Bill C-19 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (COVID-19 response)

This enactment adds a new Part to the Canada Elections Act that provides for temporary rules to ensure the safe administration of an election in the context of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The new Part, among other things,
(a) extends the Chief Electoral Officer’s power to adapt the provisions of that Act to ensure the health or safety of electors or election officers;
(b) authorizes a returning officer to constitute polling divisions that consist of a single institution where seniors or persons with a disability reside, or a part of such an institution, and to set the days and hours that a polling station established there will be open;
(c) provides for a polling period of three consecutive days consisting of a Saturday, Sunday and Monday;
(d) provides for the hours of voting during the polling period;
(e) provides for the opening and closing measures at polling stations;
(f) sets the days for voting at advance polling stations;
(g) authorizes the Chief Electoral Officer to modify the day on which certain things are authorized or required to be done before the polling period by moving that day backward or forward by up to two days or the starting date or ending date of a period in which certain things are authorized or required to be done by up to two days;
(h) provides that an elector may submit an application for registration and special ballot under Division 4 of Part 11 in writing or in electronic form;
(i) provides that an elector whose application for registration and special ballot was accepted by the returning officer in their electoral district may deposit the outer envelope containing their special ballot in a secure reception box or ballot box for the deposit of outer envelopes; and
(j) prohibits installing a secure reception box for the deposit of outer envelopes unless by or under the authority of the Chief Electoral Officer or a returning officer and prohibits destroying, taking, opening or otherwise interfering with a secure reception box installed by a returning officer.
The enactment also provides for the repeal of the new Part six months after the publication of a notice confirming that the temporary rules in that Part are no longer required to ensure the safe administration of an election in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finance

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as I was indicating, the official opposition members had an option and they chose not to use it.

For example, with respect to foreign investment, certain areas are of great national interest. I could talk about food and medical supply lines. There are some very good examples that I could cite today. We can think about PPE and how much was being manufactured in Canada prior to the pandemic and contrast that to what is happening today.

Let us take a look at the importance of our natural resources and recognize the issue of ownership and how important it is that we ensure the national interest is served. We could talk about media and culture. There are many other areas where there is a national interest. Therefore, foreign investment matters.

I would have welcomed a debate on that issue, but, as I indicated prior, the Conservatives' focus does not facilitate that sort of a debate per se. Rather, they would enter into a debate of that nature by a concurrence motion, which then prevents the government from ensuring more hours of debate on important legislation or they will often use their days to look at ministers or staff of ministers through what I have always referred to as character assassination. We see that played out in the House a lot more than we need to.

There is no doubt about the fact that there are important issues in these concurrence motions. However, I do not see members in the Conservative Party saying that maybe we should have concurrence in report on an opposition day. As I indicated, on the opposition days, those matters before the House are actually voted on. The net-zero bill was supposed to be debated longer than it was, but because of this report, it was not. It was the same with Bill C-19 earlier today. The Conservatives do that because they are more interested in the partisan politics than they are in seeing a chamber that can be productive and supportive of Canadians through some very challenging times.

Yes, we are in a minority government and the government is very much aware of that. I would remind some within the opposition that in a minority government, opposition parties also have a responsibility to live up to, and I am afraid not all are doing that.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, my apologies for the interruption to my friend from the Bloc.

There is no doubt that foreign direct investment does play an absolutely critical role to Canada as a developing nation, as we want to encourage ongoing economic activities, and in many ways it is because of foreign investment that we get to see them realized.

I want to provide a number of thoughts on the concurrence report. First, I would like to be able to pick up where I left off prior to the adjournment, which is kind of a fitting place, with the member from the Bloc who has just finished speaking prior to us going back into this report.

My friend and colleague from Kingston and the Islands did a fabulous job of explaining the process and what we are being asked to concur in. It is very interesting. The member for Kingston and the Islands pointed out, for example, on the issue of Bill C-19, what the debate was supposed to be about. There are a lot of similarities between what the member for Kingston and the Islands said and what I said on this report back on April 27.

Back on April 27, I expressed my disappointment. I talked about how the Conservative opposition party was playing that destructive force on the floor of the House of Commons. That was much like earlier today: When I got the chance to speak or when the member for Kingston and the Islands spoke, we talked about that destructive force in terms of process and what we are ultimately being asked to vote on.

The last speaker provided comments about how shameful it is that we are trying to limit debate on Bill C-19 and bringing in time allocation. In the back of our minds, I want members of the House to reflect on those comments, because that is in essence what took place back on April 27, when a concurrence report was brought in because the Conservative Party wanted to debate an issue, as opposed to debating what the government needed to see debated.

It is important to recognize this, because if we were to do a concurrence motion on all the different reports coming in, we would not have government days. We would not even have opposition days to the degree we have them today. There are many reports out there. It is easy to pick a report and move concurrence, and there go three hours of debate on the floor of the House.

We could argue that it is an important issue. Let us look at the issue of this particular concurrence debate. It is about those valuable resources that we have. We could talk about natural resources or our health sector, and I will get more into that. There is no doubt that is important.

However, what we were supposed to be debating on that particular day was the net zero legislation, important legislation that Canadians want and expect their government to act upon. For whatever reasons, the Conservatives moved a motion to ultimately say that we want to debate foreign direct investment as opposed to the net zero legislation. One could say that happened once or maybe twice, but it has happened more than that.

The Bloc member just criticized us in the Liberal Party, and to a certain degree even my friends the New Democrats, by asking how we can limit debate on Bill C-19. The member for Kingston and the Islands pointed out that because of the concurrence motion, much like this concurrence motion, instead of debating Bill C-19, we were actually debating another issue, one we just finished having an emergency debate on last Thursday.

Members should look at April 27, when the Conservatives were playing political games in the chamber. Because of their dislike for allowing the government to pass legislation, they brought in another motion to prevent debate on yet another piece of legislation so that we can be criticized again for not allowing enough debate, just as the Bloc member criticized us for not allowing enough debate on Bill C-19.

What I did not reference was the fact that we had attempted to bring n Bill C-19 before today, and the Conservatives introduced another concurrence motion back then, just like today.

Is there any reason the Conservatives are behaving in such a pattern? They adjourn debates. They want to take time off. They bring in concurrence. They look for ways to attempt to frustrate the government when it is trying to do the things it needs to do as government. It is not as though it only happens two or three times; this destructive force has been playing its games for quite a while now. There is a substantial cost to it.

I would suggest this to my friends in the Bloc: Maybe they should look at some of the comments that came from my New Democratic friends and maybe not be as quick to take the side of the Conservative Party. Many would suggest to us that either the Conservatives are conning the Bloc into supporting their legislative abuse or that the Bloc does not know any better. Maybe it is that the Bloc wants to participate in this destructive force as much as the Conservative Party wants to play its political games.

Is it any wonder, when we see the things that are happening inside the chamber, that the Prime Minister and Liberal members of Parliament are consistently saying some of the same things, such as that we will continue to remain focused on the priority of all Canadians, which is the pandemic? From the very beginning we have been saying that, led by the Prime Minister of Canada.

The Conservative official opposition, throughout this last number of months, with what I would suggest is its irresponsible behaviour, has been focused on the two things I referenced earlier today. It has moved another concurrence motion to try to kill the time allotted for government legislation. The first agenda for the Conservative Party is the character assassination of government members, and it will go out of its way to do that.

The second thing Conservative members do is cause as much detailed frustration as they can on the floor of the House of Commons so that, as we just heard before we got into this report, the opposition members can say something to the effect that the Liberal government is not being respectful of democracy because of time allocation.

Maybe we could have an indication of co-operation, at least to a certain degree. I am not saying that the Conservative Party has to agree with everything we are saying, but there is some onus, especially in a minority government, to be a little more responsible in terms of the legislative agenda.

Unlike opposition members, the government does not have timing processed on government bills. For example, the Conservatives had a choice and could have concurred in this report, and no doubt many others. They could say that foreign direct investment is so vitally important to our nation that they were going to bring the topic in on an opposition day, when they can highlight what they believe.

After all, if we take a look at the report, I believe we would see that there was a dissenting report that came from the Liberals. However, the Conservatives, as opposed to bringing in a motion to concur in a report, could have highlighted some of their concerns in the form of an opposition day motion and then asked for support from the Bloc and NDP. They could have just as easily have done that, just as they could have done for the report on Line 5 earlier today.

Unlike government legislation, at the end of the day—

Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I find it rather fascinating to see that my colleague from Kingston and the Islands is so desperate to talk about Bill C-19 when, today, we were forced to vote on limiting debate on this bill.

Bill C-19 has been around for four months. We could have talked about it, but there was complete radio silence for four months and now, today, the government imposed a gag order.

If the Liberals were so eager to debate Bill C-19, why did they wait until today to say that it was urgent?

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will agree with one thing the member for Kingston and the Islands said: He is afraid that he has disappointed us. I am sure he has disappointed more than us in his life, because when it comes to political grandstanding, no one in the House does it better. He did not talk about the concurrence motion. He wants to talk about Bill C-19 because the Liberals want to have an election during a pandemic because they think they can get a majority. That is the only thing the Liberals care about. They are great at campaigning, but they are terrible at government because they are out of touch with the people of Canada.

We have brought forward a topic that affects hundreds of thousands of people's jobs and the economy of Canada, and for him to push it off to the side of the desk by saying that it is all political grandstanding is disrespectful to people across the country. He should have stood and said he listened to the Minister of Natural Resources in question period. The fact is, they think they can jump in at the last second and save this pipeline—

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

Mr. Speaker, I would agree. I find it absolutely perplexing and hypocritical for the Conservatives to stand here and say how dare we even threaten them with an election. They are the ones who keep voting for it at almost every opportunity they get. Maybe they are doing some political calculations on how the other parties will be voting and are thinking their bet is a safe one, but this is a minority government. All they need is for the NDP and the Bloc to agree with them and we will have an election. All I am saying is for us to be prepared for that by making sure that Bill C-19, which would protect Canadians during an election, is put in place.

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

Sure, I did put it out there, because I am often left wondering that. I find it incredibly amazing how the member finds that offensive, but not half the stuff that comes from that side of the House during question period.

The reality here is that I think I have hit a nerve, because I am getting a lot of heckling right now. I have successfully pointed out some of the realities of the situation.

When I stand here and I look back on the way that this day has unfolded, I cannot help but think that Conservatives have absolutely no interest in helping Canadians. There are many scenarios in which this House could go into an election tomorrow. The Conservatives, for example, routinely vote against confidence in this House, whenever a budget bill or something like that comes up. They are always voting against the government. All Conservatives need is for the other two political parties in here, the Bloc and the NDP, to agree with them just one time, and then we would be into an election.

All we are trying to say is that we should have a discussion and talk about Bill C-19, but instead the Conservatives used this tactic today to bring in this concurrence motion to burn time. They all know that is exactly what they did. Conservatives are burning time on this motion so that we do not talk about Bill C-19. Then they are going to say that they had only four hours in total to debate the bill, and so on and so forth, and that the government had all this time.

However, the Conservatives do not even understand the bill, as we saw. That is probably actually why, now that I think about it. I cannot believe I did not think of this earlier. That is probably why they insisted on this concurrence motion. We saw the massive misunderstanding from members like the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London and the member for Lethbridge. We heard what they had to say about this during the 30-minute questions and comments with the minister. They had no idea what Bill C-19 is really about. They missed huge parts of the bill that were in there. They did not even realize they were in there.

As I come a conclusion, it makes so much more sense now as to why Conservatives are insisting on talking about this, why they are insisting on heckling me to try to shut me down from bringing forward the truth to this floor. Nonetheless, Conservatives will do what they do. They do it every single time, and at the end of the day, we will have 19 minutes to discuss Bill C-19 before it is put to a vote in the House.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know they do not want to hear it, because what I am saying is clearly getting under their skin. They do not like the truth, and the truth hurts sometimes.

Conservative members have now been told not once but twice by the Speaker that what I am saying is in order. If they are not going to listen to me, perhaps they will at least respect the Speaker's ruling, which has been given not once but twice.

In any event, I find it perplexing that we are having this discussion instead of talking about Bill C-19. However, I am not surprised that the Conservatives would rather talk about pipelines than about proper measures to bring into place during an election. I mean, that is par for the course, and it is indeed exactly right up their alley.

This committee, as we debated a few nights ago, brought in this issue that centres on the fact that there is such a close and strong relationship between the United States and Canada. We have the largest trading partnership in the world, with billions of dollars moving back and forth. We have infrastructure that moves from one country to the other and back, moving along the supply chain when it comes to end products.

This particular issue, as I mentioned a few nights ago, is so important not just to Canada but indeed to our neighbours to the south, in particular those northern states affected by this issue. I have full confidence, despite the fact the committee made seven recommendations, that most of the committee's recommendations are already being undertaken by the government.

Of course we heard from members like the member for Chilliwack—Hope say they want to know exactly what the government is doing and want it all to be public. As we know, and as I am sure the Conservatives would know from way, way back when they were in government, from time to time we have to allow those processes to take place and recognize that not all these discussions happen in public. Quite often they happen in individual phone calls and behind the scenes. We heard the Minister of Natural Resources say on a number of occasions that he has been engaged with all stakeholders and his counterparts. This issue has been brought up with the President of the United States directly. People are talking about this situation to try to come to some resolution.

I have confidence that a meaningful resolution will come, if out of nothing else than from the fact that there are so many people on both sides of the border who are affected. This is indeed a reciprocal issue that is going to affect a lot of people on both sides of the border.

Yes, Enbridge is being forced to deal with some of the issues pointed out by members in the debate today. It is being forced to deal with some of the issues it has had, and rightly so, especially when it comes to impacts on our environment.

However, I do not believe there will not be a solution that will be in our best interest, especially when it means so much economically speaking and from a stability perspective to make sure that this product continues to move back and forth. I have no doubt that there will be a successful outcome to this. I have no doubt, and I have great faith that when the Minister of Natural Resources says to us that this is a top priority, that he is engaging at every level and making sure these discussions are moving along at every level, that it is actually happening.

If we look at these seven recommendations from the committee, we see that the first one is basically that the Government of Canada encourage Enbridge and the State of Michigan to resolve their dispute. I think it is safe to say just about all of us would agree we want them to resolve their dispute, so I appreciate the committee putting it into a full-fledged recommendation.

The next recommendation is that the Government of Canada continue to engage with the relevant stakeholders on both sides of the border. This is something, as I indicated, that the Minister of Natural Resources said he is doing. He is continuing to have those discussions in order to find a resolution that will be to the benefit of both the State of Michigan and to the ability to continue to deliver this product back and forth to the various locations on both sides of the border.

The recommendations continue to go on basically in the same vein. I am not going to read all seven of them. They are basically in the same vein of continuing those discussions. I find that the recommendations, although they would have set a perfect template for what the Conservatives could have come in here and discussed, have served absolutely no purpose to the Conservatives, because all they have done in here is berate the government for the work they perceive the government has not done. The Conservatives have no way of knowing what has actually been accomplished, other than taking the word of the Minister of Natural Resources, which they apparently refuse to do.

What we do have is Conservatives coming in here and not referencing any of these recommendations, not talking about ways to make this better. We have them coming in here and just going on and on about where they perceive the problems to be but not offering any constructive solutions, not trying to compromise and not coming forward with a substantive plan. Whenever they were asked in the emergency debate a few days ago “What would you do differently? Tell us what your plan would be to resolve this,” the Conservatives did not have an answer. They are not interested in an answer, because it does not serve their political objective.

I hate to say this because I do not think any member in this House would actually not like to see a good resolution come out of this, but quite often, from time to time, I am left wondering if the Conservatives really even want us to resolve this.

It is similar to the vaccine issue. Quite often I sit here and wonder if the Conservatives even really want us to be successful in dealing with this pandemic. Part of me thinks that maybe they do not, because the Conservatives are more interested in the politics that come out of this than in actually taking care of Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I do have the recommendations here with me. I would wager a guess that the Conservative members who are participating today do not even know how many recommendations there are in here, let alone what they say.

I will get back to what I was saying. Here is the interesting thing about the scenario we are in right now in concurring in this report. I do not know if the Conservatives just did not plan this out properly in moving concurrence in this report. I think this is extremely germane, especially to those who are watching this and might not quite understand how we got to this point. During our routine proceedings, there is an opportunity for members to move a concurrence in a report. We can do only one of those per sitting, and it will take up to three hours of debate. Quite often, what the Conservatives do, and they have done it a number of times in this session, is move to concur in a report because it burns three hours of the day, usually on stuff they do not want to talk about.

However, I do not know if those who were deciding that filibuster strategy had really thought out exactly what they were doing, because the time allocation motion that came in this morning said the debate on Bill C-19 will adjourn after one more day, so they are not filibustering anything, because they are not preventing that legislation from actually being voted on tomorrow. All they are doing is literally replacing discussion on BIll C-19 with this motion to concur in an issue that I would remind members we spoke about in an emergency debate only two or three days ago.

Yes, it is extremely germane to this discussion. As the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen's Privy Council indicated earlier, this is just a tactic by the Conservatives, but the irony is that we are still going to be voting on the bill tomorrow. If we do the math and factor in that they will burn through the whole 15 minutes of petitions when we finally get to that part of orders of the day, we will literally talk about Bill C-19 for about 20 minutes, and then we will be forced to vote on it.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to enter into debate on this concurrence motion.

However, before I go any further, I want to recognize the fact that this is National Nurses Week throughout our country, and we have so much to be grateful for, for the nurses out there on the front lines right now, particularly over the last 15 months or so. The incredible work they do is truly remarkable. We have asked so much of them during regular times, and more recently the demands that are being put on nurses throughout the country are truly remarkable, but they rise to the challenge and they are there to take care of Canadians.

This morning I got my first shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine at a clinic not too far from here, which was so well run. I walked in, went through the check-in and got to a gentleman by the name of Renault, who was administering the shot. He told me that he had worked at that clinic for 30 years and came out of retirement in order to help with administering vaccine shots. Nothing, in my opinion, is more patriotic than somebody who rises to the call of that profession once in retirement in order to come back and take care of Canadians. Indeed, I want to extend a huge thanks to all the nurses and frontline workers out there who are taking care of us and keeping us safe.

We are here today to talk about this concurrence motion. I find it very interesting that we are having this discussion in light of the fact that the Conservatives knew that what we wanted to talk about today was Bill C-19, which is proposed legislation on how we would deal with an election during a pandemic. It is a piece of legislation that was crafted in response to the Chief Electoral Officer, who pointed out that, as we are in a minority Parliament, there is always a chance of an election coming up at any moment and maybe it is a good idea to have some plans in place in the event that it does happen. Despite the fact that nobody might want an election, we do know that in minority governments elections can happen, and it is really not controlled by any one particular party, because there is no majority.

One of the fascinating things about what the Conservatives have done today is that they have taken a really interesting route in bringing forward this concurrence motion. We had an emergency debate on this issue last week. We stayed here until midnight debating the issue. The Conservatives did not offer anything, did not offer any solutions and did not talk about the recommendations that came from the committee, which I will talk about. All they did was sit on the other side of the House and criticize the government.

The role of the opposition, believe it or not, is not just to criticize, but to actually try to improve upon policy and push the government to do better. Now, I do not know how much experience Conservative members have in trying to encourage people to do things, but I can tell members that there are different approaches that one might take. For example, when I want my four-year-old to do something for me and to work with me on something, if he takes the approach of yelling and screaming at me and telling me how horrible of a parent I am, it might not be the best approach if he is genuinely trying to get something out of me. Likewise, I can say that the opposition members, if their strategy to encourage the government to do better is just to yell and scream at it all day long, they are certainly delivering on their—

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

Madam Speaker, the member is on point about the realities of the economic and environmental perspectives of this particular project, but I cannot help but be slightly cynical to think that the reason we are having this discussion right now is because the Conservatives are adamant about not talking about Bill C-19.

Can the member comment on how important he thinks it would be to have a discussion about a piece of legislation that is required to be in place in the event there is an election during a pandemic?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to speak to relevance. The member has been going off on a tangent that is nowhere near the concurrence report we are debating. He is talking about Bill C-3, Bill C-14, Bill C-19, all except the matter before the House right now. This is a concurrence report. We are supposed to be debating about Line 5. This is important.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, to say whether I am surprised or disappointed, the short answer would be no. I am not surprised that the Conservatives would move a motion of concurrence on a particular report. They have demonstrated in the recent months that they have really lost focus on the pandemic. I am trying to be nice in my criticism here, but I do believe at times that I need to be bold and to say what I believe the Conservatives are actually doing, which is not focusing at all or giving the attention that should be there from the official opposition in dealing with what is a very important issue to all Canadians.

The Conservatives continue to want to play partisan politics, and that is why I am not surprised, because they have been doing this for a while now. I am disappointed. I am disappointed again, and ongoing, because as the Conservatives insist on playing games on the floor of the House of Commons, they are filibustering whenever they can in an attempt to encourage a dysfunctional House of Commons and discourage important legislation from being debated so they can ultimately say that the government cannot even get its legislation through. If we look at the behaviour of the Conservative Party, it does not take a genius in a group of 12 to cause a lot of frustration on the floor of the House of Commons, and we get the official opposition choosing to do that.

Today is an excellent example. Earlier today, I was on a Zoom call with the Prime Minister, my Manitoba colleagues and a hundred nurses in the province of Manitoba. We were listening to what nurses in Manitoba had to say. That is the priority, and has been the priority, of this government from day one. I contrast that to what we have witnessed day in and day out over the last number of months coming from the Conservative Party of Canada. They should be ashamed of themselves.

The member for Chilliwack—Hope tries to give the impression that I do not care about Line 5 or the jobs and the other indirect and direct things related to Line 5 and that is why I do not support having us debate this motion we are debating today, the concurrence on the report. That is balderdash. It is just not true. Like all Liberals in the House of Commons, I am very much concerned about Line 5 and the impact it is having, not only on Canada, but also on the U.S. We understand and appreciate the importance of the issue. The Minister of Natural Resources, whether in question period or other debates, including the emergency debate, has been very clear on the issue.

The Conservative Party, surely to goodness, would recognize that we just had an emergency debate on the issue, just last Thursday. Members should listen and read in terms of what was actually said then. It started off with Conservatives just bashing Ottawa and saying how bad we are in regard to Alberta, to try to perpetuate more misinformation, as if this Prime Minister and this government do not care about the province of Alberta. Members can look and see what kind of ideas came from the Conservative Party in the emergency debate. There was not one Liberal who said “no” to having an emergency debate.

I had a chance to speak during that debate, and I am going to share some of the comments I made on Thursday night, but even with the emergency debate that took place, the Conservatives came up with this concurrence motion on a report that has absolutely nothing to do with Line 5 or a relationship between Canada and the U.S. For those who are listening or participating, or who care about what is taking place in the House, that is not the real motivation here. The Conservatives can say whatever they want and try to come across as meaningful as they want, but at the end of the day, it has more to do with frustrating the government's legislative agenda, the things we want to accomplish in the House of Commons.

They continue to push, saying that the House of Commons is dysfunctional. The Conservatives try to do two things. The first is character assassinations, and I understand I was one of them earlier today in an S.O. 31. The second is the ongoing filibustering taking place in the House of Commons so that important legislation cannot get through.

We should look at some of the debates and frustrations that have been sensed on the floor of the House of Commons because of the irresponsible official opposition. Those who might be sympathetic to their terrible behaviour should look at Bill C-3, as an example, and the hours and hours of debate on the education and training of judges in the future on sexual assault and so forth. It was a Conservative bill. It passed everything and is coming back. We introduced it as a government bill so we could put it in place. Everyone agreed to it, even in the Senate. It got royal assent very recently. The Conservatives debated that for hours and hours on the floor of the House of Commons. Was that really necessary? No.

What about Bill C-14? The economic statement was released in November, and the legislation was brought forward in December. No matter when we called it up, the Conservatives attempted to filibuster that through concurrence motions, too. In that legislation, there were important things to subsidize and support Canadians, individuals, families and small businesses. One would think the Conservative Party would have cared, but it had no problem filibustering that one, too.

We just had to bring in time allocation on Bill C-19. It is a minority government. We have to ensure, as much as possible, that Elections Canada is best prepared, enabling it to do a little more on a temporary basis. However, the political spinners within the Conservative Party do not want to go that way. They say they want to remain focused. Being focused to them is to push for a dysfunctional chamber and character assassination. That is what they are all about. It is—

Elections Canada

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned that the government is imposing a gag order to amend election rules in the middle of a pandemic.

The government introduced Bill C-19 four months ago. We have had four months to debate it, but the bill has suddenly become important today. The government is waking up. All of a sudden, there is no time to debate or even reflect. The government quite simply wants to use a gag order so that it can impose its election rules.

This bill sat around for four months, so why is it suddenly so urgent to use a gag order now? Is it because the government wants to call an election in the middle of a pandemic?

Bill C-19—Time Allocation Motion

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed the clever wordplay by my colleagues from the Liberal Party. What I said was this. When bills go to committee, sometimes, like with Bill C-10, they come back in worse shape because of terrible amendments put forward by the government. I would hate for that to happen to something as critical as this democratic bill, Bill C-19. When I say we should have more debate in the House of Commons, that means this bill deserves more than three hours and 45 minutes of debate.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Madam Speaker, I would hardly call this a rush. The Chief Electoral Officer presented a report to Parliament on October 5. The government thought it would be important for parliamentarians to consider the legislation over the Christmas recess. That is why we introduced Bill C-19. We have called it for debate, and once again, as is always the case, the Conservatives show no desire to allow the debate to conclude, allow a vote to happen and allow the committee to begin its work on studying the bill.

Our colleague from Sarnia—Lambton seems to think that there is a rush to an election. Once again, it is her party that continually votes no confidence in the House of Commons. I think the Conservatives are the ones rushing to an election.