Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of my party to denounce the government's actions on Bill C-9 and what it tries to do.
Let me provide a bit of historical background. I know you are fairly new member of Parliament, Mr. Speaker, but there are some members of Parliament on the Conservative side that have memories of this place.
I remember in 1997 when Preston Manning and the Reform Party said that under no circumstances would they invoke closure on government legislation if they were in government. The Liberals, from 1997 until 2006, brought in closure on important debate 58 times.
Every time, the Conservatives, led by members like Monte Solberg, stood in their places and went absolutely bananas on the Liberal Party. Mr. Solberg was right. Mr. Solberg and the Reform Party of Canada were absolutely correct in their objection to closure on such important legislation. What do we get today? We get closure from the same party that said it would never do that.
We heard the President of the Treasury Board say that we had 17 days of debate on this legislation. It is over 800 pages. I guarantee the President of the Treasury Board has not read all 800 pages because not one member of Parliament in the House can honestly say he or she has read the entire legislation.
However, I can assure everyone of this much. I have tried for five years to get a one-page bill on national tartan day through the House with no success. Yet the government wants to rush through 800 pages of complicated legislation in 17 days.
My hon. colleague from the Liberal Party who just spoke is absolutely correct. The subject of AECL is of such grave importance to the Canadian people that this should be a stand-alone debate so there can be proper debate in the House and in committee with proper witnesses, as well as a complete and fair analysis of what this would mean.
It is so typical of the Conservatives, who have learned very well from the Liberal Party, to throw all the junk into one pile. I am surprised they did not include their dry cleaning in the bill because literally everything else is in it. I am sure when the Auditor General gets her chance, she will review their dry cleaning expenditures.
We fear that AECL will be sold for a song to some private enterprise. Years from now, heaven forbid, if something happens at AECL, who will be left holding the bag? It is certainly not the company. It is going to run away and hide. It will people of Canada who will have to clean up this mess. This is the type of debate we should have on a stand-alone basis.
Then there is Canada Post. My father was a proud letter carrier in Division L in Marpole in Vancouver for many years. He was proud to be a letter carrier. I know many people across the country who work for Canada Post and treat their careers very well. Canada Post is one of the last vestiges we have of Canada from coast to coast to coast.
I have had the opportunity of living in British Columbia, Yukon and now in Nova Scotia and one thing is clear. Canada Post is in most communities across the country. The issue of remailings will take millions of dollars from Canada Post revenue. By the way, it has been mandated that any profits have to be returned to general revenues. We have known this for many years.
This will put a death knell in the Canada Post operations and eventually lead to the privatization of Canada Post, which I never thought in my life I would ever see. Eventually, so typical of their philosophy, Conservatives will privatize anything that has “Canada” on it.
Where did the Conservatives learn to do this? The Liberal Party of Canada. If flight services can be privatized into NAV Canada, then literally anything else can be privatized. What is next? Will Parks Canada will be privatized? Will Correctional Service Canada be privatized? Will the supply chain to the military be privatized? What is left?