Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am sure they will stop talking soon because what I have to tell them is very important.
First, this is another week where I must rise in the House to talk about a bill that is subject to a time allocation motion. That is unfortunate, but not surprising. We are starting to get used to it. I think that time allocation has been imposed more than 60 times. I do not know whether the Conservatives have set a goal to reach 100, but if so, they are off to a good start. That is unfortunate for democracy.
It is even more unfortunate when we are dealing with a bill such as this. It is 359 pages long. What is more, the Conservatives are trying to sneak provisions into this budget implementation bill that, in my opinion, do not belong in a document of this nature. Why? Because each part of this bill deserves to be closely examined. Perhaps the different parts are good and perhaps they are not, but they should all be analyzed by the committee that specializes in the subject in question, not by the Standing Committee on Finance, which will examine the over 350-page document, likely at lightning speed.
If we do not have the right to debate the bill in the House, more than 200 MPs will not have any opportunity to express their views.
I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to rise today in the House to speak about this bill, because I am very concerned about some parts of it. I want to send a clear message to the people who will examine it in committee, because we should not let this bill go through like a letter in the mail. By the way, it is now very expensive to send a letter in the mail.
That being said, I would first like to talk about a positive aspect of this bill. I am extremely pleased to see that the government listened to the call from the governments of Quebec and Alberta for more judges. That is confirmed in clauses 164 and 165 of division 5. The New Democratic Party certainly has no objections to these two clauses. We have been calling for this for a long time. On several occasions, we asked the Minister of Justice in the House to heed the call from the justice ministers of these provinces.
Considering the many pieces of legislation related to justice that this government introduces and the serious problems that exist regarding access to justice, there is no doubt that the system really needs resources. This is definitely good news in that sense.
However, we must not give them too many compliments. In Quebec this means four additional judges on the Superior Court, but seven other positions remain vacant. This means that this government is either dragging its feet or seeking partisan appointments, but having a hard time finding people. That is why it is taking a while to fill the vacant positions.
I cross paths with judges as part of my duties in my role as justice critic for the NDP. Judges tell me very clearly that some criminal trials can take longer. Victims of crime often have serious problems with the justice system, and one such problem is how slow the system is. When resources are lacking, including crown prosecutors and judges, that certainly does not help.
The two clauses in question are fine, but those two clauses make up barely a dozen lines in a document that is over 350 pages long.
I had the opportunity to ask the Minister of Justice about the part that really worries me, but he just skated around the issue. All the experts are wondering what the Conservatives were doing putting division 29 in a budget bill. Division 29, on page 263, contains many clauses. The document practically ends with that division.
I would like to draw the attention of my colleagues, including my Conservative colleagues, to division 29. I cannot believe they do not do the same thing we do, which is examine these provisions. They accuse us of not reading them. It is not that we do not read them, but the Conservatives want us to comment on them 30 seconds after the bill is introduced, when they have had the advantage of examining everything already, even in caucus. They often examine bills before we even see them, and they expect us to be familiar with the content of over 350 pages in 30 seconds.
The official opposition takes things a little more seriously than that. We take the time to read the provisions. Did they think we were so complacent that we would not notice division 29, or that it would go through because it was a little too complex and technical?
Division 29 creates the administrative tribunals support service of Canada. The Minister of Justice says that the government simply wants to be more efficient and save money. Our constituents all across Canada, not just those in Conservative ridings, will surely agree with that. They really like it when they are told that the government will save money. However, that is coming from a Conservative government that, since coming to power, has increased the national debt by $123.5 billion. That is not peanuts.
In the 1990s, progress was made by dint of Canadians' hard work and cuts to our social programs, which are still struggling to recover. However, this government does not care in the least, because the Conservatives, these so-called economic geniuses, have added $123.5 billion to the debt. Future generations will have to deal with that.
After countless budget deficits and no budget surpluses, the government is proud to announce that next year, an election year, they will finally post their first budget surplus, as though by magic. There is really nothing to be proud of on the Conservative benches.
They spent almost $113 million to advertise things that do not even work. It is quite shocking to see how they claim to be great economists.
It makes me think of a certain program we debated in the House. At a number of press conferences, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice and a senator working for victims said that they were taking care of victims and, thanks to this program, the parents of murdered or abducted children would be able to get employment insurance benefits.
Only 12 files have been opened. It is appalling. It has helped 12 people. Some media people asked me to explain that record. My reply was that if the Conservatives had made as many commercials to announce this program, perhaps it would have been a bit more successful. If they had set less strict criteria, instead of holding press conferences to give the impression that they were solving all the problems, perhaps it would have been successful. Basically, for the benefit of those watching us, when a Conservative tells us that he is solving a problem, you have to stop and think about it. As a general rule, that is not the case at all.
This division 29 puts under the same umbrella the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board, the Review Tribunal, the Canadian Industrial Relations Board, which the Conservative government just adores, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which it adores even more, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, the Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada, the Competition Tribunal, the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal, which was supposed to be very strong, according to this government, the Social Security Tribunal, which affects a lot of people, the Specific Claims Tribunal, and so on.
This will all be in the hands of a deputy minister who will report to the Minister of Justice and who will be appointed by the cabinet. This is another partisan, five-year appointment. That person will hold the purse strings. Then they tell us not to be afraid in the slightest, that there is no problem with the independence of the new tribunal and that everything is above board. This is a con, and the New Democratic Party is not falling for it.