Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I take a bit of issue with Mr. Julian's characterizing what's happening here as a filibuster. I think it's a spirited debate. A filibuster carries certain connotations. I don't doubt the sincerity of Mr. Julian, as he is a sincere person. I disagree with him a lot of the time, but he is someone who has added a great deal to committee deliberations. However, it's a spirited discussion that's happening here.
It's nice to see Mr. MacGregor at the committee. I also disagree with him on a number of issues, but he adds a great deal to Parliament. I know he has been the justice critic for the NDP in the past. I've sat on the justice committee in the past, though not as a formal member, and I've heard his thoughts on a number of issues relating to justice and human rights. He always adds something to the discussion, and I know he'll do that here tonight.
The point I was discussing earlier, before the intervention by Mr. Julian, was about restaurants. Again, Todd Barclay, the president and CEO of Restaurants Canada, has welcomed the various programs. Many programs that have been introduced at the federal level are benefiting restaurants, but they need ongoing support, as he has said, to help restaurants “pull through the ongoing pandemic.”
Isn't that true, Mr. Chair? If you talk to restaurant owners and their workers and hotel owners and their workers, in the tourism sector in particular, you hear these are ailing industries.
One of the sectors we all too often ignore is the meetings and events sector. As I mentioned earlier in today's meeting, yesterday I had the chance to sit down with a local business owner. It was a tour actually, a socially distanced one. He operates a meetings and events business that basically builds different stations that you would see at trade shows. Obviously trade shows are not happening right now. He employs well over 30 people—close to 40, actually—but right now his number is down to 10. He was very thankful for the wage subsidy. It's the only thing that is keeping his business going.
Those are the folks we need to hear from. We don't need to continue to go in circles in the way we have, debating issues we already talked about in the summer. It's not as if the government and the Liberal members here at committee are trying to ignore what the opposition is saying.
Again, we had a very good, reasonable solution, if not a compromise—but that's politics, isn't it?—when Mr. Gerretsen put forward something I thought really would have worked. Now here we are back to Mr. Kelly's motion, which—as we have put on the record, ad nauseam, I'll admit, but perhaps needs to be put on again so I'll do that here—is a problematic motion.
That all has to be kept in mind, Mr. Chair.
I continue to look at things that key stakeholders have raised, and I wonder what those stakeholders are thinking when they see us debating amendments to motions as we are here today and continue to do.
The YMCA, obviously a well-respected and well-recognized organization, wants to see pre-budget deliberations carried out. Nature Canada wants to see pre-budget deliberations carried out.
On the specific point of Nature Canada, let's not forget that issues of the environment have to remain front and centre. We should address the issue of the environment and make sure that it's not put on the back burner as it so often has in modern Canadian history, make sure that it is front and centre, that we do build back better and that a COVID-19 economic response plan takes into account the importance of the environment.
Take a look at what has been said at this committee previously, if not by my Conservative friends, then certainly the NDP and the Bloc Québécois, talking about the need to not ignore the environment. That's something we embrace as a committee. Liberal members feel the same way. We will disagree, perhaps, on the nuances, on the details, but I share the sentiments of Mr. Ste-Marie, who is an extraordinary member of this committee and regularly contributes. I know he has a background in economics and has taught economics. When I hear him talk passionately about the environment, I take that very seriously.
Mr. Julian has very insightful thoughts on the environment. Yes, we will disagree on particular matters relating to pipelines—and I won't get into the specifics of that—but I know I've heard Mr. MacGregor as well speak in a very passionate way in Parliament on issues relating to the environment.
When we continue to debate amendments—we're on the amendment to the motion—the point holds that it means we are not discussing the environment. It means that we are not discussing the issue of how to build back better, which is an interesting idea, this whole body of thought that has emerged that says we have a new opportunity to embrace an agenda that allows for the environment to be front and centre and to be—