Debates of June 4th, 2021

Bill C-10—Time Allocation Motion

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

Madam Speaker, I want to read from Standing Order 10, “Order and decorum. No appeal”, which states:

The Speaker shall preserve order and decorum, and shall decide questions of order. In deciding a point of order or practice, the Speaker shall state the Standing Order or other authority applicable to the case. No debate shall be permitted on any such decision, and no such decision shall be subject to an appeal to the House.

I just wanted to bring that forward as I believe there is a lot of discussion here today and we would really like to understand why this will be going forward.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

As I have just stated, at the end of the 30 minutes of debate we will come back to the House with a statement.

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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

Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the intervention by the acting House leader. She is indeed correct. You did follow that procedure. You provided your ruling, you provided the reference within the Standing Orders and you have completed your duties with respect to that ruling.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

We are getting into debate.

The hon. member for Carleton.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member just read the standing order that requires the Speaker to list the precedent that is underlying the ruling rather than implementing the ruling. It is not the role of the Speaker to implement a ruling that she has not yet made.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I will absolutely come back to the House at the end of the 30 minutes with the information required.

The hon. member for Elgin—Middlesex—London.

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

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, we will be debating a motion that we do not believe is admissible in the first place. Those are some of the concerns as we are moving forward here.

If we could please have that precedent put forward so that we have an actual authority to move forward, that would be wonderful. I would really like to have the precedent before—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I have already ruled that it is in order. We will just be providing further elements to sustain that ruling.

We will now move into debate.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise on the same point of order.

Unfortunately, the ruling was brief and we did not have the opportunity to hear it in both official languages. All members have the right to hear the rulings rendered in both official languages.

With all due respect—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

That is exactly why we have interpretation in the House, but I will repeat that the motion is in order. I have ruled.

We will come back to the House with more information in 30 minutes. I will accept no further points of order.

I have ruled. We are entering debate.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Please, can we understand that we have an answer to bring to the House in 30 minutes' time?

The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I just want to acknowledge that when highly contentious issues of order are brought before the House, it is not uncommon for members to spend some time having exchanges about the substance of the matter of order.

We will recall that the government House leader, a few weeks ago, in fact spoke for over an hour in this place specifically with respect to a matter of order. There is a big difference between debating a substantive issue under the rubric of Points of Order and debating a question of order under the rubric of Points of Order.

This is an extremely contentious matter, extremely rare. It is not surprising that members have points they wish to raise with respect to it.

Personally, I want to raise an issue with respect to the motion that is different from issues that have been raised by my colleagues, one that I would ask—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

As I have stated previously, the ruling has been made. The arguments will come within the next 30 minutes. I am going to read the motion now.

Pursuant to Standing Order 67(1), there will now be a 30-minute question period. I invite hon. members who wish to—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I am asking the question. I invite hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise in their places or use the “raise hand” function so the Chair has some idea of the number of members who wish to participate in this question period.

[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, I have had my hand up for a while, and I believe I am entitled to ask a question at this point.

My question is with respect to the importance of the legislation. Given the limited amount of time and the procedures we have seen, in particular from the official opposition, would the minister not agree that if we do not bring in this form of time allocation, it would be virtually impossible to see the legislation ultimately pass through, because the Conservatives have given no indication that they are prepared to see it move forward?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Madam Speaker, let me give an example of what has been happening at the heritage committee over the past many weeks.

During the first four meetings of the committee, this committee was able to study 79 amendments. During the next 11 meetings of the committee, which is when—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

My apologies to the minister.

I will answer the points of order after the 30 minutes of debate. I have ruled on this, and we are going to proceed.

[An hon. member]

You are a disgrace.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, as I was saying, during the next 11 meetings of the committee, which is when the Conservative Party started systematically obstructing the work of the committee, only seven amendments were studied or voted on. At this rate, it would likely take more than six months of committee meetings before the committee is able to bring this bill back to the House.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Madam Speaker, the minister is using every trick in the book to make people believe that the Conservatives are anti-culture and standing in the way of Bill C-10. We all know the bill is bad. Many experts who testified at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage said so.

The bill now has over 120 amendments, more than one-quarter of which were put forward by the government itself, even though it wrote the bill. Every member of the committee did everything they could to fix the problems with Bill-C10. What the minister is not telling us though is that the work hit a roadblock when he decided to amend the bill midstream to include social media. That was when people, including experts, former CRTC commissioners and thousands of Canadians across the country, started raising objections.

The only reason why it is taking so much time to study a bill with over 120 amendments, not to mention all the proposed ones, is the work of the minister himself, who introduced a bad version of Bill C-10.

The government is therefore imposing time allocation on a bill that is fundamentally wrong because it attacks freedom of expression. The minister is attacking the freedom of expression of parliamentarians who are trying to do their job. I would like to know one thing. Instead of telling us that we are preventing work from moving forward and are anti-culture, could the minister explain to us how he can justify imposing—with the help of the Bloc Québécois, I might add—time allocation on parliamentarians while we still have 40 amendments to study together?

In committee, the main problem was that the Liberals opposed our request to hear from the Minister of Justice for two weeks before finally agreeing. If they had agreed from the beginning, we would have had two more weeks to work on this. If they had agreed to reinstate section 4.1 of the Broadcasting Act, as we tried to get them to do, we would be moving forward in a logical manner to try to fix this bad bill. How does the minister explain his mistake and his mismanagement of this file, which has brought us to a complete dead end?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would first like to point out that the premise of my colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska is absolutely incorrect.

First of all, as the Minister of Canadian Heritage, I am not the one who decides what changes are made at committee; it is the committee itself that decides.

Second, as I have said repeatedly, every bill has room for improvement, and this bill to amend the Broadcasting Act is no different. That is why we ourselves brought forward amendments as a result of recommendations we heard from people in the arts sector and several stakeholders in the cultural sector, as well as requests from committee members.

Third, I would like to clarify that Bill C-10 is supported by cultural organizations from across—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.