Bill C-71

An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2024)

This enactment amends the Citizenship Act to, among other things,
(a) ensure that citizenship by descent is conferred on all persons who were born outside Canada before the coming into force of this enactment to a parent who was a citizen;
(b) confer citizenship by descent on persons born outside Canada after the first generation, on or after the coming into force of this enactment, to a parent who is a citizen and who had a substantial connection to Canada before the person’s birth;
(c) allow citizenship to be granted under section 5.1 of that Act to all persons born outside Canada who were adopted before the coming into force of this enactment by a parent who was a citizen;
(d) allow citizenship to be granted under section 5.1 of that Act to persons born outside Canada who are adopted on or after the coming into force of this enactment by a parent who is a citizen and who had a substantial connection to Canada before the person’s adoption;
(e) restore citizenship to persons who lost their citizenship because they did not make an application to retain it under the former section 8 of that Act or because they made an application under that section that was not approved; and
(f) allow certain persons who become citizens as a result of the coming into force of this enactment to access a simplified process to renounce their citizenship.

Business of the House

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague well knows, it is him and his party members who are keeping Parliament paralyzed because they are obstructing their own motion of instruction. The Speaker very clearly ruled that this matter should be sent to the procedure and House affairs committee for further study. We agree with that. We are just waiting for the Conservative Party of Canada members of Parliament to do the same. In the interim, they continue to filibuster their own filibuster, and we have seen that, because they continue to amend their amendments on this matter, but when they are ready to get back to work, we are here to work for Canadians, and we look forward to that.

As I mentioned last week, we look forward to the Conservatives putting an end to their political games so that the House can move on to studying Bill C-71 on citizenship, Bill C‑66 on military justice, Bill C‑63 on online harms, the ways and means motion on capital gains and the ways and means motion on charities.

I also want to inform the House of our government's announcement regarding upcoming legislation to put more money in the pockets of Canadians through a tax break and a working Canadians rebate. We would be giving a tax break to all Canadians and putting more money directly into the pockets of the middle class. These are important measures to help Canadians pay their bills. We encourage Parliament and all parties to get this legislation passed quickly and unanimously, so workers and working families can get more money in their pockets. We are committed to getting things done for Canadians in Parliament. Important legislation is before the House, and we believe the Conservatives should stop playing obstructionist, partisan games so that MPs can debate those bills.

I would also like to inform the House that the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth will deliver a ministerial statement on Monday, November 25, which is the first day of the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence.

Request for Witness to Attend at the Bar of the House

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one member across the way said “yay”, but there are other issues, and not just government issues.

The Conservatives have opposition day motions, and when they bring them forward, they like to say the motions are confidence motions. However, I think Canadians would love to see an opposition day motion that deals with the housing accelerator fund. We have 17 Conservative members across the way who are scared because the leader of the Conservative Party is saying the party opposes it. The party is going to kill that particular fund. Therefore, we have Conservative MPs who are having a difficult time trying to justify their very existence on such an important issue. We should have a vote on that particular issue, but we cannot do so. The Conservatives know full well that all they have to do is continue to put up speaker after speaker on matters of privilege, and then nothing else can take place on the floor for debate.

The housing accelerator fund is providing thousands of housing units, or homes, in every region of our country, but we have the official opposition opposing it. Actually, that is not fair to say. We have the leader of the official opposition saying that the program is bad and needs to be cut. However, a dozen or more Conservative members are saying they like the program. They are writing to the Minister of Housing to say that they want this program to be applied in our communities. We have mayors in different areas of the country saying that this is a good program. However, there is this division within the Conservative Party. In order to avoid that sort of a division, why not continue to talk about privilege? It is a privilege motion for which everyone is saying yes to having the member come before the bar, but the Conservatives have no interest in voting on it. As I have indicated very clearly, it is a fairly straightforward motion that Mr. Anderson be called before the bar to answer questions. If everyone believes that, fine, we will accept that and allow it to come to a vote. However, what is the purpose of the Conservative Party not only continuing to debate the motion but now also actually moving an amendment to the motion, which means that we could see dozens speak to it?

What happened on the previous motion? We saw over 100 Conservatives speak to it. Weeks and weeks of potential debate on other issues were left to the wayside and never dealt with, such as Bill C-71, an act to amend the Citizenship Act; Bill C-66, which would transfer issues related to sexual abuse from military courts to civil courts; Bill C-33, strengthening the port system and railway safety in Canada act, which deals with our supply lines; and Bill C-63, the proposed online harms act to protect children on the Internet. This is not to mention the fall economic statement or the many opposition days that are being lost because the Conservatives are filling the time on issues of privilege, even though the very motions they are bringing forward are ones that we are okay with actually seeing pass. The reason, as I started off by saying, is that it is a multi-million dollar game, and it is all about character assassination. This is why I posed the question to the member opposite: What is the issue?

The issue is that we have a minister representing an Edmonton riding, and there have been concerns in regard to some text messaging and how that could have had an impact on the issue at hand. As I have pointed out, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner has looked at this issue not once, not twice, but three times and cleared the minister responsible each time.

When I posed that particular question to the member, his response was that it is not true. It is true. Members of the Conservative Party know it is true, but they continue to push. Why is that? It is because, as I pointed out in my question, even when the Prime Minister was the leader of the Liberal Party in third party, the Conservative Party continued to attack the individual. Nothing has changed. The wonderful thing about Hansard is that everything said inside the chamber is actually recorded and there for people to read. People do not have to believe me; they can just read the Hansards. We can go back to the time when the leader of the Liberal Party was in third party. We will find personal attacks on the leader, especially in member statements.

We have witnessed it of other ministers inside the chamber. It is the type of thing where I could enter into that same field, talk about personalities and start to look at the leader of the Conservative Party. I referred to an interesting document. By the way, the relevance of this is in regard to the issue of attacking the character of an individual. It is some sort of a report that was published. The title is “Stephen Harper, Serial Abuser of Power: The Evidence Compiled”. Actually, not all the evidence is compiled, because there are a number of things I am aware of that are not actually included in this document. However, it is about abuse of power, scandals and corruption.

There are 70 of them listed, for anyone who is interested, but one of them that is really interesting is that Stephen Harper was actually found in contempt of Parliament. We can think about that. He is the only prime minister in the British Commonwealth, which includes Canada, to ever be found in contempt of Parliament. Can we guess who his parliamentary secretary was? It was the leader of the Conservative Party.

That is one, but I am a little off topic there. I go through this article, and the leader of the Conservative Party's name comes up on more than one occasion. Let us go to page 9, to something called the vanity video; the article reads, “The Globe and Mail revealed that Harper’s chosen Minister for Democratic Reform [the now leader of the Conservative Party] commissioned a team of public servants for overtime work on a Sunday to film him glad-handing constituents.”

It goes on, but he was promoting using civil servants and wearing his Conservative Party uniform, and of course, we cannot do that. If the Ethics Commissioner was to look into that, I suspect maybe they would have found some sort of fine or a penalty, or he would have been found offside.

However, one of the ones Harper is really well known for is the “Elections bill [that] strips power from Elections Canada”. The story says, “The Fair Elections Act also makes it harder for Canadians to vote as more ID is required. Nationwide protests in which more than 400 academics took part forced [the leader of the Conservative Party] to withdraw some measures in the bill because of their alleged anti-democratic bent.”

Anti-democratic: I think there could be some relevancy here. It goes on to say, the “Democratic Reform Minister [the leader of the Conservative Party] accused the Elections Canada CEO Marc Mayrand of being a power monger and wearing a team jersey.”

Here we have the Conservative Party now calling into question the Ethics Commissioner, but when the leader of the Conservative Party was the minister responsible for democratic reform, he labelled the chief of our electoral system, Elections Canada. That is why I do not say it lightly. We have a leader of the Conservative Party who is in borderline contempt, in terms of what we are witnessing in Parliament today. He has no qualms doing that. It is demonstrated.

Not only that, but if we take a look at the issue of security clearance, I do not know how many times I have asked the question of Conservative MP after Conservative MP: Why does the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada not get the security clearance so that he can better understand foreign interference? That is a very real issue. We have all sorts of things that are taking place in our community. An individual has been murdered; individuals are being held in many different ways for financial purposes. We have all sorts of interference in political parties, in the leader of the Conservative Party's own leadership.

When he was elected as leader, there were issues related to foreign interference and how that influenced the leadership that he ultimately won. The Bloc, the Green, the NDP and the Prime Minister all have the security clearance. He is the only leader who does not. Why will the leader of the Conservative Party not do likewise? The arguments he uses are bogus. He knows that. We have experts clearly indicating that the leader of the Conservative Party has nothing to worry about in terms of being able to get the security clearance, from a perspective of being able to listen and talk about the issue of the day. That is not the concern. However, it does raise an issue. What is in the background of the leader of the Conservative Party regarding which, ultimately, he is scared to get that security clearance? I believe there is something there.

There is something that the leader of the Conservative Party does not want Canadians to know. I think we should find that out. That is why, whether it is me or other members of the government, we will continue to call upon the leader of the Conservative Party to get that security clearance.

Instead of playing this multi-million dollar game, let us start dealing with the issues that are important to Canadians. Let us talk about the fall economic statement and the legislation before the House that the Conservatives do not want to have discussions on. Let us have opposition days and private members' bills. We should allow the chamber to do the work that Canadians want us to do.

As the Conservative Party, and the leader of the Conservative Party in particular, is so focused on them, I can assure people following the debate that the Government of Canada and the Prime Minister will always continue to be focused on Canadians first and foremost. Unfortunately, we have to participate in this game; however, at the end of the day, we will continue to push a Canadian agenda, an agenda that reflects what we believe Canadians want.

That is something we will continue to advocate for. I would ask that, if Conservatives across the way understand the cost of the game they are playing, they stop with the character assassination they began back in 2011. Let us get down to business and do some good things for Canadians. We can do so much more if we start working together. Not only were all the other parties given a responsibility to do some good things inside the chamber, but the Conservative Party was too.

Business of the House

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague knows, the motion that the Speaker presented actually said to refer this matter to the procedure and House affairs committee. That is exactly what we support.

We look forward to the Conservatives ending their silly games, starting to respect the charter rights of Canadians and the independence of the police, and moving this to committee to make sure that we respect the independence of powers in this country. I will also note that thousands of pages have indeed been tabled. They have just been done so in a way that respects the charter rights of Canadians.

We are looking forward to debating, once the Conservatives stop freezing the work of this place, important legislation, such as Bill C-71, concerning citizenship; Bill C-66 on military justice; Bill C-63, the online harms legislation; and two ways and means motions, one related to capital gains and one that would require more transparency from charities that use deceptive tactics to push women away from making their own reproductive decisions.

On this side of the House, we will continue to work for Canadians and represent their interests. I wish all members would do the same.

As it is Remembrance Week, and we are coming up to Remembrance Day, I would like to take a moment to thank every service member and every veteran who has served our country, both in times of conflict and in times of peace. I know that every member in the House will be taking a moment on Remembrance Day to remember the sacrifices of our veterans and of those who continue to serve in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Lest we forget.

Industry and Technology

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise today to talk about what is going on in the House. I would like to provide some context as to why I think we are debating this particular motion today.

I will share my time with the member for Milton, who will provide his insight, perhaps a better insight, into the actual substance of the report.

I will start by saying that I appreciated the last comment from the member for Simcoe North about Bitcoin. I really hope he does not need to go anywhere and can stay in the House to get up when I finish my speech to ask me a question about Bitcoin. I would love to know more about his feelings on Bitcoin. The price has gone up, according to him. I did not realize that this morning, but the price of Bitcoin, according to the member for Simcoe North, has gone up, so I would love to hear more about that. I would also love to hear more about the policies the Conservatives have to offer Canadians on Bitcoin and investing in Bitcoin.

Perhaps this means we will soon see the Leader of the Opposition buy another shawarma with Bitcoin. That would be a great video, and what better time then when the price of Bitcoin is going up? I would encourage the member for Simcoe North to stay in his seat, bear with having to listen to me for nine more minutes and then get up so we can talk about Bitcoin. He can ask me a question about Bitcoin and provide me with some of the great insight I need to know about that. I would love to engage in that discussion.

We have to take the opportunity to understand why we are here right now talking about this particular issue. I am not saying it is not an important issue. I think that is an extremely important thing to ask the anti-competitive agencies to engage in looking at certain practices.

However, let us back up to about four weeks ago, when Conservatives started debating a privilege motion. I know the member who moved that motion likes to talk about procedure and how things happen. He makes sure those who are watching are properly informed, so I will do the same. The Conservatives moved a motion based on a ruling from the Speaker, and as a result, we have seen the Conservatives filibustering for the last four and a half weeks. They are filibustering their own motion, I should add. The motion is to send this particular question of privilege to PROC, yet they do not even want to vote on that.

Conservatives moved a motion to send this somewhere, but they absolutely refuse to do that. What have they done in the process? They filibustered by putting up almost all, and I believe at last count it was about 106 Conservatives, to speak for 20 minutes. They then moved an amendment, which allowed some of them to speak twice or even three times. When that started to run out, they then started to move concurrence motions like the one we are debating today. After that, they allowed the debate on the subamendment to the privilege motion to collapse so they could reset their speaking roster and start from scratch to give everybody another 20-minute round.

That is the game being played in the House of Commons right now. That is the game, which was referred to earlier as a multi-million dollar game, the Conservatives are playing. To the people watching, it is their tax dollars that are going toward that. It is their tax dollars being spent, in the millions of dollars right now, to keep the House operating in order to appease the Conservatives' desire for a filibuster. This is a filibuster on an issue that, by the way, the Speaker has ruled on. The Conservatives are the only ones who are speaking to it. At times, they are the only ones who are asking each other questions on the issue.

Conservatives are doing it for only one reason. They are doing it to support the concept and promote the idea that the House is dysfunctional and nothing can get done. This is because they benefit off of and see opportunity come from making things seem totally chaotic. Where have we witnessed that lately? It seems to happen a lot south of the border, so Conservatives have jumped on board and have said that this is how they are going to deal with things too. They are going to make things seem completely out of order. It is the only way to advance any of their personal political objectives, and this is where we have ended up.

The reason it is important for folks at home to know this is that we have an Order Paper and a projected order of business each day for the House of Commons. This is public. We can find it on the website and there is a printed copy provided every day.

Just so folks at home know what we would have been debating and discussing, had the Conservatives not chosen to continue this filibuster and bring forward concurrence motions like the one we have today, I will list some of the things that are on the Order Paper. The next item to be debated is from the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and it is Bill C-71, an act to amend the Citizenship Act 2024, which would make amendments to our Citizenship Act. After that, there is a ways and means motion to bring in adjustments to the capital gains tax, which we had been talking about for a number of months. That is what we were going to debate after Bill C-71. Following that, there is the Minister of National Defence making changes to the military justice system. That is also listed on the Order Paper as one of the items the House would be debating. The Order Paper also lists an act to enact the Online Harms Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Human Rights Act and an act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts.

These are the issues that the Canadian public should know we are trying to debate in the House of Commons while the Conservatives are talking to each other all the time. As the Conservatives are setting up these concurrence motions and their motions of privilege, they are filibustering. We cannot talk in the House of Commons right now about protecting children from online harm because the Conservatives have chosen to bring this place to an absolute halt and not let anything proceed for five weeks now. I will put 90% of the blame on Conservatives, and then I will assign 5% of the blame to both the Bloc and the NDP because the Bloc and the NDP know that there is a way through this.

[Alison Irons]

I'm already concerned when you mention data because, as you know, we have implemented Bill C-71, which required adult lifetime background checks for gun licensing. I was in a meeting earlier in June with the RCMP and the national firearms program. I have made the point repeatedly that if in fact the police are now conducting those adult lifetime background checks and denying or revoking licences, their data should show an increase in the number of licence refusals and revocations. They can't even tell us that, three years after Bill C-71 was implemented.

As you know, the collection of the data is a serious problem. Police and media are still not reporting on when a legal gun is used in a femicide or a homicide, so data is a key concern of mine, for sure.

Business of the House

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, as I have shared many times in this chamber, the government supports the motion that the Conservatives moved, and that they continue to filibuster, to refer the matter to committee.

Let us be clear that the Conservatives have decided that they want to grind the House to a halt rather than work for Canadians, which is preventing the House from debating and voting on important business that we would like to get back to, including Bill C-71 relating to citizenship, Bill C-66 on military justice, Bill C-63 concerning online harms, the ways and means motion related to capital gains, and the ways and means motion tabled this week, which contains our plan to require more transparency from charities that use deceptive tactics to push women away from making their own reproductive decisions.

In conclusion, while the Conservatives shake their fists saying that they are holding the government to account, what they are showing Canadians is just how reckless they can be in their relentless pursuit of power.

We, on this side, will continue to work for Canadians.

Medical Assistance in Dying

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

Madam Speaker, before I get under way, I would like to comment on the member's last statement. He pointed out the Conservative Party's resistance to the issue. I believe it is Bill C-390 that the Bloc is advocating for and advancing, which attempts to deal with the issue. This is the first time I am hearing it on the floor of the House. I would have thought Bloc members would have raised the issue with the leadership teams in the hope that we might be able to work together on Bill C-390 and, at the very least, how it might be incorporated into some of the consultations.

There is absolutely no doubt this is a very important issue. Since 2015, when the Supreme Court decided on the issue, it has been a hot topic for parliamentarians on all sides of the House. We have seen a great deal of compassion and emotion, and understandably so.

Before I get into the substance of the report, I want to refer to why we find ourselves again talking about this concurrence report. For issues of the day that are really important to caucus strategies, or the desire to have a public discussion, we have what we call opposition days. We need to contrast concurrence reports, including the one today that the Bloc has brought forward, with opposition day motions that are brought forward. We will find there is a stark difference. The Bloc is not alone. It will bring forward a motion or a concurrence report and say how important it is that we debate it, yet it is never given any attention on opposition days, when not only could the concurrence report be debated, but the opposition day motion could instruct an action of some form or another.

Why are we debating it today? I would suggest it is because of an action taken a number of weeks ago. We need to ask ourselves why there has been no discussion on Bill C-71, the Citizenship Act, which we started the session with. Everyone but the Conservatives supports that act. There is Bill C-66, where sexual abuses taking place within the military could be shifted over to the civil courts. My understanding is that every political party supports that legislation.

There is Bill C-33 regarding rail and marine safety and supply lines, which is very important to Canada's economy. There is Bill C-63, the online harms bill. Last night, members talked about the importance of protecting children from the Internet, and yet the government introduced Bill C-63, the online harms act. We are trying to have debates in the House of Commons on the legislation I just listed. It does not take away from the importance of many other issues, such as the one today regarding MAID. MAID is an important issue, and I know that. We all know that.

Yesterday, a concurrence report on housing was debated. Housing is also a very important issue, I do not question that, but we have well over 100 reports in committees at report stage. If we were to deal with every one of those reports, not only would we not have time for government legislation, but we would not have time for opposition days either, not to mention confidence votes. I am okay with that, as long as we get the budget passed through. We have to ask why we are preventing the House of Commons from being able to do the things that are important to Canadians. That can be easily amplified by looking at the behaviour of the Conservative Party.

The Conservatives will stand up today and talk about MAID, as well they should; I will too. However, there is no doubt that they are happy to talk about that issue today only because it feeds into their desire to prevent the government from having any sort of debate on legislation, let alone attempting to see legislation pass to committee. The Conservative Party is more concerned about its leader and the Conservative Party agenda than the agenda of Canadians and the types of things we could be doing if the official opposition party would, for example, allow its motion to actually come to a vote.

We are debating this concurrence motion because the Conservatives have frustrated the other opposition parties to the degree that we are sick and tired of hearing Conservatives stand up repeatedly, over 100 of them now, on the privilege issue, preventing any and all types of debate. So, as opposed to listening to Conservatives speak on something that is absolutely useless, we are ensuring that at least there is some debate taking place on important issues, such as MAID and housing.

Members of all political stripes need to realize the games the Conservatives are playing come at great expense to Canadians. The motion of privilege is to send the issue to PROC. Every member in the House supports that except for the Conservatives, yet it is a Conservative motion. They are filibustering and bringing the House to standstill, unless we are prepared to think outside the box and bring in a motion for concurrence. The concurrence motion, no doubt, is better than listening to the Conservatives continue to repeat speeches.

I attempted to address their speeches in great detail weeks ago. It is time we change the channel. It is time the Leader of the Opposition started putting Canadians and the nation's best interests ahead of his own personal interests and the Conservative Party of Canada's interests. We need to start talking about issues that Canadians want to hear about.

I was pleased when the member from the Bloc made reference to indications that the Province of Quebec wants to move forward on this issue. My understanding is that the province is even taking substantial actions towards it. Advance requests for MAID have been on the table and been discussed. We need to recognize it is not only Ottawa that plays a role in regard to MAID and its implementation. Our primary role is with the Criminal Code and how we might be able to make changes to it.

Members, no matter what region they come from, have to appreciate that Canada is a vast country in which there is an obligation to consult with the different provinces, territories, indigenous leaders, community advocates, health care professionals and Canadians. There is an obligation to do that, especially around the type of legislation the member of the Bloc is trying to change.

I was hoping to get a second question from the member, because he made reference to Bill C-390. I am not familiar with its background. It is probably completely related to the advance requests for MAID. The member, in his question to me, could maybe expand on what exactly the bill is proposing. I would ask, in regard to it, to what degree the member has done his homework. Doing the homework means going outside the province of Quebec. All provinces have something to say about the issue. Many people who were born in Quebec live in other jurisdictions, just as many people who were born in other parts of the country now call Quebec home.

We have an obligation to not take legislation dealing with issues like MAID lightly. Just because one jurisdiction is advancing it more quickly than another jurisdiction, or because one jurisdiction is demanding it, it does not necessarily mean Ottawa can buy into it at the snap of its fingers. That is not to take anything away from Quebec. On a number of fronts, Quebec has led the nation. I could talk about issues like $10-a-day child care, a national program that the Prime Minister and government, with solid support from the Liberal caucus, have advanced and put into place, and every province has now agreed to it. The MAID file is a good example where Quebec is probably leading, in pushing the envelope, more than any other province, as it did with child care. Other jurisdictions take a look at other aspects.

Health care, today, is a national program that was implemented by a national Liberal government, but the idea that predated it came from Tommy Douglas. Its practical implementation was demonstrated in the province of Saskatchewan. As a government, we continue to support health care in a very real and tangible way. By contrast, we can take a look at the Conservatives on health care and the concerns we have in terms of a threat to health care. We have invested $198 billion in health care. That ensures future generations can feel comfortable in knowing the federal government will continue to play a strong role in health care. Why is that relevant to the debate today? For many of the individuals who are, ultimately, recipients of MAID, it is an issue of long-term care, hospice care.

When my grandmother passed away in the 1990s, in St. Boniface Hospital, it was a very difficult situation. We would have loved to have had hospice care provided for her, but it did not happen. That does not take anything away from the fantastic work that health care workers provide in our system, but there she sat in a hospital setting, which was was questionable in terms of dying with dignity.

Health care and long-term care matter. With respect to my father's passing, it was Riverview and it was a totally different atmosphere because it provided hospice care. Health care matters when we talk about MAID. What the Government of Canada is bringing forward is recognition that we cannot change things overnight, but at least we are moving forward.

Back in 2015, when the Supreme Court made a decision, former prime minister Stephen Harper did absolutely nothing in terms of dealing with the issue of MAID, and the current leader of the Conservative Party was a major player during that whole Stephen Harper era. It put us into a position where, virtually immediately after the federal election, we had to take action, and we did. I remember vividly when members of Parliament shared stories in Centre Block. I remember the emotions. I remember many of my colleagues sitting on the committee that listened to Canadians from across the country with respect to the issue. We all talked to constituents and conveyed their thoughts in Ottawa. We were able to bring in and pass legislation, the first ever for Canada, that dealt with the issue.

In 2021, we actually updated the legislation that dealt with persons whose death was not reasonably foreseeable. We are making changes, but it has to be done in a fashion that is fair, reasonable and responsible.

We want to hear from Canadians. We want to hear what the different provinces, territories, indigenous leaders, stakeholders, doctors, nurses, those who are providing that direct care and the families have to say. This is a very personal decision that people have to make at very difficult times in their lives. We should not be taking it for granted in any fashion whatsoever.

That is the reason, once again, we have another special joint standing committee that hopefully will be starting its work in November, with the idea of doing something tangible over six or eight weeks, whatever it takes, so it can bring something back to the House to deal with advance requests for MAID. That seems to be the focal point of what the Bloc is talking about today.

I want to come back to some of my other comments in regard to the government's recognition of the importance of the issue of MAID. We have done that since 2015. We continue to recognize it and work with Canadians and the many different stakeholders, and we are committed to continuing to do that. It is unfortunate that because of the games being played by the leader of the Conservative Party and by members of the Conservative Party of Canada, the government is not able to continue to have important legislation debated, legislation like the Citizenship Act, the issue of military court to civil court with respect to sexual abuse, online harms act and the rail and marine safety act. All of these are so important.

I am asking the Conservative Party of Canada to stop focusing on its leader's best interests and to start thinking of Canadians' best interests. I am asking it to stop the filibuster and allow legislation, at the very least, to get to committee so Canadians can have their say.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to do a quick recap for anyone who missed the first part of my speech before QP. I started by saying why we have been here for three weeks debating a parliamentary privilege motion. I explained that it is because the Liberals will not produce the documents the Speaker ordered and that it is related to the green slush fund and the $400-million scandal, so no government business or private members' business can come forward until they produce the documents. That is what we are waiting for.

I started to debunk the myths of the weak reasons the Liberals have given for why they cannot produce the documents, beginning with their claim that giving the documents to the RCMP would be a violation of people's charter rights. This is absolutely not true. The police and the RCMP get tips all the time, for example through Crime Stoppers, phone calls and documents about criminal activity, and they have to exercise due diligence by looking into the evidence that is presented. If they do find evidence of criminality, then they need to go to the courts and request the documents formally so they can be used in a court case.

That is the law, so the argument is just a total red herring from the Liberals.

I talked about the Liberals' hypocrisy in even talking about charter rights, since they have violated every one of them, and I went down the whole list. I did not get to indigenous rights because if we started talking about the way they have violated those, we would be here all day. Therefore I will move along to my second point.

The Liberals have claimed that there needs to be more separation between Parliament and the RCMP. Certainly I agree that there should be separation. The job of the RCMP is to enforce the rule of law for everybody equally. I think that we are what our record says we are, so let us look at the record of the relationship and the separation between the RCMP and the Liberal government.

Let us start with the billionaire's island fiasco. Members may remember that the Prime Minister wasted 215,000 dollars' worth of taxpayer money. It was alleged that if he did not give himself written permission, it was actually fraud. The internal RCMP documents showed that the force considered opening a fraud investigation after details of the trip came to light, but it cited numerous reasons why it did not, including the fact that neither Parliament nor the Ethics Commissioner chose to refer the case to the police.

We can see from that, first of all, that the RCMP does accept documents from Parliament. We can also see that there was no evidence of whether or not the Prime Minister granted himself permission to go on the billionaire's island trip. If he did not, he definitely had committed fraud. The RCMP did not even bother to investigate.

Next is the SNC-Lavalin scandal. We know that Jody Wilson-Raybould was clear with the Prime Minister and Elder Marques that they absolutely could not talk to the prosecutor about getting SNC-Lavalin the deal to get it off the hook. The Prime Minister kicked Jody Wilson-Raybould to the curb and put his buddy David Lametti in place, and voila, SNC-Lavalin had the agreement it needed in order to get off the hook.

Did the RCMP investigate this? No, it did not, until four years after the fact, after Brenda Lucki retired, when the RCMP decided it was going to start investigating. Interestingly, as soon as it announced that, David Lametti was kicked out of cabinet and ended up stepping down as an MP.

Let us talk about the Brenda Lucki situation. In the Nova Scotia massacre, it was clear that the RCMP was working on behalf of Parliament, with the Liberal government. An article from the National Post says:

In June, the Mass Casualty Commission revealed disputes between RCMP investigators in Nova Scotia and the commissioner, with allegations Lucki let the politics interfere with the probe.

Notes from the Mountie in charge of the massacre investigation said that on a conference call, Lucki expressed disappointment the types of guns used by the killer had not been released to the public because she had promised the Prime Minister's Office and the public safety minister the guns would be detailed, tied to pending gun control legislation.

There is not a lot of separation there.

Now let us talk about the WE Charity scandal. Subsection 119(1) of the Criminal Code outlines that it is illegal for a holder of public office to take an action that benefits themself or their family. It is clear to everyone that the Prime Minister took an action by approving nearly a billion dollars for the WE Charity scandal.

We all know that his mother, his brother and his wife were paid by the WE Charity to do speaking engagements. According to a BBC News article, the Prime Minister said, “I made a mistake for not recusing myself from the discussions immediately, given my family's history”. He did not make a mistake; he broke the law. Again, the RCMP did nothing. If we look at the history, we see that there is not enough separation; there needs to be more.

If we go on to the next thing, they are claiming there is really nothing to see. However, a whistle-blower said there was criminal activity. We should at least get the documents the Speaker correctly ordered, and we should get to work on that.

However, it is a pattern of corruption. We have seen that with the government from the beginning. Since I was elected in 2015, there has been a history of corruption, not just at the Prime Minister's level but throughout the Liberal Party.

If we recall, there was Raj Grewal, a former MP, who was charged with fraud; Joe Peschisolido, a former Liberal MP, whose company was involved in and charged with a money laundering scam; Hunter Tootoo and Darshan Singh Kang, who were charged with sexual misconduct; the current Minister of Public Safety, in the clam scam, who gave a $25-million clam quota to his relative and a company that did not even own a boat, which was terrible; and the Minister of Transport, who gave money to her husband's company. It is a total conflict of interest.

The government is showing that it has this pattern of behaviour, and whenever the Liberals are caught, they do the obvious: They delay and refuse to release documents, or they release them all redacted. That needs to stop. Canadians have a right to know what happened to the $400 million and to get to the bottom of it.

The good news is that, while we continue to debate the parliamentary privilege part of this situation, no government bills can come forward. Therefore, the awful legislation the Liberals are trying to bring forward is not going to happen. For example, Bill C-63, which would put someone in jail for life if the government thought they might commit a hate crime in the future, is not going to come forward, nor is Bill C-71, which would take the children of Canadian citizens who live abroad, children who have never lived in Canada, and grant them Canadian citizenship. When they turned 18, they would be able to vote and decide, on their honour, where they wanted their vote to count. That is a new level of foreign interference, so I am happy that one is not coming forward.

Of course, we will also not see the bill that changes the date of the election so that MPs who lose their seat still get their pension. That will not be coming forward either. Nevertheless, it is an absolute disgrace to Canadians that money, $400 million, has basically been given out with 186 conflicts of interest. They act as though there is nothing to see here. It is totally unacceptable, and if the government wants to get back to work, the Liberals should do the right thing. They should produce the unredacted documents as the Speaker has requested.

Mr. Speaker, is there quorum?

Business of the House

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, as my colleague is well aware, we are complying with the ruling of the Speaker of the House, which indicated that this matter must be referred to committee. As the Speaker said, the Conservatives are obstructing their own obstruction. I cannot help but think that that is because they do not want to know the truth. Doing what they are asking would be an abuse of the House's power. We will always stand up for Canadians' rights and freedoms.

I also want to illustrate the fact that his question is totally fake, much like the tacky slogans Conservatives hide behind because they have no actual ideas or policies for the country. That is probably why they continue to filibuster their own motion: to distract Canadians from the fact that they are nothing more than an empty shell. It must be pretty embarrassing for Conservative MPs, having to filibuster their own motion day after day to protect their leader from any real accountability. It must also be kind of embarrassing for Conservative MPs to sit in a caucus with a leader who refuses to get a security clearance, because he clearly has something to hide. It is expected of a leader of a political party to do this, but beyond his little performances in the House, their leader does very little that comes close to leadership.

Despite the games being played by the Conservatives, on this side of the House, we are going to continue to work hard for Canadians. When the House does get back to debating legislation, the priorities will be Bill C-71 on citizenship, Bill C-66 on military justice, Bill C-63 on online harms and the ways and means motion related to capital gains.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, here we are again. We will remember, at this time last week, I stood in this place and listed the following business for the upcoming week: Bill C-71, on citizenship; Bill C-66, on military justice; Bill C-63, on online harms; and the ways and means motion related to capital gains. I am sorry to say that all we saw this week was more Conservative procedural games. I can only imagine that this is because they do not want to debate this important legislation as they are opposed to it for Canadians. Again, for a second week in a row, they have offered nothing constructive and have instead focused on bringing dysfunction to the chamber.

As I have said many time, the government is supportive of the Speaker's ruling and of the Conservative motion, actually, to refer the privilege matter to the Standing Committee on Procedures and House Affairs. Why can they not take yes for an answer?

The Conservatives are effectively spinning their own obstruction because they do not want this matter to be referred to committee. The funniest part about it is that they not only amended their own motion, but also, today, amended their own amendment. They are trying really hard to avoid this going to committee for further study. Perhaps that is because they will hear expert after expert talking about the egregious abuse of power being displayed by the official opposition, their interference in police work, their obstruction of police investigation and the fact that this shows complete disregard for democracy and the rights of Canadian citizens.

They clearly do not want to debate government legislation. All they want to do is serve themselves and their own partisan interests. We will continue to be here to work for Canadians.

Let me take this opportunity, as I know this weekend Canadian families will be together giving thanks for what they have, to wish all members in the House, as well as all Canadians, a very happy Thanksgiving.

Canadian Citizenship

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Bill C-71, a vital piece of legislation that would address the long-standing injustice faced by lost Canadians, individuals who, due to the Harper Conservatives' first-generation limit, have been unfairly excluded from Canadian citizenship. These individuals have lived in, worked in and contributed to Canada. Bill C-71 would grant citizenship to those people who were unfairly impacted by the previous Conservative government, while establishing a substantial connection-to-Canada test moving forward.

I look forward to working with parliamentarians from all parties to get the work done. It is time to right this historical wrong and ensure that all who should rightfully be Canadians are recognized as such.

Business of the House

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, that was cute, and I saw that the Conservative House leader was having a hard time not laughing at how ridiculous his statement was.

As the fourth week of fall in the House of Commons approaches, we have made good progress. For one thing, we passed Bill C‑76 to give Jasper the tools it needs to rebuild.

We also debated bills that are important to Canadians, such as Bill C‑71, which extends citizenship by descent beyond the first generation in an inclusive way, protects the value of Canadian citizenship and restores citizenship to Canadians who lost or never acquired it because of outdated provisions under a previous citizenship act.

We debated Bill C‑66, which recognizes that members of the Canadian Armed Forces are always there to protect Canada's security and that we have a duty to protect them from harassment and inappropriate behaviour. This landmark legislation would transform military justice in Canada and respond to outside recommendations by former justices Arbour and Fish of the Supreme Court of Canada.

We also debated Bill C‑63 on online harms, which seeks to provide stronger protection to children online and better protect Canadians from online hate and other types of harmful content.

I would like to thank members of Parliament who have been working constructively to advance these bills. The Conservatives, on the other hand, continue to do everything they can to block the important work of the House and prevent debate on legislation that will help Canadians. They have offered nothing constructive and instead have focused on cheap political stunts and obstruction for the sake of obstruction. They have lost two confidence votes already and continue to paralyze the business of the House.

The government supports debates on the privilege motions concluding quickly so that we can get back to the important work of the House. I extend my hand to any party that wants to work constructively to advance legislation that will help Canadians. Once debate has concluded on both privilege motions, our priority will be resuming debate on the bills I have listed.

Finance

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, on that point, I can recall, shortly after my daughter was elected back in 2015 or 2016, being out on Keewatin Street, taking signs out and having a wonderful story about pharmacare. I was a health critic for a couple of years when I was in the Manitoba legislature. Pharmacare is something that I believe should be there, and I am glad that we were able to work together to ensure that we have programs like pharmacare moving forward.

In regard to Bill C-71, I know that one of the member's colleagues has been a very strong advocate for it. The NDP has attempted to get Bill C-71 through the House, and last fall I think it was all the way through, recognizing the importance of the bill. We appreciate the support that we receive from opposition members, because we need that kind of support to get things passed.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

One of them is saying, “Hear, hear!”

Madam Speaker, now the Conservatives are saying that they do not want to be accountable through media like the CTVs or the CBCs of Canada because they do not have confidence in those national news broadcasters. It is because they do not want to answer the questions that are being posed to them. Instead, they want to rely on social media.

There is a reference to the leader of the Conservative Party being very similar to Trump. That might be a bit of a disservice to Donald Trump. Quite frankly, I am very disappointed in the direction the far-right Conservative Party is going today. There is also no sign of its members changing their attitudes. Look at the attitude of hate that Conservatives are promoting and the information they are providing to people.

Today, Conservatives brought forward a motion, and that motion is in keeping with their slogans. I will give them that much. Darn, they are good at slogans. They have slogans; they have bumper stickers. They are ready and itching to get them out there. The problem is that everything is based on a foundation of sand. At the end of the day, there is nothing to it but slogans and bumper stickers, which are supported by misinformation.

One of the examples I could give is related to what Conservative members have been talking a lot about already today. If someone were to do a Hansard search, how many Conservative members of Parliament would we find who have actually said anything about cutting the carbon rebates? I suspect we would not find any. How many have said, “cut the carbon tax”? I suspect, on average, each one has said it 10 times. Some have said it a couple hundred times, and others have not said it because they have not spoken.

I can suggest to members that, when Conservatives go to Canadians and say that they are going to save Canadians money, as they have said inside the chamber, by cutting the carbon tax, that is not true. More than 80% of the constituents that I represent get a carbon rebate. That rebate amount is more than the carbon tax that they pay. That means that their net income, their disposable income, is increased. That is the reality. Members do not have to believe me. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, who is independent, will tell us that.

Conservatives will spread misinformation because it sounds good. Some provinces do not even have the carbon tax, yet they will go to those provinces and say that they are going to cut the carbon tax, giving a false impression. The other day in debate, there was one member in the Conservative Party who stood up and said that a 34% cost increase on food is a direct result of the carbon tax. What a bunch of garbage. That is absolutely ridiculous. I challenged the member on that statement, and then I challenged a couple of other members on the statement this particular member made. They do not change their opinions on it, even if they are confronted with facts.

They do not change their opinions because they are so focused on that thirst for power. At the end of the day, they are not concerned about what is happening for Canadians, the day-to-day living that Canadians have to put up with, let alone the important issues that the House of Commons deals with on a daily basis.

Today, we were supposed to debate Bill C-71. Bill C-71 is a bill to ensure that individuals who should have never have lost their citizenship will be given their Canadian citizenship. Every political party, except for the Conservatives, supports that legislation. Conservatives do not even want to debate it now. They will not allow it to be debated. They do not want it to go to committee.

Members will say that the Conservatives do not support that one, but they do support Bill C-66. They say that they support it. That bill takes sexual harassment and rape victims who are going through military courts and transfers them into civil courts. Every member of the House of Commons, the Conservatives, the Bloc, New Democrats, Greens and, of course, Liberals, supports that legislation. Members would think that the Conservatives would allow that bill to go to committee, but no. Instead, they want to filibuster. They brought forward another concurrence report.

They say that they are concerned about the economy. Members can take a look at Bill C-33, which we were supposed to be debating last week, to enhance our trading opportunities. What did the Conservative members do? They did not want to debate that either, so they brought in another concurrence report, which prevented the government from being able to debate that legislation.

The members opposite, in criticizing the government today, were talking about issues of crime. They say that this is what they want to talk about. I will remind them of Bill C-63, the online harms act. That is to protect children being extorted, being bullied. The whole issue of exploitation of our young children, we were supposed to debate that last week, but no, the Conservatives said no to that too, and they brought forward a concurrence report. The Conservative Party is going out of its way to prevent any legislation from going to committee.

Prior to getting up, I had a member of one of the opposition parties approach me, asking why we do not just move to orders of the day. I think there was a great deal of effort and thought to move towards orders of the day because then maybe we could get on with actually providing movement on some of this legislation. The problem is that we are a minority government. In a minority government, we cannot go to orders of the day unless we get an opposition party that says it will support the government moving to orders of the day so that we can get rid of the games that the Conservative party has been playing.

Let there be no doubt that, no matter how critical the Conservative Party is, how much of a roadblock the Conservatives want to present or how much of a character assassination that they are after for those in the government, the Prime Minister and the government will continue to be focused on the interests of Canadians in all regions of our country. That is something we will continue to focus on day in and day out. That means that, whether the Conservatives want it or not, we will continue to develop policy ideas that will transform into budgetary measures and legislative measures. There will come a time when Canadians will, in fact, evaluate and take a look at what the Conservative Party has been doing between now and whenever the next election is, and what other political entities have done.

I think there is a sense of responsibility for all of us to be able to accomplish good things for Canadians. That is what I liked about the agreement that was achieved between the Liberals and the New Democrats. I have always been a big fan of the pharmacare plan. I have always been a very strong advocate for a national health care system that supports our provinces, which administer health care. For over 30 years as a parliamentarian, those are the types of issues that have been important for me. As a government, those issues have been important for us.

We were able to get support from the New Democrats to advance a number of wonderful health care initiatives. That is what it means to put people first, putting the constituents of Canada ahead of partisan politics. By doing that, the government has invested $198 billion over 10 years in health care. That is for future generations. We have developed a dental care program. To date, over 700,000 people have had access to it. Members can think of diabetes, or of contraceptives, and how, as a government working with an opposition party, we are, in fact, making a difference. In fact, I have suggested that one of the other things we should possibly be looking at is shingles and how pharmacare might be able to deal with that particular issue.

These are the types of ideas that we are talking about within the Liberal Party to build a stronger, healthier health care system, while the Conservative Party wants to tear it down. That is a part of the Conservative far-right hidden agenda. People need to be aware of that. By the time we get to the election, I believe that throughout that election, we will see the Conservative sand fade away. There is no foundation to what they are saying. It is just bumper stickers and slogans. That is all they have. We can contrast that to the many progressive measures we have taken as a government, in good part because of the cooperation of opposition parties.

I ask the Conservatives to stop playing the games, stop bringing in Conservative motions of concurrence and allow debate on government legislation. A responsible Conservative opposition could still bring in the motions it wants, while at least allowing debates to occur on legislation. Allow these important pieces of legislation to go to committee where they can be studied, where they can come back and where they can provide hope for many. That is the very least that Conservatives can do: put Canadians ahead of their own political party.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health]

Madam Speaker, as we are listening, the Conservatives never miss the opportunity to actually work for Canadians. We were supposed to be discussing Bill C-71 tonight, which is about lost Canadians. When the Conservatives were in power, they actually stripped the ability of Canadians to retain or gain their citizenship. I wanted to debate the bill tonight because it would affect my daughter, who was born abroad but has lived here all of her life; it might actually ensure that her children have Canadian citizenship.

I would ask the member this: Why is it that we have to hear the same slogans over and over again rather than do the work we are doing on this side of the House for Canadians?