House of Commons Hansard #96 of the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was veterans.
Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons ActRoutine Proceedings
Central Nova Nova Scotia
Conservative
Peter MacKay ConservativeMinister of Justice
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Criminal Code in response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Attorney General of Canada v. Bedford and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Health in relation to Bill C-442, An Act respecting a National Lyme Disease Strategy. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in relation to the certificate of nomination of Daniel Therrien to the position of Privacy Commissioner.
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration in relation to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House without amendments.
While I am on my feet, I move:
That the House do now proceed to orders of the day.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin
The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings
Some hon. members
Agreed.
No.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin
All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin
In my opinion the yeas have it.
And five or more members having risen:
Call in the members.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin
I declare the motion carried.
It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, National Defence; the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, International Trade; and the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, Aboriginal Affairs.
Marc Garneau Liberal Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been discussions among the parties and if you seek, it I think you would find unanimous consent for the following motion, which was seconded by the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington and the member for Ottawa Centre. I move:
That the House remember the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square on its 25th anniversary, express its deepest condolences to those who lost friends and family members in the massacre, call upon China to account for those who remain missing, call for the release of those who continue to be imprisoned, and urge the Government of China to abide by international human rights standards and to engage in ongoing and open dialogue with its people about the tragic events of 25 years ago.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin
Does the hon. member for Westmount—Ville-Marie have the unanimous consent of the House to present the motion?
The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin
The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
Bill C-18—Time Allocation MotionAgricultural Growth ActGovernment Orders
York—Simcoe Ontario
Conservative
Peter Van Loan ConservativeLeader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, I move:
That, in relation to Bill C-18, An Act to amend certain Acts relating to agriculture and agri-food, not more than five further hours shall be allotted to the consideration of the second reading stage of the bill; and
That, at the expiry of the five hours provided for the consideration of the second reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin
Order, please. Pursuant to Standing Order 67(1), there will now be a 30-minute question period. I invite hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise in their places so that the Chair has some idea of the number of members who may want to participate in the debate.
Seeing many, I will ask members to keep their questions to about one minute.
The hon. opposition House leader.
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Mr. Speaker, the government has moved another time allocation motion. This is the 69th one.
The Conservatives are proud of that, but it was different when they were the opposition. They said that the Liberals were corrupt and that the Conservatives would run things differently and allow debate in the House of Commons. However, they have now matched the corrupt Liberals' sorry record with their 69th time allocation motion. They are as bad as the Liberals. It is appalling. Canadians deserve better.
Equally appalling is the fact that the Conservatives do not even show up for debate. They move a time allocation motion because they say they are in a hurry. However, since last Tuesday, they have missed 49 shifts in the House of Commons. That is appalling.
Nurses, doctors, construction workers and everyone else shows up for their shift. Could it get any better for the Conservatives? They have missed 49 shifts in just seven days. That is appalling.
Canadians deserve better than Conservative MPs who do not show up for work.
My question is very simple. We are talking about a bill that has some aspects we support, of course, and some aspects that have provoked some real controversy. There is no doubt that there are concerns about this bill. It has had only a few hours of debate. The government has simply been refusing to table it for debate so we can actually have the discussion on the floor of the House of Commons.
My question is simply this: Is the government moving time allocation, another one, which is now 69 times, because it is afraid of the controversy this bill has had in certain aspects and does not want to have Canadians learning about some of the aspects of the bill people find problematic?
Bill C-18—Time Allocation MotionAgricultural Growth ActGovernment Orders
Battlefords—Lloydminster Saskatchewan
Conservative
Gerry Ritz ConservativeMinister of Agriculture and Agri-Food
Mr. Speaker, I welcome the input from the House leader on the other side. He should recognize that there have been 22 years of debate on this issue. This is UPOV '91. It is based on 1991 and moving forward. Right now Canada operates under UPOV '78, which is certainly antiquated and outdated from today's standpoint in agriculture. We have been 22 years getting to this point. A lot of the opinions are exactly the same as they were 22 years ago. There is only one small splinter farm group that is against moving forward on this. Other than that, hearings the agricultural committees had when I sat in opposition, when I sat as chair of the committee, moving toward this day, all talked about the innovation required to move forward in Canada's agricultural sector to get under that umbrella of UPOV '91.
We are only one of two developed countries in the world that have not embraced this. The other one is Norway. Of course, its seed system is quite a bit different from ours.
It is time Canada got up to speed. It is time we moved this forward in an expeditious way.
The member opposite said that we are not standing up to take our fair share. What we are doing is allotting the opposition all the time, because its members constantly complain that they do not have enough time to speak, so here we go.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, at times I find that the opposition House leader is challenged to stick to the facts and be honest inside the Chamber when he makes reference to 69 times. That is in fact a record. It is a record the government has established. The NDP needs to realize that its slight exaggeration of something that is just not true in regard to the Liberal Party is most unfortunate.
The Conservatives have now used in excess of 70 hours, whether it is debating a motion of process or the bells ringing. That does not include the amount of time it takes to conduct the vote itself. It is a massive waste of time. Not all of this legislation is even controversial. There have been time allocation motions on legislation that is not controversial and should not have had closure.
My question is for the government House leader. Why has the government determined that using time allocation is part of the normal process here in the House of Commons? We have seen this since it became a majority Conservative government. Why is the government using this tool of closure as a normal daily House process? That is wrong.
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Mr. Speaker, Conservatives have campaigned for years on certain aspects of moving the agenda forward for the Canadian people. We make no apologies for using the tools available to us in this House and in the Senate to make sure that Canadians have that in the most expeditious way we can.