Mr. Speaker, I thought my turn would never come.
I was first elected to this chamber in October 2019. Our leader kindly asked me to be the House leader of our political party. Through contact with other parties' House leaders, I quickly learned how Parliament worked. Let us just say that there was a steep learning curve. Indeed, one of the first things we had to deal with was COVID-19.
In March 2020, something unprecedented was happening. Surely everyone remembers that the country was practically shut down. People could no longer work. We were facing an extremely virulent virus. At that point, the question was: What do we do? Do we stop sitting? Do we continue? If so, under what circumstances?
I am very glad to have experienced that. The government House leader at the time, who is now the Minister of Canadian Heritage, spoke with me. He told me that it was a critical situation and that we had to rise to the occasion. We had to save the country. That was basically how we talked about it, because the country was going through a catastrophe. Despite that, we did not lose our cool. We talked and came to an agreement. We decided to pivot to a hybrid Parliament.
I applaud the technicians and interpreters, who had their hands full, along with the House staff. Their outstanding work allowed us to keep sitting and bringing in legislation that would help people make it through the pandemic.
We reached a consensus. This is exactly where I was heading. Despite the extremely difficult situation, we met up and came to an agreement. At the time, I clearly sensed that the government House leader was striving for consensus. Later, we went through wave after wave of the pandemic, yet we never stopped trying to reach a consensus. One of the methods we used was to present motions that included a deadline. We would negotiate terms that would apply for one year, and then revisit the matter for the following year. This allowed everyone to reach an agreement. Back then, in 2019, the Liberals were a minority government and they acted like one. They would try to come to an agreement with one party or another and, in the process, they would look for consensus.
An election was held in 2021. In case anyone has forgotten, the results were as follows: the Liberal Party, 160 seats; the Conservative Party, 119 seats; the Bloc Québécois, 32 seats; the NDP, 25 seats; and the Green Party, two seats. The Liberals won 160 seats, but they needed 170 seats to achieve a majority. They became a minority government once again, as they had been from 2019 to 2021.
The people of Canada gave this government a minority mandate, but the first thing that the Liberals tried to do was look for friends to help them artificially cobble together a majority government. They found New Democrat friends who fit the bill. In return, the Liberals gave them dental care insurance, presented at the time in a piece of crudely drafted legislation. In my 10 years in the parliamentary system, I have never seen more poorly drafted legislation. It could have been scribbled on the back of a napkin. In return, the New Democrats gave the Liberals the assurance of a majority. That is what happened.
The Liberals showed no modesty toward Canadians and Quebeckers. As a minority government, they might have felt compelled to limit their actions accordingly. Instead, they were arrogant. The gag orders started piling up. Discussions between the Liberal Party and the Bloc Québécois became few and far between.
This motion is vitally important. It changes the ground rules of Parliament. It matters. We will be deciding the way in which Parliament is going to function.
We are not talking about what colour pens we are going to use in the House. This is extremely important.
In the past, we always required a consensus to change the rules governing the parliamentary system. I will come back to that again later and I will give specific examples. In the past, we sought consensus.
The government is presenting a permanent motion. That is the first thing. The Liberals are permanently changing the way Parliament operates. This is the first time they have done that. They came up with this motion and are telling us how things are going to work.
A few months ago, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons told me that I could send him suggestions and that we would discuss them. We prepared suggestions, but he never asked us for them. Instead, the Liberals turned around and shoved this motion down our throats. The whip can attest to that. They decided how things were going to work. That is how much respect the Liberals have for the opposition parties. They are changing the rules without a consensus.
What does that mean? Of course, they think they are doing the right think and doing it with a smile; they are showing others how things should be done. The Liberals are the masters of giving lessons on democracy. We can forget about Socrates: They are the great democrats.
Now the Liberals are changing the rules permanently. This means that they are setting a precedent. I do not read tea leaves or crystal balls, but I can say that, at some point, they will not be in government. I predict that this will happen sometime in the next 100 years. At some point, the Conservative Party will form the government. The only thing I can say with certainty is that the Bloc Québécois will never be in power, but it is likely that the Conservatives will come to power.
Let us say that the Conservatives form a majority government. They might get up one morning and announce that they have decided on new rules. The Liberals, who will be in opposition with their NDP friends, will not be able to say that the Conservatives have not achieved a consensus, because the Conservatives will say that they are following the example set by the Liberals, who should be a little more humble. That is what they will say. What I am saying is that this creates a precedent.
That is what is dangerous about this. Now, what does it mean? It means that we will continue with a partially hybrid Parliament. Earlier, I heard an NDP member say that she had had COVID-19 and that it was terrible, but that she still wanted to work. I think that is the right attitude.
However, every time I spoke with the government about it, I said that virtual should be the exception, not the rule. We in the Bloc Québécois are not saying that virtual activities should never be allowed, but we think this practice should be used sparingly, in exceptional cases. We should not have 30 members participating in debates virtually. That does not work. Having a bit of a runny nose or having a bad hair day is not a good enough reason to not show up in person. Members must have valid reasons.
We need to find a way to ensure that people participating in the debates virtually are doing so for the right reasons. That is the bottom line, and that should be the rule. We were willing to work collaboratively. I did not barge in like a matador, saying that it had to be my way or the highway. No, we were collaborating, we wanted to work together, and we wanted to come up with solutions. We were in solution mode. We did not hear the same thing in return.
I heard the government House leader's speech and I must say that it made me feel uneasy. I could go on about that at length, but I will not. I was listening to him and I thought, yes, an MP's life is difficult, but no one ever found out only after becoming an MP that they had to go to Ottawa. Give me a break. Of course MPs have to go to Ottawa, that is where we sit. That is how it works and how it has been for 155 years. Yes, MPs have to go to Ottawa. Those who have a family have to do what they can, but there is no surprise there and that is how it works.
Our whip keeps saying that we need to be compassionate and try to listen to people who have children and give them some latitude to have a family life that is not too damaged by the parliamentarian experience.
It has been this way for 156 years. Some might say that I am being too harsh with families. No, people can find a way to organize their schedules. We can make arrangements with Parliament to make work easier for people with children. There is a way we can sit down and talk about it and try to deal with the situation. At the time, we may not have had this problem, but now we have to consider work-life balance. We could sit down with everyone and discuss this.
Conversely, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons is saying, here is what I have noticed and this is my solution. He thinks very highly of himself. Could he sit down with people and come up with a solution? I am sure that talking to the Conservatives, to the NDP, to the Liberals and to us would make it possible to come up with solutions to achieve work-life balance.
At the Bloc, we also have young mothers and they tell us what they are going through. It is extraordinary what they manage to do in this situation. We could listen to them and ask them what solutions might be possible.
Could there be virtual sessions on occasion? Could we be told about this before we are forced to participate virtually? This is not even a case of take it or leave it. We are being told we have to take it; we have no choice. There is no real room to try and negotiate and make improvements. That does not seem to be a possibility.
With regard to electronic voting, if asked, we will say that we agree with it. Do we still agree with electronic voting? If it is a vote of confidence, I think voting should take place in person. In a situation where the government could be brought down, I think decency dictates that people should be here, voting in person.
With respect to accountability, we saw that some ministers were not around very often during the pandemic. That was acceptable during the pandemic; however, at some point we were no longer in a pandemic, yet some ministers seemed to think it was okay to attend virtually. I think that ministers and others who answer questions in the House or in committee must be accountable by being present to answer questions.
Earlier, a colleague mentioned that being in the House allows us to do a better job because it is easy to meet with ministers. Ministers are approachable. When we go see them, they seem pleased to speak with us. They are human beings. We are polite with them, they are polite with us. It is possible to cross the House and to speak with them in under 30 seconds, depending on how quickly a member walks. With his long legs, the member for Lac-Saint-Jean can get there in two strides, but in any case, we walk over to see them and we can talk to them.
Earlier, some colleagues were laughing and saying that we could just call them. We could call them, but that is more difficult. I find it harder to speak to a minister on the phone than to cross the floor and go see them. I can say that because I have done it several times. I am not saying that ministers do not answer the phone; that is not what I am saying. It is much easier for everyone to be in the House. To be present in the House is to do our job properly.
I would like to share something about what happens when members work remotely. Kathy Brock, a professor and senior fellow at Queen's University, appeared before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and said that when members participate virtually in hybrid proceedings, a certain power dynamic is enforced, meaning that ministers and shadow ministers tend to be at the forefront while the backbenchers feel a bit left out.
Some experts are saying that it can be harder for members to do their work virtually. Members meet not only with ministers, but also with other members who sit on the same committees. We see that a lot. There is some degree of collegiality among us. We talk about the motions we are going to move, about what happened recently in the House. My colleague who chairs the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs often meets with our critic to chat and find out what she thinks about a particular subject.
The objective is to make the work easier. That is the objective of being present in the House.
In fact, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs tabled a report that suggested that ministers should be present in the House for the purposes of accountability. The committee said that ministers must be present, but the government did not take that into consideration, even though it promised to abide by the committee's report. That is a problem.
My colleague will speak in more detail later about interpretation, but the evidence shows that the use of French in debates decreased dramatically with COVID-19 and a virtual Parliament. That pushed witnesses and others to speak more in English. We often hear the Liberals and just about everyone saying that Canada's two official languages are English and French, but I have some bad news: The virtual Parliament has been detrimental to the use of French. The numbers do not lie.
This behaviour will be damaging to democracy. Obviously, I am thinking about foreign interference, which is a full-scale attack on democracy. I was laughing earlier because the opposition House leader was saying that for the NDP, Conservatives and Bloc to all get along, the subject must be fairly uncontroversial, since our views are so different. There are some points we agree on, but there are others we disagree on.
All three parties are saying that an inquiry is needed to protect democracy, but the government says it knows what it is required and that it is not necessarily an inquiry. I hope the Liberals will change their tune given what happened with Mr. Johnston.
However, this type of behaviour is problematic in everything this government does. It does not always seem to take democracy seriously. I am weighing my words carefully. I do not want to upset anyone or make anyone's ears burn, but that is what I am noticing more and more.
Add to that the situation of the current hybrid Parliament, where we are really creating a precedent. Democracy is being undeniably harmed by this type of cowboy behaviour. What is more, the opposition will be disadvantaged, but that is part of what the Liberal government wants. It wants a government that is easier to run. The surprising thing, although nothing surprises me anymore, is that the NDP, which is part of the opposition, is taking powers away from the opposition. This could cause problems in the near future.
I will be moving an amendment to the amendment.
In closing, the government is setting a precedent. The government is paving the way for a future that may be difficult with exceptionally rare and exceptionally questionable behaviour. We cannot allow this to happen. I am appealing to the goodwill of the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons. I know him. I am sure that after listening to today's comments, he will change tack and accept our help to try to reach a consensus that will benefit our parliamentary life. This is coming from a separatist. That goes to show how important the institutions are: I must respect them and I do respect them. I hope others will do the same.
My amendment to the amendment provides that the amendment to Standing Order 45 be amended by adding the following: 45(13) Notwithstanding section 12 of this Standing Order, members are required to participate in person during the taking of recorded divisions on any question of confidence when explicitly stated by the government or to concur in interim supply, to pass estimates, budgetary policy and the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne.
