Debates of May 13th, 2021

Opposition Motion—Elections During a Pandemic

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Madam Speaker, earlier in his speech, the hon. member talked the changing of Standing Orders. I want to remind him of the last Parliament when there was changing of Standing Orders from the government and it just about lost a vote. That is when it had a majority. There were three days of questions of privilege to prevent the government from continuing as it went after the Prime Minister for his actions.

Could the member confirm to his backbench and everybody here that they would probably want to wait until after the full six years from the 2015 election so their pensions could come into play?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, we know what is on the mind of Conservatives. I cannot believe I was just asked that question in the middle of a pandemic when we have been focusing on taking care of Canadians throughout the last 15 months. That has been the focus of this government. We clearly know where the Conservatives' heads have been. That question was an absolute joke.

What is important is that I do not want to go into an election. I want to avoid an election, and it certainly is not for the purpose that the member indicated. It is because during a pandemic, we do not need that. However, the reality of the situation is that it is very possible that it happens, in particular, when we reflect on the way the opposition parties have been voting.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member referenced the study that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs did on holding a pandemic election. One of the main recommendations in the report from that study was that the Prime Minister not call an election during a pandemic unless the government lost a confidence vote.

Does he agree with that recommendation that the Prime Minister should not call an election unless it is the result of a confidence vote?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, we see that it was a unanimous report, as the member indicated, so the Liberal members on that committee felt that this was what they wanted to support. As our representatives on that committee, I stand by their recommendations, having had the opportunity to study it. Unfortunately, I was not on the committee when the report was done.

At the end of the day, what is important is to recognize that we have an opportunity to work together to get through this for the betterment of all Canadians. We need to strive to do that. I know the NDP has been trying. It has been supporting various processes along the way in the budget. I hope that relationship can continue, not for the House but for the betterment of Canadians.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Kingston and the Islands for his speech, which he delivered with his customary eloquence.

I am very perplexed that the Bloc Québécois is unable to support such a simple and clear amendment that certainly calls for responsibility on the part of the government, but also for responsibility on the part of the opposition parties.

In the context of a minority government, each parliamentarian must demonstrate the highest level of responsibility. We know that a minority government faces confidence votes that it can lose, and Bill C-19 prepares us for a potential election, which is responsible.

The government must face confidence votes. It is all right for opposition parties to vote against the government in some of those votes, but it is therefore equally right to prepare for a potential election during a pandemic.

I would also remind my colleague and the House that, just last summer, the leader of the Bloc Québécois said he was willing to trigger an election. For him, the pandemic was not a very important issue. He was promoting a potential election every chance he got last summer.

I believe that supporting Bill C-19 would be a responsible decision.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on this inconsistency in the Bloc Québécois's discourse regarding Bill C-19 and the responsibility that we all have as parliamentarians to be well prepared in the event of an election.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am shocked that the Bloc Québécois did not accept my amendment. All it would do is add three simple words, which support everything the Bloc members have been claiming today despite the fact they have not been supported by their actions in the House. All I asked was that, in addition to it being the government's responsibility to ensure that the election would not happen, to add in that the opposition would not do it. What Bloc members have basically signalled by not supporting the amendment is that they do not want the Prime Minister to call an election, but they are getting ready to do it themselves.

How could I not conclude that when we look at the actions of their votes and when we look at the words that have come out of the Bloc Québécois leader's mouth? “Bring it on” is what he said in response to the Prime Minister. He wants an election and through not supporting this amendment, he is signally that exactly.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands noted that he supported changes to the Elections Act in case we had to have an election during a pandemic. I do not want an election during a pandemic, and I do not think Canadians want one. He said that some opposition members were saying that these would be permanent changes, and we know they would not be.

However, I would like to see some permanent changes to the Elections Act, and I wonder if the hon. member would agree with me. I hear from a lot of young people who would like to see the voting age changed to 16. I hear from a lot of people who would like to see a proportional representation system so that every vote counts.

I wonder whether the hon. member would agree with those two changes permanently to the Elections Act.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I hope there will always be time for us to reflect back on our electoral system and to make recommendations and changes for better participation of all electors in the country.

Can I comment specifically about some of the suggestion the member has? They are are great suggestions and we need to talk about them more.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to explain why the Bloc Québécois does not support the amendment and why it is the responsibility of the federal government to ensure that an election is not called.

Who has the power to decide to dissolve Parliament? Is it the government or the opposition? Who can go to the Governor General and ask that an election be called? Is it the opposition or the government? Who decides to make any vote a confidence vote? It is the government.

I will make a comment to my hon. colleague, rather than ask him a question. He accuses all the other opposition parties of wanting to trigger an election. However, I think that, by introducing Bill C-19 and imposing a gag order, it is the government that wants to trigger an election.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, that is not the way our parliamentary system works. What the member is suggesting is that it is possible to pass a non-confidence motion in the House but then still not go to an election, because it is technically and ceremoniously the responsibility of the Prime Minister to go to the Governor General. That is not the way it works. It has not worked like for 175 years. To make that suggestion only underscores the false narrative that has been put forward by the Bloc Québécois today.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today on this Bloc Québécois opposition day to speak to the important issue of elections during a pandemic.

The motion reads as follows:

That:

(a) the House remind the government that a general election was held in October 2019 and sadly note that more than 1.3 million Canadians...have been infected with COVID-19 and that nearly 25,000 people have died as a result;

The critic for seniors adds here that seniors were the first victims of this pandemic, and that the government should not try to use them in a cheap election ploy by promising them a one-time cheque for $500 in August, just before its target period for launching the election during the pandemic. I will continue reading:

(b) in the opinion of the House, holding an election during a pandemic would be irresponsible, and that it is the responsibility of the government to make every effort to ensure that voters are not called to the polls as long as this pandemic continues.

This afternoon, I will address this issue from three perspectives. First, I will explain the theme we chose for our opposition day, then I will put on my former journalism student's hat, and finally, I will put on my former political science student and confirmed social democrat's hat.

To begin with, I would like to remind the House that the Bloc Québécois does agree with one thing. If there is an election during the pandemic, adjustments will have to be made to ensure that polling takes place in compliance with the public health rules issued by Quebec and the provinces. That is the question though: Should there be an election?

We moved this motion today for several reasons. From a technical perspective, the bill is flawed and contains significant grey areas we have to discuss and debate. From a public health and ethics point of view, holding an election under the current circumstances is not responsible. Here is a specific example.

As the Bloc Québécois's critic for seniors, I am concerned. The bill provides for polling stations in residences for 16 days before voting day. Somehow or other, election workers would have to be there for 19 days. That is not necessary, and we would have liked to change that. Voters have a number of different ways to cast their ballot. If they cannot go to a polling station, they can always vote by mail, as usual.

In addition to the logistical issue, there is also the psychological issue around strangers being in these homes and constantly asking people to vote. We do not yet know exactly how it will unfold, but it is not hard to imagine.

Furthermore, as a former journalism student, I always pay attention to what commentators have to say. I will quote a few of them to show that this is not just a whim of the Bloc, as the other parties would have people believe with their rhetoric. Rather, our motion today is based on the concerns of the people of Shefford who wrote to me, as well as those of other Quebeckers and Canadians.

First, there was Mario Dumont on QUB radio. This is what he said on his show on May 10:

I remember that, at the National Assembly, the advisory committee of the chief electoral officer was meeting in camera because they did not want to have public grandstanding and bickering over the Quebec Election Act. They said that the parties had to agree first…

Invoking closure to pass new election rules for an election that is only a few weeks away is not a good thing…

This may be difficult to understand for the Liberals, who have a tendency to ignore the specifics relating to Quebec and its National Assembly.

Furthermore, on the May 10 episode of La joute, Emmanuelle Latraverse said that wanting to amend a law without going through Parliament was against the rules of our electoral system, which encourages seeking consensus.

The irony is that the Liberal Party has put a gag order on a bill to amend the elections legislation, but the Liberals made a big fuss when the Harper government tried to pull the same stunt. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Liberals have only themselves to blame for the timing of this legislation. I could name several others who have spoken out in response to what they have heard on the ground.

Still in the media world, in order to gauge public opinion, Ipsos conducted a poll for Global News on April 18, 2021, so relatively recently, and found that 57% of voters believed that an election during a pandemic would not be fair. A Leger poll on April 16, 2021, found that only 14% of Canadians wanted an election this spring, 29% this fall and 43% later. Liberal voters are even more hesitant. Only 6% want a spring election and 26% want a fall election. Sixty percent want it to be later. That is a huge number.

Finally, as a former student of politics, I am very worried. It is well known that every crisis carries two main risks. One is the federal government interfering in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces, and the second is austerity for the recovery. This could be disastrous, especially for our health care system.

I would add to that the serious risk of eroding our democratic systems. That is why it is inconceivable that a government is imposing time allocation in Parliament on a bill meant to frame the democratic rights of the people.

Let us not forget the context for introducing Bill C-19. Since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, there have been questions about holding an election in this particular context given the minority status of the current government. Using the current provisions of the legislation, general elections were held in New Brunswick, British Columbia and Saskatchewan and two federal by-elections were held in Ontario.

Then there is the example of the provincial election in Newfoundland and Labrador. We all know what happened there. That election illustrated the risks of holding an election during a pandemic. The rise in the number of COVID-19 cases forced the cancellation of a polling day and the shift to mail-in voting.

In 2019, 61% of Newfoundlanders voted and that rate fell to not quite 51% in the last election, which tarnishes the legitimacy of a government. We need to do what we can to have the highest voter turnout possible. That is what should happen. In a federal election this type of scenario could have a considerable impact on voter turnout.

Let us now continue with our timeline. On October 5, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada tabled a special report with his recommendations for holding an election during a pandemic. On December 8, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs released a report entitled “Interim Report: Protecting Public Health and Democracy During a Possible Pandemic Election”. The Bloc Québécois issued a supplementary opinion, proof of its usual willingness to collaborate.

The government ignored the work of the committee and introduced its bill to amend the Canada Elections Act in response to COVID-19 on December 10, 2020. For his part, the Chief Electoral Officer considered a range of administrative measures to adapt to operations during a pandemic.

I am going to discuss the impact of COVID-19. Since Bill C-19 was introduced five months ago, we have had only four hours to debate it. Finally, last Friday, the Leader of the Government in the house of Commons indicated that he intended to move a time allocation motion, or closure, with respect to Bill C-19 on the following Monday, May 10, 2021.

After a 45-minute debate on the gag order, there was a vote. The Bloc Québécois and the Conservative Party voted against the gag order but in favour of sending the bill to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. This was followed by three hours and 15 minutes of debate, primarily on the gag order. The Liberals let this bill languish and now they are rushing it through at the end of the session, as we approach the summer break and a drop in their polling numbers.

Furthermore, running a Canada-wide mail-in vote presents some significant logistical challenges and could prevent some people from exercising their right to vote.

In conclusion, the Liberals' gag order on C-19 shows that they plan to call an election during the pandemic. That is how pundits are interpreting this unnecessary legislative manoeuvre. The Liberals are telling us that their political agenda comes before getting everyone vaccinated, helping our economy recover and lifting the health measures and stay-at-home orders. This will not all be wrapped up with a wave of a magic wand at the end of the summer.

I repeat, nobody wants an election. The Bloc Québécois wants all the party leaders to meet, reach a consensus and find common ground. Yes, the Bloc Québécois is a party of ideas.

In our democratic system, we are well within our rights to make demands of the government. The government's job is to listen to opposition proposals to make Parliament work.

We wanted health transfers to go up to 35% of total health spending. That is what Quebec and the provinces called for during the health crisis. We wanted an extra $100 per month for seniors 65 and up. Our asks are perfectly legitimate and absolutely essential. The government chose not to take them into account in its budget, so it is responsible for the fact that we voted against that budget.

We have always said that if it is good for Quebec, we will vote for it, but if it is not good for Quebec or if it is against our interests, we will vote against it. We made our intentions clear well in advance.

If the government had been sincere, it would not have hidden everything or tried any excuse to trigger elections to gain a majority. It would have listened to us and would not have settled for a budget that announced a host of electoral promises. In fact, many of the measures it announced will not be rolled out until 2022, after the next election. Is that a coincidence?

My leader, the member for Beloeil—Chambly, reached out to the government and suggested organizing a private meeting, inviting anyone the government chose. They could have met in an office and tried to reach a consensus, without resorting to closure—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am sorry, but the member's time has expired. The member will have an opportunity to add some remarks during the question and comment period.

Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, there are many aspects of the member's speech that I would take to task, the primary one being this. The member gives the impression on behalf of the Bloc that it would be irresponsible to have an election during a pandemic. I wonder if she would apply that very same principle to her leader, who last year said that if the Prime Minister did not resign he vowed to call an election, that he would bring a non-confidence motion. He believed it was absolutely essential that Canada have an election.

What has changed? Does the Bloc now fully endorse the Prime Minister? What has changed between now and then?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I talked a lot about the importance of democracy. The fact that the Bloc Québécois wanted to ask the Prime Minister to step down at one point, because we had good reason to do so, does not mean that we wanted an election just for the sake of it. This is just the way it has to be. We did not hand the government a blank cheque. This is a minority government. The voters gave it a mandate to listen to the opposition parties. They did not give it a majority of votes to behave in a way that ignores the viewpoints of the opposition parties.

The Bloc Québécois votes to support good bills. When they are not good, the Bloc votes against them. That is the role of the opposition parties. That is how a Parliament with a minority government should work.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the comments by the member for Shefford, because I think one of the most important things is this. As opposition members, we are supposed to be holding the government to account. We are asking for good legislation so that when things are coming out there will not be any poison pills like we sometimes find in certain legislation that may just turn us off and cause people to wonder why they would vote for something that is a very political thing.

We also know that, following the throne speech, the government made opposition day motions non-confidence. It did it with the Conservative Party, as well as with the NDP, until it received a lot of pressure. What are the member's thoughts on that, when the government puts confidence votes on opposition day motions and not on government legislation?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is another indication that the government is trying to do whatever it can to trigger an election, with no regard for voters and no regard for democracy and the pandemic. All it wants is to form a majority government, and I can only deplore that.

Once again, the government itself is responsible for what is happening to it right now. We can only deplore the fact that it is trying to trigger an election any way it can.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Madam Speaker, one of the things I cannot help but come back to is the fact there was an all-party recommendation at the procedure and House affairs committee that there not be an election called unless there was a confidence vote. I appreciate that the Liberals at that committee agreed to that, but does the member not think the Prime Minister should back up his MPs and support that as well?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague from La Prairie, who is on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, did a great job of explaining this morning that there was a minor disagreement within the Liberal Party. The committee members all supported the idea that there should not be an election during the pandemic, but the Liberals ended up introducing Bill C-19 with a gag order. It is an affront to democracy, and proposing an election bill with a gag order is contradictory. Even members of the Liberal Party recognize that.

Again, there was a simple solution. We could have reached a consensus. Why was this not done? Why is the way things are done in Quebec being ignored?

That is how we do things in Quebec. We reach a consensus.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have big shoes to fill in following my colleague from Shefford, who is always eloquent and on point. It is my turn to congratulate her on her speech.

It is unbelievable. I am somewhat appalled to see our Liberal colleagues speak so passionately in this debate on Bill C-19. I think that, had he known they were so passionate about the subject, the Prime Minister might have thought twice before forcing closure on it. It seems to me they really need to talk about it.

I believe we are all of one mind in saying that a pandemic is not the time to hold an election. The motion put forward by the Bloc Québécois today is plain common sense. It simply reminds us that an election was held in October 2019, that 1.3 million Canadians, including almost 360,000 Quebeckers, have been infected by COVID-19, that nearly 25,000 people have died as a result and that, in the opinion of the House, holding an election during a pandemic would be irresponsible, and the government must make every effort to ensure that it does not happen. It is a common sense motion.

I get that the government wants to be ready in case the opposition parties decide to bring it down. That is the cheap excuse the government is using, but we are not naive, and neither are Quebeckers. The only reason the Liberals want to pass Bill C-19 is that they expect an election in the coming months. I think it is as simple as that.

I think it is irresponsible of the government to even be thinking about an election, never mind doing everything it can to blame it on the opposition parties. I think that is the height of cowardice. Under normal circumstances, yes, there would probably have been an election this year, or maybe even before now because the Liberals, quite frankly, are just not rising to the occasion. They do not seem worthy of the trust that voters placed in them.

There are some fairly recent examples, like that of the Minister of National Defence, who took no action on allegations of sexual misconduct against the former chief of the defence staff, and the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages, who did nothing to save French-language programs at Laurentian University. She even said that her government would take action to reverse the current anglicization of Quebec. We are still waiting. In the meantime, Quebec had the time to come up with its reform of Bill 101, which was introduced today.

Another example that is very important to me is that of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, who has difficulty putting his money where his mouth is when it comes to greenhouse gas reductions. In fact, his actions encourage businesses to increase their emissions. For example, he granted exemptions to DuPont and Owens Corning, which are manufacturing giants. These exemptions let them ignore the new standards established by his own department for the manufacture of XPS insulation board. I mention this because it was done to the detriment of companies such as Soprema, which is a well-established company in my riding of Drummond that has suffered huge financial losses just because it agreed to comply with these new standards.

There is also the Minister of Canadian Heritage, who has been in the hot seat a lot recently. He still has not come up with a solution to the urgent problem facing our print media, which have been suffering for years because of GAFAM, which is taking advertising revenues on the backs of our journalism content creators. This is to say nothing of the current impasse on Bill C-10 and how the government is managing that file.

In fact, the only minister who did something and took full responsibility was the former minister of finance. I am talking about when he resigned, of course.

If this government knew how to collaborate, listen and govern in a minority context, it would not have such a hard time convincing us of its good faith. Instead, rather than listening to the criticisms and comments of the opposition parties, it prefers to act like a two-year-old child.

When kids are two or three, they go through a phase of saying no. The Liberals are going through that phase right now. They say no to health transfers. They say no to increasing the old age pension starting at age 65. They say no to a single tax return for Quebec. They say no to applying the digital services tax to Netflix, Amazon Prime and other subscription-based content streaming companies. They say no to print media, as I just mentioned.

In fact, they say no to good suggestions from the Bloc Québécois, but those good suggestions will likely become more appealing at election time because we know that the Bloc Québécois proposes things that reflect the interests and demands of Quebec.

I experienced this “no” phase with my own children. They went through it. It is so annoying. It is tiresome and counterproductive. They are so stubborn that there is no way to make them listen to reason. That was at age two. Now we are stuck with a government that is in its “no” phase.

If there is an election during this pandemic, we can conclude that all of the measures announced in the budget were probably meant to become election promises. There is nothing concrete. The government simply made announcements without any follow-up. The Liberals have been doing this since well before the 2019 election.

One example is that the government is promising an inadequate increase to old age security in 2022. Their motto seems to be “why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?”

The government announced $1.3 billion to support the cultural and tourism sectors. The government had the opportunity with its budget implementation bill to include a number of proposed measures to support the cultural and tourism sectors. These sectors would finally have gotten the money they so urgently need. However, the government did not do this.

Two years ago, the Prime Minister promised that his government was going to plant two billion trees by 2030. That comes out to 200 million trees a year. That announcement sounds great, but I do not think that many trees have been planted so far. In fact, I am not even sure there have been many shovels in the ground since 2019.

Since we cannot count on the Liberals for that, I thought maybe the 184 opposition members could give them a hand. According to my calculations, if we decide to do the work for them, every MP will have to plant 10,869,565.2 trees. I do not want to brag, but I have already planted two trees in my yard, and I believe my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert has planted one or two as well. We are ahead of the game. Other MPs will have to catch up with us because there is a long way to go.

As Niccolò Machiavelli wrote in his book, The Prince, to govern, one must make others believe. The Liberals have read the book, and they are putting that theory into practice.

According to a Global News study published on April 18, 57% of voters feel that an election during the pandemic would be unfair. Another survey, this one by Leger, shows that 60% of Canadians do want an election, but they want it to happen later, at least after the fall.

The opposition parties are not the only ones against holding an election in a pandemic. Over 22 million Canadians feel the same way. The Liberals have been getting ready to trigger an election for a while now. In an article published in Le Devoir, journalist Boris Proulx wrote that, in the fall of 2020, candidates under consideration received invitations, in the form of letters addressed to them, to run under the Liberal banner. In the same article, he wrote that, in a year-end interview with CBC, the Prime Minister let slip the words “next year's election”, referring to this year. Either his subconscious is playing tricks on him or plans have been laid.

Why is the government in such a hurry to call an election? I use the word “hurry” because Bill C-19 has been languishing on someone's desk for four months now, and suddenly, the government leader put it on the agenda, with only four hours of debate and time allocation. We are not the only ones wondering about this. The media has often talked about the Liberals' intentions, wisdom or opportunism in trying to trigger an election.

In January 2021, Louis Lacroix, a Cogeco Media host, said that, if he were prime minister, he would want to hold elections as quickly as possible, because once the vaccine begins to have an impact a few months from now and the pandemic starts to recede, we will have time to analyze all these programs and spot the mistakes that were made, which will come back to bite the Prime Minister.

The government would like to have an election because things are getting better and better. The vaccine rollout is generally going well, and we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In closing, I will repeat what Bernard Drainville, a radio host on 98.5, had to say. On Monday morning, he said that if the government wants to change the election act, it must seek as broad a consensus as possible. He also mentioned that changes were made unanimously in Quebec.

What the the Bloc Québécois is proposing is to have the leaders of the four parties meet to discuss the proper way to do things and reach a consensus, as befits a subject that is so important to the people we represent. It is just common sense.

The Bloc Québécois has always been clear about what it expects for Quebeckers. When the government criticizes us for voting against the budget, that makes me feel quite cynical because we have always made it very clear that we would support the budget if it included an OAS increase for seniors 65 and up and higher health transfers, which Quebec and the provinces were unanimous in calling for. The government knew that it would not get the Bloc Québécois's support without those things.

The Bloc said in advance what it wanted. Its demands were transparent. When it votes against a budget that does not contain those things, whose fault is that? Is it the Bloc Québécois's fault? I think not.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, Bloc members, themselves, have introduced motions of non-confidence. If any of those motions had passed, that would have precipitated an election. Just last year, the Bloc leader vowed that if the Prime Minister did not resign, he would precipitate and call for a non-confidence vote and cause an election. Today, Bloc members are of a different opinion. Why should the people of Quebec, or Canadians in general, trust what the Bloc is saying?

The Government of Canada will continue, as it has done from day one, to focus its attention on the pandemic and being there for Canadians in a very real way. Why the inconsistency on the issue, with the Bloc?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to tell the parliamentary secretary that if the government really wants to continue to govern responsibly, rigorously and with common sense, as it says, it will have no difficulty at all in adopting our motion, since it goes in precisely that direction.

As for whether the Bloc Québécois demanded the Prime Minister's resignation or said that it would vote against him, it is important to put that into context. The context last summer was not the same as it is now.

The Bloc Québécois will not forsake its values, however. We will always be very transparent in this regard. We will represent the interests of Quebec, and if that means that we have to vote against a government motion or bill, we will not renege on our promise to Quebeckers to represent them with dignity to the end. It is also up to the government to do the right thing and act as it should, which it does not always do.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would ask my colleague from the Bloc to comment on the absurd inconsistencies that the government is highlighting today. First, the government seemed to want to litigate Bill C-19 when it brought in closure, and now it claims not to want an election but refuses to work with opposition parties to find consensus in what is a minority Parliament.

I am curious if the member would agree with what I am increasingly hearing from pundits and many political observers, that the Liberals are refusing to accept that Canadians only gave them a mandate for a minority government, but they continue to drive down the path thinking they have a majority and trying to utilize a national, global crisis like a pandemic to further their political agenda.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent question.

This government has been given a minority mandate. Rather than taking responsibility for its decisions, some of which are better than others, it tries to blame its poor decision-making on the so-called obstruction of the opposition parties.

However, the mandate of a minority government is precisely to seek collaboration and consensus and to work to advance issues that might not be readily accepted. A minority government therefore needs to humbly accept criticism and make changes so that the population that gave it a minority mandate can see that it is working in that direction.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague whether he thinks that adapting the election rules to the pandemic should be an urgent priority and whether he trusts the Prime Minister to put the public good ahead of his own partisan interests.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I think that, in a way, the government's gag order answers that question.

The Bloc Québécois is proposing that the leaders of the four main parties represented in the House get together to discuss and negotiate so that they can come to a consensus. We think that this would show some respect for the process and that it is just common sense.