Debates of April 24th, 2023

Citizenship and Immigration

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Madam Speaker, despite the size and intent of Bill C‑47, there is nothing in it for seniors or housing. There is no long-term solution to fix the underfunding of health care and no sign of EI reform.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Madam Speaker, I believe that question is better suited for the next debate.

Let me take this moment to reiterate one more thing. The government has had many opportunities to solve the problem of lost Canadians. The government has been here eight years. Canadians are tired, in fact, of the government. It has had many opportunities. It has heard of this many times. It has heard lots of speeches and heard about lots of situations and examples. It has had ample opportunity to solve this problem, yet it has not. Now the government wants to take over a private member's bill, hijack it and put its legislation into that member's private bill. That is simply not right.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, like many colleagues here, I am on House duty today. I showed up here expecting that we would be having a debate about the budget.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order. I just want to remind members that they are not to ask questions when it is not question and comment time. I know the hon. parliamentary secretaries know the rules of the House, so I will ask them to hold off.

The hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a regular occurrence for me when I am speaking to have the two members across the way, who remind me of the old guys from The Muppets, chirping from the gallery as I am—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I just want to remind members not to use those types of descriptions when referring to members in the House. It does not add to the conversation at all.

I would ask the hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin to have a bit of respect for his colleagues in the House.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am not sure whether the offensive reference was “old” or “Muppets”. Usually they get their back up when I start talking about the Trudeau legacy. We have had this happen on multiple occasions as we talk about budgets and disastrous Liberal economic policy. We get talking about the Trudeau legacy. Of course, I am talking about the Pierre Trudeau legacy.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. parliamentary secretary on a point of order.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I think Kermit was thinking in regard to—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind members that it is not proper to refer to other members by such names. I think the hon. member actually answered the question the hon. parliamentary secretary was going to ask about.

I would ask members to please be respectful in the House and be mindful as to the references being made.

The hon. member for Shefford on a point of order.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, if I understand correctly, the issue is extending sittings until midnight. Indeed, that is the question. Were the leaders actually consulted? We wonder who was consulted during that consultation, because the leaders should be consulted on such a motion. I want to know who.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Okay.

The hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, since we are having this conversation, I have a couple of points on this. It is interesting that we are supposed to be talking about the budget today. The NDP and Liberal members have agreed to have this debate here in this House because they do not want to talk about the budget, including all the challenges with the budget and the economic disaster that reflects the previous approach taken by a different Prime Minister Trudeau back in the seventies and eighties. It is also interesting that the debate we are talking about today is something that the coalition could decide to have any day, if they wanted to.

Any day, NDP and Liberal members could decide to move legislation to accomplish exactly what we are talking about today. Instead, they have chosen to do this in a different way, using up valuable House time when we could be talking about the budget. If it was something that was important to them, they could do it on their own through their coalition.

I am not on the immigration committee, but my understanding is that parties have worked collaboratively on that committee. I understand that the senator who moved this Senate public bill did not want to move beyond the scope to the degree that we are talking about right now. This goes way beyond the scope of the bill. It is very unusual to see this approach.

It is sad. First of all, it is an important issue that deserves to be discussed seriously. The bill itself is a bill that members from all parties of the House should be able to support. Instead, we have this political gamesmanship of sorts today.

It seems that this is all because the NDP and Liberal members do not want to talk about a disastrous budget. What we are not talking about today, because we are talking about this, is an approach with the budget that projects endless deficits into the future. If we look at the impact of this budgeting approach, again, we only need to look back to the Trudeau government of the seventies and eighties to see what that disastrous approach would look like. In those years, there was a deficit in 14 out of 15 years. The then Trudeau government came into power with almost no debt in Canada and left with a generational debt. It was a debt that, a generation later, required another Liberal government in the late nineties, the Chrétien-Martin Liberal government—

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

Madam Speaker, I have a point of order. This is a concurrence debate on a motion from the Standing Committee on Immigration. The member has been talking about the budget since he began speaking. Perhaps he could bring it back to the subject matter.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

There is some latitude, but I do want to remind the member that it is about the report before the House. I would ask the member to speak to the issue at hand.

I am sure the hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin will bring it back.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, of course, but I will point out that the hon. member who just rose on this point of order speaks more and uses more words in the House than almost any other member of Parliament. He has the opportunity to stand any time he wants. He is getting applause. I cannot say how many members he was getting applause from, but it was very quiet. I will point that out—

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

Not as a percentage of the total number—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

There is no cross-debate. I want to remind the member that he is to speak about the issue that is before the House at this moment.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, again, the issue today is that there is a Senate public bill, moved by a senator. The issue is very serious for her. She has asked specifically, in testifying before committee, not to go way beyond the scope of the bill.

We all have those opportunities where we get a chance to move things that are very important to us. I have had the opportunity to do it myself. In fact, we just had much co-operation in the House around a Senate public bill on autism. After taking the time to do the research and put together a private member's bill, working with stakeholders and fine-tuning it to be something, I cannot imagine moving it and then having members from other parties trying to turn it into a completely different bill than the one I was moving. I think any member of the House of Commons could understand this.

Any member of Parliament who has taken the time to move a private member's bill and do all that work to prepare it could understand—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

On another point of order, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I do not believe anyone has told the member about the concurrence motion. It is about citizenship, and the member has not made one reference at all in regards to citizenship—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Again, there is a little bit of latitude. The hon. member has referenced the bill, but I would ask him to ensure that he speaks to the issue of the report itself, which is the 15th report for concurrence. I would remind the member to focus his speech there. The member only has four minutes and 18 seconds left to get to that.

The hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, and I would ask members to remember that there is some latitude here.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, there is latitude. I am talking about process, which is really important here. The two members that keep rising on points of order have the highest word counts in the House of Commons. I have listened to many speeches where they have not even been in the same area code as the subject being discussed. I am actually talking about a process that is important here. I am talking about something that is critical.

The senator who moved this bill said that she does not want to see the bill go in the direction that opposition members from the Liberals and NDP are taking it. It is very clear. I think they are over there strategizing what other point of order they can raise so that we can avoid moving on that talk about—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!