Evidence of meeting #137 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was vote.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I will be moving the following subamendment to NDP-2, which is proposing to amend clause 5 of Bill C-65 by replacing lines 29 to 32 on page 2 with the following: “tion.” I move to add, after “tion.” the following: “However the first general election after this section comes into force is to be held on Monday, February 24, 2025.”
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Colleagues, we're going to get this circulated in both official languages. Just hold tight.
I have a speaking list. Mr. Cooper retains the floor. I have Mr. Turnbull, followed by Mr. Blois. I now see Mr. Kurek is here.
It's a different amendment that we're on now, Mr. Redekopp, so if you want to be added to the list, I'm happy to do that.
Colleagues, this is just a reminder of where we are. We have a subamendment, which we are now about to begin debate on. Mr. Cooper has the floor, followed by Mr. Turnbull, followed by Mr. Blois, followed by Mr. Kurek, followed by Mr. Redekopp, and I think Mr. Calkins indicated that he, too, wanted to speak. We are good to go.
Mr. Cooper, the floor is yours.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Mr. Chair, the leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh, will do anything to secure his pension and the pension of soon-to-be-defeated NDP MPs. The leader of the NDP got caught going behind closed doors to concoct a scheme to push the date of the next federal election back by one week so that he and his soon-to-be-defeated NDP MPs would secure their pensions.
Now, they represented, or at least the Minister of Democratic Institutions represented, that the reason for pushing the date of the next election back was twofold—to avoid conflict with Diwali and to avoid conflict with the Alberta municipal election. Okay—except for the fact that the date of the election could easily have been moved forward rather than back. According to the representative from the PCO, moving the date ahead by one week would conflict with Thanksgiving, and moving yet a week ahead from that might conflict with summer and the Labour Day weekend, even though these Liberals had no problem calling an election in 2021 in the middle of August that conflicted with the Labour Day weekend. That doesn't make sense.
As far as pushing the date back by one week to avoid conflict with Alberta municipal elections, well, in fact, by pushing it back by one week, it conflicts with territorial elections in Nunavut.
They tried to misrepresent the reason that this election date was pushed back. Ms. Barron, in her submissions earlier today, said that this was just inadvertent. It was inadvertent that NDP and Liberal MPs who soon face defeat would qualify for their pensions when they wouldn't qualify if the election were held on the current fixed date. I would submit that it wasn't inadvertent. It was very clear. It was very calculated. It was designed to secure their pensions and they got caught.
Now, the bottom line is that Canadians just want this government to stop. They want this government to stop the inflationary spending that is driving up the cost of living. They want this government to stop job-killing tax hikes. They want this government to stop putting Canadians in debt. They want this government simply to stop. Canadians are tired of the disastrous record of this costly and corrupt NDP government. Canadians want a carbon tax election. They want a carbon tax election now.
The leader of the NDP has, on the one hand, criticized the Liberals. He has, on the other hand, seized every opportunity available to prop this Liberal government up. The leader of the NDP entered into the coalition agreement with the Liberals more than two years ago. For the past two years, NDP MPs have carried water for this Liberal government, including working hand in glove with the Liberals to cover up Liberal scandals and corruption.
In September, the leader of the NDP said he'd finally had enough and that he was ripping up the coalition agreement with the Liberals. The timing of the announcement was interesting insofar as it happened to be on the eve of the by-election in Winnipeg.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Mr. Cooper, I'm going to stop you.
I'm going to suspend very briefly and I'll explain why.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Michael Cooper
I call the meeting back to order.
I will, as chair, use my prerogative to continue where I left off before the meeting was suspended.
The leader of the NDP said he was ripping up the agreement on the eve of the by-election in Winnipeg. It turns out that he didn't mean it. It was nothing more than a stunt to scam voters on the eve of a by-election, because no sooner did the leader of the NDP rip up the coalition agreement than he proceeded to tape the agreement back together. Within a week of ripping up the agreement, the leader of the NDP was back to propping up the Liberals. They have done so repeatedly.
The leader of the NDP still says he doesn't have confidence in the Liberal government, even though he repeatedly propped the Liberals up. Indeed, it was on two Conservative non-confidence motions.
Conservative
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
I have to admit that part of me is curious about how this is going to work. If I'm calling a point of order and you're in the chair—
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Colleagues, I apologize. Without getting into too much detail, I inherited some of my mother's DNA that I could have done without. It requires me sometimes to step out of the chair.
Colleagues, I realize there was a point of order.
Ms. Barron, I'll speak to that, at which point I'll go to Mr. Cooper.
It might be difficult for me to rule on that point of order, as I wasn't here. Therefore, unless you feel it's incredibly pertinent, perhaps we can go back to Mr. Cooper and, if you hear something that concerns you, you can certainly raise it again, at which point I'll have the ability to be a bit more in the loop.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The NDP leader was given an opportunity yesterday to demonstrate that he stood by his principles. As I noted, he ripped up the agreement, but then he voted to back the government up repeatedly. He said, “the Liberals are too weak, too selfish and too beholden to corporate interests to fight for people”. He said, “The Liberal government will always cave to corporate greed, and always step in to make sure the unions have no power.” Yesterday he was given an opportunity to stand by those words and to stand by his principles.
Conservatives agree that the Liberals are too weak, too selfish and too beholden to corporate interests, so Conservatives put forward another motion of non-confidence in this costly and corrupt Liberal government. The best part of the motion of non-confidence was that it contained entirely, in terms of the text of the motion, those very words—the words of the leader of the NDP. Incredibly, the leader of the NDP, along with NDP MPs, voted against the non-confidence motion.
In so doing, the leader of the NDP demonstrated that his words mean absolutely nothing. He sold out yet again to Justin Trudeau. In so doing, he sold out workers, he sold out Canadians and he sold out his purported principles—principles that evidently mean nothing. When he had an opportunity to stand by them, he ran to the rescue of Justin Trudeau yet again.
Why would he do that? Very simply, he wants his $2.3-million pension. He has now come up with new terms to the NDP coalition agreement whereby the leader of the NDP gets his pension, Justin Trudeau gets his power and Canadians get the bill.
If I am in any way wrong about that, then there's a very good way to clear it all up. The NDP have an opportunity to clear it all up right here, right now. If it's not about Jagmeet Singh's $2.3-million pension, if it's all one big misunderstanding—
Liberal
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm sorry. I just wanted to provide a point of clarification.
I think the member is confused by his own leader's pension. He might have gotten them switched up. I just want to make sure that—
Liberal
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
If it's all one big misunderstanding, if Jagmeet Singh isn't continually selling out and propping up Justin Trudeau to secure his $2.3-million pension, then I would hope that the NDP would support this common-sense subamendment so that the election will be held on—
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
I'm sorry, Mr. Cooper. I do have to hear the point of order before I can rule on it.
Ms. Barron.
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm very open to hearing numbers and the facts behind where they come from. I'm just curious to know where this number came from and what information—