Mr. Speaker, indeed it is a good day to be debating this particular subject for several reasons. I will be splitting my time with the member for Kingston and the Islands.
The previous speaker talked about comprehensiveness as a defence of the omnibus legislation. However, something can be as comprehensive as one wishes, but if it is dumb, it is dumb. Whether it is layered with other material, it does not matter, it still comes out in the end as I said.
What we are talking about today in regard to omnibus legislation really runs roughshod over what we are trying to do in the House. We are trying to have a comprehensive debate and to get answers to questions that we have on particular situations, whether they deal with the environment or fiscal matters and taxation.
Lately, it has been hard in this House to have a debate in which members are not totally into their notes. We look at the speaking handed to us by people who are not elected. No offence to them, but do we not gather enough information when we go about in our ridings that we cannot stand up and say to this House and the country what it is that we are representing? Can we not come into this House, stand here and speak freely about what is happening in our ridings and how we are affected by budget legislation?
Come with me to a time in 2004 when we had the Atlantic accord. It was decent legislation that talked about the sharing of resources between Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador as well as Nova Scotia. We had serious negotiations about how to share revenues.
For example, I have always felt that the principal beneficiary of any particular resource should be those closest to that resource. The lion's share of the royalties of the oil extracted from the oil sands goes to the crown in Alberta. However, in this case, because the resources are offshore, they are in the jurisdiction of the federal government and so something had to be done.
Why can Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and Nova Scotians not be principal beneficiaries of what is on their shoreline? It is what they fished for over centuries. If there is oil beneath those fish, obviously they should reap the benefits of that as well and be responsible for it.
We were engaged in a large argument but an agreement was reached between the then premiers, Danny Williams and John Hamm, as well as the prime minister of the day, the Right Hon. Paul Martin. The deal had to be put into legislation and it was put into a budget bill. There we have the message.
At the time, the Conservatives, including the now Prime Minister, the ministers from Newfoundland and Labrador and from Nova Scotia as well as the critics all said vehemently, “How dare you do that? How dare you take something as special as this and lump it into a larger budget legislation?”
Now, several years forward, all of a sudden we not only find ourselves getting special legislation like the Atlantic accord but also that other things are being added to the budget bill to a point where everything that was said before is now denied. It is now said to be different, that it is different in scope, to the effect that “We have the keys to the shop now; therefore, the shop has to change in our direction”.
I hope the message that we give to the Conservatives today will simply be this: When will they practice what they used to preach?
Let us take a look at 2006. Just before taking the reins of power, the Conservatives said that in order to benefit Newfoundland and Labrador so that it would be the principal beneficiary of its own resources, they would take the line that stretches 200 nautical miles from the shoreline and the federal government would own the species in that zone and manage and be responsible for them. Anything beyond that line would international and they would go through international forums to resolve issues. However, the Conservatives said that they would remove that line and unilaterally move it out a further 200 miles. What did they do?
As my hon. colleague from Avalon would say: “Nothing, not a thing”. We got nothing out of it.
This is the situation. The Conservatives went to the international forum and said they had a deal that actually gave them custodial management. Can members imagine that? They were actually going to move this line. Not only did they break the promise, not only did they backtrack, but they also pretended they did not. That has to be the worst of all. Not only would they lead us down the garden path and tell us something that they would not do, they thought we were stupid enough to buy it. They actually thought that we believed they had done it. It is like a political Cirque du Soleil. There are so many jumps and theatrics involved it is not even funny. They were going to move it unilaterally from the shoreline out further. Nada. Nothing.
To move on to this particular omnibus bill and look at what they did, say that everything we have ever wanted to do for this country were to be wrapped into one little pill we could swallow. None of it was debated. Given the fact that most of the members refer to talking points, we can understand where they are coming from with omnibus legislation, because every word is the same. Everything that is wrong with the other side of the House is wrapped up in talking points pertaining to something that we are not even going to do and never said we would do. How many times do they get up and read exactly what the other person has said?
There is a theory out there that if one can convince a hundred monkeys to do the same thing, the rest of society will think those monkeys are right. There we have the perfect analogy: If one says something hard enough, long enough, people just might believe it. The problem is that the Conservatives actually think that others will believe the same thing. To say it is laughable is the biggest understatement of the day. When do they practice what they used to preach? That is the issue here. Again, we used the quotation in the motion.
Bear with me on this one. This is my favourite. On March 25, 1994, the Prime Minister criticized omnibus legislation, suggesting that the subject matter of those bills was so diverse that a single vote on the content would put members in conflict with their own principles. Congratulations to the Conservative Party of Canada. It has now run completely against its own principle on this one, yet it pretends it has not. When will it practice what it used to preach? That is the ultimate goal.
I would humbly say to the House when it comes to the legislation, what is wrong with taking this apart? The experts, the people who study legislation, have said that it should be taken apart to be looked at separately, and in particular that the environmental legislation in this omnibus bill is worthy of its own debate and having its own committee. When the Conservative government was first elected, it created a subcommittee on the environment alone. Now all of a sudden the environment is lumped into everything else that is on the go.
Here is a good one. The Conservatives are going to look at MPs' pensions. They should look at MPs' pensions. Now they will also look at perhaps unfreezing our salaries. So much for the pain. Freeze the salaries. That is right, freeze the salaries and take a look at our contributing more. If they were gutsy enough they would take this out of the bill and say they were freezing our salaries and looking at our pensions and that we would suffer as a result, just like every other Canadian is now. However, the backbenchers do not want to do that.