Madam Speaker, respectfully, that was a particularly insubstantive response to some very serious and legitimate concerns.
What I said in my introductory comments was that international monitors have identified democratic decline, particularly around the ability of institutions to check the power of the executive, as being a key concern in Canada. The parliamentary secretary made no mention of the increasing power of the executive to exercise arbitrary power at the expense of key institutions like Parliament. He made no mention of specific issues.
He talked about how the government cancelled Parliament for a while, but had a Zoom call going on where ministers could be asked questions. That I think precisely demonstrates the problem. The government thought that cancelling Parliament and having Zoom-call questions was somehow a replacement for democracy.
Now he said the reason the government is subsidizing some media outlets is that it is concerned about fake news. This is a government that, like former president Trump, persistently calls those who disagree with it “fake news”. On the one hand, the Liberals say they want to address fake news through social media regulation, and on the other hand they accuse the opposition of fake news any time we disagree with them. This is the problem. This is the authoritarian tool kit the government is using. It is threatening our democracy.
The parliamentary secretary should take stock of the problems we face. He should take stock of what international independent monitors are saying, what the objective analysis is showing, which is that on the checks on government metric, that is on the ability of institutions to check the arbitrary power of government, Canada is in decline.