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.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Once again, I'd like to thank everyone for being here today.

We made progress as members of this committee and can now see some daylight. Before giving you my own comments, I'd like to thank Mr. Blaikie. He took the time to give us a clear explanation of why , in his proposed amendment to remove the paragraphs following paragraph (a), he wanted the Prime Minister to appear in the week following the adoption of the motion.

I took note of a number of points in Mr. Blaikie's comments because he took the time to properly explain things. He clearly said that he wanted to know whether the prorogation was tied to the WE Charity or to the pandemic. That was at the beginning of his statement. The committee did look into this from the outset, with witnesses, with the presence of Pablo Rodriguez, and with all of the questions we had to deal with about whether the WE Charity or the pandemic was the reason for the prorogation.

Things have changed since then. Time moves quickly in politics. The Ethics Commissioner's report clearly showed that the Prime Minister had no links to the WE Charity, which in turn had nothing to do with the prorogation. The report cleared the Prime Minister, leaving us with the other option—the pandemic. If the pandemic was not a good reason to prorogue Parliament, I now find myself wondering what other reasons for doing so there could possibly be.

If I remember correctly, Mr. Blaikie also came up with an argument about a confidence vote that doesn't hold water. Allow me to explain. Mr. Blaikie mentioned that Canadians did not want an election. He also said that no one wanted an election in the summer and that these were all things for which the prime minister is accountable. However, that's not really the way things work. It's true that a minority government always depends on a vote of confidence or a vote on a budget or a budget statement, a throne speech or various other reasons for opposing a government. One can be forced to call an election, and it is the prime minister's prerogative to go to the Office of the Governor General to request one. However, it's wrong to say that it is solely the prime minister's responsibility.

If the parties work together, an election during the pandemic, and during the summer while waiting for people to be vaccinated, can be avoided. That's not only a prime minister's responsibility, it's the responsibility of the government, and the opposition has an extremely important role to play when it's a minority government.

Everyone knows that political jousting is involved and that the prime minister is not the only person to decide when there will be an election, which is why Bill C‑19 is so important.

No one around this table wants an election or an election campaign to begin next week. However, if there were one, then as a member of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, I would feel irresponsible not to have gone ahead with the study of Bill C‑19. I believe that it's very important.

I'd like to speak to you about something that is essential to the proper operation of Parliament under a minority government. We really all want the same thing, which is to provide better support to Canadians. It's extremely important for the various parties to work together effectively. We currently have an amendment before us. From the outset, I have argued vehemently that the Prime Minister is in the middle of managing a crisis caused by a pandemic. The Prime Minister has an extremely busy schedule. We could always knock on his door and ask him to come and speak to the committee, but doing so at such short notice is almost impossible for him. The wording of the amendment and the motion makes it extremely difficult to require the presence of a Prime Minister who is tied up dealing with a pandemic.

I'm not closing the door. We are continuing with our work, Mr. Blaikie. My colleague Mr. Turnbull demonstrated this clearly in his amendment with respect to the Deputy Prime Minister, who is also the Minister of Finance. That would have shown that we were very open to suggestions. Mr. Turnbull's amendment showed that there were many possible ways of getting answers to our questions and producing a good report. We would have had a better chance of getting the Deputy Prime Minister to appear, even though she too is very busy during this pandemic. She is of course also very busy as Minister of Finance. Wearing two hats is very demanding.

We were ready to move ahead. It's simply a matter of governing properly. I respect all the decisions that this committee will make. We voted against Mr. Turnbull's amendment and I have already moved on to the next one, from Mr. Blaikie.

This pandemic has gone on for just over a year now, and we could not have predicted where we would be now. I gave a presentation this morning about tourism and people were saying they would like to have a longer-term outlook. We would, six or seven months ago, liked to have had long-term forecasts so that we could better plan things like tourism and reopening the borders.

A pandemic doesn't come with an instruction manual. We're here to make decisions based on public health recommendations and we are going to continue to do so.

When we found ourselves in the middle of a pandemic, we didn't think that the priorities of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs would still be the same as those on the list, which we were lined up to deal with at the outset. The priorities are no longer the same today. Sixteen months ago, who could have guessed that the top priority now would be Bill C‑19 in the post-pandemic period?

We need to begin working on how to manage a future pandemic or disaster. We need to focus on those areas where we are likely to be successful. We need to write down what happened now, because it's still fresh in our minds and were still living through it. Now is the time to finalize the reports, and to archive the committee's data and experience so that it can become better in future at managing another pandemic, or even a flood, like the one that occurred in my riding.

We can learn a lot from what we did. Bill C‑19 remains a priority.

I understand why Mr. Blaikie is saying that he would like to turn the page, but from that to wanting the Prime Minister to appear here within a week is rather a stretch. He's all over the place at the moment. Everyone wants to see him. He has an extremely busy schedule. You can't mess with the Prime Minister's schedule like that. I would rather have him managing the country than appearing here before the committee to answer questions about the scale of the pandemic or about the WE Charity. People say they want to know whether he's guilty, even though we all know that he's been cleared by the Ethics Commissioner. I'm still standing my ground, but I agree with Mr. Blaikie when he says we need to vote, at which time I'll decide how to vote. That's all there is to it.

Lately, unfortunately, some people appear to have forgotten that we're in a pandemic, and I find that deplorable. Not only that, but Dominic LeBlanc sent a letter to the leader of the official opposition about the importance of collaboration among the parties because, as we all know, the Conservatives used procedural tactics in the House to slow down debate over Bill C‑19. And here we are with Bill C‑19 is now before us.

As I was saying, Bill C‑19 is upon us. The bill will make it possible for Canadians to vote safely if there is an election. I've heard people speculating about specific dates for the election. We don't have an election date. We don't even have an election calendar. Some are saying that the election will be held this summer, while others are saying that it will be in September. Many journalists have been making predictions based on their own analyses. I'm amused by all this, because I don't have a date. Our priorities are the safety of Canadians, managing a country, and having as many motions as possible adopted before the end of this parliamentary session. This committee has important work to do. We all know that time is slipping by, which means that it's important to prioritize the various matters at hand. I'm pleased to say that thus far, in spite of everything, we've been able to move ahead with this bill.

We've set aside Mr. Turnbull's amendment. I've got over it already. Now, there is another amendment on the table. We need to discuss it because I feel that what Mr. Blaikie has suggested is a compromise. He worked very hard on it, not only in terms of document disclosure, the hours and weeks of work that were required, testimony from the two Kielburger brothers, etc.

We know now that Mr. Blaikie has put some water in his wine.

I'm worried about the timing. It's very difficult for us to ask the Prime Minister to change his schedule and appear here within a week. He needs to meet provincial representatives on a regular basis. We are still negotiating various things with the provinces and territories. There is also the status of the indigenous territories and we are all aware of the Prime Minister's involvement in this issue. In the House this morning, there was another speech at 10 a.m. It never stops. The Prime Minister is in great demand. I'd like him to come and pay me a visit, but he can't. His schedule is too busy.

I'm still of the opinion that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, could have come and spoken to us at greater length about the need to create a recovery plan and a collaborative approach by the parties that would help Canadians. She's an extraordinary and open-minded woman who generates optimism when she speaks. I'm certain that the Honourable Chrystia Freeland could add some very interesting points.

I'm convinced that she could have spoken to us about the need to step back and develop new priorities for Canadians.

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

Talking about the Prime Minister's behaviour often makes me want to shower as well, Peter, so I appreciate your contribution and I take it as being quite on theme. Relevance is a rarity here on committee.

It's because of the fact that there are questions as to the way in which the Prime Minister exercises the special prerogatives of his office that we need to have a timely study of Bill C-19. If the Prime Minister would just say that he is not going to call an election during the summer, we'd have lots of time to study Bill C-19. It's not a problem. We could study it over the summer and we could have something that the House could be prepared to vote on in the fall. The urgency for studying Bill C-19 comes directly as a result of the behaviour of our Prime Minister, and I put it to you that it's a false sense of urgency.

Canada does not require an election this summer. There shouldn't be an election this summer. Canadians don't want an election this summer. All of the opposition leaders have pledged not to trigger an election before the summer because they've all pledged not to trigger an election during the pandemic.

Certainly if we can get through these next five weeks without the opposition parties voting non-confidence, there could be no reason for the Prime Minister to decide to trigger an election in the summer, other than because he considers it to be in his own political interest. The opposition parties can't obstruct a Parliament that's not meeting. If there's a way to do that, why don't you let me know?

I'm looking at Mr. Turnbull there, because it seems to me that if Parliament is not meeting, opposition members can't obstruct it. Therefore, it seems to me that it would be perfectly reasonable for the Prime Minister to say that if we get to the point where Parliament is not meeting, he's not going to be the one to call an election. We can't get that. That's where the sense of urgency comes from on Bill C-19.

It would be a mistake to simply move on from this study. I do think we need to get to the point where we report back to the House. Look, PROC has spent a completely disproportionate amount of time debating how to proceed with this study. I think it would be an awful shame if we didn't report anything back to the House on that.

Simply moving on to the study of Bill C-19 and not coming to some kind of agreement as a committee on how we might proceed is a mistake. I recognize that it's challenging. I know that government members have dug in on various positions over the course of the debate, and I recognize that opposition parties don't always agree and that it can be difficult to carve a path forward. That's something I mentioned last time in the context of committing to try to do that, as the other parties did. We did indeed meet to try to find that way forward.

Again, we've seen what can happen to a committee when the interests of one political organization are at play. We've been going through dozens of hours of debate because Liberals don't want to have a vote on the motion that was put forward, despite the fact that there seems to be a majority consensus on the committee to move forward in the way proposed in Mrs. Vecchio's motion. Then you try to take three different political organizations, with different goals and different thoughts about where to go and how to do it, and that discussion certainly can become quite difficult as well.

However, we have been having that conversation over some time because I don't think anybody wants to hold this up. I don't want to speak for anyone, but certainly my impression in the discussion with the other parties is that I don't detect a real desire to be holding up the study of Bill C-19. However, I did also hear loud and clear that there needs to be some kind of resolution to this study.

I want to remind Liberal members on the committee that the reason we're in this study is because of a mechanism that the Prime Minister brought forward. As members here have heard me say before, it's not my preferred method for how to deal with questions on prorogation, or even dissolution. Again, I think those are very related powers, and they should be dealt with in a related way.

The best way that is not outlandish or coming from nowhere...In fact, the United Kingdom, which is where our model of Westminster parliamentary democracy comes from, has adopted a provision, so that it's actually Parliament that makes decisions about prorogation and dissolution.

Unfortunately, those more democratic ways of navigating the questions of dissolution and prorogation have not yet come to Canada. There are some reasons why it's more difficult to implement in Canada, but like many politically difficult situations, provided there's adequate supply of political will, there's usually a solution.

When it comes to prorogation, for instance, I've heard that Canada may even need to go so far as having a constitutional amendment in order to allow the House of Commons to make a decision about prorogation as opposed to leaving it uniquely up to the Prime Minister.

There have been some really interesting witnesses here. I think of Hugo Cyr, for instance, who was here talking about prorogation. Some witnesses essentially proposed workarounds in recognition of the fact that, by convention, it seems to be a constitutional power of the prime minister, and therefore, needing some kind of constitution-level intervention in order to change the way that prerogative would be exercised.

I think the best way to deal with prorogation...That would get us around the need to even have this study, because we would have a fulsome debate in the House of Commons, and then a decision by elected members of our Parliament on whether to prorogue or dissolve earlier than a fixed election date. That's the gold standard.

However, that's not the one the Prime Minister chose. What did the Prime Minister choose? The Prime Minister chose to say that the government would table reasons for prorogation, and that those would be deemed referred to PROC. Presumably, that didn't mean, “Let's refer them to PROC, so that PROC can use the file as a door stop.” As is often the case, when things are deemed referred to a committee for the purpose of study, just as the estimates are typically deemed referred, a committee typically deals with them if it's a well-functioning committee, and they are not held up in filibuster over what is a pretty straightforward motion.

That was the Prime Minister's solution, and that's why we're here. So, yes, Liberals did agree to have a study of prorogation. I take that to mean that they agreed to honour the Prime Minister's intent when he said that political abuses of prorogation were real. He recognized, in that proposal, the political dimension of accountability, that is to say, the dimension of accountability that goes above and beyond, strictly speaking, legal questions of the kind that a conflict of interest commissioner might rule on, for instance.

Here we are, and we're undertaking that study. We're undertaking it for the first time ever. I say with some measure of embarrassment, not individually but as a member of this committee, that when people look back to the founding study at PROC on reasons for prorogation, in some future instance where a prime minister is alleged to have prorogued for political reasons above other kinds of more altruistic reasons, or political reasons in the pejorative sense...There can be political reasons in a good sense, as well, and some of those may have been at play with respect to the pandemic, but they were used as cover for some other kinds of political motivations.

Fair enough, let's get the guy in here. Let's talk to him about it. That's the whole point after all.

Here we are, and this has been the kind of launch, if you will, of Prime Minister Trudeau's idea about how to stem political abuses of prorogation. I don't think it's gone very well, but I don't think it's beyond redemption.

It was very good until the filibuster started. We heard from people that we ought to have heard from. I'd have been happy not to have heard from the Government House Leader, though, and go straight to the Prime Minister, because, as I say, it was very clearly a decision for him to make, and that he did make.

We did all of that. It was going very well and then there were some reasonable proposals for other witnesses that had to do with some of the alleged reasons for prorogation. Suddenly, that wasn't acceptable to the government, so here we are stuck in a filibuster.

I think it's really important, in terms of setting a good precedent, that the Prime Minister appear. I think it's even more important that the upshot of this entire process not be that PROC fails to report back and that the Prime Minister uses a similar special prerogative to end the Parliament before PROC ever has a chance to report back. It would be a really bad precedent to say that these reasons are going to be flipped to PROC, that they might start to study it and hear from some good voices, but then they descend into a completely unproductive, months-long period of debate and never emerge. I think that would send the wrong message.

I would hope that if the Prime Minister or some of his folks are listening or some Liberals on the committee report back, there would be some sense of duty to this proposed solution so that we don't end up in a place where we don't even bother reporting back. How sad would that be?

I do think it's incumbent upon us to work towards some kind of resolution to what has been a very frustrating ordeal. That's why members of the opposition parties have been discussing what a way forward might look like. It's an odd position of reverse onus.

I've been part of opposition filibusters. If you're in an opposition filibuster, usually you see it as your own responsibility to find a way out of the filibuster.

With respect to Mr. Turnbull for having tried, it didn't really work. We haven't seen a lot of flexibility in terms of what the government might be prepared to accept or not accept. We had an up-and-down offer from Mr. Turnbull. I'm appreciative of the fact that we finally got to vote on that. I think that was good. As I say, it kind of clears the space for trying to find some other kind of alternative.

We may have to cycle through several attempts. If we can get into a place where we're proposing things and dealing with them without having to debate each proposal for months at a time, I think the committee would be well served. I think this special mechanism of the Prime Minister would be well served because it might actually get us to a point where we break the impasse.

If the model is that we're waiting on one person to propose one solution that's automatically going to rally everyone and if it doesn't, we're stuck in a months-long filibuster, we don't have enough time to make that model work. Arguably, even if we had another two years, we might not have enough time to make that model work. I'm just basing that on the precedent we've already set with the length of time we've spent considering Mr. Turnbull's amendment. That all gets hard to do.

I would definitely encourage, as we work through these things, a spirit of voting within a few meetings on any one proposal, so if it's not the one that's going to do it, we can dispense with it and move on and hear some other proposal. I think that might be a nice way to break the deadlock. There is definitely going to have to be some deadlock-breaking at this table, it seems to me.

I don't know that we're going to be able to negotiate something behind the scenes that brings everyone aboard all at once. The rhythm of the committee has to change because it's been quite slow. We need to move from what we've been doing in a couple months to doing in a couple meetings. I'm willing to make some proposals and not take their passage or failure personally. I think one is always disappointed if one makes a proposal toward resolution and it doesn't pass—at least in the sense of being hopeful for a resolution.

I would rather know that something I propose isn't going to work within a couple of meetings than to have to take a couple of months to get to a rather obvious conclusion.

In any event, I do now want to propose something. I know it may not be the thing for which everybody suddenly says, “That's amazing, I love it, obviously, why didn't we all think of this months ago?” I want to throw it out there as something for consideration. I would urge members to take a reflective approach to the proposal. I do think that there are advantages and disadvantages for all in this proposal. I certainly don't want to be causing any knee-jerk reactions.

I think it's fair to say, and other opposition members can correct me if I'm wrong, that I don't think we have a fully formed three-party proposal that's going to come forward today, so I'm going to put something out there that I think probably won't be shocking to anyone, but with an adequate period of reflection I think may be the solution. If it's not the way forward, then perhaps we could vote on it next day and dispense with it, so that the table can be clear for somebody else to put something forward. Maybe in the meantime there will be some discussions that help shepherd us all towards a common solution. I would certainly invite that and be happy to talk to people about what that might look like, if it's not the thing that I'm going to propose.

would like to propose an amendment to Ms. Vecchio's motion. I would move that the motion of Karen Vecchio concerning the committee's study of the government's reasons for the prorogation of Parliament in August 2020 be amended by 1) replacing paragraph a) with the following:

a) renew the invitation issued to the Prime Minister to appear before the committee, provided that if he does not agree, within one week of the adoption of this motion, to appear for at least three hours, the Chair shall be instructed to report to the House forthwith a recommendation that this committee be empowered to order his appearance from time to time;

2) by deleting paragraphs b) through h).

I want to talk about some of the advantages of this proposal. One of the things that we have heard loud and clear at this table many times is that the government takes exception to the idea that the procedure and House affairs committee would be for lack of a better term—I'm not sure I like this term—but relitigating the WE Charity scandal in the way that it has been dealt with at other committees.

We have heard that very clearly. It's something that I'm prepared to do, because I still think there's a dearth of answers. As I say, I don't think the government has really adequately been held to the kind of political accountability that I think the WE Charity scandal demands. That's why I've been very happy and comfortable about supporting Ms. Vecchio's motion.

I do hear that the government doesn't want to do that. For me, the question about the WE Charity scandal in the context of this study isn't about all of the details of the WE Charity scandal. We have seen the ethics committee deal with a number of those questions and hear from a number of the witnesses who were in Ms. Vecchio's motion. Rather, for me, the interest of the WE Charity scandal, as I say, has to do with the timing, the length and the nature of the prorogation that the Prime Minister in fact executed. Why did he prorogue on the day that he did? Why did he cancel a unanimous decision of Parliament to have four summer sittings? Why did he not heed calls by at least some opposition parties—I'll speak for the NDP here—to resume earlier in order to have some time for parliamentary dialogue about the replacement of CERB?

These are all important questions. I think the details of the WE Charity scandal do bear on those issues. I do want to talk to the Prime Minister about those things. Do I need to talk to the Deputy Minister and Minister of Finance, and to the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth? Even though a lot of the parliamentary dialogue certainly, and a lot of the media conversation and the evidence, points to their involvement in the way that the WE Charity scandal unfolded, they aren't the decision-makers when it comes to the timing and the nature of prorogation.

While I would like to hear from them here, and while I think their interventions may have some light to shed on how things happened, I don't need to hear from them in the same way in a study on prorogation. If I have to prioritize one witness in the entire motion by Ms. Vecchio, the Prime Minister is clearly it—for political reasons, sure, in the best sense. He was the decision-maker. The very kind of political accountability that Parliament is at least in part established to deliver rests with him. He is the appropriate person to ask about those issues.

I don't think I'm going to learn more about the nature of prorogation from the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth than I am from the government House leader. Those are two people who are part of a cabinet that the Prime Minister might have spoken to about the decision, but they aren't ultimately responsible for it. I do think that in the case of the Prime Minister, there's cause to believe that we might yet learn something. Even if we don't learn something new, it will have been a valuable exercise. That is how political, as opposed to legal, accountability operates. The decision-makers have to answer questions about what they did and why they did it.

Likewise, I think it would be very interesting to hear from Mr. Morneau about what his reasons for resigning were and why he thinks his resignation happened. I dare say it was “precipitated”...but I won't use that kind of prejudicial language, although it did happen right before prorogation. Does Bill Morneau think there's a link between those two things? I'd love to hear whether he thinks so or not.

The point remains that it wasn't Bill Morneau who decided to prorogue Parliament. It wasn't Bill Morneau who went down to the Governor General's residence when he did—because he didn't. The Prime Minister did. He made that call.

It would be useful to hear from Katie Telford, who I'm sure was involved in the decisions that led up to the Prime Minister exercising his special prerogative in the way that he did. Is it strictly necessary in order to better understand prorogation? It is not anywhere near to the same degree that the Prime Minister is.

The Kielburgers clearly had something to do with WE Charity, had a role to play in the proposal that WE Charity was pursuing with the government and had relationships with government that landed Bill Morneau in a conflict of interest. Did they decide when Parliament would be prorogued? No, they didn't decide that. Only one person could decide that, and that was the Prime Minister.

In a study of prorogation, who is it most important to hear from out of all these witnesses? It's the Prime Minister. There's no big surprise here, but I think it's important to reinforce. I recognize that the Kielburgers weren't the ones who made that decision. By saying we're going to limit the scope of this motion, does that mean there will be no questions about WE Charity for the Prime Minister? Absolutely not. If the Prime Minister appears, those questions will be properly directed at the decision-maker on prorogation. They can be asked in a way that gets to the bottom not just of the fact of prorogation, which obviously happened and is obviously a prerogative of the Prime Minister to prorogue, and nobody has ever disputed that....

The question is how he has used that prerogative and whether he has used it appropriately. There you have to get into the details of the actual prorogation. While many of these witnesses can help us get into the details of something that I think still calls for answers—that is, the WE Charity scandal itself—they can't give us any kind of privileged information or insight into the nature of the prorogation.

The same would go for the Perelmuters, who have testified at other committees that were looking directly, and rightly so, and I'm glad for their work.... I'm grateful to Charlie Angus for the leadership he showed in that study and the work he did along the lines of holding the government politically to account for what was a serious scandal, but I don't think that the Perelmuters are going to have a lot of insight into the nature of prorogation. Again, while I think it would be helpful to hear from many of the witnesses in this motion in order to better understand the WE Charity scandal, which might help us better understand some of the motivations of the Prime Minister, if we're looking to try to wrap up this study now on an expeditious basis after spending a lot of time on it, I don't think they're the one witness that we need to hear from in order to get that work done.

Likewise, there was a call for the production of a lot of papers, papers that I think ought to be produced, papers that I think would give more insight into the WE Charity scandal that Canadians deserve to know about, but those papers are not going to shed light on the question of why the Prime Minister decided to prorogue Parliament the day after the resignation of his finance minister, which apparently had nothing to do with the WE Charity scandal or his, at that time, very recent appearance before another committee of the House where he was held to account for the fact that he actually had a debt of $40,000 to the organization that was being sole-sourced for a large government contract that he had only cleared the night before.

Are we really supposed to believe that none of these things are connected? I'm sorry, Madam Chair, but I wouldn't be doing my job if I accepted such a facile explanation.

Even all those things considered, there's still a question, as I say, when you consider all of the needs of the pandemic and the desire of many government backbenchers to spend some time consulting with their constituents on what might be in the Speech from the Throne. I would note, Madam Speaker, that we only had one scheduled sitting day over the time of that prorogation, but that one scheduled sitting day also happened to coincide with the deadline for documents like the ones called for in this very motion that we've been debating.

Our Liberal colleagues would like us to believe that it's a coincidence. Coincidentally, the timing of the prorogation just happened to rub up against the deadline when documents like the ones in this motion were actually due and which the government clearly doesn't want to provide.

Again, we have this odd coincidence about the timing and the nature of that prorogation, how long it lasted and the effects of proroguing at that exact moment, on the heels of the resignation of the finance minister after embarrassing testimony on the WE Charity scandal and on the eve of an important deadline for the tabling of documents that would lay out many details about that scandal.

Despite the recent finding that the Prime Minister wasn't in a legal conflict of interest, what we do know is that his right-hand man was. We know that political accountability has a broader application than legal accountability and that the Prime Minister does share in the political blame for this fiasco that even the finance minister refuses to take responsibility for. If he has taken responsibility for it somewhere, then I would urge my colleagues to point us in the direction of where that happened, because I haven't seen it yet.

In fact, I think the predominating quote in response to inquiries about the recent conflict of interest report by the former finance minister, Mr. Morneau, is “no comment”, which has been what I've seen. If he has commented more extensively on that, I haven't seen it. I might have seen something that was a prepared statement that was to the effect that it was in the past and it doesn't matter anymore. Of course, we all remember Rafiki's compelling refutation to Simba in The Lion King of the claim that actions of the past don't matter anymore.

I'm just trying to generate some interest on the committee, Madam Chair. I am beginning to suspect they might be losing interest, so I thought maybe a reference to The Lion King would spice things up, but it's a tough crowd. I appreciate that, and I appreciate the reasons for that.

What am I saying? What I'm saying is that this particular amendment offers, I think, a real and significant olive branch to members of the Liberal Party on the committee who have spent a lot of time telling us how irrelevant many of the witnesses are. While I don't agree with them in that assessment, what I am offering here is to dispense with all of that. Not only am I dispensing with that, or proposing that the committee does, I am also reducing the amount of time that the Prime Minister would have to appear from three hours to one.

Essentially, everything that Liberal members of this committee found objectionable in the other motion disappears except for one hour of the Prime Minister's appearing. That's, I think, pretty good, because, if you were to make a list of what the Liberals didn't like about this motion, to have everything off the list except for one thing, and to have the length of that presentation be reduced by two-thirds, is a pretty good offer.

I won't speak for the other parties on this, but what I will say is that I think I'm not alone in feeling that it is very important that the Prime Minister appear in this study.

I won't be alone in asking some questions about the WE Charity scandal in that hour either, but my questions will certainly revolve around the circumstances of the prorogation, as I see them mattering to Canadians who were concerned, while on CERB, about having a better sense of what was waiting for them on October 1. Having then participated in the rushed debate that occurred at the end of September in Ottawa, I can tell you, that would have been time well spent, having heard from tons of Canadians from coast to coast to coast in the lead-up to that deadline about the anxiety and the uncertainty they faced. I can tell you that it would have been productive to create more space for Parliament to hash out what the agreed-upon way forward at the end of CERB would have been.

Having heard from students who were very disappointed that the NDP's proposal for a student benefit was cut down and didn't match what was on CERB, and the fact that those extra jobs that were supposed to top up that income support didn't happen, I can tell you that this was a decision that is very real to a lot of Canadians and had an impact on them in a very difficult time.

Folks on CERB ultimately did get an answer. We, the NDP, were ultimately able to maintain the benefit level. Even last summer, the government was looking at cutting the benefit level. We were able to avoid that. I was happy for that.

Students, on the other hand, never did see that income they lost made up. When you're a worker and the only thing you have to sell is your time, that kind of lost time really matters. It's not that easy to bounce back from. There's no extra cheque coming for the time you couldn't spend working and getting paid a wage. That's why this continues to be a very relevant matter.

Again, I know this is not totally new. I don't know that any committee member is going to get particularly excited at the proposal. In my experience, the fact that nobody is particularly overjoyed is usually a sign that some kind of meaningful compromise is afoot. I can tell the committee that I share that feeling in respect of this amendment, but I do think it's a way forward. We clearly need a way forward.

Before the constituency week, we were building some momentum to a way forward. I appreciated that Liberal members of the committee allowed us to have a vote on the amendment that had been before us for a very long time, to clear the way to have a discussion about another proposed solution. Given the fact that we spent months on the last solution, I think it would make sense to spend at least this meeting on the current solution. I'm quite open to having a vote on it at the next meeting. I think that might be useful. If folks want to talk about it a little bit more, I'm obviously happy to do that.

If this isn't going to be the one to do it—which I hope nobody will decide today because in these kinds of delicate conversations, time for reflection is important—then I do think that we can try to dispense with it relatively quickly the next day or at some subsequent meeting in the not-too-distant future.

I'm trying to honour here what I perceive to be an important need to conclude this study. I really think it's important that we report back to the House somehow. I'm satisfied that if we hear from the Prime Minister, we can at least report back. That's something we can get done. That's worth an hour of the Prime Minister's time. I think it would be worth it, anyway.

Frankly, I think there's a duty here, as the decision-maker, for him to appear. It's a double duty because I think he also has a duty to honour what he proposed as the solution to potential political abuses of the power of prorogation. He proposed that decision-makers answer for that. Of course, he is the decision-maker. That's important and that allows us to get on, conclude this study and report something back before the end of June. I think it is very important to do, so that when people look back on this....

I appreciate that, clearly, Liberal members feel there was no political abuse either in the fact of having prorogation or, apparently, even in the details of the prorogation, such as the nature, the length and the timing. That's fine, but that doesn't mean that at some future point they aren't going to suspect another prime minister of having abused that political power to prorogue Parliament. Indeed, I can find some common ground with Liberal members on the committee about past abuses of prorogation.

The question then becomes what we think is a good process for how to introduce some meaningful political accountability into that. I think having some written reasons tabled and forwarded on to PROC, which hears from some academics and then just buries it as a testimony item rather than reporting back to the House, would be a mistake. That's what we're at risk of doing if we don't find a way to wrap up this study.

I think the quickest and most straightforward way of doing that is to have that opportunity for political accountability with an appearance by the Prime Minister. That allows us to move on quickly, if the Prime Minister is prepared to do that in the spirit of his own solution.

The other reason it's important to try to find some kind of conclusion to this is that I want to see us get on to the study of Bill C-19. I want to see Bill C-19 sent back to the House with enough time for it to pass before summer. Again, to be very clear, I mean that I want that because I don't trust the Prime Minister not to call an election during the summer.

If the Prime Minister would do one of two things, it would help the situation at the committee a lot. If the Prime Minister would appear, I think this would reasonably resolve our issues here at the committee. If the Prime Minister would say that he's not going to call an election during the summer months when Parliament isn't meeting, then that would give us more time to consider Bill C-19 and again would help with the work of the committee.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's an odd scenario to have government members filibustering a committee with an expectation that the opposition is going to help them break their own filibuster. As I say, in the filibusters I've been engaged in before, we talk about what our end game is and we talk about how to get out of it if it's not producing what we want, because we recognize that the people who start a filibuster are the people who have the obligation to finish it.

We're in this odd moment where I think government members are trying to shift the onus onto the opposition to break their filibuster. They can break it at any time. I'm not the one, with the exception of a longer intervention today—and I appreciate the patience and interest of members of the committee with my intervention today—who has been filibustering for the last number of months, so it's not for me to end it. I can't end the filibuster just by stopping talking, which is normally the power of somebody who is engaged in a filibuster, and it's normally up to that person who has the power to end it by stopping to find a way forward.

It's a very odd position to be in, with having colleagues imply that somehow it's the responsibility of the other side of the table to find a way out of their own filibuster so that we can consider their own legislation. I hope the Canadians who are listening appreciate what an unlikely and broken kind of situation this really is. I've done my best in good faith to try to bring about an end to this filibuster on a number of occasions, but it's true that I have not been willing to compromise on the importance of getting the Prime Minister here, because, significantly, I believe there are some really important non-partisan parliamentary reasons for having the Prime Minister at this committee, and I'm not really prepared to bend on those.

This amendment brings us a long way towards getting rid of what government members found most offensive—if you take them at their own word, and we should here—in the motion. In fact, I think just prior to my own intervention, it was Mr. Turnbull's contention that one of the things that was so objectionable about the motion was this litany of witnesses and documents. With this amendment, that's gone. It's a request for the Prime Minister to appear for an hour. All of the additional stuff that government members have said is a fishing expedition that has nothing to do with prorogation—all of that is done. All of that is gone with this amendment, if it passes.

This is a real opportunity for government members to be able to take out of the motion the lion's share, and I'm talking everything but one hour with the Prime Minister—all of the witnesses who are only being called because they have a connection to WE but don't have a clear connection to prorogation except through WE. We hear that Liberal members aren't interested in exploring those connections, even though I think those are connections that ought to be explored. We take them off the table.

The only call here is for the principal decision-maker in respect of prorogation, which is of course what we are studying. How do we know he's the principal decision-maker? Because you can go back to 1935, when cabinet said, by special proclamation, that those decisions—the decisions around prorogation and dissolution—rest with the Prime Minister alone as a special prerogative.

That is to say it is different from many of the other prerogatives of his office that he often jointly exercises with cabinet. It's not to say there wasn't a discussion at the cabinet table, but it is to say that, at the end of the day, he is the sole decision-maker.

It's why the NDP has asked the Prime Minister, not the Deputy Prime Minister, not the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, not the Minister of Finance, not anybody else. We've asked the Prime Minister to commit to not calling an election during the summer, because we recognize it is a special prerogative of the Prime Minister to make that call or not. We haven't asked that question of any other member of cabinet. Why? Because no other member of cabinet makes that decision. Cabinet does not make that decision collectively. It's the Prime Minister that does it.

We heard many things about how far-reaching the motion was, what a fishing expedition it was, how we should be talking about prorogation and not going down rabbit holes. While I say to my honourable colleagues on the other side that I don't agree with that analysis of the motion, for the sake of having five weeks left and in the context of a Prime Minister who won't commit to not calling an election during the summer, we need to get on Bill C-19. We need to do it in a way that, above all, sees this committee report back on the issue of prorogation.

It's not for the reasons of this Parliament but for the reason of future parliaments, which is what, presumably, the Prime Minister wanted when he pursued a change to the Standing Orders because he recognized that the prerogative of prorogation was sometimes abused. He wanted a mechanism in order to create the context for political accountability.

If the Prime Minister is really comfortable in his reasons for having prorogued, when and how he did, then he ought to be willing to come to PROC for an hour to allow the work of a senior committee of Parliament to continue. Particularly, in light of the fact that our next bill and the consideration of that bill.... It's a bill of his own government. It's a bill that has a sense of urgency attached to it, because of the way he carries himself in respect of a special prerogative—just like the one we are studying.

When it comes to proroguing and dissolving Parliament, the power is the same. It rests uniquely with the Prime Minister. Bill C-19 is urgent, because he refuses to say that we're not going to have an election during the summer. That has everything to do with his exercise of the prerogative that's at issue in the report we're doing.

Like I say, with no pretension that this is a perfect solution or that it's going to satisfy everybody.... In fact, it will be dissatisfying to all of us in some way, shape or form, but it might be the way that we can move forward on this. Before anybody makes any hasty decisions, it's important to have some time for reflection. It's important to have time for news of this proposal to work its way up to the Prime Minister and the people around him, so that they at least have an opportunity to consider whether they think this is worth it. I do think that the way out of this quagmire is through prime ministerial leadership.

While I may have my own doubts about how on supply that really is, I want the opportunity to be proven wrong in what I think about the Prime Minister. I want to give him the opportunity to come to this committee for an hour and explain his reasons for prorogation, so that we can file our report and move on.

My proposal to you, Madam Chair, seeing that we happen to be at our normal ending time for meetings.... I know my Liberal colleagues are great believers in coincidences, so this is just one more for them to believe in.

I would propose that we suspend our meeting at the normal time, so that we can come back on Thursday at 11 o'clock. Perhaps by then, people will have a sense of where they would like the debate on this particular amendment to go. If at that time, members would like to have a vote so that we can dispense with it, that would be great.

With that, I'll cede the floor.

Thank you.

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

Thank you very much.

I wish Mrs. Vecchio the best of luck in correcting technical difficulties. I had one of my own this morning. That certainly has been a frustrating feature of virtual Parliament. I hope she's able to get that sorted out.

I thought I might begin by addressing some of the comments that have been made already this morning. I will start with Mrs. Shanahan in terms of responsible government.

I took the gist of the argument that Mrs. Shanahan was making to essentially mean that if opposition parties don't vote to have an election in the face of things they don't like about the government, it means there's nothing to criticize or that the government can do whatever it wants. It effectively has carte blanche until opposition parties decide to trigger an election.

I want to propose to Mrs. Shanahan that I think this is an important misunderstanding of the principle of responsible government. We have question period. We have committee work. We call ministers to committee. We have all sorts of tools to interrogate the government about its course of action. We do that because there is more than one way to hold the government to account.

In fact, sometimes an election is exactly the wrong way to hold the government to account, particularly if you're trying to focus in on specific decisions of the government. As we all know at this table, elections are very general affairs. There are a lot of issues that come up in an election. There are many kinds of issues that rightly preoccupy the attention of voters during an election. While voters may be very dissatisfied with the government in respect of some of its decisions, that may not ultimately be the vote-determining issue.

Just because a particular instance of government wrongdoing isn't the ballot question at the ballot box, that doesn't mean the government's behaviour is justified. It doesn't mean there isn't still a need to hold government to account. In fact, that is the function of Parliament.

The function of Parliament isn't to cause elections. The function of Parliament is to hold the government to account between elections. A number of mechanisms have been developed to do that, including calling ministers to testify before committee about decisions they have made.

What's been tying us up hasn't been the fact that the opposition refuses to call an election. Even in ordinary times, it's not clear to me that that would be the right solution for this particular scandal. What's been tying us up is that government members haven't been allowing a committee to proceed in using some of the normal tools of accountability in order to hold decision-makers to account for something they have done.

In this case, the thing they did—that the Prime Minister did—was prorogue Parliament in the wrong way for the wrong period of time. That is not to say that it was wrong to prorogue at all, but we have heard that there are different ways to do a prorogation and there are different periods of time. We have heard very clearly in a number of ways that this was ultimately the Prime Minister's decision.

We have heard, as Mr. Turnbull indicated earlier, that it's a decision that is often political all the way down. I think that means that it stands to reason that members of Parliament would care to interrogate the only decision-maker about his political reasons for prorogation.

What's at issue is whether the predominant concerns had to do with the pandemic or whether they had to do with getting out of the political heat on the WE Charity scandal. The only person who can answer those questions is the Prime Minister.

Nothing untoward has been going on here at committee with opposition members supporting a motion to get the Prime Minister and a number of other players who were involved in what is also quite plausibly a major reason, not just for the prorogation itself. I agree there can be multiple reasons for prorogation. Often in government there's more than one thing going on in a decision. In fact, the art of government, arguably, is to balance competing demands and competing interests. Very often, when government makes a decision worth taking note of, it's because it is complicated because there are a number of things at play.

I do think it is quite reasonable that even if the WE Charity scandal wasn't the only reason for the prorogation, it affected the nature, duration and timing of that prorogation. That's fair game. The only person who can really settle that question for the committee is the Prime Minister. I submit to you that the government House leader did a bad job of that, and people are free to disagree with that. I'd love to hear from the person who made the decision, and I really don't think that is unreasonable. It's just not something I can accept, that, first of all, it's unreasonable to insist on hearing from the principal decision-maker with respect to a file.

The last time Mrs. Shanahan spoke about responsible government, prior to today, I tried to highlight for her some of the ways a decision about prorogation or dissolution is a special.... I mean, this is the language right out of the order in council; I'm not making up new terms. Since 1935, at least, decisions about prorogation and dissolution have been a special prerogative of the Prime Minister. That is something that, by order in council, that is, by a decision of the entire cabinet, has been set aside for the Prime Minister to make alone. That's in keeping with the Prime Minister's special role as an adviser to the Crown.

There are many people, I'm sure, who would have loved to be in the meeting in one controversial prorogation I can think of, where former prime minister Harper met at length, for hours, with the Governor General on the eve of a prorogation. There was some debate in the lead-up to that meeting, and in fact during the many hours of that meeting, live on radio and the 24-hour news cycle and all that good stuff that politicos watch with fascination at times like that.

There were lots of people who would have loved to be in the room. The government House leader wasn't in that room. Staff from the whips' offices weren't in that room. I'm not even sure the Prime Minister's chief of staff was in the room. That was a meeting between the Prime Minister and the Governor General. To me, that just highlights the nature of that special relationship and the nature of the special decision-making authority of the Prime Minister and the extent to which nobody can stand in for the Prime Minister when it comes to decisions having to do with either the prorogation or dissolution of Parliament.

I thought that was important to state, if I haven't been clear enough about that in the past. I don't think that's a viciously partisan interpretation of the facts. I think that's a pretty good exegesis of parliamentary process and a little bit of parliamentary history, for that matter.

The idea that, when the opposition is dissatisfied, responsible government calls for an election is a broken idea. It's broken at least because it would mean that we have no responsible government in majority parliaments. I think that's a pretty clear implication. If responsible government demands that the opposition trigger an election any time they think there's something seriously wrong with the way the government has behaved, and they don't have that power in a majority Parliament, then that means we have no responsible government in majority parliaments.

I'm sure that's not what Mrs. Shanahan intended to imply. That would certainly shed a different light on the last Parliament, I would think. Although I could appreciate it if some people wanted to maintain we didn't have a proper kind of responsible government in the last Parliament, I doubt it would be Mrs. Shanahan and her colleagues in the Liberal Party. I'm happy to be corrected on that point at any time if someone would like to claim otherwise.

Those are some things I think are important to say.

With respect to Mr. Turnbull's comments, I would say this. The timing and the nature of the prorogation are important to me for a couple of reasons, as I've said before. They're important because there was a pending deadline for CERB, and millions of Canadian households were depending on that program and didn't know what was coming down the pipe. The government made an announcement about what it intended to do at the end of CERB the day after prorogation. That is to say, they chose when to prorogue, and they chose when to announce that package. They chose to announce it at a time when there could be no meeting of Parliament for parliamentarians to ask questions in the House.

We had another scheduled summer session. In fact, it was going to be within seven or eight days of the Prime Minister's announcing that prorogation. I can't for the life of me, in any of the testimony that we heard or any of Mr. Turnbull's best arguments, see why that prorogation couldn't have at least waited until the day after the last scheduled sitting of Parliament in the summer.

Those four sittings of Parliament were negotiated among the parties, recognizing that there was a pandemic, recognizing that there was an important role for Parliament, not just the government but for Parliament during the pandemic. The Prime Minister unilaterally decided to break that all-party consensus to have Parliament play that role and cancelled the last scheduled sitting of Parliament in the summer. I think that was a serious mistake. I think he did something wrong when he did that.

I am not satisfied by the answers of the government House leader as to why. It's not an on/off switch, prorogation or no prorogation. The Prime Minister also made decisions about when to prorogue. I want to ask him about those decisions, and I do believe that the WE Charity scandal, and trying to protect himself and his government from that fallout, played a role in the timing of the prorogation. I'd like an opportunity to press him on those issues, because I think they matter.

I think it matters that an all-party consensus to have Parliament meet biweekly during the summer was unilaterally quashed by the Prime Minister. There would still have been weeks for the government to consult, when Parliament wasn't scheduled to sit. Why was that last summer sitting cancelled, after the work of getting all the parties of the House on board? That was something that was done, if I recall correctly, by unanimous consent. Not only were the recognized parties on board, but that meant that the independent members and members of the Green Party also supported that consensus.

I don't think it was appropriate for the Prime Minister to act against Parliament in that way, and that's the way I see it. Frankly, that's not something that's really been addressed in the hours of debate that we've heard from Liberal members. Nobody has spoken directly to the issue of why the prorogation had to occur on the day it did. That's fine. I don't really care to hear Liberal members opine about that, because I know who made that decision. The Prime Minister made that decision, so I'd love to hear the Prime Minister opine on that.

I'd love to hear him give his reasons, not for prorogation in general but for prorogation on that day and why he saw fit to upend a unanimous decision of the House of Commons to meet twice in August—four times overall over the course of the summer—and why he would choose to cut that sitting off to announce the package for the replacement of CERB, which was likely to be controversial, in the non-pejorative sense of that term. That is to say, it was very reasonable to expect that there would be different opinions about what that would look like from the various political parties and that there would be some discussion required in order to get to something looking like a consensus.

Why take away the opportunity for parties to question the government about what that consensus might look like, with enough time for that to actually be hammered out, not at the eleventh hour when households are wondering what the heck they're going to do next month if they can't make rent? It could have been done progressively over the course of four or five weeks, or at least there could have been an initial conversation on the record that allowed the parties to stake out their preliminary positions and thoughts on the government's proposal.

To me, that's a matter of significance. It cuts to the question of how the Prime Minister handles the prerogatives of his office—dissolution and prorogation—and it's quite topical. I know the Liberals want to say that everybody has moved on. There are still people, incidentally, who are upset about the WE Charity scandal. If the Liberals don't hear much about them, then I think they should at least do a little more listening in western Canada, where I'm from, because I certainly hear about it, and I know it's a common criticism of the Liberal Party that they don't listen enough in western Canada. Maybe it's just a regional thing and you guys aren't hearing it, but if it's the case that Ontario has moved on—and I doubt that too—it's certainly not the case that people west of Ontario, I can tell you, have moved on from concerns about the WE Charity scandal.

It's topical even if people have moved on from the WE Charity scandal—which, as I said, I don't think they have. What they haven't moved on from is wondering whether we have a Prime Minister who's going to act unilaterally to call an election at a time when Canadians really don't think we should.

I've been part of efforts to demand an answer from the Prime Minister on this. The NDP asks very openly in the House whether the Prime Minister will commit to not calling an election unless he actually loses a vote of confidence. I've seen him sidestep that issue repeatedly.

If Canadians don't have confidence in the Prime Minister's ability to use that prerogative well, then I think having him at the committee is an opportunity for him to better explain how he used the prerogative of prorogation. That might give Canadians some insight into how he intends to use the prerogative of dissolution. It's very much a topical conversation, because those two powers are intimately connected. They're both mentioned in the order in council from 1935 that I made reference to earlier today and in my remarks on the last day of the committee meeting.

We are very much in a time when Canadians have every right to wonder at the way in which the Prime Minister uses those special prerogatives of his office. I think examining his decision on prorogation is an important part of examining his use of those special prerogatives overall.

Again, I don't think this is a viciously partisan argument. I think it's actually pretty straightforward. I think it makes a lot of sense, if the committee is able to put the focus squarely on the Prime Minister, instead of this becoming about WE Charity writ large, in the kind of investigation that Mr. Turnbull has rightly mentioned has been pursued at other committees—in fact, with more success than we've seen here. A number of the requests that are in this motion have already been made successfully at other committees. The sky didn't fall and the world didn't end. Frankly, with the benefit of hindsight, although I have supported the motion all along, I think we could say that if we had just passed the motion and heard from those witnesses who were willing to appear, we'd be a lot further along by now than we are.

Putting the focus on the Prime Minister means making it about prorogation. It's not about an on/off switch—prorogue or not prorogue—but about why he chose the timing that he did. Why did it follow immediately upon the resignation of the finance minister? Why didn't he give it several extra days to ensure that Parliament could get the additional sitting that was agreed to unanimously by all members of the House? Those are good questions.

Mr. Turnbull has suggested that we don't need to explore any of those questions because the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner has ruled that there was no conflict of interest for the Prime Minister. I wish he had also read the conclusions of the second report that the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner filed at the same time. I'm sure members of the committee know that report has to do with the role of Bill Morneau, who, at that time—and through the entirety of the last Parliament, I think it's fair to say—was the Prime Minister's right-hand man. I think there's clearly an affinity between them in terms of how they think about issues. Bill Morneau was trusted to lead many aspects of government. We know the importance of finances. We know the importance of money. We know that the person who's put in charge of that for the government is somebody who has the total trust of the Prime Minister.

I can also tell you that many times during the pandemic when there were negotiations between New Democrats and the Liberals, it was very clear that many things were going back to the finance minister. In fact, the finance minister was often cited above the Prime Minister in terms of whose sign-off was really needed. I think there were some good things that didn't happen, as a matter of fact, as a result of that particular finance minister's involvement.

One of the things that didn't happen was getting students on CERB at a rate of $2,000 a month. One of the reasons was that there was going to be this great new jobs program that was going to help top up the lower CERB rate under the CESB that students received. That was a great idea that came out of the Department of Finance and former minister Morneau, among others.

Those extra jobs and that extra funding never came to pass, because a scandal developed. How did the scandal develop? Well, it had a lot to do with the involvement of the finance minister, who, incidentally, as was omitted in Mr. Turnbull's earlier intervention, was found to have breached the Conflict of Interest Act on three separate counts.

The idea that somehow the Prime Minister isn't politically responsible for that kind of mismanagement by his own government is wrong. I accept the finding that there was no personal conflict of interest in the case of the Prime Minister, but that doesn't mean there's no political accountability.

I think this ties back to what I would say is a mistaken concept of responsible government on the part of Mrs. Shanahan. Political accountability is not the same as a narrowly defined legal sense of accountability. That's why we have a Parliament. That's why we don't just leave it to the courts. If the only way people could fail in political leadership was according to the law, then we would hardly need a Parliament for the accountability function. We might still have a Parliament to supplement the legislative intentions of a government and challenge some of the legislative initiatives that it intended to move forward with, but in terms of accountability, we would just leave that to the courts. I think that would be a deficient system, because it would fail to capture a lot of really important things.

This is something we've seen develop over many decades. It used to be the case that, if you had a serious case of mismanagement under a file, you would see ministers take individual responsibility for that. Individual responsibility for that, most often, would look like a resignation. That would happen when things went really wrong. When or if a government took a position that somebody seriously disagreed with, it used to be that you would more frequently see the resignation of individual ministers. You don't really see that anymore. Instead, there's more of an emphasis on collective responsibility, but somehow the guy at the top doesn't bear responsibility. It becomes quite unclear who is responsible for the bad decisions of government.

When Bill Morneau left—although I truly believe that he left not to pursue a new executive position with an international organization, but because of the way he had mishandled the WE Charity file—he didn't take responsibility for it, though. You saw that again, the failure of a minister to accept individual responsibility beyond the collective responsibility.

As it is, by the Liberals' own telling, nobody has accepted responsibility for the WE Charity scandal. There's been no minister who's left government as a result of that scandal. That's what I hear from Liberal colleagues, anyway. If that's not true, I'd love to hear it. I'd love to hear that Bill Morneau left because he had mismanaged the WE Charity scandal. They recognized there was a problem, and he accepted responsibility for that, and that's the reason his political career ended, but I haven't heard that. I heard he was off chasing a job with OECD, which he quietly announced a little while later, to no one's surprise except maybe some Liberal Party faithful. He was abandoning that pursuit.

We are in this awkward situation where there was a major mismanagement of a big file that had serious material consequences for thousands and thousands of Canadians who were registered as students, who really ought to have seen themselves rolled into the CERB program, but instead were offered a discounted program on the promise of jobs that never came, because the finance minister, who did breach three sections of the Conflict of Interest Act in terms of his own conduct on this file, mucked it up. He made a political mess of what should have been straightforward aid to students, particularly in light of the fact that the government already runs the Canada summer jobs program, which is a perfectly acceptable way to provide employment to students. It was never clear why a third party organization was required, when the infrastructure for administering Canada summer jobs was already there and could have been supplemented instead.

Excuse me if I think it's too much to call coincidence the fact that the finance minister appeared at committee and wrote a $40,000 cheque to WE the night before, because he suddenly remembered that he owed $40,000 to an organization, which is not the experience of most people. Most people I know who have a $40,000 debt are very aware of it and they don't have the ability to write it off in an evening as an afterthought off the side of their desk. I think that showed to a lot of Canadians just how out of touch one of the principal decision-makers in Justin Trudeau's government really was. I think that was unbearable and he had to go. That just happened to coincide with prorogation.

Yes, a pandemic can be a reason to prorogue Parliament, but the timing? Mr. Turnbull acts as if this is some kind of terrible surprise. I've said this before. In fact, he's repeatedly misquoted my attempt to say that before and he likes to bring it up, where I've tried to indicate that there can be more than one reason, that the pandemic may have been important in the decision to prorogue, but there are many of us who feel that the timing and the nature of that prorogation, which unilaterally busted up a consensus in Parliament to meet four times over the summer, had everything to do with the WE Charity scandal and getting out of political accountability for the WE Charity scandal.

Political accountability and legal accountability are not the same thing. If there was an opportunity to see some political accountability over the WE Charity scandal, it would have come if Bill Morneau had fessed up in terms of his real reasons for leaving government. He didn't do that, so we're still in this place where there hasn't been any political accountability for a major mess-up by the government that had real material consequences for a lot of students from coast to coast to coast.

So yes, I've been happy to support Mrs. Vecchio's motion. I continue to be happy to support Mrs. Vecchio's motion, but I also recognize that there's an imperative to get on with studying Bill C-19.

Why is it important to study Bill C-19? It's important to study Bill C-19 so that, hopefully, we can make some changes to the way elections unfold before the summer, because it's very likely that the Prime Minister, just as he used his special prerogative for prorogation last summer in order, I think, to further his political interests, which incidentally aren't covered by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner's report, because they're out of scope by law, as they should be..... That's fine. We're not asking the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner to weigh in on questions of political accountability. That's what Parliament is for.

Last summer, the Prime Minister used his special prerogatives to prorogue Parliament at a time that was in his political interest. We're now coming up against a summer where there's some real suspicion he is going to use a similar special prerogative to call an election because it furthers his personal political interests and the political interests of his party, even though Canadians don't want an election. All we would like the Prime Minister to say is that if we get to the end of June without his government losing a confidence vote, he's not going to call an election in the summer. He won't say that.

The question is, how can Parliament not be working in the summer, when it's not meeting? It seems to me that a Prime Minister who was really interested in listening to Canadians, who overwhelmingly are not interested in having an election right now, would be willing to say that if the opposition gets us to the end of the session in June without triggering an election themselves, he'd be happy to do his part and not trigger an election until Parliament resumes and we see how it goes after the summer.

[The Clerk]

The question is on Mr. Turnbull's motion to proceed to another order of the day, which would be Bill C-19.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I appreciate your reminder about Bill C-19 being a government bill. These usually take precedence in committee business, or at least I think that's the informal practice that's generally followed. I hope that today the committee will see some movement on Bill C-19.

That's my hope. I'm stating that outright. It might be because we had a constituency week, but I'm coming back to the committee with renewed optimism. A little bit of sun on my face and—I don't know why—it has invigorated me. I'm looking forward to today's meeting. It's good to see everybody.

I appreciate Mrs. Shanahan's comments. I especially appreciated the story she told about the significance of the holiday, which I think exists differently within different cultural contexts. I appreciated that very much. I thought that was insightful.

I also appreciated your speaking to the amendment that I had put forward, even though we're not on the amendment. It was an attempt to appease some of the opposition parties and, hopefully, to move forward. I know the committee voted that down, so I won't cover anything having to do with that today, but I do want to quickly frame where I think we are as a committee. Then I look forward to hearing from Mr. Blaikie.

I've said this multiple times, but I really think it's important to emphasize. From the very beginning of this particular conversation, which started a long time ago, we as a committee agreed to study prorogation. We heard from witnesses. We heard from quite a number of witnesses. I think the government in general has been very transparent when it comes to prorogation. I've said from the beginning that if a global pandemic is not a good enough reason to prorogue Parliament, then I don't believe any reason will satisfy the opposition parties. I have to keep stating that, because I really feel that's the grain of truth here that I'm holding on to: that eventually the opposition parties are going to realize that, yes, given a global pandemic, given a government that's been as responsive as possible, there was a need to re-evaluate and reset the agenda. That's exactly what happened.

I've argued this point over and over again, and I'm not going to go through all the data and the evidence I've provided for how the throne speech reflects all the consultation work and the incredible data-gathering that happened during prorogation. I already got that. The opposition parties, as far as I can tell, don't care about that argument. They're not listening to that reasonable explanation, which is, to me, a rational explanation that makes perfect sense, given the context of a global pandemic.

I also want to speak to the fact that, from my perspective, we are now debating a motion on WE Charity. Look at Mrs. Vecchio's motion. It has in it the Kielburgers, the Honourable Bill Morneau, Katie Telford, the Perelmuters and the speakers bureau. It has massive, huge requests for documents that would have to be produced and translated. WE Charity is mentioned multiple times. Sections (f) and (g) of her original motion specifically reference WE Charity. There's absolutely no doubt.... Well, there can be no doubt out there, for anybody watching or anybody on this committee, that the motion is to try to connect WE Charity to prorogation as some ulterior motive, which I think the opposition parties have been trying to prove.

We heard from witnesses. Some of them speculated. Most of them said that there has always been a potential political motive for prorogation throughout history, and that there are always multiple narratives on why prorogation happened, but most of them also claimed that, given a global pandemic and the context, it was actually a pretty good reason to prorogue.

What I find strange, though, is that we're still stuck on this motion after the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner's report has come out. I took a little time over the week that we were in the constituency, when I had a little time in the mornings in between meetings, and I read a good portion. I don't think I pored through every single page, but I read a lot of it, and I found it really interesting to see the analysis that was done by the Ethics Commissioner, Mario Dion.

What shocks me and surprises me.... The Prime Minister has been completely exonerated by that report of all counts that the opposition parties have been claiming over and over again, taking up committee business in other committees. Fine, I got it. They wanted to “hold the government accountable”, which is what opposition parties are supposed to do, so I got that. But, at this point, at this juncture, at this moment in time we're still in a global pandemic, and opposition parties are voting against the government, in many cases coming dangerously close to triggering an election, and yet they don't seem to be willing to move on to study Bill C-19, which would ensure that Canadians can vote safely, that their health and safety would be protected and their democratic right would be protected if an election were triggered.

I'm still feeling like, can we just face reality here? The reality is that the WE Charity supposed scandal is not a live topic anymore. It's a closed book. The Ethics Commissioner reviewed all the evidence and data. They reviewed it. I'm going to read you the conclusions here, just in case people haven't taken the time to read that document.

There are three major sections of the ethics code, or the Conflict of Interest Act, that were said to be the sections that were pertinent to the study that was done, or the report that was written. Section 7 is one that “prohibits public office holders from giving preferential treatment to a person or organization”. Now the Ethics Commissioner.... This is in the executive summary, so I'll just read the quick conclusion. I could go into more detail if people want, but I don't think that will be necessary per se. This is on page 2.

The evidence also shows that Mr. Trudeau had no involvement in ESDC’s recommendation that WE administer the CSSG. I am satisfied that Mr. Trudeau did not give preferential treatment to WE.

That's one conclusion. Now the other section, subsection 6(1) of the act, “prohibits public office holders from making or participating in the making of a decision that would place them in a conflict of interest.” On this one as well, the Ethics Commissioner concludes, “I am satisfied that there was no opportunity to further Mr. Trudeau’s own interests or those of his relatives from WE’s role as administrator of the CSSG or from its Social Entrepreneurship proposal.”

That's one conclusion. There's another related to this:

WE’s private interests would have to have been furthered improperly. In my view, there is no evidence of impropriety in relation to Mr. Trudeau’s decision making in relation to WE’s Social Entrepreneurship proposal or WE’s administration of the CSSG.

Those are two quotes that demonstrate that there are clear conclusions that the evidence has been reviewed. This is the Ethics Commissioner we're talking about, who has done the due diligence and found and ruled that the opposition parties.... I know this is disappointing to the opposition parties, because they wanted a scandal out of this, but there is none. The Ethics Commissioner's report is very clear.

The other section I would just quote quickly is section 21, which requires recusal “only in instances where the public office holder would be in a potential conflict of interest.” In this one as well, the Ethics Commissioner says, “I therefore found that Mr. Trudeau did not contravene subsection 6(1), section 7 or section 21 of the Act.”

Just take a step back for a second, please, committee members. I'm appealing to your better interests here. Take a step back.

For months and months, opposition parties have been trying to claim that prorogation was tied to WE Charity. We now have conclusive evidence, and all the due diligence has been done, that says there was no conflict of interest. The conclusions are clear, based on a really in-depth assessment of all the evidence and facts.

How, then, can we possibly continue to debate a WE Charity motion at this committee, when we have business that this committee needs to attend to, to protect the health and safety of Canadians? Members of this committee, tell me, do you feel that's responsible for us to do?

All of us are responsible for this work to continue forward. We have a government bill that has been referred to our committee, Bill C-19. We need to get on with studying this bill. That's my plea to you. I don't know how we can not face reality and debate this whole WE Charity and prorogation link, because it's non-existent. If there was no conflict of interest, does it even make sense for opposition parties to try to tie the two together? It doesn't even make sense anymore. Give it up, and let's move on to Bill C-19, please.

I move that the committee proceed to study Bill C-19.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you, Mrs. Shanahan.

There are a couple of things I feel I should have probably said at the beginning of the meeting just as a refresher, because we were all on a constituency week as well. We have had Bill C-19 referred to the committee as of May 11. It's been some time. We had the constituency week in between, obviously, which took up time. This is a government bill, so there's no time limit for the committee to consider the bill, but generally, legislation is given priority by committees.

If the committee chooses to move forward on that, there are some things the committee will have to keep in mind. We would need to decipher how many witnesses to have, which witnesses and the dates for those witnesses. Those suggestions need to be sent to us. Just keep all that in mind so that we can schedule them. There are always scheduling difficulties, so we need to know that stuff as soon as possible if we wish to make any amendments to the bill. Then we would need to determine a date for clause-by-clause and basically an overlying deadline for that.

As another reminder to the committee, the next meeting, on May 27—today is May 25—would be the last date for us to consider the main estimates. Otherwise, on May 31, they will revert back to the House. That's just a reminder on the main estimates as well.

I will move to Mr. Turnbull, and then Mr. Blaikie right after that.

Opposition Motion—Elections During a Pandemic

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure whether the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons is announcing that the government will impose another gag order to pass Bill C-19, but his arrogance is truly disappointing and distressing.

In 2014, he said that it was unacceptable to suspend the rules of democracy in order to change them. Today, he is in power in a minority government, and now he thinks it is acceptable. Is he really open to amendments? Since he knows the bill so well, will he be able to give me an answer if I propose one?

Does he think it is okay that his minister told us this morning that there would be no delay in releasing the results, when, according to the bill, voting day ends on Monday but mail-in ballots can be submitted until 6 p.m. on Tuesday? Moreover, I could even deliver a mail-in ballot to the office of the returning officer on Tuesday morning.

Does the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons agree that the vote should end on Friday, to avoid confusion and to ensure health and safety on the ground?

[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, it is a pleasure to be able to provide some thoughts on the opposition motion. There has been a great deal of misleading information, if I can put it that way, so let me start by being crystal clear for those following the debate that the Government of Canada, headed by the Prime Minister, has been very, very clear: Our focus since the beginning of the pandemic has been on delivering for Canadians.

Canadians expect their Parliament to work to deliver for them through this pandemic, and indeed over the past many months, we have put in extra effort to make that happen. If we go back to the very beginning, we see the creation of programs that have assisted millions of Canadians, programs that have provided a lifeline to many small businesses, preventing bankruptcies and keeping people employed. We have seen support programs for seniors and people with disabilities, and enhancements of youth employment opportunities. We have seen provincial restart money, money being put into our school systems and the speeding up of infrastructure programs.

The government has taken a team Canada approach. For the first couple of months, there was a high sense of co-operation coming from the House of Commons, but that changed. For the Conservative Party, it started to change toward the end of June. For others, it took maybe a bit longer. Let there be no doubt that from the very beginning, the Government of Canada's focus has been the pandemic and having the backs of Canadians day in and day out, seven days a week. Let there be absolutely no doubt about that.

It is the opposition that continues to want to talk about elections. Further, we have even seen threats of elections coming from some politicians in opposition parties. What is really interesting about the motion today is that we have the Bloc party saying that it does not want to have an election during the pandemic. That is what it is saying today publicly.

I challenge Bloc members to share with Canadians what they truly believe. Last year, the leader of the Bloc party made it very clear. He vowed that if the Prime Minister of Canada did not resign, he would force an election during the pandemic. That is what the leader of the Bloc party said. The very same Bloc party today is saying that we should not have an election during the pandemic.

When he was asked about it last year, he responded by saying that allowing the government to remain in a position of power would do more damage to the country than forcing Canadians to head out to cast their ballots in the midst of a pandemic. He made it very clear that he would move a motion of non-confidence if the Prime Minister did not resign. In my books, that is pretty clear.

We have seen on numerous occasions all opposition parties, or at least the Conservatives and the Bloc, vote non-confidence. We have even seen some individuals from the New Democratic Party support non-confidence measures inside the House, from what I understand. Maybe not collectively as a party, but definitely as individuals.

Members should listen to what is being said in the speeches. The member for Kingston and the Islands and I spend a great deal of time in the chamber or in the virtual Parliament, and we listen to what members of the opposition are saying. Contrary to what some members of the Bloc are telling us today, it is completely irresponsible for us to believe that an election could not take place, when we have had threats coming from the leader of an official recognized party of the House, who is vowing to have an election. Am I to believe that the Bloc members, as a group, have had a road to Damascus experience and now do not want an election? Does that mean they fully endorse the Prime Minister and that what they said last year was wrong, that Canadians misunderstood and the Prime Minister is doing a good job, according to the Bloc now? Is that what we are to believe?

I will tell members what I believe. I believe in the reality of what I see in terms of votes on the floor of the House and some of the words we hear from members opposite, who talk consistently about elections and challenge the government on an election with the actual votes, not once, twice or three times. I loved the way the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, who is responsible for the Canada Elections Act, asked how many times opposition members voted no confidence in the government: (a), (b), (c) or (d). Those following the debate should keep in mind that any loss of a confidence vote precipitates an election. People may be surprised at the actual number. The President of the Queen’s Privy Council asked whether it was (a) one to four times; (b) five to nine times; (c) 10 to 14 times; or (d) more than 15 times. I am virtually in the House of Commons, and I know it is well over 14 times.

It is not only votes of confidence. Let us look at the destructive force that the official opposition party has played on the floor of the House of Commons and some of the questions that were asked today. Members are talking about Bill C-19, which is a very important piece of legislation. We cannot continue to have confidence votes and not recognize the value of the legislation, but a couple of members said the government brought in time allocation and how mean that was because, after all, it is a minority government and it is forcing election legislation through. We cannot do that. We need the support of an opposition party to do it. Fortunately, the New Democrats stepped up to the plate so we could pass Bill C-19.

Then another Conservative member said the government brought in time allocation and there was very little time for members to debate it. On the very same day the time allocation was brought in, what did the Conservatives do? They brought forward a concurrence motion on a report, preventing hours of debate on Bill C-19. Did it prevent the bill from going to committee later that day? No, it did not. Did it prevent members from being able to speak to the legislation? Yes, it did.

Then some opposition members said it was a bad bill and asked about consensus and even quoted me on it, in terms of how we should strive to get consensus. Need I remind members how they voted? Liberals know how they voted on it. Every political party voted in favour of Bill C-19 going to committee. What the opposition is attempting to do here just does not make sense. We can talk about the frustration of government in terms of legislation.

The Prime Minister says the pandemic is the government's number one concern. We will have the backs of Canadians and we will be there for them. That means we need to pass important legislation that matters to every Canadian. The best example I can come up with offhand is probably Bill C-14.

Last fall, Canada's very first female Minister of Finance presented a fall statement, brought in legislation in December, and brought it up on numerous occasions for debate. We had to force it to get through because the opposition was not co-operating. There was no sense of how long opposition members were prepared to keep it in the second reading stage of the process. That legislation provided support programs and many other things for real people and businesses being challenged by the pandemic.

The government has a very limited number of days and hours to actually conduct government business. The Conservatives, who are the official opposition, know that. They understand it. One might think, given the pandemic and their talk about the importance of being there for Canadians during the pandemic, that the Conservatives would come to that realization, as opposed to debating Bill C-19. One might think they would allow the debate on Bill C-14 to be conducted in a better, healthier way for all parliamentarians and, indeed, Canadians and that they would be willing to participate. One might think that, but that is not the reality.

I have been listening to a number of people speak to the motion we have before us today. I am still trying to learn some of the acronyms in texting, such as OMG, which I believe means “oh my God”. I have probably had three or four of those OMG moments today when I wondered where this was coming from. How could members really say some of the things they are saying?

We had a member talking about how terrible the Liberals were. He said that we were an absolute and total failure and that we were so bad. Is the member scared we are going to call an election because we were so bad? Some members were saying how bad Canada was in acquiring vaccines. The last time I looked, we were the third best in the G20 countries. Canada is doing exceptionally well. We will actually have received somewhere between 45 million and 50 million doses of vaccine before the end of June. As of yesterday, in the province of Manitoba, anyone over 18 can book an appointment to get their first shot.

Conservatives then had to come up with something to be critical of the government on the vaccine front, so they hit on the double dose issue. Conservatives thought they could say that the government was not doing a good job on the double dose issue.

I ask members to remember, back in the December, some of the opposition's criticisms of the government. Criticism is fair game. The Conservatives are in opposition, and I wish them many years in opposition. They are entitled to be critical of the government and the things we are doing. However, it is another one of those OMG moments. They need to get real. They need to understand what Canadians want us to be focused on.

To my friends in the Bloc, they should seriously think about what their leader has been saying and the posture the Bloc has taken for the last number of months. When I saw this particular motion appear on the Order Paper, I had to give my head shake and ask myself if it was really coming from the Bloc. The Bloc has been the clearest of all in terms of wanting an election now.

I do not believe this. It might be what the Bloc has been thinking in the last 72 hours, but who knows what their thoughts are going to be 24 hours from now. That is the reason we brought in Bill C-19.

If there are concerns for Canadians regarding a potential election, given the behaviour we have seen from the opposition, one responsible thing to do would be to actually pass Bill C-19. Let us get it through committee. I think about how much time have we allocated toward Bill C-19. I was prepared to speak to it on a couple of occasions. One day, maybe back in January or February, I was primed and ready to go. It was going to be called up and, lo and behold, the Conservative Party brought in a concurrence motion. That was not the first time.

Ironically, once time allocation was put on Bill C-19, Conservative members did it again. They brought in another concurrence motion that prevented people from being able to speak on the legislation, even though it was going to committee. It just does not make sense. We have the vote on it. Conservatives were trying to frustrate the government in terms of not allowing the bill to proceed, so one would think that they were going to oppose it, but that was not the case. Of the entire Conservative caucus, those who voted, voted in favour of it.

Now Bill C-19 sits in limbo, although the Liberals would like to see it actually being talked about. There are some good ideas there. The minister has been very clear that he is open to ideas. The member for Elmwood—Transcona has talked about a number of possible amendments.

I think that we have been fairly clear in terms of getting the legislation before the committee. It is there. The committee can deal with it at any time now. Is the opposition being sincere about being concerned with the pandemic and what takes place in an election? We know that, no matter what, Elections Canada, while being recognized around the world as a first-class independent agency with the ability to conduct an election, would benefit from this legislation if we can get it passed. I think it is the responsible thing to do. Just look at the number of non-confidence votes we have had: 14 or 15. This would be a responsible thing for us to do.

Why not allow that discussion at committee? If we take a look at the principles to be looked at, they are just temporary measures. We do not know how long the pandemic could potentially carry on with variants and so forth. We are very optimistic today, but there are long-term care considerations. Bill C-19 talks about extending the number of polling days and mail-in ballot enhancements.

We have seen other governments in three or four provinces that have actually conducted provincial elections. We saw a huge election just south of the border. We saw by-elections conducted by Elections Canada. I would like to see PROC deal with the bill, and the sooner the better.

I encourage members to recognize two facts. First and foremost, since day one this Prime Minister and this government have been focused on the pandemic and being there for Canadians in a very real and tangible way. Second, when it comes to talking about an election, it is the opposition that does a lot more talking about it than the Government of Canada or the Prime Minister.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

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

I am glad she asked me a question about the legislative agenda because it gives me the opportunity to address a few things.

The discussions surrounding Bill C-19 started on October 5, 2020. On October 22, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs initiated a study. On December 8, it tabled a preliminary report. On December 10, the government hastily introduced a bill. That was a blatant show of disrespect for the committee and its elected members because they had not yet finished their work. It also demonstrated a serious lack of respect for the many witnesses who spent hours preparing their testimony. Witnesses made a conscientious effort because they thought they were contributing to something important. That is what the government did.

The government introduced this bill on December 10. Since then, the bill has barely been debated in the House. Barely four hours have been spent on debate. It is now May 13.

Why is the bill so important to the Liberals? It is because they want to hold an election in order to become a majority government.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I hope that the problem my colleagues were having has been fixed.

I'll continue with a number of quotes in English that I feel would be of interest to the committee.

As the Clerk of the Privy Council observed in the “Twelfth Annual Report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada”—that was some time ago, in the early 2000s, I think—“we cannot build systems based on distrust.”

This is just going to this whole accountability and what we're trying to have as our rules. It continues:

We cannot go backwards, building layers of hierarchy and rules governing each transaction. And we cannot treat all errors in the same way. Errors made in good faith are inevitable, especially in an organization that values innovation and creativity. Accountability requires that we report honestly and accurately, including the errors, and demonstrate that we have learned from the mistakes and have made the necessary adjustments. But accountability cannot become mere blaming.

I'm pleased to be reading this quote for you because, as we have seen over the past few months, parliamentarians do indeed have the right to ask questions. We want them to ask questions and to demand explanations.

The government, which is the executive authority, is accountable. It's important to ask whether the government is acting in good faith and whether it has our confidence. Allow me to repeat the fact that parliamentarians can indicate whether or not they have confidence in the government. Since the start of the pandemic, there have been several confidence votes. As my colleague mentioned earlier, not all parliamentarians voted to keep the Liberal party in power, although some thought it was a good idea. It makes sense to believe that those who voted against the government wanted an election to be triggered. So what's the current priority? I believe that it is to adopt Bill C‑19 in order to implement measures that would allow us to hold an entirely safe election, if it were to prove necessary.

I would now like to return to the concept of ministerial solidarity, which is an important, unique and essential factor. All members of cabinet swore an oath and accepted the responsibility not only to maintain confidentiality, but also to express the will of the government and present its policies.

It states:

Collective ministerial responsibility [of cabinet] refers to the convention requiring coherence and discipline of the ministry in deciding policy, managing government operations, and speaking to Parliament with a single voice.

Cabinet members must be able to speak in Parliament with only one voice. We see this in question period. While the questions are often for the prime minister, the prime minister is not necessarily the person who will answer the question. In accordance with this long-standing convention, another minister, who may have more information about the question or who has a higher level of responsibility for dealing with it, may answer. It can also be someone completely different. The cabinet members decide which ministers will answer the questions during question period and these answers are treated as if they came from the prime minister.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

I'll be happy now to continue with my comments.

I'm not a permanent member of this committee. I heard the comments from members of the opposition. We just ruled on an amendment and a motion. If these had been adopted, we would have been able to end the debate and begin studying Bill C‑19, which is extremely important. However, the opposition members voted against the amendment and the motion.

I must say that I did some research, because it's a subject I'm interested in. I'd like to continue to talk about the principle of ministerial accountability and our roles in the parliamentary system, in accordance with Westminster traditions.

I will be citing in English for clarity from the Treasury Board of Canada report of 2005. I was speaking before about the roles of minister:

[W]hat is clear from this overview of responsible government are the distinct and finely balanced roles of each of the system’s different players. Ministers exercise executive authority on the basis of the political support that they receive from Parliament; they therefore have political accountability to Parliament. Parliament, in turn, does not exercise executive authority, but it ensures that executive power is properly exercised. Its mechanisms for doing so are political and partisan.

I like the idea of in-depth debate on the whys and hows of our presence here.

It may not be linked directly to the matter at hand, but the issue in the report was the role of ministers and public servants. In many of our discussions, we talked about the accountabilities of officials and ministers, and attempted to determine who should appear before the committees.

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

Yes. That's perfect.

Back to the email, with all due respect, I do recognize that the Bloc today has a motion put forward as well. I totally appreciate where the minister's coming from, but I do believe it's the members of this committee who ultimately need to make the decision here. This decision has been delayed for over two and a half months.

I recognize that it's easy to throw the onus on the people who have not spoken for the last two and a half months while filibustering, but I think we've all said that we recognize we need to get to Bill C-19 and that it is important. We know there have been a lot of concerns of going into a federal election. I've heard Dr. Duncan speak of that and I've heard us all speak of that, concerned about the safety. I don't think that's neither here nor there. I think part of the thing is that we know that it's one of the most important things to get to. But we've known since February that this bill was coming forward. For the last two and a half months we've been wasting time. That is exactly what we've done. We've wasted two and a half months instead of getting to the work that we need to do.

I do know, as I've heard from all other opposition parties, that there still seems to be one thing that's outlying. I've heard Ms. Shanahan refer to part one, being the Prime Minister, of our original motion. I think these are just really big concerns. Bill C-19 can get to be studied if we actually find a final decision here. I think that's what we're waiting on, a decision on this motion. It's going on three months and we're still waiting for a decision.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Certainly I believe everybody on this committee wants to get to the consideration of Bill C-19, and we are reminded often by Minister Leblanc, other ministers and the Prime Minister that committees are the masters of their agenda and of their decisions.

If I can offer to Mr. Turnbull's earlier remarks and Ms. Shanahan's remarks, I believe in the Westminster system of government any efficient and effective minority government needs to govern with a certain pragmatic humility. We have seen, for the past two and a half months, Liberal members filibustering, filibustering still today, refusing to accept the will of the committee.

We could quite easily move on to Bill C-19 and the estimates with a vote and the committee accepting the will of the majority of our members to call a certain witness to complete our study on prorogation. I think that's really where we are right now, and Minister Leblanc's urging notwithstanding, it's time for a bit of that pragmatic humility and for Liberal members to accept the will of the majority of the membership of this committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I call this meeting back to order. There are a couple of things before I give the floor back to Ms. Shanahan.

At around 12 o'clock today, I got an email from Minister Leblanc's office. They have reached out to appear before the committee on the urgent matter of studying Bill C-19.

They stated:

As you know, the Opposition has voted 14 times for an election in recent weeks, and it is the responsibility of all parties to make sure that the necessary protections are in place if the Opposition send Canadians to the polls.

That is what they wrote. I'm just reading what they wrote. I just want to let you know that. It's up to the committee, really, at the end of the day who they want to see as witnesses and whether we move to that study. However, I just want you to all be aware that I did receive that email. I forwarded it to the clerk as well.

Also, our window is narrowing on the main estimates. We still have those witnesses on the sidelines waiting if you want to call them.

Considering what Mr. Blaikie said earlier and the reason I'm stating it, maybe it gives parties the time to have some space before they move on to whether they're having a vote on this issue or moving on to another study. It might make some space to do something else in the meantime, but it's really up to the committee again.

Last time, on Tuesday, I felt there was no desire to even undertake the main estimates. I'm not sure if those were the thoughts of everybody. Nobody really verbalized it. I just got a lot of no responses to the question, so my guess was that there was not that much interest in doing the main estimates. However, I don't want to mistake that by you just not wanting to start them this week versus, after the constituency week, maybe there is interest in taking up the main estimates. Just let me know if you are interested, once again, because we have those witnesses on standby.

Those are the two announcements: the email I received and the main estimates.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to start by informing you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.

I am very pleased to rise today to speak to a motion that states the obvious, which is that holding an election during the pandemic is not a good idea.

People in Elmwood—Transcona and across Manitoba are experiencing a serious tightening in pandemic restrictions. Store capacities are being severely restricted, our schools are closing, visiting outside on the property of family and friends has just been prohibited. The last thing on the minds of people, just as my Conservative colleague said was true for his riding is true as well in Elmwood—Transcona, is having an election.

Even if constituents are not necessarily impressed with the response of the government to everything in the pandemic, I think they recognize that it is better that Parliament continue to work and put pressure on the government to get things right rather than suspend Parliament, allowing the government to govern with a free hand during an election. We also do not what the outcome of that election will be both in terms of who might form a government afterward and whether we will be able to elect a full House of MPs. We have the example of Newfoundland and Labrador, which was unable to complete its election as foreseen, and a lot of disputes about the legitimacy of political outcomes arose from that. What Canada cannot afford right now is to add a political crisis on top of a health and economic crisis, which is why this motion is so important.

As I said, restrictions are getting more serious in Manitoba. In some cases, that just means we are implementing things that have already been the case for some time now in the third wave in other provinces. There are some provinces where restrictions are still looser. However, the point is that even though we have seen some provincial elections take place during certain times of the pandemic, the challenge of pulling that off from coast to coast to coast, across 10 provinces and three territories, is far more than pulling it off at the provincial level. We have seen, even at that level, it can fail.

The logistics of a federal election are orders of magnitude more complex than a provincial election. That is why it is all the more important that we avoid, if we can, a federal election.

What does that take? It takes some good faith and good will by all players in the House, but particularly the government, which has to find a way forward. It does not mean that the government needs to always have a consensus among all the parties, but it at least has to have a meaningful partner on each of the initiatives it moves forward with, It also has to recognize that when it cannot find a meaningful partner, it does not have the mandate to move forward on a particular issue.

How does that fall apart? The only way it should fall apart is if the other parties all end up voting against the government at the same time. This is the only real proof that the government cannot find a consensus on an important or key part of its mandate. That is the real test. It is not how the Prime Minister feels when he wakes up in the morning. or whether he is upset because certain members of the opposition have criticized him too much on something or whether they are speaking more than he might like to certain things. If he can find another partner, certain things can be expedited, and we have seen that. It came up earlier. The NDP recently worked with the government to try to get Bill C-19 to committee, because we think it is important the bill passes. I will have to more say on that in a bit.

However, for the time being, I would like to know if the Bloc, in putting this motion forward, and not for the first time, does not think an election should occur in the pandemic and if it is committed to not cause an election during the pandemic. The Conservative Party has been on record for a long time now, at least back to February when the leader of the Conservative Party said very clearly in the Toronto Star that he would not trigger an election. Yes, the Conservatives voted against the budget and against other things, but they have done that knowing another responsible party would pick up the slack, do their job and ensure that there would not be an election. We all have strong feelings about what the government does, but we are very mindful of the consequences of our actions in the New Democratic caucus and we are willing to be the adult in the room.

We have said it for a long time, going back to June 2020 when I wrote to my colleagues on the democratic reform file, saying that we needed to talk about what would happen if the situation in Parliament lead to an election. We did not hear back for the summer, but we did eventually get a study at the procedure and House affairs committee. The outcome of that study was an all-party recommendation, no one dissented, which is in black and white in the final report of the procedure and House affairs committee. It says that there should not be an election in the pandemic unless the government loses a vote of confidence in the House of Commons, which it has not yet done.

It does not matter if some parties vote against the government. What matters is whether the government can find a partner to get its vital business through the House. So far, it has been able to do that, and our opinion is that it should continue to try to do that. As long as it is willing to make reasonable compromises, it can do that until we get out of the pandemic.

If the Conservatives, the Bloc members and the New Democrats are saying they do not want an election in the pandemic, how could it possibly happen except if the Prime Minister unilaterally decides to exercise the powers of his office and call an election even though the opposition parties do not think we should have one. After repeated calls for him to commit to not taking that road, putting Canadians who are worried that we might end up having a political crisis on top of a health and economic crisis at ease, the Prime Minister refuses to make that commitment, which is a point of serious frustration.

This leads me to the point about Bill C-19 which came up earlier. Yes, the NDP worked with the government because we saw a consensus around the principle of the bill. That is the same consensus that I witnessed around the table at PROC from an all-party point of view, which members can read about in the final report by the affairs committee. Under the current rules for an election, if we try to run an election just as if it is any other election and the pandemic did not happen, it will lead to failure, if not failure on the health side, then on the democratic side. We need to try to have some accommodation. Why is that a matter of urgency? It is urgent because the Prime Minister refuses to commit to not call one.

To some extent, I am surprised at the level of trust my Conservative and Bloc colleagues seem to have in the Prime Minister to put the public good ahead of his private political interests. The New Democrats do not share that faith. We are willing to negotiate with a government, which we often disagree with, to get things done and to make Parliament work. However, that in no way leads to any kind of naive faith on the part of our party about the Prime Minister, a Prime Minister whose right-hand man, Bill Morneau, through a large part of the pandemic, was just found to have committed ethical violations in respect of the WE Charity scandal; a Prime Minister who, himself on many occasions on a number of issues, whether it was billionaire island or other things, has been found to be in breach of the Code of Ethics for members of Parliament and for government. That has not happened with a lot of Prime Ministers, so this is not the guy to put our faith in when it comes to making decisions to put the public good ahead of his private interests.

We are not naive about that, and it is why we think it is important that Bill C-19 continue to make progress. Whether opposition parties and Canadians want it, the Prime Minister has made it very clear that he will defend his right to call an election whenever it suits his purposes. If he were not committed to that view, he would already have come out and said, “I' m not going to call an election unless I lose a confidence vote in the House of Commons”, but he will not say that. We are all good at reading between the lines on Parliament Hill. We know exactly what that means.

I never heard in the debate we had either at PROC on a pandemic election or in the several hours of debate we had in the House on Bill C-19 anyone disagree that the rules need to be changed. The point is to get those changes right. That work should happen at committee. The bill can be there now, once the Liberals stop filibustering at that committee, and then we can get on with that work. We need to get on with the work because we know the Prime Minister cannot be trusted to put the public interests of Canadians ahead of his private political gain.