Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 12th, 2024

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. I would like to challenge that. Maybe the clerk can help us.

This is a new motion. It is completely different from what we are talking about. It's moved as a subamendment, but it doesn't match the current motion. It's irrelevant to the main motion.

If I could read just a bit of the rules, maybe you can help me with this, Clerk. It says here that it “deals with a matter foreign to the main motion, exceeds its scope, or introduces a new proposition which should properly be the subject of a separate substantive motion with notice”. I don't think this motion that has been moved is relevant to the current motion we're talking about, and it's taking us completely to a different route.

Therefore, I would like to challenge you, Chair, on that. It's not appropriate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

You would like to challenge the....

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

There is a point of order before I deal with challenge.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I'm sorry. There is no challenge, Chair. There is no challenge because you allowed me to commence debate, which means you accepted the ruling. You accepted my subamendment to the main motion, which is basically establishing when the main report with this amendment would take effect. That's all I'm doing here. I'm proposing a different condition on the main amendment.

You accepted it and allowed me to start debate, which means that you can't challenge it after the fact. The moment to challenge it should be the moment that it's proposed. That is in the green book.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Hold on one second.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Before you accepted it, Chair, I did make a comment and you moved on from the comment that I made.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Just hold on. I'm going to suspend the meeting for a few seconds and come back.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

I call the meeting back to order.

My ruling that the subamendment is in order stands.

Madam Kayabaga.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Can we get the wording of this new motion circulated in both languages, please?

Thanks.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Should we suspend again and distribute it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Okay, we're suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

I bring this meeting to order. Hopefully members received the subamendment.

The floor is with Mr. Kmiec.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Chair. You looked very downcast when you said I still had the floor.

To continue the point that I was making before we suspended to have the wording of the motion sent to all members of the committee in both official languages, I think it's time. This timing on a condition on the main motion would offer up the opportunity to send this to the House at the appropriate moment.

We've seen over the summer that costs have gone up for a lot of people. I think that what I heard at the doors, very clearly, both in my riding and also outside my riding when I was door knocking, was that people are just tired of this government and they want to vote it out. They want to have an opportunity to have their say, and I don't see why we should continue to block them from doing that. As the leader of the official opposition has said, the moment that we can, we will move a motion of non-confidence in the government.

You'll note I didn't put that into this as a subamendment, but that would have been quite the motion to send back to the House of Commons to consider. Very simply, you have many premiers now calling for the end of the carbon tax, including a premier whose party was one of the first in Canada to introduce it, Premier David Eby of British Columbia.

I went through British Columbia for about two weeks, backpacking with my kids through southern British Columbia. Yes, costs are really high. That was a complaint I heard again. Many people were just complaining offhand while they were sitting in different restaurants, while they were just walking on the street looking at prices. Now even the Premier of British Columbia is calling for an end to the carbon tax, saying that if there wasn't a backstop in the federal legislation, they would do away with it. The reason he's doing that—it's very obvious—is that there is a provincial election coming to British Columbia and it's so unpopular that he has no chance of being re-elected at this point.

We also, I think, saw a most unusual political situation in British Columbia, where an entire political party collapsed. It used to be called the B.C. Liberals. They did a rebrand. It didn't quite work out, and now they have one force that is behind a carbon tax election as well. That's the wording that they're using as well because, again, the majority of Canadians want to see the abolishment of the carbon tax because it costs a lot of money.

Back home in Alberta, you're talking about thousands of dollars out of everyone's pockets, regardless of the income quartile that they are in, whether they're in the bottom 20% or the top 20%. Everybody is paying more than they used to, and the carbon tax is set to increase April 1. I think by sending this—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

There's a point of order from Arielle Kayabaga.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you, Chair. I'm listening intently to make sure that there is no relevancy going on here, but we're not talking about carbon tax. We were originally talking about lost Canadians, and now we're on the carbon tax. I'm so confused. How is this relevant to the current motion?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

This is relevant to the subamendment that Mr. Kmiec brought in.

Mr. Kmiec, the floor is yours.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

It's not relevant to the subject matter at hand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Mr. Kmiec, the floor is yours.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I'm happy to read back the motion. There was the main motion, there was an amendment, and there's my subamendment. My subamendment follows after the addition of the closed work permit study being completed. I added the words, “and after a carbon tax election is held so that Canadians and Québécois can vote out this tired, out-of-time NDP-Liberal coalition government”. It's very simple. It's germane. I'm speaking to my subamendment about what I heard at the doors and what people want us to do as parliamentarians, which is to submit ourselves to the greatest bit of accountability our democracy has, which is to let Canadians have a say and let them vote us out if they don't think we're doing, individually, a good enough job in our local ridings. Then it's based on both your political leadership, it's based on your political party, but it's also based on the quality of the representation that you do.

What I heard at the doors in my riding of Calgary Shepard repeatedly was that costs are too high, the carbon tax is imposing too much of a burden on everyday Canadians. I think by offering this subamendment to the amendment to the main motion, we're just time-limiting when this would go back to the House and the impact it would have on Bill C-71 and the other bits of legislation.

I think it's time, and I hope that the Liberals will see the wisdom in this and submit themselves to accountability and let the Canadian public decide.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Mr. Kmiec.

We have Mr. Redekopp, then Mr. McLean and then Mr. Dalton.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm happy to speak to this subamendment.

So that we're clear, we have this motion regarding Bill C-71, and we have already subamended it once. We are looking to subamend it again, and as my colleague pointed out, it essentially puts a condition on what the motion says.

It is also very important, based on what I heard this summer as I spoke with constituents not only in Saskatoon but in other parts of the country, and I can tell you that the carbon tax is very much disliked in Saskatoon. I hear this constantly from people. The interesting part is that people have figured out that the carbon tax is actually the main driver of inflation in the costs of items in the city of Saskatoon.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

We have another point of order from Ms. Kayabaga.

Ms. Kayabaga, please go ahead.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I appreciate that my colleague started on the right path by talking about Bill C-71 and the lost Canadians, which are what we're talking about right now, but then he went back to the carbon tax. Again, I fail to see the relevancy here to the main motion and the main matter we're talking about right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Ms. Kayabaga.

Mr. Redekopp, please continue.