Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I was going to wait awhile to speak again based on what I heard, but I had to jump back in based on some of the comments from some of my colleagues—in particular, Mr. Lake's comments on some of the points that I had made, as well as other colleagues. It's, to some extent, time to really call out what it is, which I'm sure the opposition is thinking about and very well should. This is, once again, an attempt to gain a narrative because of the fine work that the government and Canadians have been doing since COVID hit us back in March. That's what it is. Let's just simply call it what it is.
Quite frankly, most of our residents—at least my residents here in Niagara—see that. They see right through what's happening here and, with that, are giving us a great deal of dialogue and a great deal of feedback with respect to what we should be doing and the priorities we should be having, as I spoke about earlier. To try to divert the discussion from the work that's being done is simply wrong.
I also want to bring up that word that I brought up earlier, which obviously isn't resonating: respect. It was mentioned by Mr. Lake with regard to fighting for the rights of....
Let me be very clear, Mr. Lake, who I/we are fighting for—and very well you should be fighting for. We should be respecting the people we represent and respecting our team. We should be respecting the ability and the opportunity for our team to come out and ensure that the decisions that we make are decisions that are based on evidence, that are based on reasons, that are based on what our team actually does on a day-to-day basis. Quite frankly, it's beyond what you and I do on a day-to-day basis, as it relates to issues that we depend on them to then, therefore, be evidence-based so that we then make the proper decisions. Once again, it's about respect—respect for them to do their jobs and respect for the people we represent—to ensure that those decisions are evidence-based and are, in fact, decisions that are sound.
I want to go back to the narrative again and, to some extent, based on Mr. Lake's comments, give a bit of a history lesson, the narrative being, again, putting Canadians first, putting people before politics versus putting politics before people. The narrative, quite frankly, on October 15, 2020, should be the health and safety of all Canadians. To have this discussion once again is simply rhetoric and noise, and it's, quite frankly, getting in the way of us doing that. When I say “us”, I mean all 338 members of Parliament, as well as the people we represent, working together to row in that same direction. That same direction is looking out for the best interests of Canadians.
Let's be very clear on that, Mr. Lake and others on the opposite side of the table. That's our narrative. That's our priority.
With that said, some things that were mentioned were COVID spending and, of course, the direction that this government has taken throughout the past many months. Often I hear the new leader of the opposition, the former leader of the opposition and members of the opposition critique the spending that's happening. My comment has been, and continues to be this: Where's your feedback? What are your thoughts? Instead of being a critic and part of the problem, be part of the solution. Of course, with that, I/we welcome some of those thoughts and what you would do in terms of taking care of the people, putting food on our tables, ensuring that people are working, ensuring that our business community—our SMEs and our big businesses—are being looked after, that their rent can be paid. The list goes on. I don't have to give you that menu; you read about it every day. I'm sure that you hear about it every day with respect to the people who need and, for the most part, are being dealt with and taken care of because of the programs that we've put forward.
Yes, this is about transparency and accountability. As I said earlier, it's also simply about respect. I think that we should all be cognizant of that and ensure that, as much as we respect each other, we also respect the people we work with on a daily basis and, quite frankly, look after our best interests as much as we look after the interests of our constituents.
Having said all that, let's look at past parliaments, at votes in past parliaments that we entered into on many occasions, and at many occasions where the Conservatives would vote against.
I recall budgets and early morning votes that the Conservatives would stand in opposition to, investments in homelessness and poverty; seniors and infrastructure spending; health care; spending in my riding as well as the riding of Mr. Lake in Edmonton—Wetaskiwin; local sporting organizations; recreation; lowering taxes; support for businesses. I can't understand why those were voted against. Those were good things, very good things, like those we're doing right now in the middle of this pandemic. Fortunately, we had a majority government then. We moved forward on a lot of those investments.
I have to give another history lesson—I apologize, Mr. Chairman—just to respond to the words that are now on the record by Mr. Lake and others about proroguing Parliament. You know, look at the 41st Parliament, the Harper government, in October of 2013. They shut down Parliament for 33 days to avoid questions on Senate expenses and the Senate expense scandal and the resulting PMO cover-up. In the 40th Parliament, the Harper government shut down Parliament for 63 days to avoid the Afghan detainee issue. In 2008 the Harper Conservatives shut down Parliament to avoid a confidence vote that would have toppled the government. That shutdown lasted 53 days. In 2007 the Harper government shut down Parliament to declare mission accomplished on five priorities from the election, and took 32 days before bringing in a new Speech from the Throne.
Mr. Chairman, I'm flabbergasted at the comments being made and how people can actually have the nerve to make those comments while knowing this. Quite frankly, Mr. Lake was around then. He was a minister.
If the opposition parties do not support this subamendment, all it will show is that they don't care about the facts. They don't care about an evidence-based decision being made. Again, it's a lack of respect. All they care about is having something to flash around, props, to get their supporters supporting them, supporters who will blast out this information too for their next fundraising event. They should be ashamed that by doing that they're robbing this committee of the opportunity to do its important work.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I would go back to my former life. When we had situations like this and issues like this, no, we didn't go into filibustering. We didn't get into the minutiae of the politics. Quite frankly, we put the people before the politics. We didn't put the politics before the people, trying to gain a narrative. Quite frankly, the narrative should always be dealing with the issues that people deal with every day, that they talk about at the dinner table at 5:30 or six o'clock, sometimes at nine o'clock at night. For myself, tonight it will be midnight. These people think about and live that every day. To simply have the discussion diverted from what they're thinking about to something for political gain is wrong, frankly.
MPs from the other side can talk all they want. Call it what it is. Everyone knows it. We know it here. We're in the box, but quite frankly, folks, the people who are outside the box know it too. Call it what it is.
All this subamendment is asking for is simply to ensure that the decision being made is made on the best evidence presented to us by the folks we count on every day to bring us that evidence. You can't be hypocritical here. You can't say on one side of your mouth that you want that evidence in other ways on other issues, but yet you're not prepared to look at it here. What does that tell us? What does that tell Canadians?
It's about accountability. It's about transparency. But most of all, it's about respect, respecting our team and respecting the decisions that we're counted on to make in a manner that is evidence-based.
I often say to people that different people have held our seats throughout time. Although people have opinions about the people who sit in those seats, regardless of what level of government it may be—it could be a mayor; it could be a city councillor; it could be a member of Parliament, a member of a provincial parliament—the chairs sit there. Those seats sit there forever; different people occupy them.
People have opinions about those people who occupy them. However, as occupiers of those seats, we must—not should, but must—respect those seats we sit in. Part of that respect is ensuring that the decisions we make are made by a team that includes all parliamentarians as well as our support staff; ensuring that those decisions are evidence-based and therefore good decisions; and putting people before politics, not politics before people.
We see that too often from those on the opposite side of the floor. We lived it between 2015 and 2019. I think people see that, hence the reason we're here back in Parliament forming a government. The expectation is for that to continue.
I ask all of you to take that into consideration, the respect that those people deserve, the respect of making a decision that's evidence-based, and therefore the respect to make the proper decision.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.