Debates of June 11th, 2007

Extension of Sitting Hours

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to extend my best wishes to Catherine and I hope that she has a modest retirement.

If I understand the Bloc position, it is that as long as Quebec is getting its money, the Bloc is going to support the government. It is a bit of a deal with the devil and I wonder if the hon. member has thought carefully about the other victims of the budget. Has he thought about the victims of the income trust fiasco, which has literally thousands if not tens of thousands of victims?

I know that the Bloc Québécois supported the Liberal Party on the report by the finance committee. Has the member thought about the thousands of students--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Joliette has the floor for his response.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I feel very comfortable answering this question. Of course I do not think the battle surrounding income trusts is not over. Four years of transition are stipulated in the legislation. We do not think this is enough. During the next pre-budget consultations, we will make sure that our finance critic places the matter on the orders of the day—and I am sure the Liberal finance critic will do the same—in order to find a solution—

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Order, please. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Laval—Les Îles, Canadian Heritage; the hon. member for Windsor West, the Oil and Gas Sector.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Vancouver East.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I was happy to allow the House leader for the Bloc to go ahead of me in the usual order.

I will be sharing my time with the member for Windsor—Tecumseh.

I want to spend a few minutes laying out what is going on here.

First, we are all aware, as members of the House, that we receive a calendar every year. The calendar is very clear in that the House is intended to sit until June 22. We all agreed to this, all parties, through the whips. It is something with which we are all familiar.

We also are aware that on this day the government can, as it has done, move a motion for the extension of hours. We are debating a motion now as to whether the hours should be extended from June 13 to June 21 to 10 p.m. every night. The question that is really before us is this. Is this a warranted measure? After hearing the government House leader, this is a crisis that the government has manufactured.

Let us be very clear about what has taken place. This is happening because of the incompetence of the government in the management of its legislative agenda, its lack of consultation with opposition parties and its lack of calling its own bills. For example, we heard the government House leader talk about the budget bill, Bill C-52. He has said that he wants to get it through. There were 11 days when the Conservatives could have called the bill for second reading and they failed to do so. Instead they brought in all kinds of other bills that were quite inconsequential. If the budget were so important, they had ample opportunity to bring the bill forward for second reading.

I point out on the record that once it went through second reading, when the Conservatives finally brought it forward into the House and it went to the finance committee, the finance committee met for four sessions only to hear witnesses. It in effect fast-tracked that bill. It heard witnesses very quickly on a budget bill, which is core to our whole reason for being here. Then it was brought back to the House. We had one day of debate on the report stage. Now we are now debating third reading.

When we look at what has happened, it is clearly a manipulation by the government itself on its own agenda. I think what is happening is the Conservatives have brought forward this motion today for extension, even though they are saying the extended hours would go to June 21, so they can cut a deal to get out of here early. If we get out of here early and they get their budget bill, which we know they want, there will be no committees, no question period and no debate on other bills. That clearly needs to be put on the record.

In terms of management of other business, we have heard the government House leader say today that all these justice bills have to come forward. If we look at the agenda of the justice committee, the government made it a priority to deal with private members' business. It has taken up the valuable time of the committee to deal with private members' bills. Now we are being told it has all these other bills that it wants to get through. It really does not cut it. It does not make sense.

I really appreciate the position you took on Friday, Mr. Speaker. At the very last moment on Friday, the government tried to bring in a very rare Standing Order, used for emergency debates, to deal with Bill C-52 and extend the hours to rush the bill through. To your credit, you listened to what members in the House had to say and you made the correct decision in the end. I want to thank you for that. These things are really important. We have to play in a way that is open and transparent, and I do not believe the government is doing that at this point. Therefore, we are very suspicious and skeptical about the agenda.

Again, another irony is the Conservatives are saying that they want to extend the hours of debate. Yet we have never seen the light of day for Bill C-30, the clean air and climate change bill that came out of committee. The bill was amended by the opposition. It is a bill that would work, and it has the support of the majority of members in the House. However, the government itself is refusing to call it forward. We will stay here for as long as it takes to debate that bill. We consider it is an urgent matter that Canadians want us to address.

We will stay here for as long as it takes to debate that bill. We consider it is an urgent matter, which Canadians want us to address. It is a priority that goes beyond all partisanship, but I did not hear the government House leader mention that bill.

The Conservatives would rather get out of here, not having to bear the public scrutiny in question period and committees and not debate all the other bills. They just want to get the budget through. I fear they have made a deal with the official opposition. I do not know that, but I can almost guarantee, even though these extended hours will be approved, in a couple of days, maybe Wednesday, they will find a way to adjourn the House. That is really their agenda.

As the Bloc House leader has mentioned, one bill that we believe must be brought forward is the ways and means motion. It used to be called Bill C-55, which was the wage earner protection bill protecting workers from bankruptcy. This has been an outstanding matter.

The government, again, has not engaged in adequate consultation with the opposition parties, which want to get this bill through. It was passed in a previous Parliament, but was never given royal assent. It is an absolute injustice that today workers still do not have protection from bankruptcy. Millions of dollars have been lost, legitimately earned and deserved wages of workers because they have not had the protection of that bill.

I want to put on the record today that this attempt by the government to bring in extended hours is really about adjourning the House. It wants to get a very bad budget bill through. It looks like the official opposition is now complicit in getting through a budget bill, which, as we have seen, is a disaster in Atlantic Canada in that it has broken the accord. It is a disaster in terms of so many other areas, whether it is housing and homelessness, student summer programs or the environment.

We know the government wants to get the budget passed and that is all it cares about. I am very concerned we are facilitating its agenda under the guise of extending hours when really what it will do is rush to adjourn the House. We know it does not want to be accountable or go through question period.

Let us not forget that the Conservatives were filibustering in the committees. The Conservative members were making the committees dysfunctional. Why? Because they did not want business to go ahead in committees.

We found out about their 200 page playbook, a handbook for all the tactics that its members and chairs could use in the committees. This is further evidence that the Conservatives real game plan is not to deal with all the legislation about which the government House leader spoke. They want to rush through a bad budget bill that has barely been debated.

Nobody is holding up the budget bill, by the way. There are no tactics being employed by the opposition to hold it up. We want to have an adequate debate. We want to ensure that people can say, on the record, what they think about the budget because we have a lot of criticisms about it.

Let us be very clear. The motion today is under the guise that government members are ready to work and extend the hours of the House until 10 p.m. every night. Really it is about getting out of here, for the Conservatives to get beyond public scrutiny, to shut down the House, committees and question period once the budget bill is passed. That is what we will see happen.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member say that from April 23 to May 4 we did not discuss anything of consequence in the House. I guess that includes the four opposition days, which she must consider inconsequential. I guess that includes Bills C-40, C-43, C-48, C-10, C-22, democratic reform bills, finance bills, Criminal Code bills, two justice bills. I guess in the hon. member's opinion none of these are consequential.

All those things are pretty consequential to the constituents in my riding who care about Senate reform, safe streets and finance bills. They are very important. Does the hon. member truly considers those things inconsequential?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the 11 days in which the government could have brought forward Bill C-52, the budget implementation bill, does not include the opposition supply days. The fact is the government makes its own choice and its own priorities. I totally agree those bills were debated.

However, today we are now hearing, and we heard it on Friday, that the government wants to take these extraordinary measures to get through its budget bill, but it has left it to the 11th hour. If it were such a priority, why did it not take precedence over other bills? I can think of one bill that dealt with the exotic dancers. Why on earth did that have to be debated?

It is the government's decision in what is or is not called. It clearly made a decision not to call its budget bill, to leave it very late in the day and then come in with this little tactic of it being urgent and that the hours of the House would have to be extended. It is absolute nonsense. Clearly, if it were a priority, it had ample opportunity to manage its agenda.

It is either deliberate or it is incompetence. One can take a pick.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I have three quick questions. First, I also add my congratulations to Catherine for her great work.

First, did the member find it astonishing today in question period when the Prime Minister said that no side deals would be allowed and then went on in the next breath to say that discussions had been held between the member for Central Nova and others and the Nova Scotia government?

Second, does the House leader have any comment on the shenanigans on Friday? As the House leader, was she informed of this trick to try to sneak the budget through on the weekend when there were NDP members who were not here, who would have missed an opportunity to speak on the budget had that been successful?

Third, does she not think her own NDP member was a little harsh this morning when he called the Conservatives sheep? I know they come from the history of the Reform Party and the Alliance Party and their philosophy was to speak for their constituents. However, on a budget bill there are certain disciplines. Is this the only time a party has voted in a bloc? Maybe the House leader could comment on that.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that the government and the Prime Minister are entirely contradictory. Out of one side of his mouth he says that there are no side deals. On the other side of his mouth he says that they are entertaining all kinds of other proposals.

The tactic that was used on Friday, using the budget as an emergency, when the Conservatives had ample opportunity to debate it, was quite outrageous. I think the last time a tactic like that was used was in 1977 when troops were sent to Cyprus.

Luckily, the day was saved by the ruling that came from the Acting Speaker, who is now in the chair, and because members were here to prevent it.

As for the Conservative members and the fact that they are sheep, clearly they go along. The members from Saskatchewan and Atlantic Canada have not had the guts to stand and call the budget for what it is. One lone member had the courage to do that.

Clearly, other members are just going along with it. That is unfortunate because this is a bad budget bill—

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I thank the hon. member for Vancouver East for all her kind words, but she will not like this one, her time is up.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite sure that the member is more than happy to cede the floor because it gives me an opportunity to come forward.

I have watched the government developing this over the last seven days. It goes back to last week, starting with what happened on Friday, and then here it is again with this motion today. It was like déjà vu all over again. These are the kinds of tactics that the Harris government used all the time.

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Oh Joe, give it a rest. What year was it?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I note that the Minister of Finance is concerned about this. He knows this very well. One of his colleagues, John Snobelen, the minister of education, was actually caught on tape early on in the administration of that government saying that the government had to create a crisis in order to do its slashing and cutting, which is what it proceeded to do. That is really what is happening here.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Like slashing the court challenges program.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

As my colleague from Acadie--Bathurst has said, this is about slashing the court challenges program and any number of really good programs that the government has taken an axe to, both in this budget and in previous policy decisions.

We started hearing last week that the government members were in a panic, that they had to get Bill C-52 through the House. Wait a minute, we said, the government has had well over three months to work this through. My colleague from Vancouver, our House leader, has detailed this. The government has had a number of opportunities to bring the bill forward for full debate at second reading, report stage and third reading. This is the budget. This is the biggest item for any Parliament to deal with.

What did the Conservatives do? They just kept putting it off. They brought forward other bills. This was completely within their control. They brought forward 11 other bills and said the House would deal with them first. Now we are going to deal with this one, they said, and then we are going to deal with that one. They brought forward 11 different items on 11 different days when they could have brought forward Bill C-52. Now it is panic time for the Conservatives and they are saying they have to get the bill through.

I want to address what seems to be a suggestion that somehow these programs are all going to collapse, along with this new funding, if the bill does not get passed in the next 24 hours. That is just not true. This money will be spent when Bill C-52 finally gets through the House. The flow of that money may be postponed by several days or several weeks, but it will get spent because obviously both the government and the Bloc Québécois have indicated that they are going to support the bill and they have the numbers in the House to get it passed.

Constitutionally, the government again putting around the panic that the Senate somehow is going to block this bill. That is not going to happen. It may be delayed a bit, but the Senate does not have the constitutional authority to block a money bill. Specifically, it has no authority to turn down a budget. That is not going to happen either.

What this is really about is the fact that the Conservative government is tired, it does not have a program, and it wants to get out of here. If they can get away with it, Conservative members are going to move adjournment of this House as soon as they get Bill C-52 through.

We do not have a problem with debating Bill C-52. I have here about 20 items that I would just love to be able to get into. If I did, I could be here for many hours showing the flaws in this budget. That is not what this is about. This is not about this opposition party or, quite frankly, the other opposition parties being shy about debating the contents of Bill C-52 and all that it lacks.

What this is about is the government's unwillingness to face, in a realistic fashion, what is going on in the country. It continuously gets beat up, whether it is on the climate change file or whether it is on Afghanistan. We can go down the list. The government is just tired of being here.

I could not help but think of the hypocrisy of some of the statements coming out of the mouth of the House leader when he addressed this motion earlier this afternoon. He said that we should believe the Conservatives because they did not intend to have an election. Of course he did not address the fact that their airplane was lined up, with a contract for it, and their campaign office was open and substantially staffed. They were ready to go to an election. Quite frankly, if the Canadian people and the opinion polls had not made it clear what was going to happen if they took the country to an election at that time, we would have been in an election now.

What has happened is that the Conservatives did not have a fallback position. They did not know what they were going to do if they did not have an election. They do not have an agenda as to how they are going to deal with it. They want to get out of here so they can regroup and see what they might do when we come back in the fall. They want to get out of here as fast as possible. That is what the motion is really about.

I want to say very clearly on the record that the NDP has no problems whatsoever with staying here until June 22, which is what is scheduled. Quite frankly, we have no problem with extended hours. What my party and I are concerned about is that Standing Order 56.1 will get used probably as early as Wednesday and the House will adjourn.

I know that most Canadians do not fully appreciate the amount of important work that happens outside this chamber and particularly in committee. Again, in many incompetent ways, the government kept pushing crime bills through the justice committee, through the two special legislative committees it set up, and also in some work that we have been doing in the public safety and national security committee. There is a lot of work going on, both in terms of bills that have come from the government itself and in terms of a large number of private members' bills on specific crime issues, which we have been dealing with.

A number of those, probably three, four or five, and both private members' bills and government bills, would be dealt with and completed if we stayed sitting in committee until June 22. If in fact we adjourn earlier than that, all of this work will be postponed into the fall. As well, depending on whether the government actually prorogues sometime through the early fall and comes back with a new session of Parliament, which is the rumour is floating around, some of those bills may be ended completely and never will see the light of day.

Thus, it is quite important for the House to continue to sit. We in the NDP understand that. We as the NDP are quite prepared to sit here. We as the NDP will do whatever we can to thwart the government's attempt to adjourn the House early.

The motion, though, is misleading for the public when it tries to let the public know that the government really wants to work longer hours. That is not what it is about. We believe very clearly that if we do not stop the Conservatives the House will adjourn in the next few days.

Specifically with regard to Bill C-30, it is one of the bills that badly needs to get in front of the House. All three opposition parties are supportive. They have gone to great lengths and have done a great amount of very good work in amending the bill into a form that in fact will allow the country to deal with the crisis we are confronted with as far as global warming and climate change are concerned.

In that respect, we would very much like the government to commit this week or next week to bring that bill forward for a fulsome debate at report stage and third reading. It is ready to go. All the background work has been done. In that regard I am proposing at this time to move an amendment to the motion before the House which would read as follows: “That the motion be amended to add immediately after 10 p.m. the following: 'and if the government calls Bill C-30 at any time, the House shall continue to sit until the bill has been decided at all stages'”.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, the question that I asked previously in the House was for the Liberal House leader. I asked about the members of the House who went to Berlin, six of us, and heard about solutions for deforestation, for carbon sequestration, and for India, with 100,000 villages that are without electricity. We heard all the different options and solutions.

Unfortunately, the Liberals did not want to hear it. I asked this question and they said no. They did not want to have the environment committee hear about solutions. They just want rhetoric. Really, I am starting to think that they do not even care about the environment any more.

I would like to ask the member about this. The member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley was there. I believe he would like to be able to share with the environment committee the solutions that he heard. He was in a different section. It was about deforestation.

Would the member support that? I surely hope so. I am glad to hear those members are ready to work because I can guarantee that the government is looking forward to work and to working right to the end.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Vancouver East is rising on a point of order and the hon. member for St. Catharines is rising on a point of order. I will hear them both.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order because the member for Windsor—Tecumseh moved an amendment, which he is allowed to do. There was no other amendment on the floor so as the last person who was speaking, who had the floor, he moved an amendment. I understand that you then sought unanimous consent, but in actual fact because there is a motion on the floor the member has a right to move the amendment and to then have it voted on when the motion is voted on, which presumably will be later this day.

I am not clear why the Speaker asked for unanimous consent, because the member did not ask for unanimous consent nor was it required. He was just moving an amendment, as he is entitled to do. I am wondering if you could give us a response on that.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Is the hon. member for St. Catharines rising on the same point of order?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

No, Mr. Speaker, not this specific point.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

First I will deal with the point of order from the hon. member for Vancouver East.

First of all, the motion that was moved by the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh goes beyond the original motion and it is not receivable. That being said, I must admit that while he put his motion there was a lot of noise close to the Chair, and I had not heard that there was a seconder, and naturally I went for the normal form that we use. But the motion is not receivable.

The hon. member for St. Catharines is rising on a different point of order.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the amendment that was proposed, but it is no longer on the table. It is off. Thank you.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Yukon.