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.

Speaker's Ruling

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

No, Mr. Speaker, that absolutely does not make any sense. If they are going to have equal pay for equal work, the work has to be equal. The value assigned to the work is up to his leadership on that side of the House, but are the mandate letters that are delivered to each minister going to be made equal? Are they going to have each minister punch in and punch out, just to make sure they put an equal number of hours into their work?

We know this for the minister of finance and the minister of foreign affairs, that there are certain ministries that require ministers to work far more hours, to involve many more people, and to have ministers dedicated to assist them in fulfilling their mandate letters, which is why they are different. That is the very basis of setting up a cabinet, and the Liberals are not achieving that. It is not working, and we see that with the poll numbers going down. We can see that Canadians are rejecting what they are getting from that side, because they are not getting transparency and they are not getting accountability.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, very often in this House one of the challenges is that we can be internal in our focus and we forget that we are here to legislate for the good of the people of Canada. I have noticed with the current Liberal government that increasingly its issues are about the Liberals, and not about the people of Canada.

While the Liberals are focused today here on the pay of people in their cabinet, there are much larger issues of gender equality and struggles of people across this country. Therefore, if we really wanted to address an issue of equality and particularly gender equality, we would expect to see a government that would bring policies forward that would actually help the millions of women and families on the ground in this country. The NDP has pushed for a policy of affordable child care, as an example, of which there has not been a single space created by the government in the last two years, nor do we hear a word of that in the Liberals' recent fiscal update.

What ideas does my hon. colleague have, or what does he hear from his constituents that would make a practical difference in their lives to help bring about greater equality, particularly for women in this country?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Calgary Shepard has 45 seconds or less.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Forty-five seconds, Mr. Speaker; that is time for maybe one Yiddish proverb at best.

I talked about an old tune from the Liberal government, and the old tune is “It is all me, me, me”. It is about “look at the nice socks I have”, “look at how great I am on Instagram”, and “look how good I look on Twitter”. It is all about show business and no substance.

People in my riding want jobs. I know it is going to hurt the member for Vancouver Kingsway to hear this, but they want energy jobs, pipelines, and development of the oil sands. I come from a riding where families who live there work in the oil sands business. They work in energy, and really that is the top priority. That is what I hear all the time from them. That is the number one thing they want. They want well-paying, middle class jobs, and they want the government to get out of the way but they do not get that from that side. Therefore, I agree with the member on that.

It is the “me, me, me” government. It is a great way to describe the Liberals. The government is creatively wasting the time of the people of Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to speak this morning. I say “happy”, but that depends on where people are in the House. Right now, I think that Bill C-24 is a travesty. The LIberals are trying to push something through the back door, or the front door, or the side door, that Canadians are not really concerned about. While the Minister of Finance is still gracing the front pages this morning, they are talking about increasing the number of ministers.

Maybe their time would be better spent looking at existing ministers and making them do their jobs properly and ethically. In my opinion, adding more ministers, when they still cannot figure out where to send three of them, is another thing in the Liberals’ DNA that makes them want to please everyone, especially their special friends, without giving any thought to the fact that Canadians will once again be the ones paying for it.

When we speak of gender equality and equity, we speak of equal work for equal pay. Everyone agrees. It is a fundamental principle. Therefore, if ministers do not all have the same level of responsibility, why should they be paid the same salary? That means that they want to give them still more. Here again, I have not done the math, but it means that, if everyone gets the same salary, they should have the same level of responsibility, new ministerial cars, government departments, and employees. They will need more than one or two employees, because when you have such important files you need the necessary resources.

In my opinion, gender equality is when women and men are allowed to speak. That is gender equality. It is being able to express ourselves as human beings, to say the things we need to say. No one needs to be a minister for that. A simple member of Parliament, if given the chance, can speak. Unfortunately, we have a Prime Minister who takes up a lot of room. When he arrives for question period, no one on the other side of the House is allowed to speak. He is the only one who can answer questions. However, there are ministers across the aisle. They are all equal, or so they tell us, but they do not have the right to speak. That is dangerous.

The Liberal government wants to add new ministers, but is abolishing the regional development minister positions. Instead of appointing other ministers, let us return these ministers to their functions so that they can give a voice to their regions.

I have nothing against the Minister of Economic Development. He is in his tower in Toronto and already has his hands full with that city. However, if I were to go to him tomorrow to discuss what is happening in Saint-Urbain or Saint-Irénée, I am not certain that he would know that they are in Charlevoix. He might think that they are in Europe. If I were to speak to him about the problems of farmers in Saint-Irénée or Saint-Urbain, I am not certain that he would understand what I was saying. I find this absurd. The Liberals want to increase the number of ministers, but they are eliminating ministers that are important to our regions.

If the Liberals want to add ministers, so be it. However, they should appoint them in the regions, where the people need to be heard.

Earlier, I was listening to the Liberal spokesperson, who was shouting rather loudly, because the Liberals act as though we, on this side of the House, understand nothing. Now, he should perhaps listen to me. When trying to ensure equality of men or women, the Liberals should give them their rightful place rather than putting on a dog and pony show. There is enough of that on Twitter and Facebook, not to mention Instagram. There are shots of the Prime Minister's socks as he visits a business and I really could not care less. However, I do care about the small businesses and farmers in my riding who have pressing needs.

In my view, Bill C-24 is a fine little bill that the Liberals have pulled out of a hat—hooray for Halloween, which is almost here—to avoid talking about the real issues of concern to the members of the House and Canadians. For example, did the Minister of Finance recuse himself from any discussions that could be in some way related to his interests? This morning, we learned that Morneau Shepell signed multiple contracts with federal departments. In the meantime, the Liberal Party is making us debate Bill C-24.

Are we on a reality TV show? We want to know the facts. When will the Liberals bring back regional economic development ministers? If they want to appoint solid ministers, now is the time. They should go and find them in the regions. I am sure there are solid people across the aisle. I am thinking in particular about Atlantic Canada. In Quebec, I think we are stronger than the Liberals, but elsewhere, they could find solid people.

It is insulting that the Liberals have introduced such a bill today, when Canadians need answers to their questions. What the Liberals are doing today is a sad charade. The Liberals have said themselves in committee that they do not believe in this bill, and yet those same members will stand up and vote in favour of it. They always say that the Liberals have free votes. We saw that yesterday, too.

Bill C-24 will not achieve any of the objectives the Liberals claim it will. Earlier the Liberal member was trying to say that he wants everyone to have an equal voice in the House. All 338 members have an equal voice. They can all say whatever they have to say. However, that does not appear to be the case across the aisle. Every time we ask them a question, it is always the same members who reply. It would seem that not all members across the aisle are allowed to speak. Rather than introducing this kind of bill, perhaps the Liberal Party should simply give its own members some air time.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raised a couple of concerns. First, she said that this bill is not important, which we will have to agree to disagree on.

I am wondering if she could point to when she expressed concern about the previous government twice amending the Salaries Act. I am also wondering if she could indicate when she was concerned about the size of the ministry increasing. In particular, could she educate us as to when, in the past Parliament, she expressed concern to Prime Minister Harper about his having the largest cabinet in Canadian history, one that was about 33% larger than the current government's cabinet? Could she share with the House the time she expressed her outrage at the cabinet growing too large?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to answer my colleague's question, because I was a parliamentary secretary under the Harper government, and proud of it.

If he did raise his ministers' salaries, he did it across the board. He did not give a raise just to parliamentary secretaries. He did not give away money to his friends. The Liberals are giving their friends money to keep them quiet, not to make them talk.

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

Mr. Speaker, again, I appreciated my colleague's speech.

I would like to focus on the art of setting pay. Typically, this depends on the job description. I find it hard to believe that ministers with different workloads are paid the same.

Even more startlingly, Bill C-24 seems to suggest that we create three new ministerial positions whose job descriptions we know nothing about, but that will come with the same salary as the others. This means these new ministers could have a higher or lower workload than ministers of state, yet earn the same salary. By extension, everyone in the House could be paid the same amount, because it would seem that the relationship between pay and job description no longer exists.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my NDP colleague for his very relevant question.

I completely agree with him. The government is trying to make us believe things, and that is the problem with the Liberals. They introduced Bill C-24 by saying that they are going to create three ministerial positions, but no one here in the House knows what these ministers will do. Before we vote on a bill like this one, we need to know where those ministers will be going and what they will be doing. Will those ministers represent regions? Regional development is important. I am going to vote against this bill because it is a smokescreen, as usual. The Liberals are not strong enough to introduce something clear and concise.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in addressing the previous questioner, my hon. colleague raised a point of consideration that I think we should all share.

In this bill the Liberals are proposing adding three mystery minister positions without naming them. First of all, that is not open. That is not transparent. It does not show respect for this place. Recently, the government also instituted a new Minister of Indigenous Services. Is the government adding three new positions on top of that, or is one of those mystery ministers the new Minister of Indigenous Services?

I do not think the government has been clear. If it is not being clear with us, it is not being clear with Canadians. What does the member think about this?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

Obviously, this bill is going nowhere. The Liberals firmly believe in it, but since this Parliament began two years ago, since we have been here, we have never been sure what direction the Liberals want to take. They do not even seem to know themselves. It all seems well and good to create ministerial positions on paper, but that is not enough. As my colleague from Lévis—Lotbinière, whom I cannot name but who is my best friend on this side of the House, was saying earlier, we are the opposition. Everyone has the right to speak and everyone here is doing his or her job. We are doing our job here. We are asking questions. The creation of additional ministerial positions will only make things worse. They will never answer the darn questions.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be speaking today on Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act. Part of the reason I am happy to do so is that it is the middle of the day. The last time I spoke to this bill, I believe it was about 11:30 at night last spring when the government decided that it needed to keep Parliament sitting until midnight every night for weeks, not because it was trying to bring forward any legislation that would allow it to keep its campaign promises, but to fill the time, which I do not think was very useful.

The first thing about this bill that I want to cover is the total hypocrisy of the government bringing this legislation forward at this time. This legislation would pay junior ministers the same as senior ministers, and would remove six regional economic development positions and add three mystery positions. The reality is that two years ago the government already made those salaries the same and eliminated those economic development ministers, and so this is just a cover. It shows a total disrespect for Parliament. The government should be coming here to discuss issues of importance to Canadians, issues that would change the way we do things in Parliament, but instead the Liberal government does whatever it wants. It makes decisions without duly consulting Parliament, and then tries to cover up.

This is not the first case of this nature. I remember when I was just a new parliamentarian debating the withdrawal of the CF-18s from Iraq. On the first day, I showed up with my speech to talk about this and found out that the government had already withdrawn them. There was absolutely no point to debate it for two to three days, which we did anyway, because it had already withdrawn them. It showed a total disrespect for oversight by Parliament.

Let us talk about some of the other examples such as the payment of $10.5 million to Omar Khadr, a terrorist. That was obviously very controversial in Canada. There was no consultation on that either. What about giving Bombardier $372 million? There was no consultation there either. The Liberal government continues to spend Canadians' money, make decisions about changes and not consult, and then when it is convenient, several years later, it will come with a bill and ask us to get up and speak to it.

That said, let me talk about the specifics of the bill. I wish I had an opportunity to make all these comments before the government had taken action. First of all, let us talk about paying the junior ministers the same as senior ministers. This has absolutely nothing to do with gender. In the real world, where people work in their professions, there are multiple different ways of evaluating jobs, based on skills, experience, level of responsibility, the demands of the job, and whether or not the job is in an isolated location. All these things are taken into account. There are lots of different job skills we can look at such as the Hay scale. There are various items like that.

When we think about the ministers, let us look at the skills and experience of the ministers we are talking about. Let us look at the responsibility level and see if there is a match. Then we can also talk about competence, because in some cases people are paid more for their competence and the amazing things they have been able to accomplish in the role.

First of all, if we talk about the Minister of Status of Women, for example, versus the finance minister, the latter manages a budget of $373 billion. The status of women minister has a far smaller budget. I know of $38 million of it, but it is hidden in so many pockets it is hard to add it all up because the government budgetary system is so confusing. Clearly, if the finance minister introduces things like unfair taxes, these could have a huge effect on small businesses, and could even cause a health crisis if all the doctors leave the country. These things are serious. What impact will there be if the status of women minister does not do her job appropriately? Really, I do not see it.

We can talk about the democratic reform minister versus the defence minister. Now, if the defence minister does not do his job, people die. We go to war with countries and serious situations develop. When the democratic reform minister does not do their job, no one notices.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

We noticed.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues in the NDP are correct. They did notice this is not going to be the last election under first past the post.

Let us talk about the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities versus the Minister of Health and the fact they are handling different levels of things. When the health minister does not do her job, it can be a huge issue for all Canadians because we all are impacted. I do not see the sports minister as having the same impact. Obviously, the responsibility level is different, so the pay level should be different as well.

One really insulting thing about the way the government has organized the ministers, especially one of the junior ministers, is to put small business together with tourism, together with the House leader's role. Small businesses create 90% of the jobs in this country, so that is a huge area of opportunity. That is something that is continually changing with the changing competitive environment in the U.S. One-third of the Liberal House leader's time can be devoted to that. Tourism is supposed to be a great growth opportunity. We hear all kinds of rhetoric about how great it could be for Canada's GDP and how much more there is to do, but that minister can only spend a third of her time on that. That does not really line up.

I really do not want to talk about the competence issue because we have all had our bad days, but when I look at some of the junior ministers and the women who were put in those roles and the things they were supposed to do, such as implementing democratic reform, those things did not happen. What has the Minister of Status of Women done for women? I was on the special committee that studied pay equity and made recommendations. In budget 2017 how much money was there for pay equity? Zero. The government had a chance to do something but did nothing.

Let us talk about eliminating violence against women and girls. The Liberals gave $200 million to Iraq for economic development, but $100 million over five years to eliminate violence against women and girls in Canada. For those who cannot do the math, that amounts to $20 million a year to eliminate violence against women and girls and $200 million on the spur of the moment for economic development in another country. Seriously, do not even take me there.

I only have a few minutes left, so I want to talk a little about the ministers for regional economic development. The idea was to have regional ministers who would focus on economic activity within those regions. In Atlantic Canada, for example, perhaps they would have heard the voice of Atlantic Canadians on energy east if the ACOA minister's job had not been eliminated and moved to Mississauga.

How about B.C. and Quebec? They are still waiting for a softwood lumber agreement and have no one to advocate on their behalf for the 400,000 jobs that are threatened in that industry, in addition to the ones that have already been lost. Two years on the file and absolutely nothing has happened, because there is a logjam with the one position that filled in for those other six positions.

Alberta's oil and gas industry has been totally decimated. There is no one to stand up and advocate on its behalf because, again, it is all coming out of Mississauga. We can also talk about Ontario's manufacturing performance and the number of jobs that have been lost and the dismal performance in that regard.

It was a huge mistake to eliminate the regional development ministers, but again, it was already done two years ago so this is just a cover-up.

If we talk about the three new ministers, I would have a couple of suggestions. First of all, it would be great to have a minister for seniors, because seniors are struggling. The government goes on and on about the amazing GIS increase of about $60 a month, when the cost of hydro in Ontario has gone up 170%. The GIS increase is nothing in comparison. There needs to be more of a focus on seniors, because one in six Canadians is now a senior, and that will rise to one in four in just a few years.

I would also like to see a minister dedicated to getting the independent watchdogs of the House hired, because we have been extending the terms of the current Ethics Commissioner and Lobbying Commissioner, and these people are clearly not coming to any decisions anytime soon. It would be nice to have a minister dedicated to making sure that the House has independent people to ensure that everything happens according to the rules.

Finally, I would say that we maybe need a minister of math because it looks like there is a big problem with math on that side of the House when the Liberals implement taxes that are supposed to increase taxes on the wealthy 1%, yet tax revenues from the latter actually decrease by more than $1 billion, and the new taxes do not even touch the Prime Minister.

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

Mr. Speaker, while I do want to thank the hon. colleague across the way for her speech, I am offended by the compare and contrast between ministers' roles, and member's point about who will die and who will not die. We are talking about the status of women, about women who struggle every single day to make ends meet, women who are in shelters, and women who are abused. Our Minister of Status of Women stands up for those women. She put together a plan to ensure that we have a gender-based violence strategy.

If the member says that another minister looks after people's lives, what does she say to her constituents who are part of that group of women who do not make it to the end of a week without struggling? What does she say to our constituents who fall into that group of women?