House of Commons Hansard #122 of the 38th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was c-48.
Dominic LeBlanc LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, a number of orders in council made recently by the government.
Dominic LeBlanc LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 20 petitions.
Roger Gallaway Liberal Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Transport.
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among all parties and I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following. I move that Report No. 13 of the Standing Committee on Health, presented in the House on Wednesday, June 1, 2005 requesting an extension of 30 sitting days to consider Bill C-420, be concurred in.
Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings
The Speaker
Does the hon. member for Oshawa have the unanimous consent of the House to propose the motion?
James Lunney Conservative Nanaimo—Alberni, BC
Mr. Speaker, I have a series of petitions dealing with different subjects. The first three deal with the subject of marriage, a matter that is of great concern to constituents in my riding. The petitions come from Nanaimo and other areas in British Columbia, such as Lantzville, Parksville and Qualicum.
The petitioners are calling on Parliament to recognize that marriage is the best foundation for families and the raising of children, that the institution of marriage as between a man and a woman is being challenged, and that the House passed a motion in June 1999 that called for marriage to continue to be recognized as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.
They are calling on Parliament to ensure that marriage remains an institution between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.
James Lunney Conservative Nanaimo—Alberni, BC
Mr. Speaker, the second series of petitions contain 2,500 signatures from people across the country who are concerned about Bill C-420. Most of the petitions are from British Columbia but there are others from Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec on the subject of Bill C-420, the motion by the hon. member for Oshawa that was just denied.
Bill C-420 refers to natural health products and the way in which we regulate them. The petitioners call on the government to ensure that natural health products are regulated as food and not drugs and remain available as low cost and low risk options for Canadians to protect their own health.
James Lunney Conservative Nanaimo—Alberni, BC
Mr. Speaker, I have another petition containing about 30 signatures of petitioners who are concerned with helping people with autism spectrum disorder.
The petitioners are calling for support for applied behaviour analysis and for intensive behavioural intervention to help parents dealing with children with the very severe disability of autism.
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege today to present two petitions. The first petition deals with an issue that has been brought many times before the House and that is the issue of marriage.
The petitioners are calling on Parliament to pass legislation to recognize the institution of marriage as being the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Mr. Speaker, I have another series of petitions on an issue that is very important to many of the people in small towns in my riding and that is the issue of post offices and their desire to keep their local post office open.
The petitioners want to point out that Canada Post has closed a number of rural post offices already where it does not consider a community with less than 700 points of call to be a viable location, and whereas the closure of those post offices would hurt the communities, they are calling on Parliament to keep the post offices open and to retain a moratorium on post office closures.
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to present a petition signed by dozens of individuals, in addition to the hundreds of other signatories of the petition I presented last week.
This petition is asking the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to use his discretionary power to give permanent resident status to Mr. Sergio Orestes Loreto Garcia on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
This would allow Mr. Loreto to leave his sanctuary in Toronto and return to his family in Saint-Hubert.
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present this petition on behalf of Canadian corrections officers. It has been signed by over 2,000 individuals.
Dominic LeBlanc LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think you will find there is unanimous consent to return to presenting reports from committees.
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 18th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts concerning Chapter 2, National Security in Canada, The 2001 Anti-terrorism Initiative: Air Transportation Security, Marine Security, and Emergency Preparedness, of the April 2005 report of the Auditor General of Canada. In accordance with Standing Order 109, your committee requests a government response within 120 days.
Tony Valeri LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, with regard to Government Business No. 17, I move:
That the debate be not further adjourned.
Extension of Sitting PeriodRoutine Proceedings
The Speaker
Pursuant to Standing Order 67.1, there will now be a 30 minute question period. Perhaps those hon. members who wish to ask questions could rise in their places so the Chair has some idea of how many there will be.
I think we will limit questions to about a minute or a minute and a half and then get an answer and go back to the next question. The answers of course will be about a minute long as well, so I think that will ensure as equitable a distribution as I can get in 30 minutes.
We will start the 30 minutes with the hon. member for Prince George—Peace River.
Jay Hill Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC
Mr. Speaker, my question will not take a minute. It is pretty straightforward. I would ask the government House leader how he defends using closure to ram through his agenda in the dying days of this session, to extend the session for two pieces of legislation that ultimately will not come into effect for quite some time.
Bill C-48, as I explained at length yesterday, will not effectively be in force for at least a year until we see what level of so-called Liberal surplus we have, which, as I explained, Conservatives believe to be overtaxation.
Bill C-38 will ultimately be sitting in the Senate all summer. Why would the government force closure to ram through these two pieces of legislation when it is not going to make any consequential difference?
Tony Valeri Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Mr. Speaker, first I would like to say that what I am doing is ensuring that Parliament has an opportunity to entertain questions and to make a decision on two pieces of legislation.
The second point I would make is that it would be ultimately up to this Parliament to decide whether to accept this motion. We are in a minority Parliament. It is not the government that will alone be able to see the success of this motion, so it will be up to parliamentarians in the House to decide whether the extension of this sitting in order to deal with both the budget bill and Bill C-38 is in fact required and whether parliamentarians are willing to do that.
I would say to the hon. member that he should respect as I do, and I am sure he does, the outcome of any vote in this Parliament and that he will adhere to what Parliament decides, because ultimately we are here for debate. Debate is intended to try to change or assert at the end of the day where people's minds actually are on a particular issue and to decide on a question. That is the point of this: to decide on the question.