Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 4th, 2014

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Just riveting, no doubt.

Get your pen ready. I had mentioned earlier, Bill C-15.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

There's no more room for a check mark beside Bill C-15.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm pretty much done on Bill C-15, even by my own reckoning, so I accept that.

I was just saying that like Bill C-15, when I was raising its important relevance and you were acknowledging that relevance, for the most for my comments, I was doing so because it showed an example of how my motion is in order and is consistent with the way that we have conducted and do conduct business.

It may not be usual, but it is really not unusual. If I may, Chair, another example of that, which I have not yet mentioned.... The headline is, “Cross-Canada hearings of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration: An opportunity for your voice to be heard”. I mention that headline, not because it was in a newspaper which is written by an editor, but rather it's the committee's release. It's their headline. They wrote it. Yes, it says, “An opportunity for your voice to be heard”. Wouldn't it be nice to see that underneath PROC studying your election laws, asking that you be given an opportunity for your voice to be heard? It did happen.

This was on December 20, 2004, so about six months after the class of 2004 arrived. You were there, David. I was. The late great Jack Layton was the class of 2004.

It reads:

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration will be traveling to the following cities in March and April 2005: St. John’s, Halifax, Charlottetown, Fredericton, Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria.

We didn't even ask for that much in our motion.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Maybe we should.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Maybe we should have.

It certainly does speak to the fact that when we make the case that my motion is not an unusual way for us to do business, we can back that up. How nice would.... How many cities were there, just so we can be accurate? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

Fourteen cities: one would actually start to believe there was a desire to hear from Canadians. As strange as it sounds, Chair, I look at this and I think, hmm, what could it possibly mean? I think what it means is that they were bringing in a new citizenship act, so it crossed the minds of the members of that committee—hmm, hmm, and probably more hmm—that maybe they should go out and ask Canadians what they thought about an immigration law that affects everybody.

Why can't we think that way? That's the point of our motion. That's why my motion is here. That's why all of this is going on: we think that Canadians should be given an opportunity, particularly when there's so much potential controversy. I won't get into the bill itself, but the fact is there are leading Canadians and ordinary Canadians, if I can use that term, who are looking at this, and they're troubled and they have concerns. They're not asking for much. They'd like the committee to treat them with respect.

I would make the case that the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, on December 20, 2004, really did want to hear what Canadians thought. It's hard to look at that and think otherwise.

Conversely, it's hard for Canadians to look at the process that we're involved in right now and not draw the conclusion that they don't want to hear from anybody. They don't want to consider alternate points of view. They don't want to hear some other thinking about something they've already decided. They want their law and they're prepared to take whatever political heat it takes to bring it in, so that they can get a fix in the next election before it even happens.

I congratulate the members of that committee. I don't know who they were, but the members of that committee at that time are to be commended for caring enough about the opinion of Canadians such that they would actually travel.

Now, it's fair, because the government has raised their concerns about a circus and a gong show and such when we talked about my second bullet point, which is travel. That's what they say. That's one of the reasons I haven't yet convinced anybody on the second point. I got one member on the first point, but I still have two other points.

Is he getting shaky on me? I'm disappointed. I thought he was a man of commitment.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Another hour or two of convincing might bring him over, though.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Well, okay. Good. That fits perfectly with my plan. That's perfect.

It means that I still have two more bullet points and the whole crowd over there, although I don't need them all, do I? I just need enough to get a majority.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

You also need to actually have a vote on your motion. I'm just pointing that out. You can't do that while you're talking.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That's fine, but I'm not going to allow a vote at this point when I'm still fighting to win, because right now I'm going to lose. As soon as I stop talking, I'll lose, so I have to keep talking.

I'll end this part of it by saying again that's the kind of message Canadians want to see. That's why my motion is here. That's why it says we should travel, so that Canadians would believe that their lawmakers actually want to hear from the people who are ruled by the law. That committee did it. Congratulations to them. This committee won't. Shame on them.

Next, I had made reference, but I hadn't talked much about.... Again, Mr. Chair, I'm underscoring how Canada, the House of Commons, and governments of the day have looked at democracy and compared it to what we consider to be the lack of democracy in this process, and hence my motion. That's why we're continuing as much as possible to convince members by underscoring the strengths of the arguments that are represented by the motion.

I made reference to, but did not talk about it at any length, the foreign affairs committee that travelled to Ukraine in the spring of 2012 to study democracy. That much I said, but I did not spend time talking at all about what they did. I just want to mention a couple of parts of that because my motion calls for us to travel, to call witnesses, and to have hearings.

Canadians spent probably hundreds of thousands, but certainly tens of thousands of dollars to send the foreign affairs committee all the way to Ukraine to study it. What did they do? Did they just tour around, take pictures, put together a little folio, and send it back? No. They actually spent a whole week holding public hearings every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. They had witnesses from all kinds of groups and backgrounds: political people; media about a free press; experts on democracy, history, and international affairs; and representatives from civil society. They were in three different parts of the country: Kiev—which is a beautiful city, I've been there, and it breaks my heart to see what's happening there, especially in Independence Square—Lviv, and then Kharkov. I've been to Kharkov and Donetsk. Both of them are centres of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers, and once you've been to Kiev and then the eastern part of the country, you sure get a sense of that divide.

However, I'm raising this in the context of my motion, Mr. Chair, because I want to point out that Canadians, a Canadian delegation, a Canadian committee on foreign affairs went all the way to Ukraine not just to study it, but to actually hold hearings. A Canadian delegation holding hearings with Ukrainians from all walks of life, experts and ordinary folk, to talk about their democracy, to talk about their system of elections, their system of representation. We wanted that to happen, which is why we spent all of that money, because we saw it as a contribution to the struggle in Ukraine for democracy and rule of law and human rights.

The reason I'm raising that, Mr. Chair, is that we have this incredible dichotomy of a committee here, seized of our own election reform act, refusing to travel outside Ottawa, and yet the very same government, the very same government, during this Parliament—

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

I was there.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

In fact, you speak Russian, if I understand right.

So there was a real contribution.

My point, Chair, relative to my motion, is that they actually travelled to different cities in Ukraine to hear from Ukrainians about their elections and democracy. Here we are, with the same government, and the same majority, refusing to allow the committee that's studying Canada's democracy to go to Canadian cities and hear from Canadians. That's where we are.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

A point of order, Chair, on repetition.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We have heard this story before.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It's not repetition at all. I'll flag that one. That's not repetition.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

I've heard you speak about Ukraine and going to Ukraine.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Fair enough, and I did say that. I said specifically I wanted to talk about the fact that we sent a standing committee, one of our sister committees, all the way to Ukraine, and they travelled to different cities in Ukraine to hear from Ukrainians about their democracy. I have not mentioned the absolute ridiculousness of being here in Canada and we can't get our own committee, this seized with our democratic review, to go to our own cities. That's worth mentioning.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Actually, on the point of order, you have mentioned that before on several occasions. That was my point. It's repetitious.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I will suggest that I've heard it before, too.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Not that one. I didn't know that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Well, I've heard about Canadians in Ukraine.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

No, no, the travel of the committee.... Let's be fair. I've tried to be fair-minded.

The fact is I have not spoken about the fact that a standing committee of the House of Commons not only travelled in Canada—as I've shown with an example—but a committee went all the way to Ukraine to study Ukrainian democracy. That standing committee travelled to three different cities in Ukraine to hear from Ukrainians, but we can't get the same government to agree that we should go to the cities of Canada to ask Canadians about their democracy. That's a new point.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

No.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes, but I've made it, so—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Right, and if you say it again, it will be repetition.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Then I would be in trouble, and I recognize that. But sincerely, I didn't know that. I knew they went there, and I'd made those.... I did not know that it was that bad of a comparison that not only did we send the standing committee there, they went to different cities within Ukraine to hear about the democracy, and we can't get the same right here. See, I got it in a second time.