Debates of May 30th, 2022

Firearms Act

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 118 of the Firearms Act, I have the pleasure to table, in both official languages, the proposed regulations amending certain regulations made under the Firearms Act.

Government Response to Petitions

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8)(a), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 22 petitions. These returns will be tabled in an electronic format.

Criminal Code

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-21, An Act to amend certain Acts and to make certain consequential amendments (firearms).

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Public Safety and National Security

[Jim Carr, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in relation to the motion adopted on Thursday, May 19, 2022, regarding the support for Finland's and Sweden's NATO memberships.

I also have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security entitled “Main Estimates 2022-23”.

Status of Women

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

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, entitled “Main Estimates 2022-23: Votes 1 and 5 under Department for Women and Gender Equality”.

Justice and Human Rights

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in relation to Bill C-5, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

International Trade

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on International Trade, entitled “Main Estimates 2022-23: Vote 1 under Canadian Commercial Corporation, Vote 1 under Invest in Canada Hub”.

Natural Resources

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources, entitled “Main Estimates 2022-23: Vote 1 under Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Vote 1 under Canadian Energy Regulator, Vote 1 under Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Votes 1, 5 and 10 under Department of Natural Resources and Vote 1 under Northern Pipeline Agency".

Health of Animals Act

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-275, An Act to amend the Health of Animals Act (biosecurity on farms).

Mr. Speaker, I am introducing a bill as an amendment to the Health of Animals Act. This is very fitting with what we have seen across Canada with the spread of avian influenza, the possibility of diseases like African swine fever, and what we have gone through it in my riding with BSE. These show us how important it is to protect biosecurity on our farms and ensure that those who may endanger our farms and our farm families are held accountable for those actions, which is why I am tabling this amendment to the Health of Animals Act.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Canada Labour Code

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-276, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (replacement workers).

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to introduce this anti-scab bill to protect workers during a strike or lockout. This is a long-standing demand of workers and unions, and I am proud that my colleague from Manicouagan supports this bill. She is a steadfast ally of working people.

It is quite simple: If we want to foster industrial peace, free bargaining, and sound and sensible labour law practices, then the right to association, the right to free bargaining and the right to strike must be guaranteed. The failure to put anti-scab provisions in place undermines the power to bargain.

Such provisions have existed in the Quebec Labour Code since 1977, and this has contributed to industrial peace. In fact, federally regulated business see twice as many strikes or long lockouts as we see in Quebec, and this is due to the absence of anti-scab legislation.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-276, and it is not the first. We hope that this will be a priority. It is unfortunate that it was not in the budget, but there is still time to do the right thing and act. That is where we want to go.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Business of the House

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

The following motion, in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, was put on the Order Paper:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 81(4)(b), consideration by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage of all votes under Department of Canadian Heritage in the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023, be extended beyond May 31, 2022.

(Motion agreed to)

Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

moved that the third report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics presented on Thursday, March 31, 2022 be concurred in.

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to join everyone in the House virtually today, as I am still back in Manitoba. I am going to splitting my time on our third attempt to move concurrence on this report with the member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

It is interesting to note that every time we have brought this motion forward, the Liberals have adjourned debate, similar to the filibusters we saw in the 43rd Parliament when they tried to stop this report on the WE Charity scandal from coming forward to the House.

I will go into some detail on the litany of ethical breaches done by the Liberal government, but I can tell the House that in addition to the Prime Minister taking illegal vacations and being found in contravention of sections of the ethics act, sections 5, 11, 12 and 21, we know that he also was found guilty with regard to SNC-Lavalin for putting undue pressure on the then-minister of justice and attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, as well as his continued breaches of ethical behaviour that we have seen from time to time, and how that has impacted other members of cabinet.

I do not need to remind the House of former minister Morneau and all the challenges he had when he was the finance minister, such as his having been found in contravention of the ethics act for having accepted an illegal gift, a vacation offered by the WE Charity.

He also forgot to recuse himself when talking about the WE Charity's delivery of the youth program that was proposed at that time. We know that he was also in conflict because his daughter worked for the WE foundation.

We need to also remind everyone of the former minister of fisheries' contravention of the ethics act through a conflict of interest, actually practising nepotism to make sure that family members received multi-million-dollar contracts in what we have called the surf clam scam.

We have a number of ethical breaches, and here we find today that the Ethics Commissioner, Mr. Dion, has opened another investigation on another Liberal cabinet minister, this time the Minister of International Trade and Small Business, for awarding a contract to a very close personal friend. That has resulted in looking at whether the minister contravened sections of the Conflict of Interest Act in her decision-making, whether she used her influence and whether she practised the duty to recuse.

I can tell the House that the minister of trade was working closely with a long-time fellow staffer back in the Wynne government days and also in the McGuinty era in Ontario, and that they are very close personal friends with the founder of Pomp and Circumstance, Amanda Alvaro.

We know that the $17,000 contract, which was gifted for two days of media training for two people, was quite costly. It does not sound like much in the big scheme of things, the way we spend money in Parliament and the way the Government of Canada spends, but when someone can get away with sole-sourcing contracts, small amounts of money like $17,000 can come to be a big amount of money. When we think about it, it was for only two days of media training for two people. There is no wonder that the Ethics Commissioner is doing the investigation on our international trade minister.

I want to again thank the ethics committee for the work that it did, both in this Parliament and in the first session the 44th Parliament, in getting this report tabled on March 31, as well as the work that was originally done on this report in the 43rd Parliament, second session, when this report was tabled originally.

There is a pile of great recommendations on how to strengthen the Lobbying Act by giving more powers to the Commissioner of Lobbying and to the Ethics Commissioner to prevent these things from happening in the future. Unfortunately, we have a situation of the current government, under the Prime Minister, continuing to violate ethics rules.

One of the key things on which I have not gone into detail in my previous interventions with respect to this motion and the third report of the ethics committee in this 44th Parliament is that three individuals who were political staffers were supposed to appear: Ben Chin, Rick Theis and Amitpal Singh. All of them were political staffers either in Minister Morneau's office or the Prime Minister's Office, and it was important for the ethics committee to hear from them specifically. They refused to appear before the ethics committee in the 43rd session. The committee was actually required to come before the House to ask for an order from the House of Commons to ensure that they would appear before the committee. Unfortunately, the House leader for the Liberal government of the day refused to allow those political staffers to appear to talk about their role in awarding a half-billion-dollar contract to the WE Charity and how those decisions were made so that we could look at how pandemic spending was being used to help out friends of the current Liberal government and specifically friends of the Prime Minister and Minister Morneau. We know they failed to appear because of the direction from the House leader of the day, who is now the Minister of Canadian Heritage. I can tell the House that this again is in contravention of our parliamentary rules.

I want to quote our former parliamentary law clerk, Mr. Robert Walsh, who said this at a previous committee hearing in the past:

...the Prime Minister, and any minister, has no authority to prevent someone from appearing in front of a committee.

Their ministerial function may present a limitation on what you can ask that political aide when they're in front of you, but everyone has a duty, apart from members of Parliament, senators, and the Governor General, to show up when summoned before a committee.

While the government prevented these individuals from appearing before the ethics committee, it is inherent upon us today to compel them to appear. We know for a fact that contempts of Parliament in the past are not, as any criminal activity, purged from the record just because of an election and a new parliamentary session beginning.

We now have the ethics committee's report on the WE Charity scandal before the chamber and we need to talk in detail and investigate further the outstanding questions of how this came into being.

We also know that aside from these political staffers, the member for Waterloo, the former minister of youth and social development, who was in charge of implementing this program through the WE Charity, essentially perjured herself at committee when she first said that she had never met with the Kielburger brothers, and ultimately we—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands is rising on a point of order.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe the hon. member just accused the member for Waterloo of perjuring herself. I do not think that is parliamentary language.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I thank the hon. member. I will have to go back and review the blues. I am not sure what the hon. member actually said, but I can go and review the blues.

I am not sure if the hon. member wants to respond to that as he is resuming. There are only 18 seconds left before he has questions and comments.

The hon. member.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, I will address the point of order. First, I would say it was in the committee report that was tabled that there was misleading evidence given or there was a failure to acknowledge that there were previous meetings between the minister and the Kielburgers that she had denied at her first—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to again remind members to be very careful with the language they use in the House because we would not want to mislead the House.

The hon. member has 14 seconds to wrap up before questions and comments.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is important that the committee is allowed to finish off its work and that anyone who obstructed those investigations in the past is allowed to appear now so we can get the truth for all Canadians on how the WE Charity scandal had played out.

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

Madam Speaker, I lament again that we are on a concurrence debate, which is likely to mean that we will not get to petitions or other Routine Proceedings today, but I want to first agree with the member that I do not think we got to the bottom of the WE Charity scandal because of the refusal to allow the RCMP to investigate further.

I also do not believe that the language the hon. member used, which I heard clearly was to say that the member perjured herself, was parliamentary. I am a former practising lawyer and the word “perjure” suggests that someone has sworn an oath and lied under oath, and therefore has committed a crime. I think the hon. member should state now that he regrets using that language, because it is shocking to me as a member of Parliament to hear it in this place.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I would remind the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands that we addressed that under the point of order.

The hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, we do have a practice in the House of Commons of making sure that there is ministerial accountability. It is in our rules and procedures.

The minister was sworn in under oath, and recommendation 3 of the report said that given the failure of the minister to reveal her April 17, 2020, meeting with Mr. Craig Kielburger, a review of ministerial accountability in committees must be undertaken. We know that committees were misled. I would say that the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands can use her legal background to determine what term she wants to use, but I will say that it is in the report and that report has been tabled in the House.

That is why I believe the member for Waterloo, who is no longer a minister in the Liberal cabinet, needs to appear and account for her testimony during the 43rd Parliament.

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

Madam Speaker, today we were supposed to be debating Bill C-18. That is on the agenda. Is the member concerned that the Conservative Party says it wants more debate on legislation, yet it continues to focus on character assassination and preventing debate on government legislation? On the other hand, it complains that the government is bringing in time allocation, which seems to be the only way we can pass legislation because of the irresponsible behaviour of the Conservative Party.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am disappointed with the member for Winnipeg North and his constant defence of the ethical behaviour and unethical consequences that have been caused by his government.

I will say this. We know that parliamentary institutions are being questioned quite vigorously by Canadians when they see unethical behaviour and sanctions brought forward by the Ethics Commissioner against the Prime Minister, former minister Morneau and other members of the government. When it comes down to truth, honesty and integrity, we have to make sure that we are holding those up in the utmost. It is important that we have these debates and carry on with these studies at the ethics committee to restore that trust in our democratic institutions.

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

Madam Speaker, the member referenced it in his speech, but this is the third time that we have endeavoured to have the opportunity to talk about this important issue. I would ask the member if he would elaborate on why it is important that we have this debate here today.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, this comes down to the very foundation of our democracy. If we cannot restore confidence and trust in our democratic institutions, including in the government itself, then chaos will prevail. We need to make sure that we do not fall into the practices of other failed states where kleptocracies rule and corruption is part of everyday business. We are better than that, and that is why this committee report and the ongoing work that we are doing as members of Parliament at the ethics committee must be respected.