Evidence of meeting #26 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was prorogation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
March 9th, 2021 / 1:35 p.m.
Liberal
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
Madam Chair, in the interest of making sure that the record accurately reflects what's going on in Parliament right now, it might help the committee to know that the WE Charity issue was recently discussed at the finance committee. It was examined there in the summer, but it's recently come up again. It is another forum where WE has been looked at.
I didn't mean to interrupt my colleague, but I think this goes to his point that the government continues to show an openness to looking at these issues when the opposition raises them. We are also seeing committees examine—
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
—what we've done in the past is used a protocol that if the person speaking at the moment is okay with your intervention, you could make a short intervention. It doesn't give you the floor necessarily, but it allows you to make an intervention. However, this doesn't seem to be a proper point of order.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
I'll leave it there. As I said, I just wanted the record to accurately reflect where things currently stand in terms of the committees examining issues that my colleague raised.
I'll turn it back to you, Madam Chair.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Stéphane Lauzon Liberal Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC
I thank my colleague for those important points. I should say that instead of two arguments, there are three.
So, setting aside my colleague's arguments and clarifications, especially since we are again studying this issue in two committees, to which I would add the Standing Committee on Finance, which I had neglected to mention, the first major argument for the motion is the naming of the Deputy Prime Minister as a witness, even though she is not involved in any way with WE Charity or with prorogation. In good faith, my colleague Mr. Turnbull mentioned that the Deputy Prime Minister might appear before the committee. So we are now a long way from a motion that calls for all of the Prime Minister's staff, the Prime Minister himself and other outside members, who no longer have any connection to Parliament, to come forward.
As we all know, from hearing the Prime Minister on several occasions in committee, prorogation remains his prerogative. The Clerk of the Privy Council, Ian Shugart, also named in the motion, will soon be on sick leave to take care of his health, following his recent diagnosis. We wish him a speedy recovery. I am sure that all members of this committee will agree that the clerk's health must come before partisan games.
I recently explained how things are changing rapidly. The motion tabled at the time is no longer relevant today. The same can be said of all the witnesses who have testified, of those who have appeared before the other committees, whether it be the Standing Committee on Finance, as my colleague mentioned, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics or the Standing Committee on Health. As for the honourable Bill Morneau, he is no longer an elected representative in the House.
As we all know, the Prime Minister has come forward. Mr. Lukiwski was talking about experience; in old-timers' experience, prime ministers do not usually appear before a committee. The Prime Minister made an exception over the summer so that he could speak officially and as a courtesy to the opposition parties. Not to mention the Prime Minister's chief of staff who also appeared before a House of Commons committee over the summer.
However, as we are all seeing today, there is very little in the way of good faith debate from the official opposition. It seems that the motion's only intent is to give the opposition parties another opportunity to blame everything on the Prime Minister and see what happens next. That is understandable, because we stood together during the pandemic, we got a historic unanimous vote on the decisions that were made during the pandemic—
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
Madam Chair, on a point of order, Mr. Lauzon has accused the opposition of lack of faith, but I think you should remind him that we are currently debating a Liberal motion. The Liberal filibuster at the moment is on a Liberal motion.
Why not bring it to a vote and we can get back to the original Conservative motion?
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Stéphane Lauzon Liberal Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC
Yes, we're debating an amendment to the motion. We're still talking about the same motion, but we're talking maybe about a solution on this motion.
As long as I have something to say, I will say it.
The Clerk of the Privy Council, Mr. Shugart, was also named in the motion, but he will no longer be with us shortly. It is important to avoid having him appear on this motion after his diagnosis. That is part of the original motion. So we're talking about the Clerk, Mr. Bill Morneau and the Prime Minister. When you interrupted me, I was talking about the Prime Minister's chief of staff.
What is the purpose of all these ill-advised attempts? I want to choose my words carefully, but prorogation must be justifiable. In any case, the rationale has been repeated many times in the public sphere, and the motion was tabled following changes made by this government in order to be transparent about the reasons for proroguing Parliament. That is what I was explaining to you.
Historically, members of all parties have voted unanimously on all decisions made for Canadians during this pandemic. We have had to make extremely difficult choices to provide assistance. Obviously, this is also related to a budgetary issue. We made decisions that had an impact on the economic crisis, which we are experiencing at the same time as the health crisis. As parliamentarians, we have made decisions together to help Canadians, and we have opened the door to the possibility of listening to each other and working together.
Of course, in a political context, it is annoying for opposition members to tell the public that things are fine and that members agree with all the positions taken. It can be annoying to say that Liberals have accepted the arguments they have raised and responded positively to their requests. In every debate in the House since the pandemic began, we have considered every situation, because a situation experienced in one riding could occur in our own. We must serve all Canadians to the best of our ability to get through this pandemic, regardless of their riding.
This is something that the previous government did very little of. We cannot judge the Harper government, known for its serial prorogations that were not necessarily warranted, as this was a prerogative of the incumbent Prime Minister. The current government has made changes to allow for more open and transparent governance. It has already been said that the opposition parties, some of whose members are here today, had taken their position on the reasons for the prorogation that took place in August 2020 long before the committee met to consider it. These are questions that were asked in the House and in the committee; these are media readings and attempts at publicity. These were questions that were directly related to prorogation, for which opposition members had already determined the reason.
With that, what is the purpose of the study? At some point, I'll have to stop saying that I'm a new member, as I'm starting to become part of the family, but I can tell you that I consider myself fairly new and that I'm coming from the outside into a committee that I'm keen to move forward.
The question I am asking myself today is the following. What is the purpose of this study?
If you have already made up your mind and nothing can change it, then why pretend to undertake a study?
To do so is to use a motion in a study simply to play partisan politics.
I went to the trouble of looking up the definition of the word "study.” It means dedicating time and attention to acquiring knowledge about a subject. This takes me back to my 21 years as a teacher. Whenever we wanted to send a positive message to learners so they could improve or gain new knowledge, that was the question we asked ourselves.
This was the question we asked ourselves every morning as teachers when we prepared our lessons. We asked ourselves what skills and knowledge we wanted to teach. We were passionate about it.
I would have liked to feel that same passion today and see that we have the opportunity to intervene to become better.
However, I was disappointed as soon as the political games started when the motion was tabled in the committee. The motion had probably already been prepared and was in line with the questions that had been raised during the discussions.
Why not just make a statement that the reasons for proroguing Parliament were clear and that they were x, y and z?
It would be sufficient to state in the report that, in your opinion, prorogation concerned WE Charity for x, y and z reasons, because a witness said that the prorogation should have taken place before or after, or that it took place too quickly or too late, or that the prerogative did not apply and was reserved for WE Charity. [Technical difficulty]
It would be enough to state in the report that this is the reason for prorogation. In any case, from what I can sense from the beginning, nothing is going to change.
I come back to being passionate about progressing on an issue or acquiring knowledge. It always reminds me that in my twenty years as a teacher, my greatest satisfaction was not my paycheck at the end of the week, but rather the results and...
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
It's not only the noise, but I can hear both French and English equally. That buzz is really bad too. That's [Technical difficulty—Editor].
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
It seems that it's more when you're speaking, but I did start hearing it before. I don't know if it's happening for every speaker.
Mr. Lauzon, can you say a couple of words?
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Stéphane Lauzon Liberal Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC
Yes, I can say a couple of words if you want.
Can you hear better, Karen? Is the sound better now?
1:35 p.m.
The Clerk
Madam Chair, Ms. Vecchio's audio and perhaps her Internet may be a problem. We're going to try to figure out if it's related to her device or a more generalized problem.
Could you hold on for just a minute?
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Okay.
Even your sound, Justin, seemed a little bit off. I could hear you and I can hear Mr. Lauzon, but there is something off. It's not as bad as what I'm hearing from Ms. Vecchio, but overall....
1:35 p.m.
The Clerk
We will look into it on our end.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Stéphane Lauzon Liberal Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC
Thanks, everyone.
I was telling you that when I got up in the morning to go and teach, it was always with the aim of gaining knowledge and sharing it with as many people as possible. Money is not what motivates people to become teachers. It's the result that counts. We're all in it to obtain results and to get things done.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Madam Chair, I have a point of order. I'm really sorry about this, but I am getting both French and English at the same volume.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
11:35 a.m.
The Clerk
We'll check on it.