Evidence of meeting #27 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.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Thank you, Ms. Lambropoulos. It was really a pleasure to hear from you.
Next we have Mr. Long.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Good afternoon, Madam Chair, and good afternoon to my colleagues.
I didn't have the opportunity to do a sound check, so I want to make sure that I'm set up okay for the interpreters. Can somebody give me a heads-up or a hands-up?
1:35 p.m.
The Clerk
You're good, Mr. Long.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Thank you.
It's a pleasure to be back on PROC. I certainly want to thank MP Lambropoulos for her wonderful input and speech. It was uplifting and very thought-provoking. Also, MP Amos, that was a wonderful speech. I don't know if MP Amos is still here. Prior to that, obviously, was my good friend and rookie MP, MP Turnbull. It's great to have him back. His speech was fantastic. His hair looks good. He's on point. As always, it was a very thought-provoking, sincere speech.
We're here again. We're talking about many things, obviously. We're talking about prorogation. We're certainly talking about MP Turnbull's amendment to MP Vecchio's motion. For those tuning in this afternoon and listening with great interest to what their parliamentarians are doing, I've just pulled up a few articles here. I just want to go back a bit:
What is prorogation?
A prorogation of Parliament suspends all parliamentary activity, including all legislation and committee work. This clears the way for a new session of Parliament and a relaunch of an agenda that can only begin with a new speech from the throne.
This clearly has happened.
I think this is probably my fourth or fifth time speaking on PROC. Just let me throw it out there for all of us to consider. The Conservative Party wants us to study prorogation, and that's fair, but just let me quote.... I have a lot to say here. MP Vecchio's motion called for the Prime Minister to come.
Let me quote this:
We are proroguing Parliament to bring it back on exactly the same week it was supposed to come back anyway, and force a confidence vote. We are taking a moment to recognize that the throne speech we delivered eight months ago had no mention of COVID-19, had no conception of the reality we find ourselves in right now.
Who would have thought?
It continues:
We need to reset the approach of this government for a recovery to build back better. And those are big, important decisions and we need to present that to Parliament and gain the confidence of Parliament to move forward on this ambitious plan. The prorogation we are doing right now is about gaining or testing the confidence of the House.
Who said that? Whose quotes were those? Those quotes were from the Prime Minister. That's what the Prime Minister said.
The Conservative party wants to call in the Prime Minister and ask him about prorogation, yet the Prime Minister has already talked publicly about prorogation. He has already answered why we prorogated and why we needed to move forward. We've heard from the Prime Minister.
As I said the last time I spoke, I don't understand what anybody thinks they will get from the Prime Minister, other than what he has already stated. We've heard from the Prime Minister. We've heard from the House leader, who testified right here before committee after tabling a comprehensive report. Those who are looking and saying that government hasn't been responsive and isn't accountable.... That is absolutely not true.
If we had a situation where, as in previous governments that came before 2015, there was a deliberate ducking of the question and avoiding the press, that's fair fodder. That's different. The Prime Minister has already stated why he wanted to prorogue.
Let me compare it to this, for those who say that he shouldn't have prorogued, shouldn't have reset, didn't need to reboot and what have you. Let me bring this to terms that I'm familiar with and that I can deal with.
A typical Quebec Major Junior Hockey League season is 68 games. It used to be 70 games. I actually voted against cutting it back to 68; I wanted that extra home game. Anyway, it's 68 games. Let's just look at the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, the OHL or the WHL. These are the three leagues that make up the CHL, as we all know, to compete for the Memorial Cup, which very sadly has been cancelled this year. Who would think that for two years straight now we wouldn't have a Memorial Cup? We did win it in 2011, as I'm sure you would remember me saying.
However, I'll go back to my point on prorogation. Obviously, you wouldn't call it that in hockey or other sports, but that's what happened in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. That's what happened in the OHL. They didn't continue on as normal. They didn't just say that since they have a 68-game schedule, they're just going to continue to play and not address, change or reboot. No. They prorogued, in hockey terms. They stepped back. They did a reset. They reorganized.
They didn't think they'd be dealing with COVID-19. I'm sure if you interviewed the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League commissioner, Gilles Courteau—he's actually a friend of mine—he would say that when we started the season of 2019-20, nobody knew about COVID. Nobody was dealing with COVID or a pandemic. Nobody understood what it was.
Sure, you can be oblivious. I think it's irresponsible to continue on as if everything is normal and just do what you need to do and ignore the fact that things have changed.
Things did change, and our league did have to reset. That was a responsible thing to do. They reset. They got a new mandate from the owners of the league. They rejigged the schedule, which has unfortunately been rejigged about 20 times now, but that's what they had to do, and they did it.
Again, I go back to this—what would you call it?—amazement by the other side that we needed to prorogue. I'll get to this after, but I'll compare different instances of prorogation in parliaments back over many, many years and how some were obviously okay at that point, but when we did it in the middle of what I'd call one of the greatest health challenges—one of the greatest challenges our country has ever had, full stop—we need to study it.
I was going through my notes last night and that's when it hit me. What hit me was that the Prime Minister did comment. He did give his reasons for prorogation. As I've asked before, with the greatest respect of course, does anybody really think they're going to get any answers different from what the Prime Minister has already given? No, of course they're not. I can state that clearly for him. He's already stated it. Now, he could say the same thing, but we already know what he said.
The fact that we needed a new mandate, a new throne speech, the fact that we as parliamentarians, as a government, all of us, needed to step back.... None of us knew. Yes, I know I've talked about this before, but none of us were prepared for what we were going to be faced with when we came back to our constituency offices in March 2020—it seems longer than that right now. None of us knew. None of us knew the crisis that all of us, as political leaders in our constituencies, would be facing and would need to be there about.
None of us knew what CERB was—or CEBA, or the Canada recovery benefit and all those benefits that we would have to produce. Again, I apologize for always trying to compare it to the Major Junior Hockey League or my days in salmon aquaculture, but what happened in businesses, leagues and industries across this world was that they had to step back. They had to reassess. They had to sit around tables and say, “Look, we've been dealt something that we didn't expect. How do we plan for this?” How do we come forward with benefits? How do we, as a government, make sure that we have Canadians' backs?
To me, that was a responsible thing for us to do, for every one of us.
Look, we all know how challenging it's been, and we all know how difficult it's been. We all know how tired all of us are—physically, mentally, emotionally—but we needed to prepare and we needed to be ready to respond to Canadians' needs, and we have done it. We're not done yet, but you know what, we have been there for Canadians. When we talk about prorogation and we talk about.... Obviously, all of us, where we are right now.... The fact is that the Prime Minister has already spoken. The fact is that Minister Rodriguez has already testified.
I want to go back to my friend MP Turnbull's amendment. I will not torture anybody by reading MP Vecchio's motion; we all know very well what it was. It was certainly detailed. I'll say that, it was detailed. It certainly had a lot of people invited, production of records and communications, and of course WE was in there, coincidentally. We had to get WE Charity in there to make sure we got another pot—we get the pot, we stir the pot and we throw WE in there, we throw some prorogation in there, we throw some bad government in there and we stir that pot around and hope that we can brew something that's going to be controversial, or something that's going to grab Canadians' interest. No.
It's almost a running joke now outside my office. I'm outside and I have my mask on, of course. I'm safe and I'm socially distanced. I'm out there with my book. I have some notes, and constituents are walking back and forth in the mall. We have a wonderful mall here, Market Square. MP Vecchio has been here, and MP Petitpas Taylor has been here. MP Morrissey has his hands up like he's been here. If you were here, I wasn't here, so maybe you were moonlighting as the Saint John—Rothesay MP. It's great to see my friend Bobby Morrissey, whom I have so much respect for over there in Prince Edward Island. With all those rock star MPs over there, it's like Mount Rushmore. I always look at Prince Edward Island as the Mount Rushmore of MPs. There's Lawrence MacAulay, who has been an MP since about 1925, and you have Wayne Easter, Sean Casey and Bobby Morrissey. I tell you, you have some depth there, man. It's crazy.
Because I want to keep on topic here, I'll go back to MP Turnbull's amendment. I think he did the right thing. He spent time on it. I know he's very collaborative, and he works across the aisle. He's not partisan. He's an MP who, number one, loves his constituents, loves his riding. You can see it in how he operates. We certainly missed him for a week there when he was a little under the weather. It's good to see he has some colour in his face. My screen on the computer probably isn't high-definition, but you're certainly not that pasty grey that you were earlier in the week. You have a little bit of colour, my friend. Your hair is good. That's a good sign.
All that being said, the amendment to the motion.... I can tell that our chair is looking at me saying, “Stay on point.” I am going to stay on point, Chair. I'm going to keep it relevant. I want to talk about MP Turnbull's amendment. It's a very fair amendment. I know he did a lot of work on it.
We're renewing invitations to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, and the Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Youth. We renewed invitations issued to Bill Morneau, Craig Kielburger and Marc Kielburger. There's a lot there. This is not trying to sweep something—which, by the way, doesn't exist—under the carpet. It's there. If you got the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland, I can't think of anybody who would have more answers and a higher profile than MP Freeland. But no, obviously, that's not going to work. I know MP Turnbull is disappointed. I think we're all disappointed.
I go back to this. When I did my poll this morning—quickly, but there's a lot of traffic out there going back and forth to Tim Hortons—I was grabbing people and saying, “Look, real quick, give me the top 10 priorities you want me to work on. What are the top 10 things you're concerned about? Give me the top 10 things you like about our government, or you don't like about our government.” I want to hear it all, always.
That's what good members of Parliament should do. They should work with and get feedback from their constituents. They should be open to listening to their constituents. I got a lot of good feedback. Keeping it honest, some I didn't want to hear. You know what? Any feedback is good feedback, because we can all learn from that. We can all be better. I try to be better every day. You know the old adage, that to stand still is to go backwards. You always need to be evolving, moving forward and challenging yourself. The status quo doesn't work for me, ever. We need to always try to continuously improve ourselves and those around us. You always have to try.
I got the feedback. Some people talked and were very thankful that we extended the wage subsidy, the rent subsidy, the recovery benefit and the sick days benefits. These are benefits that Canadians need at this time. There wasn't one comment—again, this is the fifth time I've done this—about prorogation or PROC. I'll be honest, as I always try to be. I don't think I've had one call in my office, ever, about why we prorogued. If I did, we would explain why and somebody would say, “Oh, well, that makes sense to me.”
I go back and I appeal to members of the committee. I think I'm just talking to my Liberal friends right now, but it's not an issue that Canadians are seized with. It's not an issue, to be blunt, that Canadians really care about. As I said to all of you before, while looking at a lot of still pictures here, a lot of freeze-frames.... I'll tell you a story about the freeze-frames here in a second, but that's what disappoints me. Canadians want us seized with, dealing with, business that Canadians want us dealing with, and that is being good representatives, leading good government, being responsive, advocating for our constituents and getting more vaccines.
In this riding, we are very fortunate. It's a wonderful riding, but we all see even things like vaccine hesitancy and false stories spread. All of us political leaders need to show, by leadership, that vaccines are safe and that vaccines will help us win this battle. I was thrilled to see the Leader of the Opposition get his vaccine and the leader of the NDP get his vaccine. I can't say whether the leaders of the Green Party and the Bloc have received their vaccine—maybe they have and I just haven't seen that—but that's what we need to do. These are the things we need to be doing as members of Parliament. We need to be leading. We need to be calming fears. We need to be there when constituents need us, whether it's programs, benefits or fighting for them. These are the things we need.
Just to cap that off about my informal poll, again, I ran 0% interest about PROC and prorogation and those things. People want to know what we are doing as a government. People want to know what we're working on.
I think all of us, every single one of us on this committee, can be very proud of budget 2021. I think that budget is a budget that will transform our country. We have made strategic commitments that will change the face of Canada for the better.
The fact is that in Saint John, the average cost of day care is, give or take, $500 to $600 per child, and the fact is that we have made a commitment to reduce the cost of child care by 50% in 2022 and then strive for $10-per-day day care by 2026. That is transformational. I don't think I'm wrong in saying—although I was corrected and I was a little hesitant—that this is going to help so many women get back into the workforce. But it's not only women; it's caregivers, men, parents, whoever. We certainly see in New Brunswick that we're desperate for people to enter our workforce. We are desperate.
The fact that a child care program can make it easier for caregivers—moms, dads, whoever is looking after children—to get back into the workforce is significant for us. I heard that upwards of 40,000 people in New Brunswick alone could re-enter the workforce because of our child care program, because so many people just can't afford to go to work because of the cost of child care.
Obviously, my constituents want us advocating for the delivery of things like child care, which was in the budget, or the 10% raise for seniors over 74 years of age, the most vulnerable seniors. Let's be very clear, these are the most vulnerable seniors, who have the highest costs because of health care, because of extra care. They're the seniors who are the most vulnerable. That was in our platform. We ran on this in our election. That shouldn't be any surprise to anybody. That was in the platform. I say that to people. I campaigned on that. Other commitments, as I said before, are the top-up of the trade corridor funding and the top-up of the rapid housing initiative.
Another item in the budget that I think has totally flown under the radar is the help for students. I had a meeting this week with student executives from my old university, UNBSJ, the University of New Brunswick Saint John, of which I was the student union vice-president, where I got my first taste for politics. I met with the student executive of the university. We talked about our changes to student loan repayment. There are sensational changes.
Very quickly, then, I'm going to get back to MP Turnbull's amendment to MP Vecchio's motion.
The fact that we raised the repayable loan from $25,000 to $40,000, the fact that we reduced the maximum payment from 20% of income to 10%.... If you made $50,000, that would reduce your monthly payment from $486 to $90, give or take. Think about that. Think about those changes. Students are thrilled with those changes. They're unbelievable. We've doubled the student grants—from $2,000 to $3,000 initially, and now from $3,000 to $6,000. These are unbelievable changes. I know that CASA, the student alliance, is thrilled with those changes. I told the student executive that's why they lobby. That's why they have Hill days, why they lobby MPs.
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Although I'm really grateful for Mr. Long's talk about our youth, because I think that's really important, there are a few different things we can look at. I think it's very ironic that we're talking about our youth as we're talking about prorogation. Perhaps that's why we're here today as well. But the fact is that the Canada summer jobs was done in April 2020, so that's pre-prorogation. The Canada summer jobs was already announced, so it's not even budget. I'm just saying there is full non-relevance here.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Yes, I would take that point.
It's always great to see MP Vecchio, of course.
Truthfully, I didn't even mention Canada summer jobs. It didn't come out of my mouth. I talked about the student loan repayment and then the Canada student grant, but I will say, really quickly, on Canada summer jobs.... When I came into this riding in 2015, the Canada summer jobs allocated by the Conservative Party to Saint John—Rothesay were 152. We doubled that. There are over—
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
I think you've given Mr. Long some ammunition to respond to your question.
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Fair enough. I've been listening to a lot of this, and a lot of the things.... I'm quite concerned. If he really wants to talk about youth, then let's go back to my initial motion and we can talk a little bit about youth.
Thanks very much.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Just to finish that sentence—and I certainly appreciate MP Vecchio's intervention—it went from 150 to 320, and this year we upped it again. Saint John—Rothesay received 425 Canada summer jobs. That's an investment of $1.3 million in this riding for students. It's incredible.
These are the things we should be talking about. These are the things we should be working on, not “Why did Prime Minister Trudeau and the Liberal government prorogue Parliament? We need to study this.” Again, what frustrates me.... Look, I would be the first one—trust me, some of my colleagues would know—to say, “Hold on here. Look, the Prime Minister may need to say something here.” But no. No, no, no. He's already said it.
MP Turnbull's amendment is more than fair, because the Prime Minister has already given the reasons he was proroguing Parliament. Again, what's the right word? I need to research that for the next time. It's looking for a question instead of the answer, or a problem for the solution. Let's call a spade a spade. The real issue here is that the Conservative Party doesn't have the answers they want. It's not that there haven't been answers; they're just not the answers that they think work for them.
I'm not sure who is in the rooms giving advice or doing the polling, but I guess there's somebody somewhere in the Conservative Party on somebody's shoulder, or a pollster or somebody somewhere who is saying, “This is an issue for you. This is an issue that Canadians care about. This is something you need to keep moving on.”
You know the adage that it's already baked in. We've talked about this. The public has seen it. The Prime Minister has testified.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Oh, my lord. I'm devastated. How long have I been on mute?
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
You'll have to repeat it. We missed those important lines, Mr. Long.
1:35 p.m.
A voice
Not long enough.
1:35 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Well, look, hopefully you'll indulge me here. I don't know how that happened.
At any rate, what frustrates me is the fact that the Prime Minister has already talked about why he prorogued. The Prime Minister has already testified. Minister Rodriguez has testified. Again, we talk about that big pot, about throwing everything in the pot. The Kielburgers have already testified. The Perelmuters have already testified. I sat on the ethics committee and watched the testimony. For the life of me, I can't think of what more anybody reasonable thinks they will get.
Now, as I said earlier...probably when I was on mute. I apologize for that. It certainly wasn't my intention. I'm sure a few of my friends weren't disappointed by the mute, but anyway, things happen.
I just don't understand the reasoning on the Conservative side that they think there's something they're going to get that hasn't already been stated: “Let's ask the question again. Let's try to get a snapshot or a freeze-frame or a 5 o'clock quote on the news.”
You know what? I'm going to give some Wayne Long free advice: People have moved on. We should too. We should move on. There are so many important things we could be doing.
Madam Chair, do you mind if I get a drink of water?
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Yes. It's right here.
You know, I really wish, if you want to talk about prorogation, that my friends on the Conservative side would kind of reset, regroup, and say, “Look, you know what? We've gone as far as we can go on this. We've pushed it to the wall. We've made MP Turnbull come up with an amendment to MP Vecchio's motion.”
As I said, that had everything in it but the kitchen sink. MP Turnbull came back and said that we should compromise, that we should come up with something we can work together on, and that we should get this moving. It seems fair to me. But here we are.
I have a few more things I'd like to say, if I could.
I think, Madam Chair, I have a bit more time. Is that okay?
