Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Dec. 12th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Ms. Barron.

I was having flashbacks to many moments of a disappointed mom in my childhood. I appreciate your drawing reference to that.

Mr. Cooper, the floor is yours.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Barron really has difficulty following the facts and basic logic when she asserts one of the most absurd things I think I've heard in nine years of sitting in the House of Commons: that somehow Conservatives are determined to pad their pockets with pensions with respect to this bill. She acts as though she and the NDP are bystanders in all of this.

However, with regard to her point, how is it possible that she can assert that when this very week, the House of Commons voted on a Conservative non-confidence motion in this government to call an immediate election? The motion incorporated, in fact, the very words of her leader, who said, among other things, that “the Liberals are too weak, too selfish and too beholden to corporate interests to fight for people.”

Those words were put right in the Conservative non-confidence motion.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

I have a point of order.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, but we are talking about NDP-2, and this is in relation to the election date, so I would just ask that we stay on topic of that.

Thank you.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

That is exactly what she is talking about.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

No, a confidence motion is not on the amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I hear your feedback, Ms. O'Connell, and I'm going to just keep an ear open.

Mr. Cooper, the floor is yours.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Chair, Ms. Barron was allowed a fair bit of leeway. I respected that leeway, and I think it's appropriate that I should be able to respond to the absurd points that she made.

She made the assertion that Conservatives somehow secretly want this pensions clause to be maintained in the bill, but there is the fact that we moved a motion of non-confidence in this government that would have had the effect of dissolving Parliament and going to an immediate election. The motion incorporated the very words of her leader. Her leader demonstrated, once again, that he's a total sellout, that his words mean absolutely nothing and that he has no principles. We know why, and that is because he wants his $2.3-million pension.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Ms. Barron, go ahead on a point of order.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, but again I think the member may need some facts provided. I think he's flipped the pensions of his leader of the Conservative party and the leader of the NDP. Clearly, those numbers don't add up, so I would love it if somebody could provide my Conservative colleague with some facts and some numbers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you for your input, Ms. Barron. That is wading into debate, but I appreciate your intervention.

Mr. Cooper, go ahead.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

We then moved a subamendment at the last meeting of this committee to see that there is a fixed election date that is moved up, not back, to February 24, 2025. That is hardly consistent with some sort of a plan for Conservatives to secure their pensions. It's quite the opposite of that; we brought another subamendment forward to provide for an election on February 24, 2025, or within 50 days of the legislation coming into force. Again, that is hardly consistent with her claim that Conservatives somehow want their pensions and want to delay the election.

No, we don't want to delay the election; we want an election, and we want an election now, or, at the very least, as soon as possible. We want one now, but of course she voted in the House of Commons to vote confidence in this government and to backtrack on her leader's words. She voted against our subamendment to move the date of the election to February 24, 2025, which happens to be the day before her leader, Jagmeet Singh, qualifies for his $2.3-million pension.

I presume she was taking his orders to vote against that subamendment, because Jagmeet Singh, on the one hand, professes to lack confidence in these Liberals, but on the other hand, at every opportunity, votes with them to prop them up. Why? Very conveniently, it seems it's because he wants his $2.3-million pension, and a fixed election date on February 24 would have gotten in the way of that. Today, once again, Ms. Barron was directed by her coalition masters to vote against the Conservative amendment to also see that there be an election at the earliest opportunity.

I underscore that the position of the Conservative Party is that the time is up for this NDP-Liberal government. We want this government to just stop the inflationary spending, stop the tax hikes, stop the crime—stop it all. Get on with it and put it to the people of this country and see what they have to say. I have a feeling they're not going to be very kind to the Prime Minister or to the sellout leader of the NDP.

Ms. Barron acts as though she and the NDP are bystanders in all of this, except for the fact.... She cited CTV as an accurate source of news, and I have a CTV article in front of me from January 27, 2024, in which the then-NDP democratic reform critic Daniel Blaikie is quoted as saying that there had been “a fair amount of work done” towards what is, or what became, Bill C-65. The headline from CTV in January was that Trudeau's and Singh's teams were “quietly planning” this legislation.

We know that there were secret meetings between Daniel Blaikie, officials within the NDP, the NDP executive director, Minister Leblanc, parliamentary secretary Jennifer O'Connell and members of the PMO and PCO, etc. We of course saw Daniel Blaikie standing behind Dominic LeBlanc at the press conference announcing this bill that, very conveniently, would move the date of the next election back to secure the pensions of soon-to-be-defeated NDP and Liberal MPs. Ms. Barron asserts that this was all inadvertent and it was just by happenstance that this particular date was selected.

Well, give me a break. Give Canadians a break. It's patently absurd. It took me all of a few moments upon opening up the bill to see what the effect of the change in the election date is. Within minutes, it was apparent to me that the date had been moved back by a week, which suddenly ensured that soon-to-be-defeated Liberal and NDP MPs who don't qualify for their pensions on the current fixed date would now qualify for their pensions. It's hardly rocket science. It was there right upon looking at the bill. For the NDP to pretend that their co-author of the bill had no idea—that it didn't even cross his mind—is absurd.

That absurdity is underscored by the excuses that have been offered by the Liberals and the NDP. The first justification was that the date had been pushed back so as not to conflict with Diwali and the municipal election scheduled in my province of Alberta. Then, when the Chief Electoral Officer came here, he was asked, because he had meetings with the minister, along with the NDP—

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Did you want the information?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

I'm going to get to that.

The NDP and the Liberals met with the Chief Electoral Officer. We asked the Chief Electoral Officer whether the question of Diwali came up in conversation at any of those meetings, and he answered in the negative. Now, if this was such a pressing issue, you would think that it would be part of the discussion with the Chief Electoral Officer, but it wasn't. Well, I guess I understand why: It's because it has nothing to do with Diwali, nothing to do with the Alberta municipal election, and everything to do with Liberal and NDP MPs padding their pockets on their way out the door—when they're shown the door by their voters—whenever the Prime Minister has the guts to call an election or whenever the sellout leader of the NDP has the fortitude to vote non-confidence in this costly and corrupt government that he has been complicit in propping up and supporting every step of the way, now including three times after he ripped up his coalition agreement on the eve of a by-election in Winnipeg, before he taped it back together and continued to sell out everyone.

So, they said Diwali. They said Diwali, but it never came up. They were asked about, instead of moving the election back, moving the election ahead a week, and they said that that's problematic because it conflicts with Thanksgiving. Okay, I get that. I don't want an election during Thanksgiving weekend. What's to say that we can't move it ahead by another week? Well, the excuse they offered was that it would conflict with Labour Day and the end of summer—except for the fact that it was perfectly fine for the Prime Minister to have an election that was called in the middle of August, that conflicted with Labour Day, in 2021, when he called an election to cover up the national security breach that occurred under his government's watch at the Winnipeg lab.

So, every excuse that they have offered doesn't add up. They speak about conflicting with a municipal election. Well, the date that they selected happened to conflict with a territorial election. That is what the NDP and Dominic LeBlanc cooked up—a date that conflicts with the territorial election in Nunavut. Now, if, in fact, one of the key issues, one of the key reasons, is to avoid a conflict with an election in another province, then wouldn't you think that one of the first things that would be done in selecting another date would be to see whether that date conflicts with any other election?

Of course, that's what would be done, but that wasn't the intent and that wasn't the reason the date was moved back. They thought they could just sneak this in so that Liberal and NDP MPs could succeed in securing their pensions. For them to be acting and speaking in a sanctimonious fashion in the face of this and saying they're offering solutions.... Well, they're the problem. They created this mess. They created this problem, and our position, very clearly, is that time's up, so let's get on with it.

Ms. Barron spoke about the motion that we put forward on November 26 to see that all of the communications between the Prime Minister's Office; the Prime Minister's department; the Chief Electoral Officer; the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs; and NDP representatives be produced so that we can determine whose idea it was to push back the date of the next election. It's very interesting that when that motion was put forward on November 26, the Liberals, along with Ms. Barron, following the wishes or demands of her coalition masters, the Liberals, prevented that motion from going to a vote. She says she's very supportive of that motion, so—

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I'm sorry, Mr. Cooper, but there is a point of order.

Ms. Barron, go ahead.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

As much as I don't want to give my colleague a break, because he's clearly on a rant here, can I get clarification around the facts of what was just said? I believe I made it quite clear that I was in support of the motion, and then the motion suddenly was no longer on the table, so I'm not sure what that's based on. It's just for clarification.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Ms. Barron, it's up to Mr. Cooper to decide if he'd like to speak to that. It isn't something we can do based on a point of order.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

I'd be very happy to remind Ms. Barron that she ran out the clock to prevent that motion from going to a vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Cooper, just to be a stickler for the rules, please make sure I have returned the floor to you before you continue.

The floor is yours, Mr. Cooper.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Maybe Ms. Barron needs to be reminded that she ran out the clock to prevent that motion from going to a vote, but I'll give her another opportunity. I'll give her an opportunity right now.

Therefore, I move that the committee proceed to consideration of the motion considered on November 26.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Colleagues, just to clarify for everybody what's happened here, Mr. Cooper has moved to resume debate on his previous motion. This is a dilatory item. The reason for that is that it seeks to move us to a new order of business, so there's no debate that can ensue.

I'm going to ask the clerk to call the vote.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

Mr. Turnbull, go ahead.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Do I have the floor after the vote?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Because we have moved to a new item, there is a new list that becomes established as a result of that.

I had Mr. Turnbull, who indicated that he would like to speak.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you very much.

This is a motion that Mr. Cooper has asked us to resume debate on, which we agreed with. I think what's interesting about this motion is that it brings up an important topic that the Conservatives seem to want to get documents on.

For us, we're interested as well in terms of adding to this motion, so I want to move and then speak to an amendment to this motion. I would add the following:

d) given that Bill C-65 is intended to strengthen the Canada Elections Act from attempts of foreign interference in Canada's elections, and given the recent allegations that agents of the Indian government interfered in the 2022 leadership race of the Conservative Party of Canada, the committee invite the following individuals to appear before the committee on its study of Bill C-65:

1) Patrick Brown, Mayor of Brampton;

2) Dan Muys, MP for Flamborough—