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.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

There are four motions in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for report stage of Bill C-24.

Motions Nos. 1 to 4 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table. I shall now propose Motions Nos. 1 to 4 to the House.

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

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 1.

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 2.

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 3.

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 6.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today to speak to my report stage amendments on Bill C-24. There are four main amendments that would adjust this bill in a major way.

In all ways, this is a very poor bill that would have a detrimental effect not only on what we are doing here in the House of Commons, but, just as importantly, on what is happening across the country in terms of regional economic development.

I want to begin by recapping what Bill C-24 would do. Essentially, Bill C-24 would paper over the ministerial changes the Liberals made when they took office two years ago. Two years later, they are here in Parliament asking us to bless what they did.

I will remind the House what those changes are. First, the Liberals are seeking to give ministers of state full ministerial status, and full ministerial salaries to boot. Second, the bill would permanently scrap the six regional development ministerial positions. They would also add a provision to let them swear in, in the future, an additional three full-rank ministers, yet to be named. We can only imagine what they may have planned for those three additional ministers.

There are only 10 minutes, so I am going to speak briefly about one of the issues I have spoken about before, and that is the elimination of the economic regional development ministers. It is something that has not gotten a lot of media profile. For those of us who are not from Ottawa or Toronto or Toronto areas, those of us from western Canada, the Atlantic provinces, Quebec, and northern Canada, this is a huge blow to what is happening in our areas. We had ministers in previous governments, previous Conservative and Liberal governments, who were directly responsible for their regional economic development portfolios. That meant that they would be able to speak at the cabinet table directly to issues in their regions, and they would be in charge of their regional economic development agencies. The Prime Minister made a decision that he wanted to change that.

Let me quote what the Prime Minister said this summer in Charlottetown. He told an interviewer that his decision to appoint one minister, from Toronto, to run all the economic development agencies, such as ACOA, was “a way of reducing the kind of politics we've seen from regional development agencies.”

What a cynical slur, not just against, at that moment, Atlantic Canadians but against all the regional development areas and regions of this country. To somehow suggest that ministers from Quebec, western Canada, northern Canada, and Atlantic Canada could not advocate for their regions and bring issues and good projects forward without it becoming political shows that the Prime Minister has zero confidence in the rest of his ministers and seems to think that only one minister, from Toronto, would be able to get the balance right between representing the regions, making solid decisions, and not being political.

There is so much more to be said on this, but I will have to wait until I give my speech at third reading to talk a little more about the regional economic development minister issue.

I want to go to another part of Bill C-24. When the government House leader introduced it, she hailed it as a bill that would equalize the status of ministers. Members will recall the great fanfare about a gender-equal cabinet when the Liberals took office, “because it is 2015”, we were told. Lo and behold, the fine print was released, and it turned out that the junior ministers of state roles were all assigned to women.

The Liberals told us not to worry. Even though they were giving all the women those smaller roles, it would be okay, because they were going to pay them just as much as the full ministers. In fact, the PMO communications director is quoted in the Toronto Star as saying, “What needs to change, from a statute perspective is their salaries, so they get the full ministerial salaries”. Wow, thanks a lot. The ladies should not worry. They would get junior roles, but the Liberals would pay them for the full role. However, they would not actually be able to bring full ministerial memos to cabinet, they would not have deputy ministers, and they would not have full portfolios. However, they should not worry their pretty little heads, because they would be paid the full amount. Boy oh boy, what an absolute insult.

Do not take my word for it. Margot Young, a law professor from the University of British Columbia, with a specialty in gender equality, appeared before the government operations committee. I will tell members a little of what she said. For starters, she said, “[T]his particular piece of legislation really doesn't, as far as I can see, have much to do with gender equality.” To those Liberals who showed up with platitudes, the professor said, “[D]on't describe something that is clearly not about gender equality as speaking to gender equality. That's disingenuous”. She said, about the “because it's 2015” quip, “[It] loses a key leadership moment to articulate and shape opinion about what it means to actually have women in positions of equality, in positions of leadership and power.”

That is where we have seen, from the very beginning, that this Prime Minister is very good at quips and saying the right thing, but in following through on his actions on many issues, but specifically on being a feminist and treating women equally, we have a seen a lot of talk but not always a lot of action and substance. The Liberals are definitely obsessed with optics. When something is presented or framed, it is of the utmost concern.

Professor Young graded their efforts on Bill C-24 by saying, “I think to frame it as a piece of legislation that speaks substantively to the issues of gender equality and cabinet composition is wrong, and it's dangerous.” It sounds like she gave this bill an F for gender equality. That was the main point she was talking about.

As I mentioned, there are many areas where we have seen this Prime Minister fail on gender equality. As I mentioned, in this specific one, ministers were given junior portfolios but not given full responsibility. We have seen this a number of other times when the Prime Minister has had an opportunity to really stand up and take direct action that will help women.

A couple of examples come to mind, such as helping Yazidi women and girls who are tormented, persecuted, and much worse. This Prime Minister had so many opportunities to allow them refuge and safety in Canada, and he has not done it.

This is a very difficult topic, but it has to be said. Most recently, he removed female genital mutilation from our citizenship guide. A very important message to send to the world is that Canada is not a place where FGM will be tolerated or allowed, and instead of making that statement, he shied away. He got scared and worried, so he withdrew it. We saw it previously when the Liberals had an opportunity to stand up for women on reserves who did not have property rights, a basic right.

The Liberals get scared when the big bullies say not to threaten them or their power. The Liberals get scared, and the Prime Minister gets scared to stand up for women.

I believe this bill is wrong in many ways, certainly on the economic development side.

We are two years in, and I have seen some really good women cabinet ministers who maybe were given these positions because it was, as he said, 2015. I think many are growing and have grown, but we also have seen some put in positions where they were destined to fail. It has been very disappointing to see.

All of us, not just the government and the Prime Minister, need to stand up for women who truly need help, women who are systemically discriminated against and hurt. Many times, it is in other countries. Just giving lip service in Canada by saying to a woman that she can have equal pay but not equal responsibility is disingenuous and hurts the authentic feminist movement, which is really about true equality for women.

This bill is damaging, and we are disappointed to see it continue.

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

Mr. Speaker, although the member is in the opposition, I commend her. She provides very strong leadership for her party in her role as opposition House leader. I am certain she did the same around the cabinet table for Stephen Harper as minister of state for social development. If she was providing that strong leadership around the cabinet table, did she not have an equal voice, and if she had an equal voice, why should she have been paid less than other cabinet ministers around the table?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to explain what the difference was between being a minister of state and a full minister. I did not have my own deputy minister. I had a full cabinet minister who, in a sense, was overseeing what we were doing as a team. That absolutely made sense to me. I had a voice at the cabinet table. We all had equal voices, but I did not have a full department or the ability to bring a memorandum to cabinet, unless it was given to me by the minister. Some might say that was an insult. It was not. I earned every single step I made. When one does that, one is able to stand with confidence and knowledge. That is not just with respect to women. There are men who are in junior positions who are also able to do their jobs in every sector and build their way up. However, we should not insult someone by saying, “We are going to pay you equally, even though you are not going to do the same amount of work, just because we think you cannot handle the reality of working your way up to that position.”

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. opposition House leader for explaining to the government the various tools at its disposal to build a cabinet. Part of the genesis of Bill C-24 was that the Prime Minister and the people around him did not understand all the different tools they had at their disposal to build a cabinet, how they work, and the fact that there are different positions. That is why when the bill was first tabled, we thought it might have something to do with gender equity. That was the context out of which the bill came, as the member rightly explained. The Prime Minister had screwed up, essentially, in terms of his commitment to gender parity at the cabinet table.

If it is not about that, then the struggle is to define the relevant sense of “equal”. In our study of the bill, we have not been able to find any relevant sense that this really makes ministers more equal in a way they are not already. I am wondering if the member's study of the bill has led her to find what that relevant sense of “equal” might be.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Manitoba makes a very good point that there is nothing in this bill that makes cabinet ministers equal. If we take the gender issue out of it, what is the point? We know what the point is. The Liberals wanted to make it look like they were doing something. They touted their gender-equal cabinet, when it actually was not, and they are now trying to sugar-coat it by giving equal salaries. They are adding to it the regional economic development part and wanting additional ministers.

This is a poorly thought-out bill from the early stages of this government, when the Liberals were first elected. They have made a mistake with this bill, and now they do not really know what to do with it. I think they should scrap it.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister first announced his cabinet in November 2015, something odd happened. Although I do not agree with the politics of people like the former minister of health and the justice minister, they arguably have very strong CVs and have definitely earned their place in cabinet. Rather than let those CVs speak for themselves, what did the Prime Minister do? Rather than let that gender-balanced cabinet speak for itself, he had to make it about himself with a big announcement, the day before, about gender equity. Similarly, his wife posted, on International Women's Day, a picture of her longingly looking at her husband, saying that on International Women's Day, we celebrate men.

I am wondering if my colleague can elaborate on how damaging it is when someone purports to be a feminist and instead makes it about himself.

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

Mr. Speaker, honestly, it is most damaging for many young women, women who are just beginning and are looking for mentors and leadership not only from other women but from men. It is very damaging to see the Prime Minister of Canada be so disingenuous. When he has opportunities to help women to make real substantive changes and act to help women, he does not. It always seems to be about the sound bite. It is most damaging for young women, frankly.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in support of Bill C-24, a bill that would formalize in statute the one-tier ministry that was sworn in on November 4, 2015, and ensure that this government and future governments have the flexibility to deliver on their commitments to Canadians.

To recap what has been explained previously about Bill C-24, the Salaries Act authorizes the payment out of the consolidated revenue fund of a ministerial salary to individuals who have been appointed to a ministerial position in the act. Currently, there are 35 ministerial positions listed in the Salaries Act, including the position of prime minister. The list of Salaries Act ministers changes from time to time to align with the priorities of the government of the day and the prime ministers' preference with respect to the composition of their ministry. This is not new. Legislation amending the list of Salaries Act ministers was enacted in 2005, 2012, and 2013.

Canada needs a modern, agile, and flexible government that is organized in a way that is suited to delivering on its priorities and commitments. These amendments would help us do that. The bill would do away with certain administrative distinctions by adding to the Salaries Act five key ministerial posts, which are currently in the ministry, but as minister of state appointments.

Conventionally, ministers of state have been considered junior ministers because they have most often been appointed to assist other ministers with their portfolio responsibilities. However, this is not the case in the current ministry, where ministers of state have been given, by mandate letter and legal instruments, their own responsibilities and authorities specific to subject matter areas that are important to the government and Canadians.

The five new ministerial positions to be added to the act are minister of la francophonie, minister of small business and tourism, minister of science, minister of status of women, and minister of sport and persons with disabilities. Our government believes these are important positions for Canadians and for our economy and therefore merit full ministerial status. Formalizing these five appointments as ministers in full standing reflects the importance of the subject matter and the expectations placed on those individuals who occupy those ministerial positions. Once these positions are added to the Salaries Act, with the enactment of Bill C-24, the orders in council that assign these ministers to assist other ministers will be repealed.

I would now like to take a moment to address the question of whether there would be incremental costs associated with adding the eight new positions to the Salaries Act. To be clear, there are no incremental costs associated with the current ministry. The ministers currently appointed as ministers of state receive the same salaries as their cabinet colleagues and have office budgets commensurate with their responsibilities. This would not change under this legislation.

The legislation does, however, increase the number of ministerial positions that could be paid under the Salaries Act by two, from 35 to 37, including the position of prime minister. It is important to note that the current ministry comprises the Prime Minister and 30 ministers. This is a stark contrast to the ministry under Stephen Harper, which at one point comprised 40 members, the largest in Canadian history. The bill is not fundamentally aimed at growing the ministry. Its goal is simply to formalize in legislation the composition of the current ministry and to modernize the act to enable more flexible and adaptive ministries in the future.

It has been asked why it is important that the minister of science and the minister of la francophonie do not have the legal title of minister of state for science or minister of state for la francophonie. Why not just continue with the current framework under the current act? To be clear, these ministers are not junior ministers. Our government wants to send a strong signal to Canadians that it has a one-tier cabinet, and that these new positions and their mandates are essential to delivering the commitments we made to Canadians. We want to remove distracting administrative distinctions.

However, Bill C-24 amendments are not just about addressing government priorities in the immediate term, but about ensuring that future ministries can be structured in a way that meets emerging priorities. That is why Bill C-24 also updates the Salaries Act to enable a modern, adaptive ministry. These are achieved by adding three untitled ministerial positions to provide the government with the capacity to deliver on future priorities.

These three positions can be filled and titled at the prime minister's discretion. They offer a degree of flexibility to the prime minister to design cabinet in response to emerging challenges and priorities without having to resort to minister of state appointments.

Furthermore, the alignment of all regional development agencies under one portfolio, especially under the minister responsible for national economic development, is another example. We would now have regional national expertise working together under one roof. By adopting this change, we allow for better synergy and provide the flexibility needed to make real impact in communities across Canada.

The regional development agencies continue their hard and valued work in each region. For example, they support small and medium-sized enterprises and help them become more innovative, productive, and export-oriented. The synergy among them will help grow the economy and allow RDAs to deliver the results that Canadians in all regions of the country expect.

I would like to emphasize that removing regional development positions from the Salaries Act does not affect the regional development agencies or eliminate the need for ministerial oversight of them. On the contrary, ministers will continue to be appointed to these positions. In this ministry, the minister of innovation, science and economic development would continue to be responsible for all regional development agencies.

Finally, the legislation also changes the legal title of the minister of infrastructure, communities and intergovernmental affairs to the minister of infrastructure and communities to reflect the fact that the Prime Minister has taken on the role of intergovernmental affairs minister.

In conclusion, these changes formalize in statute the current composition of the ministry and build a degree of flexibility in the future. These amendments address administrative constraints in the current legislation and catch it up with the structure of the ministry as it operates today.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to comment on the timing of the proposed legislation. It seems like so many other instances where the government has responded to the concerns of Canadians. For example, the Minister of Finance is now deciding to put his assets in a blind trust. The Liberals have now decided to roll back some of the tax changes that they were fully planning to implement, which would have hurt middle-class Canadians. Also, the implementation of the small business tax reduction was in response to concerns of Canadians and of the opposition in the House.

I note that the member indicated that this is a good intention the government had. However, this was a decision made after it was realized that a number of these positions that were actually being held by women were not truly at the full cabinet level, and now the government has come up with this decision.

What I would like to know from the member is this. When did the Liberals suddenly come to the realization that they needed these positions to move into a position of full cabinet?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for talking about the small business tax credit, which is a promise we delivered on. However, I will address the main part of her question, which is on the timing.

The ministry was appointed a month and a half before Parliament even sat. The Prime Minister's intention was always to have equal voices at the cabinet table, and this legislation reflects the Prime Minister's intention and his commitment to Canadians to have an equal cabinet and an equal ministry.

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

Mr. Speaker, in his remarks, the member for St. Catharines said that one of the effects of Bill C-24 would be to do away with administrative distinctions between ministers. Of course, Bill C-24 would actually establish a new kind of minister. Instead of having ministers simpliciter, we would also have ministers for whom a department is designated. If the difference between a minister and a minister for whom a department is designated is not administrative, what is the difference?

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

Mr. Speaker, I will repeat my answer to the previous question.

This is about our commitment to Canadians, and what the Prime Minister stood for was a cabinet that was equal and balanced and wherein all voices at the cabinet table were equal in being brought forth. The ministry, and the legislation that reflects the ministry, should reflect the commitments and the priorities of Canadians, and should allow for more flexibility for this Prime Minister and future prime ministers, as priorities change and issues come up. This will allow greater flexibility and agility in future ministries as well.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I never miss an opportunity to hear a speech in the House by the member for St. Catharines. He does such an eloquent job of delivering them.

Following on the prior comments made by the Conservative member who talked about the government responding to Canadians, is that not the whole point of a government, to respond to Canadians, to consult with Canadians, to fully understand the impacts their comments might have, and then to make sure its legislation fits in line with that?

Could the member for St. Catharines comment on the importance of consulting with Canadians as we develop this legislation or any legislation for that matter?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have noticed in my two years here that, depending on the issue, we get criticized by the opposition for consulting Canadians on one hand, and then on the other hand when there is significant consultation, we get criticized for not consulting enough. That is interesting considering we followed a government that did not really consult at all.

This issue is of fundamental importance to this government. The Prime Minister made a commitment to Canadians that the ministry will be equal, that the voices around the table will have an equal voice, and that it will be more flexible.

I hear some laughter from Conservative members, and I appreciate that they may not see portfolios such as minister responsible for the status of women or minister of sport and persons with disabilities as being important, but they are for this government, and this legislation reflects that.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member spoke of equal voices in cabinet.

However, an MP who is not a minister may, at the Prime Minister's invitation, attend cabinet to discuss specific issues, and his or her voice will be equal to that of any other elected official around the table, minister or not.

The member said that, unlike in Mr. Harper's government, today's ministers of state have been given by mandate letter their own specific legal responsibilities.

I would like to ask him if that difference has any real impact on the ground. Will there be a cabinet? Will there be a deputy minister? Will there be documents that the government can bring to cabinet? Will there be a department with an actual physical building? Will there be public servants to oversee? If none of those things are in place, then this bill will not really change anything.

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

Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is that the ministers around the cabinet table provide equal voices. There are issues of significant importance to this government. The work that the current Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour did when she was the minister responsible for the status of women to raise the issue of gender-based violence was incredible. The work of the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie has been incredible on the world stage. The work of the Minister of Science to bring back the importance of science after 10 years of darkness is incredible. These are important issues. These are important ministers. These are important voices at the table.

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

Mr. Speaker, I suppose that the government deserves to be congratulated for having achieved something truly unique with Bill C-24. Typically when a government presents legislation, a member of the opposition party will either find something to vehemently oppose or support. There is something at stake in the legislation and opposition parties can expect that after the legislation passes, it will be a difference in Canadian law that matters.

Usually, government legislation makes a difference. However, the government has found a way to produce a bill that, even if it passes, virtually everything will stay the same. Never has this government, and perhaps any government, unless some past government has achieved something similar, managed to creatively waste the time of Parliament in the way this government has done with this bill. I suppose that is an achievement of sorts, yet not the kind that Canadians expect. Nonetheless, it is a form of achievement, and I would like to recognize it for what it is, so congratulations are due. They might not want to put that in their householders, though.

The reason this bill is ultimately a colossal waste of time, after reflection and study on our part anyway, is that it does not manage to achieve any of the objectives the government has set out for the bill. What are some of those objectives?

I will not harp too much on this point because we have heard it already in some of the speeches in the House. We thought this bill might have to do with the Prime Minister's commitment to gender parity in cabinet, but we have Liberals on record at committee categorically denying this bill has anything to do with gender parity. It is not about that, they said. Okay, fine. I am not quite sure what it is about.

However, the press release issued when the bill was presented talked about making all ministers equal and establishing a one-tier ministry. What does that mean? A one-tier ministry in which all ministers are equal, I guess, means that they are all called “minister”. Of course, that is happening already. We have ministers who are technically ministers of state under the act, but who have been installed as ministers, and so we do not need this legislation to be able to call them “ministers”.

One might say they will be paid the same, but, again, those ministers who are technically ministers of state are already paid the same. Whether they should be is an open question. They do have different administrative responsibilities. It is not abnormal to pay people based on the level of their administrative responsibility within an organization. The legislation is not needed to do that, and it is not clear that it should be done in the first place.

What other sense of equality can there be? We have heard from the Liberals that this is about taking ministers seriously at the cabinet table. That causes one to wonder at the superficiality of the Prime Minister who has to introduce legislation to call his ministers of state “ministers”, just to help him take them seriously at the cabinet table. That is really weird.

Parliamentarians are always happy to help the Prime Minister do his job better. However, this seems like an excessive burden on Parliament just to have the Prime Minister take the very people he named to cabinet seriously at the cabinet table. That is not a great reason for us to be here today discussing this bill.

Administrative responsibility, I suppose, is another sense of equality that remains. This act does not change the fact that, in a myriad of ways, different ministers have different levels of administrative responsibility. Essentially, ministers of state will migrate over to a new category that has been created, one that is called ministers for “whom a department is designated”. A characteristic feature of a minister for whom a department is designated is that the resources they use for their job are carved out of the department of another minister. They do not have their own department. Rather, that is decided by another minister. That that more or less sounds a lot like what goes on already with ministers of state.

For instance, there are departments with ministers that answer to other ministers, such as the Department of Foreign Affairs where the Minister of Foreign Affairs is the top minister. It is very clear in the legislation that the Minister of International Trade and the Minister of International Development answer to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. They are unable to do whatever it is they would like to do in their capacity of minister without the concurrence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

This legislation does not speak to that at all, and they would continue to have a two-tier ministry in terms of administrative responsibility and having ministers answering to other ministers. This would not create an equal cabinet in that sense. That is okay. That is not an issue of principle. No one except the Liberals has come up with the idea that it is somehow wrong in principle to have an organizational structure in which some ministers answer to other ministers, because it makes sense in the context of a department. By the time they run that whole circuit, they have pretty much exhausted the senses of equality that they could address within legislation, and even some they cannot. This bill would do nothing.

What it would do is cause some collateral damage, which in itself is interesting given the arguments of the government, because it would prevent future governments from establishing separate regional economic development ministries. We believe there is value in doing that; the Liberals do not. That is fine, because there are different ways of doing things. On balance, we think that the Liberals have chosen an inferior way, but that is their right as a government. Canadians can judge them accordingly. Why they would want to tie the hands of future governments and deny them the ability to adopt a model with separate regional economic development ministries I do not know. That would be one negative consequence of this bill and one that we do not support.

However, that is passing strange because when I asked the government House leader at committee why the Liberals were getting rid of governments' ability to have separate regional economic development ministries, she said that a goal of the legislation was to update the legal framework to reflect the current practices of government. It is the current practice of government that it got rid of all the separate regional economic development ministries. When I put to her the question of why, if that is the goal of the legislation, the Liberals did not eliminate as an option the position of ministers of state, the government House leader had no answer.

If the goal of the legislation is to reflect the current practices of government, and if the current government has principled objection to the use of ministers of state because that establishes a two-tier ministry, their failure to eliminate that position does not make sense for all the reasons I have just enunciated, particularly the two-tier aspects of the ministry that would persist past Bill C-24. Nevertheless, that is an argument of the government. By the logic of that argument, the Liberals ought to be deleting the provisions for ministers of state, because that is what it would take to have the legislation reflect the current practices of the government. However, they are not doing so. I find that strange. Never mind that the legislation establishes a whole other legal mechanism for what is a minister of state, essentially by another name.

Consequently, the Liberals are not succeeding in establishing a one-tier ministry in all sorts of ways. They are not succeeding in updating the legislation to reflect the current practices of government, despite that being the stated objective of the bill. To the extent there are some other senses of equality in terms of pay and title, the Liberals have not demonstrated that the changes contemplated in the bill are necessary. If we take the time to consider this bill seriously, which is something I recommend to the government—I do not think it has tried that yet—it is impossible to come to any other conclusion than that it is a poor bill that would not meet its stated objectives.

Its real objectives are not legal objectives, but political objectives responding to the mistake of the Prime Minister, who initially failed to understand how to compose a cabinet with gender parity. That is the real thing about this bill, but we are not talking about that in this place. From a legal perspective, this bill is a complete waste of time. There are just no two ways about it.

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

Mr. Speaker, the thing about the New Democrats, and also the Conservatives but more so the New Democrats, is that their position is really somewhat disappointing. To subject things to a reality check, shortly after the last federal election, the Prime Minister said that in Canada we want to have a one-tier cabinet. That meant that when members sat around the cabinet table, their voice would be equal. We did not want to have a 40-member cabinet, like Stephen Harper's. We wanted to have a 30-member cabinet.

The good news was that for the first time in the history of Canada we have gender parity. We have just as many females as males within cabinet. That is good news. The first thing that New Democrats do is to look at ways they can be critical of a gender-neutral cabinet. Shame on them. We recognize it for what it is, and this is a very positive, progressive move forward. This is a good thing.

Do my colleagues across the way not believe in gender equality? Have they abandoned that principle because they see a Prime Minister who has acted on it? What have they got against equality among those sitting at the cabinet table? It is a good news story. Why are they opposing it?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that deserves a response, but the member for Winnipeg North is no stranger to wasting time in the House. It is understandable why he is so passionate about the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, which was very interesting.

I would like to ask him the following question.

Does he think that the Liberal government's weakness is to blame for the fact that they now feel obliged to bolster cabinet with more ministers?

They say they want everyone to have an equal voice. When we ask questions here in the House, maybe they should just be allowed to answer them. Then they would have a voice.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her question.

I find it a little strange that the member for Winnipeg North wants to talk about the issue of equal voices at the cabinet table. Some of our Liberal colleagues said in committee that this bill has nothing to do with equal voices at the cabinet table. Let us just say that I found his remarks a little odd. I would remind him that if the Prime Minister were really serious about wanting equal voices at the cabinet table, all he had to do was appoint an equal number of women and men to cabinet as both ministers and ministers of state. The problem is that he decided to appoint only women as ministers of state.

We have reached a point where the government needs to waste our time in Parliament in an attempt to cover up the Prime Minister's mistakes. It is sad to see the government displaying this kind of attitude towards Parliament. The Prime Minister could have corrected his mistake by adjusting his cabinet appointments. We could have spent more time on other bills that, even the Liberals agree, are greater priorities. They have said themselves that they never have enough time in the House to debate their bills.

Now, we are here debating something that is unnecessary and that does not meet its own objectives. Why? I do not know.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite pleased to speak to Bill C-24, which, we believe, is not a good bill because it goes directly after two specific things: it gets rid of regional ministers, who, in our view, are very important; and it creates a type of subclass of ministers, who are no longer paid less than ministers, but who are less effective and have fewer work tools. I will come back to that.

First, I will address the issue of regional ministers. On this side of the House, we believe that it is always important to consider Canada as one large entity. Naturally, we are all Canadians. However, as magnificent as it is, our country is made up of vast regions, and each one is unique. All these regions have their own distinctive characteristics. That is why, on this side of the House, we believe that each one of these regions needs to have and retain strong ministers who are responsible for the economic development of Canada's six major regions.

This is nothing new. We are just continuing with what the Right Hon. William Lyon Mackenzie King established in 1921 when he decided that the minister responsible for Quebec would be the Hon. Ernest Lapointe.

The current Liberal government is undoing something meaningful that one of its predecessors put in place. We have to give credit where credit is due. This is just another example of the Prime Minister's bad attitude toward certain situations.

Let us not forget that this summer we called him on this and told him it was a bad idea to do away with regional ministers who are responsible for economic development. He said this was a way of curbing the type of politics that have always plagued the regional development agencies.

What does he mean by this type of politics? Could the Prime Minister have been more specific about the type of politics? Does that mean that his predecessors, like the Right Hon. Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the Right Hon. Jean Chrétien, or the Right Hon. Paul Martin, were doing things wrong with this “type of politics”, to use the current Prime Minister's words? Does that mean that those Liberal governments were engaging in petty favouritism? With all due respect to his position, who is he to say that?

This high-handed, pretentious, arrogant attitude is what makes people in the regions lose confidence and feel insulted. With all due respect to the Minister of Economic Development, he is a guy from Toronto. That is not a flaw. If he were from Quebec City, I would say the same ting. If he were from Victoria, I would say the same thing. If he were from Flin Flon, I would say the same thing. It is only natural that someone's outlook would be more focused on the region they come from. That is less about politics and more about having to represent the people who elected us. However, someone with a national mandate has to think on a national scale.

I will give an example. Whoever comes up with the economic development plan is naturally going to favour his or her own people. It is not a flaw or a virtue. It is just a fact. Here is my example. A year and a half ago, Bombardier begged for a public handout. It asked for $1.3 billion of Canadian taxpayers' money from the federal government and $1.3 billion of Quebec taxpayers' money from the provincial government. The provincial government made a decision, as was its duty to do. The federal government, on the other hand, waited. Rather than giving in and giving Bombardier $1.3 billion, what did the minister from Toronto who is responsible for economic development do? He gave Bombardier a $135-million loan for the C series and, lo and behold, he also gave the company a $250-million loan for another one of its aircraft, the Global 7000. The surprising thing is that Bombardier's initial request made no mention of the Global 7000.

What is the difference? The difference is that the C Series is manufactured in Montreal while the Global 7000 happens to be manufactured in the Toronto area. The minister allocated twice as much money to Toronto as he did to Montreal, even though the company did not ask for anything for Toronto and wanted the money for Montreal. That is the reality. When there are no regional ministers who will stand up for the interests of Quebec just as they will for the interests of Ontario, western Canada, and the Maritimes—which is only natural—everything inevitably will revolve around the office of the minister responsible.

The scales will always tip one way. It is only natural that the minister focus on his own affairs before thinking of others. That is why we need strong ministers. Unfortunately, by eliminating the position of minister responsible for regional development, the government is weakening Canada.

One of the ministers I highly respect and personally like is the member for Québec, the Minister of Families. Yesterday, he and the Minister of Transport said that they should not meddle with Quebec's Bill 62, which is a brave and responsible position to take. As an aside, I would like to commend the member for Québec, the Minister of Families, and the Minister of Transport, both experienced government ministers, who said that this concerned Quebec and not Ottawa. That is what we Conservatives have been saying all along. However, I have to say that this is an important distinction in light of what thePrime Minister said yesterday about how this law makes no sense and so forth. However, oddly enough, a week earlier, before the by-election in Lac-Saint-Jean, he was saying that the provinces' jurisdictions had to be respected. I will now get back to the matter at hand.

The member for Québec and Minister of Families said in an interview that the Prime Minister had told him to just focus on families and not worry about Quebec, because he is not the minister for the Quebec region. This is outrageous. He may not be minister for the Quebec region, but he is their MP. Who will stand up for the Quebec region and the province of Quebec at the cabinet table, if the member for Québec is on the record as saying that the Prime Minister told him that is not his job and to just focus on families?

What is wrong with this government? This is an outrage. It is an insult to the memory of William Lyon Mackenzie King and Ernest Lapointe, who was the first-ever minister responsible for Quebec. In an interview, Régis Labeaume, the outgoing mayor of Quebec City, called this comment disgraceful. He said that back in the day, whenever there was a problem, he would call Denis, and they would fix it. I am referring to the Hon. Denis Lebel, who until recently was the member for Lac-Saint-Jean. What used to happen in such situations? It is normal for someone to have a contact in the federal cabinet. We did not always agree, but at least when people called us, we gave them an answer right away.

While I greatly respect the Minister of Economic Development, who is from Toronto, it is hard to be familiar with all the particularities of each region. You would need to know Quebec like the back of your hand to grasp all the differences between Trois-Rivières and Sherbrooke. If I were asked to describe the difference between Milton and Barrie, I would have no idea, since I am not from that area. It takes someone from the region to explain things and make the right choices. That is why it is important to have regional development ministers. Unfortunately, the government's arrogant approach, which sees everyone the same, is misguided.

On top of that, the Liberals want to give junior ministers the same salary as senior ministers, without giving them the responsibilities that go along with the position. Coincidentally, this directly affects women. It is unfortunate because this approach, which is being presented as an improvement, is really all about image. The fact is, this changes absolutely nothing.

As Conservatives, we are very proud of our record regarding women's participation in public administration. Members may recall that, back in the 1950s, it was our party that got the first woman, a Hamiltonian by the name of Ellen Fairclough, elected to the House of Commons. She was also the first female minister in Canadian government under the Right Hon. John George Diefenbaker, and she took on important portfolios, such as citizenship and immigration. She died at the age of 99, and we are very proud of her.

Another Conservative government, this time under the Right Hon. Joe Clark, was the first to appoint a female minister of external affairs, the Hon. Flora MacDonald. She had to deal with one of the most serious international relations crises in Canadian history: the Iran hostage crisis. When the U.S. was prevented from getting its people out, it was under the Hon. Flora MacDonald, Conservative minister of external affairs, that Canada harboured American diplomats in the Canadian embassy and helped evacuate them from a country in the grip of war, a country grappling with a severe social crisis.

We were the first party to have a female Prime Minister, the first party to have a female leader of the opposition, the Hon. Rona Ambrose, and I believe we are the first party to have a woman serve as House Leader of the Official Opposition, a very effective one at that.

My time is up. I will gladly take my colleague's questions.

I also believe we are the first party to have a woman serve as House Leader of the Official Opposition, a very effective one at that.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member keeps referring to the minister from Toronto. I believe he is referring to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. I think his constituents would disagree with that title, because it is a completely different city. I am not sure why he is referring Toronto in the pejorative. Perhaps that is why the Conservatives did not win any seats in that city, but that is beside the point.

We have regional development agencies. I am sure the hon. member knows that the Canadian economy works in concert. Therefore, why should there not be one minister working with developing parts of the country, one voice, one strategy to work together with perspectives from caucus and from the agencies that will remain? Why is this not a better strategy?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is quite important to have a local voice to speak about local investment.

Speaking, about the local development of economy, this is exactly what the minister should do. At the end of the day, we will have a minister who will decide, from coast to coast, but first we must have someone from the area who can define, exactly, the priorities and what is good for his or her province, area and people. Then recommendations will be made and, at the end of the day, cabinet will decide.

We should have regional representation strong enough to defend each and every region of our grand country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. It is always a pleasure to listen to him even though we do not share the same point of view, which is not necessarily the case this morning.

To the general public, the title “Minister of State” is not very meaningful and is hard to grasp. I know that analogies can be clumsy, but I have one that might work. I would like to know what my colleague thinks of it.

I will use my teaching background to explain how I see Bill C-24. At a school you have principals, class monitors, teachers, and lab porters, but they will all get the same salary because they all work in education.

Is the Liberal model as absurd as that sounds?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely. I appreciate my colleague's question. We agree on two things: the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Other than that, we disagree on just about everything else. I am kidding, of course.

It is rather embarrassing that the Liberals only wanted to make the pay the same. Their arguments do not hold up. The fact is that ministers of state will not have the same authority or the same staff. Ministers of state cannot directly make effective executive decisions.

As the member for Beauport—Limoilou said so well, this is just smoke and mirrors. They are trying to salvage the situation by having it seem like every minister is on an equal footing. We know very well that, in reality, when a minister does not have a deputy minister, officials, or a department working under and reporting to him or her, and carrying out decisions, that minister is not a full minister, except for the fact that they might receive the same pay.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my esteemed colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent for his great conversation and his participation in this.

As my colleague knows, I come from a rural riding in the southeast corner of Saskatchewan. Unfortunately, some in the Liberal government believe rural Canada belongs to communities of 100,000 people. Places like Kitchener-Waterloo are now no longer rural areas but are urban.

I would like to hear a little more from my colleague about the ministers who represent regions. Could the member comment on how that represents rural parts of Canada?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is a great country. We should recognize each and every region, each and every area.

It is not true that Canada should only focus on cities, as it is not true that we should only focus on regions. We have to work together. We have to listen to people. We have to make decisions based on the best interests of everyone. We have to think about the people who live in rural areas, in cities, in neighbourhoods, wherever. We want to take this seriously.

Unfortunately, when we put aside regional cabinet ministers responsible for each and every region of Canada and decide to have a one-size-fits-all, what happens is big cities will be put ahead of rural Canada. That is not good for Canada, it is not good for Canadian unity, and, first and foremost, it is not good for Canadians.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on Bill C-24, which amends the Salaries Act.

I have had the great privilege of representing my riding in the House of Commons since January 23, 2006, and the royal treatment that the Prime Minister and his ministers have been indulging in since they took office in 2015 is completely unheard of. It is insulting to the Canadians that we are.

Since this Liberal government took office, no one has been spared. The regions, families, companies and every sector of the economy are hurting. It is important to point that out. Everyone is hurting except, of course, the Liberal's little clique. Canadians never expected that they would be misled like this after the election.

I would first like to tell the people of Lévis—Lotbinière that only the Conservatives will continue to fight to put an end to the Liberals' improprieties and to show Canadians that the old Liberal culture shell games that have always benefited the Liberals are still going strong. We will fight back against the practices of Liberal ministers, such as the Minister of Finance, who is currently showing a clear lack of ethics . He is gouging Canadians to build his family empire on the sly in a nice safe tax haven in Barbados.

There is a great deal more that could be said about the Minister of Finance, but I will simply offer him a piece of advice. He may not like having his personal spending discussed in the House, but Canadians expect those who hold high office in the Canadian government to adhere to the principles of transparency, accountability, and trust, in accordance with the spirit of the Conflict of Interest Act.

All of us here in the House, including all the ministers in this government, are required to comply with this act. There is a Canadian legal principle that stipulates that a person cannot plead ignorance of the law to avoid compliance.

This Liberal government is unique in Canadian history for its boundless hypocrisy. Worst of all, its word means nothing. It is truly appalling. Bill C-24 creates eight new Liberal ministerial positions, including five for ministers of state who were appointed after the 2015 election and three as yet unspecified.

Members may recall that this time last year, we found out that preferential treatment was being given to supporters willing to make a contribution to the party in exchange for access to ministers, who were all too willing to prioritize the interests of a minority over the common good.

Bill C-24 will eliminate the positions of regional development agency ministers and transfer their many responsibilities to a single minister, one with special privileges, naturally. We are very concerned about Canada's regions. Indeed, how can a single minister be expected to replace 5 other ministers and fully grasp the situation in every region of a province, for instance Quebec?

I have had the privilege of visiting Quebec's regions and I can say that, like everywhere else in Canada, our situation is unique. This summer, the Prime Minister said that appointing a minister from Toronto to oversee all the regional development agencies would do away with the sort of politics that we always had. What a joke.

We have known for a long time that Toronto is the one pulling the country' strings, not the Prime Minister's Office, which explains the finance minister's huge influence. He is one of the government's untouchables, though we cannot understand why.

Worse still, when the Prime Minister said he was putting a minister from Toronto in charge of ACOA because of the kind of politics in Atlantic Canada, that was a defamatory insult to Atlantic Canadians. Since the government did the same with the Quebec regional development agency, can we infer that the Prime Minister's attitude toward Quebeckers is just as cynical?

The Liberal-dominated committee responsible for studying Bill C-24 did not hear from a single witness about the plan to cut regional development minister positions. That kind of political manoeuvring from a government that claims to make its decisions based on evidence is not acceptable. Unlike the Liberals, the Conservatives will fight for appropriate regional representation and authority without insulting Canada's regions.

The most basic right in a democratic country is the right to be heard. This kind of thing is unprecedented. Bill C-58, which limits access to information in Canada, is yet another example of the Liberal Party's conceit and lack of transparency. Canadians are ashamed of this government.

The Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates only heard from a government house leader and a teacher during the course of its study. That is an insult to the intelligence of Canadians and our most fundamental right of expression as full participants in the decision-making or policy development process.

Since when is a decision like this made in Canada? The arrogance it must take to have the audacity to make such an important decision without consulting the grassroots, those who understand the situation in every region.

As if that was not enough, Bill C-24 also amends the Salaries Act to grant equal salary to all ministers, giving junior ministers the same salary as ministers with more important portfolios without having new responsibilities. This is a bit surprising. Given the government's poor record, we wonder if anyone over there is actually working in the right direction here, in other words, working to ensure our economic prosperity in Canada.

On this side of the House, we believe that taxpayers’ money belongs to the taxpayers, not the Liberal Party. I prefer making my own investments rather than the Liberals making them for me. The announcement by the government of a new minister does not mean additional rewards for friends, and these budget allocations will not benefit all Canadians. Our official critics on this side of the House are more productive, and at no additional cost to Canadians.

Moreover, the Minister of National Revenue does not even know what is happening in her own department, as she has said so well in the national media and as I heard her say again last night. Clearly, the net is tightening on the Minister of Finance.

What we have here is a careless government. They have given up on defending democracy, accountability, their commitments, protecting everyone regardless of status, their responsibilities and the common good, all to benefit a minority. Most reprehensibly, they have given up on future generations, whom they leave in a financial abyss. By delighting in showering today's taxpayers with money, the government is misleading voters, because governments never really give money away, as they can only do so by mortgaging our children’s future.

Currently, the Liberal debt represents $2,500 more per year for a family with two adults and two children. This means that, for the next 30 years, because the government has told us that we will undoubtedly have a deficit for the next 30 years, an extra debt of $100,000 per Canadian family will be left to future generations by this government opposite. That is shameful. Only the Conservatives can ensure a financial balance that will eliminate the deficit by not living on credit at the expense of our future generations.

We can never say it enough: the Liberals, who believe they are above the law and have to be caught out before admitting their mistakes, have no claim to the label they gave themselves; they are anything but a responsible, open, and transparent government. The mistakes that led them to explain themselves before the Ethics Commissioner are multiplying, but there is worse: now they want to play a guessing game with Canadians. With Bill C-24, the Liberals are also asking Parliament to approve the appointment of three mystery future ministers. What nonsense.

I often rise to seek answers from the government. Like many, I remain in the dark, surrounded by the Liberal fog, a thick fog that will very soon mix, I’m afraid, with marijuana smoke. I will close by saying that too many Liberal decisions remain unjustifiable, irresponsible, unethical, and illogical. It costs too much to elect a Liberal government with a parade of preferential ministers, when it is us, the official opposition, who do all the work in Canada.

[Leona Alleslev, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is a very important conversation and one that we need to have. It was fantastic to hear from the member the Conservative perspective on the value of the jobs that ministers did. I would like to understand how he characterizes that certain ministers do less, have less contributions to make, and have less responsibility than other ministers. I would like to understand the factual basis he uses to evaluate that.

We in this government believe that a minister is a minister is a minister, that all ministers have very important roles to play, and, therefore, should be paid commensurately and equally for equal work. Could the member give us some idea of why he feels that not all ministers are created equal?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

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

However, the member may not have realized it, but in her government not all ministers do the same work. Indeed, they do not all have the same opportunity to do the same work, particularly with the withdrawal of the ministers of state, who could be regional ministers, with the Canada Economic Development Agency for all regions of Quebec, and for the regions of the Atlantic, Ontario and western Canada. Those ministers were truly closer to the reality of people and businesses to lead economic development. Economic development is carried out region by region according to the priorities of each region.

Currently, in the Liberal government, there are no more ministers who report to the minister responsible for all agencies in Canada regarding regional priorities, where a vision is needed for a future Canada, and where we should be investing to improve the Canadian economy. Those ministers do not exist anymore, so Canadians can no longer count on their government to listen to them.

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

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

I am a staunch defender of pay equity between men and women, but it seems to me that equity is equal pay for equal work. However, if I understand Bill C-24 correctly, there is no equal work, so there is no injustice in having a pay scale.

Our salaries as members are publicly known—we cannot complain that we are poorly paid—and many social groups are pushing, for example, for a minimum salary of $15 per hour, which is not a fortune, we must admit. Why is it not the work, but titles, that we are evaluating in Bill C-24?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to answer my colleague and I may go even further.

In effect, there are critics on this side of the House, both among the Conservatives and the NDP, who work much harder than some ministers on the other side. If we had no critics on this side of the House, we could not uncover the injustices committed within this government. That work is done free of charge. We have our base salaries and we do not ask for any more. We do not have an office paid for by Canadian taxpayers to stand up for Canadians. We do it voluntarily for the well-being of Canadians. If we break it down, compared to the other side, we on this side of the House do not cost much, but we get the job done.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat surprised by the comments. Every member in the House of Commons does his or her very best for his or her constituents, at least I like to believe so. At the end of the day, all members work hard. There is a designation that is made for ministers because of the additional responsibilities given to them with respect to government policy and so forth. That has been fairly well recognized.

Is the member across the way suggesting that opposition members with critic portfolios should also be receiving an additional honorarium? Is that Conservative policy?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, but that is not what I meant.

I simply meant that there are ministers on the other side of the House we never see. We do not know what they do. They make no really significant contribution to the well-being of Canadians. We only see four or five ministers doing anything on the other side. All the others are shadows. On this side of the House, we have shadow cabinets, but on the other side, they truly have shadow ministers.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise.

I would like to take a few moments to tell the people of Beauport—Limoilou who are listening right now that I am truly very disappointed with what the Finance Minister did last week and this week. Canadians have become aware that he misled them for two years and that he did not put his $20 million in Morneau Shepell shares in a blind trust. I seriously expected him to rise last week for his final response in question period to say that he regretted it, and that not only did he no longer have his shares, but he was donating to charity the $65,000 in additional monthly profits that he pocketed for the last two years. That would have been the least he could do. He is an extremely wealthy man. He should have done that, and I do not think that it would have jeopardized his retirement.

With respect to Bill C-24, I will be addressing primarily the aspect of the ministers and the administrative change that means absolutely nothing, as well as the supplementary estimates. I will also very quickly address the issue of regional development. The Liberals are abolishing regional development minister positions. These positions are key, because today 60% of Canadians live in large cities. The same is true almost everywhere in the world. These positions are also important because the voice of rural Canadians is being less and less heard in the House. There will no longer be ministers representing regional development agencies in the Atlantic provinces, Quebec or western Canada. These agencies will no longer exist, or at least they will not have any ministers. These ministers sat at the cabinet table to ensure that every region of Canada had a voice.

The first thing the Liberals did was to make sure that there would no longer be any ministers representing the regions and to entrust all decisions to a single individual, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development in Toronto. This has already had a serious impact. Last fall, $150,000 in funds earmarked for economic development in northern Ontario was allocated to a company based in the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development’s riding of Mississauga. This is precisely the new type of politics the Liberals have been playing.

This spring, an Atlantic liberal caucus subcommittee indicated that they had been told that processing times at ACOA were three times longer since the appointment of a minister from Toronto. It is not surprising, since he himself, as a minister from Toronto, is completely overwhelmed by the affairs of Canada’s great city of Toronto and completely overwhelmed by the affairs of his own department. That is why we need independent ministers who can focus on the region they represent. We are saddened to see the government go ahead and abolish these key minister positions in Canada.

I spoke about Bill C-24 here in the House about six months ago. It was late spring. At that time not so long ago, I was still a permanent member of the powerful Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. It was quite the learning experience for me. I had to read a huge number of documents and learn about many financial, economic, and structural issues. The committee deals with government operations and estimates.

Every four or five months, the committee reviews and analyzes the supplementary estimates, in other words, the credits the government wants to have approved by the committees so that it can close its fiscal year on a sound note. I observed one thing. I do not remember exactly whether it was credit A, credit B or credit C, or which department it was. I think it was the Treasury Board. After it was elected, the government immediately wanted to raise the salaries of the ministers of State, as is proposed in the bill. Normally, to do so, the government must introduce a bill like the one we are debating today concerning ministers’ salaries and allowances.

That is not what they have been doing for the past two years. In fact, the Liberals used the supplementary estimates, by including the votes in the supplementary estimates and getting them approved through the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates for two consecutive years. We Conservatives were a minority. We voted against that funding, but that did not change anything.

If this bill were so important, if it were true, as they claim, that this bill is intended to foster ministerial pay and gender equality, then why did they use the back door to increase salaries? Why did the Liberals not introduce Bill C-24 when they first came to power in 2015? If gender equality were that important to them, they would have introduced this bill as a priority at the outset.

Something about this really surprises me. An hon. member for whom I have enormous respect and who served in the military said that a minister is a minister is a minister. First, that is an extreme extrapolation. One can say that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, but at the same time, a minister is still a Canadian like any other. The part that concerns me is that ministers of state are not on the same footing as ministers. The question is simple: do they have deputy ministers? No, and this bill will do nothing to change that fact, either.

Ministers of state will not have deputy ministers or cabinets, which have a staff of about 40 to assist their minister perform difficult tasks. They will not have the right to submit memorandums to cabinet explaining government issues. Most importantly, they will not have any officials serving under them. For example, the Minister of National Defence has 80,000 public servants under him. Not only is there the civilian administrative wing comprising some 20,000 employees, but there is also the military wing, because military troops are public servants. All told, we are talking 100,000 people.

Ministers of state will not have 100,000 people to manage and give orders to. Neither will they oversee an actual institution, or have headquarters from which to work. For example, Public Services and Procurement Canada is across the beautiful Ottawa River, and there is a huge building there with Public Services and Procurement Canada written on it. About 10,000 people work there.

Ministers of state have none of the prerequisites that would make them equal to ministers. This has nothing to do with gender equality or equity between individuals. Ministers of state simply do not have a minister’s workload. That is the only thing Canadians need to know.

Remarkably, the hon. member of St. Catharines himself said it a thousand times in his speech on administrative changes. That is exactly what it is: an administrative change. It is not a substantial change. The Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, who comes from the Eastern Townships, will not have a building with 10,000 public servants or a cabinet. She will not have anything a real minister has. I am on the Standing Committee on Official Languages, so I recognize that the files she manages are extremely important, but her workload will still be quite a bit lighter than that of the Minister of National Defence, for example.

My colleague from Calgary Shepard made me think of something. It is not true that all cabinet ministers are equal. No one can tell me that the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Canadian Heritage are on equal footing. I must say that I prefer heritage to the economy. That being said, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons has a portfolio because she is the House leader and she is the Minister of Small Business and Tourism. She has more to deal with than another minister who does not have these two portfolios and these two responsibilities. It is as simple as that.

I wanted to say one last thing, something a little more philosophical. Imposing a gender-equal cabinet comes with its own share of risks. At the end of the day, philosophically and legally speaking, what does it even mean? It means that we will never see an all-female cabinet in Canada. I would even go so far as to say that this is good way for the Prime Minister of Canada to make sure that women never make up more than half a cabinet.

In fact, I would even say that this will stop the advancement of women in politics.

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

Mr. Speaker, what an interesting way for the member to end his comments by talking about a 100% female cabinet, something which no doubt would be wonderful to see, and hopefully we will see that one day in the future.

It is important to recognize that Stephen Harper had the largest cabinet in the history of Canada. The member seems to be fixated on the size of the department. We cannot compare the magnitude or size of departments like the Department of Defence to the Department of Democratic Reform. What matters is when ministers sit around that cabinet table, each minister has a responsibility for developing and advancing government policy.

The Conservatives seem to be stuck on the so-called junior ministers. We see all ministers as equal. There is only one tier of ministers. We understand that the Harper government did not see it that way, but things have changed. There is one tier of cabinet ministers today. Therefore, their voices around that table are equal, no matter what the size of their departments. There is a variance in size with all departments.

Therefore, when those cabinet ministers sit around the cabinet table, would he not agree at the very least that they should have an equal vote, no matter what the size of their departments? At least that is the case under the current Prime Minister. Would he not advocate that this should be the case?

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

Mr. Speaker, the bill does not speak about equal votes; it speaks about equal voice. I will tell members something interesting. When I was an intern in the Prime Minister's Office, the greatest honour of my life was to be part of a cabinet meeting. There, I was completely astounded to see MPs, not ministers, enter the room and be part of the meeting. They would stand and give their opinion with respect to the discussion. The ministers would acknowledge them, saying that this was the direction they should take. That is equal voice. Those MPs did not need a title or a ministry to have an equal voice. Having an equal voice around a cabinet table has nothing to do with which ministry one has.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to carry on along that theme, as this is one of the interesting windows into the Liberal mindset with Bill C-24. The Prime Minister has ostensibly brought forward legislation to help the Liberals take their cabinet ministers seriously. Presumably, if they do not have a minister's title, the Prime Minister will dismiss their voices at the cabinet meeting saying, that they are not serious, that they are called a minister of state, so what they say is not important as what the other people have to say. That tells us something about not only the legislation or the composition of cabinet. That tells us something about the Prime Minister.

I know the Prime Minister might not be the only one to not take the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader seriously, but it does make me wonder if the Prime Minister is able to take him seriously because he is not a minister. What does that mean for parliamentary secretaries in the Liberal caucus? What does that mean for Liberal backbenchers? What does that mean for Liberal chairs of committees? They are not called ministers. Are we to understand that the Prime Minister does not take good ideas seriously, that he just takes the title of the person who is talking seriously? Is that the lesson of Bill C-24?

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

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the case, and I must put forward a great example.

When Winston Churchill was the minister of the Royal Navy in 1918, he went on a ship. Things were not going as they should have, so he went to see the commander. He asked him to bring all the men on board so he could speak with them. The commander said to Mr. Churchill that he should never speak to the soldiers, but he again said that he wanted to speak with the soldiers. He went to one of the lowest-ranking marines and asked him what the plan should be to get out of them of the mess. The soldier told him his plan. Churchill then turned to the highest-ranking officer and told him that he was to do that. Since then, occidental armies have this kind of practice where everyone listens. I was in the army and I know that commanders always ask their soldiers what they should do. Of course afterward it is the commanders who will decide.

Therefore, you are right, sir, the government does not listen to people who do not have a title. However, in the former Conservative government, Harper used to listen to everyone.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Before resuming debate, I noticed the conversation went across the floor, with members speaking to each other. I just want to remind hon. members to address their comments through the Chair just so that we can keep some semblance of decorum in the room. It just makes it a lot easier on the Speaker, and members do not want to upset the Speaker, I am sure.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be joining what is becoming a more spirited debate this morning.

I want to reflect for a moment on something the member for Elmwood—Transcona said when he called this debate a creative waste of time. I do not think there is a better description of Bill C-24 so far. There really is no better way to describe it.

I have also reflected on the Minister of Finance's approach to his small business tax changes, which I would call creative destruction of wealth. There has never been a minister of finance who has been this creative in attempting to destroy so much wealth.

I wanted to mention that because it is worth reflecting on. It is an old tune that keeps on playing. The best Yiddish proverb I could come up with to describe what the Liberal government is doing, and continues to do, especially with respect to Bill C-24, is “to every new song one can find an old tune”. This is the old tune of the same old Liberal Party. Nothing has changed. The Liberals are back to doing the same old things. The Liberal Party will take care of anyone who is a Liberal, but a small business owner, or anyone else for that matter, is going to feel the pain.

A Fraser Institute report stated that the average Canadian is now paying $800 more in taxes. After-tax income is down, and that should be the best metric for the government.

Instead of dealing with economic issues today, we are debating pay hikes for ministers, in fact pay hikes that they have already received. As the member for Beauport—Limoilou mentioned, the Liberals have already taken care of their own. They have already taken care of their pay. Every time the Liberal government talks about transparency, equity, and fairness, taxpayers end up paying more, never less. More money is going out. Instead of lowering the pay of all ministers down to the rate of pay of a minister of state, which the government could have done and would have showed fairness and equity, the government chose to raise everybody's pay.

Many members have mentioned this before, that this is an administrative change. The government's main argument right now is that this is just an administrative change, and members question why we are debating this. We could ask them the same question. We are debating this because the government has put this forward as the important issue of the day, not NAFTA negotiations, agricultural legislation, another free trade agreement, small business taxation, or mortgage rules. No, the important issue of the day is pay hikes for Liberal ministers. That is what the government wants to talk about.

In this much-vaunted attempt to talk about transparency, there are three mystery ministers. In a previous debate when I participated on this at second reading very late on an evening in June, I talked about the different types of ministries the government could set up. The government purposely did not put forward a minister responsible for seniors, something that many seniors associations have asked for. The Liberal government does not have one.

Perhaps some of the present ministers could come forward to help the Minister of Finance deal with the ethics shield. Maybe a minister for ethics shields would be good. In case anything about Morneau Shepell, Bombardier, or anything related comes up, the minister for ethics shields could shield the Liberals from the trouble they could get into. Perhaps that is what the Liberals should do.

I mentioned pay for performance in my previous debate. That is how we should be rating every single minister on that side. They are responsible to the crown, but they are also responsible to the House. They are responsible for the mandate letters that the Prime Minister delivererd to them, telling them what they would do and telling them to deliver results. That is done on behalf of the House, not just members on that side.

The mandate letter is how we rate the effectiveness of a minister. So far, we see that whenever a minister fails in the House, he or she is not fired but rather receives an ambassadorship overseas. That former minister gets a pay increase. Perhaps he or she will get a pay increase like the ambassador to France, who received $120,000 pay increase above what a career diplomat would get. Perhaps a failed Liberal candidate will be sent to the consulate in San Francisco and get double the pay of what a career diplomat would get in that role.

The Liberals say that the pay hikes will be for five ministers of state. Maybe they will get a new title, which every single member here has mentioned. They say this is just a title change; there is no effective change to their mandates.

The Liberals talk about fairness. They called this an adaptive bill, a modern bill. It costs more to taxpayers every single time they mention those words. Thirty ministers are supposed to be equal. The member for Beauport—Limoilou raised a great point. The mandate letters are not equal. They are not equal in workload and they are not equal in content. Nobody can tell me that the government House leader has the same amount of work as the Minister of Health.

The government House leader has two mandate letters to deliver on. The Minister of Finance has an extremely long mandate letter with detailed tasks to undertake. Nobody can tell me that these letters bring the same workload on them, the members of their staff, and the departments that they use, as the letter of another minister with a smaller department and a smaller mandate. It is the content of the work that they are supposed to do. Of course, they are all equal. They are all persons, and they are all equal, but ministers are not created equal by the Prime Minister. They have different tasks, roles, and priorities to undertake on behalf of the government to supposedly deliver on those promises. A great example of one of the promises we saw, which the Liberals forgot at first, was the small business tax reduction, which they cancelled and now uncancelled and are now really committed to doing, but they have not done it quite yet.

However, it is in the mandate letters where we truly find the value of a minister, and truly find the quality of ministers. No one can tell me that the Minister of Foreign Affairs has an equal workload to the Minister of Science or the Minister of Public Services and Procurement. The workload is immense at this point in time, because the mandate she is required to deliver on is far larger, which is why other ministers are then assigned to assist her with those tasks.

In politics, I think we have all heard that it is a team sport. We play as a team, and we lose as a team. I do not think there is a single individual who finds politics to be a solo adventure or journey. However, what they are saying on that side is that they are going to treat everybody equal by title, and keep piling on the workload, whichever way the Prime Minister wants to. The member for Beauport—Limoilou and the member for Elmwood—Transcona mentioned the delivering of value.

Listening to the voices at the cabinet table and listening to other perspectives has nothing to do with what is written in a law, but it has everything to do with personality, character, and leadership skills. Whether one chooses to listen to an alternative point of view, or to a minister who does not have a title, or even to a member of Parliament who has expertise in an area or field that perhaps a ministry lacks or the cabinet lacks, it is up to the leadership, ending with the Prime Minister, to bring them in, hear what they have to say, and to take that into account.

However, it is the same old tune, because in a lot of ways, a lot of these ministers are invisible. We have been watching this sideshow with the Minister of Finance answering some questions on small business taxation, but the minister responsible for small business has barely stood up in the House to speak to what probably is the most important change or impact on her particular mandate. She has barely been allowed to speak to what will in fact make or break her success as the minister responsible for small business.

Ministers come with departments, buildings, civil servants, and budgets that they are responsible to manage. Nobody here can tell me that there is equality among the mandates of the ministers and equality of the tasks. I do not see that in the private sector either. When I was a director in a human resources professional association, I had a smaller budget than every single other director there. The value I brought was that I took care of corporate affairs and research for the membership on what members wanted. I had an equal voice at the table because my CEO allowed me to speak to defend the points I had to make and to challenge others at the table when they were making mistakes.

This is all about leadership. We cannot legislate leadership, and that is what the Liberals are trying to do with this. It just does not work that way. Therefore, as I said before, this entire debate is worthy of an episode of the Yes Minister series, which I love to quote here. In fact, I will make a suggestion to the government. The show has, as a central character, a minister of administrative affairs. The government could use that. It could have that single minister stand up and answer all the questions in the House and defend all of the government's initiatives by simply saying, “In time, we will consider your ideas”, and simply avoid answering all the questions, as the Liberals have done so far, at times successfully and at times less so.

However, nobody can tell me that this pay hike for Liberal cabinet ministers is the issue of the day, the issue of the month, or what Canadians at home are talking about. In fact, they are not. I will be very pleased to be voting against the bill at all stages.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the previous speaker and to the member for Elmwood—Transcona. They tried to give a false impression. They tried to give an impression that there is an elite group of people within and that they are the people to whom the Prime Minister listens. I listen to my constituents, as the Prime Minister listens to Canadians, and that is where it starts, listening to what people have to say, those whom we represent and to Canadians as a whole.

We will see the degree to which we are listening by the actions that the government has taken. All one needs to do is address the issue of the middle class and the many different government actions and responses from a wide variety of ministers, and we will see Canadians' needs reflected in government policy. At the cabinet level, that is where a group of individuals meets and is required to be able to meet. That is where decisions have to be made, and all sorts of consultations lead into that.

In the presentation that we just heard, the member tried to give the impression that there is the hardest-working person over here and the least-working person over here and that those persons should all be paid accordingly. That is what the member across the way suggested. We are suggesting that there is one tier of ministers. There are only 168 hours in any given week. All of us work very hard. Some of us have different responsibilities, and some of those responsibilities include some sort of remuneration, such as the role of cabinet minister and leader of the official opposition.

Would the member not agree that, when it comes to those additional responsibilities, they should be treated equally?

[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?

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

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to what the status of women minister has done about violence against women, let us just look at some of the numbers from this government. Remember, the government is spending $20 million a year to eliminate violence against women, despite the violence impacting one in three indigenous women and one in four Canadian women. However, $12 billion was given to other countries, and $400 million more was spent to collect Statistics Canada data. Does that tell us the priority the Liberal government is putting on violence against women?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to get into a debate about which member of cabinet is more influential and important, because sometimes that changes with personalities. We all know that different cabinets take on different structures. Sometimes a member with a so-called lower level portfolio has more influence at the cabinet table and with the Prime Minister. One way is to follow the money. Sometimes it matters quite a bit. As my colleague pointed out, ministers with portfolios that have a large department and large impact, such as defence and finance, typically have proportionate influence.

I am confused about this whole bill and wonder if the member can help me out. I am often confused by Liberal doublespeak. I am unsure how to phrase this. At committee when this bill was going through, questions were put forward. Is this bill about gender equality? Has it been put through a gender lens? Is that what this legislation is about?

The Liberals at committee said absolutely not, that this bill was not about that. However, with the bill now in the House, other Liberals have stood to say that this bill is about all of that. Can she help me and Canadians understand what this bill, which is consuming so many hours in the House of Commons, is actually about? Is it about what Liberals did not apply, which is a gender analysis lens to this piece of legislation, or virtually any piece of legislation which they promised to do, or is it about what Liberals studying the bill are now saying it is about?

The Prime Minister made this great commitment that the cabinet would be balanced. However, a reporter pointed out that the cabinet was not gender balanced; rather, the Prime Minister was including some ministers at the secretary of the state level, as what have traditionally been called “junior” ministers. They were included in that number to make the cabinet look balanced. Is this not to repair their claim, and to make what was false now true by simply changing the designations and the pay of each of the individual members of this now larger cabinet?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that excellent point. He has pointed out the utter hypocrisy between what the Liberals say and do, and the way the message changes as they go along. We saw this during the recent disastrous tax changes that the finance minister introduced. At the beginning he said, “We are going after the wealthy 1%. People are not paying their fair share of taxes.”

The Liberals were very strong and chose to double down on that. However, when they started to see the huge fire created across Canada, they said, “We're consulting with Canadians. We're going to listen to Canadians”. Then, when it became the climbdown that it was, they said, “Well, there are a few tweaks that we've got to make to our proposals.”

We saw the same thing when this bill came forward, namely, that it was not about gender parity. In reality, it should not be about gender parity because jobs are evaluated based on one's skills, experience, and levels of responsibility. There are many global systems that people use to determine what the pay grade should be based on those factors, and not based on gender.

However, when it is convenient and the Prime Minister wants to look like a feminist or as if he is doing the right thing for a photo op or a headline, and not for the actual money on the bottom line that he is putting into the budget, he does exactly what the member said he does.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the reason feminism is material to this bill is that colleagues in the Liberal Party have talked about the Prime Minister's feminist bona fides. Colleagues in my party have talked about whether this bill is actually feminist. Colleagues in the NDP have raised the same question. I want to have a more honest conversation today.

Two days ago, in the House of Commons, the Minister of Status of Women was asked a question by one of her colleagues on the Liberal backbench about feminism and different slurs that have been used. She made a reference to two things that have made the news recently. One was calling parliamentary colleagues Barbies. I have had the great pleasure of being called that before. In fact, an artist in Manitoba, who I understand actually had grants at the time, although I am not sure, from the Manitoba Arts Council, put together a movie that insinuated that I was a talking-point Barbie, so I have some sympathy. The minister also talked about a very derogatory term, “feminazi”, being used.

The problem I had with the Minister of Status of Women's response was that she made a glib comment that I think was designed to absolve her party of guilt on this aspect. To me, rather than being honest about the fact that none of us, to put it politely, is perfect in this regard, and no party is fantastic about this, the minister herself stood very proudly and very glibly ignored this key fact. I raised comments made by one of her colleagues. If I had had more time to find the quote, I could have raised the fact that one of her colleagues may have insinuated that one of my colleagues was akin to a stripper. Some of my colleagues opposite are now sitting on the independent benches for various reasons.

We are all uncomfortable here now, and we should be, because when we talk about being feminist and standing up for women's rights, we cannot pay lip service or make it a partisan issue. That is what we do here over and over again. I am not going to pretend that my party has been perfect, and I am also not going to wave the stick at just the Liberal Party. I am going to ask all members in the House to do a lot better.

With regard to this bill, if my colleagues in the Liberal Party really support women's rights, they are going to tell the Prime Minister that maybe it is not right to pass a bill that calls female ministers equal when they do not have the ability to bring memoranda to cabinet. For my colleagues on the Liberal backbench who do not understand what that means, it means that there are people in the “gender-parity cabinet” who are called full cabinet members, and are included in the count of their quota, who do not have the right to bring a topic to cabinet for consideration without the approval of a senior, and in most cases male, minister.

They also do not have the right to chair cabinet committees. In fact, if we look at the chairmanship and composition of the Prime Minister's cabinet committees, which is where the real power is in government, which you know, Mr. Speaker, and all of us in this place know, it is actually a lie and an affront to say that there is gender parity in that cabinet. If we are going to be uncomfortable, let us talk about that fact.

Rather than enshrining this in law and having people stand here and extol the virtues of it, let us call a spade a spade. This bill would not create gender parity. It would make women in cabinet say that they are equal, even when they are not, because of the Prime Minister's ego. That is the antithesis of feminism. That is making women cover over inequality for the political gain of a man. I do not care what political stripe members are in this place, that is wrong.

I have had to roll my eyes and facepalm when some of my male colleagues have said things that made me absolutely and completely angry, things that were cringeworthy. I have talked to them afterward and said that I was not going to carry the bag for them. They know that.

I am very proud of the advances my party has made for women in this country. We might not agree on how to achieve gender equality, but if we are going to move forward on that, I would like to think that we are going to agree that a bill like this does not do it.

I do not care if the Prime Minister calls himself a feminist. He should be putting his money where his mouth is all the time, and this bill does not do it. I cannot support it, nor should any member of the Liberal caucus. I would like to see them talk to the minister and say that I have a point and this should be tweaked.

I was appointed as a junior cabinet minister. I was appointed as a minister of state. I was really glad to do that, because it gave me time to understand how the bureaucracy worked, how government worked, and how the cabinet table worked. Male colleagues were appointed by former Prime Minister Harper to the same role. It was not about gender. To me it was about career progression. I had someone who believed in me and thought I had the potential to be a senior member of government but who also gave me time to learn how government worked before the onslaught of question period and media scrums.

We know that there are ministers in the government, and I am sure they are well-intentioned and came to Ottawa wanting to effect change, who do not know how to do their jobs. They do not understand that bureaucrats are going to put out memos for them to sign off on about things like taxing employee discounts. They are not going to understand that it means that they should not sign off on those memos and should review things.

I had time to learn how that worked before I was stuck in as a minister of national revenue. That is not a bad thing. That is a good thing. I am so honoured that I had the opportunity to learn how to do that while contributing to government.

Here we are today with a bill that says that it would create gender parity in cabinet, and it would not. How can people across the way stand and say that it is a great advancement for feminism, when it is not?

A better way to have more women in politics and around the cabinet table would be if we understood that there are tools at our disposal right now. Earlier in the debate, one of my colleagues talked about the fact that the Prime Minister already has in his toolkit the ability to have full cabinet ministers. Hopefully they would be, as they have been across different governments, people who have a degree of experience in this place and in parliamentary committees and an understanding of how government works. That is a different skill set than they would have in any private sector industry or NGO. This place has a learned skill set, and that is okay.

Focusing on tokenism, and then trying to cover it up with a thin veil of feminism that is false, is actually doing a disservice to Canadians, because we are throwing people into situations when they are not ready to govern. That abdicates our fiduciary responsibility to Canadian taxpayers. It abdicates our responsibility to the public service to understand how to translate a political mandate into change within the public service. It abdicates our responsibility to Canadians in that ministers have to understand how those two things work together when they are bringing bills forward in the House of Commons and through committee. It abdicates our responsibility to women, because we are calling something feminist when it is not.

I am not going to stand here and say that I am perfect or that anyone in this House is perfect, but by standing here pretending that this bill is feminist, we are doing a disservice to all Canadians.

My colleagues opposite should go into their caucus room next week and say that maybe they should make some changes to this bill. It can be done in committee. It does not work right now. It is not doing it for me, it is not doing it for the NDP, and I am sure it is not doing it for a lot of people in the Liberal caucus.

Let us do something that resembles work in this place. Let us have a debate, translate those changes at committee, especially given the testimony we heard at the government operations committee, and have a bill that creates, not stymies, gender equality.

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

Mr. Speaker, a central focus of the member's concern about the bill was memoranda to cabinet. Within our government, with our Prime Minister, all ministers within the ministry can provide a memorandum to cabinet. I was wondering if, given that fact, it changes the hon. member's view of the bill, as that was a central focus of concern for her.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that under the structure created by the Prime Minister, there are certain ministers in cabinet, many of them women, who have to report to senior members within the cabinet who are men. That is not gender equality.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to continue on the theme of gender equality, which I was surprised to hear Liberals bring up in today's debate. We had a witness at committee, Professor Margot Young, from the Allard School of Law at UBC, who said:

Framing this as a bill that somehow addresses issues around gender equity in the current cabinet composition is a mistake, and it's a mistake of significant ideological character....

...to respond to a question about women in the cabinet by saying simply “because it's 2015” loses a key leadership moment to articulate and shape opinion about what it means to actually have women in positions of equality, in positions of leadership and power.

In response to that, the Liberal member for Don Valley East said:

I thank you for being here, but I don't think we have the relevance to our study for Bill C-24....

If you have any additional points to make.... They would not be regarding this bill, because it is irrelevant to what you are saying. There is nothing that says it is a gender-balanced bill; there is no indication that it has anything to do with gender equality.

Members might forgive me for being surprised to hear Liberals saying today that the bill has everything to do with gender equality.

The member for Newmarket—Aurora said, in response to the same witness:

I don't disagree with anything you've said. I'm not sure the purpose of this bill was at all to express gender equality.... I don't think it's meant to be a tool that's going to address gender inequality, pay equity, or any of the other issues you raised in your opening [statement].

I would like to know what the member thinks about that.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am tired of feminism being used as a word and a tool for political gain by all parties in the House. I am tired of tokenism. I am tired of having worked my way up to where I am and having bills like this come to the House of Commons. I am tired of having Liberal colleagues, colleagues of all political stripes, stand up on technicalities, saying that maybe this is not this and that.

If we are going to get serious about gender equality, this debate has to stop. We have been having this debate for 30 years. We need to stop putting bills like this forward, stop technicalities, and stop having announcements about gender parity when it is not gender parity. We need to start empowering women and overcoming systemic barriers to allow women to participate in all facets of society. The Prime Minister needs to stop saying that he is a feminist to sell his socks on the cover of international magazines.

That is the difference between this and a true conversation about feminism that we can achieve through different policy mechanisms. It is not based on one political stripe or one political ideology. We cannot gloss over the fact that it is a convenient label to sell votes. That has to stop.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to switch the channel a bit and ask the member if she could talk about the days when she was minister of state for western economic development, which is a regional development agency that is going to be cut off. Under this legislation, there will not be ministers for regional economic development agencies. What if a minister from Toronto had been the minister in charge of WED? I wonder if my colleague could talk about that and the work she did in that portfolio.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, sadly, there are a lot of Calgarians and Albertans who are used to Toronto telling them what to do. I will leave it at that.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill for pointing out the vacuousness of the Liberals' position on gender equality. It is all show and very little tell when it comes to their position. I thank her for that very gracious yet succinct effort to expose what the Liberals have really done on gender equality, which is very little.

I want to go to the other part of this bill, which addresses the regional economic development facilities we have across the country. Bill C-24 effectively does the following. It abandons a decentralized decision-making process and replaces it with a highly centralized top-down decision-making process when it comes to the regions of our country, to my region of the country, British Columbia, in the west, to the northern areas of our country, to eastern Canada, and to the Atlantic provinces. What this bill does is effectively create eight new Liberal ministerial positions, which reflects the five minister of state roles that were filled after the 2015 election. It also does something else. It adds three Liberal ministers yet to be named. I will get back to that in a moment, because it comes down to transparency. I can say that, after 12 years in this House, it is the first time I have seen legislation come forward that creates undefined ministerial posts without any idea of what purpose they will serve.

Also, Bill C-24 formally eliminates the positions of the six ministers for the regional development agencies across the country, agencies like Western Economic Diversification Canada, FedNor, and ACOA in Atlantic Canada. That must be concerning to everyone in this House, because it reduces the accountability of government to the regions and the communities across this country.

In my early years as a politician, I was a member of city council. It has been said, quite correctly, that city council is the level of government closest to the people. When I was sitting on city council, we had residents of our communities come forward and make their concerns known. They would bring us their proposals as to how they wanted to see our city develop. We could make decisions that very night or day, and the next day we could start implementing those decisions. What was great was that, as a municipal councillor, because we were from that very community, we could hear directly from the people affected by our decisions, and we could tailor our policies and programs accordingly.

What is happening now federally is the exact opposite. The ministers who were appointed to the various economic development agencies in the main regions across the country were the ones who had their ear to the ground. They were the eyes and ears of the government when it came to that region of the country. What the current Liberal government has done is quite arbitrarily said, without any consultation with the regions, that it will not have any ministers for the regions but will simply get rid of them and appoint a minister from Toronto to make all major decisions relating to those regions. I do not want to begrudge Toronto and Ontario with a minister responsible for economic development, but I can say that once we get out into the other regions of the country they will be saying, “What happened? What about us? There is somebody in Toronto making decisions for us out here in the region.” That should be embarrassing for the Liberal government.

What should be even more embarrassing is this. In the last election the Liberal Party elected 32 members of Parliament from Atlantic Canada. One would figure that out of 32 members of Parliament, the Prime Minister could find one who would be the representative for ACOA , and represent the interests of Atlantic Canada.

He just could not get his mind around that and said that it would be better, rather than having an Atlantic Canada minister, to appoint someone from downtown Toronto to make these decisions. I think of our democratic process, about the accountability that governments should be focusing on, and about responsiveness to the very people whom each one of us serve when we are establishing ministries that are focused on ensuring that every region of our country benefits from economic development. We should make sure we also appoint people to represent those regions and to be the voice in cabinet of those regional development agencies and of the people who live in those regions.

How do I know there is a lot of concern? We just have to ask the people from Atlantic Canada. For example, Conservative leader Jamie Baillie, said, that appointing an ACOA minister from Toronto, “is yet another sign that the Liberals are taking Atlantic Canada for granted.” We saw that with the appointment of a Supreme Court justice from that region and how long it took for the current Liberal government to finally understand that Atlantic Canadians needed to have a voice on the Supreme Court.

We go on to Éric Tétrault, president of the Quebec Manufacturers and Exporters. He indicated that he hoped that the situation would not be a total loss and that a Quebec MP might be put in charge of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the regions of Quebec. Did that happen? Of course it did not. He went on to say, “We have quite a few development programs with them [being a government] in areas such as innovation and skilled labour. We are afraid they'll get mixed up with a national policy that won't necessarily work for Quebec. If we have to deal with officials as far away as Toronto or Ottawa to get the government to pay attention to problems with the Quebec economy, we're in trouble.”

We are hearing that across the country.

Let us go back. I was reading the Cape Breton Post, and this is what it said:

The more you push...out to big centres, like Toronto, Ottawa, or maybe, Montreal, as the base of decision-making for those organizations, the less in tune they are with the regions that they're trying to help the most.

As we focus on developing an economy that is truly going to share the prosperity of this country with every Canadian, with every community across this country, and with every region, the government has to understand that the government members need to have their ear to the ground in each of those regions. It is not enough to say, as the member across the way just suggested, that they have 32 MPs from the area. Do the Liberals have any representation when it comes to economic development?

The previous government understood full well how important it was to have a member of cabinet who was also designated the person to represent the interests in that person's region. That is why there were not a lot of complaints heard across Canada. One of the concerns I have is that this decision was taken because the Prime Minister has completely capitulated to our public service. We know that for years our public service has not necessarily been a big fan of these regional economic development agencies. Now of course the public service has the Prime Minister, who will do its bidding, and has eliminated the key ministers who could have provided the ears to the ground and the eyes in the region that would have allowed the government to make good decisions for economic development in every part of our country.

I have one last thought. Bill C-24 also lacks transparency. As I mentioned earlier, the bill would appoint three mystery ministers for whom the job description has not been defined. That is a lack of transparency. The government, by stealth, is trying to introduce ministerial positions and Canadians have no idea what the positions are going to entail.

Therefore, this bill, Bill C-24, is very disappointing to me, to our Conservative Party, and certainly to Canadians across this great country of ours.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have heard a number of Conservatives refer to the Minister of Innovation as the minister from Toronto. We would be more than happy to bring forward a map for hon. members on the other side, because his constituents would think differently about where they are from.

The hon. member was concerned about Atlantic Canada, an area of the country in which the Conservatives did not win any seats. In terms of the hard work of 32 members of Parliament from Atlantic Canada standing up and demanding better than the previous government, we have seen $282.7 million invested in ACOA for innovative, evidence-based growth, working with the Atlantic immigration pilot project to increase immigration, which the Atlantic provinces want. Our minister is listening to the hard-working MPs who are bringing forward those concerns. Is that a concept that did not exist in the previous government? The results speak for themselves.

With the economy firing on all cylinders, how can the hon. member be opposed to this particular plan?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we see the disingenuousness of that question when we think about energy east. Energy east was strongly supported in the Atlantic provinces but the Atlantic provinces did not have a regional minister who could advocate for them. What happened? The federal government stuck its finger into the pie, messed around a bit, interfered in the process, and energy east threw up its hands and said it is no longer going to invest in Canada. That is what comes from a Liberal government, a top-down, centralized government not in tune with the regions.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the focus of the member's speech was more on the issue of regional economic development ministers. With respect to that, one of the funny things about this legislation is that the Liberals are keen to eliminate the option for separate economic development ministries to reflect the current practices of government, but they are not doing other things that would reflect the current practices of government, like getting rid of ministers of state. That would be a bad idea in our opinion, but it would reflect the current practice of the government. There is a double standard when it comes to what they want the legislation to reflect and what they do not want it to reflect.

I do want to come back briefly to the issue of gender equality in cabinet and back to the committee meeting where we learned some interesting things from some of the Liberals on that committee. One witness at committee said:

The second point I want to make is that to claim that it is about gender equality [not only is a mistake but] is dangerous. I think it's dangerous because too often we cut off the really important, substantial, and tough conversations about gender equality by claiming that we've already dealt with it and we've dealt with it in some more formalistic way.

That is why I suppose Liberals on committee were quick to deny that the bill was about gender equality, because they did not want to be doing that very thing, where they pretended that we had dealt with substantive gender equality issues when we had not in fact. That is why it is such a surprise to hear Liberals making that argument again.

I am wondering if the member has any thoughts on why Liberals today in the House would be so keen to muddy waters that their colleagues at committee thought it was important to keep clear.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as the father of four wonderful grown daughters who have their own careers and who have really blessed our lives and blessed the lives of people around them, I know how important gender equality is, but it cannot be artificial gender equality and that is what happened here with the Liberal government. The Liberal government is great at photo-ops. It is great at using slogans, but when it comes to addressing the underlying reasons why women are not rightfully taking their place in our society, the Liberals are an absolute failure.

We need to empower women to understand that they can aspire to anything in this country, whether it is to be in the House of Commons, whether it is to be the CEO of one of the most powerful corporations in our country, whether it is to be the principal of their school, or whether it is to be in their home providing leadership as a mother, as a mentor, to their kids.

I concur with the member. Even though Bill C-24 pretends to be a bill that would strengthen the Liberal government's reputation for gender equality it actually undermines it, because it is fake.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-24, an act to amend the Salaries Act, also known as the “Seinfeld act”, as it is a bill basically about nothing.

Let us go back to the origin of the bill.

It is 2015, and the Prime Minister announces with great fanfare that the new cabinet will be gender equal, but it turns out the Prime Minister has reserved the five minister of state slots, the junior ministries basically operating inside other full ministries, toward women. However, no fear, the government quickly says that it is an error and they are made full ministers. Perhaps this was the very first recorded example of the early administrative confusion excuse the finance minister rolled out for his issues in missing out on announcing his villa in France. While I will note that it is gender equal, it had the highest percentage of women in the junior minister roles since Trudeau senior was in power.

Now I have no issue with the makeup of the cabinet being gender equal in number. However, I am disappointed the Liberals went with a quota system that excluded so many qualified women MPs in order to find roles for what was shown to be poorly chosen male ministers.

Think where we would be if the Liberal quota system had not foisted upon us the current finance minister, no ethical skulduggery, no conflict of interest by having the finance minister make policy decisions that just happened to enrich his family fortune while hurting average Canadians.

The government would not have had to appoint the member for Vancouver South as Minister of Defence, where he repeatedly claimed the glory of other battles of soldiers who risked their lives for Operation Medusa. We certainly would not have had the ongoing bungling of the sole-source Super Hornet debacle either.

However, when it comes to gender equality scandals and broken promises, like using taxpayer dollars to rent limos from party supporters, the Phoenix pay fiasco, and electoral reform, the Liberals have it nailed. Let us go back to Bill C-24.

I call Bill C-24 the Seinfeld bill because it is a bill about nothing. However, at least with Seinfeld, we got to have fun with Festivus, the Soup Nazi, and Kramer. With Bill C-24, it is basically a waste of time, a whole-of-government approach to a waste of time. Everything the bill would accomplish can be or already has been done. Equal money for ministers and ministers of state has been happening for the past two years: ministers of state through appropriations, and regular ministers, as before, from the general consolidated revenue fund.

The government House leader told us that all 30 members already “receive the same salary” and that this had been the case since the first day in office and would not change with the bill. So why the need for Bill C-24? Why take up time in committee and the House when there are so many other pressing matters?

We are told that the five junior minister of state titles need to be changed in order to have a voice at the cabinet table. How does this make sense? Are we to believe a minister of state with a groundbreaking idea or policy would be ignored at the cabinet table just because he or she had a different title? Surely the Prime Minister does not differentiate between opinions coming from ministers and ministers of state based on title alone. Gerry Butts seems to be heard loud and clear at the cabinet table, and he does not have a minister's title.

On second reading of Bill C-24, the Liberals spoke to the virtues of the bill, saying things like “we're committed to pay equity in our cabinet”. The Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board said, “This government is also committed to ensuring that pay equity extends to the cabinet table.” A Liberal colleague on the operations committee said, “we have chosen is to say that women deserve equal pay for an equal voice at the cabinet table.”

It was abundantly clear that Liberal after Liberal stood up and spoke to Bill C-24 with the intent of framing it in terms of gender equality, which was the message they wanted to send. The Liberal members of the government operations committee must have been just giddy with delight when the NDP requested a professor of law from UBC, who is an expert on gender studies, to appear to testify on Bill C-24. However, I was a first hand witness to their meltdown and disappointment when the witness tore into the government's legislation and communications regarding the framing of Bill C-24 in gender terms.

The expert witness said:

...this particular piece of legislation really doesn't...have much to do with gender equality...to claim that it is about gender equality is dangerous...because...we cut off the really important, substantial, and tough conversations about gender equality by claiming that we've already dealt with it

She went on to say that:

...women need these positions of leadership, not because of the actual amount of dollars, but because of the responsibility, the profile...the authority that those positions command.

It is very much like a CEO and a branch director being paid the same wage. They receive equal pay, but they are not equal. The CEO has to manage the company. The branch director manages one portfolio. While they receive the same pay, they are not equitable because the scope and responsibilities are not the same.

That is what the Prime Minister has done, and his party, dangerously, claims it is about gender equality. We heard in committee that to frame it as legislation that speaks substantially to the issues of gender equality and cabinet composition was wrong and dangerous.

In response to a question about whether the Prime Minister's claim of gender equal cabinet was cynical, the witness expert replied that it was dishonest on behalf of the government.

The Liberals immediately attempted to walk back the previous statements made by dozens of Liberal MPs in this very place that Bill C-24 was about gender equality. The member for Newmarket—Aurora said, “I don't think anyone was proposing that this was a gender equity bill.” The member for Châteauguay—Lacolle tried to simultaneously claim that Bill C-24 was a good first step, which the witness rejected, and then tried to reframe the question by asking if the junior ministries were more emerging ministries. Yes, all ministers are equal but some are more emerging than others.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I hate to interrupt the hon. member but I am having a hard time hearing that riveting speech. People are talking among themselves. It is nice to hear people talking among themselves, but maybe just reduce it to a whisper.

I will let the hon. member continue.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I am shocked. Mr. Speaker.

As I was saying, all ministers are equal but some are more equal and emerging than others, it appears.

The member for Don Valley East, to her discredit, labelled the witness's testimony as disingenuous because Bill C-24 had nothing to do with gender equality. If it is not about gender equality and it is not actually needed to do anything about what the government has already been doing pay and organization-wise the last few years, what is it for and what does it do?

It also formalizes the centralization of regional ministries under the minister from Mississauga. If ever there was a more perfect analogy for the Liberals' attitude toward the rest of the country, I cannot find a better example than a minister from suburban Toronto holding regional ministries from the west, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada. It is a slap in the face to these regions in Canada. I would much rather have a ministry of western economic diversification to advocate on behalf of the west than the three Liberal MPs from Alberta, who deign to represent their province second and toeing the party line first. The Liberal government has been AWOL when it comes to Alberta.

The government House Leader insists that a whole-of-government approach will serve regions better because everyone will be in on the conversation. Of course she did not fail to mention that diversity was our strength, although she was referring to regional diversity in Canada this time. She said, “Regional expertise with national expertise is a way for it to work better together to create a synergy, to take a whole-of-government approach.”

I apologize for those sitting at home watching this on CPAC. I know people are rolling their eyes so far back in their head listening to this statement that they have probably sprained their eye muscles.

They then went on to use the words “whole-of-government approach” 11 more times in justifying having the minister for western diversification being based in Toronto. Except with this whole-of-government approach, we have no one to step up and advocate for Alberta. Certainly not the three Liberal MPs we have from Alberta, all three who did Oscar-worthy impressions of mimes when it came time to speak up for energy east.

Alberta Conservative MPs presented to the government the Alberta jobs task force, with many recommendations for help with our jobs crisis. We asked for infrastructure funding to tackle the issue of orphaned wells. It would have put highly-skilled people back to work in Alberta and Saskatchewan and helped the environment. What did our minister of economic diversification based in Toronto get us? Well, he managed to find taxpayer money to pay out bonuses to the billionaire owners of Bombardier.

What about those superclusters we hear so much about? Well, a few weeks back I received a text from a friend of mine who was flying in to Calgary. He noted that the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development was on the same plane. I figured, great, he was going to Calgary to announce that we were getting a supercluster. Unfortunately we heard that the Alberta supercluster application, which is the clean resource innovation network made up of a consortium of think tanks, universities, the provincial government, and oil and gas bodies, was shot down. The minister commented that it was rejected because of an overlap of superclusters for agriculture and construction. That is regional expertise working with a synergistic conversation for a whole-of-government approach working for Alberta.

Rather than present legislation that addresses the job crisis in Alberta, or helps with these parts of the country struggling with the opioid crisis or the myriad of other issues affecting livelihoods and survival of Canadians, we get Bill C-24, focused on upping salaries in attempt to fix a mistake the Prime Minister made, legislation on titles and salaries that really does nothing that the government has not already been doing for the past couple of years.

I await the day that the Liberals move beyond government by words, tweets, selfies, and feel-good statements. Retracting Bill C-24 would be a good first start.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member is correct. We do not have that regional minister in western Canada. However, we have had more development in western Canada in the last couple of years than we had in the last many years of the Stephen Harper government. We can talk about the increases of western diversification. We can talk about infrastructure dollars going into rural western Canada. We can talk about so much—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Normally when the Speaker rises, there is some quiet or at least I hope there will be some.

I want to mention that I was having a bit of a hard time hearing the hon. member for Edmonton West earlier. Now I am having a hard time because it is louder. I will give the hon. member for Winnipeg North the same opportunity.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, those are Conservative heckles from across the floor. We cannot just make this stuff. It is real. It is happening today. There is more economic development taking place in western Canada, without having that regional minister.

The difference is that under the current Prime Minister, we do not need 40 cabinet ministers. Stephen Harper had 40 cabinet ministers. That was a record high in our country. We have never had 40 cabinet ministers. We have 30, and there is gender equity among our cabinet. Western Canada, like the rest of Canada, is doing quite well, with 475,000 jobs in the last two years alone.

When we take a look at what the bill proposes, it tries to generate an adequate-size potential cabinet. It would prevent future Conservative governments from having 40 ministers. It would limit the numbers. Would the member not agree to limit the number, as opposed to having that record high of 40 ministers from the Stephen Harper era?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Winnipeg North for his rant.

Let us look at what the Liberals actually have delivered for Alberta: a record unemployment level that we have not seen since the last time we had a Prime Minister Trudeau. The member talked about infrastructure. The Minister of Infrastructure and Communities is based in Edmonton.

For infrastructure spending in Alberta, we get 14% less per capita than the rest of the country. How is that delivering for Alberta, when it is 14% less? Thank heaven the minister is not based in Toronto, like the western diversification minister. We would get even less. We get carbon taxes from the Liberal government. We get the Prime Minister telling a gentleman who is begging for help, who has been unemployed, to just hang in there. What has the Liberal government delivered to Alberta? Nothing.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for recounting some of the events that occurred at committee when we were hearing testimony on this bill. He also witnessed what I would say was verging on rough treatment of the witness by the member for Don Valley East. I think the member alluded to some of that in his speech.

Clearly the Liberals on committee were not aware that the government thought the bill was all about gender equality. I do not know why that is the case. We have kind of heard in the debate that the Prime Minister needs help from legislation and titles to take members of his cabinet and caucus seriously.

Does the member think the Liberal members on the committee were out of the loop because they were not called “minister” and the Prime Minister did not deem it important to let them know what the major Liberal arguments were for the bill?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member does wonderful work on the committee. He really stepped it up. I appreciate his bringing to light some of the hypocrisy of the government.

He asked if the committee members were out of touch. I would like to think they were, but they actually spoke in second reading about the bill and explained to us that it was all about gender equality. We heard from a learned expert from UBC who explained that it was sham, calling the Prime Minister dishonest in his actions. She very clearly said that it was dangerous to say this was about gender equality. Then the Liberal members on the committee attacked her to the point where the chair had to intervene and ask them to show a bit of respect for the expert.

I have no idea why the Liberal members switched from “it is gender equality” to “not gender equality”. I think, like us, they looked at the bill and realized it was a bill about nothing and did not bother to read the brief on the issue.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock. I will point out to the hon. member that he has nine minutes for debate now and will have one minute remaining when the bill is next before the House, and questions and comments will take place after that.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Mr. Speaker, although my speech may not be as humorous as that of my friend from Edmonton West, I will try to live up to his standard.

I too am pleased to stand to speak on Bill C-24, an act to amend the Salaries Act. As some may know, a few months ago I was given the privilege by the leader of the official opposition to be named critic for FedNor, an agency that now has less accountability to Ontario's north, which I will expand on momentarily.

For those watching at home, Bill C-24 would create eight new Liberal ministerial positions and formally eliminate the positions of six ministers for regional development agencies, whose responsibility to local community organizations and businesses would now be in the hands of a single minister. Local development projects and decisions in communities like Prince Rupert, Timmins, Whitehorse, Churchill, Goose Bay, and Miramichi, for example, just to name a few, would be made by that single minister from Mississauga.

This summer, the Prime Minister said his appointment of a Toronto-area minister for all regional development agencies was “a way of reducing the kind of politics that we’ve always seen from regional development agencies”. I am not sure what the Prime Minister was actually referring to. Regional ministers being accountable to and responsible for matters of regional importance is not political. That is just common sense, something the government has been lacking lately.

Let me say what is political. It is making decisions without consulting the very people who will be affected by those decisions. No wonder the level of trust in government in some rural areas is decreasing. When decision-making is centralized, especially decisions that have a large effect on a population, and they are made in some faraway place with, at times, little or no on-the-ground knowledge of the unique needs of each province, region, county, or municipality, problems happen.

To make matters worse, the government operations committee only heard from the government House leader and one professor studying this bill. The Liberal-dominated committee did not hear from a single witness on the issue of regional development agencies. That is right. Maybe the Prime Minister felt local folks cannot make these decisions for themselves after all. The Prime Minister added insult to injury with his cynical slur against Atlantic Canadians, claiming a Toronto-area minister needs to run ACOA because of the kind of politics he insinuates exists in Atlantic Canada.

What about Quebec? I am sure Quebeckers will be going to bed easier tonight knowing that a minister from Mississauga will now be making decisions for that province. After all, I am sure it has been a long-accepted tradition in Quebec that Toronto knows best. I wonder how Mr. Forget, the current president of the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, is now feeling. He was pleased, back in November of 2015, to see three Montreal ministers in cabinet, but almost with a sense of foreboding, he wondered at the time what would happen to the Quebec economic development agency, stating how important it was for Quebeckers to have the attentive ear of a Quebec minister on matters related to local economic development.

The Prime Minister's decision to formally eliminate, through Bill C-24, regional development ministers reminds Canadians that, under the Liberal government, they no longer have regional ministers representing and fighting for their regions' interests because the Prime Minister thinks this is a kind of politics being played. Instead, the Prime Minister, leaving all regional development in the hands of a single minister from Mississauga, again seems to think this is a better kind of politics. We see a pattern forming.

Last week, I was in northern Ontario and heard the concerns of small businesses, community representatives, and chambers of commerce regarding the northern Ontario economic development agency, or FedNor, and how they wanted more transparency, accountability, and local influence in the decision-making on projects that will have a significant impact on their communities. What I do not think they had in mind was the $150,000 in FedNor funds that were given last fall to a company based in the innovation minister's riding, a Mississauga riding. Apparently, this is the preferred kind of politics the Prime Minister had in mind.

This spring, a Liberal Atlantic caucus subcommittee reported that it has had reports of a threefold increase in processing times at ACOA since the appointment of this Toronto-area minister. The subcommittee noted that centralized decision-making is viewed unfavourably as impeding the agility of programs. The subcommittee was asked to advocate for regional decision-making in order to better address regional needs.

The future of regional development agencies is cast further in doubt as there are no specific references to any of the regional development agencies in the innovation minister's mandate letter. Not only will local and regional development projects be decided by a Toronto-area minister, but that same minister has no mandate, no accountability to his Prime Minister, for the stewardship of these agencies. Is this good politics or bad politics? Forgive me if I am starting to get confused, but we do see a pattern. Any claim by my colleagues opposite that this is about ministerial equality is about as believable as Mississauga being in northern Ontario.

Bill C-24 would amend the Salaries Act to allow for the equal payment of all ministers, ensuring that ministers with more junior portfolios are paid the same as ministers with larger and more senior portfolios, without adding any new responsibilities. What does this mean? It means the ministers with junior portfolios will not have their own deputy ministers, will not have the same departmental budgets, and will not have the same authority as ministers in most senior portfolios.

While the Liberal speaker claimed that Bill C-24 is an example of housekeeping, and it is the housekeeping item they claim to legislate equal salaries for all ministers, the bill fails to ensure that all ministers are created equal. I see I am getting the wrap-up sign, so I will continue after question period.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

The hon. member for Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock will have two and a half minutes following question period, and I thank him for wrapping up his comments for the moment.

The House resumed from October 24 consideration of Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act, as reported (without amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Salaries Act

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague, the member for Winnipeg North.

Before I begin, if this is the last occasion that I rise in this House to speak this year, I would like to wish all of my colleagues a wonderful and merry Christmas, and all the best for the new year.

During earlier debates on this bill, a number of members spoke to the importance of Canada's regional development agencies. They expressed concern about the impact on the regional development agencies of the proposed removal from the Salaries Act of the ministerial positions associated with them, and I rise to speak to this point today.

Bill C-24 would not dissolve the regional development agencies, or RDAs. They would continue to exist as separate organizations, and would not be consolidated. They would remain a strong, local presence in the regions they serve, and nothing in this bill would change that. The regional development agencies are essential delivery partners in the government's plan to foster economic growth. They will continue to work with communities and economic development organizations to promote local growth.

In this 100th year of Confederation, it is worth reflecting upon what has made Canada the modern, prosperous nation it is today. Canada is a nation of strong people and big thinkers. Our identity is shaped by our heritage and our geography. The Government of Canada recognizes that each region of our country has unique strengths. We also recognize that innovation does not just happen in the big cities, but in every region of the country.

Where innovation happens matters, because that is where the best jobs are located. Innovation happens right across our country in communities from coast to coast to coast. This is why Canada's regional development agencies are central to the government's plan to create well-paying, quality jobs. It is why, under this government, one minister, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, would be the responsible minister for all of the regional development agencies.

This change would be a positive for the regions, be it in eastern Canada, the north, or in western Canada. It would not diminish in any way the regional focus and local presence, but it would enhance the agencies' ability to work together, to share best practices with each other, and to learn from one another's experiences. When all regional development organizations are able to work together in the same portfolio and under the same minister, it facilitates knowledge sharing and best practices. Regional and national expertise would be working together for the benefit of all Canadians.

Together, the regional development agencies would have a national footprint, with offices in every region of Canada. This regional presence enables them to connect companies, communities, and Canadians with each other, and with the programs and services they need to grow their businesses, attract global investments to their communities, and, yes, create jobs.

The regional development agencies serve as a focal point of contact for outreach and engagement to better understand the needs of Canadians and the challenges they face. With our strong regional presence and well-developed local relationships with stakeholders and communities and other levels of government, regional development agencies strengthen the government's ability to support innovative, inclusive growth in every part of this great country.

The government supports the regional development agencies. We are investing over $1 billion each year for the regional development agencies in support of community and business growth in every part of Canada, supporting an innovative, clean, and inclusive economy. For example, the regional development agencies are key partners in delivering the accelerated growth service, which brings together key supports, including advisory services, financing, and export support to help propel entrepreneurs to success across Canada.

The regional development agencies are also taking action to boost the growth of Canada's clean tech sector and increase financing support for promising clean technology firms. Starting in 2016-17, the regional development agencies doubled their combined investments in clean tech projects to $100 million a year. This presents entrepreneurs and innovators in every part of the country with an immense opportunity to showcase their ingenuity while encouraging sustainable prosperity for all.

It is this kind of strategic alignment that could be accomplished by having a whole-of-government approach to regional development agencies, working together to strengthen our country as one country while preserving the diversity of our regions. This is what our government is doing for the benefit of all Canadians.

Regional development agencies also deliver programs and initiatives tailored to specific parts of Canada that have their own unique identities. In eastern Canada, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, or ACOA, is a lead economic development organization with flexible programs and an on-the-ground presence. ACOA is well positioned to help grow the economy, foster innovation, and assist in the creation of new jobs, new technologies, and new export opportunities. ACOA has built a strong network of collaborators, including other levels of government, business, academia, and community leaders across the region.

The Atlantic growth strategy has been implemented to improve business development, advance workforce skills, and increase collaboration among both levels of government to help create a stronger Atlantic Canada economy, something we can all be proud of.

The strength of Canada Economic Development for the Regions of Quebec, CEDQ, lies in its community presence through a network of 12 regional offices that work directly with community stakeholders. This allows CEDQ to understand local needs and issues, to provide timely and adapted solutions to these socio-economic realities, and to align programs and actions with the government priorities and the innovation and skills plan.

In southern Ontario, FedDev Ontario's core programs support the productivity, export capacity, and scale-up of firms, and help accelerate the commercialization of new ideas and innovations. FedDev Ontario contributes to building public-private partnerships and supports communities seeking to diversify their local economies.

In northern Ontario, FedNor's flagship northern Ontario development program focuses on delivering Government of Canada priorities to communities, businesses, and first nations in the less populated but very beautiful northern portion of Canada's largest province.

The government's prosperity and growth strategy for northern Ontario will focus on ways to build on northern Ontario's unique strengths and competitive advantages in such sectors as mining, resources, and agriculture, among other sectors.

In western Canada, Western Economic Diversification, WED, invests in programs that help build on western Canada's strengths. WED's on-the-ground presence in the west supports the western Canadian innovation ecosystem through strong relationships with regional stakeholders, the provincial government, and other federal organizations.

WED is helping to strengthen innovation networks and clusters by supporting innovators to develop the next great technologies, products, and services; creating better jobs for the middle class by assisting western Canadians to obtain the industry-relevant certification and skills they need to compete in today's global and highly competitive economy; and generating more trade and foreign investment opportunities by providing entrepreneurs with the tools needed to grow their companies into globally competitive successes.

The Government of Canada is committed to building a sustainable, diversified, and dynamic economy in Canada's North. The investments of Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, or CanNor, help create jobs, support community economic development, and bring real and tangible benefits to northerners.

CanNor plays a key role in the north's inclusion through its relationships with indigenous organizations and businesses. It creates opportunities for small and medium enterprises, which are the backbone of the Canadian economy, by investing in renewable energy and clean technologies, supporting the growth of northern businesses, and partnering with indigenous groups and companies.

These are examples of the work regional development agencies do every day on the ground on behalf of all Canadians from coast to coast to coast in communities large and small. The regional development agencies will continue to do this important work and fulfill their mandate. The voices of the regions will continue to be heard. The work being done in the regions will remain in the regions. What they do is essential. That is how and where economic development takes place.

They will continue to help Canadians start and grow globally competitive companies, and they will help those companies turn their research and innovation into business opportunities.

They will continue to promote regional advantages to attract global companies, and under one minister they will work together to better coordinate government-led programs for entrepreneurs and innovators.

While each regional development agency meets the needs of local and regional populations differently, together they are the story of Canada, be it on the east coast and the Atlantic provinces, on the west coast, in the north, or in southern or eastern Ontario. Together they are the story of Canada, of innovation and dedication, and a celebration of what makes our country unique.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's remarks. He mentioned southwestern Ontario, and that is the region of my riding of Chatham-Kent—Leamington.

I remember when the Conservatives were in power there were quite a number of announcements in that regard in southwestern Ontario and throughout the country. I do not want to catch my colleague off-guard, and I do not expect him to know the answers, but I wonder if he would commit to supplying me with information on some of the money and some of the grants that were provided to my region as well as some of the agencies. I am not hearing any announcements anymore. My riding is not getting the grants that it received in the past.

I wonder if the member would commit to supplying me with the amount of money that has gone into southwestern Ontario.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am certain a list of those grants that have been announced are available for every region in Canada. We continue to look at where each grant is going, ensuring that all grant applications that fit the needs of the area, the employers and employees are looked at by all RDAs across Canada.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague talked about the importance of economic development.

Certainly all three levels of government—municipal, provincial, and federal—have a role to play in promoting economic development in our regions. However, our country is large, and our regions differ significantly. I cannot believe the government has the gall to introduce a bill that eliminates the possibility of appointing a minister responsible for development of a particular region that has its own unique issues.

If economic development is such a priority for the government, how can it put a minister from Ontario in charge of economic development for all the other regions?

Does my colleague not think the minister responsible for economic development really should have a solid understanding of a given region and its unique issues? How can a single minister be responsible for all the different regions and our country's economic development?

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, within the minister's portfolio, nothing has changed on the ground. Nothing has changed with each of the RDAs. They continue to look at each of the regions under their particular mandate, whether it is the lovely province of Quebec, or the east or west coast. Those RDAs continue to do an intake of applications and continue to look at each of them on a merit system in fulfilling their mandate.

In my wonderful riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge, there was an announcement of a $3 million repayment loan to a manufacturer that made components for commercial aircraft. That will create 60 full-time positions over the next two to three years. Those wonderful stories are being repeated across the country, from coast to coast to coast, including in the hon. member's province of Quebec.

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

Madam Speaker, my question has more to do with why we are spending time talking about Bill C-24 when all the actions that would result from the bill were already taken two years ago.

At the same time, we have issues like taking a half a billion dollars of Canadian taxpayer money to spend on Asian infrastructure, instead of on Canadian infrastructure, on which the Liberals shut down debate. Why is the government shutting down debate on important things and spending time on these things on which actions already have been taken?

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-24 would allow us to continue to do our great work. It would allow the RDAs to do their great work. It brings them under one roof to support small and medium-sized enterprises across Canada.

With regard to the Asian infrastructure bank, Canada is a multilateral and bilateral partner with a number of organizations around the world. If we look at the specific entity we are partnering with, a number of countries, a number of our allies, be it in Europe or in the Asia Pacific region, with which we trade, invest, and create good middle-class jobs are also involved in that. We should be at the table as well.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Good morning, Madam Speaker. I am pleased to be in the House today under your watch to inform you that I intend to oppose Bill C-24, an act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act, which we are discussing this morning.

This morning, we are talking about salaries. Since a little change just happened right before my eyes, I would also like to give my best to Mr. Speaker, a colleague whom I greatly admire. To confirm what I was telling your predecessor, I intend to oppose this bill, which is another example of this government's half-baked ideas. Whenever it introduces a bill, it is not necessarily trying to do something good for Canadians; it is just trying to make itself look good.

Let me provide some background for people listening this morning, and remind the House that this Liberal government really dazzled everyone when it was first elected. It was all about sunny ways. This government really cares about its image. We were told to look at the beautiful cabinet photo, since cabinet has the same number of men and women. It was quite beautiful, right? Everyone had to admit that it really was a nice photo.

Now that the holiday season is upon us, it is time to send pictures and Christmas cards. We had a photo of the entire cabinet, which, we were told, had achieved gender parity. However, it was a pretty loose definition of parity, it was all for show, and that is what I will demonstrate here this morning.

When we looked at the photo, the first thing we did was read the titles. There were indeed ministerial titles. For those listening at home, cabinet is made up of two kinds of ministers. You have the senior ministers, like the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. Sometimes, when the department is really big, a second minister is appointed to look after part of the portfolio. That individual, a minister of state, does not have the full responsibility of the department. Ministers of state are accountable to the minister they are supporting.

For example, I was fortunate enough to serve as both. I was the minister of public safety and emergency preparedness, a full minister. I was responsible for five Canadian agencies, namely the Canada Border Services Agency, the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Correctional Service Canada, and the whole works.

I would have liked to have a deputy minister or a minister of state, but I did not. However, I was the minister of la Francophonie. I was deeply honoured to be given that responsibility. That was a minister of state portfolio because the minister of la Francophonie is a deputy who supports the minister of foreign affairs.

At the time I was proud that Prime Minister Harper told me that he needed me to fill the role of minister of la Francophonie. However, I was not responsible for Canadian foreign policy. I was specifically responsible for everything related to la Francophonie. Obviously, I was not responsible for the entire department. I have to say, that as minister of public safety and emergency preparedness, I had enough on my plate. I accepted that role. That being said, my salary did not change. That is what I am getting at, because we are talking about salaries this morning.

I very much respect the Minister of La Francophonie, but unfortunately, la Francophonie does not seem as important to the current government as it is to us. Hon. members will recall that it was a former Conservative government that created this entity. It is only right that a minister of la Francophonie or a minister of state not get the same salary as a full minister because they do not have the same responsibilities. There is a lot of talk about equal pay for equal work. It makes sense that if we do not have the duties of a superior, then we should get the pay of a subordinate. That is how it works in life. That is what taxpayers are entitled to expect.

One of the reasons I am opposed to this bill is that to maintain the illusion of parity, yet again, it is taxpayers who will foot the bill.

When journalists took a closer look at the impressive lineup of ministers in this beautiful picture, they noticed that ministers of state were included. Nothing wrong with that, but it meant that both ministers and ministers of state were counted in the calculation. They also untangled the Liberals' concept of parity and realized that many of the ministers of state were women and that in many cases, they would be reporting to a male minister. This picture of a gender-balanced cabinet, which had been announced with so much fanfare, turned out to be a picture of a plain old paternalistic cabinet, with female ministers of state reporting to male ministers.

This is no longer the postcard-perfect, sunny-ways ideal we were promised by the Liberal government, which was acting as if it had reinvented the wheel.

I have a colleague, right here next to me, whom I hold in the greatest respect. She is a former minister, having served as the minister of public works and government services. I had many occasions to work with her in my capacity as an MP, minister, and cabinet colleague, because she was responsible for procurement. She played an important role in awarding procurement contracts, and the Auditor General himself acknowledged that they had been awarded with great integrity. It is important to have genuine integrity, not just the appearance of integrity. My colleague is a woman who worked as a full minister in the Conservative government.

Not so long ago, the opposition benches were fronted by a female leader of the opposition, Rona Ambrose, who had previously served as minister of health and minister of the environment. She was a female full minister, a competent woman who received a salary corresponding to her title. She was a minister, and she was paid a minister's salary.

There is also my colleague, who was here in the House this week. I find it interesting that she was a minister that came from Canada's Far North. She was minister for the Arctic Council, minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency—we can get back to that ridiculous bill later—and minister of the environment. I am obviously talking about Leona Aglukkaq. I met her mother this week, and she speaks neither French nor English. She speaks an indigenous language, and I needed her daughter to interpret. Her daughter was minister of the environment and minister of health, and these were real ministerial positions.

I am talking about full ministers and not ministers of state, whom Jean Lapierre called “little ministers", as my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent reminded me. I do not want to downplay the work of ministers of state, but there are full ministers and there are ministers of state. Therefore, there is a salary for full ministers and a salary for ministers of state.

What do the Liberals want to do now? They want to combine them. Why? The government is just trying to make itself look good.

Another one of my female colleagues who is very competent and who holds the government to account is the former minister of transportation, who managed the Canada Post dispute and the labour dispute in the rail sector. I cannot name her because she is still an MP. I am referring to the excellent member for Milton. She is another woman who was a minister and was extremely competent. She had the salary of a minister because she did the work of a minister. Whether held by a man or a woman, the position has a salary.

I will now come back to the bill introduced by the Liberals. This is a remedial bill and taxpayers are going to foot the bill. The bill will let the government save face with respect to its claims of a gender-balanced cabinet. We are realizing that it is probably the most paternalistic cabinet in Canada's history.

This is an embarrassment for the Liberals. What are they doing? They realized that they were cornered. Therefore they have racked their brains and resorted to the usual tactic of picking taxpayers' pockets to solve the problem. It is not complicated.

That is what they usually do. We have seen it with families. That is another illusion. It is not funny how they boast about loving the middle class. They want to help families and are going to give them extra cash. They are just trying to pull the wool over our eyes when they say that they are cutting taxes for the middle class. We are drinking the Kool-Aid and believing that it is true, and that it is good to give the middle class big subsidies.

Fortunately, we live in a democracy, and we have independent organizations. The Fraser Institute is not falling for the government's line. It says eight out of 10 families are paying more tax under this government, which eliminated tax credits for education, ballet and piano lessons, sports, public transit, and more, and got rid of income splitting too. It gave with one hand and took away with the other.

That is what is happening here this morning. Cabinet is paternalistic. It is trying to save face by giving everyone the same salary. That means they will be paying ministers of state a ministerial salary. That is not okay. Assistants are not supposed to get the same pay as the boss. That is what the Liberals are trying to do this morning, and that is what I have tried to explain.

I oppose this bill for many reasons. I hope I will have a chance to talk about this some more when it is time for questions because there are other major problems with the other subterfuge here, and taxpayers will be on the hook for that too.

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

Madam Speaker, there are two things that the Conservatives have really established, one being that they have an issue with the cabinet size. When Stephen Harper was prime minister, he had Canada's largest cabinet. The member, a former minister, would be familiar with that cabinet. It was a large cabinet of 40 people at a substantial cost, quite possibly.

Why does he believe that Stephen Harper needed such a large cabinet, a historic number of cabinet ministers, and why does the former minister believe that during the Harper era, it was necessary to have two-tiered cabinet that did not, for example, recognize the value of small business and tourism as a major portfolio?

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question.

Prime Minister Harper surrounded himself with competent women and men with various responsibilities specifically in order to clean up the Liberal mess from the previous decade and to balance the budget.

Future generations will be stuck with the mess left by this government, which is running up a deficit and taking more money out of taxpayers' pockets. It is even going after diabetics, as we learned yesterday, and people with autism.

Once again, it is important to put the right people in the right positions and pay them accordingly.

Why does my colleague not recognize that a minister is not the same as a minister of state, and that different jobs are worth different salaries?

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

Madam Speaker, I never thought I would say this in the House, but I agree completely with my colleague from Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis. I would like to hear his opinion on another aspect of this bill, which has been debated before in this House.

I am still waiting for the job descriptions of the three positions that are supposed to open up in cabinet. Any time I have ever applied for a job, there was always a job description and salary attached. When there is a perfect match, someone can be hired. The opposite seems to be the case here. Anyone who has a Liberal resumé can usually count on a job offer.

Has my colleague heard anything at all about the job descriptions for the three new positions created in Bill C-24?

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Trois-Rivières for his fine words. I am pleased to know that we share the same opinion. He made a good point.

Three positions are being created and will incur additional expenses, but we do not know what those positions are for. However, we do know that one thing was left out of this bill and that is the regions, including Trois-Rivières, Quebec, the north shore, Ontario, northern Ontario, and British Columbia. The Liberals' centralizing vision is driving them to eliminate the regional minister position, even though it is an essential role.

Why do my friends across the way not recognize the regional disparities and diversity? They say they are the party of diversity. They keep bragging about that. Canada is a country made up of different realities, so why did they get rid of these regional minister positions? The position fell under an economic department dedicated to Quebec and was filled by a Quebecker, but the Liberals got rid of it.

The government is making less room for a Quebec minister with an economics background and less room for the regions while taking more money from taxpayers. That is the Liberal way, and that is why I am voting against this bill.

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

Madam Speaker, I heard it all from the member across the way. He says it was the Liberals who caused Stephen Harper to have the largest cabinet in the history of Canada. Do not blame him, blame the Liberals, because there was this apparent issue when Stephen Harper became prime minister because of what he inherited.

Let me remind the member what Stephen Harper inherited: a multi-billion dollar surplus. That was what he inherited, and he converted it into a multi-billion dollar deficit. The Harper government also inherited a multi-billion dollar trade surplus, and converted that into a multi-billion dollar trade deficit. The Harper government inherited an economy that was moving forward, and it took that government less than two years to get the economy almost going backwards, which then caused the Conservatives to invest in Canadians during those minority years.

Though the Harper government had the largest cabinet, I would suggest to my colleague across the way that the big difference between the Liberal cabinet and the Conservative cabinet is not only in terms of size, but also gender parity, which the member across the way does not seem to recognize as a very important issue. Many Canadians took great pride in the announcement by the Prime Minister when he introduced his cabinet to Canadians. The idea of gender parity was long overdue and was applauded by every region of our country. It was exceptionally well received.

I am disappointed. We had the NDP and the Conservatives, an unholy alliance, come together in the last year or so in opposition to good legislation. They both like to mock the announcement of this Prime Minister's cabinet. I do not know why the NDP and Conservatives do not see gender parity in cabinet as a good thing. I do not understand why both of these opposition parties believe that all cabinet ministers should not be treated equally. That is what this piece of legislation will do; it will ensure that all cabinet ministers are equal, unlike the Conservative cabinet.

What is wrong with having gender parity? The NDP often talk about it, and now they have a chance to reinforce it. When the Prime Minister made the announcement, they had a chance to recognize it as a good thing and say that for what it was. That is what Canadians, as a whole, recognized the cabinet as being. It was even recognized beyond Canada's border, making international news as a step in the right direction.

I was surprised by the criticisms being levelled. The opposition say that Stephen Harper labelled a certain spot as being for a junior, less important minister. I disagree. How can members across the way try to convince me or Canadians that small businesses, especially given the number of questions they ask about them, deserve a junior spot? We recognize small businesses for what they are, the backbone of the Canadian economy, absolutely critical to promoting ongoing job growth for Canada's middle class, as well as supporting the middle class. This is a government that has been supporting our small businesses.

Today, we have a minister who is constantly out there in support of our small businesses and promoting tourism. There have been tangible results. We have seen record numbers of tourists coming to Canada. In fact, in the last week, the minister responsible for tourism, the one they say is a junior spot, has been in China to promote Canada as a tourist destination. I do not know why the members across the way do not want to recognize how important tourism is to our country. Maybe they need to meet with some of the stakeholders and some of their constituents who deal with the hospitality industry to see the real value of tourism. They might not recognize it, but this government recognizes the value of our hospitality industry and the importance of tourism to our country. It creates thousands of jobs every year and employs millions of Canadians, either directly or indirectly. I see that as a very important portfolio.

We have a full minister, a minister of equal value, known as the Minister of Status of Women. Again, that is a very important ministry. Unlike the former Harper government, we have a government that is applying a gender lens to budgetary measures through the Minister of Finance. We have a number of different initiatives under way. The Minister of Status of Women has and should have an equal voice at the cabinet table, but not according to the New Democrats and Conservatives. The New Democrats and the Conservatives join together and say no, that should not be the case, that it is a junior ministerial position. I suggest that Canadians would say that the New Democrats and the Conservatives are wrong, that the Status of Women as a ministry should be equal to the Ministry of Finance.

We then hear, “Well, they have different responsibilities”. Of course they have different responsibilities. Each minister has different responsibilities, but they all sit around the cabinet table and that cabinet makes joint decisions. They all have a responsibility to ensure that they are informed on the decisions that cabinet will be making as a whole. Why would they not be paid equally? Again, I would be disappointed if I were a New Democrat. The new Democrats are saying that they believe in pay equity, but they are quite content to see the Minister of Status of Women paid less than the Minister of Health. I would suggest they are wrong on that point too. If they were consistent in what they are saying across the way, they should be rethinking their position on that.

The opposition members are saying that youth are important, and we agree. Youth are very important. Some of the members say we should have a minister of youth. The nice thing about this legislation is that it would create the opportunity, not only for today's Prime Minister but also for future prime ministers, to designate a youth ministry. To me, our Prime Minister has this right. He understands the importance of youth and getting young people engaged, and he has taken on that responsibility himself. We have a Prime Minister who is advocating directly on behalf of youth activities and a parliamentary secretary who is doing an outstanding job on that, but it does not necessarily mean that prevents it from happening some time in the future.

A more commonly talked about issue on the opposition benches is that of seniors. This legislation would allow, whether today or tomorrow, more flexibility to deal with issues that are before the government. It would provide something that is critically important.

I want to talk about the name change. Instead of the previous “minister of infrastructure, communities and intergovernmental affairs”, we now have the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities. That is a significant change. We are saying that we want a minister of infrastructure with equal status, because we have record amounts of infrastructure dollars being spent in every region of our country. We have a minister who is equal and sitting at the table focused on infrastructure and communities. That is a positive thing.

I suspect I might get some questions.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the comments of my colleague from Winnipeg North, but there is a point I want to adjust. First of all, my colleague said that when we were in office, we had the largest cabinet. That is not true. In 1984, there were 40 members in cabinet. Also, he said that the Chrétien-Martin government left the country with a huge surplus. We ought to also remember that they drastically cut subsidies to the provinces. He also forgets that when we were in office, we addressed the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. This is why we are very proud of what we did when we were in office.

Does the member recognize that when one is the Minister of National Defence it is quite a bit bigger than being the Minister of Small Business and Tourism? Is that not true?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, they sit at the same cabinet table, and they make decisions and value opinions with a national perspective. If we were to follow the logic of that question, one could say that if there are 29 ministers, each minister should be evaluated, and there should be 29 different salaries. Maybe that is the direction the former prime minister was heading. I would suggest that all cabinet ministers, as the legislation says, are equal, and they should be treated accordingly.

In regard to the member's comments in terms of the deficit situation, remember that former prime minister Harper created that multi-billion deficit after inheriting a surplus before the recession took place. In regard to the cuts, it was Jean Chrétien who erased the tax transfer points, which guaranteed health cash dollars to provinces. If it were not for Chrétien back then, we might not have health cash transfers to provinces because of the tax points. I was in the Manitoba legislature--

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Unfortunately, we do have to allow for other questions.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Trois-Rivières.

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

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech by my colleague from Winnipeg North, and two things are clear.

First, he firmly believes that if you say something that is untrue over and over again, someone will end up believing it is true. Second, he thinks that the louder you talk, the more convincing you will be, even though Bill C-24 is fooling no one.

My question is simple: if the Liberals truly believe in pay equity, why are they doing nothing about it? Pay equity means equal pay for equal work.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would recommend that my friend understand what the NDP members have done and said. On the one hand, they like to say that they believe in pay equity, but they were awfully critical of the Prime Minister's gender parity within the cabinet. Part of that gender parity includes having pay equity. Because of the Prime Minister, a female minister for the Status of Women makes just as much as the Minister of National Defence. All ministers are paid the same amount.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Yes, but you only did that after you were pressured to.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

That is true, real, and factual. No matter what tone of voice I happen to use, that is the reality, and the NDP oppose that.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek that if she has something to contribute, she should stand when we ask for questions and comments. Unfortunately, we have run out of time, but there will be other opportunities during this debate.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak on Bill C-24, and I have to say that it is rather surreal that we are here debating this bill, a bill that is essentially about increasing the salaries of a few Liberal cabinet ministers. That really speaks to the priorities of the government, or the lack of priorities.

During the 2015 election, the Prime Minister criss-crossed the country. He made a big deal about the fact that if he was elected, he would appoint the first gender-balanced cabinet in Canadian history. Of course, we know that the Prime Minister was elected, and on November 4, 2015, he had an opportunity to fulfill his election promise when he appointed his cabinet on that date. On its face, it appeared that the cabinet was gender equal.

The only problem is that not all ministers are equal. There are full ministers, and then there are ministers of state. What is the difference between a full minister and a minister of state? To begin with, ministers of state do not have full departments. They do not manage a full department budget. Ministers of state do not have a deputy minister who reports to them. A minister of state does not have the same power and the same authority as a full minister.

The only way the Prime Minister was able to fulfill, on its face, a gender-equal cabinet was by filling the five junior portfolios, the five ministers of state, with female MPs, and then he could say that he had a gender-equal cabinet. It did not take long for a number of people to point out that the Prime Minister's gender-equal cabinet was not as equal as he made it out to be.

What did the Prime Minister do about it? He essentially played a game of pretend. He began by changing the titles of the ministers to remove “minister of state” and called them “minister” to create the illusion, the facade, that those five junior ministers without full departments were in fact the same as ministers with full departments. Then the Prime Minister increased the salaries of those five ministers, again junior ministers without full departments, to put their salaries on par with ministers of full departments. Now, to complete the facade, the Prime Minister has introduced Bill C-24, in which the government is asking Parliament to rubber-stamp what the Prime Minister did.

The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, others members of the government, and the Prime Minister have talked a lot about the problem they have with two tiers of ministers. The irony of that is that Bill C-24 does not eliminate two tiers of ministers. In fact, what Bill C-24 does with respect to those five junior ministries is migrate them to a new category called “minister in respect of whom that department is designated”. In the case of those ministers, they would get their resources from the department of another minister. It sounds an awful lot like a minister of state.

In substance, what is the government doing? The government is not doing anything to solve the problem that it purports exists, which is the problem of two tiers of ministers. For the Prime Minister, it does not really matter, because for the Prime Minister, it is all about optics. It is all about looking good. It is all about pretending that he is a champion of women. Of course, when one looks at the record of the Prime Minister when it comes to supporting women, it really is a wanting record.

We have a Prime Minister who has done virtually nothing to assist Yazidi women and girls, who are suffering torture and the most egregious human rights violations imaginable, to help them come to Canada. He has done next to nothing. We have a feminist Prime Minister who is going to remove genital mutilation from the citizenship guide.

The Prime Minister talks a good game, creates a nice facade, and uses women to make himself look good. However, when it comes to substance, when it comes to doing something meaningful, the Prime Minister, time and time again, is AWOL.

What else would we expect from the Prime Minister? After all, we have a Prime Minister who is a failed prime minister. He is a Prime Minister who, in the last two years, has blown the budget and returned Canada to long-term structural deficits. He cannot get anything done. He cannot get TPP done. He cannot get softwood done. He cannot get NAFTA done. He cannot get pipelines built. He presides over a government plagued by scandal and corruption. He is under investigation as we speak. With a record like that, what else is there to do beyond taking selfies, appearing on American television to talk about his socks, and introducing hollow, meaningless bills, like Bill C-24, that waste Parliament's time?

It is a little ironic that the government is introducing this bill. It speaks to the government's priorities. It is making life more difficult for everyday Canadians. It is taking more out of the wallets of middle-class Canadians. It is going after vulnerable Canadians, like diabetics, to raise revenue for this cash-strapped, spendthrift government. It is declaring war on small businesses. While the government makes Canadians pay, when it comes to the Liberals giving themselves salary increases, they are all in.

Bill C-24 is not about gender equality. It is about Liberals helping Liberals. Let us talk about the arrogance, the entitlement, and the condescension of this Liberal government. It was remarkable that the Prime Minister and members of the government tried to insult the intelligence of Canadians by proclaiming that this bill was about gender equity.

On February 2, 2016, none other than the President of the Treasury Board said, “we are committed to pay equity in our cabinet and the government will soon be bringing forward legislation to ensure that all cabinet ministers receive equal pay.” Of course, Bill C-24 has nothing to do with pay equity. The principle of pay equity is equal pay for equal value. Bill C-24 does nothing of the sort, which is why it was laughed out of committee by expert witnesses on the question of pay equity.

Bill C-24 is a joke of a bill. It is one more reason 2019 cannot come soon enough.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, listening to some of the comments from the other side of the House makes me want to stand up and comment.

The whole issue of equity is important for all of us. Certainly the Minister of Status of Women is equal to every other minister we have in the House. What we are trying to do with Bill C-24 is promote more gender equity all the way through the service.

I would like to hear some comments from my hon. colleague on the issue of gender balance. He said that our Prime Minister has not accomplished anything. The member should try to look at our budget through a gender lens as to its impact on women. What about the 600,000 jobs that have been created? Our economy is doing better than any other country in the G7. Somehow I think my hon. colleague forgot to read that press release.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, in reference to Bill C-24 and this falsehood put forward by the government that this is about gender equity, let me quote Professor Margot Young of the University of British Columbia, who specializes in gender equality. She said this about Bill C-24:

To loosely categorize legislation that essentially isn't really about gender equity as responding to a gender equity concern is, as I said before, dangerous....

She went on to say:

Really, there's no gender substance, no equity...on the basis of gender equality, to this legislation.

I think that pretty much sums up Bill C-24 when it comes to this false notion that it has anything to do with gender equity.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague with respect to equity.

The other aspect of this bill that really concerns me is the provision that only one minister, in this case the member for Mississauga—Malton, will be responsible for managing economic development agencies. We have a government that seems to be solely focused on big cities. As the MP for a region such as Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, it is even more worrisome to know that there will not be a minister responsible for Quebec's economic development.

Our regions are different and we have different issues. Having a minister who does not know or understand the region is a disconcerting aspect of this bill.

Does my colleague believe that this bill is good for the economic development of our regions?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, is quite right. On top of increasing the salaries of certain Liberal ministers, Bill C-24 would do away with regional economic ministries. It is not only with respect to Quebec but also Atlantic Canada.

As an Alberta MP, I similarly share the member's concern, and I have to say it really is inconsistent. This is a government that talks so much about working with the provinces and municipalities, and here it is eliminating regional representation at the cabinet table to bring the unique perspectives of the regions of Canada, by doing away with these regional economic portfolios. I think that is a mistake on the part of the government.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Madam Speaker, in rebuttal to that last comment from my hon. colleague across the way, I want Canadians and Atlantic Canadians to be reassured that this government has a keen focus on the economic development of our regions. That could not be more apparent than through the Atlantic growth strategy, which has the support from the highest reaches of this government, from the Prime Minister to the immigration minister, and the implementation of an Atlantic immigration pilot initiative that will help the economic development of our region in Atlantic Canada, something that the previous government, under Stephen Harper, never had a view toward. Atlantic Canadians remember the comments about the culture of defeat that Stephen Harper issued toward people in our region of the country. However, they are proud of the work of this Liberal government, providing economic growth as a strategic initiative for the people of our region.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will speak to what Bill C-24 does when it comes to Atlantic Canada with respect to eliminating regional economic ministries. As a result, there is now a delay in processing times at ACOA. Ministerial approval delays are occurring. A 30-day processing time has now turned into a 90-day processing time thanks to the current government.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

[Member spoke in Cree as follows:]

Niwakoma cuntik Tansai Nemeaytane Awapantitok.

[English]

Madam Speaker, on November 4, 2015, my grandmother, who was at home in Kelowna, had the opportunity to watch the swearing-in of our ministers in our government. She was very happy when she learned that there was going to be equality between the sexes in the formation of cabinet. She actually raised this issue with me, a lady who is not very political. She is almost 90 years old, and yet she raised this issue because she thought it was important. She was so proud of the answer the Prime Minister gave when he said, “Because it's 2015”. I know there is some heckling, but when my grandmother says something to me about politics, it is a beautiful thing. I really believe we need true equality, and I am sure my grandmother, if she learned there was not true equality among the ministers, would like to see that rectified.

I am very proud of the government having presented Bill C-24, an act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act, because it would amend the Salaries Act to include eight new ministerial positions, including the Minister of International Development and 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. It would authorize the Governor in Council to designate departments to support ministers who would occupy these positions, and authorize those ministers to delegate their powers, duties, or functions to officers or employees of the designated departments.

It would also make consequential amendments to the Financial Administration Act and change the legal title of Minister of Infrastructure and Communities and Intergovernmental Affairs to minister of infrastructure and communities. This reflects the fact that the Prime Minister has taken on the role of intergovernmental affairs minister.

This bill would amend the Salaries Act to modernize, as well, and formally equalize the status of the government's ministerial team, because it is a team. In this government, there are no junior or senior ministers; there are just ministers who work for all Canadians. This government is committed to a one-tier ministry that recognizes the equality of all cabinet members and supports their work on our government's priorities.

Under the current act, the Minister of International Development and 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 were all considered to be secretaries or ministers of state. This bill would add five ministerial positions, which would replace the current minister of state appointments. All members of the Prime Minister's ministerial team were sworn in as ministers and have had full standing and authority since day one of this government. This legislation would formally recognize the equality of all members of the ministry.

The bill would formalize having regional and national expertise working together under one roof, which would create a better synergy among them. The regional development agencies would continue to fulfill their mandates and offer their programs, services, and opportunities for local economic growth. Reporting through the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development highlights the importance the regional development agencies play in the regions and permits a more integrated and whole-of-government approach to economic development issues.

I truly believe it is important that science, la francophonie, small business and tourism, sport and persons with disabilities, and the status of women are all priority areas for Canadians and, therefore, merit full ministerial status. Our government has also, from day one, been committed to creating a one-tier ministry, and this legislation would simply formalize this approach.

Changes made to the Salaries Act would formalize the equality of all members of the ministry and modernize the act to allow for more flexibility. The current act allows for 35 ministerial positions, including the position of the Prime Minister. The bill would amend the act to include five additional titled ministerial positions: the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, the Minister of Small Business and Tourism, the Minister of Science, the Minister of the Status of Women, and the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities. It would also add three new untitled positions to provide greater flexibility to structure future ministries to reflect the priorities of the government without resorting to minister of state appointments.

These changes would not impact the Ministries and Ministers of State Act. The minister of state appointments would remain an option at the discretion of the Prime Minister, which may be used in the future.

On November 4, 2015, when the cabinet was sworn in, the orders in council included language to style the five ministers as full ministers. The language of the order in council was necessary, given the legislative framework and the current list of ministerial positions in the Salaries Act. Bill C-24 would modernize the legislation to include the five ministerial titles. That is important.

The bill further would amend the act by removing six regional development positions. However, this does not affect the current regional development agencies, which would continue, under this ministry, to operate under the mandate of the Minister of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development. The Prime Minister would continue to appoint ministers to oversee the regional agencies.

Under our government, all of these practices are currently in place, and this legislation simply formalizes the changes that were made when Canadians changed government, to have a better government. It addresses the administrative constraints that exist in current legislation.

When I was working for the First Nations Education Council in Quebec, it was interesting to note that the structures of the Assembly of First Nations in Quebec and Labrador had commissions that were often run by women, while the other leadership roles were often done, in this case, by men. Men were doing the chief positions and the women, in this case, were doing many of the social organizations that ensured the indigenous organizations in Quebec and Labrador were able to function properly. However, it is important to note, even though women often end up in certain roles—there might be a bit of a gravitation to certain roles—that we all have equal status, no matter what the roles are, especially the ministry of the status of women. One day perhaps we will have a minister of the status of women who might be a man. However, in this case, it is such an important position with everything that is going on in our society, that this position should not be a second-class minister, but a full minister, like everyone else in the council.

For me, it is very important. For my grandmother, it is important. I believe it is important for all Canadians that we not only symbolically but concretely demonstrate that these are our values and that we are willing to make simple legislative changes to ensure that all ministers have full status when they debate the important issues of the day.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague. I welcome him to the House. He has been a great colleague. He represents his people very well. Earlier he quoted his grandmother from British Columbia. I congratulate him for that, but I would like to bring another British Columbian's perspective to this issue.

We had Professor Young, a University of British Columbia law professor who specializes in gender equality, appear before the committee on Bill C-24. She said:

...this particular piece of legislation really doesn't, as far as I can see, have much to do with gender equality.

She went on to say:

...to claim that it is about gender equality is dangerous. I think it's dangerous because too often we cut off the really important, substantial, and tough conversations about gender equality by claiming that we've already dealt with it and we've dealt with it in some more formalistic way. I think to point to this legislation and say that the expansion of categories that get the same pay level is actually dealing with gender equality is to essentially short-sheet the conversation....

I think to frame it as a piece of legislation that speaks substantively to the issues of gender equality and cabinet composition is wrong, and it's dangerous.

Three times she used the term “dangerous”. I wonder how my colleague feels about this comment from a law professor who deals with gender equality as a specialty.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, when we use the word “dangerously”, it could be construed as being very dangerous. I would like more information on how it creates this danger. When I see ministers, or anyone in society, it is about equal pay for equal work.

We know that in Canada there are some professions to which men gravitate. As a person who was in the military for a long time, a lot more men are in the Canadian Armed Forces than women. Those in the Canadian Armed Forces work very hard, as do my colleagues and comrades, but in other professions, like child care, which is just as important to society, the pay is often less.

In this case, when we look at the Minister of Status of Women or other ministries, it is important for me that all my cabinet minister colleagues, although they are different from me as a backbencher, have the same level of status. It is important for a symbolic place like Parliament to ensure there is no differential in pay.

If we do the calculations on the statistics and data within the ministries, if we look at where people might be doing their best work in various ministries, and if everyone has equal pay, we would not find out that perhaps some of the expertise of some of our colleagues who end up in a certain area and other ministers end up in other areas have a differential in pay. It is important they are all equal.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be opposing the bill.

Bill C-24 highlights a central problem in this town, which is the centralization of power in party leaders' offices, particularly the Prime Minister's Office. All ministers, including ministerial staff, ultimately report to the Prime Minister, and they serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister.

Viewers and members of Parliament would be interested to hear that the Prime Minister's Office has a budget to hire 500 political exempt staffers who work for the Prime Minister in the Langevin Block and in other ministerial offices. This is a much bigger budget than what the U.K. prime minister has and a much bigger budget than many other heads of government in the G7 have.

The bill would exacerbate the problem of the concentration of power in Ottawa by enlarging the salaries for cabinet ministers and would continue the march to further centralization of power in this town, which is contrary to the interests of Canadians.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, there is a tendency across the western world to have a centralization of power. It is often very difficult to oppose, because many of us in the House, whether on the backbench or on the opposition side, always seem to bend our will to the will of our leaders.

However, not to be trite, but Canada is a very large nation and sometimes we need that, because it is a very complicated nation. It is made up of many different components. I would not be predisposed to judging the Prime Minister on what he might need or what he deems he needs to run the country effectively.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-24. I want highlight for members of the House a lot of the specifics in the bill.

The bill's general theme is one of synergy. It is very pragmatic with respect to how we do business in the House but, most important, how we do business across the nation with our partners in all levels of government as well as the private sector.

To be specific, Bill C-24 proposes to modernize and firmly equalize the status of the government's ministerial team, team being the key word, throughout the Hill and throughout the nation, working with our partners, municipalities, the provinces and territories, and the private sector in a more proactive manner.

The bill highlights that there are no junior or senior ministers in the Liberal ministry, or any ministry for that matter. It recognizes the importance of a one-tier ministry, all ministers being equal, working to deliver results for all Canadians throughout our great nation.

Currently, five ministers would be directly impacted by this legislation, which proposes to make their positions full minister positions. Those ministers are the Minister of International Development and 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. This would simply formalize what the Prime Minister put in place on day one.

The bill would provide the Prime Minister with flexibility to adjust cabinet to the current realities of the times based on what we would hear. Our government relies on our consultations with members of the public and our partners to ensure the message that we bring forward is based on what we hear. We fully concentrate on this in comparison to governments of the past. We learn and, most important, we react accordingly based on those consultations.

Not to be repetitive, but I again want to drill down on what the bill identifies.

The bill would amend the Salaries Act to modernize, as well as formally equalize, the status of the government's ministerial team. In this ministry, there are no junior or senior ministers. There are just ministers working to deliver results for Canadians.

This government is committed to a one-tier ministry that recognizes the equality of cabinet members and supports their work based on the government's priorities, as well as the priorities of the nation.

Under the current act, the Minister of International Development and 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 are all considered to be ministers of state. Bill C-24 proposes to add five ministerial positions to replace the current ministers of state appointments.

All members of the Prime Minister's ministerial team were sworn in as ministers and have had full standing and authority since day one of this government. The legislation formally recognizes the equality of all members of the ministry.

I would also like to highlight some of the residual benefits that the bill brings forward.

First, on regional development agencies, the proposed bill formalizes having regional and national expertise working together under one roof. It identifies how it will create better synergy by working closer together with our partners. It creates an opportunity for greater progress, which is this government's number one priority.

RDAs will continue to fulfill their mandates in confutation with our partners, listening, learning, and responding accordingly. They will continue to offer their programs, services and opportunities for local economic growth, working together. Cohesion between RDAs helps to grow the economy and deliver results.

Reporting through ISED ministers, highlights the importance of RDAs and the priorities they put forward within their different regions, the importance that they are part of the efforts to bring forward progress. It permits a more integrated and whole-of-government approach to economic development issues, therefore a more robust strategy that identifies objectives. With our partners, we can attach action plans to those objectives, and then, finally, execute those action plans to once again achieve progress.

RDAs are in fact in Atlantic Canada. For example, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is delivering results. There are economic development agencies for the regions of Quebec, and for southern Ontario, FedDev as an example. When we look at FedDev's accomplishments in the past year, over $783.9 million has been invested through a post-secondary strategic infrastructure fund, or an investment fund for the province of Ontario; $222 million invested in support of scale-up firms and entrepreneurs, innovative clusters, clean growth, and export development. I can go on, but unfortunately I only have 10 minutes.

Once again, there is progress.

The Federal Economic Development initiative for Northern Ontario, FedNor, and the western economic diversification are examples of working with partners for progress.

The bill proposes to formalize having the regional and national expertise of the regional development agencies all working together under one roof for progress. This creates better synergy and more opportunities for greater progress. It provides the flexibility needed to make real impacts in communities across our great nation.

The regional development agencies would all continue to fulfill their mandates of supporting small and medium-sized enterprises in becoming more innovative, productive, and export oriented, achieving progress. They would continue to work with communities and economic development organizations to identify and generate opportunities for local economic growth, as well as continue to provide programs and services to entrepreneurs and communities that build on distinct competitive regional advantages, their niches.

In my former life as a municipal representative, I fully respected the people I worked with on a daily basis, whether it was bumping into someone at a grocery store, or soccer field, or hockey rink, or on the sidewalk, or going for a walk with my dog, or being somewhere with my daughters Logan and Jordan just sitting and chatting, or bumping into somebody who had an idea and wanted to discuss how he or she could progress ideas with our level of government. I knew how important it was in my position to take that message to other levels of government and other departments in order to leverage those ideas to become a reality through strategy, objectives, action plans, and execution.

Currently this government is doing a transportation corridors study and an infrastructure smart cities study, which align with the very direction the government proposes through this bill.

I ask members of the House to understand the synergies and partnerships, and to therefore appreciate the progress we are trying to bring forward on behalf of our great nation.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have a very simple question for the member for Niagara Centre. This cabinet was appointed 25 months ago. Those ministers were appointed 25 months ago. Under what authority of the House have the ministers been paid up until this point?

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, there are three simple answers to that question: one, equal status since day one; two, the importance of a one-tier ministry; and three, a minister is a minister.

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

Madam Speaker, in light of the response we have just received, I would like to call upon my colleague's expertise as a former municipal mayor.

Is a public servant a public servant, and, in that case, does everyone get the same salary?

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, the answer would be no.

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

Madam Speaker, it is clear that the Liberals are coming here today with Bill C-24 to ask for parliamentary permission to do what they already did two years ago. It is clear they did that without any parliamentary authority at all.

In terms of the equality of the jobs, in the real world if someone wanted to take an existing job, like a minister of state, compared to a full minister's job, the skills, years of experience, and the responsibility of those jobs would be looked at.

Could the member explain to me how, on any planet, the role of status of women has the same responsibility as that of the finance minister, who handles $355 billion in taxpayers' money and can influence businesses all over the country, including his own?

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, members ought to appreciate the fact that this bill is not creating any new departments. There is nothing new in comparison to day one.

The ministers will work within the existing framework. We believe that the portfolios for la francophonie, small business and tourism, status of women, sport and persons with disabilities, and science are all important to Canadians and, of course, that their ministers be compensated accordingly. They deserve equal weight around the cabinet table. It is unfortunate that the Harper government did not see it that way. Therefore, we are dealing with something that, unfortunately, was not dealt with in the past as well as it should have been.

Finally, this is a whole-of-government approach. Once again, it is a team approach. What is most important about this approach, as I said earlier, is working with our partners across this great nation and, with that, creating the progress and development that each and every Canadian deserves.

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

Madam Speaker, we heard a recent question asking why the status of women minister should not be a minister of state. We make up 50% of the population. Why on earth would this not be a full ministry? Considering the intersectionality and barriers that women face, it should be a full ministry. Considering the intersectionality and barriers that persons with disabilities face, that should also be a full ministry. If a government wants to operate and develop good policy based on evidence, then the minister of science should be a full ministry. Does my hon. colleague agree with that?

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, absolutely, I do agree, but I want to expand a bit more.

Again, it is about equality for women, as well as equality for our youth, and equality for our seniors, and it demonstrates the importance of hearing those voices across this nation and at the cabinet table. In a whole-of-government approach, the entire cabinet represents their voice. We want to ensure that is the case. It is 2017, going on 2018. It is a very pragmatic approach by the government, being very forward-thinking and forward-looking in putting those objectives and actions plans in place and, of course, a plan of execution so that this country, once again, gets what it deserves, and that is progress.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Madam Speaker, today we have the opportunity to speak on a centralist bill that lacks transparency, turns its back on the regions, and glosses over ministerial inequality. I am referring, of course, to Bill C-24, the act to amend the Salaries Act.

Bill C-24 has received little media attention. However, it speaks volumes about this government's philosophy. We can learn much by thoroughly reviewing each element of this bill. That is what I propose we do for our next few minutes together. To begin with, let us take apart the facade and see what is behind this bill.

First of all, Bill C-24 creates eight new Liberal minister positions, namely five minister of state positions and three yet-to-be-determined ministerial positions. We have no idea what these positions will be. The goal is to ensure pay equity among all ministers in this gender-balanced cabinet. The ministers may receive the same salary, but there is nothing in this bill to ensure that they will be treated fairly and equally.

These new ministers of state will in fact be junior ministers. They will not have a deputy minister, they will have much smaller budgets and they will have fewer powers. A feminist government, as the Prime Minister himself has suggested, does not create new superficial positions for the appearance of parity. He should instead give the same number of men and women major departments, with substantial and equitable budgets. Parity and equity also mean an equal division of key positions in the government. This means that a first target has been missed by our Prime Minister.

Let us now take a closer look at the announcement of the three new ministers. It would appear that the Liberal cabinet is not yet complete. Today we would have to sign a blank cheque for three new ministerial positions that, after two years of governing, have not yet been identified. In other words, today we are to approve the appointment of three mystery ministers. I would even say that they are phantom ministers. Approving the appointment of these three ministers in this government, which claims to be transparent and accountable, is a second missed target.

We then learned that Bill C-24 will eliminate the positions of six ministers responsible for regional development agencies. That is painful.

The responsibilities of these regional development agencies will now be concentrated in the hands of a single minister. Currently, this minister comes from a major centre, Toronto. Imagine that: a minister responsible for regional economic development who comes from Toronto. This means that now a minister from the big city of Toronto will be responsible for regional development across the country. When it comes to listening to the regions and sharing powers, this is a third missed target.

We are therefore signing the death warrant of regional economic development ministers. These ministers, who were supposed to defend and represent the interests of their regions across Canada, at least had the advantage of being familiar with the people on the ground and especially their needs. They helped ensure better coordination with the regions, and they represented a diversity of voices at the cabinet table.

I doubt the Liberal government is giving a single minister all that power just to save money. Saving money is not really its thing. We have seen over and over again that this government is not afraid to spend money hand over fist. No, this decision speaks to the Liberal government's core philosophy and reflects the Liberals' concept of federalism.

By now, this should come as a surprise to nobody because it is something we have seen many times. The government took power away from municipalities when it created the infrastructure bank and the smart cities challenge. Its new passengers' bill of rights gave the Minister of Transport more power, it is restricting access to information from the offices of cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister, and it alone is making decisions about the when, how, and who of legalizing marijuana by ignoring the provinces, municipalities, and indigenous communities.

The Liberals' brand of federalism features a centralizing, paternalistic government that wants to monopolize decision-making and does not respect the provinces' jurisdiction.

This summer, the Prime Minister said that appointing a member from Toronto to be minister responsible for all the regional economic development agencies in Canada was, and I quote, “a way of reducing the kind of politics that we’ve always seen from regional development”. That is an extremely simplistic way of looking at this.

I wonder what kind of politics the Prime Minister was referring to, because, to us, regional representation and accountability is the kind of policy that is absolutely welcome and legitimate. The Prime Minister seems too attached to his powers, incapable of trusting the expertise of others, and too worried about delegating responsibilities to anyone. This is one of the government's biggest aberrations since it came to power.

We also know that last fall, $150,000 from the Ontario economic development fund was given to a business in the riding of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, in Mississauga. Is this the type of politics the Prime Minister had in mind when he said he wanted to centralize powers?

Furthermore, a Liberal Atlantic caucus subcommittee indicated that it had had reports of a threefold increase in processing times at the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency since a Toronto-area minister, a big-city minister, was appointed to oversee maritime regions. According to that same subcommittee, centralized decision-making impedes the agility of programs. This means that regional businesses that count on the regional development agencies will have to foot the bill for the new centralized model. On top of being affected by the finance minister's new tax reforms, job creators in our regions will be further disadvantaged by this Liberal government. These are all factors that are not helping our regions right now.

For a bill presented as a simple correction of a pay imbalance between ministers, we are both surprised and disappointed by its contents. It concentrates more power in the hands of a big-city elite. It creates three new ministerial positions that are shrouded in mystery. We know nothing about the duties these ministers will have. They are phantom ministers. It eliminates the positions of ministers responsible for regional economic development across Canada. It also increases processing times at the development agencies that are supposed to help our entrepreneurs. We are supposed to be working to help our entrepreneurs, but this bill throws roadblocks in their way.

Once again, the Liberal government has forgotten the regions all across Canada. It is not being transparent and is implementing a paternalistic and centralizing federalism. Worst of all, the aim of this bill, which is to ensure fairness among the ministers, is not even met.

Perhaps cabinet members will have the same salary, but they will not have the same responsibilities and powers. Key positions will still be given to a handful of men, as we see now. This means that Bill C-24 completely misses the mark.

In closing, the Liberal government, which keeps saying that it wants to be more transparent, reacted when the media and the opposition started scratching the surface and noticed that its so-called gender-balanced cabinet was really just for show. Indeed, there were very few women in key cabinet posts with all the powers that go along with them.

The government's solution was to come up with a kitchen sink bill in which it simply increased the number of ministers of state, who will not even have the same tools to work with, who will report to other people, namely, the Prime Minister and his office. He also used this as an opportunity to get rid of the regional economic development ministers across Canada, even though those ministers understood their region's local reality. All of these things combined spell disaster for all regions of Quebec.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague, since I represent a similar regional riding. In Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, the municipalities and economic development agencies I am in touch with are concerned, because the government appears to be focused only on big cities. Since the largest town in our riding has a population of 56,000, we are worried that only the interests of the country’s largest cities will be looked at.

We are concerned to see a bill that does not include a position for any minister responsible for Quebec, since each of our regions is different. We need a minister whom we can talk to, who understands and is familiar with the reality of the riding of Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot and takes an interest in it. I agree with my colleague on this point.

Is this evidence that this government does not care at all about regions like those we represent?

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her very good question.

As a former mayor, I would say that, if there was a minister able to help us develop our municipal projects in Quebec, it was the former minister of Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions. I am utterly convinced that the same goes for the five other economic development ministers across the country, such as the one from the Maritimes, who had to be very aware of the realities of the people in that region.

In fact, if we played a little game of “Reach for the Top” with our economic development minister, who is from Toronto, to ask him a few questions about various Quebec municipalities, I would be surprised if he knew where Kamouraska or Tingwick were, or if he understood the reality of our regions and our small and medium-sized municipalities, not just the major centres.

This is extremely unfortunate, because our regions have just had an extremely useful tool taken away from them, one that allowed them to look after their own economic development, which they are best able to do.

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

Madam Speaker, as I indicated earlier, it is well-established, through the Library of Parliament, that the largest cabinet in Canada's history, with 40 cabinet ministers, was under Stephen Harper. Also, Stephen Harper had no problem saying there should be two tiers of cabinet ministers. That is quite different. As well, gender parity did not even come close to happening under Stephen Harper.

This government ensured there was gender parity in cabinet when it announced its cabinet. We have also ensured that all cabinet members are equal. Under Harper, a minister of democratic reform was equal to a minister of finance. However, we are saying today that all ministers, whether a minister of status of women or a minister of small businesses, are equal to a minister of democratic reform. The difference is that we see all ministers as equal when they sit around the cabinet table. Each vote is one vote.

Why did Stephen Harper have the largest cabinet in the history of Canada? Why did he feel, and the Conservatives still believe, that inequality among cabinet ministers is the thing of today?

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Madam Speaker, I cannot wait until the government stops talking about the former government and starts worrying about itself. It has now been in power for two years.

I would really like the government to explain what equality means given that some ministers have deputy ministers and substantial budgets while other ministers get promoted because this government likes to spend recklessly. I want the government to stop preaching and, unlike the Prime Minister, to focus on content and not form. This government is only interested in appearances and, this week, it showed us its true nature by introducing a bill on transparency and then invoking closure.

The last people I need lessons from are the members opposite, who are trying to make us believe that they have introduced this bill for the right reasons.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Madam Speaker, when we re-elected the Quebec caucus, the first step we took was to ensure we achieved gender balance.

This simple act, as small and modest as it is, plainly showed that this culture of gender equality and fairness is fundamental and right.

I still wonder today why we have to debate such obvious things at great length. Clearly, the problem is so serious that the debate is still relevant. However, it is sad that we are forced to make arguments to defend what the general public would like to take for granted. In fact, the public would like this to be seen as the norm.

However, this equal representation does not exist everywhere. It is obvious that in 2017, we have a lot of work to do to find that balance. Unfortunately, if the public does not see any concrete initiatives or receive a clear message, that probably means that we are not doing our job.

It is funny repeating something so annoyingly obvious. We are being forced to put forward major arguments to say that the very least we can do is ensure that men and women are treated equally and fairly, and that every voice carries the same weight and is treated in the same way.

This debate has been going on for a long time. People who do not follow the debates all that closely, and sometimes I can see why, do not realize just how beneficial it would have been to settle this debate from the outset, when the bill was introduced. We are still debating it a year later. Still, regardless of what side of the House you are on, this is the type of issue where there should be no partisanship, because it is a question of gender equity.

When we are talking about pay equity and when both men and women have the same jobs and the same responsibilities, regardless of which government is in power, the Prime Minister’s Office is a unit where all members’ voices carry the same weight.

The Prime Minister’s Office is an organization where, regardless of origin, culture, gender, or experience, a voice is a voice. Of course, experience in one area or another has a certain value. Experience is probably the only element with added value when it comes to the content and thorough study of the topics under discussion.

Bills like the one before us now are extremely simple. Clearly, the general public supports this bill.

Many of us had careers in the private sector at one time, and this question comes up constantly. Every day, we see inequality and find that women are treated differently. This situation is always mentioned, because there is no justification for it. That is why, from day one, despite the system in place, we have treated all ministers the same way. Our intent was that everyone receive the same treatment and that everyone’s voice in the Prime Minister’s office carry the same weight. There was no reason for it to be otherwise.

This debate is in itself unjustified. There is no reason why we should have been debating this subject for so long. I am looking at the number of hours we have spent on this, the number of debates we have held, and the number of witnesses who have spoken in committee on a subject everyone in the House knows about. Everyone is already aware of these types of situations and of the inequity, and the problem goes well beyond government. In fact, it is relatively widespread. I think that, if there is somewhere where we should start cleaning up and putting the house in order, it is here in this institution.

Our responsibility to correct wage inequality is a non-issue. It should be a done deal by now, since everyone agrees on this. The bill gives everyone an equal voice, despite what hon. members across the aisle would have us believe. It is easy to say that you know what will happen, to fearmonger about this or that, to say that certain ministers will lose certain powers. Let us talk about ministerial powers. Wherever they sit, every member of caucus expresses themselves clearly and without limitation, never holding back from voicing regional issues.

In caucus, whatever group you are from, whatever your stripes, every member has a voice. Every member can talk about their problems, their concerns and issues that should be brought to a minister’s attention. Rationalizing our approach by grouping together certain organizations really comes down to saving money and simplifying processes. Throwing out appointments right and left could result in a cabinet of unreasonable proportions.

I will it leave it to those involved to determine whether cabinet should have 30, 32, 35, 38 or 40 ministers. I will even be a good sport and refrain from arguing for or against having a large cabinet. As we heard at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, the official opposition, which is questioning certain basic expenditures, is wondering whether it is appropriate for the committee to spend a reasonable amount of money to travel across Canada to find out what Canadians need. All of a sudden, saving tax dollars became so crucial that we had to restrict the bulk of the committee's travels. How odd, given the attempt to normalize the fact that there were 40 or so ministers at one time.

The number is justifiable in the eyes of the person in charge. I think that we have responded and that we have followed up on the comments of those who are able to voice direct opinions on specific files. More than anything, we acted on a general consensus among the public that it should be a given that everyone at the big table should have an equal voice and an equal amount of power. Every minister should then get the same salary as their colleagues in the same organization whose responsibilities are similar.

Under the circumstances, I think we ought to stop fearmongering and making predictions. We may not be the skilled clairvoyants some hon. members are, but we rely on hard facts and sound evidence. We have been saying this from the start, but we believe, just like Canadians in general believe, that we should be past debating this type of issue. It should be obvious that treating everyone equally, in the same manner, and giving them equal powers and an equal voice is simply a reflection of the will of the people.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague may have stretched the truth just a bit when he talked about a unanimous decision of Canadians to support this move to gender equality, and so on. For example, Professor Margot Young, a University of British Columbia law professor, speaking before the government operations committee on Bill C-24, had some comments to make. She said, “I think to frame it as a piece of legislation that speaks substantively to the issues of gender equality and cabinet composition is wrong, and it's dangerous”. Then in response to a question about whether the Prime Minister's claim of gender equal cabinet was cynical or not, she said, “I would say it's dishonest”.

It is clear there is no unanimity on this issue, and that in spite of the comment by the Prime Minister, “because it's 2015”, which may have sounded great at the time, it is clear that the bill does not do anything to actually achieve gender equality. Does my colleague agree with the law professor from British Columbia, who is an expert in gender equality issues?

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Madam Speaker, I was under the impression that simply being male made me an expert in males. I respect the profession of gender equality expert, but the mere fact of raising a question as to how gender equality should be assessed underscores the need to make the distinction.

In the end, we are all equal human beings. We work in the same institution, Parliament. Let us start making the distinction between gender and experience, then. Experience can be assessed, but a person who obtains a position for which he or she is qualified should be treated equally.

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

Madam President, I cannot help but take exception to the hon. member’s comments. He said that this debate was unjustified, and that we could not continue discussing the subject because it furthered gender equality.

By digging a little deeper into the bill, we find that it contains only cosmetic changes that would allow the Prime Minister to continue boasting about being a feminist while he appoints women to minister of state positions rather than appointing an equal number of men and women. I hope that he knows the difference between the responsibilities of a minister who oversees a department and those of a minister of state. It is a big difference. We cannot simply raise the salary of ministers of state so that it matches that of ministers. They must get equal treatment, but they do not have the same responsibilities.

I do not know whether the hon. member is aware that, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report, the world will achieve gender equality in 170 years. In Canada, in my region, the gender wage gap is 70%.

How, then, can anyone claim this debate is unjustified? I am appalled.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Clearly, Madam Speaker, my colleague fails to grasp that this debate is unjustified in the sense that it is unbelievable that we should still be having it today.

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

That is because it is still—

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Madam Speaker, can I answer the question?

If we are talking about it today, it is because it is too late, and we have been talking about it for too long with no result. This should have been settled a long time ago. Some say the problem will be solved in 170 years, but it is ludicrous to make such predictions. We are approaching the issue by focusing on current needs. We hope that they will stop wasting time so that we can achieve concrete results.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I know this is a sensitive subject, but I would like to remind all members that they were given time to ask their question, and they must allow other members time to answer when it is their turn to speak.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have been waiting for months to speak to Bill C-24. The official title is an act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act. A more accurate title for the bill could be an act to cover up this Liberal government's embarrassing mistake of claiming to create a gender-balanced cabinet while actually appointing five women as junior ministers, and, under the traditionally appropriate practice of Canadian governments, paying them substantially less.

The Prime Minister's mistake was exposed when he unveiled his first cabinet after the 2015 election. Within days, as controversy swirled in the media and the public arena, and it must be said, among Liberal backbenchers, the Prime Minister's Office went into damage control. All of a sudden, the talking points were that every single member of cabinet, those with multi-million dollar departments and spending responsibilities and those with no departments and substantially fewer dollars and responsibilities, were equal. All of a sudden, Orwellian fable came alive in the cabinet room, just across from the public gallery, and Animal Farm came to life. The last commandment on the barn wall of the satirical story became a guiding principle of this infant Liberal government. All ministers are equal, the Prime Minister and his inner circle proclaimed, though he and everyone in the Liberal cabinet, on the Liberal backbenches, on this side of the House, and across Canada knew, as they still know today, that some ministers are more equal than others.

That did not matter then, and it does not matter now to the Prime Minister and his brain trust. All he had to do to correct his original goof was open the treasury and take the time and energy of law writers to craft the bill we are debating so that the Salaries Act could be amended so that five ministers of state could be re-profiled as full ministers and receive a salary equivalent to those in full ministerial positions. These salary bumps, $20,000 a year each, are to be paid from the consolidated revenue fund.

In other words, the hard-earned tax dollars sent to Ottawa by Canadians were used to pay for the Prime Minister to make good. The original Governor in Council appointments of the five ministers of state made on November 4, 2015, were suddenly transformed to full ministerial positions. However, that was not the end of it. These new ministers, the five upgraded ministers of state, needed budgets, money to spend in their expanded, confected positions, so Bill C-24 would also provide a legislative framework so that these new positions could receive support from existing departments in the exercise of their mandates.

What is more offensive is that all of this convoluted damage control and financial funny business was done, until now, without conventional enabling legislation. All of a sudden, the five ministers of state were getting a substantial pay boost, an overnight $20,000-a-year raise. Just how often does that happen for the middle class, and of course, those struggling to join it?

We have to remember that the much-delayed piece of legislation we are debating today, Bill C-24, is finally, more than two years later, the legislation that will officially correct the Prime Minister's original mistake. The government has been effectively writing post-dated cheques to pay these ministers.

To be generous to the Liberals, beyond these precious taxpayer dollars so flippantly spent, as we expend in this debate the time and resources of the House to fix his problem, we must remember that the Liberals came to office with very little institutional knowledge and experience. From third-party status in the previous Parliament, with barely 35 members, all of a sudden there was a Liberal majority. To make it even more challenging for this fledgling majority, the Prime Minister and his backroom advisers very obviously ignored a number of re-elected members of some substance, and certainly experience, to create a cabinet heavily populated by newbies, which we know well led to some of the more spectacular stumbles made by the Liberal government over the past two years.

In the rush for the appearance of gender balance, the Liberals also ignored a tradition that dates back in the history of Westminster parliaments that was also, for so long, a part of our Canadian cabinet tradition.

Therefore, it is time for a quick look back in history and the victim of this expensive and time-consuming process: the storied position of minister of state.

A minister of state has traditionally been a minister with a cabinet mandate and responsibilities but without a ministry, a junior minister enabled in his or duties with a small portion of his or her departmental minister's budget.

Upon my election in 2008, I was honoured by Prime Minister Harper to serve as minister of state for foreign affairs responsible for the Americas, under the exceptionally capable foreign affairs minister, Lawrence Cannon, most recently our distinguished ambassador to France. I enthusiastically recognized my junior role, my supporting role, in the Department of Foreign Affairs, and I accepted the good-humoured ribbing I received from then Speaker Milliken, who would occasionally offer a musical reminder of my place in government from 19th century comic opera.

Speaker Milliken caught me off guard the first time in the Speaker's corridor, just behind your chair, as you know, Mr. Speaker, by coming up behind me, as we both walked to this House, and suddenly launching into one of the choruses of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers. Members will recall that this is a political comic opera set in Venice. It is centred on the kings of a mythical kingdom called Barataria. I understand that Queen Victoria was amused, during a royal command performance of the opera before her, by the gentle poke at the role of monarchs in a constitutional democracy, and the chorus drew royal laughs. One particular chorus was the one sung for me, fairly often, by Speaker Milliken. It goes like this:

Oh, philosophers may sing
Of the troubles of a King,
Yet the duties are delightful, and the privileges great;
But the privilege and pleasure
That we treasure beyond measure
Is to run on little errands for the Ministers of State.

This bill marks the end of this historic position in this House, in this Parliament, though I suspect that a clearer thinking future government will reinstate both the tradition and the logical function, and the logically funded function, that ministers of state have performed over the centuries.

Bill C-24 does not only remove ministers of state in a misguided add to ministerial ranks; it also eliminates six very important ministers and ministries, those of regional development agencies across this country.

The elimination of these ministerial positions was one of the biggest blunders of the blunder-prone Liberal government. We told the Liberals more than two years ago that they were making a big mistake in eliminating the regional development agencies, just as we advised them against implementing the flawed Phoenix pay system for the public service, just as we advised them against cozying up with the terror-sponsoring, human-rights-abusing Iranian regime, just as we advised them against a heavy-handed imposition of electoral reform, and just as we advised against regressive amendments to the access to information and privacy law. The list goes on and on, and, with Bill C-24, on.

That is why I, in this House, and the official opposition, will vote against this unfortunate, wasteful piece of post-dated legislation.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I want to assure the hon. member that I will not break into song, and I will spare everyone their ears.

The hon. member for Fredericton.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for that roundabout tour through the history books, despite some of the liberties he has taken with the accuracy of some of the past actions of this government. What I would say is that 2015 demonstrated that Canadians are looking forward and not back. They were looking for a government that accepts the foundational and fundamental need to have evidence-based decision-making through science, a government that understands the importance of a gender lens in all its decision-making, a government that demonstrates the importance of a disability lens and understands the intersectionality of different vulnerabilities in people across different governments, and a government that understands the importance of government by cabinet, which is well reflected in this bill.

We now have a cabinet in which all members around the table are equal in the weight they bring to decision-making. It has been one of the priorities of this government to ensure that decisions are made with the broadest possible perspective and through the collective abilities of the cabinet. Would the member not agree that as a forward-looking government, this is an appropriate way to form and make decisions on behalf of the Government of Canada?

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, my friend. The short answer to his question is no.

At committee, gender equality experts effectively told us that the confection of ministers of state to full ministers was cosmetic, cynical, and tokenistic. Some even suggested it was dishonest. I have not dwelled on the back half of this legislation that will remove the regional development ministers. However, that mistake is reflected in the incapability of the government to push out the door more than $2 billion in infrastructure funding that it committed to doing almost two years ago. That is because a single minister responsible for the country who is unaware of some of the regional differences, sensitivities, and needs simply does not have the capacity to address them.

I urge the government, if it is indeed forward-thinking, to reconsider the single infrastructure model and return to regional development ministers and ministries.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I was somewhat pleased when I saw the Liberal government announce a gender parity cabinet. I think that most Canadians thought it was a symbolic move that was long overdue. Frankly, it was welcomed by those who believe in gender equality in this country. Some of the tokenism of that gesture was revealed when we learned that five of those positions were for ministers of state who would be paid significantly less, and that those positions would be held by women.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague about this. The bill before us purports to fix that inequity by raising the salary of these women, without changing the actual constituents of the cabinet itself. A real commitment to gender equality would be a cabinet shuffle that ensured an equal number of men and women in full cabinet positions, as opposed to raising the salaries of the five women ministers of state to be equal to those of men, but without the accompanying power.

As well, the bill provides equal pay for women at the cabinet table, but the government has refused to bring in pay equity legislation for all Canadian women. Does my hon. colleague have any comment on that?

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin with the hon. member's last question. Being in the official opposition, I enthusiastically support pay equity and equal pay for equal work.

With respect to gender parity, we also enthusiastically support equal opportunity for women in politics. Of course, we had the first female Canadian prime minister. As well, we had the Hon. Rona Ambrose, our interim leader, who served so notably in the past two years. She is a magnificent example of a woman who served capably in government, in opposition, and now in private life.

Yes, this comes back to the tokenism of simply using numbers to achieve gender parity, without the more meaningful substance of equal participation, authority, and responsibility in government.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on Bill C-24. I have been listening to the debate and feel it is necessary to speak to a couple of issues that I feel the opposition has perhaps got wrong, or that I disagree with, essentially. I will start with the regional development agencies and then talk more about the five ministries that have moved from ministry of state status to full ministries, which they are right now.

Regional development agencies would continue to offer opportunities for local economic growth, and fulfill their mandates and offer programs and services, but would operate through the mandate of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. The fact that these agencies still have the opportunity to work and continue to fulfill their mandates, and the fact there are 338 members who can also provide information from the regions to the minister, is critically important. I heard members talk about the differences in Quebec. There are 41 members from Quebec—that province clearly thought we were doing a good job and sent us another member—and 31 members from Atlantic Canada. I am pretty sure that by Monday, there will be another one. There clearly are opportunities for the views of the regions across the country, as different and diverse as they are, to make their way to the government and for us to address the issues involved in a way that respects local individuals and diversity within the regions.

I want to talk a bit about the gender issue. I firmly believe that this is not a gender issue if we remove gender completely from the ministries that have been made full ministries. We have the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, to whom I am parliamentary secretary. There is a large amount of work required to ensure international development and our engagement with La Francophonie countries around the world, so that they have an adequate voice, that we are listening to their concerns, and are actively engaging with them. That is now a full ministry. If we take away who the minister is, that is a full ministry.

If we take away the fact that the Minister of Science is a woman, if we expect to have any policy at all based on a little evidence, let alone policy based on substantial evidence, the Minister of Science position is one that is sorely needed at the federal level. When we talk about running a country, irrespective of who is in that position, this ministry requires a full minister.

We have the Minister of Small Business and Tourism. This year, Canada's 150th birthday saw a tremendous amount of tourism in Canada. A tremendous number of people came to Canada to explore its greatness in all of its forms and to celebrate with us our 150th year of Confederation. Next year will be the Canada-China Year of Tourism. Again, an influx of individuals will come to Canada to celebrate what we know is the greatest country in the world. They will come here to celebrate with us and spend their dollars here. They are enjoying this great country of ours. There are 1.8 million small businesses in this country. If we were to put them in one geographical area, they would have several postal codes. To say this ministry does not require a full ministry is nonsense, again taking out the gender piece.

As for the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities, again, when we look at the barriers faced by individuals with disabilities in this country and the fact that provincial legislation is a patchwork and not uniform across this country, we need federal leadership when it comes to developing a Canadians with disabilities act. That is what the government is doing. This is not about whether or not we feel it is necessary that it be a full ministry. We need federal leadership when it comes to disabilities. This ministry requires that leadership, not as a ministry of state, but as a full ministry. That is why, when cabinet was sworn in in November, this is happened.

The most contentious issue concerns the Minister of Status of Women, and on that I do not even know what to say. When I hear that the position could be a minister of state, that this ministry does not need to be a full ministry, I say, we make up 50% of the population. Hello? Why would that not be a fully ministry? Again, let us forget about who is actually the minister, and just think about the ministry and 50% of the population.

When we look at the intersectionality of women and the barriers they face, when we think about yesterday, when we were very much seized with the events of 28 years ago and were remembering the 14 names, when we were thinking about the fact that gender-based violence disproportionately affects women not just around the world but in this country, the fact we are now questioning whether status of women needs to be a full ministry, I think, is quite ludicrous.

I am certainly quite happy, and quite impressed by the fact, that the government under the leadership of our Prime Minister thought it appropriate to ensure that all of these ministries were full ministries.

Now I will bring the gender piece in. When we look at the question of our gender-balanced cabinet, when these individuals were sworn in, the orders in council ensured that they were full ministers at the time. It was not about trying to make up for some mistake that we made. That is absolutely not the case. Having them as full ministries was done right from the beginning.

The message about having a gender-balanced cabinet had an impact. That required leadership. That requires a Prime Minister who understands the power and the influence we can have around the world when we ensure that the policies we put forward, the decisions we make, have a gendered lens. Indeed, the message of a gender-balanced cabinet had an impact. I hear it when I go to different countries around the world. There is talk about the leadership Canada has shown. There is talk about the leadership to influence change, not just on a political level but also within business, on boards, in key positions, in decision-making positions.

I am truly happy to have had an opportunity to speak on this bill. I am truly happy that we could, for a moment, remove the gender piece and just speak about the importance of these ministries. However, when we do look at the gender piece, we know that it is critically important in our leadership to ensure that gender equality and gender balance does happen in every facet of our society.

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

Mr. Speaker, we talked earlier today about the gender equality piece. I want to refer now to the issue of the regional ministers.

Currently, we have one minister in Mississauga who is making all of the regional development decisions for across Canada. The disturbing part to me is the fact that during the consultations on Bill C-24, not a single witness was called to discuss the potential implications of this drastic change.

We talk about transparency, consultation, and openness, but here, on a crucial issue of this magnitude, it seems to me that at very least we could have had two or three witnesses come to the committee to explain the potential pros and cons of changing from the regional representation of ministers to this one-size-fits-all minister in Mississauga.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I said from the outset of my speech, the regional development agencies would still have the capacity to inform and promote local economic growth. They would continue to fulfill their mandates and offer programs and services.

We have an Atlantic caucus that is thriving. It has put forward many initiatives of growth strategy to ensure that the issues of the region were adequately brought forward in our caucus and to our minister. We also have caucus members here from Quebec who are actively advocating for issues within their province, and actively advocating to the minister and to all members of caucus about issues they are have in their region.

This is not a one size fits all. To say it is totally diminishes the value of every seat in here. This is a capacity for all of us to bring our issues forward in a respectful way to the minister, but also using our regional development agencies.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for Whitby for so eloquently reinforcing the significance of having 50% women in our cabinet.

I would like the member to elaborate on this outdated notion that somehow certain ministries, like Status of Women, are less important than other ministries, and how Bill C-24 would take us into the progressive 21st century in terms of our cabinet.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this whole notion that the Minister of Status of Women is supposed to be a minister of state is ludicrous. Again, women represent 50% of the population, which is a significant number. To say that if the Minister of Status of Women does not do her job, nothing will happen; well, we just have to think about yesterday's day of remembrance, and women are impacted negatively, disproportionately, when it comes to violence.

When it comes to ensuring that we have a national strategy on gender-based violence, that we are looking at every single policy from our budget onward with a gender lens, then the Minister of Status of Women needs to be a full minister.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct the member. The population of women in Canada is not 50%, it is 51%. There is actually a majority of women in this country.

However, is the Liberal government creating a stand-alone ministry for women, or the Status of Women, similar to other ministries, like the Minister of Defence and the Minister of Finance, or is it just an agency under another department?

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, the Minister of Status of Women, the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities, the Minister of Small Business and Tourism, the Minister of Science, and the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie are full ministers.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to stand up today, most importantly as the member of Parliament for Fredericton, to speak to the important nature of Bill C-24 that is before us today.

Folks in the region of the country I have the pleasure of representing have been quite amenable to the direction of this government as it relates to the importance of the diversity of views that are expressed at the cabinet table and throughout caucus, and, most importantly, that are brought from the communities of all members of Parliament to this place that help enrich the debate that we seek to have on a daily basis.

As the member for Fredericton, I would like to take this opportunity to tell my constituents about the merits of the bill before us today.

I will start with just a brief summary of the bill for people paying attention on this Thursday afternoon, or in some parts of the country still Thursday morning.

This enactment would amend the Salaries Act to include eight new ministerial positions, including the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie. Before I go any further, I want to talk to my experience working within La Francophonie.

In my previous career, I had the opportunity to work with leaders of francophone countries on important issues related to child and youth development. I know how important it is for the Government of Canada to have a full minister dedicated to important issues related to the Francophonie. That part of the world receives a significant portion of our development aid. I know that our current minister is focusing on Canada's leadership role in that forum.

The bill would also make the Minister of Science a full minister. Canadians were fed up after 10 years of the lack of evidence-based decision-making on the part of the Harper government. We made a commitment well before the election campaign that, were we to be fortunate enough to form government, we would base all of our actions on scientific evidence.

My interactions with the Minister of Science have only enriched my confidence that this is a government that in all aspects of decision-making ensures that we have the science right. Constituents throughout the Fredericton region, Oromocto, the Grand Lake region, and into New Maryland have confidence in our current Minister of Science.

My constituency is home to two world-class post-secondary institutions as well as a thriving community college. We rely on scientific evidence and support for fundamental science to help foster the type of economic development that is so important to our region, to our country, and quite frankly, to the entire world.

It is well worthy that this legislation deals with a Minister of Science at a full ministerial level.

Third, the bill would establish the Minister of Small Business and Tourism as a full minister with a full ministry. In Atlantic Canada there is no greater player than small business. Small businesses make up upward of 99.5% of the businesses in our community and we rely on them for economic growth, to employ people in our communities, and to employ students who graduate from our world-class universities and post-secondary institutions.

I think it is crucial for us to have a full-time minister focused on small and medium-sized businesses and on developing a regional tourism strategy. That is another important aspect of our economic growth.

I am sure that my colleague from Charlottetown would agree that tourism New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island is largely in the summer. However, if we can expand the tourist reach into the spring, fall, and winter, that will be incredibly important to the economy of our region. I am sure that the constituents watching today will agree that having a full-time minister of small business and tourism is important, and that our government is moving in the right direction in that respect.

I have some tremendous constituents doing fantastic work in advocacy as it relates to the importance of respecting the rights and listening to the voices of individuals who are living with an intellectual, physical, or cognitive disability, as well as the importance of family members and community as support systems around them. Therefore, to have a full minister of sport and persons with disabilities at the cabinet table, speaking about understanding the unique ability that each of us as Canadians have is certainly something that I believe in fully and I am happy to advocate on behalf of.

I also believe that my constituents think it is incredibly important to have a voice around the cabinet table making important decisions about the way that we invest in community infrastructure. For example, we need to be taking into account the unique rights, needs, and abilities of persons who live with a disability in the way that we build communities that will allow for socio-economic benefits for years to come, that are socially inclusive, and that lead to economic growth so that people with disabilities can be employed and access the services they need. That is an important voice to have at the cabinet table as a full ministry.

With the time that remains I will touch on two things. The first is the importance of having a full minister of status of women, which in this day and age is absolutely necessary to reflect the views of 51% of the population in our country. We know when women are given an equal opportunity to succeed in the economy that economic growth is better. If we look at the last two years since we formed government, across this country unemployment is at the lowest it has been in over a decade. Almost 600,000 jobs have been created in those two years, most of which are full-time jobs. Economic growth is at levels not seen in about 17 years, since the previous Liberal government. Focusing on women in economic roles, and the social inclusion of women and girls in all aspects, is a tremendously important part of the actions our government takes.

Just briefly, as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I can tell this House and the Canadians watching at home that our allies in countries that are developing in regions far away from us are taking notice of our leadership on gender equality and gender issues around the world. We need to stay on this track. Canada can make an important contribution to the world, not just in the near term but in the long term, helping create greater social inclusion for more people and greater economic growth, not just for ourselves but for regions abroad.

Finally, the importance of regional economic development for our government is absolutely fundamental. I can tell members that is no more evident than in this government's support for an Atlantic growth strategy, which sees the highest levels of government here in Ottawa supporting work being done in Atlantic Canada. It is an absolutely wonderful collaboration between the Government of Canada, with the leads of the ministers at the federal level in those four Atlantic regions, working with the premiers and their counterparts to invest in economic development through people. What better way to grow the economy than through immigration, bringing newcomers and their families into our region; investing in strategic infrastructure that respects our traditional ways of work and investing in new and exciting opportunities like IT, cybersecurity; and really enhancing opportunities through the ocean economy in our region? Trade, investment, and clean growth are another couple of elements that make up our government's view of the importance of regional economic development in our country.

I see I am running out of time. I wish I had more to go on with, but I will be happy to answer questions from my colleagues in this House.

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

Mr. Speaker, not that my question will make any difference, since all of the measures in the bill have already been introduced two years ago, without any parliamentary oversight, but the member opposite went on about how there was so much tourism opportunity in Canada that we needed to have a full minister, and there was so much to be done in the area of small business that we needed a full minister. Could he please explain, then, why we have a part-time minister doing the small business, the tourism, and the House leader's job at the same time, for the full minister's salary?

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I will give one brief example of the tremendous work that is being done by our full Minister of Small Business and Tourism. Just this week, she was in China, helping set up the tremendous opportunities that will be available to us in 2018 through the Canada-China year of tourism. Canadians should have confidence in the work ethic of our Minister of Small Business and Tourism, as well as the team she has around her, and the focus that permeates throughout the government. It is a whole-of-government approach that is focused on small business and tourism in all regions of the country, to ensure we enable small businesses to be the drivers of economic growth in our communities, and that we provide those small businesses that are focused on tourism the opportunity to invite the world to Canada and show the world what we have to offer.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. If there is one rule that practically everyone in Quebec and Canada agrees on, it is the principle of equal pay for equal work. The Liberals are pushing the envelope a little bit, saying that if the titles are similar, it must be the same thing. The minister of tourism and the finance minister are the same. They are both ministers so they should get the same salary.

My question is very simple. Does the Liberal government plan to use the same process when it comes time to renegotiate the collective agreements with the public service?

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, on that issue, I have complete confidence in the minister responsible, in this case, the President of the Treasury Board. I would add that all cabinet members, who are all full ministers, have an equal voice at the cabinet table. They all discharge their duties very thoroughly. Canadians know that when it comes to issues related to science, gender, persons with disabilities, sport, or our role in la Francophonie, we have competent ministers who put their hearts and minds in everything they do on a daily basis.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening with interest to my colleague's speech earlier, and he spent quite a lot of time on the government's focus on science and getting the facts before moving forward. I wonder if he could stand up before the House, along with his members, and explain how they could vote against the science of doctors, psychiatrists, and all specialists who warned them that allowing minors, anyone under the age of 25, to use marijuana was a dangerous thing to do. I wonder how he could have taken that science and totally ignored it, while claiming that everything they do is in the best interest of science.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, is the member opposite trying to tell me that he does not believe that currently people under the age of 25 are using cannabis? Honest to goodness, we know that Canada has the highest rate of cannabis use among young people in the developed world.

When it comes to legalization, regulation, and restricting access to cannabis, we are completely focused on public health and ensuring that young people have less access to cannabis, that cannabis is regulated from seed to sale, that we do not allow money to get into the hands of criminal organizations, profiting gangs right across the country. We have taken a science-based approach, focused on public health, that ensures young people will be safe and that we can legislate, regulate, and restrict access to cannabis in communities across the country.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a real honour to speak on this important piece of legislation, which is terribly flawed, and hopefully the government will listen.

Before I speak to Bill C-24, the previous Liberal speaker shared with this House, with great gusto, that he was shocked about a question of young people having access to cannabis. He asked if the member was not aware that people under the age of 25 are using cannabis. Yes, that is happening. That is why, as a country, we need to better control cannabis and access by youth.

The new scientific Liberal approach is to make sure our young people, 12, 13, and 14 years old, who do not currently have access to cannabis, could have access to it. What they are proposing with the marijuana legislation is that youth between the ages of 12 and 18 would be able to legally possess five grams. When they hit the age of 18, it would go up to 30 grams. Five grams of marijuana is 15 joints, and 30 grams is 90 joints. Their new scientific approach is that they are going to keep marijuana out of the hands of youth by allowing them to have in their possession up to 15 joints each. That is a science course that I never have taken. Maybe it is the new Liberal science course.

However, we are here to talk about the government's approach to appointments of ministers, and I think everyone in this House fully supports the proposal and goal of having gender equity in cabinet. That starts with encouraging women and girls to get involved with politics much more than in the past. I am really excited seeing the pages here today; many of them are female.

I could not do my job as a member of Parliament without my partner, my wife of 45 years, Diane. When I am not in my riding of beautiful Langley—Aldergrove, my wife represents me, and many say she is a better speaker than I am. I would not argue with them. She is very bright, very capable, and very much my equal, maybe even my superior. I love her. I fully respect and agree with the goal of gender equity, and it needs to start with pay equity. Everyone in this House, on this side anyway, supports pay equity. The government says it does but if only it had a majority government then it could get it through and get pay equity. In fact, it does have a majority government, a strong majority, and it could get it through if it were a priority.

There is this parable that a tree is known by its fruits. If the tree has apples on it, it is an apple tree, and if it has oranges, it is an orange tree. If the government says it believes in gender equity, what kind of fruit is on its tree, its tree of truth? Unfortunately, Canadians are saying that what the government says and what the government does are two very different things. We are talking about changing appointments to ministers, changing junior ministers, ministers of state, to now be paid the same amount as a full minister, but not having the title, responsibility, or support.

Tokenism is not what this side believes in, and Canadians do not believe in tokenism. It has to be true gender equity. Some of the most intelligent women I ever worked with in this House include Rona Ambrose, the former leader of our party. Before that, she was minister in a number of portfolios and was very capable. I was her parliamentary secretary, and I was honoured to be given that responsibility. She is a very intelligent woman. I learned from her, and it was an exciting time to be the parliamentary secretary to the minister of environment.

Before being elected, I was with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. Aileen Shibata was our regional manager for loss prevention and road safety, a very intelligent woman. There are very intelligent women who should be given responsibilities in the House based on their skill level. That is how it should be: pay equity based on the work people do. If they have those skills, we need to honour those skills and give them responsibility, regardless of their gender.

The goal of encouraging women to get involved is very important and needs to be encouraged. We need to encourage the government to truly give women opportunities. I am thinking of what is said and what is done. There is a by-election going on in Canada. There are four ridings. One of them is South Surrey—White Rock, and the Liberals chose a man to run for them. He is a very nice, retired man, but there was a very capable and intelligent woman who wanted to run for the Liberals and they said, no, they wanted a man. It was very unfortunate because, if the government really believes in gender equity, it would have given that woman the opportunity to run.

The woman who is running is Kerry-Lynne Findlay, who is a former cabinet minister, and I hope she returns here after December 11, because she is very capable and again an example of our party's supporting women to get involved in politics.

Having been in the House for 13 and a half years, elected in 2004, I have experienced the importance of regional development ministers. The regional development minister for British Columbia is very successful. That regional minister's office is where the provincial representatives went to meet. In a coordinated, prioritized way, they were able to put the money into infrastructure where it was needed and would have long-term benefits. Without an organized approach, removing the regional ministers, we lose that organized approach and that voice, that consultation between the federal government and the provincial governments. It is a big mistake.

The other problem I have with Bill C-24 is the so-called mystery ministers. The Liberals are saying to trust them, pass this, and they are going to appoint some mystery ministers. Who are those mystery ministers? The last speaker said possibly the minister for the status of women. What about a minister for seniors? The largest demographic in Canada is seniors. Canadian seniors for the last two years have been ignored by Parliament because the government says it cares about seniors but it does not.

The most recent example was the announcement with confetti in the air and great splendour when Liberals announced the Canadian national housing strategy. There was mention of seniors 18 times in the report and not once was there any solution or announcement of how they were going to take care of Canadian seniors. How could that happen that they acknowledge the needs of seniors but nothing is announced to address the needs of seniors? That is because there is no minister for seniors.

With great sincerity, because Bill C-24 is going to be rammed through as it rams through everything, I would ask that it seriously consider the plight of Canadian seniors. Right now, 70% of Canadians who need palliative care in the last days, last weeks, and last years of their life have no access to it. That again is because there is no minister for seniors. There used to be, in the previous Parliament. The previous government had seniors as a priority, and l again ask that the government put its words into action and appoint a minister for seniors.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member is right. Stephen Harper did have a minister responsible for seniors. However, let us keep in mind that he had 40 ministers in total, which was a record high. When we look at cabinets and ministries, no government in the history of Canada had more ministers than that prime minister.

This proposed legislation clearly establishes that there will be one-tier ministers, so when they sit around the cabinet table, they are all equal. Whether a minister of democratic reform, finance, defence, or health, they are all equal when they sit around that table. That is important for us to note.

The member was asking about the importance of a minister of seniors. We recognize the value of ministers here. We talked to the Minister of Finance about the increase to the GIS, which our government has done, literally lifting thousands of seniors out of poverty. We have decreased the age of retirement from 67 to 65. The member will recall that when the Conservatives had a ministry for seniors, they increased the age of retirement from 65 to 67. We reversed that.

It is important to recognize the priorities of government, and the good news is that the legislation would enable not only the current Prime Minister but future prime ministers to have a couple more cabinet ministers, and that is good thing too, I suspect, given the member's comments. Could he provide his thoughts on my comments?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think it was deliberate, but the member has misled this Parliament or he is ill informed. In fact, the previous government realized that Canadians were living longer and working longer. Therefore, the Conservatives suggested that the age of eligibility be raised from 65 to 67, and that would take place in 2021. In fact, it had not yet taken place and the Liberal government, with great grandeur, said that it would roll the age back to 65. That was the Liberals' opportunity, but nothing changed. It was 65 in 2015 and it stayed at 65.

At the HUMA committee, we found out that the moves the government had made with the poison pill in its agenda would save the government close to $4 billion a year by the way it was treating seniors, because it had scaled back. It has given a bit more here, but it takes a lot back here. The Liberals are hurting seniors.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we in the New Democratic Party have been championing equality for women for decades, and, again, I am happy to see there is a gender-parity cabinet. However, the government has become a government of spin, image, and good intentions rather than solid actions. We always have to look beneath the surface to see if the Liberals' rhetoric matches their reality.

I was looking at the structure of the government. Even though the government is making a big deal of its commitment to women and the Prime Minister says that he is a feminist and the government has gender parity in cabinet, I am quite shocked that the minister responsible for the Status of Women Canada prevails over the Status of Women Canada, which is an agency currently under the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Therefore, although the government says that women make up more than half the population, it has not seen fit to create a stand-alone ministry responsible for women. Could my hon. colleague comment as to whether he thinks the government's lack of action on real equality for women matches its rhetoric and what the Liberals would like Canadians to believe?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the member. There is a lot of rhetoric. It is unfortunate that the truth is not coming out. Canadians knows where the Conservative Party stands. Canadians know where the NDP stands. Canadians do not know where the Liberal government stands. The Liberals will tell Canadians what they want to hear, but what they have planned is something very different. I would agree that their rhetoric does not match what they actually do.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to this very important topic. I will touch on a few different aspects of it.

I would like to start where the discussion left off with respect to increasing gender parity in the workplace and the labour market, and the ability of women to get into jobs, roles, and careers that traditionally they might not have been able to do so. I have been championing and working on this issue a lot since I came to the House. It speaks to giving women the tools they need to have the opportunity to fully explore and pursue the careers and jobs they aspire to have.

One of the things I advocated, and the government did do it, was to change maternity benefits for women. In the past, pregnant women were only able to access their maternity benefits eight weeks of the 15 weeks prior to their due date. This government made a real step toward changing that by allowing those maternity benefits to be taken 13 weeks prior, moving in the direction of properly putting the provisions and safeguards in place so women would have real opportunities to pursue a career at the same time as having a family and children.

Another issue is the size of the cabinet. This government has taken a dramatically different approach than the previous government did. It is very telling in the fact that it chose to reduce the size of the cabinet. More important, it made all members sitting around the table have an equal say. Whereas previous governments had fewer members of cabinet making decisions, this government said it wanted to have everybody who sat at the table to help make the decisions on behalf of Canadians. It is remarkable and should be applauded.

Two years later, we are now amending the legislation to catch up with this progressive step. It is only fitting that we need to to here with respect to pay. The truth of the matter is that the ministries that are changing, and we are seeing the full ministerial status come forward, such as la francophonie, science, small business and tourism, sport and persons with disability and status of women, are all ministries that deserve the full attention of the minister and the daily requirements demanded from them.

The interesting thing is that we never know the particular workload one minister will have at any given time. A lot of it has to do with who the opposition chooses to pick on that week, as we have seen with the Minister of Finance. We saw that with the Minister of Democratic Institutions at the beginning of our term. A lot of it comes down to the individual's workload and what he or she is dealing with at that time. As we have seen, all ministers who participate in cabinet contribute valuable efforts toward their own ministries.

One change that really caught my eye was the change from the minister responsible for infrastructure to the minister for infrastructure and communities. Being a former mayor, I am fully aware of the demands municipalities continually put on ministries, both at the provincial and federal levels, with asks, wanting meetings with the minister, and helping to shape legislation. For the first time, we see a minister, both in title and in practical implementation, fully devoted toward infrastructure and our communities.

At the municipal level, we need there to be somebody who has his or her full attention. That is exactly what we see with the changes related to the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities.

When we talk about the importance of these ministries, I hope we can focus on the fact, and I hope everybody would agree, this is not just in title but this is in practice. It is about ensuring we have the right tools in place and people have the right information so when they do get around the table to speak at cabinet, they are contributing equally.

I am extremely supportive of the legislation. I want to see this go through so we can get on with a progressive agenda. Quite frankly, until this point, cabinet did not offer that progressive stance.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, while I acknowledge the government's efforts to increase gender equality in the cabinet, this bill illustrates the law of unintended consequences. It is increasing the remuneration and salaries of ministers of the executive branch of government. We have seen in this place, not just with the current government but with previous governments that have been in this place for the last number of decades, that time after time the House of Commons passes legislation, makes changes to the Standing Orders, makes changes to unwritten conventions that enhance the power and the budgets of the executive branch of government to the detriment of this elected legislature.

For that reason, I do not support the bill. We need to stop this scope creep of ever-increasing budgets and remuneration for the executive branch of government to the detriment of this place. It started with the formal recognition of recognized parties in the House of Commons, then extended to the recognition of registered political parties outside of Parliament, then the extension of the leader's power over registered electoral district associations, and now, once again, an enhancement of the budgets and power of the executive branch of government.

We have to stop this creep into the rights of members of Parliament, into the rights of this legislature, and see power re-balanced in this town. Most people do not realize that the overall budget for members of Parliament to hire staff is about $120 million, but the budget, just for one person in this place, the Prime Minister's office, ministerial staffers in ministers' offices is almost half of that, $60 million. By increasing the remuneration, salaries, and budgets of ministers of the executive branch of government is a step in the wrong direction to rebalancing power in this town and ensuring that the elected representatives who are not in those 25 or so seats in government have a stronger voice on the floor of the House.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the member. However, the fact is that the size of cabinet now is 75% of what it was during the previous government, when he was involved. The budget would have been more by default then.

I find it quite ironic that the Liberals are talking about efficiency in a smaller cabinet and creating cost savings as it relates to cabinet. Unfortunately, I disagree with him. The progressive approach this government is taking is much more in line with cost-saving measures, at least as it relates to the previous government.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. colleague's speech. He talked very clearly about the importance of having a minister responsible for the status of women or women's issues and the importance of that being a full minister with equal voice at cabinet. I agree with him very much on that.

My question, though, has to do with his government's lack of commitment to creating a stand-alone ministry responsible for the status of women. Currently the government has structured the ministry responsible for the status of women as an agency within the ministry of heritage.

Would the member agree that a government truly committed to equality of women, that truly wants to be a feminist government would create a stand-alone ministry specifically and exclusively dedicated to women's issues, or is the member content with having it being a mere agency under another department?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard the member ask this question a number of times today. What I will say is that the minister of status of women has a full seat at the cabinet table, has the full ability to participate in the discussions, and her or his value, whoever it might be of the day, at least in this government, and is fully part of the decision-making process.

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

Mr. Speaker, the long-standing battle for gender equality is far from over.

Yesterday, December 6, reminded us that violence against women remains all too real. Women who publicly declare that they are feminists and ask for equal rights and opportunities still endure virtual or real attacks.

We had great expectations of the Liberals when they announced that there would be a gender-balanced government. Feminists are fighting many battles. Equal pay and equality of opportunity are two of the best-known measures, but have yet to be implemented. Unfortunately, too many women do not have the opportunity to secure the positions they want because they experience discrimination, whether intentional or not, based on their gender.

Our Canadian society, just like the House of Commons, has not yet changed its work culture to ensure that high-level jobs are not given just to men.

The fight to move closer to gender parity cannot impinge on other rights. I will come back to that later in my speech.

With Bill C-24, the NDP is concerned not only with the missed opportunity on pay equity, but also with the elimination of the regional development minister positions. In fact, those positions might now be led by a single administrator who does not know the region, does not speak the same language, and is not physically in the region. What is more, economic initiatives will now be national in scope. That is why we are concerned about the bill. Previously, we could have ministers responsible for regions such as Ontario, Quebec, or western Canada. This all disappears under Bill C-24.

Quebec is losing its minister of economic development. I find that troubling coming from a government that says it wants to represent everyone and be more transparent. I will provide a very real and recent example: the refusal by the Minister of Canadian Heritage to tax Netflix, and other companies such as Google, and properly protect our culture, as the Government of Quebec has been urging the federal government to do. There is a growing disconnect between what Quebeckers want and the ideas and decisions of the federal government.

Quebec has significant needs, in terms of both infrastructure and business development. We need to strengthen our SMEs, and we need a minister who understands Quebec's situation, not some unpredictable administrator.

This is something we are seeing with the Davie shipyard file, which we have brought up time after time in the House of Commons. The government is doing absolutely nothing for Quebec shipyard workers. It is deeply troubling.

The Prime Minister boasted about achieving parity in 2015. He claimed to have achieved that parity by including female ministers without departments. There is nothing wrong with giving departments to some ministers and not to others, nor with giving a practical title, like minister of state, to ministers with fewer responsibilities.

The only real problem this bill seeks to remedy is a political problem of the Prime Minister's own making. He is the one who boasted about forming a gender-balanced cabinet, yet appointed a disproportionate number of women to junior positions. Now Canadian taxpayers are being asked to pay junior ministers more just to avoid embarrassing the Prime Minister and forcing him to explain that his cabinet had a gender pay gap because he failed to appoint enough women to ministerial positions.

By blurring the lines between ministers of state and full ministers, the Prime Minister is prioritizing equal treatment over equal responsibilities in the interest of maintaining gender parity in his government. The saying is, “Equal pay for equal work”, but in this bill, the work is not equal. That means there is a bit of a problem.

Bill C-24 purports to tackle a key problem in our society, namely women's place in society and, more importantly, their status. Real progress has been made in recent years to remove barriers to gender equality. Today's women are better educated, and more of them are in positions of responsibility in the private sector, where we are seeing more female CEOs of major international corporations, as well as in politics, where more women appear in legislative assemblies, the Senate, and cabinet.

Thanks to great women such as Kim Campbell and our Governor General, Julie Payette, young Canadian women know that there has been progress and that they can overcome obstacles and fulfill their ambitions.

Even so, for many women in Canada and around the world, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Taking a broader international perspective, according to the World Economic Forum's “Global Gender Gap Report 2016”, we will not see true parity for another 170 years.

We are a long way, then, from achieveing our common goal of gender equality. Closer to home, here are some facts about the status of women in my riding, Salaberry—Suroît. This data is from an economic profile prepared by Relais-femmes for the Vallée-du-Haut-Saint-Laurent regional conference of elected officials. Women's average annual employment income is $32,000; men's is $46,000. Even now, in 2017, women in the Vallée-du-Haut-Saint-Laurent earn, on average, 70% of what men earn.

Pay equity is not a luxury; it is a right. Equality is enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but the fact is that women are still being denied their rights. Canada is very proud of being a democracy, a state where the rule of law prevails and we have laws that protect women's rights. However, the most basic rights, women's social and economic rights, are still being denied every day.

The World Economic Forum ranks Canada 35th in terms of pay equity. That is a pretty poor showing for an OECD country. Canada is nevertheless a party to the United Nations’ International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which provides for equal pay for equal work.

Canada also ratified the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1981. This shows that, despite our commitments, we still have a ways to go before we achieve equality, equity and parity for all.

We have heard several interesting proposals from members of Parliament to help further the cause, and yet I regret to announce that Bill C-24 is not one of them.

Today, as a woman and an activist for Canadians, and in particular Canadian women, I am voicing my opposition to Bill C-24.

My motives are simple enough. The only problem Bill C-24 is designed to solve is the Prime Minister's image problem, one he himself created when he boasted about having a gender-balanced cabinet even though he appointed a disproportionate number of women to junior positions. This bears repeating.

This bill is insulting to Canadian women. Its only aim is to give the appearance of equal treatment, and it only applies to ministers. The Prime Minister’s cosmetic reorganization will not affect middle-class Canadian women in the job market.

In truth, the bill is condescending, and only emphasizes the absurd fact that, for the government, men and women are not equal when it comes to responsibility. The facts are clear. Most female ministers in the Liberal government are ministers of state and have far fewer responsibilities. Canadian taxpayers are being asked to pay more for junior ministers, just so the Prime Minister can look good.

If he really wants to be a “feminist”, the Prime Minister should perhaps act on the recommendations of the 2004 task force on pay equity. The report has been on a shelf collecting dust for 13 years. We are still wondering when the Liberals will act on these recommendations. One of their election promises was to achieve parity by 2016. They promised to introduce a proactive pay equity bill and, so far, at the end of 2017, they have done nothing at all.

They have not yet implemented the bill. They have yet to even introduce it in the House of Commons. They have not repealed the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act, which was unfair and was brought in by the Conservatives in 2009. For all these reasons, it is impossible for us to vote in favour of Bill C-24, and it is even less possible to say that we have achieved gender parity.

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

Mr. Speaker, in listening to the hon. member's speech, she was seemingly twisting herself into knots, both arguing for pay equity and, in this specific case, against it.

I will give her the example of the Minister of Science, who is responsible for universities across the country, and research and granting institutions worth billions of dollars. Why is her voice worth less? Why is she considered a junior minister in a government that is fully committed to science?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is so sad to hear the Liberals speaking today; they are totally oblivious to the mess they will be creating.

They claim to be in favour of equality even though their cabinet is not gender balanced. There are fewer women in actual ministerial positions. The Minister of Science was mentioned, but she is a minister of state. She does not lead a department. She will have the same salary, but she does not have the same responsibilities. Do the Liberals think this is parity, having equal pay but not equal responsibilities? This is the message they are sending to young women in Canada: it is no big deal if they do not have the same responsibilities or the same value, since they will have the same salary.

In any case, this only affects ministers, while women in my riding earn 70% of what men earn. Are the Liberals fine with that? I do not think so. However, that is the message we are getting today. It is insulting and it is serious. This is not what women's rights are about.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my NDP colleague for her great speech.

I really liked what she said about the Liberal Party making this bill a cosmetic bill. This is one more bill designed to make them look like they support parity. She was right in saying that the women across the way who are ministers of state, even though there is nothing wrong with that, do not head up a department and have no visibility. It is the men we see most often on television, especially one man in particular, the Prime Minister of Canada. As a woman, I have a problem with that.

Whoever claims to want parity in the House and introduces legislation like this needs to give women a chance to speak. They cannot call themselves feminists when they are only interested in themselves.

Does my NDP colleague agree that this is just another bill designed to enhance the Prime Minister's image?

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix.

This is indeed a cosmetic bill designed to boost the Prime Minister's image. He calls himself a feminist, but the facts show that he does not put female ministers forward. It is still women who are being assigned lesser roles than full ministers in cabinet.

How can they brag about parity when that is not the reality? The Liberals have yet to table the proactive pay equity bill they promised in 2016. That is not the reality in Canada in 2017. The Prime Minister once said, “it is 2015”. Well, what did we get in 2015? Nothing.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today, as it is on any day that luxury is afforded to me. We are all honoured when we get this opportunity, and I am no exception.

I am happy to speak to Bill C-24 at report stage. I sit on the government operations committee, where we reviewed this bill. I think I had a chance to speak to it at second reading as well. Therefore, I am going to address the debate from a bit of a different angle.

When we hear the many concerns raised in opposition to this bill, some are not necessarily related to the subject of the bill, but are perhaps valid concerns nonetheless. In my very humble opinion and submission to this chamber, anyone who is opposed to this piece of legislation, who argues it is unnecessary, and who wants us on this side of the House to believe it is merely cosmetic, I think does an injustice to the five ministries being elevated and the important subject matter of those ministries. It is not about the people or the ministers; it is about the ministries.

For example, in his mandate letter to the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities, among other things, the Prime Minister indicates that the minister should develop and introduce new federal accessibility legislation. I highly doubt any member of this House would not think that is an important task to undertake, or that improving disability legislation in this country is a trivial matter. The ministry should be elevated to the status of a full ministry.

There should be no junior ministries. In essence, that is what this bill is about. It is not about the people, it is about the job. Certainly, we can have a ministry that is equal. Historically, in the Westminster model, a prime minister is first among equals, and the ministry itself should be a group of equals.

La francophonie is another ministry that is being elevated.

The department's mandate is to ensure Canada’s strong and sustained engagement in the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. That is important.

Canada is a proud member, as it should be, of the International Organisation of La Francophonie. It is one of the many international organizations Canada has the great honour of being a part of. In fact, we are leaders in this organization, as we are in many international organizations, and have been throughout our history.

Canada's international role and leadership on the global stage is not bound to whatever party is in government at the time. Every government realizes it is important for Canada to be a leader and a player on the world stage. I do not think there is a member here who would suggest that our role in the Commonwealth or NATO is not important. I hope, and I believe, that not one member here thinks that our role in La Francophonie is not important. That is what this bill does. It elevates these roles, which we should view as important, to the status they deserve because of the important work done by these ministries.

Of course, the ministry of small business and tourism will also be elevated should this bill become law. We do not need to debate the importance of small business to the Canadian economy or Canadians.

Also, I do not think we need to undermine the importance of tourism to our economy. Canada has seen growth in tourism this year as a result of the Canada 150 celebrations. We hope to see another increase in tourism next year when Canada and China enter their tourism agreement. Many small businesses and communities rely on tourism for jobs, for growth, and for keeping communities vibrant. Why should tourism not be a full ministry? Tourism is vitally important for all Canadians, and we need to focus on that when discussing Bill C-24.

The Minister of Status of Women would also be elevated to a full ministerial position. I have not heard anyone argue that we should not do that. We can all agree that the role of the Minister of Status of Women is an important one. Her ministry is an important ministry that does important work for all Canadians. The minister certainly deserves an equal place at the cabinet table. This role ought not to be dismissed or diminished in any manner. It is not a trivial role. The ministry does great work and needs to be at the same level as all other ministries in Canada. Bill C-24 would do that.

When we look at the ministry of science, I do not think for a minute that anyone here does not accept science as an important part of Canada, an important part of the Canadian economy, an important part of the innovative economy. The global economy is changing rapidly. Canada needs to be and remain in the vanguard of that change. If we do not invest in science, if we do not encourage our children to participate in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, then we will be left behind. No member of Parliament, no Canadian in fact, would want our country to be left behind as we enter the new innovative global economy, in which Canada should rightfully take its place of leadership.

These are the types of things we are talking about and none are unimportant. None of them ought to be seen as lower in an artificial hierarchy. These topics are important to all Canadians. They are important to my constituents and I am sure they are important to the constituents of everyone in the chamber.

The opposition's role is to oppose, and valid concerns are always raised about legislation. It is part of the debating process, part of what we parliamentarians go through when we make laws. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. No one should feel less Canadian as a result. Being in opposition is an essential part of the parliamentary system. I want members to realize that when they criticize or raise valid or other objections, or when they raise issues that may or may not be important, from time to time it diminishes the subject matter of legislation.

For members to say that Bill C-24 is unnecessary, that it is a cosmetic exercise, that it is a pet project of the Prime Minister, is to say that La Francophonie is not important, that science is not important, that disability legislation is not important, that the status of women ministry is not important, that small business and tourism is not important. We all agree that these five ministries are very important and deserve to be at the table with all of the other important ministries. The ministry needs to be a one-tier ministry.

I urge all members to support—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Order. The hon. member for Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix is rising on a point of order.

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

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague across the way, no one here in the House, neither NDP nor Conservative, said that the Francophonie is not important. I ask that my colleague withdraw his remarks.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

That is a matter of debate.

The hon. member for Newmarket—Aurora.

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

Mr. Speaker, as I said, debate is a good part of the process, and I am happy to partake in it. However, we should follow the rules in this place when debating, and I am happy to continue to do so.

I was about to conclude by saying that I urge all members to support the bill, because it is a great bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I took part in this debate a few weeks ago and I kept repeating the same thing in what I would call a philosophical critique of the bill.

First, I think that making cabinet gender balanced is a terrible idea because having qualified ministers should be more important than gender parity.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that parity is the Liberals' way to prevent women from advancing to cabinet. Under this bill, women will never be able to make up more than 50% of cabinet. Is that just or fair considering that, for decades, men made up 100%, 70%, or 60% of cabinet? Now, the very clear message to women is that never will they ever represent more than half the cabinet. That is an interesting way of looking at this and I would not be surprised if that were the Liberal's primary objective.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend's interjection. I enjoyed my time with him on the government operations committee. At committee, he was always insightful and informative, and it was good to have him as part of our committee.

I am not sure where he is getting his position that women will not be able to have over 50% of cabinet positions. I have read the legislation pretty closely. I studied it at committee clause-by-clause. My memory is not perfect, but I can recall no provision mentioning anything of that sort. If there is a such a provision in there, I would be happy to change my answer and refer to that provision. However, I believe there is nothing in the act that would prevent a cabinet from being 100% female. Perhaps that is what we should be striving for.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the member was speaking about the role of women around board tables, I was thinking of the different not-for-profit organizations I have been fortunate to be part of. I have been a part of 28 organizations in Guelph and several businesses over the years where women and diversity were not at the table. Once people are at the table, their voice is heard like every other voice around the table. We do not then say they are younger and therefore that their voice does not count, or that because they come from the other side of the country, their voice does not count. Being at the table brings their voice forward, and as far as I know, we all have equal voices when speaking.

Could the member talk about the contribution that various voices give us in getting varied and better ideas going forward?

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

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague's question gives me an opportunity to talk a bit about my former life. Do not be aghast at this, but I come from Bay Street and also have some experience as a lawyer in corporate governance. The evidence is clear that public boards with diverse directors are profitable and show an increased return on investment, and shareholders encourage it because it makes good business.

I would always say that having diverse perspectives is good for any organization, whether private or public sector. Hearing different perspectives lets people perhaps change their minds about decisions they would otherwise make, and ensures that the application of decisions is universal in scope and not just for a narrow group of people. If it makes for good business sense, as it does, it also makes good sense for good public governance. We should strive to have a diversity of opinions any time decisions are being made, and the cabinet table should be no exception.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise in the House to speak to Bill C-24. I had the opportunity to speak to this same piece of legislation earlier in the spring, and the truth is that my concerns remain largely the same.

There are three main problems I wish to address. First, with this bill, the Liberals are seeking to get rid of regional development ministers. Instead of caring for the unique needs of Canada's diverse regions, the current government is choosing to apply a highly centralized and very top-down approach to decision-making. A minister from Toronto would now tell Atlantic Canada, as well as northern Canada and the western provinces, what they need and how to best economically develop. They are to trust him, because he is in the government, there to help them, right?

My second concern is that this bill lacks transparency, which of course very much concerns me. I will come back to that momentarily. The third concern I have with this bill is that the Liberals are hailing it as something that would result in equality among ministers, women and men, junior ministers and senior ministers. The government House leader said that it would create a cabinet that would uphold gender parity. When she said that, I could hear the Elvis Presley song, playing in the background, with the line, “that was just a l-i-e”, the word that cannot be said in this House.

I have only 10 minutes, so permit me to dive in and provide a fuller discussion. The bill aims to eliminate the positions—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

There is a point of order by the hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, an unparliamentary word is just that: unparliamentary. Even if it is spelled, it is still unparliamentary.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Does the hon. member for Lethbridge want to withdraw the word?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is part of the lyrics of a song by Elvis Presley.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

The rule is that members cannot say indirectly what they cannot say directly. I do not want to hear the word again, whether it is spelled or said. Perhaps the member could apologize or withdraw it, and we can continue.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize that the opposite side of the House is offended by all this questioning.

The bill aims to eliminate the positions of our former government's six regional ministers, who looked after these different parts of our country. The elimination of these positions will mean that the unique needs of western Canada, northern Canada, Atlantic Canada, northern Ontario, southern Ontario, and Quebec will not be adequately represented at the cabinet table. I would imagine that this would upset everyone in the House, because we should strive to represent these regions adequately. Instead of putting regional ministers in place who have boots on the ground and their fingers on the pulse in these different regions, the Prime Minister decided that one minister from Toronto would make the decisions for all of Canada in terms of their economic development and prosperity going forward.

Traditionally, regional development agency ministers brought their region-specific requests, requirements, or desires to Parliament to ensure that accurate representation was made. However, as I said, the bill would gut that opportunity. When asked about this decision, the Prime Minister said that appointing a Toronto minister for all regional development was “a way of reducing the kind of politics that we've always seen from regional development agencies.”

What exactly is that supposed to mean? Is it that, in a nation with significant diversity, the unique needs of the different regions are not worth considering, or does it mean that it is too political, too complicated, or too uncomfortable for the Prime Minister to bring those voices to the table? Maybe the Prime Minister, who claims to place importance on consultation, does not actually give a care.

I will borrow the words written in an editorial in The Guardian, which said, “Exactly how does a central Canadian give the regional development agency more clout at the cabinet table?”

What the Liberal government has done is incredibly illogical, and what makes matters worse, and is quite embarrassing for the Liberals, to be frank, is the fact that in the last election, 32 ridings in Atlantic Canada elected a Liberal member of Parliament. Surely one of these 32 individuals is qualified to be a regional minister to stand up for their unique needs in Canada. What is the Prime Minister saying about those 32 individuals and their ability or inability?

When I think about the Prime Minister's so-called commitment to transparency and accountability, I would expect that he would want men and women at the table to represent these regions well. I would expect that he would want them to go to a shipyard in Halifax or to visit a mine in the north or an agricultural event in Saskatchewan. He would want those experiences represented around his cabinet table, but that is not the case.

This brings me to my second concern, which is that the government is actually refusing to be transparent. Bill C-24 calls on members of the House to approve three mysterious ministers, and it says nothing more. There is no transparency or accountability. The clause is absolutely unreasonable in asking the House to permit a blank cheque going forward. I am not okay with that.

That is not the only thing that is farcical in the bill. My third point is that when it comes to changing the salaries of ministers of state, Bill C-24 is nothing more than a hurried attempt to cover up for the Liberals' media embarrassment when the Prime Minister went out and said that he had put a gender-equal cabinet in place. The media picked up on this immediately and noticed that all five junior ministers were, in fact, women. The Prime Minister actually chose to give these women less authority, less responsibility, and smaller budgets than their male counterparts. So much for 2015.

Bill C-24 is the Prime Minister's attempt to remedy this mistake. The problem is that just attaching a label and a few extra dollars to a position does not mean that the person is valued or respected any more than she was before. The bill does an incredible disservice to women, as it is tokenism at its finest.

As a strong, intelligent, and hard-working woman, I want to be entrusted with responsibility and granted a voice at the cabinet table, not because of my gender but because of my ability. I would expect the same from the women in the House. They want their salaries to match what they do, what they are capable of, and the trust put in them. Changing the pay system would not create equality. In fact, it would diminish the value of being a woman at the cabinet table.

The Prime Minister is saying, “Don't worry. I won't give you the same level of responsibility or assign you a comparable budget or trust you to function at the cabinet table the way others do, but I will give you a name placard and a few extra dollars, and we will call it good.” It that for real? That is 2015? That is gender equality?

Here is the thing. The Prime Minister is a self-proclaimed feminist. So am I, but our ideas of feminism are not aligned. According to his definition of feminism, it is okay for Yazidi women and girls to be systematically kidnapped, tortured, raped, and sold while Canada stands by in vain, watching from afar. According to his definition of feminism, it is okay for newcomers to practise genital mutilation and it is no longer considered a barbaric practice in Canada. According to his definition of feminism, all women are equal, but some are more equal than others. There is a right type of woman and a wrong type of woman, and it is up to this Prime Minister to dictate what that is. Some are simply an inappropriate choice, according to this Prime Minister.

Now, on this side of the House, feminism looks like respect for every single woman. Feminism on this side of the House looks like taking a stand against gender-based hatred and violence. Feminism on this side of the House looks like protecting young girls from being brutalized. Feminism on this side of the House looks like preserving a woman's right to choose between two or more options, not just accepting the one that is dictated to her. This is feminism on this side of the House. This is the feminism that all of Canada deserves and expects.

In summary, Bill C-24 is extremely flawed. It robs regions of fair representation, it lacks transparency, and it fails in its attempt to create ministerial equality. I will be voting no.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Lethbridge spoke about a number of things that actually arose today in our committee on citizenship and immigration, where we had the minister appear before us. With respect to a couple of points, I think she is fairly off base, but it is possibly because she was not able to attend the meeting, being in the House.

With respect to the issue of the section of the Canadian citizenship guide, it has not been changed. The words she referred to are still in the guide. With respect to Yazidi women and girls, the government is making huge efforts, as we have also heard in committee, on bringing people who are suffering under Daesh to Canada. It is doing its utmost to try to help them and find ways to address some of the concerns.

Does the member not agree with the motion, which was passed by the House, to bring Yazidi women and girls to Canada to settle and protect them, as is currently being done?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question is ludicrous. Here is why. Those in this House know very well, as does the Canadian public, that it was our former leader, Rona Ambrose, joined by other members on this side, who brought forward the motion to bring Yazidi women and girls over to Canada to give them a second chance at life. That came from this side of the House. How dare that side of the House try to take credit for that action.

Let us talk about one more thing, and that is that in June 2016, the UN declared what was taking place in northern Iraq a genocide. Conservatives called on the government to take action. The Prime Minister said no. He said that we would wait. We would wait for more women to be slaughtered. We would wait for more women to be tortured. We would wait for more women to be raped. We would wait for more women to be sold into slavery. We would wait. It was not until after we applied significant pressure that the government finally acted. That is not feminism.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to lament the fact that with her decision to quote from an Elvis song, I think Elvis really has left the building. It is quite sad.

I would like to give the hon. member an opportunity to talk about how she would fix the bill. Is there any fix that would work for her?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the answer to that is very simple.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to bring the attention of some of my friends on the government side to, in fact, what—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Order. I am trying to hear the question from the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan and I am having a hard time with the cackling that is going on. It has stopped now, so I will let the member continue.

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

Mr. Speaker, I hope members of the government will listen. This is the Liberals' opportunity to learn something.

The orders in council that the government put forward on November 4 were the orders in council that created the ministerial positions. Let me read just one example, “...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....”

We have heard all sorts of impassioned speeches from members of the government that these five areas are important responsibilities that deserve their own ministers. I have a suggestion to those who have given those speeches. They should write to the Prime Minister and suggest that he do that.

Bill C-24 pays ministers who will remain ministers of state. There is an important difference between a minister and a minister of state. It is not a difference of the importance of the area, it is a difference of the public administration mechanism. Ministers of state are subject to full ministers in the exercise of their functions which is why the orders in council published on November 4 very clearly established that ministers of state, styled as full ministers, but in fact ministers of state, report to full ministers in the carrying out of their functions.

It is incredible that many members of the government do not understand this basic feature of how the ministerial system works and are giving speeches that misunderstand the provisions of the bill.

I would be curious for my colleague's comments on this simple reality of how Bill C-24 works.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for this excellent question and for his excellent explanation. To be honest, I do not know that I can add much to it, he has covered it quite well. The government is claiming to do something that it is not actually doing. Liberals are putting a few extra dollars along with a placard on a door and saying, “there, now you are equal”. No, actually there is a distinction in these positions.

I would like to make one point very clear and that is every single member of the House is equal in value, equal in worth, and equal in dignity and that can never be robbed from them. What the government is trying to do, however, is somehow say that adding extra money and adding a new placard, though not changing the rule, is somehow making the minister equal in voice at the table. That is just not the case.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act, as reported (without amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege to rise today to debate Bill C-24, an important piece of legislation.

The opposition has some challenges with the bill. The government was sworn in 25 months ago and yet this legislation has come forward for debate today, December 7, 2017. This particular piece of legislation was tabled in the House on September 27, 2016, and here we are, 18 months later, still dealing with this legislation.

What I find fascinating about this piece of legislation is the fact that these ministers are currently being paid. The question then arises as to how they are being paid their additional salary when the legislation has not yet been passed. I am not the only one who has asked this question. The other place has been quite concerned about this issue as well, and its national finance committee has taken up this very question. Enabling legislation has not yet been passed, yet these ministers are being paid, nonetheless.

The President of the Treasury Board attempted to address this issue at the national finance committee in the other place. I am going to quote from the 13th report of that committee, tabled in the other place in March 2017:

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 is the context of Bill C-24.

Members will recall that I raised this issue in this place as a point of order a number of months ago when the supplementary estimates were being tabled at that time, yet this issue is a recurrent practice of the government. The government is using the supplementary estimates and the estimates process to achieve a legislative objective that is more properly dealt with through legislation. Here we are, 25 months after the Liberals were sworn in, and they are still using the estimates to pay for this process.

I draw members' attention back to the report of the national finance committee of the other place. It quotes Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules & Forms, 6th Edition. All of us in the House have our preferred authorities and my preferred authority is Beauchesne's. It is a great parliamentary authority.

Beauchesne's states at page 258 and 259 the following point in relation to the estimates and the legislative process. Paragraph 935 states, “A supply item ought not to be used to obtain authority which is the...subject of legislation.” Yet the estimates process has been used for the past 25 months to pay certain ministers' salaries before the legislative means has been achieved.

I go back to my point. Here we are December 2017 debating legislation that ought to have been dealt with months ago.

Beauchesne's goes on to state at paragraph 937 that “The government may not, by the use of an Appropriation Act obtain authority it does not have under existing legislation.”

There is no legislation. There is a bill before the House, but it has not yet been passed in this place and not yet even been considered in the other place. Here we are after 25 months, with the government still paying ministers certain sums under legislation that does not yet exist.

I have listened with great interest to the debate in the House. Unfortunately, members on the other side have failed to grasp what this legislation would do. They mix terms. They use different words to imply different things that are not even at the heart of the issue. They intertwine and intermingle the words “ministers” and “ministries” and “departments”. They seem to be implying that a minister and a ministry go together, but that is not necessarily the case.

As we are well aware, there is no departmental apparatus supporting certain of the ministers of state, or “ministers” as the government now wants to refer to them, in support of those ministers' capacity. There is a difference between a minister who is responsible for a department and a minister who reports to Parliament through another minister, as is the case with many of the ministers' estates.

Certainly there are important functions undertaken by certain ministers in certain capacities, but to imply that all ministers of state ought to be full ministers and paid accordingly belies the issue of there being no egality, of there not being the same legislative function and responsibility on the part of those ministers in all cases. If we were to refer to the Financial Administration Act and the schedules associated with it, the act clearly delineates those departments that are considered to be full departments, those departments with a deputy minister at their apex, a deputy minister who is accountable to the minister, and a departmental apparatus in support of that.

Certainly on this side of the House, we feel there is great work to be done to support a number of the functions that have fallen under the jurisdiction of ministers of state in the past.

In this connection, one of the issues that keeps being brought up by the Liberal government is the issue of small business and tourism. In my riding, the backbone of our local economy is small business, whether agriculture or other small business. Certainly one of the most important aspects of our economy falls right there. One of the other aspects, of course, is tourism. I am very proud to represent a riding that has strong artistic and cultural attractions, including the Drayton festival in the township of Mapleton, and the Stratford Festival in Stratford and Stratford Summer Music. I am very proud to support small business and tourism and to highlight the important work and economic benefit of those in my great riding of Perth—Wellington.

However, the fact is that simply because we support small business and tourism and see them as a major priority and something that must be promoted, that does not change the fact that under schedule 1 and schedule 2 of the Financial Administration Act, those are not considered to be a department for the purposes of that act. Therefore, when the Liberal government members try to infer that they are making certain ministers full ministers, they forget the fact that the apparatus, the departmental function, of those acts of those ministers is not there to support the minister. They are still ministers of state in the real sense of things, because they do not have the departmental function that goes with every other minister.

I go back to the fact that we are 25 months into the current Liberal government's being sworn in, and yet this bill is all of a sudden a priority in the dying weeks of this session before we go on our Christmas break to our ridings. I am sure that we can infer a number of different reasons why there is a sudden a push to get this piece of legislation to the other place. One might infer that perhaps the Liberal government is eager to prorogue and wants to quickly get legislation out of this place to the other place before prorogation, before it can have a new Speech from the Throne. I am certainly not privy to that information. Maybe you are, Mr. Speaker, but I see you shaking your head.

Certainly the rumour going around this place is that the Liberal government is eager to change the channel, that they are eager for prorogation to restart with a fresh Speech from the Throne to try to take attention away from their ethical lapses on that side. The Minister of Finance's ethical challenges for the past number of months in fact go back to his challenged and mistaken approach to small businesses, in implying and inferring that the hard-working farmers and farm families, small-business owners and those who work hard every day, are somehow tax cheats. That is certainly not the case. Here on this side, we believe in standing up for small businesses. We believe it is important to support our local economy.

This act is really a way for the Liberal government to paper over its challenges and its inability to pass legislation and to have a meaningful impact on the economy and the lives of Canadians. Instead of focusing on the issues that matter to Canadians, the Liberals are trying to give a few ministers a pay raise.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague was talking about how certain ministers are being paid who perhaps should not be paid. The concern might be that if the Liberals are trying to adjust that, they would have to deal with the Phoenix pay system. I wonder if perhaps you might be able to enlighten us about what the challenges might be for those particular ministers.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

It is not a serious offence, but I remind the hon. member for Red Deer—Mountain View to address his comments to the Chair. The member for Perth—Wellington was very close, and I can understand why he would say “you” in those circumstances, and I am sure there was no offence taken.

The hon. member for Perth—Wellington.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is an interesting point the member for Red Deer—Mountain View brings up with respect to the challenge of Phoenix. The issues with Phoenix are so many in number that it has actually become a verb: being “phoenixed”. I have talked to different people, both in the public service and on the Hill, who have been “phoenixed”, who have had challenges. Just yesterday I heard a story from an individual who tried to retire, but he could not retire because of Phoenix. This is someone who spent 35 years working in the federal public service, and he could not retire because of Phoenix. The system would not let him retire.

We know that the Liberal government was the one that pushed the button on Phoenix before it was ready. We are now facing a backlog of hard-working public servants, who serve the citizens of our country, who are not being paid because of the Liberal government.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member across the way deviated a bit when he was referring to Phoenix. After deviating, he wanted to pass the blame to the government of the day. I sit right beside the parliamentary secretary, who does a phenomenal job with respect to Phoenix, not to mention the minister. They are trying to rectify a serious mess the Conservative Party put our public servants in by laying off hundreds of people who were responsible for payroll and putting in a system that was not ready. There was no back door for this Liberal government to go back out.

My question to the member is based on the last question. Is there any remorse on the other side for what they are putting public servants through as a direct result of the Harper government's incompetence?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, let us look at the Auditor General's report. It laid the blame at the feet of the current government. The member for Winnipeg North said that Phoenix was not ready, yet the Liberal government went ahead with implementing it before it was ready. Now there are backlogs in cases of back pay. People cannot retire because of Phoenix. That lies solely at the feet of the Liberal government. It was the one that pushed the button. It was the one that implemented a system that was not yet ready. It is the one that is responsible.

The Liberals have been in office for 25 months. The Liberal government is the one responsible for public servants, hard-working Canadians who are providing for their families, not being paid.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, it was mentioned in debate previously by the member for Newmarket—Aurora that it was unfair for certain ministers to be paid a different amount. I have raised this in the House before. If the Liberals want equity, they could lower the pay of every single minister to another pay scale. Then it would in fact be equal, and the Canadian taxpayer would save money. I would like to hear from my colleague on that.

The second point I want to make is that a minister can have no portfolio. That has happened in this House before. To tie a ministry and civil servants to a minister's pay is absolutely ridiculous, because a government can decided to name a minister without a portfolio. I would like to hear the member's comments on that.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, in response to my friend and colleague from Calgary Shepard's first point, that is an absolutely great idea. Maybe all the Liberal government cabinet ministers should have their salaries lowered. Perhaps they should be paid on an outcome basis. Those who achieve what they have been mandated to do would be paid what they ought to be paid.

My colleague mentioned the idea of a minister without portfolio. I would assume that some of these ministers do not have portfolios, because we see so few of them actually achieving anything for Canadians. Lately I have become somewhat concerned that perhaps the Minister of Finance is becoming a minister without portfolio, because we hear so little from him in this House during question period. We ask him questions every day, yet we do not hear him respond to those questions. He does not even respond to simple questions. I am quite concerned that the Minister of Finance has become a minister without portfolio.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Minister of Employment]

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

As the former minister of Status of Women, I know that this legislation is critical and is fundamentally about equality. Earlier this month, I appeared at the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities to talk about our new student work placement program. While asking me a question, the member for Langley—Aldergrove referred to my new position as Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour as a promotion from my previous portfolio as minister of Status of Women. To me, this implied that his party and that member did not see that women's issues and gender equality are as important as the portfolio I hold now. His comments also reflected a profound misunderstanding of the significant importance of ensuring women's success as critical to a growing economy.

The Prime Minister decides on the organization and the procedures and composition of cabinet and shapes it to reflect the diversity of Canadians. One of these priorities is the equal status and representation of women in cabinet. Our Prime Minister has created a cabinet in which all members have a responsibility to deliver on our priorities, have an equal capacity to exercise the powers and perform the functions assigned to them, are full members of cabinet, and are fully and appropriately supported in the carrying out of their responsibilities. Bill C-24 would change the current legislative framework, which currently does not provide room for that structure.

As it currently stands, a number of ministers are occupying minister of state positions, which have traditionally been considered and referred to as junior positions. The amendments proposed in Bill C-24 would formalize in the legislation the current ministerial structure.

The bill would do away with distracting administrative distinctions. Bill C-24 would add to the Salaries Act five ministerial positions that are currently minister of state appointments. The five ministerial positions that would be added are Minister of La Francophonie, Minister of Small Business and Tourism, Minister of Science, Minister of Status of Women, and Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities. These positions that will soon be full cabinet positions are ones that I think all members of this House recognize are integral to the success and prosperity of our country. Let me elaborate further.

The Minister of La Francophonie works with other nations to preserve the vitality of the Francophone world. The Minister of Small Business and Tourism helps support small business and tourism, drivers of the economy, to become more productive, innovative, and export-oriented. The Minister of Science helps ensure that scientific research, both fundamental and applied, is appropriately supported as a driver of innovation and a competitive knowledge-based economy and that evidence-based scientific considerations are integrated into the government's policies and funding choices. The Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities promotes healthier Canadians through sport and ensures greater accessibility and opportunities for Canadians with disabilities. Finally, the Minister of Status of Women works to accelerate change and build a society where women and girls no longer face the systemic barriers they continue to face today. These are important priorities for this government, and in fact, for all Canadians.

There is more. Let me talk about some of the other responsibilities assigned to the ministers who are occupying positions Bill C-24 proposes to add to the Salaries Act.

The bill before us represents the government's commitment to reflect in legislation the importance of la Francophonie, science, sport and persons with disabilities, Status of Women, and small businesses and tourism and the reality of how this ministry works. It is clear that the titled positions Bill C-24 would add to the Salaries Act carry significant and important responsibilities. This bill would provide a framework that would allow existing departments to support these ministers in carrying out their responsibilities.

The bill would give the Governor in Council the flexibility to ask any department to support the new Salaries Act ministers in carrying out some or all of their responsibilities. This flexibility would mean that a minister could have access to the expertise and experience of the department or departments best placed to provide full and appropriate support. This would be a streamlined and efficient way to work.

The Salaries Act amendments are administrative, but they are very important. They would update the Salaries Act to reflect the structure of the current cabinet. These kinds of updates are not new. They would reverse a system that has historically disadvantaged women. For decades, 50% of our population did not have a seat at the table. That is unacceptable, and we are changing it.

These amendments look to the future as well. By introducing three untitled ministerial positions to the Salaries Act, future ministries could be more easily designed according to the challenges and priorities of the times. This administrative bill signals this government's recognition that the needs of Canada and Canadians change over time and that governments must be responsive and adapt.

It is appropriate to have legislation that allows these changes to be reflected in the composition of this cabinet and cabinets to come. By ensuring that the ministers of Science, Status of Women, Sport and Persons with Disabilities, Small Business and Tourism, and la Francophonie are full members of cabinet, we are demonstrating our full commitment to these files. The amendments to the Salaries Act would serve us well, not just today but well into the future.

The bill puts behind us any questions that others might have had about the importance of these mandates and the status of the ministers leading them.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments added to the debate by the hon. minister. I disagree with her on two points. First, I see no need to add three more ministers to the House at some future date, yet to be named. I do not want to give that type of leeway to the government. Since the current ministers do not answer any questions, there is no guarantee that future ministers will answer any questions.

The second part of my disagreement is that if we wanted, in the name of equity, to have the same amount of pay for all ministers, why did we not reduce the pay of all ministers to the current pay level of what the supposed junior ministers are being paid? It would be fair, equitable, equal, and fair to the taxpayers, who would then save money. That is my question for the minister.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to talk about cabinet pay and cabinet size. In 2015, under the Harper Conservatives, the prime minister had a cabinet of 40 people. It was tied with only one other prime minister. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney holds the honour of being tied with Prime Minister Harper for having the largest cabinet. Even with all that talent, they could not grow the economy. They could not support job growth or reduce unemployment or approve pipelines. Maybe the member opposite would like to comment on that.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the members that they had an opportunity to ask questions. If they have any other comments and questions, they can stand up to do so, as opposed to heckling.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Essex.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, the NDP believes fully in closing the gender wage gap, but what is happening here today is a conversation about doing so only for ministers of the crown, who sit in cabinet.

Considering that the member was a previous minister for Status of Women, how long do the rest of Canadian women have to wait for this type of equality, this type of parity, in our country? I think it is shameful that we are standing here talking about elevating salaries, when women across this country are struggling every single day because they cannot achieve equity in their own workplaces.

Why were more women not assigned as ministers for departments in the first place, which would have eliminated a gender wage gap? When will the Liberal government commit to dealing with the gender wage gap for all Canadian women?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question, and we share the member's concern about the gender wage gap, which currently sits at 28¢. I point again to my colleague across the floor, who clearly has no concern about the gender wage gap, given the fact that the Minister of Status of Women was not a full ministerial position.

To the member's concern, that is exactly why we are moving forward to have a full minister dedicated to the issue of gender equality, and the gender wage gap is one significant concern.

If the member thinks that not having a full Status of Women minister is going to accelerate the process, I am not clear what her suggestion is.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the member for Essex that she has an opportunity to ask a question. If she has any more questions and comments, she can stand up and try to be recognized.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, the last exchange reminded me so much of a previous Parliament, when I asked the Conservative government, when it was adding 30 new MPs to our ranks, if it would not make sense to reduce, pro rata, all the salaries of MPs across the board so that the overall budget for MPs would remain the same. I tried this on several Conservatives, and the answer every single time was, “We are pleased to see that the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands does not want her salary.” The other answer was, “This is the price of democracy.”

Sometimes we can become too partisan in questions around pay. This is redressing an inequality that needed to be redressed, and as bills in this place go, it is relatively non-controversial. The bigger question is when we will move on to pay equity for the rest of the women in Canada.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Madam Speaker, that is why it is precisely so important to ensure we have women at the table who are fighting for the equality of women across this country, not just through the position of Minister of Status of Women, but through the positions of all the portfolios that women hold in cabinet.

For the member, I am deeply concerned about the gender wage gap, of which pay equity is one component. That is why we have committed to introducing proactive pay equity legislation for the jurisdiction in which we have control, which is the federally regulated workplaces. We have inspiration from provinces that have already moved forward—notably, Ontario and Quebec—and we believe we can be leaders in addressing pay equity in demonstrating our commitment to do so for federally regulated workplaces.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to take part in this debate on Bill C-24, an act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act. There are two things that lead me to take part in this debate.

First, we must recognize that all ministers are equal. We expect all ministers to be able to participate in cabinet discussions. That is important. It makes no sense to say that some people are more equal than others. If I am correctly interpreting the official opposition’s position, they would rather we keep the status quo and allow certain members of cabinet to earn less than their colleagues. Why? That does not make any sense.

We must ensure not only that all cabinet members have legitimacy, but also that they have all the responsibilities of their office and that they are equal to their colleagues. That is why it is important that we rectify the administrative discrepancies concerning 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, certainly, the Minister of Status of Women. With the passage of this bill, I hope that all these ministers will become equal to the others.

Second, I heard several members say they are concerned about regional economic development agencies no longer being separate departments and all having to report to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. I have had the privilege of working closely with that department, and I truly believe this is a good thing. For the first time in Canadian history, all of the agencies will fall under the same department and have the same objectives.

There are regional differences, of course, but we will make Canada more innovative and customize regional development initiatives for Atlantic Canada, Quebec, all regions of Ontario, western Canada, and northern Canada.

Essentially, every regional development agency will have the same responsibilities in terms of building a more innovative Canada and making the most of each region's unique attributes. I think that is a good thing, and I think it makes sense to bring all the agencies under the same umbrella.

Those are two excellent reasons to support this bill, but they are not the only ones. There are many more.

For example, there is the position of Minister of la Francophonie. French is not my mother tongue, but I am a francophile. I have a great love for the language and the culture, and I want to see linguistic minorities outside Quebec thrive. Naturally, I want French to maintain its rightful place in Quebec too.

It is also our responsibility to share our know-how with other countries that belong to the francophonie. Since being a French-speaking country is one of Canada's core values, and since we have a minister who handles that and who has all the skills to do so, that person must be equal to all other ministers. That is why elevating this position is so important.

It is the same thing regarding the Minister of Science. After a decade when budgets were slashed and science was not valued in decisions and research so that Canada could remain a world leader in innovation, we must now raise the status of this position. It is pretty clear to me.

Science is so important in the 20th century. Countries that do not invest in science, to ensure that their populations are educated and have the needed skills, suffer because of it. Therefore, if we do not do it, we will lose our place as a world leader. This shows the importance of having a minister of science who is just as important as all the other government ministers.

We are well aware of the importance of small business and tourism in Canada. I have had the privilege of visiting several regions of Canada, including Canada’s Far North, and I know how important it is for these communities to have tourism programs to attract people from Canada and elsewhere to their region. We need to appreciate the contributions that these regions make to Canada and promote their special features, whether it is Newfoundland and Labrador, northern Quebec, or New Brunswick.

Madam Speaker, I know that you represent a northern Ontario riding. What a beautiful region of our country! You understand the fundamental importance of tourism in creating wealth and prosperity for your constituents. That is what is important. In short, we need a minister responsible for tourism who is equal to the other ministers.

Last week, I had the privilege of attending a tourism industry awards gala. I saw remarkable projects demonstrating incredible creativity in the tourism industry. It was heartening to see that this type of entrepreneurship has emerged.

In closing, we need to make sure that these five ministers have the same status as the other government ministers.

That is why I encourage my colleagues of all parties to give us their support—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Kitchener—Conestoga for questions and comments.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his work in representing his constituents here in the House.

In the first part of his comments, he talked about the regional economic development agencies. This bill would effectively remove the oversight by ministers of those agencies and put all of the control in Mississauga. Liberals are big on consultation, they are big on transparency, supposedly, and they are big on accountability. During the study of this bill, why would they not have at least brought two or more witnesses in to talk about the potential implications of removing the ministerial involvement from the regional economic development agencies?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am certain it is not the hon. member's normal habit to try to personalize the issue or the debate by making reference to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development being from Mississauga. That might be beneath the normal tenor that I know the hon. member can have when participating in debate. If he will excuse me, I will put that aside and try to deal with the basis of his question.

The fact is that innovation, science, and economic development is an economic coordinative ministry and if a ministry oversees economic development and innovation, it only makes sense that the tools on the ground should be coordinated under this ministry.

It makes sense for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions to be included in that, too.

I am getting the signal that it is time for me to leave time for more questions. I think it is important that all of those agencies be brought together under one department.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, unfortunately, we live in a society where women still earn only 72% of what men earn. A lot of work remains to be done for gender parity to be achieved. The Liberal government claims to be feminist and says it wants to achieve parity and all that. However, the only thing it can come up with is to raise ministers' salaries, as though that is going to help the ordinary Quebeckers and Canadians in our constituencies.

Rather than giving ministers a raise, why will the Liberals not introduce pay equity legislation?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Madam Speaker, I think the member from Montreal will be very pleased in the near future. We heard the minister responsible say that she plans to introduce legislation in that regard. I hope we can count on my hon. colleague's support. This is certainly something that is very important to me as a member, and I think it is probably important to all members.

There is one question that perhaps I should not ask, since it seems obvious to me. If we do not make status of women a separate department, with the same level of responsibility and status as the other departments, and if we do not do our job and make sure that that department is on an equal footing with all other departments, how can we expect important files that come under that department to be taken up by a government? That is not the only reason, and it is not enough on its own, but that is one of the reasons I think it is important that the department of status of women have the same responsibilities as every other government department.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, as this is probably the last time I will have an opportunity to speak formally in the House before Christmas break, I would like to wish everyone, and especially you, Madam Speaker, a merry Christmas and season's greetings.

It is an honour to rise in this place 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 takes aggressive steps to eliminate the positions of six ministers for regional development. It places all those responsibilities in the hands of one minister. I believe the government operations committee did not hear from a single witness on the issue of regional development agencies. Not one. That is incredible. This is a huge change. I would assume there are plenty of experts from across Canada willing to comment on this matter. To not give them a voice seems unwise.

For better or worse, the federal government has far broader jurisdiction than provinces, and much more expansive taxation powers. This is partially by design, the British North American Act. It reserves the most significant powers for the federal government. Had the BNA's drafters foreseen the massive expansion of government that was to come, with education and health care, they might have been under federal jurisdiction as well. Then of course, they let the natural resources go. That one really got away from them.

However, we are also a huge country. Our population is spread across a massive geographic area. Over time, our country has rightfully adopted a more decentralized approach to governance. Our previous Conservative government certainly respected the importance of a decentralized approach, giving provinces money and letting them make the decisions. However, now it seems the government is taking a step in the wrong direction.

Unsurprisingly, one-size-fits-all solutions are not always desirable. Something that works in the Prairies might not make sense for southern Ontario. Something that works in southern Ontario could be a really bad fit for Quebec. Something that works great in Quebec could be a disaster for B.C., and the list goes on. Where possible, we want regions to be able to make decisions about their own development, in a way that makes sense for them. In a large, diverse country like ours, we want certain decisions made through a local lens. When there is an opportunity to do it that way, it makes a difference.

The government claims to believe that diversity is our strength. Well, let it put its money where its mouth is and keep diverse regional voices involved in regional development, and at the cabinet table.

I hope I do not have to remind the government that we westerners are especially skeptical of centralized decision making. Us old guys remember the national energy program. That wreaked havoc in the west and Alberta for decades. We have not forgotten that one. We have had a bad experience with decisions being made in Ottawa by people who are not from our region and who do not have an intimate understanding of its needs.

The tax changes are the latest example of decision makers in Ottawa not understanding the unintended consequences of the impacts their policies will have across the country. I have heard time and again at round tables in my riding of Bow River how the government does not understand what its policies will do to rural agriculture and small businesses. The Liberals are taking the Ottawa bubble to a whole new level, and this bill is just another example of their heavy-handed and centralized thinking.

Therefore, I hope my hon. colleagues opposite can understand why getting rid of ministers, like the minister for western economic diversification, and investing their decision making power in the hands of one member at the cabinet table might raise some eyebrows.

Furthermore, I am surprised that more of my colleagues opposite, representing ridings in Atlantic Canada, are not standing up for their region. Why are they not demanding a minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency at the cabinet table? The Prime Minister implied that a Toronto minister needed to handle ACOA because of the “kind of politics” in Atlantic Canada. That is an interesting comment. What kind of politics would incentivize the government to erode regional representation in favour of needless centralization? It just does not add up. It is a major hit to the federal government's ability to allocate funds in a manner that is regionally representative.

A former ACOA president said that many in Ottawa had never liked regional development agencies. Apparently, axing them has been on the agenda for some time.

I think Canadians care that regional representative at the cabinet table has been eroded. I think Canadians in Atlantic Canada will be unhappy to find, as the Liberals' Atlantic caucus subcommittee reported, that processing times have increased threefold, since the employment of the one minister.

Therefore, Bill C-24 means Canadians no longer have a regional development minister to fight for their region's interest. They will not have a voice for regional development at the cabinet table. Obviously, all Canadian regions will still be represented in cabinet, but those ministers have responsibilities that relate to their specific portfolio, not to the region. When it comes to spending regional development funds, the regions simply will not have the voice they did before. They are being robbed of that voice in cabinet for no good reason.

The bill also lacks transparency. We are being asked to approve the appointment of three mystery ministers. What will these ministers be? Will they be the minister for fancy socks, the minister responsible for selfie procurement, and the minister responsible for remembering French villas? The government should tell Canadians what its plans are. What do the Liberals have to hide?

Bill C-24 also fails to create ministerial equality. Legislating equal salaries does not mean all ministers are treated equally. Do ministers with more junior portfolios have their own deputy ministers? Do they have the same departmental budgets and authority as do ministers with more senior portfolios? As long as the answer to these questions remains a resounding no, I do not see how the government can claim the bill is about ministerial equality.

Moving cabinet members from the Ministries and Ministers of State Act to the Salaries Act would do nothing to change the answer to these questions. It is optics and no substance. Is it about gender equality? Given the ministers still have unequal authority in resources, I do not see how it could be.

We are also hearing some conflicting information from hon. colleagues opposite. Some have said that it is meant to advance gender equality. Some have said that it is not meant to address such issues. Therefore, Canadians have been left scratching their heads. What is this bill about? Does the government even know what it is about? The Liberals cannot seem to get the story straight on this one.

I will quote a University of British Columbia law professor, who specializes in gender equality, on why the bill would not do what some of the members opposite think it would. The professor said:

Pay equity is a piece of but not the whole of gender equality. People want these jobs and women need these positions of leadership, not because of the actual amount of dollars, but because of the responsibility, the profile, the prestige, the authority that those positions command.

That is certainly not a ringing endorsement.

Overall, the legislation is fundamentally misguided. It would take authority away from six regional ministers and would give it to one. It would not meaningfully advance ministerial equality. Even Liberal caucus members do not understand what the front bench's agenda is in introducing it. Needless to say, I will be not supporting this bill at report stage.

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

Madam Speaker, the first issue is a bit of a geography lesson. Members from the Conservative Party like to refer to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development as “the member for Toronto”. I think his constituents would be surprised to learn they live in Toronto. Perhaps that understanding of the GTA is why there are not too many seats from the GTA on that side.

The hon. member was concerned about the Atlantic growth strategy. The members from the Atlantic caucus have been doing an incredible job speaking up for their region. There are diverse projects across Atlantic Canada, including labs in Halifax, the momentum initiative, New Dawn Centre in Cape Breton, Genesis Centre in St. John's, investments in Sydney for processing, and $750,000 for a facility adding value products for shellfish processing in Nova Scotia. These are just a few things.

Therefore, could the hon. member point to a specific investment made by the government in Atlantic Canada with which he is concerned? The growth strategies look like they are working because we are the envy of the G7.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comment coming from somebody who is not from Atlantic Canada.

[An hon. member]

Where are they? There's one.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order, please. I want to remind members that we are on a response from the member for Bow River. There should not be any back and forth.

The hon. member for Bow River.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is the sort of strategy I believe makes a real difference. If there is a minister at the table who is representing a region, that is his or her responsibility. Having those voices at the table make a difference. That is why they are cabinet ministers.

Other MPs in their region can lobby and work for all sorts of projects, but having that representation at the cabinet table, representing his or her region, is a significant piece that is missing.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Speaker, first, we are spending more time on this bill than we are on the budget, which is really disappointing. There are so many important issues and so many things for which the Liberal government has not accounted. So many Canadians have been left behind. Here we are, talking about something the government could have done when it made appointments to cabinet.

Does my colleague agree with the NDP that the government should have gender parity in cabinet and among ministers of departments, not just ministers?

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is a very honourable gentleman and an excellent member in the House.

I come from a profession where gender equity and gender pay was equal and always has been. I always believe in gender equity and pay. I also believe in the responsibilities that come with it, not just superficial titles but also responsibilities. When ministers stand in those positions, they are equal in all parts of their positions. That is very important.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member mentioned that this was really about optics, not substance.

Professor Margot Young from the University of British Columbia, a gender equity specialist, made some comments with regard to Bill C-24. She said:

...I think to frame it as a piece of legislation that speaks substantively to the issues of gender equality and cabinet composition is wrong, and it's dangerous....Really, there's no gender substance, no equity substance on the basis of gender equality, to this legislation.

Could my colleague comment on that, please?

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, gender equity in the sense of positions, status, and responsibilities, those people in those positions need to have the same responsibilities. As any expert I have quoted has said, people can be given titles, but unless they are given the same responsibilities to carry out, then it is nothing but window dressing.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is an absolute honour for me to stand on behalf of the residents of Davenport and speak on Bill C-24, an act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act.

As this will probably will be one of my last times to address this House this year, I want to wish everybody in this House a happy holiday, a very Merry Christmas, or whatever members celebrate in this wonderful holiday season.

For those watching at home, whether now or in the future, I want to make sure everybody is clear on what I am talking about on Bill C-24.

The changes being proposed to the Salaries Act would formalize the equality of all members of cabinet and modernize the act to allow for more flexibility. The current act allows for 35 cabinet positions, including the position of the prime minister. The bill would amend the act to include five additional titled cabinet positions, which are the minister of la Francophonie, minister of small business and tourism, minister of science, minister of status of women, and minister of sport and persons with disabilities.

The bill would also add three new untitled positions to provide flexibility to structure future ministries to reflect the priorities of the government without resorting to minister of state appointments. These changes would not impact the Ministries and Ministers of State Act. Minister of state appointments would remain an option at the discretion of the prime minister. As the Minister of Employment mentioned earlier, allowing us to make these changes would actually provide flexibility for the current and future governments to be able to appoint ministers to various positions depending on the priorities of the government of the day.

Why are we doing this? We want to make sure there is a one-tier cabinet and not have two tiers of cabinet ministers. We want to make sure we only have one tier, and not have senior and junior cabinet ministers. Everybody within our cabinet would be at the same level. Therefore, it would just be ministers working very hard to deliver results for all Canadians. We also want to update the Salaries Act to modernize it, in addition to formally equalizing the status of the government's ministerial team. We want to recognize the equality of cabinet members, and this bill would allow us to do so.

As I mentioned, we would add five additional positions, and I would like to speak specifically to one of them more directly.

I am very proud that we have a Minister of Small Business and Tourism. It is of great importance to Davenport residents that we are putting a huge emphasis on small businesses. We are very proud of the fact that we are reducing the small business tax from 11% to 9%. It will move to 10% at the beginning of January 2018 and then move to 9% at the beginning of 2019. We are very proud about that and all the support we are providing to small businesses.

In addition, there is a wonderful emphasis on tourism as well. Just last week, I was very proud to attend the Canadian Tourism Awards. A group within my riding, SESQUI, won one of the Canadian Tourism Awards. I was very proud to be there to honour them, and the Minister of Small Business and Tourism was there as well. I want to give a shout-out to both Joanne Loton and Andrea Stewart of SESQUI, who won a Canadian Tourism Award. I am very proud of them.

The Minister of Employment mentioned this, but I think it is important to highlight the fact that our government has a very strong feminist agenda. One of our first acts when we came into office, as everyone knows, was to put into place a gender-equal cabinet. We are all very proud of that, and this bill would help to formally equalize all the positions within that cabinet.

I am also very proud of some of the additional steps we have taken. One of the other steps we have taken is to add a gender lens into our budget process in 2017. It is the first time in Canadian history that this was done. Our Minister of Finance is stepping it up and has started consultations with a number of groups. I was at one of the consultations in Toronto to talk about what the next level is in addition to the gender lens. How can we do better in budget 2018? I was very proud that I was part of those discussions that took place in Toronto less than two weeks ago.

Just so people know, by adding a gender lens into the budget process, what we are essentially doing is asking every department to put on a gender lens whenever they make proposals for budget 2018. One of the statements our Minister of Finance made during our consultation with a number of groups in Toronto was that he has told every cabinet member they should only be coming with proposals for budget 2018 if they have applied a gender lens. I very much appreciate the importance he has put on the gender budget lens moving forward. I very much appreciate that he has met with a number of feminist organizations and organizations that work on issues affecting women and girls, both in Canada and abroad. Our 2018 budget will be stronger for it.

I also want to talk for a minute about pay equity legislation. I was sitting in the House and listening to some of the questions, and I know there is great anxiety, which is very well placed, about the fact that we still do not have pay equity in this country. I was very blessed about a year ago to be asked to join the special committee looking at pay equity legislation at the federal level. Unfortunately, we did not have pay equity legislation at the national level. We put a committee in place to look into it. We actually made very strong recommendations, and the title of the report is “It's Time to Act”.

I know that the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour is about to introduce pay equity legislation at the national level. I very much look forward to that. It is very much based on the hard work the committee did, as well as all other groups and advocates who have been pushing for this for a very long time. It is way past the time that we should be addressing this issue, and I will be very happy when that actually comes into place.

Personally, I am also trying to see what more I can do in terms of larger society and how we, as a national government, can help to ensure that more women get into senior leadership roles, not only in politics but also in business, in addition to ensuring we do everything we can to close the gap around pay equity outside the federal government system.

We have done a lot of really great things. We have a lot more steps to take, a long way to go, but we are making progress. We should be very proud of the steps we have taken.

I want to mention a couple of other things I am very proud of in terms of our feminist agenda. Our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, and Minister of International Trade have all talked about how they have incorporated the feminist agenda into each of their portfolios. Our Minister of International Development has incorporated the emphasis we are making in terms of the dollars we are giving to organizations abroad, and it is very much focused on women and girls around the world. There is a particular emphasis as well in some of the humanitarian assistance we are giving in the Rohingya state and the situation happening outside Myanmar right now.

I know our Minister of International Trade would say he is very proud we have a gender equity chapter that is part of the Canada–Chile trade agreement. It was a historic agreement from that perspective, and that set the stage for more of these types of chapters to be added to future trade agreements as we move along.

Lastly, I was very proud when our Minister of Foreign Affairs indicated to the world, to Canadians, and to all of us that she is promoting Canada to take on a very strong role to ensure we have more female peacekeepers in the world. By adding more women, we think it will be the next way that Canada can take a leadership role in peacekeeping in the world.

I see that my time has ended. I want to thank this House for allowing me the opportunity to speak on behalf of the residents of Davenport.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her comments. Many times today, the government has referred to gender equity or equality and gender parity in cabinet. However, the expert that appeared at committee clearly pointed out that there is no substance to that fact in terms of this bill. She said, “Really, there's no gender substance, no equity substance on the basis of gender equality, to this legislation”, referring to Bill C-24. In fact, she went further than that. In response to a question about whether the Prime Minister's claim of a gender-equal cabinet was cynical, she said, “I would say it's dishonest.”

How can my colleagues continue to argue that this is causing gender equity in cabinet when, clearly, it does no such thing?

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will mention two things. One is that the very heart of what we are trying to do with this bill is create a one-tier cabinet.

The second thing I would say is that I have been very blessed this year to be able to go to people's doors and speak to a lot of the residents of Davenport. I can honestly say that from a perception perspective, people are proud that we have a gender-equal cabinet. It is something for young girls and women to aspire to. For those who actually want to get into politics, they feel they can step into one of these roles. Seeing all the beautiful female leaders and cabinet ministers, it is something for them to aspire to. They think it is a wonderful accomplishment of our government.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, in fact, it is not a gender-equitable cabinet. I do not understand why the members keep saying this, when even the experts, their own officials, are saying that they do not deliver that.

What concerns me most is that this government has been in power for two years. It was in 2004 when the pay equity task force called for action on equal pay for work of equal value in the federal civil service.

Again, this is the answer to everything. It is the answer to indigenous children having access to comparable services and to indigenous communities having access to drinking water. The answer of this government always is “eventually we will have equal rights.”

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question. I will mention two things. One, I truly believe that we have a gender-equal cabinet. The position of the Minister of Status of Women, to me, is equal to that of the Minister of International Trade. It is what this bill is trying to do. It is at the very core of what this bill is.

In terms of pay equity, I can assure the member that as someone who is actually part of the committee that looked at this, I am very passionate about it. The title of that report, again, was about action now.

Our government is trying to move as quickly as possible. Would I like it to move a little more quickly in terms of introducing this legislation? Absolutely. I am sure we all would, but I know it is about to come. I know that we are going to be able to put it into place, and I believe it is going to be a piece of legislation we are all going to be very proud of.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member from Davenport just said that she sees the Minister of Status of Women to be equal to the Minister of International Trade, yet if we look at the order in council appointing the Minister of Status of Women, it says the following:

to assist the Minister of Canadian Heritage in the carrying out of that Minister's responsibilities

Simply calling a minister a minister without actually changing the enabling legislation or the Financial Administration Act does not put that person at the level of the minister or the departmental apparatus of a minister.

Will the member from Davenport correct her statement to reflect that fact?

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think the point he mentioned was that it is only one part of her job. I would say that she is the leading voice on gender equity within our cabinet and caucus. I think from a leadership perspective, she is absolutely at a level equal to all other cabinet ministers.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Is the House ready for the question?

The question is on Motion No. 1. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 2 to 4.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

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

Madam Speaker, I request that the vote be deferred until the expiry of the time provided for government orders on Monday, December 11, 2017.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Accordingly, the recorded division stands deferred until Monday, December 11, at the expiry of the time provided for government orders.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I believe if you were to seek it, you would find unanimous consent to see the clock as 5:30 p.m.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed from December 7 consideration of Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act, as reported (without amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

It being perilously close to 6:30 p.m., pursuant to an order made on Thursday, December 7, 2017, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at report stage of Bill C-24.

Call in the members.

The question is on Motion No. 1. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 2 to 4.

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #433

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I declare Motion No. 1 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 2 to 4 also defeated.