Finance Committee on May 7th, 2024

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

My understanding is that if the Conservatives want to challenge your ruling, they can do that, but otherwise, I think we need to move on with the debate.

I had the floor. I was interrupted for I don't know how long, but for quite a while. I represent 142,000 people, whom I want to speak on behalf of, and I was interrupted over and over again. I'd like to finish my remarks, and I hope I can have the floor back.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Go ahead, MP Viersen.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I still don't think we have clarity on your ruling on privilege. While I appreciate that you read from chapter 20 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice—I'm reading from the 2017 edition—if you had continued reading, the next paragraph says:

The Standing Orders provide that any Member, whether affiliated with a political party or sitting as an independent, may take part in the public proceedings of any committee of which he or she is not a member, unless the House or the committee in question orders otherwise.

There is no special order governing the proceedings of this particular meeting, so any member can sit down at the table and participate in the debate. If it is a timed debate and we are moving through the order, a member of Parliament may say they will share their time with another member.

Points of order can be made by any member of Parliament who sits at this table. They don't need to be substituted to do that. That is why the privilege issue has come up. You failed to recognize Mr. Genuis as a member of Parliament who is allowed to sit here.

I hope we're making the point that you can't just decide who gets recognized at committee based on their party affiliation. I hope you can clarify that, make sure you understand the rules and rule appropriately on this question of privilege.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Viersen.

I thought I was clear. For a non-sitting member of the committee or someone who has not been substituted in—someone who walks through the door, such as a member of Parliament or a senator—to sit at the table and have the opportunity to speak to the committee and participate, they would need consent from members and would require consent from the chair. That was not given.

MP Genuis walked through the door, sat down at the table, turned on his mic and interrupted members who had the floor and were speaking to what we are debating at this time. That is what happened and that is how I have ruled.

MP Viersen.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

I'm not quite sure how to proceed from here, because I don't read any of that in the rules. The rules say that members of Parliament may participate at committee. They may not vote, they may not be counted for quorum and they may not move motions, but every member of Parliament has the opportunity to participate at committee. There is no requirement for unanimous consent for a member to participate in a public hearing.

The ability to move a point of order belongs to every member of Parliament by virtue of them being a member of Parliament. It's our collective responsibility to make sure this place works, so any member of Parliament may raise a point of order to ensure that committees are being run according to the rules. That is what we are attempting to do here today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Viersen.

It says that they “may” participate, but they need consent from members. It's not unanimous consent; it's just that members must consent to someone being at the table.

Many members have participated at this committee who were not standing members of it or who had not been substituted but came to the table. The members around the room, including the chair, see and recognize members and have them at the table. What the rules do not allow for is someone barging through the door, sitting at the table, turning on their mic and saying whatever they want to say. They do not allow for that. That is my interpretation. As you know, we would not have decorum.

I'll tell you what happened here, MP Viersen, and I want to go back to MP Lawrence. Because of all the crosstalk and back-and-forth with MP Genuis, I may have missed something MP Lawrence said, but that's what happened. Again, we cannot have these types of chaotic antics from members. It would be disruptive, and it would not allow committees to do their work. I don't think any member from any party would want that at this committee.

We have a lot of work to do here, important work. We have a budget implementation act, and we're hearing debate. That is what we are working on, MP Viersen.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

May I interact with that, Mr. Chair? The point is that a member of Parliament, in order to move a point of order at a committee, does not have to be subbed in. Were you making the ruling that, in order to move a point of order, you have to be subbed in? Was that your ruling?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Viersen, it's about recognizing a member or a senator who was not sitting at the table, not subbed into the committee, not recognized—when we had, actually, a member who was in the middle of debate, speaking here at committee—who came in and just interrupted at the table. No, they do need some implied consent from the members, and I did not see that for MP Genuis when he came in. That is what took place.

Once he was substituted in, sure, then the member was recognized and he was able to speak, but prior to that, that was not the case.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

I still dispute all of that—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Then challenge the chair.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Let's vote on it.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

—with the fact that the rules clearly state that associate members—and every member of Parliament is an associate member of every committee—may not vote, move motions or be counted for purposes of quorum but, beyond that, are able to participate. In order to move a point of order, they don't need to be subbed in. That is the point.

I don't know what page it is on, but it's in chapter 20. It's the sixth paragraph down. I encourage you to read that again so you understand that, in order to be recognized by the committee, I don't have to be subbed in. That is the point we are trying to make here, and that is the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

You made your point. I don't know if you're going to challenge.... Are you challenging my ruling?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

I'm not sure how that would....

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Viersen.

We go back to PS Turnbull, please.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

It's really great to get back to what I was saying. I was just talking about the good-faith attempt we made to work with the Conservatives to come up with an agenda for this committee that would move us through May and June in an orderly fashion to accomplish all the things we had on our agenda, including some of the studies that were before the committee but haven't been completed. That included, obviously, the first order of priority, which is the budget implementation act.

The Conservatives withheld support for that. That's fine. It's their prerogative to do so, but for them to come to committee and suggest that I somehow table-dropped a motion.... The motion I brought to committee was exactly what we had discussed in our previous meeting, so it wasn't a big surprise. Everybody knew what priorities we had identified. I think the Conservatives knew very quickly that they were in the minority in the membership of this committee. That's why we're in a filibuster today.

The Conservatives put forward an amendment and then a subamendment. The subamendment is what we're debating now. It is exactly what the Conservatives are avoiding a vote on. Really, what we're doing here is listening to five and a half hours—I guess it's now going on six and a half hours just today—of a filibuster from the Conservatives. I'm just pointing out what it is for anybody who's still paying attention and still has the patience to pay attention to these committee proceedings. I hope they are paying attention.

In reality, the Conservatives know the vote isn't going to go their way on the subamendment. Therefore, they're holding this committee hostage by continuing to talk ad infinitum. What we heard from MP Chambers earlier was him reading, for over an hour, the transcript from a podcast of Mark Carney on The Herle Burly. We had him reading that into the record, which is certainly not the most creative filibuster I've ever heard by far. Anyway, I guess some Conservatives lack imagination. That's okay.

In reality, all we want to do is get down to business on the budget implementation act. Why? In my view, that's what the 142,000 members of my community want to see me working on. The budget implementation act entails key supports for Canadians.

Conservatives are citing.... One of their members here did a kind of drive-by, insulting me and then leaving the committee room. It was Mr. Jivani. I would invite him to come back and continue the conversation.

What's interesting is that he talked about food banks and food bank lineups. We hear the Conservatives every day in the House of Commons citing food bank lineups as if they truly care about the people in those lineups. We're putting forward a national school food program, which is going to feed 400,000 children across Canada over the next five years. That's a billion dollars of investment.

How can the Conservatives, while sitting there, literally filibustering and blocking important work on the budget implementation act, tell me they actually care about people in food bank lineups? They're blocking real support for Canadians, such as dental care, additional child care spaces, pharmacare, the national school food program and the Canada disability benefit. These are key supports for those very families they say they care about.

I find it a bit rich. It's hard for me to accept them at face value when they're sitting here, spouting stuff off as if they really care about Canadian families. I don't believe it. It's just misleading. I don't know how I can interpret that as authentic and genuine commitment for their constituents.

I know my constituents care about a national school food program. They care about the clean technology manufacturing and clean hydrogen tax credits. They care about the Canada carbon rebate for small business. They care about enhancing the homebuyers' plan and extending the ban on foreign investment in Canadian housing by two years. They care about the Canada Education Savings Act and the automatic enrolment we're putting forward in the BIA, as well as many of the other things that are included in the BIA.

What's interesting, though, just to go back to last week, which was our constituency week.... I understand the Conservatives wanted to put forward a Standing Order 106(4) to call an emergency meeting. What's interesting is that I had indicated to the Conservatives in the previous week that I was more than open and that our whole side of the committee here, in terms of Liberal members, was open to studying anti-money laundering.

They used valuable committee resources and then came and got upset because they tripped themselves up. Their Standing Order 106(4) motion was during a week that we had previously suspended a meeting, so they ended up having to continue their filibuster on Mr. Morantz's subamendment. They didn't like that, of course. They, again, tried to flip it around—flip the script—and blame the Liberal members.

In reality, the budget implementation act has numerous significant measures to enhance combatting money laundering. I note that several of my colleagues have already read into the record portions of the BIA that deal specifically with anti-money laundering. I won't go into depth on that. However, I do feel that it's important to point out the fact that Conservatives say they want to study anti-money laundering, yet they're blocking the budget implementation act and the study of that budget bill includes anti-money laundering measures that are really significant.

We've also indicated that we would happily study that after we finish the work on the BIA. That's not good enough for them either. Not only are they blocking essential work on anti-money laundering through the BIA, but they're also not willing to concede that we're being reasonable and working in good faith, saying that we're willing to have meetings on anti-money laundering if the Conservatives want to continue work on that topic. We're more than happy to do that. Why? It's because we have a record that, every single year and every single FES and budget bill, there have been additional measures on anti-money laundering. Our government feels confident that we're moving forward and that we take those issues seriously. There are things that we can continue to study and offer solutions and measures on to continue to combat money laundering, which is a serious topic.

I just think it's a bit rich that Conservatives are sitting there claiming that we're essentially not.... They basically claim that we're blocking our own BIA, when the truth is that the Conservatives are filibustering on their own subamendment. That's what's challenging for me to accept.

I'm just pointing out what is, honestly, before the committee. To me, this is eating into valuable committee time and resources that could be dedicated to hearing key witnesses on the budget implementation act.

I had a member from the Conservatives say earlier—I think it was MP Hallan—that he had criticism, critiques and questions for the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. She already appeared at this committee and took questions for an hour from the members of this committee on the BIA. It doesn't quite jibe—what the Conservatives have said here at committee today and the actual truth, which is that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance has already answered significant questions that have come from opposition parties. I think that's important. We felt it certainly was important that the minister come and answer those questions.

I think the other thing for me is this: When you have members who read the transcripts of a podcast into the record, whether they're related to the subamendment or not, it just shows that they're intent on wasting time and that they're not really interested in studying affordability. They're not really interested in dealing with any of the issues that they say they want to deal with, considering that the budget implementation act deals with affordability issues and anti-money laundering.

We've said that if you want to invite Mark Carney as a witness, go ahead. I understand that their interest is purely partisan.

I think MP Davies when he was here covered that quite well in demonstrating that Conservatives have said from the beginning that they only want to have Mr. Carney come to committee for their partisan purposes. They want to speculate on his intentions, and I just don't see.... Fine, invite him, but working him into a motion clearly has an alternative motive that I think is an abuse of parliamentary power and we shouldn't be doing that unless there's a good reason to do so. We have seen in the past Conservatives use a summons and try to summons private citizens to committee. I think we should only do that in very limited circumstances.

From my perspective—it would be really great—if Conservatives really want to get down to business on anti-money laundering, or any host of other issues that they've cited, then why don't we vote on the subamendment and why won't Conservatives allow us to vote here today on the subamendment that they put forward? Is it because they know they are going to lose that vote, or is it that they just don't really want to get to the study of the budget implementation act?

It's pretty clear to me that they don't want to study the budget implementation act at all, because if they did we could be using the valuable time and resources we have this week to hear from witnesses, which would be, I think, valuable.

I have 300 witnesses I bet would be willing to come before this committee and speak to the national school food program and the importance of it across Canada, not to mention many other witnesses for many of the other measures that are included in the budget implementation act. I think it would serve our constituents well if we were actually doing the work that this committee is tasked with doing, which is actually studying the budget that's before this committee.

I would say let's get to a vote. I don't have high hopes for the Conservatives allowing that to happen because of the obstruction that we have seen throughout this committee and many other committees. I know that it's not just this committee that they are obstructing. We saw it on the sustainable jobs act. We have seen it on the updates to the Atlantic accords. We have seen it in very many other circumstances.

Since I have been here since 2019, I have seen many a Conservative filibuster. They don't want to get down to the work of this committee even though in good faith we have said, yes, let's study AML after we finish the budget implementation act. That's not good enough. They want to have it their way, and they don't want to do the work that is, I would say, the top priority of a finance committee, which is to study the budget implementation act.

Okay, I'll leave it there, Chair. Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Turnbull.

Now I have MP Thompson, then MP Goodridge, MP Morantz, MP Hallan and MP Lawrence.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I certainly want to echo some of the comments from my colleagues. I would be happy to sit in a late sitting tonight if we were speaking with witnesses, but to sit in another filibuster is not why I put my name forward as a member of Parliament. It is not what my constituents are asking me to do, especially in these final weeks of the sitting session.

To ensure that I remain relevant, I'll be very clear. Mr. Carney is welcome to come to the committee. If the Conservatives would like to put his name forward as a witness, that's their choice, but as a private citizen.... I have not heard a single argument in these very painful hours that we've been in a filibuster that supports why we should bring a private citizen to this committee.

My colleague Mr. Turnbull referenced that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance was at committee on May 9 and she did answer our questions on the BIA.

I want to highlight and reiterate just very quickly a couple of the points Mr. Turnbull made on some of the key social programs and health programs that I know my constituents want to see moving forward. It is incredibly important: the continuation of child care and the expansion of spots; the national school food program—this is so important for children, for families, and this is food security—and pharmacare with contraceptive supports and diabetes supports.

One of the things that I haven't heard spoken about enough is how important the diabetes medication supports are in a preventative sense. Indeed, it can ensure that someone in the early stages of this chronic disease process is able to be stabilized and to not move to the much more invasive and difficult aspects of diabetes, if they have access to the necessary medications and testing tools.

To hold up these these important programs in a filibuster when we really need to have witnesses before committee who will once again continue to speak about how important this is, I don't believe is a good use of our resources.

I want to spend a few moments to speak about the housing initiatives, because I hear so often in the House about how important housing is to Canadians, and I agree that it is. I'm very proud of the work the Liberal government is doing to ensure we address this problem. Within this budget implementation act—and again, these are the things that we should be debating—is the availability of public lands for home plans: to be able to build on Canada Post properties, National Defence lands and in office buildings. This is something that I have heard the Conservative opposition members speak about over and over. It's in our budget. Let's talk about it.

We're building more rental apartments. Again, it's something that we hear about over and over in debate, both in the House and in committee. There's $15 billion in new loan funding for the apartment construction loan program. That could bring a total of 131,000 new homes by 2031. Let's talk about that.

We're launching the Canada builds initiative, a team Canada approach to building more affordable homes for the middle class on underutilized lands across the country. This program brings forward federal low-cost loans with provincial and territorial investments to scale up construction—again, a solid program that can expand the availability of housing for middle-class Canadians.

We're providing a $400-million top-up to the $4-billion housing accelerator fund. This program is in my community of St. John's East. It's incredibly important. It is welcomed by the community. My constituents want to see us move forward on this program.

We're launching a $1.5-billion Canada rental protection fund to protect and grow the stock of affordable housing in Canada, and providing $1 billion for the affordable housing fund to build affordable homes and launch a permanent rapid housing stream—again, very important. This is also part of homelessness prevention by having homes available along a continuum of need from true homelessness to market investment and investing an additional $1.3 billion in Reaching Home Canada. That is the Canadian homelessness program.

Yes, we have to do so much to help the most vulnerable in our community to have a respectable place to call home. Let's talk about that. Let's look through the important allocation of funds within the budget so we can ensure that we have the rollout of supports for all Canadians across the country.

I can continue. There's streamlining foreign credential recognition for construction sectors, working to narrow the housing gap in indigenous communities and incentivizing Canada's educational institutions to build more housing for students. We heard this through the FES. We heard it in the pre-budget consultation. We hear it from our constituents—at least, I hear it from my constituents. I hear it in the House continually. I hear it in committee. We need to address housing concerns.

This is a robust plan to help all Canadians have a place to call home. I plead with opposition members to let us have a vote. Let's end the debate on the subamendment. Let's move to the work that Canadians have sent us to this important House of Commons, this Parliament, to do. It's the work of ensuring that we meet the needs of all Canadians.

I refuse to take up another 20 minutes just reading notes, but I absolutely ask my opposition colleagues to stop this. Let's get back to the work we are here to do. I'm happy to sit with witnesses. I'm happy to do what needs to be done to move this budget forward, but this filibuster needs to stop.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Thompson.

I have the list here. MP Morantz is next.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I'm sorry, Chair. I have a point of order.

Could you read the whole list so members know when they're coming up?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes, MP Genuis. I have read the list many a time, but I will read it again. I have MP Morantz, MP Hallan, MP Lawrence and MP Chambers.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Can I be added to the list after that, Chair?

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I'm sorry, but you are not subbed in, MP Genuis.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you for recognizing my point of order. I appreciate the improvement we're seeing in the adherence to the rules.