Debates of May 4th, 2017

Oral Questions

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I thank the hon. member Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas for her comments addressing this issue.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, one might think that the hon. member for Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas and I had a simultaneous sense of a point of order. I ask for your indulgence for just a moment.

It has been six years since those of us elected on May 2, 2011, have served. I recall distinctly the opening of the 41st Parliament, in which most parties in this place took a pledge never to heckle. The initiative was led by the late Jack Layton on behalf of the New Democrats. Stephen Harper endorsed it, and for comic relief, my entire caucus pledged never to heckle. Since that time, the disappointed group in this corner, led by interim leader Bob Rae, said that they were not so sure, that they might need to heckle.

At this point I need to turn for reference to a quote from the great A.A. Milne in the poem of good bears and bad bears: “And then quite suddenly (just like Us) One got Better and the other got Wuss”.

The NDP members, over the last few weeks, have hardly been heckling at all. The Liberals have hardly heckled at all. However, it seems the Conservatives feel there is a void and they must fill it with more noise than I have ever heard in this place. I urge them, as individuals and collectively, to please honour Standing Order 16 and 18 and find a way to tone down the violence—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Order. These are points of order and they address matters addressed in the Standing Orders.

I see the member for Calgary Nose Hill rising. Is it on the same point of order?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Yes, Mr. Speaker. On this point of order, my colleague opposite has actually not cited a specific Standing Order, so I would beg that it is not a point of order. However, since the matter of heckling has become relevant, I would ask—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I fear that the hon. member is challenging the Chair. I am sure she would not want to challenge the Chair. I will let her continue her statement.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I point to your direction in these matters. You do have the ability to, as you have on many occasions, censure different members or remind them of their behaviour. However, it is incumbent upon all of us to manage our own behaviour here. That includes members of the government giving answers, which frankly, many Canadians find repulsive. I think that by all of us raising the point in debate, that includes the government actually being accountable to members of the opposition by providing real, relevant answers, which many of these ministers do not.

Statements by Members

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, earlier today, during the members' statements, we heard a beautifully orated speech in a language that 98% of us were unable to comprehend. I wonder if, as a matter of courtesy, if members choose to do that, they could provide prior translation to our interpreters so that we would be able to enjoy the content of their statement and also provide the appropriate support and response.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I thank the hon. member for his comments. That has been the practice. I encourage members, if they are going to speak in a different language from the two official languages, to provide copies of the translation of those statements to the interpreters so that we can all be aware of what they are saying.

Royal Assent

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

Mr. Speaker:

I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bills listed in the schedule to this letter on the 4th day of May, 2017, at 11:30 a.m.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Wallace

The schedule indicates that the bills assented to were Bill S-201, an act to prohibit and prevent genetic discrimination, and Bill C-224, an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (assistance — drug overdose).

Now I believe the hon. opposition House leader has the usual Thursday question.

Business of the House

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I do have the usual Thursday question. As you well know, I get up every Thursday, and I ask the government House leader what the government agenda is for the rest of the week and the week following. The government House leader tells us what the agenda is, and then we go and prepare. The only thing we have to go on is what the government House leader tells us. We are always responding to what the government is doing and to its agenda, but we get one day a week when we have an opposition day. Well, it amounts to about one day a week.

The last time I asked the government House leader this question, she told me and this House what the schedule would be. It included an opposition day, which was supposed to happen today.

There are extremely timely issues that are going on right now in the House of Commons. There is a huge degree of frustration here on this side of the House, but even more so, there is a lot going on in the Canadian military, and they are feeling a sense of betrayal and frustration.

When our opposition day is taken away, when it is changed around, when games are played with our opposition day so that we cannot address these very serious concerns, I think that contributes to the level of frustration on this side of the House.

I am going to ask the government House leader if she would tell us what the business of the House is for this week and for next week, and if we could please stick to that plan, it would be very much appreciated.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-44, Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1, is currently before the House.

Tomorrow morning, we will consider the Senate amendments to Bill C-4 on unions, and then move on to Bill C-44 after question period.

Next week, we have the pleasure of having two allotted days, one on Monday and one on Thursday.

Ideally, I would like to finish debate on the budget legislation next Tuesday in order to send the bill to committee for in-depth study. Bill C-4 will be considered on Wednesday, with the hope of sending it back to the Senate that day.

I do my best to provide a calendar that is as accurate as possible so that all members can prepare. From time to time, things need to change. As members know, we have had some important conversations in this place. We will always ensure that members have the ability to have those important conversations. That is why I would ask that we all continue working better together.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I have notice of a question of privilege.

The hon. member for Montcalm.

Rights of Non-Recognized Parties

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, I am addressing you in your capacity as the custodian of our rights and privileges. For weeks, the government has been claiming that all members will be able to fully participate in the parliamentary reform. It said so as recently as yesterday. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

The government's proposed parliamentary reform and the approach it is taking to this issue violate the rights and privileges of members who do not belong to recognized parties. Hundreds of thousands of voters are being muzzled.

I checked, and I can tell the House that the letter from the Leader of the Government on the changes to electoral reform was sent only to her counterparts in the recognized parties. Not only were we not informed by letter like the other parliamentarians, but we had to learn about the leader's intentions in the newspapers.

We did not get the leader's letter until yesterday afternoon. What is worse, she indicated in that letter that the government will now have to use time allocation motions more often. That means we will have even less speaking time. The government's decision will limit our freedom of speech and have a direct impact on our work, the work that hundreds of thousands of Quebeckers elected us to do.

How can the government possibly amend the Standing Orders of the House without including every single elected member of the House, with no exceptions?

The government is accountable not just to recognized parties in the House, but also to all those elected by Canadians. This is set out very clearly in the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, on page 61: “The privileges of the Commons are designed to safeguard the rights of each and every elector.”

Members of non-recognized parties are 34th in the order of speaking, and the leader has announced that the number of closure motions will increase. This means that we will never get a turn to speak. This will permanently silence small minority political parties, as well as voters. It is an unacceptable attack on the freedom of speech of the members of the Bloc Québécois and the Green Party.

Mr. Speaker, in the next few weeks, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs will debate the the reform of Parliament, its procedures, and its Standing Orders. It will establish the new parliamentary rules that you will have to enforce. I would like to bring to your attention that as a result of the defeat of our motion of April 5, these changes will be discussed and amended without our being able to fully participate in the discussions. It was the government that defeated our motion.

We are barred from all committees. This practice is discriminatory and unfair for non-recognized parties. These rules and procedures discriminate against non-recognized parties and run counter to the principle that the privileges protect the rights of every voter.

Mr. Speaker, we are asking you to defend minority elected officials so that the majority does not crush them. I will repeat the quote: “The privileges of the Commons are designed to safeguard the rights of each and every elector.”

In your speech of December 3, 2015, you clearly stated that you wanted to reform parliamentary procedure. You said: “I believe the Speaker should lead discussions about how to reform our procedures to achieve these things and to have measures that ensure that members are better able to focus on their work and carry out their duties”.

On page 89 of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, we read: “By far, the most important right accorded to members of the House is the exercise of freedom of speech in parliamentary proceedings.” A little further on, it is described as “a fundamental right without which they would be hampered in the performance of their duties.”

The Speaker's role in protecting this privilege in particular is set out on page 308. “The duty of the Speaker is to ensure that the right of members to free speech is protected....”

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, as the custodian of our privileges, it is your duty to intervene to ensure that the elected members of non-recognized parliamentary groups are not deprived of their most fundamental right, the right to speak, and the right to vote in committee and in the House on behalf of their constituents.

I am asking you today to guide us as to how to reform our procedures so that you can protect the rights and privileges of parliamentarians belonging to non-recognized parties. In fact, we hold that there are four breaches of our parliamentary privileges.

First, the procedure put forward by the government to reform House procedures and practices without the participation of all parliamentary groups, who are excluded from the committee on parliamentary reform, is not in keeping with the principle of fairness that must guide the Speaker's rulings and infringes on our freedom of speech.

Second, the government's expressed intent to use its parliamentary majority rather than seeking a consensus among elected officials to make changes to the Standing Orders and procedures is not in keeping with the practices and customs in that regard.

Third, the government's expressed intent to use time allocation more frequently inordinately violates the freedom of speech of non-recognized parties, especially since it has announced that it will use its parliamentary majority to push through its reforms.

Fourth, the fact that elected members of non-recognized parties were not informed of the government's intentions regarding the procedural amendments at the same time as the recognized parties is a clear indication that parliamentarians from non-recognized parties are not being treated equitably.

We are counting on you, Mr. Speaker, and we await your wise judgment.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I thank the hon. member for Montcalm for his speech.

The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands on the same question of privilege.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Montcalm. He stated his position, and I completely agree with him.

As members, we are all equals here in this place. Our constituents, the people who live in our ridings, are equals, and it is only fair that we all have the same rights and freedoms here in the House. We are treated differently only because of a law that was passed in 1963. I think that was the year that Parliament passed the law that granted money to parties with more than 12 members.

In 1963, it was about giving parties with more than 12 members some money. Over time it has morphed, without any specific law ever passing, to say that members of legitimate elected parties, in my case a party that runs nationally, and in the case of the Bloc a party that runs very strongly in one province, should have, and would have in other parliaments within the commonwealth system, the same rights. For the matter, independents should have the same rights, as their voters have the same rights.

In this case, we do not have those rights, because as we know, over the years we have adopted traditions in which parties with more than 12 members have more rights. It has not been reassessed since 1963. In the early 1990s, a former member of Parliament for Winnipeg—Transcona at the time, the hon. Bill Blaikie, made a brilliant argument as to why the NDP, with nine seats, should have the right to sit on committees. At the time, with all due respect to my colleague from the Bloc, that was objected to by the Bloc, because it had more than 12 members, and they were mad, because when they had fewer than 12, the NDP had not supported them.

It would be wonderful to review what has happened by accretion, without any actual decision ever rendered in this place, and go back to the question of why members of Parliament who happen to be in parties with fewer than 12 members should have fewer rights. I set aside the issue of money. Why should we have fewer rights than any other MP?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, given what has been said, we would like to review Hansard and we will get back to you in a relatively short time span.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I thank the hon. member for Montcalm, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, and the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons. I will await the government's comments. Then, the Chair will take it all under advisement and get back to the House with a ruling in a timely manner.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that C-44, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2017 and other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

The hon. member for Fleetwood—Port Kells has four and a half minutes left in his speech.

The hon. member for Fleetwood—Port Kells.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, for those who may remember, we were talking about the budget and some significant investments that the federal government had been making to move a number of very important things forward. It all contributes to economic activity, but it is important to realize that what the government has been doing so far, budget 2016 and budget 2017, is more than a stimulus program. The investments we are making in infrastructure, jobs training, innovation, and early learning and child care are about building a solid foundation for a prosperous economy, one that offers a fair share and a fair shake to all Canadians willing to step forward to invest some hope and hard work for a real change in their lives.

Listening to Canadians and evidence-based decision-making are blazing a new path for the country in a fairly uncertain world right now. This recognizes that while the previous government's ideology may have been well-intentioned, it simply did not deliver the results the majority of Canadians wanted.

Speaking of results, I want to save some time to talk about the issue of deficits, because they keep coming up.

The previous government sought to balance its last budget at all costs, this, after racking up over $150 billion in accumulated deficits over 10 years. What a cost it was. If it did indeed balance the budget, it was thanks in part to service cuts and lapsed funding that fluffed up the bottom line as ministries and programs did not actually spend the money the Conservatives committed.

A balanced budget at all costs, but who paid? Our veterans certainly did when front-line staff was cut back and service offices were closed. So did unemployed young people and our disabled Canadians when tens of millions of dollars in promised funding went unspent. So did Albertans, when Mr. Harper's government had no response for them in 2014 and 2015 as falling oil prices foretold tough times ahead. All Canadian taxpayers certainly did when over 60 of the Canada Revenue Agency's most senior auditors were let go to cut costs. They are the ones who could have tracked down many millions of dollars in taxes avoided by wealthy families, which may now be helping even more wealthy families avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

The Conservatives believed so much in the virtue of a balanced budget, at all cost, that they tried to close the gap for 2015-16 with the fire sale disposal of the General Motors shares they purchased during the economic collapse of 2007-08.

The Globe and Mail reported that this badly timed sale, done to balance the budget, resulted in as much as a $3.5 billion loss off the original purchase price. All Canadians took it in the neck for that one.

As I mentioned, lapsed funding, the underspending of government budget commitments, also padded the Tories' bottom line.

Of course, every government, every year, sees lapsed funding, but as The Canadian Press reported in December 2014, the Conservatives gamed the system deliberately, with rewards for managers who underspent their budgets.

The balanced budget bragging rights the previous government pursued, at all cost, was the old bait and switch, a carnival side show or a shell game.

To be sure, as we look at budget 2017 and the critically important work it does to build on budget 2016, there are financial deficits. However, Canadians understood during the last election campaign that those deficits were an investment, that deficits would lead to something our country sorely needed. They can see today that there are dividends of many kinds being delivered.

I think it occurs to people, when we think about it, that there is more than one kind of deficit. There were times in the decade prior to budget 2016 that Canada experienced many deficits, deficits in dollars, to be sure, but also deficits of compassion, imagination, vision, and optimism.

Budget 2017 is delivering a surplus on all those accounts. The kind of Canada we are supporting will have the equity, the economy, and the future that will ultimately deliver the kind of genuinely balanced budget we have not seen since the days of Chrétien and Martin.

I was a teenager when Canada celebrated its Centennial. I remember, with great fondness, the incredible energy, enthusiasm, and pride that swept from coast to coast to coast. We owe it to today's teenagers, to everybody, in fact, to recreate that experience. What a better time than now, our 150th birthday, and what a better way than with the direction and future laid out for our country in the federal budget before us today.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of many aspects of the budget. In two budgets now, the government has dealt with Canada's middle class.

One of the things we do not hear too much about in this budget is the importance of venture capital. By enabling venture capital opportunities, we will be helping small businesses.

Could my colleague share his thoughts on the importance of what I would argue is the backbone to Canada's economy and how we can support our middle class by getting behind our small businesses?

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. It brings to mind the fact that this government has been criticized somewhat for not decreasing the tax rate on small business. However, we hit the nail on the head in that our small business does not need a tax cut. There is nothing to be saved if we do not make money. What our small businesses needed was more customers.

The impact of the Canada child benefit on the tax reduction for middle class has actually rippled through the economy and is helping to build stronger businesses at the community level, which is where we need them.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the comments of my hon. colleague concerning the cuts to program delivery, which we saw over the years of the previous government, and how many communities suffered, including my own, which lost counter service and delivery of government programs, and the Canada Revenue Agency. We lost a counter service and service to our community in Immigration.

I have many questions for my hon. colleague, but I will ask him this. Why is there nothing in the budget to increase that program delivery, to put resources back into the service delivery of the government? He talked before about the government that cut them.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that they cannot all be restored at once. We are restoring some very important things like services to veterans and the opening of the Veterans Affairs office. We are investing more into the Canada Revenue Agency to see if we can improve the revenue intake of the government from people who should be paying a fair share of taxes.

Like the hon. member, things are missing off the list in this budget that I would like to have seen. This is one budget. There are more to come. As we collaborate together in the House and we raise the issues that are important to Canadians and we hear what is important to Canadians, those surely will be the priorities in future budgets, just as they have been in this one.