Evidence of meeting #106 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was subamendment.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Clerk of the Committee  Mr. Rémi Bourgault

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Thank you, Mr. Hallan.

Mr. Kmiec, please go ahead.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Thank you, Chair.

It's hard to follow my colleague from Calgary Forest Lawn. He's in the neighbouring riding, and he's getting a big chunk in the redistribution of the riding I represent currently, which is the second-largest riding in Canada by population size, so I'm thankful for the extra help.

I want to go back to comments made by Mr. El-Khoury. I have some more articles by independent journalists that I want to refer to on the public record. Also, I've had the time to look up a few comments that Liberal members of Parliament have made about the carbon tax. I thought I would quote them on the record, because I think you'll find that these comments agree with our position that the subamendment should pass. These particular Liberal members of Parliament actually agree with the idea that the carbon tax is unpopular, and that should be put to the public. The public will choose to throw out those politicians who still support the carbon tax.

Mr. El-Khoury has said that his hope was for a future without tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires and a bunch of other natural disasters, and he was tying it all into the carbon tax. We've had the carbon tax now for close to a decade, and we have had hurricanes. We have had wildfires. We have had all types of natural disasters. I'm just wondering at what price all of these will go away so I can go back to my constituents and tell them how punishing it must become, how ridiculous it must be, how radical it must be in order for all of those things to go away. It's just a ridiculous argument.

Nowhere in the IPCC report does it say such ludicrous things, that you can somehow, through a carbon tax, stop nature from taking its course, stop nature from damaging what we have. Actually, if you look at the statistics on how many human deaths have happened over the last century, they go down. The richer a country becomes, the better it can afford climate-resilient infrastructure to prevent those deaths. It's right in the IPCC report. I just find it completely ridiculous.

Mr. El-Khoury also commented that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and then he accused the Conservatives of having that as our plan. Well, I'm looking around at how many Liberals connected to the government have gotten richer. There are a lot. There are a lot of cronies out there who have gotten rich over the last nine years and who have been able to extract what we call “economic rent” from the government. I was busy going through some of those people who seemingly are about to make a fortune, have made a fortune or are interested in making a fortune, and they seem to be running out of time. If this subamendment passed, Chair, I'd be worried that some of them wouldn't get their chance to go and make their case to the government so that they could perhaps extract more economic rent out of the government and maybe get another $200,000 for their company.

I'm going to bring up the Sustainable Development Technology fund, what's now been named “the green slush fund”, from which a billion dollars of taxpayer cash was misspent, over $100 million of which was spent corruptly. I want to remind those at this table, Chair, of one particular case, because it's fresh in my mind, that of Annette Verschuren, who was personally appointed as chair by the minister at the time. She was the chair of this board and was at the board meeting at which the board voted for over $200,000 to go directly to her company. That's not me saying it; that's the Auditor General. There have been investigations. There have been parliamentary inquiries into this, all related back to exactly what the subamendment is about.

So when we're talking about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, I see a lot of Liberals getting really rich, really fast, and the government, the cabinet, facilitating it, making it easier, just opening themselves up to blatant corruption in that case. That's just one example.

Now we have the latest news that Telesat Holdings had $2.14 billion afforded to it for a program, and when people inquired online about how much it would cost to get a different private sector option out there, it was over a billion dollars less. It's interesting that the heads of Telesat Holdings are good friends with Mark Carney. Mark Carney, a gentleman who is deeply connected to the Liberal Party of Canada, is now on an economic task force seemingly doing government policy work but not on the government dime, which is also interesting, seeing that he is the chair of Brookfield, an investment company, and stands to gain substantially from some of the decisions that are about to be made by the government.

I want to draw attention specifically to Liberal budget 2024, in which there was open talk about forcing pension plans to invest directly in capital projects in Canada. I thought that the Canada pension plan, especially, was about seeking the highest returns so that retirees, who were forced to pay into it, can get the return on the investment that they made. They are compelled to make that retirement saving, and the goal of the CPP should be to ensure that there are enough benefits, enough cash in the fund to pay out those hard-working retirees.

However, now I see there's a $50-billion fund being put together by another Liberal, someone connected directly to that political movement who is on an economic task force—personally appointed by the Prime Minister, no less—but is not in the Prime Minister's Office. That is really interesting, because I guess he won't have access to all that Finance Canada data—unless he will. It's a $50-billion fund, which was reported by The Logic, an online publication that tracks Canadian tech and business news. In here, it says that Brookfield is looking to take advantage of this 2024 Liberal budget announcement that would see the pension funds being forced to invest. It's a $50-billion fund: $36 billion would be originating from Canadian pension funds, and then $10 billion from taxpayers, and Brookfield would commit $4 billion. How generous of them. That's really interesting.

5 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Chiang Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Go ahead on a point of order, Mr. Chiang.

5 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Chiang Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am just wondering whether Mr. Kmiec is discussing the motion on Bill C-71. The point he's bringing should be in a different committee, not in this committee.

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Can you clarify, Mr. Chiang, again?

5 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Chiang Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON

He's talking about finance and Brookfield, and those things should be in the finance committee, not in a committee where we're discussing the motion on Bill C-71 here.

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Thank you.

Mr. Kmiec will go to the relevance of this amendment.

5 p.m.

Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

The relevance is obviously that the carbon tax is a price imposed on all Canadians, on Canadian companies, on pension funds and on school boards. There's a cost associated with it, a cost that the public, Canadian citizens and voters no longer want to bear. That is why my subamendment is directly what I heard at the doors: People want a carbon tax election.

This fund is being billed as an answer to incentivize so-called climate investments and climate spending. That's why this is relevant. That's why this matters. All of this money, like this taxpayer cash that's going to be sent, is collected from the carbon tax, partially, and then GST is charged on top of the carbon tax. That's exactly what my school board said about how punishing the carbon tax is: a tax on tax. That is why even the school boards in my own province want to see a carbon tax election. They want to reject current government policy.

That is why I offered a subamendment that we not proceed with the main motion or with the amendment and that we proceed first with a carbon tax election, because that's what I heard at the doors, and that's what the public wants to do.

I was answering the commentary made by Mr. El-Khoury that Conservative policy is only there for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. I want to demonstrate that it's false, actually. There are actually more articles on the fact that there are lots of people connected to the Liberal Party, including Mark Carney. I noticed that I was only interrupted when I referenced his name.

Typically, in an investment firm portfolio like that, they would make something like 3% off an investment: 3% of tens of billions of dollars, potentially, which could be added, is a lot of money. That's another Liberal who's going to get richer. I agree. He will get richer. Let's say “potentially” richer, because you never know with investments these days. Canadian pensioners will get poorer. The Canadian public, whom I meet at the doors, will get poorer because they're forced to pay this carbon tax. That's $50 billion by which this investment firm is connected to a Liberal.

Let's remind ourselves of other people who got rich, or at least avoided criminal prosecution: those at SNC-Lavalin. They avoided criminal prosecution thanks to their connections to the party. There were two cabinet members drummed out of the Liberal cabinet really fast for standing up to the Prime Minister's Office and for not wanting to break the rules. One of them did so in solidarity with her friend, and there's now ample public information about that.

I also found an interesting article from the 2021 election that I wanted to bring up on the point that Mr. El-Khoury made. This is the headline: “Election Insights: Why rich Canadians are all-in for the Liberals”, and the subheading is, “Canadians who earn more than $100,000 per year are disproportionately likely to vote Liberal on Sept. 20”. This was published on September 10, 2021, and it was written by Tristin Hopper. If you read the article, it's just polling data and self-reported data on where the interests of the public lie. To my colleague, Mr. El-Khoury, I just wanted to offer that as an opportunity if he wants to correct the record later.

In fact, the people most likely to support Liberal government policies are those who have become richer and who have earned way more than the Canadian median income. That Canadian median income is earned by those middle-class workers and those blue-collar workers I meet at the doors. They are the ones bearing the brunt of the carbon tax that's collected at the federal government level, which is then reassigned to people like those in the green slush fund, which is a perfect example. The money is sent over there to be wasted corruptly on programs that don't work or where there are obvious signs that there's corruption happening at the table. Even the AG had to step in, and the RCMP had to step in. We had parliamentary investigations. We had question period, all of that. It was obvious from the beginning, in multiple instances—not just one—where it happened. The data shows that, yes, those people who have become richer, those who earn $100,000-plus, massively, disproportionately support the Liberal Party.

Here is another one. I was looking at an Investigative Journalism Foundation article that reviewed 1,308 judicial and tribunal appointments by the Liberal government from 2016 to August 2023. It found that 76% of judges who made donations before they joined the bench made donations to the Liberal Party of Canada. That's funny. As I've said many times in the House of Commons, I'm not burdened with a legal education, thankfully. Some of my staff, unfortunately, want to pursue legal education. However, it's funny that so many of those who made donations.... It's not all of them; it's a minority of them, but of those who made donations, three-quarters had been donors to the Liberal Party of Canada.

So they did get richer. I'll agree with Mr. El-Khoury on that. They did get richer. I will disagree on the food bank, on the federal food program. As I've demonstrated, even the school boards in Alberta disagree with him on that particular point.

It's interesting, you know, that Conservatives are being accused of wanting the rich to get richer. I want the Canadian public, the voting public, the moms and dads in my riding who work hard, the single dads, the single moms, the people who've adopted kids and all of them to do better. But they're not. They're not doing better right now.

When I was door knocking in Mahogany, McKenzie Towne, Auburn Bay and other parts of my riding, I heard at the door that people are fed up. They're at the edge of what they can afford. Many of them cannot; they're just going into debt slowly, if they can manage that. I even held a town hall with one of my provincial MLAs, who's a provincial minister, and I heard the same thing. I heard about people who had lost their jobs, partially related to decisions being made by the Liberal government that caused them to lose their jobs. I heard about businesses that were uncompetitive because of the carbon tax. They were paying very high amounts on their carbon tax bills for their utilities but also for a lot of products they were sourcing from other parts of the country that have to be trucked in or brought in by train. There are huge costs associated with that.

It has a huge downstream effect when you see these businesses that are just struggling and are trying to get by. Those businesses feed families. Those businesses give an opportunity for families to send their kids to extracurricular activities and to make sure they have the right clothing for winter. That is not happening. I read the school board letter to members of the committee. In their case, tens of millions of dollars are being taken directly out of the education of children in the province of Alberta solely because of the carbon tax. The school board would gain quite a bit from having a carbon tax election, the way my subamendment suggests to do.

I want to move on to some more quotes, Mr. Chair. I'll quote something about the NDP in Saskatchewan. I thought it was time to maybe broaden our reach. This is an article by Murray Mandryk. The headline reads, “Mandryk: Beck's drive-by bashing of the federal carbon tax hits a pothole”. The article starts to describe the differences between the federal NDP and the provincial NDP, and the differences of opinion they have.

I just want to read a few parts:

...Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck denounced federal policies that have failed this province...especially that damnable carbon tax.

The carbon tax has got to go. Saskatchewan people can’t afford it, Beck said.

Most living here would agree.

And that supply-and-confidence agreement where federal NDP Leader...propped up a Liberal minority that kept the carbon tax in place...well, that should have been gone long ago, she said.

There's a comparison to what Premier Moe has been saying and how the two don't make sense. This is where I think the “pothole” discussion in the headline is being made.

Murray goes on to describe a letter sent by the NDP leader in Saskatchewan:

On Monday, Beck unveiled a letter she sent to each federal leader in the wake of Singh’s announcement collapsing the supply-and-confidence agreement and paving the way for “a federal election at any time.”

Even the NDP leader in Saskatchewan would expect that the election would be centred around the carbon tax—a carbon tax election, which is about the subamendment we have before us, that we take no actions until we have done so.

“I have outlined a federal agenda that is focused on the needs of Saskatchewan people and I am seeking your commitment to delivering on every item,” Beck demanded in her letter.

The first on the list—this is interesting—was not a school food program. It was not a day care program. It was not more climate financing so that the green slush fund could be restarted one more time. It was, to quote from the letter, “The federal carbon tax needs to be scrapped.”

So even the NDP Saskatchewan leader says so, which is interesting. The Prairie NDP is different from the NDP in other parts of the country. I find it interesting that even she believed, when she sent this letter...and this is a very recent event. This letter is very recent. It just happened, because the supply and confidence agreement was thrown out, even though now seemingly the NDP is joining with the Liberals again to save them on Wednesday at the non-confidence vote.

Even the NDP leader in Saskatchewan admits that the next election will be on the top issue. It will be a carbon tax election. That's the issue. She knows it too. We know it too. My subamendment addresses exactly that point.

The next one I want to quote from is The Narwhal. Perhaps some will be surprised, but I do read both left and right media, if you can put it in those kinds of broad categories. I'll even read the National Observer on occasion, because I do want to get the best position from left-wing journalism, so that I can model my arguments and maybe even be convinced of something. Who knows? Maybe it will happen one day that I'll be convinced of something.

I still want to see what the arguments are so that I can better understand them and then make the case on behalf of my constituents back home, the residents of Calgary Shepard, who want a carbon tax election—so that I can make the best case for it.

Here's one. It says, “What on earth just happened with B.C.'s carbon tax?”:

If you had the carbon tax on your bingo card as the biggest political news in Canada this week, congratulations! You're a winner!

The drama started when federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh suddenly announced his party no longer supports carbon pricing that affects individual Canadians.

This goes on, providing quotes from a press conference where the story is related to the fact that the federal NDP no longer supports the carbon tax—but maybe they still do. I guess we'll find out on Wednesday. I actually don't know what their position is now.

It then quotes another provincial British Columbia leader specifically on a carbon tax election. He refers to carbon pricing of any type. He says it's “an economic disaster and an environmental failure” and that it “drives up costs on everything from groceries to gas, hitting families and businesses hard while doing absolutely nothing to lower emissions.”

The article goes on:

Hours later, [Premier] Eby was asked at a press conference whether he, too, had changed his mind on carbon pricing.

To the surprise of many, his answer was yes.

If the federal government changes the law requiring a consumer carbon tax, “we will end the consumer carbon tax in British Columbia”....

Actually, I highlighted that because that's a direct quote from a press conference with Premier Eby. In the article here, the journalist basically says that this is a nod to the “federal Conservative Party Leader's...promise to 'axe the tax' if his party forms government after the next federal election.”

Even these journalists understand that the next election will be fought on the single issue of the carbon tax. There are multiple examples of this case, and there is wide agreement that it will happen, which is why I proposed this subamendment to the main issue, that we not proceed forward until we have it done. I think that's important.

I have another one here that I wanted to refer to on the record, from The Globe and Mail: “How the carbon tax's good economics became terrible politics”. I would even argue with the economic point that's being made here. It says:

Last spring, I called the carbon tax “dead man walking.” The condemned continues its sad march to the executioner's chamber. Won't be long now.

It's an opinion piece that appeared in The Globe and Mail, but I think it gets a lot of it right. It appeared on September 16.

I think the accuracy of the statement is simple. The vast majority of the public now has had nine years of experience with a consumer or retail Liberal-NDP carbon tax, broadly supported by all the parties except for the Conservatives. We fought against it every step of the way and voted against it every step of the way, the way our constituents wanted us to.

Now the public have realized the true cost they're bearing, and what they want is this carbon tax election to happen so they can have that final judgment after almost a decade of experiencing a carbon tonne hike of $15 on April 1 every single year.

In this opinion piece, it says:

Politics lives in the realm of the possible. The carbon tax used to make its home in one of the better neighbourhoods, but not any more. Now, the eviction notices are piling up.

The latest were issued by the federal New Democratic Party and the NDP government of British Columbia. Premier David Eby, who heads the first province to bring in a carbon tax, way back in 2008, last week abruptly announced that he'd like to do away with it.

He did so while standing next to a grinning [Premier] Wab Kinew, the NDP Premier of Manitoba, who is also a carbon-tax sceptic.

Many journalists and many people who are commentators, who are voters in our country, know the same thing I do, which is that we need a carbon tax election. That is why my subamendment would make it a condition of everything in the amendment and in the main motion, so the public could have its say.

I think the public deserves to have a say for different reasons. There are those who don't believe the carbon tax ever made sense, and there are those who believe the cost of living crisis it is causing is just not worth the price. There are those who think a tax on tax makes no sense. They think being charged GST on top of the carbon tax also makes no sense. They just want to see it end.

When even the Alberta public school boards association is saying it's a tax on tax, not even referring to any.... When there is no environmental benefit from the carbon tax, you know you're on the wrong track. I think getting us back on track would be to pass a subamendment and ensure that the public gets its say.

I'm going to quote from further down, because this is where the author of this opinion piece goes from economics to political science. He said:

But when we leave the department of economics and move over to political science, we discover that, rather than choosing a more fuel-efficient car, voters may choose a less pro-carbon-tax government. That might include voters who, just a few years ago, were telling pollsters they liked the idea of a carbon tax, and who even today say they want major emissions reductions.

That's why we need elections. It's because those types of voters then get to have their say.

At the end of the day, we are all here as temporary retainers of our particular seats in Parliament until the public decides otherwise. The public gets the final choice. The public gets to decide. The public can change its mind if it wants to. That's the great thing about a democracy: You can make the wrong choice. In this case, voting Liberal would have been the wrong choice in 2021 and 2019. You can change your mind.

My subamendment makes it possible for them to have a say. We can report it back to the House. The House could vote on it and potentially trigger that election.

I have another article I want to reference as well, because it comes from independent journalists I subscribe to. I'm a believer in independent journalism. It's called The Line. If you're not a subscriber, Chair, I highly encourage you to subscribe. Jen Gerson and Matt Gurney, I think, are two pretty well-known Canadian journalists. One of them is a Calgarian, and I think the one lives in the greater Toronto region. Hopefully I got that right. I'm a regular listener, and I read their material as well.

This is from a contributor called Rob Shaw. It's an article called, “B.C. NDP continues fine tradition of panicked flip flops”. He said, “From the carbon tax to decriminalization and, now, involuntary care, David Eby appears to be riding a rapidly shifting mood ahead of the imminent election.”

I know we didn't want to talk about the B.C. election, but we just want to talk about elections generally and the purpose of elections.

In the article, he relates how multiple positions previously held by the NDP government have now changed in the span of weeks. They've reversed themselves.

I think the government has an opportunity, if it wants to save itself.... You don't want to take advice from a Conservative, I think, but this free advice is to abandon the carbon tax. That would be great. If you're not going to do it, pass my subamendment so that we can have a vote, and the public, more importantly, can have a vote, the way the public is now going to get to choose in British Columbia whether it wants to continue with a carbon tax or not.

Seemingly, the polls are showing that it's fifty-fifty right now. I wonder how many members of the public in British Columbia want an end to the carbon tax, period. They don't really care how they achieve that. That's their main voting drive. I think, for many of us, that is the case.

In this particular piece that he wrote, he said:

After 16 months of intense political pressure, and calls for change from everyone from police to health-care professionals, Eby pulled the plug on the idea in April, reversing course to recriminalize drug use in public places.

That was the third flip-flop referenced.

On the carbon tax specifically, he has lots of quotes from the Conservative leader there, pointing out the reversal of position, which is because of the election and the opportunity the public will have to pass judgment. Here is a generic quote. It's a reference to a position. It reads:

New Democrats insist their moves have always been part of a larger plan—in the case of the carbon tax, born out of a simmering frustration with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s home heating fuel exemptions, combined with reading the public mood over affordability concerns.

That is insight being provided to the journalist writing this piece. This is Rob Shaw. He spent 16 years covering B.C. politics. He now reports for CHEK News and writes for Glacier Media, as well as for the website Northern Beat. I have checked out none of these, but I got to learn about him through The Line.

He's also the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, and he hosts the weekly podcast and YouTube show Political Capital. Even here, he's relating back, obviously, what NDP backroom officials or staffers are telling him, or volunteers on the ground.

He says:

But the pivot is complicated by years of the NDP arguing that the carbon tax was affordable because it returned more money in rebates than people paid in the tax. New Democrats have described any political party that suggested otherwise as either a climate denier, fear-mongerer, or both.

Now, obviously, they've reversed themselves. They've taken the opposite position. I find this interesting. This is from an independent journalist.

Maybe I'll wrap it up with quotes from one of our colleagues, because I can't help myself by ending with—

A voice

[Inaudible—Editor]

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

No, I don't want to continue. I want to wrap it up.

These are my final comments here. I want to quote the great, wise Ken McDonald, who appeared on CBC's Power & Politics. He said:

Everywhere I go, people come up to me and say, you know, “We're losing faith in the Liberal party”

Wiser words have never been spoken.

He added:

I think they will lose seats not just in Newfoundland, not just in Atlantic Canada, but indeed right across the country if they don't get a grasp on this the way that I think they should.... And if an election were called today, I'm not sure if the Liberal party would actually form the government.

He goes on:

The government has to put a lens on it, a rural lens, for the sake of a better world, and try and come up with a plan that's satisfactory and appealable to people who live in rural.

I think many of our members here are from smaller towns. I've been all over rural Alberta—to different parts. I have a lot of friends whose families originate from there. I'm a transplant in Canada. I'm one of those easterners who went and migrated to western Canada so we could get a job. That was why I moved. Yes, wise words.... I think we at least have someone who would be willing to vote for my subamendment.

Chair, that's my time.

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Thank you very much, Mr. Kmiec.

I have the speaking order. It's MP Kayabaga, then MP McLean, MP Kwan and MP Redekopp.

With that, I will give the floor to Madam Kayabaga.

Please go ahead.

Arielle Kayabaga Liberal London West, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to do my best to use the last five minutes to point out what just happened in the last two meetings on the Conservative side. Hopefully, Canadians can actually get to hear what just happened.

First of all, earlier, we had a visiting MP—our colleague Hallan—who talked about this as being shameful. There's a form of rotation happening here today. I don't know what's going on, Mr. Chair, but we've had quite a few visiting colleagues on the opposite side to filibuster.

I know he's gone now, but I would like to read this into the record so Canadians know that, today, Hallan attacked our colleague Kwan, making some egregious comments about the work she's done. However, not too long ago, he was congratulating her on the work she did on Bill S-245. Today he spent his time calling her out and disparaging her, despite the fact that they spent three hours filibustering on a motion that he was the.... Our colleague Maguire.... He was the sponsor of this motion. He spent time filibustering it. Our colleague Hallan said he wanted to do this for Canadians.

He lied to them, because he spent time not only disparaging people and colleagues who do—

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

I have a point of order.

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Madame Kayabaga, we cannot use the word “lied”. It can be “misrepresentation”.

Arielle Kayabaga Liberal London West, ON

Misleading or disparaging....

There were very strong comments against our colleague, who's done a lot of work for us to get here today. Instead of moving forward, as they promised Canadians....

I can quote him. He said:

I think [we need] to address any of these other issues [very quickly and] they should come in the form of a separate bill

He also said:

I just want to say that there's no opposition to recognizing those people

That's very misleading, because they've spent a lot of time opposing this. It's unfortunate, because they made a promise to Canadians that they're now changing their tune on.

I want to address a couple of comments they made here.

They talked about the NDP leader's pension. The biggest pension to be won here is for their leader, who has a $230,000 pension. They talked about Canadians not being able to access housing. They forgot to mention that the biggest landlord in this country is their leader. He's a landlord, and he has a pension of $230,000. They made promises to Canadians to move this bill very quickly, but they spent three hours filibustering it.

Shame on them. It's not shame on Ms. Kwan, who's been doing the work here. It's not shame on our colleagues, who've worked very hard to make sure we can pass this motion and honour the commitment we made to Canadians. It's shame on them for misleading Canadians and disparaging our colleagues, who are working very hard.

Do you know what? They were talking about the vote on Wednesday. All three parties in the House of Commons have said they will not vote to support this motion to affect the livelihoods of Canadians. Maybe they should be answering us on why their leader does not have security clearance. Canadians need to know that. Canadians should be asking questions as to why three parties are deciding that. Now is not the time to go into an election. Canadians do not want an election. There are 700,000 Canadians accessing dental right now, Mr. Chair, and they're talking about carbon tax. They're talking about bringing down the government. They're not even able to sit around and answer questions about their misleading words when they say, “We will not oppose this motion,” yet spend three hours filibustering it.

Mr. Chair, it's unfortunate. It's a shame.

I would like to move a motion to adjourn the entire debate.

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Do you mean the debate or the meeting?

Arielle Kayabaga Liberal London West, ON

I mean the meeting—everything. End it.

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Could you repeat your motion, please, so the members are very clear?

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB

Mr. Chair, I'm sure she moved to adjourn the debate.

Arielle Kayabaga Liberal London West, ON

I will move to adjourn the meeting, Mr. Chair.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.