Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this. I was very happy to learn that the Conservatives had moved the motion, because we are working on that right now. I have in hand reports on committee meetings held since the parliamentary session started. I have to say, the numbers are not great. We hear speeches about collaboration, yet 412 out of 468 meetings have been held as of today. If we include today and tomorrow, I know that at least one meeting is going to be cancelled. Apparently, there was some good news about the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, but we know that there will be others. In the past week, it has been happening more often, but that is not a good thing, because we are here to work. So that is going to increase again.
Taken all together, then, we are talking about 56 meetings that were not convened and 112 hours of work that was not done, which amounts to 12% of committee hours. That is before today. If I add today, that is another 12 hours of meetings that will not be held. I predict that it will go up to 20 hours, because there are several discussions and we are being told that, since we are just wrapping up studies, we are not going to start the next one and that everyone wants to go home. Those are the discussions that are taking place, but we are here to work. The sad reality is that for the six years I have been sitting on these benches, the House of Commons has unfortunately not been known for its efficiency. It is really sad.
We need only look at the debates we have here, where we spend several days on one bill. In theory, as the hon. member for Joliette—Manawan pointed out earlier, it is the members, representing the people in their ridings, who will come and speak. It is up to the government to win the support of a majority in a minority situation. Unfortunately, we often get here with our main points and our positions, and then we go on and on about our positions for three or four days. Ultimately, we end up voting the same way as if we had voted on the first day. That is often the case. Sometimes opinions change, but it is rare. In terms of efficiency, sometimes we wonder whether what we are doing is productive, whether we are moving things forward. Sadly, the hourly cost of our operations is quite high. That is the truth.
Committees are usually the best part of parliamentary life. A committee is supposed to be made up of people of good faith who want to advance a cause. They may have differences of opinion, of course, but they want to debate them in a healthy way, then sit down, get to work and study.
We are talking about filibustering. It is appalling how much time we are wasting. Earlier, I repeated one of my questions from last fall. In response, the member told me that it was not his fault, that the government that did not want to release the documents. In fact, both sides are right, and we find ourselves caught between the two major political parties, trying to move things forward. Unfortunately, far too often, if not almost always, we seem to be the only adult in the room. That is very sad.
We are here to work. If someone chooses to not work or not call a committee meeting the next morning or the next evening, they are not paid less; they receive the same salary. The work needs to be done, but it is not getting done. There are various reasons for that, but it is not right. The statistics I gave cover the 25 standing committees, but they do not include the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations, the Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament or the Subcommittee on International Human Rights. In total, there are 29 committees, so the statistics may actually be even bleaker than the numbers I provided.
How does this happen? What possible reason could there be for a committee not to sit? The chair is supposed to consult with the vice-chairs. It may happen once in a while, once in a session or once every two or three sessions, that a meeting is cancelled because something is not working or because there is a problem with witnesses or something like that, but that is rare, and that is not what we are seeing in this session.
How is that possible? I have asked my colleagues in the House about this. How is it that we find ourselves talking about this today? It is not right for us to be compiling statistics to show how little the committee meets and why we need to sit down and look at how often this is happening. I would like to announce that I have planned some meetings with colleagues, including a colleague on the government side, with whom I want to discuss this issue.
Beyond that, I want to discuss the issue of filibustering. This is actually quite surreal. It is understandable for the opposition to sometimes use this approach to block debate, but why are government members blocking their own bill? They are filibustering their own bill. This is unbelievable. They introduce a bill and then, once in committee, they refuse to discuss it. Take, for example, Bill C-9, which we were debating earlier. When they realize that an amendment does not suit everyone, they no longer want to move forward. They do not know how to back down, so they choose to talk for hours and hours on end. I have identified three examples from committees.
First, at the Standing Committee on Finance on October 22, we witnessed the Liberals using appalling filibustering tactics to avoid debating the motion tabled by the Bloc Québécois, which was next on the agenda. That is one of the games they play. People watching us at home should take note: This is what their elected representatives are doing. When they do not like the next item on the agenda, they prefer not to talk about it because they do not have any intelligent arguments to defeat it when it comes to a vote. They prefer to prevent discussion, so they take the floor and talk for hours. On November 19, the same thing happened. On December 8, they did it again during the study of their own bill, Bill C‑15. In total, there were 5.5 hours of filibustering at the Standing Committee on Finance alone.
Let us talk about the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, which was mentioned earlier. There was supposed to be five meetings on Bill C-9, the law on hate speech, but two of them were not held. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives contributed to the filibuster. The Conservatives are good at pointing fingers, but they are even better at filibustering. I have noticed since I entered this place that they have a lot of experience with that. The Liberals cancelled the December 4 meeting. We still had meetings scheduled this week, but we were unsure whether they would go ahead. We thought they would be cancelled until a Conservative colleague gave us the scoop: He told us that the committee had been convened. We are very pleased about it, but in all, seven hours of work were lost. Those seven lost hours are no small matter. Sitting around the table are 10 members, two analysts, the clerk, the technical team and the interpreters. Every hour is expensive. That is the message I want to get across today: It costs a lot of money. Then they talk to us about budget efficiency. They want to cut transfers to the provinces. Something does not add up there. We need to be efficient for the common good.
Now let us talk about the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. Bloc members raised the Driver Inc. issue in the House. My colleague asked some excellent questions about that today. Six meetings have taken place, and five more are scheduled, almost as many as the number of meetings that have already taken place. Sometimes, our members only find out the day before when a meeting is cancelled by a unilateral decision of the chair. I know that the Liberals like unilateral decisions. We talked about the Constitution recently, about “operation citizenship” and other things that have been done unilaterally. Bloc Québécois members are offering to collaborate, but under certain conditions: There needs to be an openness and a desire to work, instead of trying to corner us in uncomfortable positions. That requires an open attitude on the part of chairs. I mentioned it earlier to my colleague from Winnipeg North, who is paying close attention right now. I hope he will ask me a question about that, because things need to move along. Since November 6, there have been nearly 12 hours of Liberal filibustering at the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.
Last week, the Bloc Québécois succeeded in passing a motion to summon a former prime minister to explain what this “operation citizenship” was all about. We were able to get it passed because, good news, the Liberals do not have a majority. Every once in a while, they are not the ones calling the shots. Since they were not happy about what happened, they cancelled all committee meetings this week, citing bogus reasons. We were told that there could be votes, so it would be impossible to hold a committee meeting. Give me a break. It is not as if votes never take place. We could simply start later. Then we were told that there were no witnesses, or that we have worked hard since the start of the parliamentary session so everything is fine; it is time to take a break. I was told that by email. It is appalling. People are asked to be thorough and do the work, but while the parties are blaming each other, nothing is moving forward. We were elected to study bills in committee and pass them in order to improve things for the common good.
I am a new whip. I must confess that I have been in shock since I began observing the 29 committees of the House of Commons, including the 25 standing committees. I am shocked because I realize that there is no co-operation in many of the committees. There is only obstruction, and many meetings do not take place.
I want to acknowledge the people who sit with me on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. Although imperfect, they are much better than others because we work for the common good. That should be the case for all committees. That is what matters.
I have a tip for people who sit on other committees. Sometimes, even when we are working on resolutions or recommendations for reports, we talk to each other before the meeting. To save time, we talk to each other before the meeting. Rather than arriving at the committee meeting, filibustering proceedings and wasting everyone's time and money, we come to an agreement beforehand. We call each other to find out what the others are thinking. That way, when we arrive at the committee meeting, we are ready to go. It is very efficient. Instead of arguing for two hours, we pass resolutions and get things done.
We do not always agree, but most of the time we manage to find common ground. I dream of the day when this will happen at all House of Commons committees. Obviously, if we do that, there will be fewer clips to post on social media. I understand that some people think that is a shame. People want to have clips to show how they put someone in their place, but things should not be that way. That is how naive I am. That is what I would like to see.
I talked about witnesses earlier. As an elected official, there is something that I find completely unfathomable. When we get to committee, three or four witnesses are already seated at the end of the table. These people travel a long way. Their travel costs are paid for, and often their accommodation expenses are, too. They also come thoroughly prepared. After all, they are here to testify before the Government of Canada. These people are not stupid, they prepare, they show up with documents and they know they only have one shot at stating their position.
Then they sit down and people start filibustering. One member starts talking and never stops. Meanwhile, the witness at the end of the table is not really sure what is going on. He listens and looks at his watch. Finally, after an hour or two, two or three members quarrel and move motions. Sometimes, members move motions with witnesses present. After two hours, we apologize and tell them that there was not enough time to hear from them. We thank them for coming and ask them to send us their brief by email. Had they known, they would not have come.
The following week, the clerks tell committee members that they will have to cancel the meeting because no witnesses have agreed to appear. That is not surprising; it was to be expected. We need to be serious. We are bothering people, everyone from professionals and scientists to academic researchers and farmers, people who do not have time to appear. They have to be on their land, working. When they come here, it has to serve a purpose. Let us be serious.
It is important to respect witnesses. When they are sitting in a committee room, they should always be given priority. I know sometimes we have no choice, because of procedure, but that should be a rare exception. That is not what we are seeing in this Parliament, and it is incredibly sad to hear the comments. For example, at the beginning of a committee meeting, the chair decided to change the agenda and raised another subject. This allowed the Liberals to move a motion that undermined the one that another member managed to get adopted at the previous committee meeting. These are unfair tactics. The Liberals should talk to us if they want to change something, and they should talk to each other. Can we work seriously?
Earlier, I heard the parliamentary secretary criticize the Conservatives for moving this motion, because we should be talking about Bill C-15, a 650-page omnibus bill. On page 300 of the bill, the fine print says that any minister can repeal any legislation whenever he or she wants as long as they can claim that it is in the name of innovation. Is that what they call co-operation? It is up to us to seek it out, find it, flush it out, and expose it in the media. The Liberals tried to sneak this through. Afterwards, they will come here acting all offended and say that we are preventing them from doing their job. If everyone acted in good faith, I think we could make progress much faster.
As for me, I worry a lot about resources and issues. The government tends to hide the issues.
I would like to take this opportunity to give another example that really worries me, and that is the situation of interpreters. I raised this issue at the Board of Internal Economy. We are talking about filibustering and keeping committees going until midnight, cancelling one meeting and then holding another, and so on. Who is being negatively affected when that happens? It is not just the MPs, their teams of advisors, the clerks and all those people. It also affects the interpreters.
Imagine how difficult their work is. Interpreters listen and speak at the same time in the other language. Imagine how complex that task is. I do not know what percentage of elected officials in the House are bilingual, but it is certainly not half. I know it is not 60%. I would guess that it is closer to 20% to 30%, and even that is generous. They cannot learn another language because that requires effort.
The interpreters are good enough to be able to listen in one language and summarize in the other at the same time. They do not translate word for word. They interpret, and to be able to do that, they need to see the speaker's face and hear how they express themselves. They have to be aware of the context, and they need a basic knowledge of the topic under discussion. It is a big job.
This year, however, the House of Commons let them know that it would be accepting the lowest bidder and that it made no difference if the guy interpreting a legal discussion was not well versed in the law. They could not care less. An interpreter only needs to give a rough idea of what is being said. People are even starting to talk about bringing in AI, but we need human beings to pick up on human emotions and listen to real people.
I have another chart that I am not supposed to show the House, but I can refer to it during my speech. It lists technical incidents involving interpretation. I have not yet pulled out the statistics, but what we notice on a daily basis with the whips' team is that, very often, when there are technical problems, it is because the interpreters were online remotely. There are delays, they cannot see people, they cannot see each other to take over, which means that when one of them stops talking, sometimes there will be a bigger gap in the interpretation.
Who pays the price for this? Apart from, of course, the interpreters who have to protect their hearing health, it is always francophones who pay. Mr. Speaker, you are one of the few who are truly bilingual, but you know as well as I do that it is always francophones who pay, because 80% to 90% of the discussions take place in English. So, the little piece of missing information is the one that francophones are lacking for their analysis, to make their representations, or to properly evaluate legislation.
However, the constituents of a francophone member are just as deserving as the citizens in an anglophone province. They have the right to be properly represented. I see some members who seem to want to object, so if they have something to say, they should stand up and raise a point of order. I think what I just said was very parliamentary. Every voter has the right to be represented with dignity.
Do my colleagues know why I am taking this opportunity to talk about it? It is because when I spoke to officials from interpretation services at the Board of Internal Economy, they gave me a bit of an empty statement that really said nothing. Then they barely addressed my questions and concerns about how the process for awarding future contracts is changing. They told me not to worry, that the certification exam is extremely rigorous and ensures top quality. They kept telling me that, but what did I learn last week? They changed the exam. They have said there will be no problem and no more shortages. They have added an external auditor to come and evaluate, and that individual's votes would count as much as those of the four House of Commons experts who used to do the evaluation. When there is a tie, the administration will decide. There will be no more shortages.
That is one example among many where I think the government is being somewhat insouciant and saying that it is going to fix things and that everything is going to be fine. However, we have to be serious and thorough, and the same goes for committees.
I have a message for the government. Being the chair of a committee is a privilege. The role of chair—and you are doing a magnificent job sitting in the chair of the House—is to be neutral and to be fair to everyone. However, I have some examples where that is not the case. Then people wonder why some members are not acting in good faith like others. If everyone acts in good faith, it can be a virtuous circle, but if there is bad faith, it can be a vicious circle. Bad faith on one side leads to bad faith on the other. Let us stop wasting time and get serious about working for the people.
