Debates of June 3rd, 2010

Business of the House

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

My colleagues are saying that is insulting. They do get insulted on a regular basis, and quite simply, we have no intention of allowing that type of abuse of our staff to continue.

We attempted to work with the opposition. Very recently, the chief of staff to the Prime Minister appeared voluntarily. He did not need to be subpoenaed. He went voluntarily to committee and defended the staff from his office.

We tried to work with the opposition, but it was all for naught, unfortunately. The environment at some of the standing committees has quite simply become toxic, with opposition-chaired committees in particular not respecting the standard rules under which our committees operate. They resort to kangaroo court antics and we are not going to allow that. We will continue as we have done as recently as yesterday where, as I said during question period, not one, not two, but three ministers appeared at the government operations committee to answer questions.

There was quite a bit of turmoil, because the opposition chair at the committee did not want to allow them to testify or allow questions to be posed. Finally, after a considerable length of time, there were questions posed to all three of my colleagues. I was not there, but my understanding is that they answered the questions openly, truthfully and honestly. Hopefully that will satisfy that committee and there will be no need to continue down the road they appeared to wish to travel, which is the road of charging some junior staff person with contempt.

I would contend that if that is the intention of the opposition, they should charge the ministers with contempt. It is they who are responsible. It is we in the cabinet of the government who are responsible, and we will continue to hold ourselves responsible and accountable by appearing at committees to defend the actions of our staff, our government and our departments.

I will let it go at that. I know one of my colleagues is looking to rise on a point of order and perhaps there are other colleagues who wish to do something like that, so I will take my leave.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I will just remind hon. members that question period ended at 3 o'clock. We have a question on Thursday about House business, not about committee business. We appear to have drifted a little off the usual thing.

I know members are interested in the answers that the government House leader gave to the questions asked by the opposition House leader, but those could be asked in question period rather than as a way of continuing the matter of question period. I would urge members to bear that in mind. There is a strong tradition about the Thursday question and it does deal with House business, not committee business. I stress that.

The hon. member for Wascana has a second question.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it really is a point of order arising from the remarks of the government House leader. He took the occasion of responding to my question to deal with an important issue about the proper conduct of House business and committee business and decorum in all the dimensions of what we do in this place.

I would draw to his attention, in respect of the point he has made, the expert advice that is contained in O'Brien and Bosc at page 974 that has to do with the ability to call witnesses. It would appear to be that power on the part of the House and committees is an unlimited power, quite analogous to the issue we dealt with on documents.

The point is this: I wonder, in light of the clear position in the Standing Orders and in O'Brien and Bosc, and in light of the remarks just made by the government House leader, if he would be interested in engaging in dialogue among House leaders and whips to see if the impasse that the House seems to be headed toward can be headed off in a constructive way in the interest of the proper functioning of parliamentary democracy. He obviously has some concerns about what—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Order, order. The member for Wascana and the government House leader have regular meetings, I know, as House leaders. This question could be asked there. He appears to be asking a question and is prepared to discuss these matters. I do not think it is a question for the floor of the House after question period, with all respect.

The tradition on Thursday is to have one question about House business and then move on. The question dealt with more than House business and we got an earful back. This is the way these things sometimes happen.

I was tempted to stand up and rule the question out of order, but I let it go. We have had enough on this. What we need to do now is move on to the next item.

The House leaders can have a discussion in their meeting as to whether they want to have discussions to try to resolve this matter. Of course, I encourage that. House leaders can have meetings regularly and I encourage that, because it will lead to greater progress, usually, with House business in one way or another. However, I do not think we need to discuss it here on the floor of the House.

The hon. Minister of the Environment has submissions to make on a question of privilege that was raised yesterday. I will hear him now. The hon. Minister of the Environment.

Oral Questions

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order relating to allegations made in this House by the member for Outremont during question period on June 1, 2010.

During question period, the member for Outremont posed a question. I will not repeat the entirety of the question, but he concluded by saying:

If the minister truly believes that Canadians want less environmental protection, why does he not have the courage to remove environmental assessments from Bill C-9, the dumpster bill, and submit it to a vote?

I rose to respond to that question, and I said, just for reference, if I might:

[E]very year for the last 10 years the premiers and The Council of the Federation--

I began. At that point, the member for Outremont began yelling words that were taken to be:

Liar. I was one of those ministers. You're lying.

I carried on to say:

[The Council of the Federation] have called for a streamlining of the federal environmental assessment process. The External Advisory Committee on Smart Regulation called for the same changes

And I carried on to quote from the Commissioner of the Environment.

The member for Outremont, when asked by the Speaker to withdraw his remarks, replied:

I withdraw the words, but I will repeat them outside of this chamber, because what I said is true: he misled the House.

I want the record to be absolutely clear, and I think in response to the submissions I am making it is appropriate to ask the hon. member to completely withdraw the comments that he made.

If I might be generous in my comments, it would seem that he felt I was implying that he had in some way, as a former minister of a provincial government, voted in favour of changing our environmental assessment.

That is absolutely not what I said. In fact, I did not make any reference to the member for Outremont in relation to this issue in the House, or anywhere else for that matter.

What I said and what is the fact is that the premiers and the Council of the Federation have called for a streamlining of the federal environmental assessment process. The point that I was making to the House was that over the last decade, premiers, the Council of the Federation, have consistently made recommendations to the federal government to make changes to the federal environmental assessment process.

This is fully substantiated by a host of documents, which I am prepared to table in both official languages, in the House here today. I would be happy to take the step of doing that.

I refer, first, to an April 2000 report, which is 10 years ago, entitled the “Canadian Environmental Assessment Act Five Year Review--Provincial and Territorial Input”, recommendations for “changes to certain provisions and aspects of the implementation of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act”, including “cooperative scoping” and “delegation to the province”.

I will table that in the House.

I will also table an excerpted portion of the September 2004 report of the External Advisory Committee on Smart Regulation. I will not quote from that at this point, but I will table that document.

I will table a document of October 2006, a letter from the Council of the Federation chair, Premier Williams, to the Prime Minister, requesting, substantially, these changes.

I will table a letter from October 2006 from the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, their official communiqué asking for these changes.

I will table an August 2007 Council of the Federation shared vision document, which identified deficiencies and called for changes.

I will table a January 2009 first ministers communiqué, asking for the cutting of red tape on infrastructure projects.

I will table a June 2009 western premiers communiqué, which said substantially the same thing.

I will table the fall of 2009 report of the Commissioner of Environmental Sustainability.

And in closing, I will table the October 2009 Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment communiqué and the January 2010 letter from Premier Campbell to the Prime Minister advocating these changes.

All of these substantiate precisely what I said in question period, that there have been requests from premiers and from the Council of the Federation, from the smart regulator, and from the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment to make the very changes that have been incorporated into the budget implementation act.

I ask the hon. member to withdraw his comment.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I should advise the minister that as recorded at page 3272 of Hansard on June 1, the hon. member for Outremont did make a withdrawal. He said:

Mr. Speaker, I would like to clarify, out of respect for you and your authority, that I unequivocally withdrew the word I used regarding the Minister of the Environment and I invite him to join me at any time in the hallway to discuss this in front of the microphones.

The matter has been withdrawn. The hon. member for Outremont may wish to respond to this point of order but I hope it will be brief.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, knowing your profound sense of equity, my remarks will be as brief as the remarks of the minister.

Mr. Speaker, you correctly hold that the long-standing tradition in Parliament of not using the word “liar” is to be maintained and I respect that. That is why I withdrew the term. But there is a question of equivocation.

It is interesting that the minister referred to his answer of June 1 and not his answer of May 31. He should read both. Furthermore, in both of those answers, no doubt in an élan of enthusiasm, he had the unmitigated gall to tell this House that for 10 years all of the premiers had been asking for these changes.

It is interesting to parse his sentences in the House today. He keeps using conditioning words like “substantially”. He no longer refers to the premiers of the provinces individually. I was indeed one of the ministers of the environment who was there during those 10 years. As you noted in his speech in the House just now, Mr. Speaker, almost everything he referred to happened after that, so it is not true to say that it was during those 10 years that people were asking for it.

Furthermore, no one ever asked him to remove the environmental assessment provisions as they now stand. He is incapable of producing anything. He keeps saying it is substantially this that they were looking for. He keeps saying that this is in the order of what was being sought. No one has ever sought that.

I threw back the keys to the limo on a question of principle with regard to the environment. I will not let one of the Harper-Cons stand in this House and tell me that I or my government ever did anything to request that we reduce the protection of the environment. I am going to be able to look my grandchildren in the eye and say I did everything I could to protect the environment. He will not be able to.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I would remind the hon. member that the use of member's names is improper. I think he did use a member's name. I would ask him to refrain from such conduct in the House. It is unnecessary.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I invite the Minister of the Environment to come out in the hallway with me in front of the microphones now or any other time and we will deal with it there.

Standing Committee on International Trade

[Lee Richardson, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this morning in the House, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster raised a question of privilege regarding his participation as a member of the Standing Committee on International Trade. As chair of that committee, I would like the opportunity to respond briefly and add some additional comments.

First, I am not aware of any report from the committee in this regard. The portion of the meeting to which the member refers occurred in camera. It would be unparliamentary for me or any member, frankly, to speak on matters that may or may not have occurred in camera.

I can say that all meetings of the House committee on international trade are conducted fairly and with the advice of the committee clerk and with the utmost fairness and balance.

I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that this meeting was conducted by the book, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, O'Brien and Bosc.

I am disappointed the member has taken this position after years of praise for the balance of our committee and the fairness of the chair. In fact, it was the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster who graciously moved to re-elect me as chair of the committee based on previous performance in this Parliament, so that is a bit disappointing.

I think as a committee we have collectively taken some pride as a positive example of how committees can function with civility. And we are not alone. Just this week in a Montreal Gazette article critical of the comportment of House committees, eminent journalist and parliamentary scholar, L. Ian Macdonald, wrote:

Not all committees are....dysfunctional--

That quote is so good I want to repeat it.

For example, the House [of Commons] Finance Committee, under [the member for Edmonton--Leduc] is a serious place.

He further stated:

The public interest, and the public process, were well served. The International Trade Committee, under the genial chair of [the member for Calgary Centre] is a collegial exception to the toxic tone of most House committees.

Mr. Speaker, I could go on in that regard. I would like an opportunity to refer to the specific answers and should you wish to pursue this, I would like to provide more information. One, on the question of being in camera, the member complained that he was not advised that we came out of in camera. I think his exact quote is, “The meeting was held in camera at first. At 4:30, shortly after the committee started clause by clause, we came out of in camera. The chair did not notify members of the committee as to the move to a public meeting”.

Obviously, the member is not aware of the rules. We simply cannot vote in camera, so we automatically come out of in camera when we are about to vote.

He indicates we did proceed to clause by clause and so, of course, when we proceed to clause by clause, we are no longer in camera and the members were aware of that.

In any event, Mr. Speaker, I will not take more of your time at this point, but should you wish to pursue this, I would be pleased to respond, specifically, to the member's points.

Bill C-9--Time Allocation Motion

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That in relation to Bill C-9, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration of the report stage of the bill and one sitting day shall be allotted to the third reading stage of the said bill and, fifteen minutes before the expiry of the time provided for government business on the day allotted to the consideration of the report stage and on the day allotted to the third reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the stage of the bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Pursuant to Standing Order 67.1, there will now be a 30-minute question period.

I invite hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise in their places so the Chair has some idea of the number of members who wish to participate in this question period.

We will start with the hon. member for Mississauga South.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to Bill C-9, the issue for many Canadians and certainly many members of the House is that the bill incorporates a number of legislative items which were not in the budget speech and not in the budget document itself but now appear in the budget implementation bill. I would note, for instance, the matter to do with AECL, the matter to do with the environmental assessment act, the matter to do with the air travellers security charge and some other items that have been raised in debate.

How does the minister explain to Canadians that there would be legislation slipped into a budget implementation bill which, had the items been dealt with separately, there would have been the appropriate level of due diligence able to be conducted by members of Parliament?

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway]

Mr. Speaker, it is important that we put this in context. My hon. friend mentioned that Canadians expect certain things and we definitely live up to that expectation.

Bill C-9 was introduced on March 29 for review by Parliament. It has already been in this chamber for 70 days. There have been over 50 speeches, which we appreciate. Finance committee has already had 10 meetings on this bill. It has heard from over 50 witnesses, but we are here and we are still debating it.

It is also important to remember that there are reasons, very important reasons, this legislation needs to move through and become law by June 30. We have to recall that once we are through the process here in the House of Commons then the bill also goes through the same legislative process in the Senate: second reading, referral to the Senate national finance committee, report stage, third reading. This bill still has a considerable distance to go and yet it is being delayed.

Canadians need to know what is at stake here. On one item alone, there are amendments that are required in order to put in place regulations to implement reforms that were announced by the government in October 2009, that were targeted at Canadians who are members of pension plans. These amendments require, for instance, an employer to fully fund benefits if the whole of the pension plan is terminated. They establish a distressed pension plan workout scheme and allow the Superintendent of Financial Institutions to replace an actuary. These have to come into force and royal assent given by June 30 because actuarial evaluations for federally regulated pension plans are required to be filed within six months of the end of the year. That makes it June 30 for those to be filed by December 31. Pension plans are at stake.

I will conclude by saying it is not uncommon at all to use this process of bringing in other legislation. Just one of many examples is that in 2005, the previous Liberal government in its last budget bill, Bill C-43, had over 20 different parts and legislation as varied as the Auditor General of Canada Act, the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada Act, the Broadcasting Act, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador Additional Fiscal Equalization Offset Payments Act, Canadian Environmental Protection Act, Department of Public Works Act, Canada Post Corporation Act, Employment Insurance Act. I could on and on.

I do not want to use the word “hypocrisy” and I will not, but that member supported that bill in 2005 which had a whole lot of important legislation integrated into it. That is what we are asking for here and not to put pension plans of Canadians at risk right across the country.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

It is my understanding there are about a dozen members who have indicated an interest in asking a question, so I would like members to keep their questions to about a minute and for the minister to keep his answers to about a minute in response.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister a question. Bill C-9 is what is known as an omnibus bill. They have included measures that were presented to the House of Commons in bills, but these bills were not passed.

They have plundered more than $57 billion from the employment insurance fund, and Bill C-9 would erase that debt. How can the minister tell Quebeckers that the employment insurance fund will accumulate billions more in surpluses over the coming years and still oppose measures—measures such as eliminating the waiting period and establishing the number of hours worked at 360—that would improve the employment insurance system? And in the meantime 50% of people who need employment insurance are not eligible?

How can the minister vote against these measures and, at the same time, plunder more than $57 billion from the employment insurance fund? They will erase the debt and continue to raid the employment insurance fund for years to come. I would like to hear the minister's comments on that.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is not unheard of for a budget implementation bill to include something on employment insurance, for example. We have another example and there are many more. In 2005, under the Liberals, there were employment insurance measures included in the budget implementation bill.

It should also be pointed out that we have increased benefits for workers. In a time of global recession, we have increased these benefits significantly throughout the country, especially in Quebec. And we will continue to do so.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, let us indeed put this in context, as the minister responsible for the Treasury Board said.

The context here is that the government is going to extraordinary lengths to ram through a bill that is quite clearly and factually much more than a budget bill. It is a bill that has almost 900 pages and has many other provisions in terms of deregulation, privatization and many major significant public policy issues.

I am proud of the fact that New Democrats have tried to hold up this bill. We are prepared to debate a budget bill but we are not prepared to have a bill that becomes a Trojan horse for many other issues that the Conservative government does not have the guts to put forward in legislation on its own merit that we can debate in this House.

We have had 60 amendments to this bill to delete those clauses that we believe are beyond the scope of what a budget implementation bill should be about. I would like to ask the minister why the government does not have the courage to actually deal with all of these other matters, such as environmental regulations and assessment or privatization, as individual legislation, as it should be, so it can be the proper debate in this House, as opposed to ramming through this massive bill under the guise that it is budget implementation.

If there are provisions in there that the government says have deadlines, then it could have ensured that this bill was truly a budget implementation bill and we would have considered that and ensured that it had a timely passage. However, it has set this environment for this bill, which is why it is now being held up.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as always, we are open to debate but I would encourage my hon. friend to add factuality to the debate. That would help and it would help people understand it, instead of using the types of words that she is using, trying to indicate that there is some kind of unsolicited or unrequired velocity to this moving through.

Bill C-9 has been before the chamber for 70 days. We have heard 50 speeches and the finance committee had nearly 10 meetings on it with over 50 witnesses.

The member said that she was proud of the fact that the NDP are holding the bill up. Is she proud of the fact that her party is holding up important revisions to people's pensions and proud of the fact that it is holding up transfers to Nova Scotia of $250 million, to New Brunswick of $80 million, to Newfoundland and Labrador of $8.4 million? How about pathways to education, an important $20 million program for disadvantaged youth? Is she proud that her party is holding up those programs?

She talked about 60 amendments. Members of her party did not bring one of those amendments to committee, so she can say 6,000. What does that say about a party when its members think they are bringing forward something salient for people to consider and they did not bring one of those amendments to committee?

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very intently to the minister's comments. I would like to go back to one of the points he made several years ago in 2005 when we were in government. He talked about the payments that were to be made to both Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador at that time.

He talked about the fact that the Liberals had done that before. However, if we are going to talk about hypocrisy, let us look at the facts. I distinctly remember that the Atlantic accord at the time was couched within the budget and the Conservatives vehemently opposed it. This brought language to the House, and I remember the words, that this was done under cover of night, that it was a stealth operation and that it was very irresponsible to do it this way.

Today, however, we find ourselves in the last few weeks in the same situation. The implementation of the budget in 2005 did not go near all the topics being cover in this particular bill, Bill C-9, an implementation bill.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend's partial recall but total recall would be a little more helpful.

What happened in 2005, unlike the litany of witnesses, meetings and the number of speeches that have taken place already on Bill C-9, was that the finance committee only considered the Liberal budget bill for two meetings and only one non-governmental witness appeared before the bill passed without amendment.

Yes, there was a pretty good reason for some concerns to be raised but this bill at this time has had 70 days of consideration, 50 speeches and many witnesses at the finance committee meetings. That is very different from how the Liberals rammed through their bill in 2005.

[Daniel Paillé, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in other parliaments, and likely in this Parliament as well, that is known as a gag. The government says that it has had enough, it has heard enough from us, and it sends us home so that it can take a holiday. That is a heavy-handed sort of procedure, almost as heavy as the bill itself.

They take 2,208 clauses and off they go. That's it, that's all. We asked questions of the parliamentary secretary and finance department employees, but we did not get any answers. They said they could not answer. That sort of thing does not happen in a democracy. It is unthinkable. It is improbable. It is impossible. The government has no respect for our democracy.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, even my hon. colleague is laughing as he sits down. He realizes the hilarious situation that he has just tried to present.

Increase of volume never makes up for lack of argument, and that is what we just witnessed here. Any time one begins to lose a debate, even high school debaters are instructed to not start to shout and throw stuff around because it exposes the fact you have utterly lost the debate.

In this particular situation there has been a lot of time given to these particular items and to this particular budget. As I have said before, there have been over 50 speeches here and 70 days for members to make their point.

There are things at risk here.

There are things at risk for the people of Quebec. They could lose their jobs and their pensions. They could lose their transfer payments. The people of Quebec, the men and women all across Quebec, could lose things if the opposition keeps on putting up obstacles without making reasonable arguments, as they have been doing.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the smoking gun in this 880-page budget implementation bill is the removal of the Canada Post legal monopoly on outgoing international letters.

The government tried over the last two years to introduce this bill as Bill C-14 and then again as Bill C-44. However, no matter how hard it tried, it could not get the bill through the House of Commons. It sees an opportunity to throw it in this soup and try to get it through.

There is also the sale of AECL. It is a huge undertaking to sell AECL. The government knows that if it were to bring it in as a separate bill, it would not make it through the House without thorough questioning and an assessment. By putting it in this omnibus bill, it can avoid all the scrutiny and questions that should be given to it.

Just because the Liberals had an omnibus bill five or six years ago is no reason for the government to continue this abhorrent practice, and bringing closure in the House is no way to deal with Parliament.