House of Commons Hansard #43 of the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was voting.

Topics

Citizenship ActRoutine Proceedings

10:05 a.m.

Conservative

Leona Aglukkaq Conservative Nunavut, NU

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Status of WomenCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:05 a.m.

NDP

Hélène LeBlanc NDP LaSalle—Émard, QC

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women in relation to the study on sexual harassment in the federal workplace.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

Foreign Affairs and International DevelopmentCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:05 a.m.

Conservative

Dean Allison Conservative Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development in relation to Bill C-6, An Act to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

Department of Public Works and Government Services ActRoutine Proceedings

10:05 a.m.

Bloc

Claude Patry Bloc Jonquière—Alma, QC

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-574, An Act to amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act (use of wood).

Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing a bill that would amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act. This bill requires the federal government to give preference to projects that promote the use of wood in federal buildings.

Our bill will allow us to provide immediate assistance to forestry companies and would also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The use of wood in federal buildings will help our businesses develop new secondary and tertiary processing products and find new markets for our products.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

The House resumed from December 2, 2013, consideration of the motion.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:05 a.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my good friend, the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, who will be speaking in the second half of the debate that starts today on the committee report from the procedure and House affairs committee.

I would like to start by underscoring what is nothing less than a betrayal of the Canadian public by Conservative and Liberal members of that committee.

Members will recall that back in June, the NDP brought forward a motion that was adopted unanimously. Members from all sides of the supported the following motion:

That...in order to bring full transparency and accountability to the House of Commons spending, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs be instructed to:

(i) conduct open and public hearings with a view to replace the Board of Internal Economy with an independent oversight body;

(ii) invite the Auditor General, the Clerk and the Chief Financial Officer of the House of Commons to participate fully in these hearings;

(iii) study the practices of provincial and territorial legislatures, as well as other jurisdictions and Westminster-style Parliaments in order to compare and contrast their administrative oversight;

(iv) propose modifications to the Parliament of Canada Act, the Financial Administration Act, the Auditor General Act and any other acts, as deemed necessary;

(v) propose any necessary modifications to the administrative policies and practices of the House of Commons;

The committee was to report its findings to the House no later than December 2, 2013, in order to have any proposed changes to expensed disclosure and reporting in place for the beginning of the next fiscal year.

The intent was very clear. At that time, back in June—members will recall it is the work of the NDP for generations, pushing for more transparency and more disclosure—we finally got members of the government and the other parties to agree to that motion.

What happened?

I will say that the Conservatives kept their word to bring the Auditor General forward. I would like to cite what the Auditor General said at the procedure and House affairs committee when asked the question about doing away with this secretive Board of Internal Economy.

Of course, what Canadians want to see is more transparency around expenses. The NDP offered that, with the motion. What did the Auditor General say? The Auditor General, who I think has the respect of all Canadians, said the following in testimony to the procedure and House affairs committee:

In my opinion, governance can be strengthened by having an independent body that would either advise the Board of Internal Economy or be given the responsibility for all matters related to members' expenses and entitlements. [...] it is important that Canadians are confident that its membership is independent and that the members have been chosen in a non-partisan manner.

The Auditor General could not have been more clear. The Auditor General said that the NDP motion regarding doing away with the secretive Board of Internal Economy and putting in place independent monitoring of MPs' expenses was a good idea.

If we asked Canadians, they would say that the Auditor General makes sense. The Auditor General defends the public interest, often with some difficulty. As we well know, under the current government the Conservatives have hacked and slashed his budget, while they have increased ministerial funding, with their limousines, the Prime Minister flying around the world, and spending a lot of money on their own pet projects. I would mention the $40 billion that I think they want to spend for the F-35s.

At the same time that they have been spending a lot of money on their pet projects, because Conservatives love being big spenders on themselves, they have been hacking and slashing the Auditor General's department. The Auditor General is still doing tremendous work.

On this side of the House, the NDP supports the work of the Auditor General. An NDP government would fully fund the Auditor General's operations so that Canadians would be confident that money is being spent on the public interest. That is something we have been saying all along.

We have a unanimous adoption of an NDP motion in this House. Following that, we have the Auditor General saying, “Gosh, the NDP is right. The NDP has been right along. We need an independent body. We need to do away with that secretive bureau of Internal economy”.

What would one think, then, that the report from the procedure and House affairs committee would say as its first recommendation? What would it say? It should say to do away with this secretive non-transparent Board of Internal Economy. However, tragically, that is not what this report says.

We also had other witnesses, like the Information Commissioner, who said very clearly that MPs' expenses should be subject to the Access to Information Act to enhance public trust. Witnesses coming before the committee said very clearly that the NDP's approach was the right one. Initially, in June at least, Conservative and Liberal members agreed that doing away with the Board of Internal Economy was the right approach.

Now we arrive at the actual report itself, and it basically says to have the status quo, that the status quo is all right, that not having access to information on parliamentary expenses is okay, that having a secretive Board of Internal Economy with no transparency is somehow all right. In fact, if we sum up, the title of the report of the procedure and House affairs committee should be “Business as Usual Say Conservatives and Liberals: we want to keep doing things the old way”.

Canadians disagree profoundly with that. They see the old way as leading to this myriad of Senate scandals of Conservative and Liberal senators tied up with illegal spending. They see the old way as involving the RCMP in trying to sort out where these illegal expenses occurred and following up with charges, as we are now starting to see. The old way is the way that Canadians are rejecting. In fact, I recall Conservatives saying, back in 2011, that they reject the old way, that they would make things transparent in Ottawa and would move to do away with the secrecy.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:10 a.m.

Peggy Nash

Accountability.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:10 a.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Yes, to be accountable. We remember that word. The member for Parkdale—High Park is absolutely right. We remember that the Conservatives used to talk about accountability. Conservatives do not talk about accountability anymore. The only party that is talking about accountability in a consistent and forthright way is the NDP. That is part of what we are all about.

I know that Conservatives roll their eyes and say we should not believe in accountability and independent monitoring. However, we believe that democracy is enhanced when we have independent bodies in place that monitor what elected officials do. We believe that a system of checks and balances is the only way it works effectively so that public trust is enhanced and maintained, and that no government can go overboard, as with these big-spending Conservatives who just love to spend on themselves like there is no tomorrow. They get their luxury hotel rooms, as they did in London. They get the limousine and these cabinet offices across the country. Big-spending Conservatives just love to spend money on themselves.

What we have been saying all along is that we need that protection. We need the Auditor General's department, the Parliamentary Budget Officer. We need that system of checks and balances. What we have seen from these Conservatives is gutting that system of checks and balances.

We brought forward, for procedure and House affairs, the proposal that parliamentary expenses be subject to the Access to Information Act. We brought forward that we do away with the self-policing and the secretive Board of Internal Economy and establish independent monitoring, as has been done in Manitoba, which has an NDP government, of course, and in places like the United Kingdom. This is to ensure public trust and ensure that we have disclosure of expenses that are uniform, consistent, and approved. We do not want stunts, but rather a fundamental reporting mechanism that would be overseen by an independent, non-partial body and that, at the same, would be subject to the transparency that Canadians expect.

That is what we have put forward. That is what we believe is fundamental to enhancing Canadian democracy. I can tell members right now that New Democrats are going to continue to fight for transparency. We are going to continue to fight to do away with the secretive Board of Internal Economy, and we are going to continue to fight for Canadians' right to know what Parliament is doing and what MPs are doing.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:15 a.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Mr. Speaker, when I think of transparency and accountability and affiliate them to the acronym NDP, the first word that comes to my mind is “not”.

I do not know where the member was with regard to the whole process we went through last year. Let me remind the member that it was the leader of the Liberal Party who engaged Canadians by saying Liberals were going to get involved in proactive disclosure. We responded to what Canadians wanted by having proactive disclosure. How did the NDP respond to that, which deals with transparency and accountability? The NDP said no. It denied the opportunity to provide it for all Canadians. It was all about accountability, all about transparency, and the NDP was the furthest political party from it in the chamber; it refused that sort of accountability and transparency.

The question I have for the member is this. What is it that the NDP members of Parliament have to hide? They are hiding something. What are they hiding and—

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:15 a.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

Order. The hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:15 a.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Mr. Speaker, we certainly do not need a sound system to enhance the member's voice. He comes across loud and clear. He is defending the Conservative government yet again, which Liberals seem to do.

He should be asking the question of his own leader. His own leader, as a member of Parliament, was going to speaking engagements and demanding money in return for them from private organizations and, at the same time, as we found out later on, filing his expense claims for the House of Commons. That is something New Democrats do not do. When we go out, we are speaking as members of Parliament; we are not trying to hit up organizations for money. We believe that the Canadian public is entitled to have us speak for free as members of Parliament. That is something that every single New Democrat member of Parliament believes in.

The real question is why Conservatives and Liberals are defending each other here and in the Senate. Why do they want the status quo? Why do they want to hide the secretive Board of Internal Economy from Canadians? That is a question he has to answer.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:20 a.m.

NDP

Pierre-Luc Dusseault NDP Sherbrooke, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to ask my colleague a question. In his presentation he explained how the Conservatives and the Liberals adopt half measures that in reality last only three days. They promise transparency, but it is just a media stunt.

When I went to the Conservatives' and Liberals' websites to see their so-called transparency, I saw nothing more than half measures. They have done a half-baked job. The expenses are practically impossible to follow. It is ridiculous.

It would be good to have an independent body present MPs' expenses to Canadians, as the NDP is proposing. This would also promote public confidence. The public would know that this was done properly and not by Conservative and Liberal MPs who always have partisanship in mind.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:20 a.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to sincerely thank the hon. member for Sherbrooke. He is young, but he is an extraordinary member of Parliament. He contributes greatly to the debates in the House with persistence and intelligence.

He asked a good question. In June 2013, in the House, there was talk of doing away with self-policing by MPs. The public was on board with the idea. The Conservatives were on board. Even the Liberals, who are outraged by the Senate scandal, said they were on board. They publicly agreed, but during the meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, the Conservatives and the Liberals said no to access to information and doing away with self-policing.

I think that if people want transparency, then they should vote for the NDP in 2015. There is no question.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:20 a.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend. I find this very interesting. Canadians have considerable fears about this government. Clearly, our political system as it exists now is broken.

That is the report we are talking about right now. I wish the Conservatives would also contribute to this debate, but I doubt they will. This report, prepared by the NDP, outlines a system that would work very well for Canadians. This system would preserve the responsibilities to and the respect for Canadian taxpayers.

As my colleague alluded to, we New Democrats thought—and perhaps naively, I now reflect—somehow when we passed a motion in Canada's Parliament, unanimously, with Conservatives and Liberals voting for that motion to improve things for Canadians, that they actually wanted to do what was in the motion.

There was a plan and an idea in the text of that motion to improve transparency and accountability for all Canadians. One would think that this would be a non-partisan issue, that there is not really a wedge to drive here, that it is not a left versus right, but it is just right versus wrong, and that all parliamentarians would agree that, due to the series of Conservative and Liberal scandals, the only good thing that might come out of it is some true and honest reform of the way we do business in Parliament.

No one has made the case for Senate abolition better than the current Prime Minister with his appointing of the nefarious characters who are now under investigation by the RCMP. No one has made a better case that we need improved systems for accountability at the very highest level than the Prime Minister has, as the RCMP continues to investigate members of his office, his inner sanctum, his most trusted advisors.

For generations now, New Democrats have been making the case for Senate abolition, but it took the Prime Minister and his incredible inability to find talent. One would think that if he had to appoint 59 senators and break his promise to Canadians—the promise he made time and again that he would not appoint unelected senators—that he could have found some better characters to choose from.

I guess Brazeau, Wallin, and Mike Duffy were the best of the Conservative lot. It was thought that these folks would go out and do what was most important for the government, which was raise money for the Conservative Party of Canada. They were good at that, but being accountable and honest with taxpayers, not so much.

For years we have seen the Board of Internal Economy conduct itself entirely behind closed doors. Up until recently I sat on the Board of Internal Economy, and I watched how the system worked and how it did not work. We, as New Democrats, realize that the best disinfectant is sunlight. If we want to really expose what is going on, we have to bring it out into the light of day.

Canadians are properly concerned with the way the Conservatives are handling not just the money they collect from taxpayers but also the various so-called watchdogs that we have instituted over generations to protect the public from power that goes unchecked.

We have the Auditor General, who has done incredible work and who helped expose the Liberal sponsorship scandal, which went to the very heart and top and through the Liberal Party of Canada and showed that corruption was rife. People properly went to jail.

Thank goodness Sheila Fraser was there. If she had not been, would we ever have had exposure of the corruption that had been going on in the Liberal Party of Canada? It is unlikely. Jean Chrétien was not about to tell us about it. Paul Martin was not about to admit to anything. It took a good Auditor General, digging, finding, and calling people to testify. We have seen the government take the Auditor General's office and cut its ability to do its job on behalf of Canadians.

The Parliamentary Budget Office was a function created by the current government to help bring truth to government. That was the whole reason for the institution, to find out what the actual numbers were for things like expenditures and whether the government was telling the truth about what things actually cost.

As soon as that Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page, did his work, the government made him an enemy of the state. It threatened his budget, threatened him personally, and attacked his credibility, time and again, and not with facts, of course, because that is not how Conservatives do these things. No, it was all personal.

It was a vendetta against all the poor Conservative victims, again, one of the conspiracy theories that they derive about themselves, that everyone is out to get the poor Conservative Party of Canada. That is what it is. It must be a conspiracy of all these bureaucrats out there trying to do something so awful as to hold them to account.

We have also seen this with Elections Canada. Elections Canada was moving a pilot project forward that would allow Canadians to vote electronically online, which the younger demographic in particular, which has a voting rate south of 40%, was very keen to engage in. This is something other democracies around the world are looking for. That pilot project got cut by Elections Canada, not because it wanted to but because the Conservative government cut its funds. I shy away from conspiracy theories, but that is a direct link. Elections Canada said that is what it wanted to do: engage more young people. Perhaps they would vote Conservative, or perhaps not. One hopes they have not grown that cynical by the age of 25 or 35. The fact is that it would help improve democracy, something the government is obviously not interested in. We see that in its, ironically, cynically entitled new election act with respect to fair voting.

This motion was concrete and specific. It was backed up by the Auditor General. One would think that the Conservatives and Liberals would have listened to what the Auditor General had to say. The fundamental principle that self-policing does not work is one we should all agree with. Self-policing is inherently fraught with problems because inevitably someone will not tell the truth.

I do not accuse the Liberal leader of knowingly lying when he said that he had not taken any money from taxpayers while he was out earning speaking fees. However, the fact was that there was a self-policing and self-reporting procedure that the Liberals had adopted, which proved not to work. What he said was not true. He had taken money and used public money to go and get speaking gigs and fees. That is a problem.

The Conservatives said they would put all of their expenses online to self-report and self-police. When we went through the Conservatives' websites to find the reports, we found there was no information at all. They do not tell us what the trip was for or what they were doing. They do not tell us most of the trips they go on. They do not report their budgets. They pretend they do and hope the media and public take the headline only and ignore what actually goes on.

We need something better. The New Democrats propose that we would not be self-policed. Rather, we would have the Auditor General or an external body make sure that every dollar that members of Parliament spend on their budgets is reported and accounted for properly.

We also said that the very concept of the Board of Internal Economy in 2014, where members of Parliament secretly meet and decide on what is a very large budget that governs all of Parliament, is something from a bygone era. Of course we made conditions that some things need to be taken into camera, such as security measures and the security of the Prime Minister. Any of those sensitive issues would be done in private, as is appropriate and as is done in the public and private sectors. However, let us apply some normal standards and rules, because that is what Canadians expect of us.

The Conservative government came into power essentially based on a previous government scandal. It came into power promising great things around accountability. It must feel some regret with respect to those promises, because they are being shown right now not to have been true.

When it comes to government accountability, the Ethics Commissioner, the Information Commissioner, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer have been unanimous in describing the government as the most secretive in Canadian history. They cannot get basic information to report back to Canadians. I thought those used to be Conservative values. I thought the Conservatives used to talk about those kinds of things and that they would be different. They said they would be different from the Liberals. Then we look at their record.

Therefore, because of the extenuating circumstances the government has put before us, I move:

That the House do now adjourn.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:30 a.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:30 a.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

No.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:30 a.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

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

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:30 a.m.

Some hon. members

Yea.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:30 a.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

All those opposed will please say nay.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:30 a.m.

Some hon. members

Nay.

Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:30 a.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #54

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

11:20 a.m.

Conservative

The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

I declare the motion defeated.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

11:20 a.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Mr. Speaker, I have a follow-up question. I find it most ironic that we have the New Democrats on the other hand who are ultimately saying “no” to proactive disclosure.

It is very important to recognize that it was the leader of the Liberal Party who brought to this House the whole idea of proactive disclosure. We have challenged—

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

11:20 a.m.

Conservative

The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

Order. I hear several members yelling out “debate”. We are not on debate yet; we are on questions and comments to the previous speech. The hon. member for Winnipeg North is asking a question of the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, and the Chair would like to hear it.

The hon. member for Winnipeg North.