when the federal government has the ability to say to the provinces “If you don't get in line with us on CPP, on the carbon tax, on health care, we're cutting off your infrastructure funding, and you don't have a regional minister who is going to say anything, because there is none”. There is one guy from Toronto and a guy from Edmonton who are going to be making the decisions, and that is it.

This is scary, because it is going to be the Prime Minister and his cronies who are making these decisions. However, it really should not be a surprise when we look at what the government has done in ignoring the regions, whether ignoring the normal convention of appointing judges from Atlantic Canada to the Supreme Court of Canada, whether ignoring the provinces when it comes to imposing a carbon tax, or whether ignoring jobs that are needed in Alberta and New Brunswick by not standing up for energy east. There is a huge lack of respect by the federal government toward the regions and their need to be represented.

As far as imposing a carbon tax on the provinces is concerned, we have just seen it happen. Some provinces have said they do not want a carbon tax, and some have said they want to fight climate change, but they do not want the federal government telling them how to do it, because the federal government does not always understand what is happening in northern and rural Manitoba, for example.

I think Brad Wall, the Premier of Saskatchewan, said it very well:

I cannot believe that while the country's environment ministers were meeting on a so-called collaborative climate change plan, the prime minister stood in the House of Commons and announced a carbon tax unilaterally...The level of disrespect shown by the prime minister and his government today is stunning.

I think the bill before us is showing that same disrespect. It is showing disrespect to the people who are supposed to be full ministers, but who will not now have their own deputy ministers, and they will not have the same scope and responsibility. For example, the Minister of Science is not equivalent to the Minister of National Defence. She will not have the same budget. She will not have the same staff. She will not have the same authority. What utter disrespect and window dressing toward that woman.

Then we are seeing disrespect for the regions to the effect that, “Atlantic Canada, Quebec, western Canada, we know you're suffering from job losses, but you don't need your own minister of economic diversification, you don't need your own minister to see economy flourish. We'll just put it in the hands of Toronto and the Prime Minister and you'll be fine”.

Finally, directly to the Canadian people, the Prime Minister just wants to be able to appoint as many ministers as he wants carte blanche. He wants three blank spots. I have never heard of that happening before.

If a prime minister wants to put more cabinet ministers in place, he makes the decision, he gets—

[An hon. member]

He has blank spots already.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Some say he has blank spots already in his cabinet. I will not comment on that. That might be for questions and answers.

There is disrespect to Canadians by not answering who those ministers are. The Prime Minister could just decide. If he wants to appoint more ministers, he could make that decision, go to the Governor General, have them sworn in, make the announcement to Canadians, and it is done. Liberals have made no case for having these three open positions, except that they are going to try to pull something on the Canadian people yet again.

Overall, the bill is disrespectful. It disrespects certain cabinet ministers, it disrespects the regions of Canada, and it disrespects Canadians. The shell game and the disrespect is overwhelming and it is a huge disappointment.

For those reasons, I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

“this House decline to give second reading to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act, since the Bill:

(a) lacks transparency by failing to disclose the government's plans with respect to the creation of additional Ministers to be appointed in the future and changes in the financial status of others;

(b) enshrines in law the government's decision to eliminate regional Ministers responsible for regional economic development agencies.”

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The amendment is in order.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Fleetwood—Port Kells.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard in recent days a bit of anxiousness about introducing pay equity and the timetable for doing it. Now we know in the House and across Canada how long we would have to wait for pay equity for women if the Conservatives were still in power. It would not happen.

Unlike the opposition, Liberals believe that women, science, small business, tourism, sports, persons with disabilities, and francophones all deserve an equal spot at the table. The voices need to be equal. The effort is equal; the importance is equal; the pay should be equal.

Given that we believe that cabinet should be representative of all Canadians, which is exactly what we have done, why does the opposition House leader have a problem with this?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have not talked about women. This has to do with making junior ministers equal. If they want to make junior ministers equal, then they can make them equal. Give them deputy ministers and give them full ministerial positions.

On the issue of them having full equality at the cabinet table, there is one person, and one person alone, who gives them full equality, and that is the Prime Minister. If he has a problem giving women equality at the cabinet table, that is his issue. What the legislation would do would not give women equality. It is a slap in the face. Conservatives do not support that.

More importantly, what Conservatives do not support is taking away the economic development ministers for each region. That is something that the government is quietly trying to do with the bill. It is trying to make this into a political issue. It can do what it wants, have its shell games around putting women into junior portfolios and then trying to make it look like it was not that. Frankly, Liberals have to look at themselves in the mirror every night and their female ministers have to look at themselves in the mirror and be basically used as tokens.

What Conservatives will not do is allow these regional economic development ministers to be stripped away from Quebec, Atlantic Canada, western Canada. That is what we are not standing for and that is the primary reason we are opposing the bill.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member will have seven minutes and 32 seconds remaining when we return to questions and comments after question period.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Resuming debate. I believe we were at questions for the hon. member for Portage—Lisgar.

The hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for her talk today on this piece of government legislation. One of the things she talked about often, and I mention it quite often in the House, is the fact that there is a shell game at play here by the Liberals.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, in introducing the bill, said that there will be no cost increase. In fact, he said there are no costs associated with the implementation of the bill. However, the bill does contain a royal recommendation, which effectively makes it a money bill. A royal recommendation is a procedure involving the Governor General that precedes the appropriation of any part of the public revenue or the imposition of any tax.

I would like to ask the opposition House leader, in her experience in this place, whether in fact she thinks that there will be money appropriated to the bill, based upon the fact that there is a royal recommendation in the bill.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that question because it does give me the chance to talk about something that the government did not talk about, and in fact, sort of glossed over when it introduced the bill and spoke about it. That is the fact that there will indeed be additional costs because of the measures that are going to be taking place in the bill.

I think what we on this side are most frustrated about is that the Liberals are very good at spending money. There is no doubt about that. They like to tax and they like to spend. Therefore, it is not a surprise that the bill has additional spending measures in it.

However, what we are most concerned about is that it takes away from regional representation. It takes away from regional representation in the form of taking away regional ministers, by practice, and it takes away from having ministers oversee the regional economic development agencies.

They are being very quiet about that. They are not talking a lot about the new ministerial positions that are going to be filled. They are not talking about the additional cost to the Treasury. It is interesting that they are avoiding any discussion about those things, but those are the things that we are concerned about and will continue to talk about.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as the NDP critic for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, I share the concerns raised by the member about the impact of this bill on the efficiency of our economic development and diversification agencies.

I had a chance this summer to travel for two weeks across New Brunswick, P.E.I., Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. I met with ACOA staff, who shared with me their concerns about the effects of this change on the way that economic diversification is working.

Prior to this change we had a bottom-up approach in which the staff understood the needs of the regions and were carrying those needs up to their minister for developing solutions. They fear that the centralized structure now is more of a top-down approach, in which the minister and his staff are deciding what will be taking place for the regions. Those local staff are now becoming agents for implementing those decisions coming from higher up. They starting to see this happening.

What are the member's comments on the concerns of these ACOA staff?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from the NDP for doing his job and bringing those concerns forward. This is exactly our major concern about not only the Atlantic Canada agency but also the agencies for western economic diversification, Quebec, and the north. Six of the regional development agencies will be affected if the bill passes. We will not have regional representation. There will be one minister from Toronto answering directly to the Prime Minister, who does not understand the regions and their specific needs. He does not understand what is happening on the ground. He might have the best of intentions, but it is wrong to do it, and it begs the question of what is next. Are the Liberals now going to cut these agencies? Is this step one, where first they cut the ministers and then cut the agencies?

We have seen a disturbing pattern with the Liberals' disregard of Atlantic Canada. They have 32 members of Parliament from Atlantic Canada. They swept Atlantic Canada but are ignoring the region when it comes to the Supreme Court. They are thumbing their noses at Atlantic Canada. There is great concern that the Liberals' next step will be to formally cut the ministers themselves, which they are trying to do right now very quietly, and which they did not even mention in their speeches. We know this is what they will do. Will their next step then be to cut these important economic development agencies themselves? On this side of the House, we will fight tooth and nail to not let that happen to the people in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, northern Canada, or western Canada. They are avoiding it.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member will not have to fight tooth and nail, because the Western Economic Diversification Canada, ACOA and our other regional development agencies will be there well into the future. The Prime Minister has been clear on that point.

There are a couple of other issues. There are no incremental costs associated with the current ministry. The ministers who are currently appointed as ministers of state receive the same salary as their cabinet colleagues and have office budgets commensurate with their responsibilities. This will not change under the legislation.

The third point deals with the size of cabinet. Members need to realize that Stephen Harper, as the member would know, had a larger cabinet. This does not mean that we will have a larger cabinet. I shared that information in my opening remarks on behalf of the government House leader.

Does what I have just said provide some assurances that this legislation is worth supporting?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the answer to my hon. colleague's question is no.

With respect to whether it requires royal assent, as the debate continues we will be able to show clearly that there will be extra funds required. Is that our chief reason for opposing this bill? No, it is not. It is clear that the Liberals like to spend, and they will spend money on this.

The member's reassurance that the government will not cut the regional economic development agencies is cold comfort. It is the same government that said that it would not introduce new taxes. It is the same government that said it would only incur a $10 billion deficit. It is the same government that has changed its mind over and over again. It has said that it would work with the provinces on things like a carbon tax. Now it is saying that it will impose it.

The regions of Atlantic Canada that have come to count on ACOA, and the regions in western Canada and northern Canada that count on their agencies, should watch carefully because the Liberals will first cut their ministers and put all of the responsibility in the hands of one minister and the Prime Minister. Next, they might very well cut the economic development agencies themselves. Therefore, we do not take comfort in it, and we are sticking to our position on this.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-24 is an interesting bill. Ostensibly, it sets out to address a gender wage gap in cabinet by doing two things: changing or limiting the current title of “minister of state” to “minister”, and then paying all ministers the same salary. It would also create three new placeholder cabinet positions to be filled and defined at the pleasure of the Prime Minister.

This bill would also remove the heads of regional economic development agencies from the Salaries Act, which means that while ministers could still be the head of regional development agencies, the head of such agencies would not necessarily be styled as ministers.

At first blush, this bill seems innocuous and maybe laudable. However, upon closer examination, this bill raises some important questions, which New Democrats hope the government will be able to answer. The first question is why the bill is necessary.

There are currently two levels or tiers of ministers. Full regular ministers are heads of their respective departments. Here I refer to the Minister of Finance, the Minister of National Defence, and Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, etc., all of whom happen to be men. Then there is a second tier of ministers, previously called “ministers of state”, who have the title of minister, but their responsibilities are unchanged. We have the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development; the Minister of Status of Women; and Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities, all of whom happen to be women.

While Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development; the Minister of Status of Women; and Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities are all important, these ministries have historically not been accorded the same status, level of responsibility, or scope of mandate as the ministries of finance, defence, and immigration. In fact, the minister of state designation has been seen largely as a post of a more junior minister.

I would like to share with my colleagues one definition. A minister of state is a more junior cabinet minister in the Canadian cabinet and is usually given specific responsibilities to a senior cabinet minister in a specific area. While it is a noble goal to achieve gender parity in cabinet, as it is in all things, the way that this is done also has to be fair, equitable, defendable, and transparent.

When the newly minted cabinet was sworn in last year, it was heralded and greeted with much enthusiasm. There was lots of congratulations to go around, but then a news story revealed that of the 15 men and 15 women in the new cabinet, five of the women and none of the men were assigned to be ministers of state. Those five ministers are the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, who reports to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development; the Minister of Small Business and Tourism, who also reports to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development; the Minister of Status of Women, who works under the Minister of Canadian Heritage; the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities, who also works under the Minister of Canadian Heritage; and the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, who supports the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

A senior government spokesperson clarified that these ministers of state were already considered full ministers and that all that remained was for the government to change the Treasury Board statute to reflect this new development. However, she also stated:

...making these five women full ministers does not mean their portfolios will take on the size of full departments. They are serviced by other departments in the same way they always have been, but they have the full standing and authority of any other minister around the table.

I believe that cabinet should reflect our society and that having 50% of it consisting of women ministers is great. However, if five of those women ministers are, in effect, junior ministers appointed to assist full ministers, then is there really truly a cabinet of equals? Three of the five junior ministers would be assisting their male ministers.

This bill then aims to bump up the salaries of these junior ministers to the same level as full ministers' salaries, despite these ministers not having a full ministry or department to oversee, nor the scope of responsibilities. Therefore, is this fair? Is it equitable to have equal pay for unequal work, scope, and responsibility? Is this a case of pay equity or is this bill just a way for the government to make good on its claim of gender parity in cabinet?

This is not to say that paying women more and fairly is a bad thing. In fact, the NDP has been fighting for pay equity for decades. Canadian women have been fighting for, and waiting for, pay equity for a very long time.

Pay equity, as my colleagues know, was established as a fundamental human right in 1977. Since then, working women in Canada have had unequal access to fair pay.

Some provincial jurisdictions have established pay equity commissions, and the women in those jurisdictions are enjoying a modicum of equality with their male colleagues when it comes to equal pay for work of equal value. I am sad to say, however, that too many working women are still waiting on this day.

On Wednesday, the government tabled its response to the report of the Special Committee on Pay Equity, announcing that it recognized that pay equity is a human right. In fact, the report of the committee was entitled, “It's Time to Act”. Unfortunately, the government clearly does not believe it is time to act. Instead, it announced that notwithstanding the fact pay equity is a human right, Canadian women would have to wait another two years before the government introduces legislation, let alone implements it.

I had the privilege of serving on that special committee, and I can tell members that expert witnesses testified there was no reason to wait. There was broad consensus among all witnesses that pay equity is a human right and should not be subject to collective bargaining. There was also consensus the current complaint-based system is not accessible to everyone, but costly and time-consuming for those who do have access, and that it is effectively denying fairness and justice through the delays that can stretch for decades. As people know, some women have died before being able to get their pay equity settlement.

Canadian women have been waiting too long for the right to pay equity to be realized, and there should not be any more delays. We need proactive pay equity legislation to achieve pay equity legislation, and the 2004 task force report provides an excellent template for that legislation.

Some of my colleagues in the House will remember that the 2004 task force on pay equity conducted an extensive review of this issue and that its report has been recognized internationally as one of the most comprehensive and authoritative works on pay equity ever done. The task force consulted widely and produced a list of recommendations that is still relevant and valid.

In 2005, the Standing Committee for the Status of Women studied this report and asked the Liberal government of the day to introduce legislation immediately. Unfortunately, that did not happen and, regrettably, the current government has also decided to punt the issue ahead.

I cannot fully express my profound disappointment with the cynicism that the current government and its ministers have shown in their response to the committee report. Asking Canadian women to wait another two years is unconscionable, and its commitment to bring in legislation in 2018 just prior to an election is a shameful ploy to hold the rights of working women ransom. It is like saying “Yes, we acknowledge that you have a right to equal pay for work of equal value and it has been neglected, and although we have the power to fix this injustice right away, we won't. We will make lofty claims about being a feminist government and promise to bring in legislation in a couple of years, just in time for you to vote us in again so we can actually do what we should and could have done right now”.

The government is asking women to endure two more years of being paid approximately 70¢ of every dollar that their male counterparts earn. That is 30% less buying power for women to spend in the economy. It is 30% less to pay for rent, food, child care, education, and to invest in their pensions. It is even worse for women who are from indigenous or racialized communities, and those living with disabilities. This inequality contributes to a much lower standard of living for women, and its effects are brought forward to the next generation.

As Kate McInturff, one of the learned witnesses who appeared before the committee, testified:

Today in Canada our daughters are as likely to attend university as our sons are, but we are in danger of failing to deliver on the promise of education, because those girls will grow up and graduate to a pay gap—unless we act now. Karma doesn't cut it. Doing nothing, leaving pay to the forces of the market, gives us what we have today, a widening gap between men's and women's rates of pay. Let me repeat that: the gap in men's and women's full-time wages is growing right now in Canada, not shrinking.

I asked Dr. McInturff if she agreed that pay equity legislation is an important step in eliminating the gender wage gap, that we should not have to wait to get everything right, and that we could actually start to have an impact on women's lives if we had, at the very least, federal pay equity legislation. This was her response:

Well, yes, clearly I think we need to act sooner rather than later.

....But, really, when we're talking about a life-threatening impact, we have to think about the women who make up two-thirds of minimum wage workers. A pay gap for a retail worker who is making $12,000 to $13,000 a year, can really mean the difference between food and rent or not. That's why I would urge the committee to act on this, because addressing it has a really substantial impact on the quality of life of the lowest-earning women in the country.

When we consider Bill C-24, which will add $20,000 to the salaries of some of the highest-earning women in Canada, I really need to wonder about the priorities of the government. The bill would adjust the wages, and put it into the act, of five of the most well-paid women in Canada. The legislation was drawn up very quickly and brought to the House so we could pass it. However, millions of working women in Canada who earn far less are being told they have to wait for their wages to be adjusted. Where is the fairness?

Bill C-24 appears to be a cosmetic fix for a problem created by the Prime Minister. Claims of a truly gender-equal cabinet were trumpeted far and wide, but when it was pointed out that some of the women, and only women, who made up this gender-balanced cabinet were actually junior ministers, being paid at a junior minister's salary level, the government had to do some damage control, and this bill is the result.

The bill, unfortunately, ignores the clear difference in responsibility conferred on women in the Prime Minister's cabinet. If the Prime Minister truly believes in and wants to equalize the status of government ministers, as the bill purports to do, then all he needs to do is appoint an equal number of men and women as full ministers and an equal number of men and women as ministers of state. It seems simple enough. There is no need to mess with salary levels or artificially inflate the salaries of junior ministers to elevate them to the status of full ministers.

Interestingly, though, all five ministers of state who will see a $20,000 raise with the passage of the bill are women. It would almost seem as though the junior minister positions were not good enough for men.

However, the Liberal approach to fixing a problem of their own making is counterproductive, because it ignores the principles of pay equity: equal pay for work of equal value, and equal opportunity to perform roles with greater responsibilities.

Real gender parity in cabinet means appointing an equal number of women to be department heads or full ministers. By papering over the distinction between ministers of state and full ministers, the Prime Minister is prioritizing the equality of compensation over the equality of responsibility with respect to gender parity in his government.

I would respectfully submit that observing the principles of pay equality and equal opportunity is the appropriate way to eliminate the gender pay gap that currently exists in cabinet.

The second area of concern is the removal of the heads of the regional economic development agencies from the Salaries Act. This means that while different ministers could still be heads of the various agencies, no one could be a minister simply by virtue of being a head of a regional economic development agency. Again, it sounds innocuous, but what this really amounts to is the neutering of these agencies.

Canadians value the contributions of these agencies to their economic development, and these regions are best served by having someone with local expertise at the helm of their respective agencies. Bill C-24 would diminish the role of the regional economic development ministers around the cabinet table, and at present rolls them up under the purview of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. How does it make sense that six diverse economic development portfolios, representing six different geographical regions, be grouped under one minister?

When one visits the Government of Canada's website for regional development agencies across Canada, this is what it states:

Regional Development Agencies across Canada help to address key economic challenges by providing regionally-tailored programs, services, knowledge and expertise that:

•Build on regional and local economic assets and strengths;

•Support business growth, productivity and innovation;

•Help small- and medium-sized businesses effectively compete in the global marketplace;

•Provide adjustment assistance in response to economic downturns and crises; and

•Support communities.

Each Regional Development Agency brings a regional policy perspective in support of the national agenda through: regional economic intelligence to support national decision-making; contributing to federal regional coordination and cooperative relationships with other levels of government, community and research institutions, and other stakeholders; and supporting national priorities in regions.

Getting rid of regional oversight and autonomy of these economic development agencies is another example of top-down government. However, perhaps it is just another step toward placing these agencies on the chopping block. In the past, the agencies had full-time ministers or ministers of state, or the portfolio was attached to a specific minister from the region who carried other cabinet responsibilities.

Federal agencies directly deliver and administer hundreds of millions of dollars to help spur on regional economic development. For example, ACOA, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, which was the first agency created by the federal government, had a budget last year of $298.6 million. Its former president has publicly mused that “the future of these agencies could be in peril without having permanent ministers advocating on their behalf”. He also said, “This is going to be low-hanging fruit. It is a lot tougher to abolish an agency that has a minister, particularly if that is the minister's only job, than it is to abolish an agency that is essentially an agency of public servants.”

I wonder what the real intent is for regional development agencies. Would it be helpful for members, as well as the people in those regions, to learn what the government's plan is for the future of economic development in their areas?

Finally, the third area of concern I have is that Bill C-24 gives the prime minister the ability to add three new or additional ministers at his discretion, without giving us an idea of what those positions might be or who might occupy them. It seems like another example of the government, despite its promises of transparency and open government, setting up another avenue to do just what it wants without proper, or any, oversight. In the spirit of transparency and accountability, I invite the government to tell the House exactly what these positions would be. Members could then make an informed decision.

In summary, Bill C-24 presents more questions than answers. I hope the government will see fit to be more forthcoming in the days to come about the details and the intended consequences of the bill.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to comment not as much on the member's speech but on a previous speech. It is related to the regional development agencies, particularly in the north. I probably have more experience than anyone in the House here on that, because my career before I came to the House was working on regional economic development for the department that housed those agencies.

Without talking in philosophical terms but just on the effect on the ground, I can say that in this particular case right now this is the most effective minister and relationship we have ever had. Totally in contrast to what the previous member opposite had suggested, which was that it impinged our relationship, in fact it has increased it greatly.

We have some wonderful projects. He has been easy to access. Just a couple of days ago I asked for some information and I got it within two days. We had a great group from the north come down, and on short notice the minister met with them all. The relationship has been working very well, in a practical and a functional way. It may be related to personalities but it is certainly much better than it was before.

If they want to talk about the philosophical or technical reason, perhaps there is a benefit to having a senior minister of innovation who has a lot of knowledge and access to other areas of economic development for the various regions and who can see the best practices of all the agencies. That may be a benefit to having it under one roof.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, some of my hon. colleague's comments support what I was saying here.

The point is that in order to keep that profile and in order to keep those economic development agencies a part of the government's policies and budget, those particular regions of the country need a voice that has come from the ground up and that keeps the government making relevant decisions based on what those regional differences are. What I see in this act, and I am asking for clarification, is that rolling everything up under one minister is not a good way to keep those distinct voices around the table, particularly during a time when there are big differences in economics and regional economic development.

We need distinct voices around the table and it is my concern that the bill would reduce that influence at the cabinet table. Of course we have heard that some people think they are going to go away altogether and it will just be subsumed in a big government department. Being from Saskatoon, I can speak to the fact that a regional, western economic diversification-type of language and voice at the government table is something we really want. We have always been proud of it and it makes us feel that there is a voice there speaking on our behalf.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking the member for her great speech, discussing all of the different components, and for her question and answer for the member from across.

I am going to pick up on the gender equality part here. I know that this member has worked hard to make sure that there is gender equality. I have heard her questions in the House, and when it comes to gender equality this is a member who talks loudly and clearly about it. I would like to commend her on that. However, she is saying that there is an issue with this.

I know when this comes out, we will hear that the Conservatives once again voted against equality, but the member is also indicating that this is not about equality because it really is not equal work for equal pay. I just wonder if I could get some comments on that because I look at this member as being an advocate for those women. Could she share that with me?

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am never going to stand up to say there is something wrong with paying people a fair wage, an equitable wage based on the effort, the scope, and the responsibility of a job.

I know for a fact there are women who are working for less than men but with the same responsibilities and their jobs having the same scope. That is discrimination. That is a human rights issue. This particular bill undermines some of the fundamentals of equal pay for work of equal value.

We have a government that on Wednesday said that even though it is 2016 and people have a human right to equal pay for work of equal value, they are going to make people wait two more years, although not one witness said we needed to wait two more years. On Wednesday, we were waiting. As I stated, working women are really struggling because they are not getting paid equal pay for work of equal value.

Then we have a government that is very quickly saying that the ministers in question will have the same title. It is going to give them the same title, but not change any of the responsibilities or scope of the positions. It is going pay them more and change the title. I just feel very disrespected by that. I do not want that to come out as how equal pay for work of equal value is done. It is not.

It does a disservice to all those women who have struggled long and hard, some of them in long court cases and others in fact having died before getting their compensation. The member and I may not agree on this part, but the government has its priorities screwed up.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Quebec has had pay equity legislation for some 20 years. There are women in Quebec who are benefiting from this type of legislation. The federal government just announced that it intends to wait another two years. It introduced Bill C-24 and called it equity.

I would like to know if my colleague thinks this is just a gimmick, a way for the Liberals to convince us that they truly believe in pay equity when they do not. This is not a real plan for pay equity.

In fact, I thought I heard the Liberals say that this would take two years because of the costs involved and because of the need for consultation. What they are forgetting is that, for decades, women have been bearing the brunt of pay inequity by being denied fair wages. The Liberals are failing to take that into consideration.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raised the issue of the two largest provinces in this country having pay equity. We heard from them at committee. It would not take two years to write that legislation. We have a lot of experience.

As my colleague mentioned, making these women wait longer and then having this bill come forward under the guise of pay equity is beyond disappointing. It is disconcerting. I do not feel good about it.

The government had an opportunity. We had a special committee. We looked back at the 2004 task force. Witness after witness said it was the best report in the world. We have the template. We could have moved forward. I am very disappointed that the government has not taken the lead.

Then, just on the heels of saying that it is going to take two more years, it has brought this bill forward under the guise of its somehow being some sort of pay equity or equal pay type of legislation. It is very disappointing. I would like the government to reconsider and move forward on pay equity for the middle class, the group of people it often champions, and to bring pay equity legislation for those women sooner rather than later—and definitely before 2018.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise to continue the debate on Bill C-24.

This is a particularly curious approach we have from the government. I wish I could say an unusual approach from the government, but certainly still a curious one.

Here we are on Friday afternoon, a time when I think many members of the government think MPs should actually not be working, debating a salary increase for government ministers. The Liberals have proposed a bill that would increase the salary for some members of the cabinet. I am sure they were thinking about how they could justify their desire to get paid more. To justify that, they said it was about gender equality. This is an argument that does a great disservice to the real issues of gender equality in this country. The legislation is very clear in terms of what it says and does. It is about increasing the salary for particular positions within the cabinet.

It is unfortunate. I will say this, having had the opportunity to sub on the status of women committee a couple of times in the last two weeks, I have seen the important work that the committee does, and indeed the very real issues we have in this country around status of women and around gender equality. This is not an argument that should be misused when what is actually going on is people trying to pursue their own political individual interests, which are not at all related to substantive issues of equality.

We see this strategy in fact frequently from the Liberals. They invoke the position of disadvantaged groups when actually they are trying to do something that is entirely, transparently, about their own interests. It comes at a time when I think many Canadians are losing their jobs, especially in my province of Alberta, at a time when it is hard to justify people who are already doing well, government ministers, getting the pay increase that is proposed by this piece of legislation, Bill C-24.

That is the context here. We have the legislation coming forward, a pay increase for ministers, and I think it is designed in a way that plays this unfortunate game of sleight of hand.

Already we have had one speech from the government, but already the Liberals have foregone a speaking slot, so I am concerned that not only is the legislation being argued for in a misleading and an incorrect way, but many government members do not even have the heart to stand up and defend it.

For those who are watching, let me shape the conversation a little by describing the context in which the bill occurs. Members of the House, as members of Parliament, receive a base salary, but there are a number of different positions where there is an additional salary component that reflects additional responsibilities that members have. They include you, Mr. Speaker, and they include, of course, the Prime Minister at the highest level.

Ministers get a certain salary top-up and ministers of state are at a different level. Just to explain the difference, there is an important substantive distinction in our system between the functions of ministers and the functions of ministers of state. Although generally speaking, they are all thought of as being members of the cabinet, they all take the associated oath, they are all given the honorific, “the honourable”, and they are at that level of being in the Privy Council, they have distinctly different functions.

A full minister within our system of Westminster government is responsible for a whole department, whereas a minister of state has specific areas of responsibility but their function is to assist the minister who is responsible for administering the department. Very clearly, we have two different kinds of ministers. Yes, both are important. Yes, they both sit in cabinet and receive salary top-ups, but different kinds of salary top-ups.

Then we have that whole hierarchy working through the system. There is the Prime Minister, the cabinet ministers, and the ministers of state, and then parliamentary secretaries and committee chairs, who receive a salary top-up but not as much as what ministers of state get. Then there are other positions in the House that may include one or two people who then receive an additional top-up as well. If we look across the system, of course all members of Parliament are in some sense equal. However, for the purposes of our debate and deliberations here, we are not equal in terms of our level of authority or level of responsibility.

It goes without saying that there are some people here who have different kinds of administrative responsibilities within government. Therefore, they are paid at a different level because it reflects the additional role or responsibility they have.

Some of the members who have asked questions, or the original mover of this bill, people from the government side, have suggested that in the Liberal cabinet all ministers are equal. That may sound nice, but administratively it is nonsense. To suggest that every single department within the government is of equal importance to the lives of Canadians, that every minister has the same degree of administrative responsibility, that every department is as important as each other, without intending any disrespect, of course, to some of the departments, it is very clear that some do matter more.

To start with, most other ministers, for almost anything they would want to do, would have to ensure that they have the funding from the Minister of Finance. Therefore, there is clearly some, both formal and informal hierarchy, that exists in any cabinet. That is most clearly evident in the distinctions that exist between ministers and ministers of state. I want to underline that this is very much still the case with the current cabinet.

I had the honour of working as a staffer in the previous government, so I have some understanding of how this works at the administrative level. However, the government cannot say its cabinet works differently. In fact, I have the orders in council from November 4 that effectively created the positions of ministers, and within the government there are five ministers of state. In each case, they are not called ministers of state. The Standing Orders said they were to be styled something else, in other words, the naming of the minister is something different. They clearly list not only the fact that the minister in question is a minister of state, but refer to the fact that their responsibilities are involved in assisting the full minister for each department.

That is how ministers of state work. They do not have their own departments. They have specific responsibilities, but the nature of those responsibilities are that they involve assisting the minister who does have full responsibility for that area. I will read directly from the orders in council. I cannot give the names of the ministers, but there are five.

It states, “a minister of state to be styled minister of la Francophonie, to assist the minister of foreign affairs in the carrying out of that minister's responsibilities”. Very clearly, in the order in council, the instruction is to assist the full Minister of Foreign Affairs in the carrying out of the minister's responsibility.

The next one says, “a minister of state to be styled minister of status of women, to assist the minister of Canadian heritage in the carrying out of that minister's responsibilities”. Very clearly, in the orders in council, it is not put at an equal level of the full cabinet, as I have explained.

Then we have, “a minister of state to be styled minister of sport and persons with disabilities, to assist the minister of Canadian heritage and the minister of employment and social development in the carrying out of those ministers' responsibilities”.

Next, “a minister of state to be styled minister of small business and tourism, to assist the minister of industry in the carrying out of that minister's responsibilities”.

Finally, “a minister of state to be styled minister of science, to assist the minister of industry in the carrying out of that minister's responsibilities”.

This is from the current cabinet on November 4. After the election, there was the appointment of these five ministers of state, who are styled or labelled, not as ministers of state, but very clearly, according to the orders in council, are ministers of state, and in fact functioning at a different level from the full ministers. It is clearly indicated within the orders in council which minister they are responsible to report to, in one case to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in another case to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, and then in two cases to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.

It could not be more clear that we still have what we have always had, and perhaps always will have in our system, which are different levels of ministers. However, I will say this, as well, to the government. If the government were really committed to equalizing the salaries of ministers, why did they not lower the salaries of the full ministers to the level of ministers of state, or at least find some level in between?

I see members across the way shaking their heads. It is, of course, outrageous that we would consider lowering the salaries of ministers of the government, and I am not proposing that. I am just saying that if the intention of the government was equalization, it is interesting that the route they are following is that it has to give everyone an increase.

I worry that the parliamentary secretaries are soon going to speak up and say “Aren't we equal too? Shouldn't we be at the same level as the ministers?”

This is precisely the problem. We are talking about different levels of work, but premised on this entirely false notion of equality that seeks to equalize the pay for positions that are, in fact, clearly different, that clearly involve different levels of responsibility.

While this provides the government with a great opportunity to, yes, on a Friday afternoon, propose and defend legislation, or if the Liberals continue their current track record of not putting forward speakers, not to defend legislation, designed to increase the amount of money that cabinet ministers are earning.

Again, I come back to what the government's defence is of this rather absurd approach that it is taking. The Liberals are trying to make this about gender. Again, this does a great disservice to the very real issues of gender equality in this country that require urgent action. Instead, their focus is on increasing the pay of some cabinet ministers and making it about, supposedly, a gender issue. Here are the facts when it comes to gender in the current cabinet.

When the Prime Minister appointed his cabinet, we heard about his much-promoted commitment to gender parity. At the time of appointment, there were 15 women in cabinet and 16 men, including the Prime Minister. Now, that is not parity to begin with, 15 women and 16 men, because the Prime Minister himself is very much a member of cabinet. He has additional seniority and responsibilities, obviously, but he sits as part of the cabinet. Therefore, from the start we already did not have gender parity within the cabinet.

However, we found out, and it is clear from the order in council, that there were ministers of state, as there always has been, five of which were women. Now, the cabinet was not appointed by anyone other than the Prime Minister. Presumably, he knew what he was doing. He knew that he was creating a cabinet that not only did not have equality among the 31 ministers, but also that five of the ministers in that cabinet would be appointed to a different tier. He should have known clearly what the difference was in the nature of those positions and their functions.

In terms of the full ministers, not ministers of state, the original Liberal cabinet had 16 men and 10 women, which means that 38% of the full cabinet were women. Now, 38% of the current cabinet are women versus 30% at the end of the last Conservative government. That is an increase, but it certainly does not deserve the claim of gender parity, as was much asserted by the Prime Minister and other members of his team.

Of course, the government was criticized for the disconnect between what its members were saying on the one hand, and what they were doing on the other. This has been a common criticism of the current government: the disconnect between the things its members are saying and things they are doing. It is no clearer than in this particular case.

The Liberals said they would fix it by pretending that ministers of state were in fact full ministers, but that was a pretense. As I have explained very clearly, the orders in council, the structure of the way government works, is that ministers of state do not run departments, and their function is to assist the full minister responsible for those areas in carrying out of their functions

That would not change with the legislation before us. The fact that the legislation introduces a pay increase for those ministers does not at all change the fundamental reality of the way our system works. Even to the extent that they were trying to fix this problem, this disconnect between their claims of gender parity and the reality of their cabinet means they have not actually addressed it at all.

I suggest that there was a much clearer, simpler way for them to have done this. They could have shuffled their cabinet if they wanted to have that full equality, that actual parity. They could have appointed an equal number of male and female full ministers, and an equal number of male and female ministers of state. Again, no one else appoints the cabinet but the Prime Minister. It was his choice to claim gender parity, on the one hand, but to appoint all of the women within that cabinet to a clearly junior tier, on the other hand.

Renaming the ministers, calling them something else, and increasing their pay does not change the fact that they have lesser administrative responsibilities, that they still have to be reporting to another minister in the context of the carrying out of their duties. This is what we have. We have a salary increase bill for cabinet ministers dressed up in the name of equality.

I want to talk, then, about some other aspects of the bill in the remaining time that I have, because there is the issue, as well, of changing the way the regional ministers work and of changing the way in which regional economic development agencies are administered.

This formalizes a change of the government from the way things have worked in the past. Historically, and when I was a political staffer, the system we had was that there were regional ministers from each area who, in addition to being responsible for certain functions of government, had a particular responsibility for certain regions. They played an important role within the cabinet advocating for the perspective of their region. This was obviously important.

Despite the great intentions a person may have, it is difficult to fully understand and appreciate what the challenges are in, say, Alberta, if he or she does not live in, or come from, or have some kind of a personal connection to Alberta. That is a reality. It is no guarantee that someone from that region will actually represent the interests of their region, as we have seen from members opposite from Alberta voting against key energy infrastructure projects.

However, generally speaking, it is still important to have that kind of regional representation dimension and, also, for regional economic development agencies to have a minister from that region who is responsible for administering that economic development agency, someone who understands the realities of the circumstances and who has a real appreciation of what the economic development needs are. That regional representation, not only within the House of Commons but also within cabinet, and the formalization of that, not just through having the ministers from different regions but having ministers with specific regional responsibilities, which include economic development, has been part of our long history of trying to, through our institutions, structure things so that we are bringing our country together and ensuring that every part of this country has a clear voice at the table. That regional knowledge they bring in is of great importance.

Unfortunately, with these changes with the structure of the cabinet we have, that has been lost. As other members have pointed out many times, we have a minister who represents a constituency in Mississauga who is responsible for all of the economic development agencies across the country. I do not doubt that he is a capable person, but to expect one person to have a full appreciation of the economic development needs of all these different regions in which he does not live and does not represent, is incredibly unrealistic and it leaves those regions without effective representation at the cabinet table.

I think we see this in a number of different issues where the needs of Alberta are being ignored. The historical prerogatives of Atlantic Canada, in the context of Supreme Court representation, are being ignored. We see the outworkings of this lack of regional representation within the government.

Let me say, as well, that having that regional minister responsible for regional economic development plays an important accountability function. It means that people who have concerns, maybe, or suggestions with respect to the activity of regional economic development agencies, things that are very important to the regions in which they operate in terms of at least the way they are seen in those areas, can go to a regional minister who represents those agencies and have that conversation, push back, and hold the person accountable, perhaps, if the way he or she is proceeding is not seen as being in the interests of the region.

Without that function, the local administration really comes down to, not a minister but public servants. Public servants, of course, have a great deal of expertise, but they are not politically accountable in the same way that ministers are.

We are losing out on that regional dimension, as well, and that is unfortunate.

I am very opposed to the bill because, again, I do not see, in the current economic circumstances, especially, any justification for increasing ministerial salaries. The government is trying to get around a political problem of the Prime Minister's own making by paying some people more.

Again, if he wanted to have gender parity in his cabinet, all he had to do was shuffle his cabinet. He has chosen not to do that but to instead put this window dressing on with a salary increase. That is not the right way to go. It costs Canadians too much. That is why I am opposing this bill.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I quite often enjoy that minister's, that member's, speeches. He shows a very good grasp of the issues. However, on this, I think he is out of focus.

He says that things can be adjusted simply through a cabinet shuffle. Now, in our B.C. caucus, we have two excellent ministers, the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities and the Minister of National Defence. I would not want to see them in the opposite jobs. In fact, we are drawing on their expertise and their intelligence in their portfolios to do precisely the job that is needed.

What is really key here, and what I would like the member to respond to, is why a government should not treat the objectives of both those ministers as equally important.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for initially promoting me to a minister in his question. This perhaps underlines the difference between the roles. Seriously, I appreciate the member's kind words.

This is not about individual ministers. I have no doubt that the government is thus far happy with the performance of the ministers he mentioned. Obviously, both of them bring some specific knowledge to the portfolios they have.

At the same time, it is not an insult to either of them to suggest that there are differences of kind and of nature between those two different functions. It is not to diminish the importance of either to say, as well, that the administrative structure is different.

The member mentioned, for example, the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities. As I mentioned, that minister, clearly within the orders in council, has responsibilities that involve assisting the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour in terms of those ministerial responsibilities. The way she administers those areas is different from the way the Minister of National Defence administers his areas. The orders in council for the Minister of National Defence do not refer to him assisting anyone else. He is responsible, fully, for administering the activities of the defence department.

These are just clear differences. I say to the government members that it is not to diminish any member here to say that there are different levels of responsibility and influence. That is just a reality. To suggest that all cabinet ministers, the ministers of state as well senior ministers, do the same thing and have the same level of authority just does not reflect the reality of how our system of government works.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was born and raised in Ontario, but my dad was born in Saskatchewan. I will always have an affinity for Saskatchewan.

I want to join my colleague in acknowledging that after having been around for a while, one of the things we do in a new Parliament is kind of look around and see where the rising stars are. I do not think there is any doubt that the hon. member will find himself moving up the benches very quickly. I expect an illustrious career for him.

On a sort of man bites dog story, I am looking to see if the member and I agree on something, because I think we do. Let me pose something, if I may, very briefly, and then see if the member agrees that we are seeing it the same way. If not, he can show me where we are differing.

In terms of ministers of state, if we had male and female ministers of state who were being paid two different rates, and that was being fixed, that would be a pay equity issue. However, what we are talking about here is a full-line minister, and I have been one provincially, who has responsibilities for a full ministry and department, versus a minister of state, who is sort of an assistant minister.

What is really going on is that this is an attempt to fix a bit of problem the government made for itself by bragging about the number of women it had and putting them in the lower positions. When it got called on it, this was the fix.

Do we see this issue the same way?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I really have to thank my friend for the very kind remarks. I was not planning on donating to his leadership campaign before, but now I may have to give it some thought.

It is very clear that it is not a pay equity issue when there is different pay for fundamentally different functions. The Prime Minister is paid more than his ministers of state. Nobody suggests that it is a pay equity problem. To be the Prime Minister is clearly different from being a minister of state. What I have pointed out is that there is also a similar difference in terms of the administrative reality for full ministers and ministers of state.

Again, the member is quite right to say that this is not about pay equity. This is rather about the government trying to suggest that the ministers are the same in order to fix a political problem of its own making. Again, there would be a simpler political fix for it. Well, maybe it would be simpler in some respects and not in others. They could simply shuffle the cabinet, if that is what they are aiming for.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader stated that all ministers are now being paid at the same level, but the bill has not been passed in Parliament. On what authority are those increases being paid, and what does that say about the government's respect for the law in Parliament?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, at some point, I hope we will get an answer to that question from the government.

It is worth underlining, as one of my colleagues pointed out, that although the parliamentary secretary said the bill does not entail any additional cost, it does involve a royal recommendation, which is precisely the indicator that there is an expenditure of dollars associated with it. It cannot be both ways. If there is a royal recommendation associated with the bill, it means the government anticipates there will be associated costs. There is a clear disconnect there. These are questions the government is going to have to answer in terms of what the bill would actually do.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation]

Mr. Speaker, I often enjoy the comments of the hon. member from Saskatchewan, but today in one of his responses to a question he got up and said that he did not want to make this personal and then spent a good part of his speech talking about the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and asking how he could pretend to represent all the regions of the country or do a good job as regional minister if he is not from that region.

That sounds like a personal attack because he does not ask the same question of, let us say, the Minister of Environment, who has responsibility for other departments such as national parks, even though there might not be a national park in that particular minister's riding, or the Minister of Finance, who might be the person who sets the fiscal framework for the government and has a clear indication of what types of budgets they would have in different departments, but does not come from all parts of the country.

I am not certain what he is trying to say. On one hand he is saying it is impersonal, yet his argument would belie that fact.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, let me be very clear again. My argument was specifically about the importance of regional representation, especially in the context of economic development agencies.

I raised the issue of the minister in question, the Minister of Innovation, because he is the minister who now is, unfortunately in my judgment, responsible for administering all of these different economic development agencies. It is not a comment on the job he is doing, but a comment on the reality that he is not from western Canada, nor Atlantic Canada. He represents a constituency in Mississauga. I do not think it is any personal insult to the minister to point out that reality.

I would not make a very good regional minister for Atlantic Canada because I represent a constituency in Alberta. To suggest the importance of regional representation at the cabinet table in the context of economic development and political accountability, that is not a personal insult. It is a reality. It would be better for the government members to actually engage with that argument and try to explain to us why regional representation is not important. However, they have not even acknowledged that aspect of the bill. We have not heard any acknowledgement or arguments as to why it is okay to not have regional representation through these particular mechanisms.

Rather than pleading personal insult, hopefully, going forward we will hear some actual arguments as to why someone who is not from western Canada, nor Atlantic Canada, nor from the north should be administering all of the economic development agencies for the whole country.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that my colleague just did an excellent job of giving us an accurate, fair, and very factual explanation of the bill. At no time during his speech did I detect a personal attack against the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. On the contrary, he complimented the minister's work, but he expressed concern about how much time the minister would be able to devote to the development of each region of the country. That was his point. I heard no personal attack in his excellent speech. Once again, I too recognize my colleague's excellent qualitites.

As everyone knows, we will vigorously and vehemently oppose the bill before us for a number of reasons. With this enigmatic bill, the government is asking us to approve the possible future appointment of three ministers, but it is silent on the whys and wherefores. We do not know where this comes from or what is behind this bill to create three new ministerial positions.

The Liberals should be transparent and tell Canadians which of their friends they are planning to appoint. We have heard a number of suggestions since this morning. After the bill was introduced, people suggested the government might be looking to create a minister of universal taxation, a minister of partisan appointments, or maybe a minister of servile deference responsible for not offending Iran, Russia, China, the United States, and other countries so that Canada can secure a UN Security Council seat. Nobody knows. Why do we not know? Why do members on this side of the House and Canadians even have to ask? What kind of ministers will we get? Why are we being kept guessing? Because the government lacks transparency.

The government is not saying why it wants to create these three ministerial positions. Perhaps it intends to create three positions for ministers of sunny ways so that it need not tackle the real problems in Canada's regions? We do not know, and that is my concern with the bill we are debating today. What do the Liberals have to hide? What is this government's secret agenda? Is our Prime Minister trying to use a bill to justify the potential appointment of three new ministers? Now that he has the legal basis for creating three new cabinet positions, why not go ahead and do it? Everything is possible, everything is on the table because we do not know what the government wants to do.

The one thing that struck me in particular about this bill is that it would eliminate the positions of minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada. I would like to tell my Liberal colleagues about the agency's role. It is not complicated, and all Canadians can find information about the role of the agency and its various regional agencies on its website. I suspect that my colleagues did not spend enough time reading up on the agency's role and that they actually do not know what it is.

I would like to raise a few points. Regional economic development agencies address key economic challenges by providing programs and services specific to the needs of the regions as well as the know-how to deal with crises. The agency seeks to help small and medium-sized businesses to be competitive in global markets, support growth, productivity, innovation, and especially to help them adapt to economic downturns and crises.

There is currently no regional minister, and where has that gotten us? No decisions have been made on the diafiltered milk issue because there is no one in cabinet to defend the rural regions. No one is standing up in cabinet to say that this issue needs to be resolved because jobs in Quebec are at stake.

With regard to the carbon tax, no minister stood up to defend the various regions of Quebec and especially Alberta. No one stood up for these regions, who need someone to help them with their issues from time to time. There is also the softwood lumber issue. Once again, we can see why the government needed a year to make a failed attempt at resolving the issue. The agreement expires in five days.

The softwood lumber agreement affects millions of jobs across Canada, but that does not seem to bother the government because no minister is in direct contact with the people in each of those regions to talk specifically about economic development.

Each minister in charge of a regional development agency had the mandate to bring a regional perspective to the development of national strategies. Absent a national strategy, however, there is no need for regional ministers. Perhaps that is a reason, but the government is still abandoning the regions of Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia, as well as the Atlantic, western, and northern regions. The government is abandoning everyone and, once again, we have no idea why. What is this government's secret game plan? This enigmatic bill does not tell us anything.

Having served as the mayor of Thetford Mines for seven years, I had the opportunity to deal with the federal government on a few occasions. It was easy, because I was lucky enough to be represented by an excellent minister, Christian Paradis, whose role it was to support his riding, as it is the role of each and every one of us in the House.

When we had a problem, as members of the Union des municipalités du Québec, and we wanted to discuss it with federal government representatives, we did not have to hold 22 meetings. All we had to do was meet with the minister responsible for our region, who would then pass our message along to the government.

As mayor, one is, in a sense, the minister for everything, but there are times when the mayor cannot solve everything alone. If a mayor has to put 22 meetings on his agenda to resolve one single issue because there is no longer a minister who looks after the region, well, I really think the government is on the wrong track. We need regional development agencies.

Since the government does not have a national economic strategy, it does not need regional development agencies. However, the crises in our regions are real, and regional ministers need to deal with them.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

When the debate on this matter resumes, the hon. member will have 12 minutes and 45 seconds remaining.

It being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed from October 7 consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to continue my speech of last Friday on Bill C-24. It will give me the opportunity to highlight the key elements I talked about last Friday for the benefit of those people who are very interested in these legislative changes, which directly affect us in every region of the country.

First of all, we were presented with Bill C-24, an act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act. We must admit that the title of the bill does not tell us much, and that is exactly what I am going to talk about. What I want to try to point out today is that the Liberal government does more harm with what it does not say than with what it does say, and that is very obvious in Bill C-24.

For the benefit of anyone watching us, this bill could have been called “an act to abolish the ministers for the regional economic development agencies and to centralize all regional economic development decisions in one location in Canada”. That would have been a more accurate title for this bill. It would have indicated to Canadians, as well as my colleagues across the aisle, I think, that this move is completely unacceptable for the various regions of Quebec.

Getting back to Bill C-24, all bills have a summary that clearly states the purpose of the bill. The summary of Bill C-24 states:

This enactment amends the Salaries Act to authorize payment...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.

That summarizes the bill.

The summary does not say much about subclause 2(1), which states that “Paragraphs 4.1(3)(s) to (t.4) of the Act are repealed”. Those sections have to do with the ministers responsible for the regional economic development agencies. We have this one very short subclause and suddenly, poof, the ministers are gone, ministers that this government could not even be bothered to name, I might add.

In this government's view, what is the point of having a presence in all of the regions of Quebec, Canada and the west? There is no point at all, when one person in Mississauga is authorized to make all the decisions on all economic development projects from coast to coast to coast. That is the real problem, although it is not expressly said.

Once again, we need to be wary of what this government is not saying, because the real problems lie in what it is not saying, and that is where Canadians will pay the highest price. It is no wonder this government has produced such poor results over the past year in terms of economic development and job creation.

We are wondering what is going on because there is no longer a minister for economic development for each region of Quebec. How are members from either side of the House supposed to talk to someone about the economic difficulties facing their ridings, regions, or municipalities? Who are we supposed to talk to?

The 338 members of the House will have to schedule a meeting with the one and only minister responsible for economic development to talk about their files, or if not, they must talk to someone in his cabinet. In any case, we are going to have a lot of difficulty finding someone to speak to about the problems our regions are experiencing, because they are of no interest to the Liberals.

The diafiltered milk issue is a prime example. We used to be able to go and see the minister responsible for economic development in our region and tell him about all the problems that this is causing for the region and its SMEs, which are dairy farms. It is important to understand that, in regions like mine, a farm is not just a farm. A dairy producer is a small business that supports the family, employees, the local convenience store, tractor and truck dealers, and others.

This will have a huge impact on local economies. We are not talking about just one farm. Any given riding can have 10, 12, 100, 200, or even 300 farms. The government is letting the problem drag on. Every now and then, the government says it will deal with the issue and that someone will take care of it at some point.

Today, the Minister of Agriculture announced plans for a new agricultural policy. The policy does not yet exist, but it will someday. Today, though, he did not say a word about diafiltered milk even though he was the one who told us back in May or June not to worry because there would be a meeting before the summer and a solution would be found.

Now here it is nearly November. The last day before November, October 31, is Halloween, a day for frightening people. In this case, the government could not wait for Halloween to frighten people about diafiltered milk. We have been raising the subject for a year and telling them that there is a problem and it is hurting dairy farms in our regions, our small and medium-sized businesses.

What is going to happen on Halloween night when kids go trick-or-treating? The dairy producers of my riding will not even be able to hand out Halloween candy to the kids. They cannot afford it; it is that simple. How sad.

Meanwhile, the softwood lumber issue is affecting thousands of jobs, including hundreds in my riding and hundreds in my colleagues' ridings. In the ridings of many of the members across the aisle, the current situation is having a direct impact on sawmills, since negotiations with the United States are not going well at all, because the government really does not care about resolving this matter. Why are the negotiations not working? Who in cabinet is going to stand up and speak on behalf of the various economic regions? We no longer have ministers responsible for regional economic development.

Not only does Bill C-24 abolish them, it abolishes them forever. It is really troubling.

Since this is a new government, those folks over there do not really realize what those regional minsters did. What does a minister responsible for an economic development agency do? I will refer directly to the the Canada Economic Development website to explain what an economic development agency does. There are six regional development agencies across Canada that each represent one of the country's various regions.

Regional Development Agencies across Canada help to address key economic challenges by providing regionally-tailored programs, services, knowledge and expertise that: build on regional and local economic assets and strengths; support business growth, productivity and innovation; help small- and medium-sized businesses effectively compete in the global marketplace; provide adjustment assistance in response to economic downturns and crises; and support communities.

Further, it explains that:

Each Regional Development Agency brings a regional policy perspective in support of the national agenda through: regional economic intelligence to support national decision-making.

I will repeat that because it is important, and I will add the words “minister responsible” to put this in the context of a cabinet minister. This gives us:

Each [minister responsible for a] Regional Development Agency brings a regional policy perspective in support of the national agenda through regional economic intelligence to support national decision-making.

That is the problem. There is no longer anyone in cabinet capable of bringing a regional perspective when it comes to making a national decision. What happens as a result? There will be consultations on just about everything because there is no minister who has taken the time to consult the people of their region. There is no minister who is aware of the economic development of their own region. There is no minister who is capable of talking to cabinet about the repercussions of bad national decisions, because this type of minister no longer exists.

I have a lot of respect for the current Minister of Economic Development. Imagine that. One man alone has to make decisions for the economic development of all the regions in Canada.

I was the mayor of Thetford Mines for seven years. Thetford Mines is small town with a population of 26,000.

There are eight wards in that town, and there were ten when I was mayor. Every municipal councillor had different priorities. As surprising as it may seem, we needed a representative in each ward so that when we were at the council table, he would give us his opinion on the development of our town. We had a population of 26,000. Canada's population is much greater than that. There are different regions, the economy is different, and yet we are left with only one person to stand up for all of Canada's regions around the cabinet table.

In closing, this kind of decision by the government is going to lead to these kinds of results. The economy is stagnating. Despite all the spending by this government, the Bank of Canada, the IMF, and the OECD have revised their forecasts for Canada downward for this year and the next. Good jobs are rare. The vast majority of new jobs created under the Liberals are part-time jobs. Meanwhile, the cost of living is increasing. It is difficult for Canadians to buy a house, and the new federal regulations will ensure that even fewer people will buy homes.

The economy relies on the regions, which in turn rely on their small and medium-sized businesses. Will the current government understand this? Will it change its position on Bill C-24 and once again give our regions a regional minister to stimulate employment and create real, sustainable jobs in the SMEs of our regions and Canada?

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

Mr. Speaker, the member might actually be a little off base on this particular bill. Bill C-24 really equalizes. It makes all ministers equal. For example, with the Harper government, we had status of women being one level of cabinet minister, and the minister of finance being another level of cabinet minister.

It takes a two-tier system, and establishes one-tier for cabinet ministers. When they sit around the table, they speak from the same power base, and that is important.

The member made reference to regional ministers. Finance does an incredible job, and that minister represents the entire country. We have confidence the minister responsible for development will represent the entire country. That is an obligation of all federal ministers. It is not just one pocket but the entire country.

When we talk about the economic development of regions, we have FedDev, ACOA, CED, and the Western Diversification Fund. If we look at the Western Diversification Fund in particular, even with a majority Conservative government, the regional minister did squat in terms of developing that fund during the Harper years.

My question to the member is, would he not recognize that the real true value are those regional development funds?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe I am hearing comments like that.

The work done by the public servants at the economic development agencies is non-partisan. The government employees of these agencies work to advance the economy and create jobs in Canada. That is what those agencies do.

As I was saying earlier, it is the things that are not being said that are worrisome. The government is talking about economic development agencies, but if there are no more ministers, what guarantee do we have that those agencies will remain open?

The current government is a centralizing government that wants to do away with the economic development agencies across Canada and make all the decisions. That is what this government wants to do and that is the intent behind Bill C-24.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a basic math question for my esteemed colleague.

Is it not true that, regardless of how many responsibilities ministers have, they only have a certain number of hours in a day? If they are given more responsibilities, they have to divide their time by the number of responsibilities, not multiply it by that same number.

If I am right, how can just one minister do the work of six for Canada's economic regions?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague must have studied math, because it is obvious that one minister alone cannot do the work that took six ministers to do in the past. That is what is troubling.

Since this government was elected, it has been promising to do things differently, to be accessible, and to meet with everyone. I challenge the minister to do twice as much work and answer all of his constituents' questions regarding the economic situation, diafiltered milk, softwood lumber, and small and medium-sized businesses that are not getting their much-touted tax break. I invite all the members opposite to do that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened to what my colleague had to say, as well as the Liberals' response, or question rather, in which they accuse us of partisanship. I would like to point out that the ministers responsible for the regional economic development agencies from across Canada did a great job, without any partisanship.

Does my colleague think that this bill is transparent?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. This bill is no more transparent than the paper it is printed on. That much is clear.

The summary of this bill, an act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act, states that the government will appoint more ministers and give them authority to act. However, nowhere in the summary or the text is there anything about abolishing the positions of ministers responsible for Canada's regional economic development agencies. That is not transparency. Transparency means clearly stating the purpose of the bill.

My first concern is about the minister. What is going to happen? Hundreds of dedicated public servants in economic development agencies across Canada care deeply about their mission. When the new cabinet was announced, nobody was as disappointed as they were because they had set up a great office for their new minister. They were keen to work with a minister and show him or her all of the good things they were doing in the various regions of Canada. A few days later, they had to get used to the idea that the position would remain vacant.

A year has gone by, and now we know that the Liberal government's plan was to abolish regional ministerial positions. What will become of our economic development agencies?

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

Mr. Speaker, my question for the member is fairly straightforward. Three economic development agencies are budgeted a certain amount of money on an annual basis. If we look at the Western Diversification Fund, we find that the budget, which the minister is responsible for allocating the money, has not done well in western Canada. The minister representing western Canada did not get the job done in terms of delivering for western Canada. The argument is that a minister is responsible for the entire country, whether it is the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, or the Minister of Health. This legislation makes all ministers equal.

From the Conservative Party's perspective, is there anything wrong with having an equal cabinet?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what my hon. colleague is not saying is that the ministers that he wants to be equal will not be because they will be allocated resources according to their roles. Thus, someone with a role that is less important than that of the finance minister will not have the same staff.

The government is reserving the right to say that they will be paid the same, but that they may perhaps have to work with the staff of the full minister's office. That is different from what my colleague is saying.

I do not believe that one man can do all that work because it is impossible. However, that is what the Liberals believe. One year later, we can see the results: growth has stalled and things are not improving. The government should learn its lesson, backtrack, and give each region a minister.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to participate in the debate at second reading stage of Bill C-24, which would amend the Salaries Act so that it better reflects today's realities.

Priorities in government change and the portfolios assigned to cabinet ministers change with them. Take for example, the ministry of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Hon. members will find that there are many portfolios whose names and responsibilities have evolved over time. The Laurier government had a minister of railways and canals. We have a minister of transport who oversees many more modes of transportation. The Laurier government had a postmaster general, while today those responsibilities fall under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Public Services and Procurement. The Laurier government had a minister of the interior and superintendent-general of Indian affairs and one of the responsibilities of that minister was to promote immigration to the Prairies. That minister's many responsibilities have since been assigned to different portfolios, including that of the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.

To respond to the changing needs of the times, the Laurier government appointed the very first labour minister to cabinet, a young William Lyon Mackenzie King. What is more, three titles in the ministry were not considered part of cabinet: the solicitor general, the controller of customs and the controller of inland revenue. This serves to remind us of just how much priorities change. A prime minister must have the flexibility to keep abreast of those changes and adjust his or her ministry. When the cabinet was sworn in on November 4, 2015, five ministers were appointed under the terms of the Ministries and Ministers of State Act. Nevertheless, they took their oath of office as full ministers and they have had full standing and authority, including salary, since day one of this government.

The addition of these new positions to the Salaries Act speak to the priorities of our times, just as Laurier's ministers spoke to his time. Laurier was the first French-Canadian prime minister. He argued that Canada's linguistic duality could make our country a key player on the international stage. Today, we are proud to be part of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. In addition to her responsibilities as Minister of International Development, the Minister for La Francophonie pursues Canada’s strong and engaged commitment to the 80 governments and member states of la Francophonie. Together we represent more than one-third of the United Nations’ member states and account for a population of over 890 million people, including 220 million French speakers.

The Minister of Small Business and Tourism also represents a priority that did not exist in Laurier's time, when Canada was predominantly an agricultural nation. Today, our small businesses are the backbone of Canada's economy. They create jobs, they support communities, and they provide a launching pad for our best and brightest to create world-class companies. The Minister of Small Business and Tourism helps these people thrive and contribute to a strong Canadian economy. Her efforts to help small businesses grow and prosper contribute to building a strong middle class in Canada.

Like the Minister of Small Business and Tourism, the Minister of Science has a mandate that contributes to the competitiveness of Canada in a global, knowledge-based economy. Science plays a key role in providing the evidence for sound policy decisions. Support for world-class research is critical to making innovation a national priority, and the minister is helping promote the science that will drive an economy that is both prosperous and environmentally sustainable.

The Government of Canada is the largest single investor in our country’s sports system. Its investments in Canada’s able-bodied and parasport athletes was recently on display in the excellent results Canada achieved at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio. These results encourage all Canadians, especially our young people, to get involved in sport and recreation. The Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities promotes healthier Canadians through sport and recreation and helps to ensure greater accessibility and opportunities for Canadians with disabilities. She plays an important part in pursing the government’s goal of fostering and celebrating Canada’s diversity and making sure that all Canadians have equality of opportunity.

This goal of promoting diversity applies, as well, to the work of the Minister of Status of Women. One hundred years ago, women first earned the right to vote in Canada, starting in Manitoba. Last year, Canadians saw the first ever gender-balanced federal cabinet and, for the first time, a minister is dedicated fully to gender issues.

This government has made gender equality a priority. The minister champions gender equality, addresses the issue of violence against women, advances women's economic security and prosperity, and increases the representation of women in leadership and decision-making roles.

What does diversity look like in 2016, Mr. Speaker? Let us look to the role and influence of women in Canada. In Laurier's time, women did not even have the vote. The priorities of today’s cabinet have changed since his day. In the Speech from the Throne last December, this government outlined its priorities for our times. They include growth for the middle class; a clean environment and a strong economy; diversity as Canada's strength; security; and open and transparent government.

Five new titles have been added to the Salaries Act so that the Prime Minister can name ministers to pursue those objectives. As society changes, Canada’s needs will continue to evolve. It is important that we provide prime ministers with the flexibility to respond to these changes. This Bill represents an important step in that process and I urge honourable members to support it.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague on his speech. He did a fine job learning the talking points for this bill, especially the ones on equity.

The hon. member talked about what is included in the bill, but he did not talk about what is not included in the bill, in other words, the elimination of the regional minister positions. He also failed to talked about the ministerial lottery, these three new, mysterious minister positions that are included in the bill and we have no idea why.

Why is the government reserving the right to include three new minister positions in a bill without providing any further details? Would it be because the government wants to cut the number of regional economic development agencies to three? We do not know, because it is not in the bill. We have no idea.

What are these three mysterious minister positions? What is this Liberal ministerial lottery all about?

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on toeing his party line so well with that question.

These ministerial positions, which have yet to be named, are meant to support the expansion of any government, whether ours or any future government formed by another party. Thus, there will be no need to change the legislation every time there is a change in cabinet. Needs change over time, and so cabinet must change, too. Why should we have to come back to Parliament every time to make small administrative changes in the executive branch?

As for the regional development agencies, why do we need six ministers all doing the same thing? Is that the kind of job creation the member advocates?

[Kim Rudd, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague to emphasize the importance of a gender-neutral cabinet and the importance of ministers of state all being equal. This is 2016. I would like to hear from the member his thoughts on that.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will paraphrase an older quote: a minister is a minister is a minister. I think it is very important that the ministers we have are treated equally and that they represent our country equally, to the extent possible. I think the importance of a balanced cabinet is completely self-evident.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question that actually has to do with the legislation. Could the member elucidate for the House, in practical terms, what exactly is the difference between a minister of state to assist and a minister for whom a department is designated?

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I understand it, as of this fall, there will be no more difference. The minister of state will act in support of another minister. There will be two ministers in one department. It does not mean that they will have less work or less responsibility. They are two aspects of the same file.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to ask another question, because I heard my colleague say something that made what little hair I have left stand on end. If I continue listening, I may well lose the rest.

Does my colleague realize what he just said, with the comment about six ministers doing the same thing? Do the six ministers for the regional development agencies, which means one for the Atlantic provinces, one for Ontario, one for Quebec, one for the west, and one for the north, all have the same mandate to develop the same thing? Are the regional development issues in the west the same as they are in the Atlantic provinces?

I would like the member to clarify his thoughts on the role of regional development ministers and what he thinks of economic development and the economic development agencies, which do not do the same thing from coast to coast to coast. Can the member clarify his thoughts?

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, obviously, there is a world of difference between our opinions.

The major difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals is that we trust public services to do their job. We have a minister responsible for the major issue of economic development and public servants do their job under government leadership.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I think there might have been a slip of the tongue in the answer to my previous question, so I want to give the member the opportunity to correct himself.

I think he meant to be talking about ministers for whom a department is designated. He said that they will be working together, and that is what the new arrangement is going to be, but he said “minister of state”. I think the slip of the tongue might actually be telling, because it is actually hard to tell the difference between what these positions are, other than the fact that they will have a slightly different title. In practical terms, it seems to me that these are still two different positions. One kind of minister, ministers of departments, will be heads of departments, and the other ones will effectively be assisting those ministers with resources from their departments.

I want to give the member an opportunity, if there is something I am missing, to maybe clear it up, but I think the slip of the tongue might have been telling.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think my tongue particularly slipped. If multiple ministers work together to accomplish a greater task, I do not see a problem with that.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a quick question. I recognize that there is a parliamentary secretary in the House today, who does a fantastic job. However, if we are talking about assisting other ministers, what is the role of a parliamentary secretary compared to a minister of state?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Before the hon. member answers, I want to remind hon. members that we cannot refer to the presence or absence of members in the House.

The hon. member for Laurentides—Labelle.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think parliamentary secretaries serve a different role than adjunct ministers. It is a very important role in managing the business of the department here in the chamber. That is why we see parliamentary secretaries at the late show and why we see them in a lot of different tasks. It is not a decision-making role.

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not quite understand the confusion on the other side. My colleague has actually been fairly forthright in his explanation. There is a difference between them. The primary reason for the legislation today is that there was a strong statement by the Prime Minister, after swearing in the cabinet, that all ministers would be equal around the table. It does not necessarily mean that each minister gets the same size budget. It is a breakdown.

The bottom line is that there is equality within the cabinet. Is that not a good thing?

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, I believe equality among the cabinet members is very important. These are all people with the responsibility to run our country effectively. Having them be equal at the table is important to that function.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue, Child Care.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-24, an act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act.

The bill can be broken down into three major components: the legal creation of eight new Liberal ministerial positions, including three ministers; the elimination of six regional development agency ministers; and the amendment to the Salaries Act so that all ministers are paid equally.

Before I start speaking directly to these points, I want to share with everyone the importance of economic development agencies. I have seen first hand in my own riding the positive impact of federal economic agencies, and more specifically, of the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario.

In 2009, the federal government created FedDev Ontario. Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced this agency, recognizing the global recession and the specific challenges in every region of the country. The agency was created to deal with the specific and distinct needs of southern Ontario, tailored to the priorities of the region. The agency was developed as a tool to help businesses and communities succeed with necessary resources.

At the time, the prime minister appointed the hon. Gary Goodyear to tour and engage workers, businesses, and community leaders. Gary was a member of Parliament from Cambridge who not only represented the area but was able to see the issues first hand and work with leaders to create solutions for the economic downturn.

Through the creation of this agency, many incredible opportunities came to fruition, and over $1 billion was provided over five years. Mr. Goodyear's job was to work with the departments and account for putting programs into action, working to expedite funding for economic development, diversification, and community development.

Programs included under FedDev Ontario were the community adjustment fund, the National Research Council industrial research assistance program, the community futures program, and the Business Development Bank of Canada.

Overall, the agency's mandate was aimed at addressing the short-term economic needs of the communities hit hard by the economic recession. FedDev was able to announce a number of important initiatives, including an $8-million investment to build an air cargo terminal at the London International Airport and improvements to Highway 8 in co-operation with the Province of Ontario.

All that being said, I believe that we have a very competent minister currently at the helm, but I believe that expecting one minister to personally oversee all the important projects that fall under his portfolio is asking for failure. I believe that we need to have someone accountable for all the money that floats through these agencies who has knowledge of an area and the specific needs of that area.

Although I have travelled this beautiful country a bit, l recognize the vast differences from region to region. The needs of Atlantic Canada are vastly different from those of Alberta, yet currently they both need assistance. They need someone on the ground advocating on their behalf and recognizing what works best in their own communities. I feel that it is not the time to have one minister accountable for all the money and all the projects. I think this is reckless and poorly thought out, regardless of the efforts of the current minister.

That leads me to point number one: the creation of eight new Liberal ministerial positions. We see the government chopping the important positions at the economic development agencies yet creating new positions when we do not even know what they are for. Maybe if the government could share its plans for what the ministers are, it might get greater support from the opposition. Instead, it is proposing these new positions with no information.

The government is asking for a blank cheque payable to someone for something. Does that sound transparent? I would urge the government to just tell us. Let Canadians know what it is doing and why. These are simple requests, but instead, we are being asked to support Bill C-24 with no further information. The ministers have not yet been named. We have no idea what they will be doing, and we have no idea why they will be doing it.

The government was elected one year ago today on slogans like “transparency”, and today I am speaking and questioning the government on its plans. I thought I would be silly and maybe help the government with the meaning of transparency, using the ever so competent source, Wikipedia, which says, “Transparency is operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed.”

If Wikipedia gets it, why does the Liberal government not? Why are we voting on something in the House of Commons that is so unclear? Why are we voting blindly on an issue? The Liberals are asking us to support something about which we have no idea. Truly, it is sounds like something I would say to my husband in the car. If I am not positive about the outcome, I usually say to him, “Trust me”. I know then that it is between him and me, not 30 million taxpayers, and that I can therefore be accountable to him.

However, we are being asked to give carte blanche authorization for something we do not know about, so the words, “trust me”, just cannot matter. When we are asking the government to give us some sort of ideas, we should be privy to what those requests are, especially when there are three new ministers that will be set up.

Finally, I would like to touch on the ministerial equality proposal. The Prime Minister proudly announced his gender-equal cabinet. Shortly afterwards, it was pointed out that he had appointed only women to junior ministerial positions. I am 100% supportive of the idea of gender equality, but as many of our colleagues have pointed out, the solution to this “oops” is taking all of the junior ministers and giving them more money. Any woman fighting for gender equality sees the holes in this solution.

Let us just break this down to the simple facts. These are the following portfolios that are currently junior ministers: the Minister of all Francophonie, the Minister of Science, Minister of Small Business and Tourism, the Minister of Sports and Persons with Disabilities, and the Minister of the Status of Women. All of these positions are very important and necessary, but the Prime Minister is trying to end the gender gap in his own cabinet by saying these positions are equal to those of senior ministers.

This is not about gender parity; it is about saving face and protecting his reputation as a feminist. I find his solution quite an overreach and very degrading. Each of these women in their portfolios works hard, but if we asked them, not one would say they have a job that is equivalent to the Minister of Finance or the Minister of National Defence. There is a very big difference.

In our caucus, members who were previously in these positions speak frankly and honestly. Their roles are very different and their portfolios are much smaller and focused. The role of senior minister comes with a deputy minister and a larger departmental budget, as this is needed.

This one-tier approach is not modernizing and I question whether this is about gender parity or ministerial parity. Truly, this is neither. This is not about pay equity or equal pay for equal work, as my NDP colleague had clearly pointed out in her opening speech last week.

Let us look at this in simple terms. We talk of this as being about all ministers at the cabinet table having equal jobs. Let us be honest. I will take this back to something I have a lot of experience with, which is the restaurant business. If I am looking at a restaurant, I would look at the different roles that were set up. We would have the executive chef, the sous chef, the order cook, the manager of the front of the house, the servers and bartenders. We would have everyone. At the end of the day, everyone needs to work to make this restaurant work and every single person has a very important job to do, but the onus will be on the executive chef and the manager. Although the executive chef is out there doing the meals and doing the meal planning, the sous chef will be cutting celery and carrots.

We are trying to say that some of these small roles are not as small as they seem. The thing I have problems with is that when we look at this, we all need everyone to work together at the cabinet table and be equal, but that does not mean their jobs are equal. We cannot compare what a person does as an executive chef or a minister to what a sous chef does or to what a junior minister may do. I am not trying to say that these roles are not very important, because they are, but at the end of the day, let us look at the work.

We talked about ministerial parity; let us now talk about work parity. Do we see these ministers doing the same amount of work that the ministers of state are doing? I think the answer is very clear and it is no.

Would I truly want to be the Minister of Finance setting up a budget for 2017 and also having to do a full forecast? That is a lot of work. Would I want to be the Minister of Justice who has to deal with almost every single bill that comes through the House of Commons? Absolutely not. Those are overwhelming things.

On the other side, I do recognize the importance of these junior roles, but saying they are not junior roles does not make them more senior. I really appreciate all of the work that we have done. We have just come out of an excellent 2016 Olympics, but does that make the Minister of Sports' role as important as the role of the Minister of Finance?

I want to show that huge difference because there is a huge difference. I think for us to say there is not would be rude, and the only reason that some people are not willing to say so is that she is a woman. Therefore, we have to say that it is an equal role. It truly is not an equal role.

We also look at the Minister of Status of Women, for whom I have great respect. She does an excellent job going around and checking important things about women throughout the country, including violence against women. Once again, is that role as great as that of the Minister of Justice? I am using these two women for comparison's sake, because they have different roles but are both female. Let us look at the two of them as equals.

We have the Minister of Justice, who was recently involved with a huge bill like Bill C-14. She is dealing with different aboriginal issues, with the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, and with health issues. She is dealing with so many different things. We have to recognize that the job of the Minister of State for the Status of Women is a very focused one and does not include all of what the Minister of Justice may do.

I also look at the Minister of Health. I have great respect for her and the work she has to do. We have to understand how comprehensive her job is, not only working on her own role but working with all of the provinces.

We are sitting here talking about job parity, but this is not about job parity because if it were about job parity, we would be looking at equal work, and this is not equal work.

If I were in small business and paying everyone the same, I would go bankrupt. Our government has to look at this as not being about equal work. This is about a time when the Prime Minister last year appointed his cabinet, which was scrutinized through the lens of his statement that his cabinet was gender-equal. The media pointed out that he truly did not have a gender-equal cabinet so because some of those ministers were ministers of state. Therefore, we are now giving large increases to those ministers of state, chopping off the words “of state”, and saying that they are equal. Let us be honest. Changing the name of minister of state and making it “minister” and not increasing the workload and saying that they are the same as everyone else who is sitting along that front bench is not true. I think we all have to sit back and see that.

I asked a question earlier of my colleague the parliamentary secretary, because I know that in my own region I have an excellent parliamentary secretary who works very hard. I sit there, and before I question the minister of state, I am thinking “How is this going to roll out?” Although I know she works very hard, should I expect that in time the parliamentary secretaries are going to be saying, “I do a lot of work as well because when the minister is not here I sit here on Fridays, and when the minister is not available I take a lot of the calls and requests”.

What is going to happen? Is this going to be a snowball effect so that the next thing we know, even a critic like me will get a raise? To me, that does not sound right. Our work is as members of Parliament and we are elected to come here, making the amount of money that we do. Yes, they got a cabinet position; congratulations, they get more money. But at the same time, they are working hard and all members of Parliament should be working hard for all Canadians.

I want to go back to the three main topics here. We are talking about removing the regional ministers, which I feel is very unnecessary. As I indicated, even in my own hometown we have seen great things done because of the impact and the knowledge of those ministers. I am not going to sit here and say that the minister is not doing a great job, but he has a huge role. By having people under those regional agencies, they have first-hand experience and knowledge of those particular files and how they can see Canadians in economic development.

The other issue is the mystery three ministers that we discussed. We talk about transparency. We need to see that transparency. If the current government wants us to support three more ministers, tell us why, tell us who, and tell us what they are going to be doing in the future and how they are going to benefit all Canadians.

Finally, on the issue of ministerial parity that I just wrapped up on, if we break down all of the issues involved and really look at them, I want all of the government members and every member here saying, “Is this the right bill to support?” I cannot support a bill when there are so many unknowns. I cannot support a bill when there is talk of parity that really is not parity. As well, I cannot support a bill when I know that as a result, we will be cutting the Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions agency, the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency minister, the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario minister, the Federal Economic Development Initiative in Northern Ontario minister, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency minister, as well as the Western Economic Diversification Canada minister. All of them have great tasks and great roles. I think it is very important that they continue to sit at the cabinet table to have that impact and to be able to advocate for their regions in the current cabinet and government.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will respond with a question so that the member will feel a bit more comfortable with the bill.

Let me be clear. The Government of Canada is not removing the regional development agencies. We believe in those agencies. That is a very important point to emphasize.

The member referred to the number of ministers and talked about transparency. I spoke to this in the introduction of the bill itself. We are being very transparent. There is an increase of eight. Six of the regional development ministers' positions are being taken away, and five positions being converted to full ministers.

The member appears to have some concern about the importance of the ministers. Virtually all members from different sides of the House have talked about small business being the backbone of Canada's economy and how important Canada's economy is. This legislation is elevating that particular minister into that equal strata that we just finished talking about, where all ministers are equal, including what used to be the minister of state for small business, who will now become the minister responsible for small business. The member should listen to what members on all sides of the House are saying about the importance of that particular ministry.

The member also referred to the three unnamed ministries. Those three unnamed ministries will provide future opportunities for future governments. We are not saying that we are increasing the size of cabinet. Rather, members will find that the current cabinet is actually smaller than the Harper cabinet.

I hope that provides some clarity on the issues the member raised, and I would ask her to provide her comments on that.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a great respect for all of the work that the member has done in the past, and he does enlighten us very often. I recognize what he is saying. Converting the five is one thing. I recognize how we do the math there, and that is great, but when we are talking about accountability, there are billions of dollars flowing through those economic development agencies.

In the city of London itself we have London Air Cargo, which is a new opportunity for more businesses to grow and to have international trade opportunities come into the communities. I believe it is important to have someone in that region who understand its needs and who advocates on behalf of the southwestern Ontario economic development agency. What I am asking for is accountability, to see how that money is spent, and to have a minister who is accountable for that.

I recognize that the Minister of Innovation does a good job. However, we are asking him to be in charge of not only his own role but also six other federal agencies that will be spending this money. We cannot put the needs of Atlantic Canada, western Canada, southwestern Ontario, Quebec, and northern Ontario into one bucket and say they are all the same. When I travel across this great country, things are different from place to place. Having the member from northern B.C. tell me how things are up there will be a lot different from what I find in southwestern Ontario. By having those ministers as a part of the dialogue in those communities, they will be able to connect with cabinet and share the concerns of all Canadians in their represented regions.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this bill makes it very clear that the Liberals are trying to correct a mistake. They said that they wanted to create a cabinet with an equal number of men and women. However, in the end, they realized that most of the women appointed to cabinet were appointed as minister of state and were therefore receiving a lower salary. They realized, from the public's reaction, that they had made a mistake. However, rather than admitting their mistake, they decided to make everyone a minister, despite the different responsibilities associated with the different positions.

I am the NDP critic for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

While I was on a two-week tour of Atlantic Canada this summer in New Brunswick, P.E.I., Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, I had a chance to speak with many Atlantic Canadians, and some of the people who were working at ACOA. One of the main concerns they have is that instead of the bottom-up approach that we are seeing right now, in which the people on the ground can act as spokespersons and champions for them, they feel it is becoming more centralized and that the department is adopting a top-down approach in which the main responsibility of the people on the ground will be to carry out the wishes of the top ministerial office.

I would like my colleague to respond to those comments I received this summer.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, FedDev Ontario was created in 2009. At that time, I worked very hard with the previous member of Parliament to ensure he was aware of the situation, because although it is southwestern Ontario, it is a large area.

I am from the city of St. Thomas, where 6,500 people lost their jobs because of the closure of not only the Sterling plant but the Ford plant, and all the secondary and tertiary plants. This minister lived one hour down the road, and was aware of what was happening. His role was to come down, and see the devastation that happened in our communities, and see how he could personally help and be a voice for southwestern Ontario.

We saw many changes, and I know within all of the ridings, whether in London—Fanshawe, London West, London North Centre, or Oxford, everyone was able to speak to that minister. Whether they were a mayor or warden, everyone had that ability to connect with the federal government. Therefore, it is just like the situation we see in Atlantic Canada. We need to have someone advocating.

I appreciate the member's comments about that because that is exactly what we need. We need someone to advocate at the cabinet table for all the different regions in Canada, recognizing their differences.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise and ask a question on the hon. member's eloquent speech. It was brilliant, as usual.

However, I do want to touch on some of the comments that were made by the member opposite, the member for Winnipeg Centre. He indicated we are not removing the agencies. However, within the agencies, there is still a deputy minister and many staff who work there. I can only imagine what they are thinking today, as the Liberals stand up time and time again saying they plan to abolish the ministers. Who is next in that role?

As I hear the member for Winnipeg Centre laugh at that, I would think that many of the people who work in those departments would be worried that their jobs are next.

Albertans are struggling. We have a job crisis in Alberta. To go in and cut these ministries, particularly Western and Economic Diversification, what type of message does that send to Albertans?

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for that question because something we have seen in the House of Commons is the representation from some of the western MPs, especially from Alberta. We have questioned them on different efforts, especially to do with the oil and gas sector, asking them to speak up.

Unfortunately, we have not seen that happen. Therefore, when we talk about Western Economic Diversification Canada needing a minister, if anything that is proof it needs a minister more now than ever because we have seen this happen to Alberta. We have seen it happen to different provinces, when they are going through this, and we do not have members sitting at that cabinet table who are talking about Alberta. Therefore, I am very fearful of what will happen.

We do have a Minister of Veterans Affairs who is from Alberta, and we have some other ministers who are from that area, but what is happening in this situation is they are focusing on their files sometimes. They are not focusing on what is best for Alberta. We need a minister, like we had in the previous government, that is focused on Alberta, focused on jobs, and focused on getting people back to work.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to contribute to the debate on Bill C-24.

I am always interested when governments present bills. We have to understand the motivation of a bill in order to really judge its worth. Part of my comments today are going to be about what I think the motivation for this bill really is, and hopefully in assessing that, we will be able to get a better sense of the worth of the bill.

The government would have us believe that there is an important principle of equality at stake in this bill, but in fact, the bill fails to manifest any greater equality between ministers or between men and women in cabinet, for that matter, than the existing legislative regime. It entrenches an important regional inequality created by the new Liberal government.

In the press release issued by the government when it introduced the bill, it said that the legislation is meant to show that “The Government of Canada is committed to creating a one-tier ministry that recognizes the equality of all Cabinet members.”

That statement strikes me as a little strange. I wonder how many governments regularly issue statements affirming that they do, in fact, value the opinion of the people they put around the cabinet table. I cannot imagine that there are that many. I would think it goes without saying, that if prime ministers put people at the cabinet table, they do in fact value the opinion of those members of cabinet.

I found it passing strange that the government felt the need to let Canadians know that it does actually take cabinet members seriously. In the post-2015 world, I suppose anything really is possible.

In addition to being odd, the statement about a one-tier ministry is also vague. It is not exactly clear in what sense the legislation will make all cabinet ministers equal. For instance, there are a number of ways in which cabinet ministers might be found to be equal or unequal. They might be equal or unequal, as the case may be, with respect to pay, experience, title, resources, competence, and so on.

Some of these things are obviously not fixable by way of legislation and some are. It is clear to me that the bill, obviously, has to deal with those equalities or inequalities that could be established by legislation.

We still have to figure out what exactly is the relevant sense of equality that the government is trying to zero in on here. The kinds of inequalities between ministers that could be addressed through legislation are differences in resources, pay, level of responsibility, and in title. I want to come to those in a little bit.

First, I want to give members some of the context for the bill as I see it, and briefly explain the changes contained in the bill. The origin of the bill goes back to a year ago today, after the election, when the Prime Minister said, about building his cabinet, and having committed in the Liberal platform to include an equal number of women in cabinet.

When he announced the new cabinet, observers quickly noticed that, excluding himself, there were 15 male ministers, 10 female ministers, and 5 female ministers of state to assist other ministers. Ministers of state are not department heads, and before the election received less pay than ministers. This meant that five of the female cabinet members were to be paid less, and enjoy less responsibility than their male colleagues.

Despite having almost, but not quite, achieved his promise of including an equal number of men and women in cabinet, for the benefit of the Prime Minister and other members who may wonder, 16 is not equal to 15. Despite that, he had clearly not achieved gender equality in cabinet.

It is fair to say that this was an embarrassment for the Prime Minister. If he did not feel embarrassed, he probably should have. It was an embarrassment because the Prime Minister showed a lack of competence in simple math, failing to recognize that 16 men is not the same as 15 women, and that it does not balance.

It was also an embarrassment because the Prime Minister, who went out of his way to promote himself as a feminist, filled all his junior cabinet posts with women, thereby creating a gender gap in both pay and responsibility inside his cabinet.

Either that is embarrassing because it exposes a rather superficial feminism, and shows that the Prime Minister is willing to do just enough to get credit for being a feminist and no more, or it is embarrassing because it shows a complete lack of comprehension of the different cabinet posts that were available to him, and the tools that were available to him to build a cabinet. He clearly did not understand, if he was sincere in his feminist intention, the difference between a minister of state and a minister.

It may, in fact, be a bit of both. That would be even more embarrassing. The bill, as it stands, seems to suggest that it is actually a little bit of both. I will get into why.

Consider that the Prime Minister could have avoided this embarrassment by simply adding, or eliminating, one minister of state, and ensuring that those positions were distributed equally between men and women. That would have solved the gender difference in cabinet.

He could also have avoided the embarrassment if he knew his options a little better, and apparently he did, or does, because the bill, I think, adds to the confusion about what the options are for building a cabinet. He could have established, under the authority of the existing Ministries and Ministers of State Act, ministries of state for the five ministers of state. These could have functioned, essentially, as mini-departments resourced by reallocating staff and funds from other departments.

A minister of state responsible for a ministry of state would be the head of that ministry of state and not assigned to assist another minister. Furthermore, under existing legislation, ministers of state responsible for a ministry state are already mandated to receive the same pay as ministers or department heads. That is another way that the Prime Minister could have avoided both the pay gap, and alleviated that gap in responsibility between those positions.

For those keeping score, now, in terms of cabinet positions, I have mentioned three. There are ministers, ministers of state for a ministry of state, and ministers of state to assist.

This bill purports to create a further type of cabinet member, currently referred to in legislation simply as minister. If Bill C-24 were to pass, cabinet members would now be referred to as ministers for a department. Then a new type of minister would be created called ministers for whom a department is designated. Those ministers who are currently ministers of state would be converted to this new kind of minister, minister for whom a department is designated.

Bill C-24 allows that:

The appropriate Minister for a department...may delegate, to a minister in respect of whom that department is designated, any of the appropriate Minister’s powers, duties or functions...A minister in respect of whom a department is designated...may use the services and facilities of that department.

That might sound familiar, because I know all members are very familiar with the Ministries and Ministers of State Act, and they would have noticed, I am sure, that it sounds a lot like section 11 of the Ministries and Ministers of State Act that states that a minister of state to assist:

...shall exercise or perform such of the powers, duties or functions of any minister or ministers having responsibilities for any department or other portion of the federal public administration as may be assigned or transferred to him...shall make use of the services and facilities of the department or portion of the federal public administration concerned.

The language is very similar because the positions, at the end of the day, are very similar. They enjoy a similar level of responsibility, and are resourced in pretty much exactly the same way.

When we read it, it is a little bit like the first time we see an infomercial for a Snuggie, where they are saying, “Here's this blanket, with a lot of great conceptual innovation and new features”. We are sitting there thinking, “Isn't that just a backwards bathrobe, really, made of fleece?” There is this awkward tension where we are thinking, “No, this is not really a new thing, it's just a repackaged old thing, and I've already got one, so I don't need to buy a new one”.

There is no practical difference between ministers of state to assist and ministers for whom a department is designated.

If the government insists on having a new name for the same old thing, I would like to submit a different one. I think ministers formerly known as ministers of state would be a much catchier and probably more to the point title for these new ministers. Perhaps there will be an amendment at committee to that effect.

Bill C-24 is the government's response to the Prime Minister's awkward cabinet launch last fall where he pretty much fell flat on his face, but it is not clear how the bill really fixes anything. We know it is a response to that. We know that is where it comes from. The question is, “Does it fix any of that? Does it actually do the work that the government has identified as needed doing?”

If the idea is simply to close the gender wage gap, needlessly created by the Prime Minister, the bill is unnecessary.

First, the Prime Minister did not have to choose to appoint only women to minister of state positions. The gap could be closed by making more women full ministers and some men ministers of state. That would be fine.

Second, existing legislation allows the government to pay ministers of state the same as ministers. In fact, it has been doing that for years, so legislation is not required to do that.

Third, as I mentioned earlier, the Prime Minister could have created ministries of state out of the resources of existing departments, giving those ministers of state more authority and responsibility within the government and the current legislation would have required that the government pay them the same as ministers, not just choose to, but require them to do so.

If the idea of this bill is to close the gender responsibility gap needlessly created by the Prime Minister when he appointed only women to positions of ministers of state, then the bill is also unnecessary. This, too, could be solved simply by making more women full ministers and some men ministers of state or by establishing ministries of state.

If the idea is to eliminate the difference in administrative responsibility between ministers and in that sense make them equal, then the bill fails to do that, too. There will continue to be a difference between ministers for departments, on the one hand, and ministers of state to assist ministers for whom a department is designated, ministers formerly known as ministers of state or whatever the government ultimately chooses to call them. There is still going to be a real difference of administrative responsibility between those positions. They will not be equal in that sense, so the bill, if that is the point, is a failure.

Keep in mind that what I am trying to do is identify the relevant sense of “equal”, in which this bill would make them equal. As everyone can see, I have given it a lot of thought and I have not been able to come up with anything. I do not think it is because it is there and I cannot find it. I think it is because the conclusion of my study of the bill shows that it is not there.

Moreover, there is nothing wrong with having people at the cabinet table who have different levels of administrative responsibility. When the Prime Minister fell flat on his face in his cabinet unveiling because he did not manage to create gender equality in the cabinet, people were not outraged at the fact that there were ministers of state and ministers. No one said, “I can't believe the ministers aren't equal.” They said, “I can't believe that the Prime Minister, who calls himself a feminist, is not treating female members of the cabinet equally, because he's giving them junior roles in cabinet instead of senior roles in cabinet.” That was the issue. The issue was not that there were legitimate differences in administrative responsibility and corresponding titles. Again, it is not clear what real problem the bill is trying to solve.

The fact that ministers of state do not have a department or are called ministers of state instead of ministers should not detract from their contributions to discussions about war and peace, budgets, or other policy issues around the cabinet table. They are all entitled to sit there and if other cabinet ministers do not take them seriously simply because of their difference in title, that is not a legislative problem, that is a problem in organizational culture, and this bill will not fix that either. That would require real leadership from the Prime Minister.

Somewhere deep down, I think the government actually knows this. That is why it is not repealing the Ministries and Ministers of State Act. It is keeping that option open. In fact, in the speech by the member for Winnipeg North, he made a point of pointing out that the government is not repealing that act. It is keeping the option of ministers of state around.

There is an awkward tension in the principle that it is stating there. On the one hand, the government is saying that there is something wrong with having ministers of state, because that creates an inequality in cabinet. If, in the future of this ministry, the government wants to appoint ministers of state, I think Canadians should rightly say that, by the government's own standards, it has now decided to have inferior cabinet ministers and superior cabinet ministers.

I do not think that would be right, because I think there is a role for legitimate differences in administrative responsibility, but the government is arguing against that and yet not repealing the act, which I find strange. It helps right now to make a grand show of not having ministers of state, because what is driving the bill is this need to make up for and reduce the sense of shame and embarrassment by the Prime Minister for having failed to do something that he said he really wanted to do, which was to bring gender equality to cabinet.

If having ministers of state is not compatible with having a one-tier ministry, and having a one-tier ministry is an important matter of principle for the Liberals, I do not see why they would not just repeal the Ministries and Ministers of State Act, although, for the record, I want to say I think that would be a terrible idea. It is just a logical consequence of the arguments that they have been advancing on Bill C-24.

Interestingly, Liberals are locking in another choice they made: the choice not to have stand-alone ministers for regional economic development. This is another sense of equality we might talk about: regional equality.

Here the government is actually locking in a bad decision that goes hand in hand with the decision it made to centralize the management of the various regional economic development agencies in one minister. That means only one region of the country gets a minister from the region who understands the needs of the region, because he or she, and in this case it is a he, lives there and represents that area. All the other regions do not get that benefit and so they are not being treated equally.

Granted, it is the government's prerogative to experiment with new ways of doing this, but I think it made a poor decision. This kind of centralizing of decision-making for agencies that have a deliberately regional mandate does not make sense and ultimately is not helpful. The government wants to try something new and it is doing that, but I think the government will find that it does not work. Why are the Liberals closing the door behind them and making it harder to go back to a model which I think works better, which is actually having ministers from the regions in charge of the local regional development agencies? Particularly in tough economic times, the government may find in time that it is worth making it a full-time job of a cabinet minister to do that. That is what the government is taking away by doing this and that does not make sense.

The Liberals are leaving their options open with slush ministries or extra ministries that have not been designated yet. They are leaving their options open, even though they are saying there is some matter of principle at stake in not having ministers of state, but they are keeping the act around just in case they want to appoint some anyway. The Liberals embarked on a centralizing experiment when it comes to regional economic development, and they have decided instead to tie their hands. That does not make sense to me. They have their priorities backward.

People in Elmwood—Transcona would prefer to have a minister from western Canada who knows and understands western Canada's economy making the detailed decisions about how the government is going to encourage western economic diversification. I believe that people in other parts of the country feel the same way about their own region. The government should leave itself with more options, not less, when it comes to managing regional economic development. The government is creating three as yet unspecified ministries in the name of flexibility, so why not retain the flexibility it already has with respect to regional economic development?

Where does this leave us? It seems to me this bill was drafted by the minster's personal communications team with the full dearth of understanding of legislative and parliamentary process that that implies. The bill is not really about furthering any principle of equality. For any of the government's proposed goals in the bill with respect to equality, and I have gone through an exhaustive list of different senses of equality that the government might mean, Bill C-24 either fails or is completely unnecessary.

The bill would create an expanded and more complicated set of cabinet-building options for a Prime Minister who already did not understand the options that were available to him, while tending to mask real differences in responsibility by maintaining the tradition of junior and senior cabinet posts, and let me be clear that is what a minister for whom a department is designated is, while conferring the same title on each cabinet member.

The Prime Minister wants to be lauded for bringing real gender equality to cabinet, but in order to do that, and instead of taking real action on that, he is just glossing over the fact that his ministers formerly known as ministers of state really are just ministers of state with a better salary and a better title.

It is no secret that where the Prime Minister is concerned, style trumps substance. It is shocking to see that tendency drilled down to the level where it is starting to interfere with a relatively straightforward administrative matter such as determining what act of Parliament would authorize the payment of ministers of state. That is something else.

The end result is that we are forced to consider a bill that is a colossal waste of time. The Liberal government has been criticized for having a notoriously light legislative agenda, but the goal of those critics was not to encourage it to produce nonsense bills that would not change anything but rather that we might spur the Liberals on to introduce meaningful legislation that would help move the country forward. For instance, if they want a quick short list off the top of my head, they could move to repeal Bill C-51. They could move to to protect Canadian water by reinstating the Navigable Waters Protection Act which was decimated in the last Parliament. They could reinstate the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act. That would get us back to a baseline of where we were before the last 10 years of government.

If the Liberals wanted to go further and begin improving on that baseline, they could bring forward legislation granting pay equity for Canadian women, which they have said they are going to wait until the end of 2018 to do. They could bring in a meaningful rail safety regime instead of continuing to rely on industry self-regulation, and the list goes on.

There are so many important issues facing the country that are crying out for government action and we are stuck with a bill that is really just about easing the Prime Minister sense of shame at having botched his own cabinet debut.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I found it a little humourous when the member for Elmwood—Transcona referred to the names of the new ministries as ministries formerly known as something else. I found it quite rich coming from the party formerly known as the official opposition. I found it even more rich when his friends next to him were laughing coming from the party formerly known as the government. I appreciated the sense of irony.

Would the member explain to the House what he sees as unimportant and not to be a priority about La Francophonie, about small businesses, about science, about the status of women, and about persons with disabilities? Why does he think those ministries are not important to Canadians?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member from the party formerly known as the third party for his question. I would note that this is part of the fundamental dishonesty about the government's arguments on the bill. It is not that people do not think it is important. This is such a rinky-dink notion that all of a sudden, after a whole Canadian history of having ministers of state, in order to implement a portfolio, somehow all of a sudden, because the Liberals were elected that if a minister of state is put in charge of something it is not important. It is still important. Ministers of state are important people in the government. No one is disputing that.

The problem was not whether ministers of state are important or not. The problem was not whether ministers of state have a voice at the cabinet table or not. That is ridiculous. The problem was that out of five ministries of state, a Prime Minister, who is a self-professed feminist, decided to appoint women as all of those junior ministers. That is the problem. Let us talk about the real problem instead of these ridiculous claims by the government about what is important and what is not.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened intently and I want to thank our hon. colleague from Elmwood—Transcona for his brilliant speech. I thought it was very good and any speech that gets in the word “Snuggie”, and uses a comparison to a Snuggie is something else.

I come from Cariboo—Prince George and in the early 2000s our region, indeed the province of British Columbia, was decimated by the pine beetle infestation. At that time we had a government that had regional ministers there on the ground who knew the issues. As we looked to diversify our economy not only in my riding of Cariboo—Prince George, but across the province of British Columbia, we looked at what some of the natural advantages that we have.

There was investment in the port of Prince Rupert, investment in the CN intermodal facilities, investment in the Prince George Airport Authority, investment in the Asia-Pacific gateway, but there was also investment in the hon. colleague's riding in Winnipeg with CentrePort and that connected Canada to the world. The reason that was done is that regional ministers were on the ground and could speak to the validity and the value of that investment.

What the government has done is less about gender equality in this decision and this bill, and is more about centralized government. The member so aptly mentioned the Prime Minister's sense of shame and falling flat on his face not only when he made his initial announcement, but the bungling of this last year. I wonder if the hon. colleague would like to comment on those two points.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Cariboo—Prince George, a former seatmate of mine. We used to have more occasions to discuss the issues of the day, so I am glad to take up that habit once again and say that he is quite right.

It is not believable that in a country as large as Canada, we are going to have one minister on top of all the details and important things there are to know about the various regions, whose economies are quite different. They are based on different sectors, in some cases. They are based on different kinds of resources. They have different labour-market challenges. I would like to be able to go to a minister who knows my region.

It is the same reason we talk about electoral reform, for instance. There are two points. One is that it is important to Canadians to have someone represent their geographical area because it is important to have a connection to an area to represent that area well.

If a minister is going to be in charge of a regional economic development agency, then it stands to reason that for the same reason, Canadians would want a minister who comes from that region and represents that region to feel that sense of connection and have confidence that they do not have to tell them everything about the region. We need to know that when ministers are in a room and decisions have to be made, they already know this stuff so that they do not make a decision and then have to go back and reverse it because there was something they did not know. That is important.

It may be odd for the member, but I am thinking about this in terms of the feedback we got on electoral reform. One of the important arguments for proportional representation is getting regional voices in national caucuses. That is because we know that a national caucus, whether a government caucus or an opposition caucus, benefits from that kind of regional representation. Members from those areas can bring a voice to that caucus that helps it make better decisions that are more sensitive when rolling out government-wide decisions in particular regions. Opposition parties that understand better the needs of particular regions are able to hold the government to account for policies that do not necessarily make sense in a cookie-cutter way across all regions.

That is another area where we talk about the importance of regional representation. The arguments apply equally there.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, in light of the Liberals' remarks, it is worth remembering that initially, when the cabinet was announced, there were ministers and ministers of state, and that was as it should be. Now the Liberals would have us believe that considering all ministers with equally important jobs to be equal is a revolutionary step forward. That was not how they saw it at first though. They made that decision only after they got caught trying to convince everyone that they had achieved parity with a gender-balanced cabinet.

I would like my colleague to comment on that. How can they claim to be progressive when they started off with a major misstep that they are trying to make up for now?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I have often said that one of the things I find frustrating about Liberals is that their politics often seem to be informed by a desire simply to be in politics and to win as much as possible in politics, not to stand for any particular principle. The principle can change from day to day. What is important is that they are there because they want the status and the title and the things that come from that.

I talked about a lot of different senses of equality we might decipher in this bill. It turns out that if there is a sense of equality at stake, it is just the title. What is in a name? Only a Liberal government could feel that it was really creating a revolution for women. First, it should not be all women in minister of state positions or ministers for whom a department is designated or ministries formerly known as ministries of state. It should not just be women there. Only a Liberal government could think it was actually doing something of substance simply by changing the style. That is a recurring problem—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am sorry. The member will have a minute and a half to answer additional questions should this matter come before the House again.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-24. Upon taking office in November 2015, the Prime Minister established a gender-balanced, one-tier ministry of equals focused on delivering results for Canadians.

The proposed amendments to the Salaries Act fulfill the Prime Minister's commitment to introduce legislation to formalize the equal status of his ministerial staff. The bill does just that by adding to the Salaries Act the five ministerial positions that are currently minister of state appointments as well as three untitled positions, for a total of eight new positions. To offset the increase in positions, the bill removes the six regional development ministerial positions.

It has been suggested by critics of the bill that removal of the regional development ministerial positions is the first step in dismantling the regional development agencies. This is just not the case. Our government is committed to supporting and promoting economic development throughout Canada. This bill would not amend, in any way, the states and Orders in Council that create the regional development agencies. The Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development will continue to be responsible for all the regional development agencies.

This government is focused on growing the economy and strengthening the middle class. The regional development agencies are essential delivery partners in the government's plan to drive economic growth through innovation. They understand the unique needs of each region as well as the opportunities for economic development and diversification.

Let me expand on just a few examples of how the regional development agencies are working to grow the middle class in all parts of our country.

We are working with our regional partners in Atlantic Canada to do just that. We recognize that Atlantic Canada possesses competitive advantages that can bring new opportunities to economic growth. The region is home to great ideas, great products, great innovators, and a great drive to succeed.

The Hon. Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, along with his cabinet colleagues and the four Atlantic premiers, jointly announced the launch of the Atlantic growth strategy last year. Working with all 32 MPs in Atlantic Canada, this pan-Atlantic, whole-of-government strategy will direct targeted actions to stimulate Atlantic Canada's economy. The strategy will support both innovative and resource-based industries and increase job opportunities for Atlantic Canadians.

This is an unprecedented federal-provincial partnership. The Government of Canada is working together with the four provincial governments to build a vibrant economic future for Atlantic Canada. The Atlantic growth strategy will drive economic growth in the region by implementing targeted evidence-based actions under the following five priority areas: skilled workforce with immigration; innovation; clean growth and climate change; trade; and, finally, investment.

The Atlantic growth strategy will deliver bold action items, including a three-year immigration pilot aimed at addressing the unique labour market challenges in Atlantic Canada. This pilot project will help better match the needs of local employers with the skill sets of immigrants while helping to improve the attraction and retention of newcomers in Atlantic Canada.

The Atlantic growth strategy is different from past initiatives because of our strong commitment to federal-provincial collaboration, on a pan-Atlantic level, in making strategic investments and taking the actions needed to generate long-term clean and inclusive growth, create jobs, and position Atlantic Canada as a thriving, knowledge-driven economy. We are taking bold, targeted actions to stimulate the economy.

This is just one example of how regional development agencies strengthen the government's ability to support innovative, inclusive growth in every part of our country.

In Quebec, Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, CED, concluded its broad 2016 engagement strategy with the release of its new strategic plan 2016 for the next five years. CED's strategic plan is aligned with the innovation and skills plan to do the following: support growing and innovative businesses that generate high-quality jobs, particularly for the middle class; support specific businesses and regions in developing and adopting new technologies in a clean-growth economy; support communities to foster economic diversification from an inclusive growth perspective involving minority groups; and finally, foster the participation of indigenous people contributing to the economic growth of Quebec by encouraging entrepreneurship and social innovation.

The plan's success will be measured and assessed in terms of its ability to contribute directly to the objectives of the innovation and skills plan using indicators that include, among others, employment rates, digital transformation, business growth, international exports, the adoption of clean technologies, and the capacity to leverage private capital and foreign direct investment.

Most recently, the Hon. Navdeep Bains was in Sudbury to announce the launch of the northern Ontario prosperity strategy, our latest measure to—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order. That was the second occasion. There was a little disorder the first time, and I let it pass, but I would remind the hon. member to refer to other members by their titles or ridings.

The hon. member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the targeted approach of this strategy will help the northern Ontario region prosper. The strategy will build on the opportunities offered by emerging industries to create businesses and jobs for the northern population of the province. This strategy will also focus on working with indigenous communities to support their growth. Most importantly, this strategy will be developed in partnership with all the community and business leaders of northern Ontario and the province.

In the four western provinces, Western Economic Diversification Canada activities are guided by the government's innovation and skills plan for two departmental strategic priorities, which are innovation and inclusive economic growth, aligning the west with federal priorities. WD is implementing these priorities in a few different ways. The strategic investments the department is making across western Canada focus on growing and emerging sectors such as energy, information and communication, technologies, life sciences, aerospace, agrifood, and advanced manufacturing.

Through the western innovation initiative, WD invests in businesses to help them advance innovative products, processes, and services for the marketplace in western Canada and globally. Since 2014, WD has invested nearly $97 million through the western innovation initiative and expects to create more than 1,600 jobs across the west.

The western diversification program funds strategic investments in initiatives with not-for-profit organizations that strengthen the economy of western Canada.

As a key way to create opportunities, WD convenes with stakeholders across western Canada to identify opportunities for collaboration in support of economic development, leading to a deep understanding of the unique considerations in advancing diversification goals in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia and their broad regional perspectives.

WD also actively supports inclusive participation in the economy. For example, through its Western Canada Business Service Network , WD provides small and medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurs, including indigenous peoples, women, francophones, persons with disabilities, and rural communities, with services and resources to help them succeed and grow.

WD is a nimble organization that has demonstrated its responsiveness in the recent past by leading the federal response to the Fort McMurray wildfires in 2016. It delivers unique programs, such as the drywall support program, and serves as a delivery agent in support of other federal initiatives, such as INAC's strategic partnerships initiative, which enables indigenous participation in economic development.

The government is investing over $1 billion each year through the regional development agencies to support business and community growth, in every part of Canada, toward an innovative, clean, and inclusive economy. The RDAs understand the unique needs of each region as well as the opportunities for economic development and diversification.

These regional strategies are only a few examples of how regional development agencies are working hard for Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, I heard my colleague reference northern Ontario, the Maritimes, ACOA, and the western economic diversification fund. He may have mentioned FedDev Ontario, but I missed that if he did. It is another very important economic development agency. I have seen first hand the incredible difference that is made by one of these regional groups. Their ears are close to the ground. They can hear what the needs are at the regional level.

It is obvious that the Liberals are handing over significant power to unelected civil servants, who are making these decisions, and also one very overworked minister from Mississauga. Even the Liberal task force itself admitted it, and I want to read from it directly:

Four to five months can be a lifetime for a business, especially for a startup. Following the approval of an application, finalizing the related contribution agreement may take anywhere from two to 12 months, further impeding a business’ opportunity to execute successfully.

It is obvious that the centralized approach that the government is taking is impeding the ability of the regions to have their unique needs taken into consideration, and at the same time, it is unnecessarily slowing down the ability to get these funds into the hands of start-ups and businesses, which really need them.

I wonder why my colleague and his party are insisting on this kind of slowing down of the process.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to have to say that, if we look back to when the previous government had ministers of state, it would have left us in a way better state than now.

When we took over, there were challenges across the board. If we look at Atlantic Canada, the problems that were there when we first started have been there for a long time. We were able to fix those problems, and now moving forward, Atlantic Canada is actually doing a lot better. ACOA is doing a lot better and reaching the needs of the people who are there.

That is my answer.

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

Mr. Speaker, just to be clear, with all of the representation in this House from Atlantic Canada, on that side of the House there is not one person from Atlantic Canada who has the interest of Atlantic Canadians at heart to a sufficient degree to qualify to be the minister of ACOA.

I find that hard to accept. I am really surprised to see that the Liberal members from Atlantic Canada are not standing up for their region and asking that the unique needs of their Maritime region be given a higher priority.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we have 32 extremely qualified members from the Atlantic region who do not stop advocating for their region. Day after day, inside of caucus, in the hallways, I have not stopped hearing about Atlantic Canada.

They are examples of what MPs should be doing to advocate for their region.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I had the great honour to be the parliamentary secretary for western economic diversification, and what I was able to see is how nimble, agile, and responsive an organization could be when leadership is in the area.

What happens is, when proposals and suggestions have to be sent through another layer, which is the minister of Toronto, in Toronto, some of that on-the-ground nimble responsiveness is lost. As a member from the western provinces, I think the member should be ashamed to support a structure that has taken away the empowerment of the local people to be nimble in their decision-making.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am far from being ashamed.

In my career, I have opened 140 restaurants. I know leadership comes in many different forms. Just because something was done one way does not make it the best way to do it. As an MP, I work with western economic development all the time. We are able to share that information and pass it on. Leadership comes in many different forms.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, what I am hearing here today is another reflection of the disconnection that members opposite have with Atlantic Canada.

We have been very strong in advocating for the issues that are important to us and the things that our constituents are talking to us about. Just today, in fact, we talked very strongly about what has been going on in the immigration committee, the filibustering, and the disrespect of the witnesses who have appeared to try to make a difference in the economy of Atlantic Canada.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, echoing the comments of my colleague, what we see in the House and what we see in committees is shameful, to me, because we have a lot of work to do. When I see parties playing partisan politics, our constituents are the ones who are suffering. We have to be able to collaborate better than that. We came here to do a job. I came here to do a job and not to play games.

I am doing my job by reaching out to my constituents and reaching out to the people who make a difference, such as Western Economic Diversification.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I note that the member's speech reflected on and told us at great length the responsibilities of each of the economic development organizations. However, what he did not talk about at all was the fact that this piece of legislation would create three mysterious cabinet minister positions. I wonder if he could share with the House what these three mysterious positions might possibly be and how the Liberals can justify putting forward legislation that is so vague in terms of its intent.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is just like the other side: let us not focus on the great things that are happening or the things that are important, but let us try to focus on things that actually do not make a difference at this point.

Yes, there are three other ministerial positions that the government is allowing for down the line, but that does not take away from what the legislation is for. In 2015, the gender-balanced cabinet was announced, and this legislation would fix the issue so that all ministers are the same, one and all. We are not separating junior ministers from senior ministers. We are focusing on a team, and that is the point of moving forward.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to ask my colleague if he is aware that the role of the opposition, which does not control the legislative agenda, is to fine-tune bills and to shed light on the problems in this bill.

When he talks to me about equal pay for equal work, I am most certain that this is not what the bill proposes.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for his question. I apologize that I will answer it in English.

There is a difference between an opposition that opposes and one that obstructs. When I look at how long it took in this House to settle a question of somebody getting on and off a bus, when we should have been debating merits of a budget, for instance, that is what I do not understand.

We have so many things going on in this country that we need to focus on, yet we choose to focus on things that do not help our constituents, that do not impact people out of this room. We are speaking in this hall, but people in Canada expect us to speak for them.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Before resuming debate, I would like to inform hon. members that there have been more than five hours of debate during this first round. Consequently, all subsequent interventions shall be ten minutes for speeches and five minutes for questions and comments.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to stand, although I am disappointed that I did not get a 20-minute slot. Perhaps within 10 minutes I can condense and share exactly what my concerns are with this piece of legislation.

What we have is Bill C-24, which is an act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act. It focuses on three areas. I am going to talk briefly about the first two areas, and then perhaps I will go into a bit more detail on one of the most substantial concerns that I have.

The bill would actually create eight minister positions. I will talk about the five minister of state positions later, but it would create three mysterious ministerial positions. If people could imagine being a board member for Nortel or some other large corporation and the CEO came to them with a proposal stating that the company needs this many vice-presidents including a vice-president of finance, a vice-president of human resources, and that it needs three more vice-presidents but the CEO is not going to say what they are there for and what they are going to do, what do members think the response would be, as a shareholder or as a chairman of this particular organization? They would tell the CEO to go back to the drawing board and come back with job descriptions and a full analysis of why the company needs the three positions, what they are for, and what they would do. It is inconceivable, in any organization other than perhaps a Liberal-run federal government, that the organization would create three mysterious positions.

This is not just a matter of mysterious positions. There is a budget that would go along with these. If someone is a member of Parliament and is all of a sudden given a ministerial position, it comes with additional funds, so for these three positions it is probably an additional quarter of a million dollars and then a whole lot of other associated expenses like cars and drivers and office spaces. Therefore, this little piece in this legislation is probably over $1 million, and the Liberals are not telling us what it is for. It is absolutely inexcusable, and if members on that side vote for spending $1 million, or for authorizing a structure for $1 million, they should be ashamed of themselves. We have a government that has a spending problem already, and the Liberals think nothing of putting in front of us a piece of legislation that would allow for probably $1 million-plus because they need to have a bigger cabinet or cannot describe what those positions would be. Certainly the backbenchers in the Liberal government need to go back to their executive branch and ask what these positions are for. That is absolutely ludicrous.

The next area that has been alluded to, certainly in the previous speech, is the need to consolidate the regional development agencies. Sometimes a federal government in a country as large as Canada has an enormous geography and enormous variations across the country. Many of us here have had the privilege of travelling across our country from coast to coast to coast, and we see the differences. Some of the things that government does should be centralized. There are certainly important functions that are best done by a minister who represents the whole of Canada, and we can look at defence and many other departments. However, there was something about the economic development agencies. The economic development agencies were relatively small, they had a relatively small budget, and they were designed to be nimble and responsive to the culture and needs of specific areas. As members can imagine, in the Maritimes people have a very different set of challenges from what perhaps Alberta's oil patch is having right now, or those in B.C.

We still fail to see how a minister from Toronto, busy with a very large portfolio, can give the attention that is needed to make those quick, nimble decisions and be responsive. I am not sure if this structural change is in the best interests of what we do and how our economic development agencies deliver service. Again, a Toronto minister is not seeing the challenges.

The Liberals talked about how proud they were of the work they did with first nations communities. People who live in Toronto would not be as aware of these issues as would a minister from British Columbia, who understands and visits these communities all the time and recognizes perhaps some of the opportunities and the challenges that the indigenous communities face. Again, an urban minister, as good as he or she might be, would have challenges in that area. Certainly, I disagree with that part of the legislation.

However, the area I most fundamentally disagree with is making all the ministers of state positions into full cabinet positions. I want to talk about that to some degree.

I will again use the analogy of outside the bubble of Parliament. When people look at remuneration of employees, they look at their responsibilities. Responsibilities include what kind of decisions they have to make, what kind of manpower they have to supervise, and what kind of budget they are responsible for. I think that applies to every example I can think of in the public service.

In the public service in the area of health care in British Columbia there is a process. A system is used to analyze the responsibilities of the job to determine what the wage remuneration will be. That sounds reasonable to me. I believe it is commonly used within the public sector.

Let us take a look at what the ministers are doing.

The Liberals are going to create full ministers positions for a number of positions, and I will go over them specifically. However, the Minister of National Defence is responsible for the armed forces and the Department of National Defence. He stands ready to perform three key roles, which are protecting Canada and defending our sovereignty; defending North America in co-operation with the United States, our closest ally; and contributing to international peace and security. The budget was $18.7 billion over three years. Planned spending is to increase enormously. There are 22,000 people within those operations.

We can compare that to the Minister of Democratic Institutions, and I am not saying it is not a responsible position. It is an important position as we look at our democratic system. However, the department does not have an enormous budget. It does not have huge manpower for which it is responsible. To be frank, there is no way it would automatically get a large increase in its dollars. It does not make any sense.

However, when the Prime Minister swore his cabinet in, with great pride, he said he had a gender-equal cabinet. Then someone pointed out to him that while he did have a gender-equal cabinet, five members were junior ministers positions, and those five were women. In order to solve that problem, he decided to make them full ministers.

There are other ways he could have solved that problem and been reasonable and appropriate. There is no reason that the Minister of Democratic Institutions could not be a man. There is no reason that the Minister of Science could not have been male. He could have had his gender-equal cabinet without having to create new positions for the ministers of state. The whole thing is very convoluted and confusing.

A difference in the funding went toward the salaries, but also some ministers felt they had to spend over $1 million to renovate their office. This is just another example of a Prime Minister who pays no attention to taxpayer dollars. It is inexcusable.

Bill C-24 is a terribly flawed and irresponsible bill. I hope most members will vote against it.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development]

Mr. Speaker, the member spoke about the minister from Toronto not being able to work in the best interests of his riding. She gave the example of B.C. and not being aware of the challenges there.

I am come from Whitby. A lot of members in here represent ridings the size of small countries. Within that context, we need to listen to what various constituents have to say. I listen to constituents with disabilities. I listen to farmers. I listen to any constituent who wishes to speak to me. I bring their concerns back to the House. Ministers listen to people in various jurisdictions across the country and they bring their concerns back to the House in the same manner as I do.

Would the member opposite not agree that she has the capability to do that as well?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member just made my point. She is one member of Parliament representing a huge region. I am sure she is doing a lot of work to understand the perspectives of people in her riding.

There are 338 ridings across the country. There are a lot of different regions. We are simply saying that the nimbleness, the ability to understand the regions, the ability to make decisions is best left to a minister who is very knowledgeable. No one can be an expert on everything. Sometimes we need to have that closer to home responsiveness.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech, which I listened to carefully and agree with on many points.

Given their so-called feminist approach, are the Liberals not simply adding insult to injury with Bill C-24? The injury is saying that women will be confined to the role of minister of state. The insult is also telling them to not bother talking about their qualifications or anything else, because they are going to get the same salary as ministers so it is a non-issue.

Men and women are known to be equally qualified and capable of being either ministers or ministers of state, and the salary should match the responsibilities of the job. This feels like a cover-up. If this had happened to me, I would not necessarily be happy to be getting a raise without having to take on the added responsibilities that would normally go along with it.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I absolutely agree, Mr. Speaker. I would be insulted if I thought the reason I had a ministerial position was because I was meeting some kind of quota. I am so proud of the people on our front bench. They were not put there to meet a quota. They are there because they are capable and responsible individuals.

The Prime Minister felt he needed a gender-equal cabinet, and that is fine. However, there was no reason not to have men in those ministers of state positions. He would have had his two ministers of state and however many ministers. Instead, he put five women in those roles and then was embarrassed because people said that it was not gender-equal.

We are going to pay a lot more than $1 million to deal with the problem of the Prime Minister making promises he did not keep.

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

Mr. Speaker, in reference to the $1 million, could the member explain why Stephen Harper had 40 cabinet ministers, while we have 30? This government believes that each cabinet minister is equal. The former government, even with its 40 cabinet ministers, had unequal ministers. How can the member justify that?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the member listened to my speech. I talked about normal businesses, even the public service, and how they determined the wages. They determine it by the responsibility of the position, which includes the budget of the organization. It is quite reasonable, and it has been done for many years. There is a recognition that there is a role for ministers of state and there is a role for ministers.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this subject this evening. In fact, just this morning, I attended a meeting of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, where the President of the Treasury Board appeared as a witness to answer questions on the use of vote 1c. Since November 4, 2015, the salaries of ministers of state have been increased under vote 1c so that they earn the same as portfolio ministers who have deputy ministers and hundreds of public servants working for them.

I will explain later why the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates and the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance are concerned about this.

I am increasingly disheartened by this government because it seems that, today in the House, we should not be talking about Bill C-24, which seeks to realize one of the federal government's unattainable fantasies. Instead, we should be talking about our duty as citizens, what we can do for our country, what we can do tomorrow morning to improve our community, what we can do to further honour our men and women in uniform, and how each of us can serve their country.

We could talk about regional fairness, since Bill C-24 deals with these kinds of discussions, as the Liberals decided to abolish ministers representing Canada’s various economic regions—Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies, British Columbia, and the territories.

We could also talk about wealth creation. The Liberal government likes to go on and on about working for the well-being of the middle class. I have a problem with that, because we should instead be talking about wanting to make life better for all Canadians. I do not know why the government insists on focusing only on one class instead of talking about all Canadians. What I liked about the Right Hon. Stephen Harper is that he would always talk about all Canadian families. He did not talk just about only one social class.

That said, I am duty bound to oppose this bill today, and instead of talking about civic duty and serving one's country, I will speak to you about C-24.

Bill C-24 seeks to elevate ministers of state, some of whom do not have a portfolio or a department, to the same status as ministers who oversee an actual department with thousands of employees, deputy ministers, and teams of hundreds of officials, and all the real estate that goes with it. These are the real departments, National Defence, Public Services and Procurement, Transport, the list goes on. There are 25 actual departments, give or take.

They want to give the same minister’s salary to those who do not have drivers or real responsibilities; they want to give them the same salary as traditional cabinet ministers.

It is ironic because Bill C-24 would create eight new ministerial positions, including three “mystery” ministers, whose duties, objectives and responsibilities are not yet known. The bill would eliminate the positions of six ministers representing the regions; now, there is only one minister representing Toronto with a population of seven million; it is huge and that is a major responsibility. He will be the one now representing the Acadian people, the Acadian peninsula and their concerns about the fishery, lobster and crab. It does not make any sense.

Bill C-24 would also amend the Salaries Act, which is a good initiative. The government wants to correct a mistake in parliamentary law, or rather change parliamentary law so that it need not be in breach of it.

The very honourable senator Mr. Smith, chair of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, contacted me to bring the problem to my attention so I could raise it with the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. The government is using the supplementary estimates to pay the additional salaries of ministers of state, when the parliamentary rules tell us that there are three reasons for why we must not do that.

For example, Beauchesne, paragraph 935, refers to page 8601 of the Debates of March 25, 1981:

A supply item ought not to be used to obtain authority which is the subject of legislation.

Then paragraph 937 refers to page 10546 of the Debates of June 12, 1981:

The government may not by use of an Appropriation Act obtain authority it does not have under existing legislation.

This is what the government is trying to do today. It is trying to use us to obtain an authority it does not have under the Salaries Act. Lastly, paragraph 941 refers to pages 94 and 95 of the Debates of February 5, 1973:

If a Vote in the Estimates relates to a bill not yet passed by Parliament, then the authorizing bill must become law before the authorization of the relevant Vote in the Estimates by an Appropriation Act.

Therefore, parliamentary rules tell us that ministers of state in the Prime Minister’s Office should not have gotten a pay increase effective November 4, 2015. They should not have had it until Bill C-24 was officially adopted. It will not be adopted by us Conservatives, but by the majority Liberals. Good for them!

The senators put it down in black and white:

Our committee is concerned about the recurrent practice of using supplementary estimates to pay certain ministers' salaries prior to the enactment of amendments to the Salaries Act, and raises this question in the context of Bill C-24.

A Senate committee has been studying these issues for several months and spending a lot more time on it than the House of Commons.

When it comes to parity, the Liberals like to implement government policies that fit with their ideology and how they think the world should be, but some of their actions may have unintended consequences that they do not even see because they are so blinded by their ideology.

They say they want a gender-balanced cabinet, but, having given the matter considerable thought, I have come to the conclusion that this ideal could have a very unfortunate unintended consequence. If we say that cabinet must be gender-balanced, this means that there will never be a cabinet with a majority of women, yet we have seen plenty of cabinets with a majority of men over the past 150 years. Now we are telling women that they will never be in the majority in cabinet regardless of their skills, their beliefs, and their political strengths. No, now we must have parity, 50-50.

I would even add that this means cabinet will never be less than 50% male. What a paradox. They say the goal is to protect and expand women's rights, but if we examine this from a political and philosophical perspective, it looks more like a way to rein in women's progress in the political arena. Is that not an interesting thought?

Instead of talking about parity in cabinet, since I have just shown that it is nothing more than a pipe dream that actually hurts the advancement of women in cabinet, we should be talking about parity for the founding peoples. That is what is important in Canada: French Canadians, English Canadians, the fact that Quebec has still not signed the constitution, and the fact that there are demands coming from all sides, whether in the west, which has reforms it would like to see, in the maritime provinces, or in Quebec. We should be talking about parity in our country in terms of English and French culture and making sure that everyone is comfortable in the constitutional environment. Instead, we are stuck talking about a bill that is meant to correct a mistake borne of blind ideological fervour.

What I find increasingly deplorable is this government saying it is objective and bases what it does on scientific facts.

First, it is an arrogant thing to say, because it suggests the party previously in government was not. The truth is that the Liberals themselves are so fixated on their own ideology that it is preventing them from acknowledging some of the significant impacts of their legislation.

Ultimately, I would like to say that, ideology aside, the Liberals cannot pay ministers higher salaries before the bill is passed, and yet, that is what they have been doing for the past two years, which is no laughing matter.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague began by saying that we should be talking about our communities, ways to improve them, ways to ensure that we have jobs, and do all the great things that our communities expect us to do when we get here. However, I, along with everyone else in the House, sat through almost a week in which we talked about a question of privilege about two members who did not get here on time when everybody else could get here on time.

I wonder how the member correlates these two messages of needing to talk about communities, yet spending time talking about a question of privilege over two members who wanted to be leaders and who could not show up on time.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the question of privilege existed even before the creation of Canada. Without privilege in this chamber, without the secure fact of accessing this chamber, we cannot even start thinking about helping our communities. We are here first and foremost to represent our constituents, but the question of privilege is never a question that takes time for no reason. It is fundamental. It is in the convention. It is in the history of Canada and our great parliamentary tradition from Britain.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, what was it, five days, seven days, of hearing the same thing over and over again? I sat in the House last night not as happy as I would have been if I was at home with the dog. I heard members on the opposite side kind of grousing a little about being here talking about the bill.

I wonder if the member, looking at the totality of the bill and all of the other things that we are trying to do, would like to have some of that time back from saying the same thing about privilege time after time, so that we could have dealt with the bill when it should have been dealt with.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, what the member does not say is that the privilege question of two of our members here on the Conservative side of the chamber was part of a build-up of frustration, because the government has treated the opposition basically like garbage.

The Liberals tried to repeat the same thing they did last year with Motion No. 6. They tried to cut the speaking time. The forefathers of this country were speaking for three hours here sometimes, every member, but the Liberals said 10 minutes was way too much. Can members believe that? What is the goal of being here if we cannot even speak 10 minutes? That was the situation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his impassioned speech and his commitment to parliamentary democracy, but I think if he would have had more time he would have probably delved into the area of these three mysterious ministers that cabinet has given approval for. They have no job descriptions. We have no idea what they are going to be doing. All we are doing is giving the government a blank cheque, and giving them a blank cheque at a time of increasing deficits is certainly not the way that my constituents want our government to work.

I wonder if my colleague would comment on how his constituents might feel about another blank cheque to a government that is going deeper into debt every day.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, certainly my constituents feel that the Liberals have been given enough blank cheques already.

Again, the member over there spoke about respect, that we took too many days to speak about a question of privilege, which is terrible to say. The Liberals say they respect us, but they say we should just sign on to a bill that would create new ministries that they do not want to tell us about yet. They want us to vote on the bill, but they do not want to tell us exactly what is going on. This is how much respect they have for us. This is how much respect they have had for us for two years now, which is why we came to that situation in March, April, and May, and that is why we are sitting until midnight tonight.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I see lots of opposition, but I still do not think we have quorum right now.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It would appear that we do have a quorum.

We will now resume debate with the hon. member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say I am disappointed to be here tonight, sitting until midnight, spending time on a bill like this. Of course, we had some remarks in earlier questions that tried to make it the responsibility of the opposition that the government has not gotten through its agenda, which is simply absurd.

The government has had all the time in the world to get its agenda through, and the fact is that it has a very small agenda even at that. The average number of bills I have heard by this time in a government's life would be 40 or 45. We are looking at a government that has passed something like 18. There is not a lot to do, yet we are still sitting until midnight to get it done. It seems a bit absurd to me.

I had questions about why we had a motion on the Paris accord, but I came to a different conclusion. I thought it was quite useful, in the end, to have a motion on the Paris accord because it demonstrated that the Liberals' and the Conservatives' positions were exactly the same on the Paris accord. They voted together. I thought that was a useful clarification for the public that the Liberals and the Conservatives have the same targets and the same lack of action on the Paris accord. I will take back my criticism of that motion as being a waste of time. I really thought it was going to be a waste of time, but I take back my criticism of that one and I say it was actually quite useful.

On Bill C-24, the bill before us tonight, I have to tell members about the number of calls, emails, and letters I have received from constituents on the bill. It would be zero. Nobody in my constituency cares at all about this bill. The only people who care about it are people who are total insiders in the Liberal Party.

The need for the bill was totally created by the Prime Minister's faux parity that he created in his cabinet. If he was really going to have a cabinet that had parity or equity between the genders, there would have been an equal number of men and women in the real, important jobs in cabinet. Instead, the Prime Minister created a problem by appointing women to mostly junior jobs in his cabinet. Now we have a bill in front of us to fix that problem. That seems absurd to me.

Why do we have differences between the pay of different ministers? I actually think it is a good idea. If there is a full minister who brings things to cabinet and has a department to run, that is a different job from being a minister of state who does not have a whole set of programs to look after but has a reduced set of responsibilities. I can personally live with two different kinds of salaries if there are two different kinds of responsibilities, because that is the basic principle of pay equity. It is equal pay for work of equal value, and if it is different work it is fine to pay people differently.

The problem for the Prime Minister was, of course, that he put mostly women in the junior jobs and mostly men in the big jobs. Therefore, his cabinet did not look as equitable as it should have. As a result, we end up here in a midnight session debating a bill to fix the Prime Minister's political problem.

As I said, there was nobody interested in my riding. I am sure if people in my riding were watching they have already changed channels. I actually recommend that at this point, because I think the bill is a waste of parliamentary time.

We are talking about minister of state positions that would become regular minister positions: the Minister of La Francophonie, the Minister of Science, the Minister of Small Business and Tourism, the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities, and the Minister of Status of Women. I think those are all important jobs. I just do not think they are the same jobs as the Minister of National Defence or the Minister of Health or the Minister of Justice. I believe there are real differences.

The bill would not change anything about those jobs. It would not give those ministers new responsibilities that are the same level as the full ministers. They might actually be able to persuade me to support this if the bill were saying that the Minister of La Francophonie would have the same full powers of a minister to bring things to cabinet and would have a department to administer, but they would not.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

What don't they have?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

I love being heckled on this because I do not have a whole lot to say on this, so the more heckling the better.

Mr. Speaker, another peculiar thing in the bill is that they have shoved in something that I actually kind of like, and that is the ministers of economic development agencies. I do not know what that is doing in the bill, but I guess the Liberals had to have some more to fluff it up and make it look more substantial.

Unfortunately, now the bill would eliminate the ministers of Western Economic Diversification, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario, the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, and the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency. All of those have important work to do.

I just do not understand the logic, but somehow we are going to eliminate those so we can bump up these others. I guess that must be why these points got into the same bill. Again, it does not make a whole lot of sense to me tonight, but it could be because we are at 7:30 and I have been speaking on various things since 10 o'clock this morning.

I guess the real question I have to ask the government tonight is, why are we not here debating legislation to implement real pay equity for Canadian women workers across the country? We had a committee that worked on this issue, did some very good work, reported back to the House, and recommended we have such legislation. Then somebody, somewhere, seems to have said, “That is hard. We cannot do that before 18 months. It has to wait.” Instead we are debating this bill instead of a bill that would help some of the lowest-paid women workers in the country who have some of the more difficult jobs.

We have a tradition in this country when it comes to wages. We look at jobs and ask if they are dirty and done by men, and then we say that such jobs require a lot of money. However, if they are hard and require high levels of education but are done by women, such as nurses and caregivers, then they do not require a lot of money. We have things out of whack.

Why are we not standing here debating real pay equity legislation for those jobs in federal jurisdiction? That is what I would like to be working on tonight. That would interest my constituents. I would have had dozens and dozens of people talking to me about the best way to make pay equity a reality for women in this country, and not the silence I have had from my constituents on this bill.

I only have a couple more things I want to say. I am looking forward to the warning that my time is almost up.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

I am not taking this bill seriously. I have to thank the Speaker for the warning that I have a lot of time left. I am not taking it seriously, because, as I said at the beginning, it is not a serious piece of legislation. It is not something we should be spending our time on. There are so many problems for us to address in this country. There are so many things we could be putting our hard work into, and this is not one of them.

As one of six openly gay members, I am aware that the government promised an apology and promised to work on restitution for those who were harmed in their careers, harmed in their family life, harmed in many ways, perhaps by being fired from the public service for being gay or being kicked out of the military for being gay. A motion unanimously passed in the defence committee last October, calling for a revision of service records so that people who had served in the military and had already qualified for pensions but were dishonourably discharged for being gay could get the benefits they had already paid for and had already earned.

I would rather be standing here tonight talking about how we are going to implement that kind of legislation than talking about something that will only affect privileged women in cabinet. That is all this debate is about tonight, except for the Prime Minister's reputation, as I said earlier.

We have other things to tackle. In my riding, we have had some very severe problems with ocean debris. We are facing World Oceans Day coming up tomorrow. We have a government that announced a coastal protection strategy, and I cannot even remember what it was called. It does not mention debris. There are no provisions at all for cleaning up the debris.

We heard earlier today in this House what has now become one of those truisms that soon, very soon, we will have more plastic by weight in the ocean than fish. That is a pretty sad commentary on where we are going. I would rather be spending my time tonight talking about bills to help reduce the plastics in the ocean. That is something we should tackle. That is an urgent problem.

Related to that, we could be tackling the question of abandoned vessels. We have all kinds of important work to do in this Parliament. Instead, we have Bill C-24 before us. I am happy to say that I will vote against this bill, probably at every stage, and probably every time it comes up. It will not really make a lot of difference, because we have a Liberal majority government, and this government has the arrogance to proceed with bills like this instead of the real priorities for Canadians. It disappoints me greatly.

As I have said before, I am kind of naive. I often think that the government will get its priorities straight, or should get its priorities straight, and get on with the real business that should be in front of this House.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed my colleague's speech, as I did before I became a member of the House. I have a lot of time for him and where he comes from, so this is a genuine question with no spice added.

We have looked at this issue from the standpoint of who has the more important job. Let us take two people. Let us take the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities and let us take the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Who has the more important job?

Let us turn it on its head. I invite the member to comment on what happens when you look at the client. Does the veteran have more important needs than the disabled person? Therefore, if you are looking at the skills and the resources, you see that they may differ, but if you look at it from the client's point of view, then the whole question of equity becomes somewhat different.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to make sure that the member was addressing that question to the Chair.

The hon. member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, I look forward to your answer.

I know that the member earlier talked about preferring to be at home with his dog. I have two dogs and a partner at home, and while they are very used to my being away at this time of the year, I would like to be there. I am not sure how they feel at this point in the year.

Seriously, this is not about the clients at all and it is not about which issue is more important. If we take the very narrow sense of the bill, it is about ministers' responsibilities. All I said is that if they have different responsibilities, I am fine with their having different pay. I think this is simply aimed at correcting the political problem the Prime Minister created for himself when he said the Liberals have gender parity in cabinet and then proceeded to assign different levels of responsibilities to men and women.

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

Madam Speaker, I am going to try to help my colleague. Like him, I believe the bill is a waste of time and we could have been more productive.

I would like to ask him a question. In his riding, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, what will be the impact of eliminating the position of minister responsible for the economic development of the region? In his opinion, in practice, will this model be more effective or less effective than the previous one?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for that serious question about the other part of the bill. In British Columbia, I have the privilege of representing a riding that probably has the lowest unemployment in British Columbia and probably the lowest in the entire country. For my riding specifically, that office and those programs had not had a big impact. Where they do have a impact in my province is on the northern end of Vancouver Island, the rural areas of Vancouver Island where opportunities, especially for young people, are quite limited. They also have a big impact in the interior of British Columbia and the north of British Columbia, and they have a very big impact in some of the larger aboriginal communities.

I am worried that the elimination of these people with a specific focus on the areas that really do need that economic development will cause some problems for us down the road.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague particularly mentioned defence, health, and justice. Two of those ministers are women, I might add. Then he said that there were portfolios that were not so serious. Would he explain why he does not think women are as serious, small business and tourism are not as serious, or francophonie is not as serious as those areas?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will assure the member I said no such thing. I said that responsibilities of the ministers differ, not that those are not important topics. There is also the amount of supervision they have to do of staff and the number of programs they have to manage, but it is not that the topics themselves are unimportant. They are very important, and I take them very seriously.

I have criticized the new position of Special Advisor to the Prime Minister on LGBTQ2 Issues. It amounts to little more than being the head gay, because it has no staff, it has no budget, it has no programs attached to it. That does not mean I do not think the topic is important. I am a gay man in this country who has faced inequality through my whole life.

It does not mean I do not think it is important; I just recognize the difference in jobs.

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

Madam Speaker, like many of my colleagues tonight, I feel it is very unfortunate that at this point, almost halfway through the government's mandate and approaching the summer months, we are sitting until midnight dealing with this kind of legislation.

Canada is entering tough negotiations with the United States regarding NAFTA. Global Islamic terrorism is on the rise. ISIS continues to control much of the Middle East. The oil and gas sector has still not rebounded, and Canadians are finding it harder and harder to buy their first home. However, we are here spending time on this, late at night: pay increases for ministers of state.

I wish I were joking, but the priorities of this government have never been more clear than right now. Liberals are committed to padding the pockets of Liberals at the expense of hard-working Canadian taxpayers. Many of these hard-working Canadians are up at the crack of dawn, or even earlier, and finish their days well after sundown. The farmers in my riding of Kitchener—Conestoga are an example. These hard-working men and women are now faced with the prospect of paying more so that ministers of state with no extra responsibilities can enjoy a pay hike. It is just so that our Prime Minister's mantra of “a minister is a minister is a minister” can have some so-called legitimacy.

The Liberal government has now spent two days' worth of regular sitting hours just this week to debate non-binding, really mean-nothing, motions. In one of them the Liberals were trying to play wedge politics, but it was unsuccessful, I might add. With the other, their goal could have been accomplished with a statement during statements by ministers, which can occur every day during routine proceedings.

I am not sure if this is a reflection of the Liberals' incompetence or the government House leader's inability to understand basic parliamentary scheduling. Whatever the cause might be, we find ourselves here, late at night, debating Bill C-24, an act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act.

Let me read a summary of the bill.

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 [—in other words, the cabinet—] 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.

The bill makes several important changes to aspects of ministerial roles and designations. These include the creation of new positions, the removal of several important positions, the creation of legal backup for departmental support for these new mystery positions, and the transfer of authoritative powers.

In the bill, the Liberals are attempting to justify changing the title of ministers of state to full ministers. They say that changing the names of the positions and how much each minister of state earns, with no changes in the responsibilities of ministers of state, somehow makes them equivalent to full ministers.

This is not only disingenuous; it is actually insulting to the ministers of state in question. These ministers of state are fully aware that their responsibilities do not come close to the responsibilities and demands of ministers who have departments, full staff, and deputy ministers in place.

Additionally, Bill C-24 asks Parliament to let the Liberals create three new ministerial-level positions, with portfolios—wait for it—to be determined later. They want us to authorize spending without knowing what the spending will fund. They are asking for a blank cheque. It sounds like a recipe for an even bigger deficit.

A minister of state does not have a deputy minister, does not have a dedicated department, and does not have the sort of budget that accompanies a full ministry. The implication is that the positions are equal because these ministers would have the same type of title and the same salary. This makes the positions appear equivalent on paper, but in reality they are certainly not. The Liberal government should be upfront with its ministers, upfront with its backbench MPs, and most importantly, upfront with Canadians.

On this side of the House, we cannot support these measures. I think the members opposite have not yet realized that we are at a time of out-of-control spending, broken promises on deficits, mounting debt, and complete abandonment of an election promise to balance the budget by 2019. It is time for them to wake up. We are not going to give the government any more blank cheques. Accountability for tax dollars is not just important to Conservatives; it is important to all Canadians.

The real effect of the proposed changes to the Salaries Act goes well beyond increasing salaries; it has everything to do with centralizing spending power in Ottawa and reducing democratic oversight and accountability for spending.

Instead, we need democratic accountability and financially transparent ministers, whose work can be scrutinized at the local level. We do not need an ever bigger, and more centralized government making decisions from Ottawa on behalf of our economically unique and distinct regions.

We do not need unaccountable, unelected political staff, and bureaucrats directing funds for regional development. Instead, we need attentive ministerial oversight on regional spending. We need responsible representation from regional ministers with strong ties to the communities they serve, and to whom they should be accountable.

Canada has historically drawn a distinction between ministers of the crown and ministers of state based on the scope and scale of the work of their portfolios. For example, small businesses and tourism are important components of the Canadian economy. Indeed, they are important enough to warrant a voice at the cabinet table to represent their interests. However, speaking up for small business and tourism during policy discussions in cabinet is not the same as overseeing a volume of case work, which for example the minister responsible for Service Canada supervises. Nor is it the same as being responsible for the budget overseen by say, the Minister of Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship.

Instead of heading regional development agencies with ministers from regions, the Liberals are handing over significant spending power to unelected civil servants and to one overworked minister from Mississauga. My colleague, the member for Richmond Centre, put it best in her remarks just the other day on this bill. She said:

Here is my own experience. As the minister of state, I had my own team and budget, but I worked closely with the minister of employment. The most notable difference between a minister and a minister of state is that the latter does not have a deputy minister devoted to the file. Additionally, a minister of state does not manage the same departmental budget or have the same authority as a minister.

The Liberals are claiming that the changes in this legislation are just simple changes aimed at addressing equal pay. The reality, however, is that this is just Liberals being Liberals, just like a duck that quacks like a duck and walks like a duck is a duck.

We are always open to hearing ways to make government operate more efficiently. However, removing key regional ministers is a failure to recognize the unique needs of the different regions of our country. The Liberals' top-down approach to governing does not make government more efficient. Rather, it is neglecting the very ones it claims to be helping.

In Canada, it is obvious that there are clear differences among the unique regions of our country, and in order to ensure that we function as a cohesive unit, these regional agencies work to bolster the economies of each distinct part of our country, to essentially ensure that we are greater than the sum of our parts.

I read a report prepared by the Liberal members of the subcommittee on innovation that came out earlier this year. It showed that ACOA was actually observing close to a 12-month delay in seeing some of its innovation grants being approved. It is no wonder that these delays exist, considering that approvals have all been going through the minister from Mississauga.

It is clear. Not only is the government's legislative agenda in complete shambles, its ability to control spending is non-existent, and its rhetoric of a minister is a minister is a minister is simply a smokescreen to try to fool Canadians into thinking that the ministers for sport, small business, and other ministers of state, plus three new mystery ministers, deserve more hard-earned tax dollars that are earned by hard-working Canadians.

In the best interests of all Canadians, this bill deserves to be soundly defeated.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, I always listen to my colleague with great interest. I would like to ask him a very simple question.

Given this bill, which I will refrain from describing seeing as time is running out, I wonder whether the simplest solution the Prime Minister could offer us would not be a good old cabinet shuffle. It would cost nothing and would mean that women could be given ministerial positions with full powers, and honestly, that might also do us some good.

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

Madam Speaker, we have been very much aware of the genesis of this bill. It has been pointed out time and time again that in 2015, when the government was elected, it took great pride in the fact that it had a gender balanced cabinet. Then the Liberals suddenly realized, when somebody pointed out to them, that five of the junior ministers were all women, and there were no men among that group. In a last ditch attempt to correct that, the Prime Minister simply announced that they would all be equal. He forgot that they are not all equal.

They do not have departments, they do not have deputy ministers, they have different salaries, and they have huge differences in their workload. This is simply an attempt to correct a previous mistake that the Prime Minister made in haste. It is unfortunate that Canadians are going to be left on the hook to pay for the Prime Minister's mistake.

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

Madam Speaker, the member and the NDP, working together, have this all wrong. I would suggest that we have two versions of a cabinet. We have Stephen Harper, who had a cabinet of 40 ministers, who saw no benefit with respect to equality among the ministry, among the cabinet, and who saw no benefit in terms of a one-tier cabinet—

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

Madam Speaker, the French interpretation is not working.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The interpretation is not working?

It is working now.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, as I was saying, Stephen Harper had a different type of cabinet. He felt it necessary to have a cabinet that was 25% larger than that of the current government. He felt it necessary to have a male dominated cabinet. He felt it necessary to have a two-tier cabinet.

We currently have a government that is saying that all ministers are equal, and should be treated as such with respect to pay. When they sit around the cabinet table, one that is gender neutral, with as many women as men, Canadians see that as a positive thing. Only the Conservatives and the NDP see that as a negative thing.

I am wondering why the member is stuck on believing that the old Stephen Harper cabinet, which was larger, which cost more money, and which ensured there was more inequity, is better than a cabinet that has received accolades from every region of this country and beyond.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind members that when a member has the floor, they need to pay respect to that member. If they have anything to contribute, they can rise and attempt to be recognized to ask questions or make comments.

The hon. member for Kitchener—Conestoga.

[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, NDP, 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, NDP, 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, NDP, 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.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

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

Madam Speaker, 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!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I again want to remind the members that someone has the floor, and there should not be any bickering back and forth. If other members want to contribute to the discussion, they should hold themselves back for a few minutes, and wait until the question has been answered, and then they will have an opportunity to ask the question if they stand and wish to do so.

The hon. member for Cambridge.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, my question is with respect to qualifications. The member was referring to how he would have women on the front bench based on their qualifications. I wonder if he could elaborate on the concerns he has about the amazing women we have in caucus and which ones he does not think are qualified to be in those roles.

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

Madam Speaker, if we look at what has gone on over the last couple of years in this place, and the utter contempt it seems the Prime Minister, the Liberal Party, and those within the PMO have for Parliament, if truth be told, what they want is an audience, not an opposition.

With respect to the gender question, it is not an issue of gender parity or gender equality. It is about putting the most qualified person in a position. If that means 30 women are capable, and I believe many of them are in this place, of filling all 30 positions in that front row, then they should. It is not an issue of gender parity. It is an issue of gender strength. It does not matter whether it is a female or a male. It is about putting the best person in the job to serve Canadians. That is what it is all about to me.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, we often talk about the Ottawa bubble, and I have the impression that we have a particularly clear example here this evening of a situation that almost no one in this country can relate to.

Throughout my colleague's speech, I tried to set politics aside to come up with a comparable situation, and I automatically thought back to when I sat on a board of directors, as many of my colleagues probably have. I imagined the CEO coming to us, the board, and saying that he needed more money to hire three new employees, that he did not yet know what those three employees would do, but he needed them and knew that they would be paid the same salary as him.

My first reaction would be to wonder whether our CEO was in over his head, and whether he was the right person for the job.

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

Madam Speaker, for 10 years I sat on Barrie city council. I sat on the finance committee. I was also the chair of transportation and economic development. Had the chief administrative officer, the CAO, come to us on the council and said that she wanted to hire three more people, there would have been not just a job description but a qualifications sheet created, which we would have made the decision on.

What the Liberals are proposing in this piece of legislation is to have us vote to create three new mystery cabinet positions, without qualifying or quantifying what it is they will be doing. I would have laughed at my CAO at Barrie city council had she come to me and suggested that we hire without knowing what it was we would be hiring them for. It is utterly ridiculous.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-24. There are a number of significant problems with what I would call the laughable bill that is before the House today, and I wish to bring some attention to those.

There are three main problems I wish to address. First, the bill would delete the role of regional development ministers, thereby leaving economic development in Atlantic Canada, western Canada, and northern Canada in the hands of a minister in Toronto. That seems rather unfair. Second, Bill C-24 lacks transparency by allowing the government to appoint three mystery ministers. Third, the Liberals claim to be taking a stand for women with the legislation by creating a cabinet that upholds so-called gender parity, but in fact, that is not the case, and I wish to explore that further.

With regard to regional representation, as Canadians we should strive to work together for equality while also embracing diversity. Our diversity, of course, is what makes us unique as a country. We celebrate what western Canada has to offer. We celebrate what Atlantic Canada has to offer. We celebrate what the north has to offer and what eastern Canada and central Canada have to offer. Bill C-24 provides a threat not only to the feminist movement but to our way of life as a diverse and beautiful people.

The bill aims to eliminate the positions of our former government's six regional development agency ministers. The elimination of these positions would remove the ability of the different regions across Canada to be accurately represented in government. The Liberals continue to say that they want to work with the provinces and municipalities, yet in the bill, they are trying to remove cabinet voices that represent specific regions, such as western Canada, Atlantic Canada, and the north. This action shows the insensitivity of the Liberals toward national issues and having those issues voiced at the cabinet table.

I believe that our country has different cultures, industries, and issues that in each region need to be treated with unique care. Of course, the bill would prevent that from being the case. Traditionally, regional development agency ministers brought their regions' issues to Parliament to ensure accurate representation, but as I said, this bill would gut that opportunity.

I would also like to speak to the bill's lack of transparency. It seems that the Liberals are just demanding a blank cheque. They are not willing to tell us, as members of Parliament, where this money would go or which ministers they would appoint. We are told that there would be three mysterious ministers and ministries that would be created through the bill, and taxpayer money would go to that.

What are the Liberals hiding, and why are they not being transparent with us and with the Canadian public with regard to their plans in going ahead and creating these ministries?

There is absolutely no way that I, nor I believe any members on this side of the House, are going to vote for a piece of legislation that demands a blank cheque with no accountability, no transparency, and no honesty. That is not good governance, and I will not stand for that.

Moving on to the third problem in the bill, I would like to talk about its impact on women. When it comes to changing the salaries of ministers of state, I have to boldly contend that Bill C-24 is nothing more than a slap-dash attempt to cover up for the Liberals' media embarrassment.

The Prime Minister announced his cabinet. He announced that due to his quota system, gender parity had all of a sudden been achieved. There had been some sort of arrival that had been granted to the Liberal Party of Canada. The media was quick to pick up on this and to note that this was not in fact the case. There were actually several ministers of state, all of whom were women. Women were being placed in positions with less authority, less responsibility, and smaller budgets than where their male counterparts were being placed. This revealed the inequality in the Prime Minister's cabinet appointments.

We know ministers of state earn less money and they have fewer responsibilities than ministers. Even though it was clear that a couple of ministries had already been made up to achieve gender parity, it still ended up that female ministers were earning less than their male colleagues. The quota system, with its contrived gender parity, severely damaged the credibility of these women.

I believe the bill does an incredible disserve to the women of the House and to the women of Canada as well, because we do serve as role models. It is tokenism at its finest and, as a woman, I am offended by what the Prime Minister has done.

As a strong, intelligent, and hard-working woman, I want to be entrusted with responsibilities and granted a voice at the cabinet table, not based on my genitalia but based on my ability and not according to anything other than that. I want my salary to match the work I do and the responsibilities I carry within this place. Changing the pay system would not in fact create equality, but it would create even greater inequality.

Women have shown they can climb any ladder in Canada that they choose to, whether it be in business, politics, or academia. Overlooking this achievement by trying to legislate equality is an injustice to the many women who have fought, and who continue to fight, to gain pay equality for equal work.

From its inception, the Conservative Party of Canada has modelled quite well what it is to put women in strategic places of leadership and to do so based on their abilities. The Conservative Party had the first female prime minister, the Right Hon. Kim Campbell, which the current Prime Minister appears to have forgotten. Therefore, I will remind the House that there has been a female prime minister, that she did exist.

In addition to that, the Conservatives also put in place the first female cabinet minister in Canada's history, under Prime Minister Diefenbaker. The Conservative Party continues to champion strong women in politics. I am here today on this side of the House as a proud Conservative member. I am treated incredibly well by both female and male colleagues. I have never been made to feel less than them. In fact, I am celebrated because of what I bring to the table. That is the way it is supposed to be.

Let me draw attention to the member for Sturgeon River—Parkland. She is a prime example of what it is to be a strong and capable woman within the political realm. Before becoming the interim leader of the Conservative Party, she held a number of cabinet posts. During her time as a member of Parliament, she has raised awareness for crimes committed against women and girls through her private member's bill, the just act. She has boosted support for girls by championing the internationally recognized International Day of the Girl through the UN. She implemented several high-profile health initiatives as the minister of health. The member has also shown Canada that women can accomplish exactly what they set their mind to without government creating quotas or making special accommodations for them.

We do need to pursue true equality, but not this fake equality or so-called equality that the Liberals are trying to push forward in their agenda. As for me, a middle-aged white guy, with so-called great hair, does not get to tell me my value, my worth, my dignity or my ability.

There is much to be considered when we look at Bill C-24. We must fight for Canada's future as a nation that values hard work and equality, not just equality on paper but honest equality that is seen in real life. In Canada, women are given the ability to work to accomplish the same things as their male counterparts, an opportunity that cannot be overlooked if we value the future of our women.

Instead of a gender quota system, the Prime Minister could have appointed based on merit and probably could have achieved much the same thing. If he had done this, he would have given credit where credit was due and he would have contended for the equality and the value of women. That is the type of prime minister I would like to see our country have. He or she is still to come.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am shocked that the member opposite would suggest that these appointments were not merit based. My question is based on a couple of points.

The Minister of Science has 90 universities, over 200 colleges, and a budget of $10 billion. The Minister of International Development has a budget of $5 million. Though the Conservatives may be shocked from the previous 10 years, it is an important part of our foreign policy.

Is this less authority? At what threshold do these ministers become important?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am not sure why the member opposite is yelling at me. I do not know why he feels the need to raise his voice. Perhaps it is because I am a woman.

[An hon. member]

Mansplaining.

[An hon. member]

Wow.

[An hon. member]

Wow is right, bud.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

There is too much going back and forth in the House right now, and too many comments. I would again remind the members of a rule in the House that when someone has the floor, he or she should have the respect of all members in the House to allow the member to answer. If members have anything to contribute to the discussion, either by comment or question, they can take their opportunity to stand and be recognized in the House.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, what I talked about was with regard to equal treatment of women. Every woman deserves the same pay as a man if she does the same job as a man. I believe in equal pay for equal work. That should be upheld in this place and in the whole country, from coast to coast.

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

Madam Speaker, it is becoming increasing clear that the solution to the problem the Prime Minister created himself is a cabinet shuffle, not a bill.

I am wondering if my colleague could name any men in cabinet who have not been living up to expectations, who could be assigned other duties, so that the Prime Minister could hand those portfolios over to women ministers, after thinking about it over the summer.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, I could draw on a number of examples where male ministers have been put in place and have not upheld the role and responsibilities they had been granted. I do not wish to draw attention to those things right now. It is beyond what we are talking about today.

The point I am really hoping to make is that regardless if one is male or female, gender really should not be brought into account. Ministers are given a list of responsibilities, a list of tasks, a budget to oversee, a staff to manage, and they need to do that with competence.

Whether male of female, if the person has the ability to do it, is the best person for the job, then that individual should be put into the cabinet post to do that job.

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

Madam Speaker, the member talked about how she felt as a woman and how well respected and well treated she was within her party. Then she referred to women on this side of the House as quotas, and I have heard other members refer to them as tokens. Does that respect not go right across the floor? Should all women and men in the House not be respected? I am not feeling we are getting that tonight.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, yes, the members opposite do deserve to be respected. That was exactly why I said what I did. They should not be treated as an opportunity for quota. They should not be treated as tokens. They should be treated as equal partners in leading Canadians. They should be treated as people who are intelligent, hard working, and able to contribute based on their merits and abilities rather than based on their gender.

That is what I experience on this side of the House. I wish the same for them.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Before I go to the next speaker, I know people are questioning how questions are being allocated.

On November 3, 2016, the Deputy Speaker indicated:

...time for questions and comments is often the most valuable time for an exchange between members. In accordance with the procedures and practices, we will do our best to ensure that time is generally afforded to the members of the parties who are not associated with the member who has just spoken but not to the exclusion of that party...

Generally in a 10-minute round there is an opportunity for a question to be asked to the same party, unless nobody else is getting up. Because the member was from the Conservative Party, the decision to allow the questions from the other parties to question the member was how it was afforded.

Resuming debate. 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, this is a rather special evening. I have worked hard in life to get to where I am today. I have never been singled out for anything because of my name or gender. I have always tried to get jobs because I was good at what I did, not because I am a woman. The problem I have is with the parts of the bill that talk about parity. For me, that does not mean appointing the same number of women as men.

For me, parity is about action. Parity is not just taking a nice photo with 15 men on one side and 15 women on the other, while the rest of the time the men are telling those women to shut up and look pretty. That is not what parity means to me.

I have a problem with this bill because it would mean giving the Liberals a blank cheque. We would be telling them that we agree that they should appoint people, three ministers, without even knowing what their titles will be. Meanwhile, you are causing our regions to empty out. Everywhere—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Members must address their comments to the Chair. I simply want to inform the member that she has only three minutes remaining.

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

Madam Speaker, they are gutting our regions. We had regional ministers who were up to date on what was happening in our regions. Now, we are left with one minister from Toronto. If I talk about a salmon river in Charlevoix, I hope he knows that I am talking about salmon because I am not sure he has travelled very far in Charlevoix.

That is where I have a problem: they are robbing Peter to pay Paul, to make a cute photo, but doing so creates inequality. Our regions are being deprived of ministers who need to be in our regions.

Whether it is in the regions of Quebec, of the Atlantic or of Newfoundland, they are regions. Now, there is just one minister responsible for them. He is in Toronto, and while he certainly may travel, he is not familiar with the regions.

I was looking at the current cabinet list and there are very few people from the regions. Most of them are from urban areas. That means that our regions have been forgotten.

I have nothing against gender equality. I have nothing against equal pay for equal work. A minister of state and a minister do not have the same responsibilities. If we support Bill C-24, not only will ministers and ministers of state be equal, but everyone will ask for equal pay. All the members, critics, and the opposition will want the same salary as those opposite. We will have parity.

As women—I am not minimizing the role of women, far from it—we have already been in government and we had the ear of our prime minister. Today, I will tell you that I am going to vote against this bill, because it is an empty shell.

We are giving the Liberals a blank cheque and we do not know what they want to do with it. There have already been enough scandals on that side of the House. We do not want more of them. The Liberals are still giving money to their friends who do good work for the Liberals, but not necessarily for Canadians.

We are all different in the House: there are Conservatives, NDP members, Liberals, those in the Bloc, the Green Party. However, when we come to the House, we speak for all Canadians; we are not supposed to be partisan.

Today opposition members are being asked to vote on a bill on pay equity for positions with entirely different responsibilities. Pay equity is equal pay for equal work with the same responsibilities. A minister of state and a minister are not the same things. I would hope that women are not being appointed to these positions to fill some sort of quota to achieve parity. It is insulting to women to say that a position is vacant and needs to be filled by a woman to make the pictures look good.

I have never been superficial and I am not going to start now. I am here because I am a woman of character and I can go wherever I want by opening the doors that I want. I will never say “because I am a woman”. I am here because I am qualified to be here.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

It being 8:44 p.m., pursuant to order made on Wednesday, June 7, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

All those in favour of the amendment will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Pursuant to order made Tuesday, May 30, the recorded division stands deferred until Monday, June 12, at the expiry of the time provided for oral questions.

The House resumed from June 8 consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Pursuant to order made on Tuesday, May 30, 2017, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the second reading stage of Bill C-24.

The question is on the amendment.

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #314

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I declare the amendment defeated.

The next question is on the main motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The hon. Chief Government Whip.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to apply the results of the previous vote to this one, with the Liberal members voting in favour.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives agree to apply, and will be voting no.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP agrees to apply the vote and will vote against the motion.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois agrees to apply the vote and will be voting against the motion.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Green Party agrees to apply the vote, and votes yes.

[Hunter Tootoo, Independent, Nunavut, NU]

Mr. Speaker, I agree to apply and will be voting in favour.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Is there unanimous consent to proceed in this fashion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #315

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee)