Mr. Speaker, I would again like to say hello to the deaf community, the people who have been here all day listening to the debates. We welcome them.
I would love to be able to say that we will be sitting to midnight until the third week of June because the Liberals have suddenly realized that they actually have to put into action the democratic reforms they promised back in 2015, that they actually have to have proportional representation, as the Prime Minister said in 2015 when indicating that that election would be last one under first past the post. If the government were saying, “Gosh, we forgot that promise and want to come back to sit until midnight” we would be overjoyed. We would be saying it was great.
If the Liberals said that we have to sit to midnight until June 21 because they suddenly realized there is an affordable-housing crisis in this country and that there are literally hundreds of thousands of families who are struggling to keep a roof over their heads, tens of thousands of families out on the streets, and the government wants to resolve it and build housing now and put a roof over everybody's heads, the New Democrats would be overjoyed to sit until midnight. That would the case if the government said so, but it has not.
If the Liberals said about pharmacare, “Gosh, there are millions of Canadians who cannot afford their medication and are struggling to take the medication their doctors have prescribed to them, so we are going to keep a promise and bring pharmacare in now,” we in the NDP would say, “Yes, absolutely, we are prepared to sit to midnight until June 21 to bring in pharmacare.”
None of those things are on the docket. There is some important legislation, all of which could have been improved if the Liberals actually listened. All of it could have been improved if the Liberals accepted amendments from the opposition.
We were just talking about the accessibility act earlier today. The disability community put forward very strong recommendations for changes and amendments, as did the NDP, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh in particular, all of which were ignored and left on the table. The government has simply refused to improve any of the legislation before the House and is refusing to take any of the actions it committed to back in 2015.
I mentioned democratic reform just a few moments ago. We remember the solemn promise at the time that it would be the last election under first past the post. If so, we would now be dealing with an election in which every vote would count, and coming out of that election we would have a parliament that was actually representative of Canadians' views. My colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford mentioned earlier today in the House that 62% of Canadians did not even vote for the current government, and yet the government has 100% of the power. That is why the government can impose its closure motion, and now this motion that strips the opposition of all of its rights.
For what reason is the government doing that when it has failed on so many counts?
I cannot even begin to talk about the whole issue of the climate emergency. The NDP offered a very substantive motion just two weeks ago. In offering that motion, the member for Burnaby South was very eloquent. There was a whole series of measures that needed to be taken. It was a climate emergency. It needed to be done and accomplished immediately, and those measures were set out very carefully by the NDP. The government voted against it. Then the Liberals brought forward a climate emergency motion that is basically a narrative of what Canadians know to be true, but does not in any way address the fundamental problems that Canada will be facing if we do not contend with climate change.
I mentioned in the House a couple of weeks ago what we have seen in just our lifetime in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. The month of August used to be a time of sunny skies and blue skies, but for the last few years has been choked with smoke from the hundreds of wildfires that erupt on Vancouver Island and in the interior of British Columbia.
In the last three years, elderly people have had to stay indoors. I was with a youth group just two weeks ago. Its members talked about how some people in their 18, 19, 20-year age group were forced to wear gas masks because of the intensity of the smoke. They talked about the inability of people to even go outside. That is happening in our lifetime.
This is why we offered the climate emergency motion, which was substantive and would have changed the way the government acts. It stated that instead of building pipelines, the government needed to invest immediately in renewable energy, yet the Liberal government voted against it. It voted against all those aspects. It wants to go ahead full bore on a pipeline that British Columbians do not want and that will accelerate climate change. The government postures and says that it will and put a price on carbon, but all the large emitters are exempt.
Coming back to the motion, it is the posturing that is the most disturbing about all of this. The government is saying that we need to sit until midnight right through until June 21. There are some valid pieces of legislation that we are happy to facilitate through. However, for the most part, the government wants to work hard on making the government look good as opposed to doing the right thing. That is the fundamental problem.
I guess that is the difference between the NDP caucus and the direction the Liberal government has taken. We offered a substantive motion on climate emergency that would force the government to act and seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, the government voted that down and offered something that was simply a statement of the situation as all Canadians know it to be.
Canadians know we are in a climate emergency, because they have seen first-hand the record level of floods. They have seen first-hand the forest fires that have choked various parts of the country, including my region of New Westminster—Burnaby in the Lower Mainland. People now have to stay indoors for much of the best part of the year. The summer months, which used to be glorious in my region, are now fraught with almost killer air quality. It is not an easy situation at all for people with health problems to go out and deal with that smoke.
Last August, we saw the killer heatwave that killed dozens of people in Montreal and southern Quebec. The Toronto Star did what I thought was an important article on the number of heat-related deaths that would have occurred in southern Ontario. Because statistics are kept differently, it is quite possible the death toll was very high in southern Ontario as well. The reality is very clear. There is a need to act on the climate emergency.
I spoke earlier about the housing crisis we were living through. The government needs to act. The housing crisis is striking many regions of the country.
I have spoken before about Heather, who is struggling to find affordable housing for her family. Hers is just one of the many families that are finding it almost impossible to keep a roof over their heads. We are in a crisis when it comes to affordable housing and the government should be acting.
When we talk about pharmacare, it is indeed a crisis. I have spoken many times about Jim, who is right outside the Chateau Laurier, begging for money so he can get the $580 a month he needs for the medication that keeps him alive for his family. The government does not see that as an emergency either.
That is the fundamental difference. The government is rushing through a motion that binds the opposition. It takes away the opposition's rights and the ability to hold the government to account. The government has offered a couple of substantive pieces of legislation, which would have been supported by all members of the House anyway. However, for the most part, the emergency of ensuring we have medication for all in the country, the emergency of ensuring people have a roof over their head, the emergency that comes with climate change and the emergency that comes from the appalling state of indigenous communities not being supported by the government are all left aside.
The government is saying that we are going to sit until midnight for the government's sake, not for the sake of Canadians. Canadians will be able to judge the Liberals on October 21.