Madam Speaker, I am not too sure exactly where to begin. There is so much that one could start with, in regard to this particular motion that has been presented by the Conservative opposition. What it does is clearly show and amplify the silliness and the destructive force of the Conservative Party of Canada here in the House of Commons.
We can talk about consistency. The only consistency I have witnessed from the Conservative Party over the last number of years, including the days when I was in opposition and Stephen Harper was the Prime Minister, was the character assassination of the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, even before he was leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. All one needs to do is look at Hansard, the production of papers that clearly show what is being said inside the House of Commons.
When I was in the third party with the leader of the Liberal Party, if we review some of those S.O. 31s and the comments that were coming out, the Conservative Party was focused on personal attacks of the then leader of the Liberal Party. Nothing has changed. We went through an election back in 2015. All we have to do is take a look at the negative ads that were out there against the leader of the Liberal Party, and then take a look at the first few days after we took office back in 2015, to see that the Conservatives continued the personal attacks.
They expanded it. They started to include every minister they could possibly think of. They looked for the little rocks to try to uncover, amplify, distort and create issues that clearly were there for one reason and one reason alone, and that was to attack personally the Prime Minister and the leadership of the Government of Canada. They have spent a great deal of resources, both time and finances, whether it was justified or not, and it is always the latter, from my perspective.
I have stood in this place before and I have indicated, as other members of the caucus have indicated, that as much as the Conservative Party wants to spend all of its time and effort on character assassination, we will continue to be there for Canadians in a very real and tangible way by remaining focused on what is important to Canadians.
When the Conservatives first started attacking the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance back in 2015 and 2016, we might recall some of the initiatives we had taken. Coming out of the 2015 election, we made it very clear that our number one priority was going to be supporting Canada's middle class and those aspiring to become a part of it, while at the same time providing supports for those people who are in need. When we talked a great deal about that and took initiatives to support that, we still had the Conservative Party playing in the mud.
I remember the Conservatives saying, and they have referenced this in the last number of weeks, that the former minister of finance had a villa in France and it was not declared, and there was a ruling that came from the Ethics Commissioner that it should have been declared. They really like to ramp that up.
However, it was shortly after the federal election when there was a news article in which the then minister of finance was publicly talking about the cottage he had in France. It is not like he was trying to hide something from the public or was trying to not be transparent. How is it a secret when the media are already aware of it? Yes, it should have been listed in a document, which we are all expected to fill out, and the Ethics Commissioner pointed that out. As such, like with other rulings from the Ethics Commissioner, who does more than just look at government members, a decision was made, and when that decision was made, we accepted it and acted accordingly.
We have respected the institutions that we have as parliamentarians, but from the Conservative Party's point of view, it is more about how they can build up the Conservative spin, how they can try to mislead Canadians in many ways and how they can turn it into government corruption. That is what it is all about, and that is the reason, in part, that they have a fixation on the issue of character assassination. This is why, as I have very much indicated, when we talk about the motion before us, the Conservatives want to bring something back to a standing committee of the House for the purpose of focusing the attention of the House of Commons on it.
In many ways, they want to focus purely on fabrications and issues that, quite frankly, have been discussed, debated and moved on from, whether through apologies, time or an election. Some of the stuff they talk about happened three Conservative leaders ago, but that does not cause them to lose their focus. I think it is important that we ask ourselves why we would want to continue to go in the direction the official opposition wants us to go. I would suggest that we need to do what we have been doing, and that is to remain focused.
I talked about 2015 when the Conservatives were being critical and making all sorts of allegations, and often they were allegations that they would only say inside the chamber but not outside of it. Their personal attacks were often attacks against family members as well. When that took place, I witnessed first-hand, as did other members, the Prime Minister indicated that they could continue their attacks on him as the prime minister, but, as he said, “We will stay focused on Canadians”. We would take both the budgetary and legislative measures that were ultimately there to support Canadians.
As I said, in the first mandate with regards to the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class, we addressed many of the inequities, whether it was the tax on Canada's 1% wealthiest or support for children and seniors, which literally lifted hundreds of thousands out of poverty. We heard from the Minister of Finance earlier today the overall number of people who have been lifted out of poverty. We also had the tax break for Canada's middle class. These are the issues that we have brought forward, much to the chagrin of the Conservatives, who want us to be focused on their agenda.
If we fast forward, we went through another election in 2019. Once again, we saw the Conservatives preoccupied with the idea of trying to paint a picture of the need for change because of corruption. At the end of the day, we were given yet another mandate. Shortly after that mandate, we saw the need for us to work as a team toward the battling of the pandemic.
We put in a great deal of effort as a government to work with Canadians and a wide spectrum of stakeholders, including other provincial governments, indigenous governments, community leaders, school divisions, municipalities and people as a whole. We were very much working with health care experts, looking at science and remaining focused on getting us through the pandemic.
There was a very small window during which even the Conservative Party seemed to realize it was in the best interest for us to do that, but it sure did not last very long. It lasted maybe a couple of months, and then the Conservatives wanted to get back to the gutter. It is unfortunate, but the moment they started in that way, we continued with our focus. This is what we continue to do today.
Why now have the Conservatives brought forward this motion? What is the purpose of it? They will tell us it is because they want it to go to a standing committee and that they want to talk about ethics and so forth, again and again. That is no doubt one of the reasons it is important for them to try to change the focus of what is taking place on the floor of the House of Commons.
What were we supposed to be debating today? I had the opportunity earlier today to provide comments on Bill C-18. Prior to me speaking on Bill C-18, we had to time allocate the legislation. We had no choice but to bring in time allocation. One of the things we have learned is that the Conservative Party does not have any desire to see legislation pass through the House of Commons.
When Conservatives see co-operation coming from other political entities in the chamber, they get upset. They do not seem to understand that with the third mandate, which put us in a minority situation, it is just not the Government of Canada or the Liberal Party that was given the mandate. Opposition parties also have a responsibility in a minority government.
The Conservative Party, I would argue, has failed to meet up to the responsibilities Canadians entrusted them with back in September. We have seen that in the behaviour of its members, especially in the last few months.
I have more years of parliamentary experience in opposition than I do in government. I was in opposition for 23 or 24 years, and hopefully I will be able to match that in government. I have never seen such a destructive force as the Conservative Party's approach in dealing with legislation. Today we are supposed to be talking about and debating Bill C-18. Let me remind my Conservative friends that Bill C-18 is an election platform issue that even the Conservative Party supported back in September.
I believe all political entities in the House recognized that having news agencies and reporters and news based on facts were of critical importance to our democracy, and that we needed to take on those tech giants. The former leader of the Conservative Party, not the interim leader but the former leader—
