Debates of June 17th, 2013

Bill C-49—Time Allocation Motion

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to tell my colleague that we are extremely proud of this bill and of our government's new initiative to better support our knowledge of Canada's history in every region of the country.

Marie Lalonde, Executive Director of the Ontario Museum Association, supports this bill. She also supports the process to encourage MPs to vote for and pass this bill before Canada's 150th birthday in 2017. Ms. Lalonde stated that:

[I]n partnership with this new museum, local museums will be able to offer their visitors distinctive exhibits and initiatives that would otherwise not be available.

In addition, Yves Fortier, a member of the Historica-Dominion Institute's board of directors, said that, “the Historica-Dominion Institute enthusiastically supports the creation of the Canadian Museum of History”.

We are very proud of our process because we worked with members of the opposition prior to introducing the bill. We launched respectful discussions in the House. In addition, a great deal of input was heard in committee.

However, it is very clear that, after more than eight months of work on this issue, eight months of considering this bill and eight months of debate, it is time to proceed with the bill and pass it so the new Canadian Museum of History can be created.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I guess because the House leader is not here or does not have the courage to address the time allocation motion, here we are, once again. I think we are in the fifties of time allocation in the House. If we add committees, we are probably in the hundreds or maybe thousands of time allocation that the government has been imposing--

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order, please.

I would point out to members that it is improper to note whether someone is not present.

The hon. member.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I just meant that out of respect, not out disrespect for the minister, because I know he will be answering the question.

Do we really need time allocation on this bill? It is not controversial. There are some aspects of the bill that need to be discussed. I know there were some amendments put before committee. However, none of the amendments were accepted.

The minister is more of a conciliatory type individual. From his point of view, would it not have been better if we had just sat down, come to some kind of agreement, accepted some amendments and decided that maybe we did not need to have time allocation on the bill?

I am asking the minister if that is possible.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I did indeed try to reach out to opposition members in this House, all parties, to try to gauge their support for this project itself. I approached the member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, and showed him the language in the legislation before we tabled it in Parliament; equally with the NDP; as well I extended it to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, who is the leader of the Green Party and showed her the legislation of what we had in mind. We consulted with the opposition before we tabled the bill. We invited them to support this legislation. It has broad-based support, not non-ideological, I can tell members, but broad-based support across this country, from historic institutions, museums, galleries, heritage organizations and communities all across the country that are supporting this initiative.

I did my best to reach out to the opposition, to invite them to support this legislation before we tabled it, showing them that this was a genuine effort to try to build a great national institution that would be national in consequence, not just a beautiful institution here in the national capital, but one that would benefit everybody. That is why we have broad-based support.

The Liberal Party, to its credit, did show some openness in the early days. Unfortunately, it backed away from that, yet we still have the support of the leader of the Green Party. We have the support of the member from Thunder Bay who was elected as a New Democrat. We have support from individual Canadians. Provincial governments, NDP, Conservative and Liberal, have all come out and openly supported this legislation and the creation of this museum because it would benefit every region of this country.

We are moving forward after eight and a half months of consideration on this matter. I think it is time. We are looking forward to the doors opening at this new, great institution, with this new vitality that would be injected as a result of our investment and this legislation and its new mandate.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once again today, we are being cut off; we are being prevented from speaking on this subject. Even though the Minister of Canadian Heritage felt that this was something simple that everyone would rally around, unfortunately, that is obviously not at all the case. What is shocking today is to see how hard the government members are pushing to pass his bill, his idea. That is the problem: it is his idea. That is where the problem lies.

People have spoken out many times to say how important it is that the bill be supported by everyone. Today, everyone is pleased to see what phase 2 of this museum will be, travelling exhibits and exchanges with other museums in Canada. However, it is quite cunning on his part to have included that aspect in the bill, an aspect that was already part of the existing museum's mandate. We are focusing a lot on that, but less on the fact that we could very easily have improved the existing museum rather than demolishing it in order to build another one. That is what is happening.

In conclusion, I would like to ask a question. The minister says that he consulted everyone and that everyone is happy. What then does he think about the comment made by Mr. MacDonald, a director whom I am sure he knows very well? Mr. MacDonald said that he was outraged to hear the minister claim that aboriginal peoples were excluded from the exhibits in the Canada Hall. He added that it was clear that the minister had not understood the mutual obligations nor the meaning of this exhibit to aboriginal communities on the west coast that make a living from fishing. We are talking here about the famous Nishga Girl. Again according to Mr. MacDonald, the pressure that the minister is exercising to have that exhibit removed contradicts what he claims are the very objectives of his bill.

What does the minister have to say on the matter?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, to begin with, I said that the museum bill has broad-based support in every region of Canada, but that does not mean that everybody supports it.

Nothing is ever fully unanimous. However, we should take note of two things that are most important to take away from the intervention by the NDP member opposite.

I will comment first on the second thing he said. He said that the decision to not put on the Nisga’a presentation at the Museum of Civilization was a demonstration that it was not in the best interests of Canadians. He has also commented that I should interfere. On the other hand, he also got up in the House this past week and said I should not interfere with the museum when it was going to put on an exhibit of underwear. The NDP has to decide. Does it want us to have an arm's-length relationship with museums or not? We think it should be arm's-length. Museums can decide the exhibits that they choose to put forward, first of all.

Second, the most important thing to take away from the comment by the NDP, and why we have had this roadblock against the NDP on this subject altogether, is he has said the NDP does not support this because it is an initiative that I, as the minister, have personally brought forward. On the other hand, we hear from New Democrats from time to time, chastizing other cabinet ministers, asking why they do not show leadership, come up with ideas, do something innovative, why are they not taking risks and moving forward. That is what we have done here.

Yes, I had the idea to create a Canadian museum of history. I brought it to all of the opposition parties, invited them to contribute to support this initiative going forward. We have NDP provincial governments that are supporting this. We have Liberal and Conservative governments supporting it. The leader of the Green Party is supporting it in this House. This has broad-based support because we have approached it in a way that we thought was collaborative and responsible. If the New Democrats do not think cabinet ministers should show some initiative and leadership, then frankly, I think they do not understand part of the responsibility of being a minister.

As Minister of Canadian Heritage, I am proud to stand up for Canada's history, to put in place a great institution that will champion Canada's history as Canadians wish to tell it to each other.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the minister for those responses. I just want to touch further on a bit of the independence that he talked about. The member for Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher in his speech said governments should not be deciding what is in our museums. That seems like a pretty obvious principle.

He went on to say that the contents of museums should be left up to the experts and professionals and that the government, and we as legislators, have no place in determining content or the orientation of a national--

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, are we not debating the time allocation motion rather than the hon. member for Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher's remarks on Bill C-49?

[The Deputy Speaker]

This period is set aside for questions regarding time allocation and the bill. Both are allowed.

The parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage may proceed with his question.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is kind of odd, since one of the members talked only about the bill with respect to election reform.

As I mentioned that quote, there was also a lot of mention from the members opposite with respect to time allocation. They were talking about the fact that they want more debate, but when we look at committee and what was presented to us with respect to amendments from the opposition, both the NDP and the Liberals, the vast majority, in fact, almost 99%, just dealt with adding one word to the name and had nothing to do with respect to independence.

I wonder if the minister could talk about a couple of things with respect to this. Why does he think that no substantive amendments were brought forward at committee by members of the opposition? Why, and how can we, guarantee the independence of this museum? Could the minister also talk about the mayors of Ottawa and Gatineau and why it is important, if they support the bill, that we move forward with this?

The members opposite noted that this is the 50th time we have had to bring in closure. I think it is a damning indictment of the opposition members that 50 times this government has had to force them to debate issues in this Parliament and to stop filibustering bills that have broad-based support from Canadians across the country. Imagine that, 50 times the Government of Canada has had to force the opposition to actually work in Parliament. That is a damning indictment of the opposition and either their inability to work on behalf of Canadians or their inability to get how important it is that we focus on jobs and the economy, and, of course, something like this, which would bring immense pride to all Canadians and help all regions of the country.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, only in overly bureaucratic, centre-left thinking does it constitute going too fast when we have eight and a half months of debate on legislation that, frankly, is very non-controversial. The legislation itself is only a couple of pages long. It is not complicated. The change to the mandate of the museum is only a couple of sentences long. It is not complicated or difficult to understand.

The members opposite took a position very quickly. As a matter of fact, there was a leak from one of the stakeholders who supports this museum. In his enthusiasm to support the bill, he spoke to a journalist and said what our government was planning on doing, on October 11, 2012. On October 12, we announced it, but before we tabled the bill in Parliament, NDP members had already commented on October 11 that they were against it. They were opposed to the legislation.

It is a bit rich for New Democrats to suggest that we should debate this more and be more thoughtful and substantive with the legislative process as we are now coming to the end of consideration of Bill C-49 when they showed no respect whatsoever at the introduction of this legislation to wait for it to be tabled before they actually took a position. Before chastising others about our approach to Parliament and how we deal with legislation, it would be great if the New Democrats would show some leadership and some example at the introduction of legislation with some open-mindedness in supporting a bill.

The Toronto Star supports this legislation. Here is what it said, showing open-mindedness. They say, “Oh, wow, the Toronto Star”. The New Democrats like the Toronto Star. It endorsed them in the last election. Here is what the Toronto Star said:

Canada’s history should be celebrated in revamped museum....it was welcome to hear [the government] announce this week....rebrand the Canadian Museum of Civilization....as the Canadian Museum of History....we want to make history come alive, ensure we don’t forget our shared past, and honour our heroes.

People get it who are not Conservative supporters. They understand that this is an institution that will benefit all regions of the country.

Even if New Democrats rejected it before we tabled it, we are happy to go forward now eight and a half months later to have final passage of this bill so we can all move forward and celebrate Canada's 150th birthday in our biggest and best museum.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote Joe Dassin, who stated that, “life is but one day after another, and every day is the same”. This is the 47th time allocation motion. If members were looking for a sign—as if one were needed—that the government is tired and no longer knows what to do, they would be hard pressed to find a better example.

I would remind members that time allocation motions are usually for a specific purpose, and denote some urgent need to act. However, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages certainly knows how to play up the benefits of his bill, and has been doing so for some time. Despite cutting short debate—which he has done 46 times—his colleagues and he claim that they do occasionally have ideas, but that they are not overly interested in debating them. They also claim that they want to be more efficient and insinuate that the parliamentary system is a hindrance to Conservative governance. Basically, the Conservatives wonder whether they might not simply do away with the parliamentary system altogether.

In my opinion, when the House reconvenes in September, an omnibus bill will be introduced that clumps together all the legislation that has been discussed over the course of the year. That will mean voting once, and only once.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

I can already hear the applause, which is proof that this is, indeed, the approach the Conservatives intend to take.

For once, in a debate on time allocation, might we not debate the urgency of completely disregarding any and all procedure in order to ram through bills that members would still like to debate? I would like to have time to make my rebuttal concerning the bill itself, and I hope that I will have a few minutes remaining to do so. I will not do so during this debate because it deals with time allocation.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, to say this is indicative of a tired government is not a strong argument. We want to go through the process. We want to move this bill forward. We want to move ahead with the creation of this new museum, which will benefit every region of the country.

As I just said, we have had eight and a half months of debate. We will have five more hours to debate this bill at third reading in the House of Commons.

The NDP will thus have the opportunity to emphasize that it does not like this bill or this new museum. The Liberal Party will also be able to express its position on the museum and to talk about the amendments it sought in the committee process. It will be able to state clearly what it does not like about the idea of creating a new Canadian Museum of History.

Unlike them, we will express our pride: our pride in Canada's heritage, as well as our pride in this new museum, which will be created as a result of this bill and the $25 million that we will invest in it thanks to partnerships that we are establishing with museums across Canada.

I also want to tell my colleagues that I was in Winnipeg last Friday with the francophone communities, historians, and members of the historical community there and representatives of the Metis community. They were there for the signing of the agreement between the Manitoba Museum and the new Canadian Museum of History that will be created.

They were proud and pleased with this process and this bill. They were delighted with the new partnership that will give them access to this new museum's three million artifacts. They will be able to bring them to Winnipeg and talk about the heritage and history of Winnipeg and the history of Canada.

We are proud of this process. We have had eight and a half months of debate. We will have five more hours to talk about this bill.

The NDP can express its position again. I know that the NDP's position is not popular in Canada. According to that party, we should not be proud of Canada's heritage. We should not move forward with this museum bill. We do not want to have a genuine legacy for Canada's 150th anniversary thanks to this new museum of history. That is the NDP's position. It is not ours.

We are proud to talk about this bill, about the process, the partnership, the investment, the new museum and the new creations that will start once we have passed Bill C-49.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, having watched and participated in the debate over these many months, I know how much this means to the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages. In fact, it means so much to him that he mistakes approaching members from our caucus in back hallways for consultation with Canadians.

He wants it so badly that he gets the process of consultation backwards. He had the plan. He announced the plan. He announced how much money he would spend, and then he embarked on a bogus consultation with Canadians. He has already made the decision. Now he is asking Canadians to give him some cover on that decision.

He has spent an extra $1 million on the consultation on the name change. Only the Conservatives would call this an inconsequential, non-controversial move. Only the Conservatives would call $26 million they plucked out of thin air a non-controversial move, because of course, this is the government that has lost $3.1 billion and cannot seem to find it. This is a minister who hired a staffer who is now under a cloud of indictment in Montreal. We do not need a lecture on leadership from this minister on this file or on any others, for that matter.

I would ask the minister how he got the process so wrong. Why was he so blinded by his own ambition on this?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the real question is how the member for Davenport, who has been involved in this process, could be so utterly and completely ignorant about how this process actually unfolded.

We were clear from the very beginning. It is eight and a half months later, and he still does not understand where the $25 million for this museum came from. It came from the cancellation of the creation of the Canada Prizes. Does he not know that? I told him that personally. It was reported in the Toronto Star. He is from Toronto. It is the largest circulation newspaper in the city of Toronto, where he is from. I am from Vancouver, and I read the Star as well. It was reported in the Star. The hon. member should read his local paper—he might learn a thing or two—or he could remember the conversation we had when I told him where the money was coming from.

I have been very clear about this process from the beginning. That is where the money came from. We are going to have a vote on this very soon. I hope it is now clear to the member where the money came from. It is the third time it has been reported to him, so he should now know.

With regard to the consultation, he should have been there at the announcement, when we had historians from across the country who have come out in support of this process, in support of this legislation and in support of this museum. As I have said before, these are people who are not by any means small-c Conservatives or ideological allies of our government. They could actually move beyond the knee-jerk partisanship the NDP has shown in this process.

Again, the leader of the Green Party is supporting this bill, because she gets it. The former NDP member from Thunder Bay is supporting this legislation, because he gets what this will mean to Canada.

The Liberal Party members have shown their openness and willingness to discuss this like adults rather than with the knee-jerk opposition the NDP has shown. It declared its opposition to the bill the day before we tabled it in Parliament. NDP members had not even read it. Now the member chastises me and the government about how we ought to approach these things, be respectful and work with others. He opposed the bill before he even read it. That is the highest level of disrespect that can be shown in this place.

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the individuals we spoke to during the committee process was Mr. Rabinovitch, who was the former head. He brought up a very valid point, which was that the former name, the Museum of Civilization, had a very respectable name internationally. He said it would be a crime if we let go of that name for the sake of branding it as something else.

Whether the member agrees with calling it a museum of history is one thing. However, the Museum of Civilization did carry with it a great deal of international significance. One of the things he proposed was that we name it the Canadian museum of history and civilization. That is really not a bad idea. That is a genuine way of keeping what was and pushing forward the agenda of this new museum and the vision he says is there.

None of the amendments was given due consideration. One was to have curatorial independence enshrined in this piece of legislation instead of our just relying on the Museums Act. I thought they were quite genuine and open for discussion, but the discussion really did not take place.

Is a Canadian museum of history and civilization so wrong?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing so wrong, I just do not happen to agree. Our government thought about it, and we debated it. We saw the amendment he put forward. We discussed it, and we did not think it was the best direction.

The member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor has been sincere in this process all the way through. I know what he is trying to accomplish with the amendment, and I do not doubt it. We do not happen to agree on what it would be called. The majority will win in the House, and the majority has rights. We are going to move forward on the creation of this museum as we designed it.

I am glad the member raised the more substantive amendment brought forward at committee by both the Liberal Party and the leader of the Green Party, which was the idea of enshrining curatorial independence in a specific section with regard to what would be the Canadian museum of history. Quite frankly, it does not make sense. There is nothing wrong with it on the surface, but it does not make sense for this reason.

The Museums Act already enshrines the absolute curatorial independence of all of our museums. Whether it is the Aviation and Space Museum, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights or the Canadian Museum of Immigration, it already guarantees it in the law. If one of Canada's museums is singled out by saying that this will have a special level of curatorial independence above and beyond all the rest, one could perceive that the government has not gone far enough or that Parliament has not gone far enough in protecting the curatorial independence of all the others. Therefore, it is redundant and unnecessary. It is already enshrined in the Museums Act. Having this one museum singled out would look odd legislatively, so it does not make any sense.

The protections are there for good reason. As the minister, I have never once, nor could I, interfered with the decision of a museum to put on an exhibit or not. From time to time, any individual who goes into any one of our museums or galleries looks at a certain display and says, “I think I would have emphasized more of this or less of that or chosen these artifacts instead of those”. Those debates happen all the time, but there is an absolute legal barrier keeping any parliamentarian and/or the minister from telling a museum what it can or cannot do. It is enshrined in law for very good reasons.

We have brilliant museums in this country. They operate independently. They do great work. This new Canadian museum of history will be Canada's biggest and best museum. It will tie all of our local history and local museums in the country together. We will share collections all across the country. They will all be made stronger as a result.

I look forward to passage of Bill C-49 after eight and a half months of consideration. I thank of all my colleagues who have approached this with an open mind. Their vote in support of this will be to the benefit of all of Canada.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The time has expired for questions and comments. The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.