Debates of June 15th, 2023

Health of Animals Act

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Saint-Jean is reporting a problem with the interpretation.

It seems to be working now. The hon. member for Regina—Lewvan may continue his speech.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, I was saying that, as a young boy growing up on a farm, I watched the care that my dad and uncle took with the animals. I wanted to portray that and make sure people realize that our producers are second to none in the world in ensuring the security and safety of animals on their farms. That is why this bill is so important.

There have been cases in B.C. and Alberta where people did not have the knowledge of how animals should be treated or of the possibility of spreading diseases from farm to farm by protesting, and I want to portray what kind of impact that has on family farms. It goes from distraught animals and the diseases that could be carried to farms to the mental health of the farmers who look after those animals. That is what it comes down to.

Farmers' livelihoods depend on the safety of these animals. There is nothing more important to them than making sure the animals are secure. When people go to farms to protest, they have to realize the unintended consequence of their actions, and that is transferring diseases from farm to farm. Even if there are no diseases, unknown people on farms can cause animals to stampede, to trample each other and to get really upset. Being distraught can result in a lot of stress on animals. There are examples where they just drop dead; that has happened.

I am glad to hear that my Liberal, NDP and Bloc colleagues will support this bill going forward. In the last Parliament, we did not quite get to the finish line, which is a shame. There was an election call that was probably unnecessary. It was really a $600-million cabinet shuffle. I want to ensure that people realize the intention of Bill C-275. As I said in my earlier comments, peaceful protests on public property would still be allowed. There would also still be opportunities for whistle-blowers to report wrongdoing on farms, but animals on farms need to be taken care of.

Saskatchewan is an agricultural community, and agriculture is still the backbone of the province and drives its economy. I cannot be more clear in saying to people that our producers take amazing care of their animals, whether they are producing beef, dairy, pork or chicken. They have the best of intentions for their animals.

The scary thing is that people, while possibly well intentioned, do not realize how quickly diseases can spread. That is really at the heart of this bill. African swine fever could devastate our hog industry in this country, putting billions of dollars at risk. An outbreak of avian flu is devastating to our producers. People should think of the impact this would have on the mental health of these amazing producers if a flock of birds were wiped out because someone trespassed on private property. This is devastating not only to the community but also to the chicken and poultry community as a whole. It is the same with the African swine fever.

We have seen it in other countries, such as the United States. We have seen these outbreaks and how much they affect these industries. Right now, our agriculture industry is trying to work with a government that continues to tie one hand behind its back, whether it be with carbon tax 1 or carbon tax 2. The industry is trying to make the best of a bad situation.

This bill gives the agriculture producers a leg up, the opportunity to ensure their farms and private properties are safe and secure. That is something we really need to take into consideration moving forward. In fact, we have all-party support on this non-partisan issue. Ensuring that agriculture producers have the opportunity to have security on their own farms is the reason we need to get this bill to the finish line.

I am very excited that my colleague from Foothills brought this forward. It is a strongly worded bill. He did take pains to ensure he talked to all parties to bring forward a bill that everyone could vote in favour of. It is very important to work along non-partisan lines, and we are able to see that from the support this bill has had in the House of Commons. That is how this place should work, in a non-partisan way.

Hopefully, once it is passed in the House of Commons, the Senate will move quickly to pass it as well. It will help our agriculture producers across the country ensure that they, their animals and their families are safe and secure on their own private properties, so they can do the best possible job in raising the amazing world-class livestock we have in this country.

Committee Travel

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Madam Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties, and if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion.

I move:

That, in relation to its study of threat analysis affecting Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces' operational readiness to meet those threats, seven members of the Standing Committee on National Defence be authorized to travel to Tallinn, Estonia; Riga, Latvia; Wroclaw, Poland; Warsaw, Poland; and London, United Kingdom, in the Summer or Fall of 2023, during an adjournment period, and that the necessary staff accompany the Committee.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

All those opposed to the hon. deputy House leader moving the motion will please say nay. It is agreed.

The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-275, An Act to amend the Health of Animals Act (biosecurity on farms), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Health of Animals Act

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

Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour to enter into debate tonight. I certainly appreciate the speech given by my friend and colleague the member for Regina—Lewvan. It touched upon a lot of what I believe are the important subjects and contents related to Bill C-275.

If I could, I would like to start with a quote. This quote is from somebody I know, and a number of people in this place know this individual as well. I happen to know him really well, as he is my father, and this is a quote that he shares with me on a fairly regular basis. It is related to farming, which is very close to my family's heart. He says, “We owe our entire existence to a few inches of topsoil and some timely rains.”

The reason I bring that up in the context of this debate is that farming is a unique occupation. It is something to which I subject myself, year after year, generation after generation, and I am proud to be the fifth generation that is farming in the dust in Alberta's special areas. We subject ourselves to so many factors that are outside of our control, such as the weather, and that has become a significant topic of conversation, especially in light of some of the wildfires that have impacted many communities across the country.

We are subject to market conditions. On a small farm or a large farm, in the context of the larger global situation, a farmer is a price-taker. We do not have any control over how much we sell our products for. We also do not have control over how much the products cost, in inputs, to put in the ground.

When it comes to the larger context, the reason I wanted to start with that quote is that it is important for people in this place to understand how there are so few factors within a government's or any individual's control when it comes to a farm operation.

I know that, when it comes to health and the importance of the ethics of animal management, there has been some debate about where agriculture and Canada's ag industry fit into that, but let me make something very clear: We can be proud of our ag industry. We can be proud of the record of our farmers, our ranchers, our chicken farmers, our turkey farmers and our pig farmers. Canada has an incredible reputation, one that we can and should be proud of, because we have demonstrated not only our ability to produce food to feed the world, but also how we can do so in a manner that is good for the environment and done ethically. It is truly the gold standard on the planet. That is something we should all be very proud of in this place.

One of those factors within our control is something that this bill touches on. I appreciate the shadow minister of agriculture from the Conservative side, somebody who knows a lot about agriculture, understands the dynamics of what I am talking about and cares about our farmers, ranchers and producers from across the country. Whether they are on potato farms on P.E.I., dairies on Vancouver Island or anywhere in between, there is a care that the shadow minister and Conservatives have for those in this sector.

Specifically, one of the areas within our control has to do with what is known as biosecurity. Many people do not realise that, when there is a report on television of activists showing up at a turkey farm, there is far more than that 30-second clip on the news. What may have happened, and what this may have led up to, is that those activists, probably inadvertently, although one can never be quite sure, may have brought in a disease that could impact an entire flock. They could have gone to a ranch and brought in a disease that could have an impact on an entire herd.

There is a number of diseases that are widespread across the world right now. African swine fever is one of them, and avian flu is another, and when I talk to any producer of animals that could be affected by those things, there is an amount of stress when it comes to managing those things, factors that are largely out of the control of a producer.

However, we have a chance here with Bill C-275 to make sure that, within the bit within our control, we can manage and navigate it, so there is not an incident where a disease is brought into a producer's operation that could have devastating effects on an entire industry, let alone on what is usually a farmer's small business.

I talked about the pride that we can have in our national ag industry. I can tell members of the pride so many producers across our country have, like those who raise turkeys. One of my constituents is proud of the turkeys he raises. There are broilers, chickens, that they are incredible proud of, and dairies, with the milk they produce.

I am proud to be from an area that I affectionately refer to as “cowboy country”. There are many areas of east central Alberta where the only thing someone can do on the land is ranch. We have some incredible ranchers who showcase the best of that industry. An activist, well-intentioned or not, showing up to an operation could have a devastating effect, which could result in an entire herd or flock having to be culled.

This bill simply takes heed from some of the work that provinces have done related to biosecurity and adds some penalties and additional teeth to ensure that it is not stopping activism and it is not stopping whistle-blowers. That is not what this is about, but it ensures that there are appropriate safeguards in place so we do not have the devastating consequences of activism gone wrong.

There are some activists across the way. I know our Minister of Environment is probably one of the only members of the House who has been to prison, and he went because he was an illegal activist. I know the Liberals understand a bit about what activism is about.

We are talking about making sure that the livelihood and welfare of farmers, and the welfare of the animals, are protected. This is a very straightforward way to do that.

Something else this bill would do that I think is so very important is that it talks about mental health. Mental health is a significant issue across our nation. In the industry we are talking about, agriculture, as I mentioned, there is so much that those in the ag industry deal with that is so out of their control.

The bill proposes a small adjustment to the Farm Credit Canada Act to include mental health as part of its mandate. What is significant about this is Farm Credit Canada is a lending institution, a Crown corporation lending institution. It would have, if the bill passes, the ability to include mental health resources as part of its core mandate.

I want to give kudos to Farm Credit. This is already part of what it does. If someone googles “farming mental health”, Farm Credit Canada is one of the sites that comes up. It has some good resources and a checklist.

Farming can be incredibly stressful. It might be around calving time when, for a rancher, the hours of sleep are short, or when seeding a harvest for a farmer, or any of the other times of the year that can have undue stress. They all have a significant impact on a farmer. To be sure, we need to do everything we can to promote mental health in an industry that is so vitally important for our country. Again, it cannot be understated how important this sector is.

Parliament needs to recognize there needs to be teeth when it comes to ensuring that we do not put the livelihood of a herd or a flock at risk. We need to ensure that there are protections for those farmers who work diligently each and every day, while striking that right balance to ensure that it does not stifle freedom of speech or anything like that. Further, we have to acknowledge the necessity of mental health as part of the conversation.

I would point to a number of great examples, such as Facebook pages by farmers, ranchers and others involved in the ag industry who have taken the cause upon themselves to ensure they are promoting mental health in the sector. It is incredible work, which I would love to be able to talk more about.

This is a piece of legislation coming before the House that strikes the right balance and protects what is one of the most significant industries, certainly in my constituency, and truly for any person in this country who eats. It is one of the most significant industries we have. We need to be taking those steps to ensure that we can provide that protection when so many factors are out of our control. This is a simple step that can be taken to not only promote mental health, but also ensure biosecurity on farms. It is worthy of everyone's support.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Madam Speaker, it truly is an honour to once again rise today as the representative of the people of North Okanagan—Shuswap to speak to Bill C-275, put forward by my hon. colleague from Foothills.

Bill C-275 would amend the Health of Animals Act to “make it an offence to enter, without lawful authority or excuse, a place in which animals are kept if doing so could result in the exposure of the animals to a disease or toxic substance that is capable of affecting or contaminating them.” This is an important bill for farmers.

I come from a community in North Okanagan—Shuswap where we grow just about anything that can be grown in Canada. We also have some incredible ranchers, chicken farmers, hog farmers and dairy farmers who truly care about their animals. I have toured their farms and seen the care they put into making sure their animals are healthy, safe and secure. However, I have also heard about farmers finding foreign objects in their grain auger, such as a bolt that should have been nowhere near the grain auger system and could have caused damage to the auger, basically crippling the ability to feed the chickens that were on the farm. That is just one example of what farmers believe to be trespassing and attacks on their farms.

Earlier this year, I had the honour of hosting the shadow minister for agriculture in my riding. We did a round table with farmers and members of the agriculture sector. One of the things we heard from those farmers, who were quite open, is something that had not been evident before: their concern for their mental health and their family's mental health.

There are so many stresses placed on our farmers these days. Many of them are carrying mortgages or farm loans to carry on their operations. Those stresses, along with being responsible for supporting their family, meeting deadlines and paying bills, just add to the mental health stress put on these farmers. Also, the added stress of not knowing who might come onto their farms and what they might be doing in the dark of night or at any time not only affects them and their families, but also affects their livelihoods and the animals they care so much about. This added stress was one of the pieces they raised with us about their mental health situation, because they are under so much stress.

These farmers really pay attention to their animals. They know when the animals are stressed, they know when the animals are comfortable and they know when things are not right. It is interesting how birds can be very sensitive to that, and I have experienced it while touring a chicken farm. When I entered the barn, the farmer actually instructed me to move slowly and cautiously so as not to alarm the birds, because it would throw them off their laying cycle and so on.

This reminded me that, a number of years ago, my sister and brother-in-law started an ostrich farm. They were raising ostriches and set up a barn for the hatchlings to grow in. My brother-in-law was doing most of the interaction, with feeding, checking up on the birds and so on. He could walk into that barn at any time dressed any way he chose and the birds were calm and relaxed and would carry on as if nothing was going on. However, if my sister entered that barn, it did not matter whether she put on his clothing, his coveralls or his hat, doing everything to disguise herself as him. There was something that those birds knew instantly, and it would send them basically into a state of stress and they would be running around. Ostriches are very susceptible to leg problems, such as knee joint problems, in their very young stages, so they had to be careful about who went into the barn and when.

The same thing can happen in many situations. We know that dairy farmers for years have played music on the radio. It has a calming effect on the animals in the barn. Having strangers come onto a farm for nefarious reasons or to ignore the biosecurity measures that have been put in place is something that needs to be addressed in legislation and law.

There is so much at stake with farmers across this country feeding not just Canadians but people around the world with the food they produce: the grain, the beef and the chicken products. So many different products feed not just Canadians but people around the world. We need to be certain that those products and that supply chain are stable. I believe this bill would go a long way toward making sure there is no disruption in that process.

I mentioned biosecurity. When we visit a dairy farm or a chicken farm, we are often expected to change our footwear or to walk through a type of wet bath for our footwear so that any toxins or biohazards on the footwear are cleaned off by the product in there. People going in without authorization would not be doing that. They could put that entire farm and neighbouring farms at risk if they are not there for the right reasons with the right authorizations.

As I mentioned, we have heard of farmers who have found potential damage to their equipment. We have had, in my hometown of Salmon Arm, protesters trying to protest trucks coming into a hog abattoir and blocking the processing of food for Canadians. I do not believe this bill would cover that aspect, but it sends the message that our food production is so important here in Canada that we need to take every step we can to make sure we secure it and keep it safe. I do not think that people who have not been exposed to farm life can understand that.

I think I mentioned that I grew up on a dairy farm. I spent my formative years there learning about taking care of animals. They had to be fed every day. They had to have water every day. They had to have a place of shelter every day. It was not something I could do part time and then just leave until I felt like coming back again. There was responsibility with that, and that responsibility is something that farm life has instilled in so many young people across our country today. However, it is not often understood by people who have not been exposed to farm life.

I hope that many people will listen to the speeches that have gone on about this bill, Bill C-275, which is from my colleague from Foothills. What is such an important piece for people to understand is that farmers, almost 100% of them, want to take care of their livestock. There are the odd bad apples out there and they get found out, but the vast majority of farmers care so much about their livestock that they would put their own health and their own mental health at risk to make sure those animals are fed, to make sure they get water and to make sure they are safe from any threat. This bill would go a long way toward reducing at least one threat to the animals and to the farmers' livelihoods and would improve their mental health, as they would not have to worry quite so much about the possibility of someone coming onto their farm without authorization.

I want to thank my fellow colleague, the member for Foothills, for putting this bill forward. It is an excellent bill and I look forward to supporting it.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Foothills for bringing this bill forward again. He brought it forward in a previous Parliament, and I believe I had the chance to jointly second it then. Unfortunately, I missed the opportunity to speak to it, so I appreciate the opportunity to get a short intervention in to highlight the importance of this bill.

Some of the previous speakers have already highlighted one of the key aspects of this bill: Not only is it about biosecurity and ensuring our food supply and food chains are protected, but it is about education. It is about letting Canadians know that in Canada, we have some of the best farmers and people in the food industry and agricultural sector, who really take care of their animals and the food they are raising. Canadians do not have anything to be worried about. This bill does a great job of providing that security, reassurance and education.

I want to share a bit of my own history, although I am maybe not as experienced as some of the members here in the House. I grew up on a farm. I raised 700 ducks, a couple of hundred chickens, a couple of hundred turkeys and 50 geese every year in the summers. It was free range, pretty loosey-goosey. It was not what one would call a mass production facility by any stretch. We handled everything, raising them from day-olds right through to butchering time. The good thing about being the eldest of five boys is I did all the chores to grow them, but come butchering time, I let my brothers do the butchering and the plucking.

I grew up there, and after high school I joined the military. I was on the road and not at the local farms near as much as I was when growing up and working. I was shocked when I got home and made the transition into politics and went out to visit to the farmers in my area. I am privileged to represent the riding with the most beef production per capita in eastern Canada. We have dairy farmers and have turkeys and chickens. We have everything.

When I have gone to visit beef farmers, and all farmers, I have been impressed with how seriously they take their operations, how seriously they take the health of their animals and how clean everything is. I would argue that most of the barns I have been in are cleaner than my nine-year-old daughter's bedroom. It is impressive to see the care they take. I think that is the essential message: It is not only about the health of the animals, but about how seriously our farmers take this.

There has been mention of mental health. Our farmers are in a very volatile industry. They are subject to everything from climate change to market volatility. They are stressed. Their day-to-day lives are impacted by a number of factors, and the last thing they need, and I am not trying to be provocative, is uneducated people interfering with their livelihood and their ability to put food on the table for all Canadians.

We have some great examples historically. The first question I had the privilege of asking in the House of Commons was tied to mad cow disease, BSE. I was wondering why the government had failed to react quickly enough in getting our status changed at the World Health Organization. It ended up costing Canadians in our ag industry, our beef farmers in particular, millions of dollars. My point is that lessons have been learned the hard way in this country about what happens when we have any type of illness.

I want to again thank the member for Foothills for bringing this bill forward. It is a great bill that would help keep our food industry protected. It is a good thing to see.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I will allow the hon. member for Foothills five minutes for his right of reply.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank all of my colleagues in this House who have spoken in support of my private member's bill, which would amend the Health of Animals Act to protect biosecurity on farms.

Many of the comments that have been raised in the speeches tonight, and I have heard it online, are that there have not been occasions where diseases have been spread as a result of protesters. That just simply is not case. There was an outbreak of rotavirus in Quebec when protesters were found at a hog operations in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec. Mink farms in Ontario had an outbreak of canine distemper when protesters were on the farms.

This is is happening, and we cannot allow this type of activity to continue if we want to protect the biosecurity not only on farms but of our food security across Canada and around the world.

This came about from an instance that happened in my riding. I have spoken about this in the House previously. I received a call from farmers near Fort Macleod, who woke up one morning, checked on their free-range turkey farm and found 40 protesters in the barn trying to take their animals. The stress this put the Tschetter family under is incredible, and it still goes on today.

We have heard that from farmers across Canada, who have had instances where protesters have been on their farms. They ask, “Why me?” They ask what they did to attract this sort of activity. I received many calls from farmers across Canada asking if this was open season on farmers and whether they were not even safe on their own property. There are the mental health impacts on farmers but also the financial risk to the agriculture industry and consumers across the country.

We are seeing this take place right now across Canada, and certainly in the Fraser Valley and across the Prairies with the outbreak of avian flu. My colleagues have talked about the mental health impact this has on farmers when they are worried about protesters, but we are also dealing with euthanizing thousands and thousands of animals.

B.C. chicken farmers are having to euthanize complete barns of their animals. This is happening across western Canada and some parts of central Canada and eastern Canada. I cannot overstate the impact this has on these farm families, who do everything they possibly can to take care of these animals and who follow very strict biosecurity protocols to protect their operations.

One cannot imagine how difficult it is to ask CFIA to come in when there is a positive test of avian flu and a farmer is told he has to put down all of his animals he worked so hard to raise from chicks to adulthood.

It would be similar if we had an outbreak of African swine fever. The pork industry said that an outbreak of African swine fever would be a $48-billion impact on that industry. It would wipe out the hog industry in Canada. We have seen it in China, which had to euthanize more than a million animals as a result of African swine fever.

We have very strict biosecurity protocols in place for these very reasons. Unfortunately, these protesters who come on to private property in many cases just do not understand the consequences of them going from farm to farm, operation to operation, and possibly spreading those viruses and animal-borne diseases from one farm to the next. The consequences of that activity could be disastrous, on a scale we have never seen before in Canada.

I certainly do not want to see another outbreak of something similar to BSE, be it African swine fever or foot and mouth disease. We are already seeing the implications of avian flu.

The other comment that has been made is that this is the ag-gag bill. That simply is not the case, and I cannot stress this enough. This would not stop protesters from protesting on public land outside of the farm, and it certainly would not stop whistle-blowers or employees on a farm from reporting issues they see that are not up to standard. In fact, those employees and the farm families themselves have a moral and legal obligation to report any poor activity that does not meet our standards.

I want to thank all of my colleagues in this House for supporting this legislation, supporting farm families and supporting our agriculture industry. I look forward to discussing this further at committee.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The question is on the motion.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 23, 2022, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, June 21, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

The House resumed from June 13 consideration of the motion, and of the amendment.

Government Business No. 26—Amendments to the Standing Orders

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Barrie—Innisfil.

This House is struggling to fulfill its constitutional role. It is struggling to hold the government accountable. Over the last several years, the House has tried to hold the government accountable on various matters where it has clearly failed in the discharge of its responsibilities. I would like to give a couple of examples to illustrate my point.

Four years ago, on July 5, 2019, two government scientists were escorted out of the government's microbiology lab in Winnipeg by the RCMP. They were reportedly walked out of the lab because of national security breaches, but what exact breaches occurred were not known. When that story broke, this House tried to do its job and find out exactly what happened.

A committee of this House began to investigate, asked for documents from the government and put in place measures to ensure that those documents would be held under lock and key to prevent anything injurious to national security from being released. However, instead of giving documents to this House, the government thumbed its nose at the committee. It refused to hand over the documents, so the committee escalated its request and issued an order to the government for the documents. The government defied the order of the committee for the documents.

Ultimately, this House and its committee issued four orders ordering the government to hand over the documents concerning the national security breaches at the Winnipeg lab. Not only did the government defy those four orders, it took the Speaker to court. The Speaker stood up to defend the rights of members in this House and indicated that the Speaker was going to fight the government in court, but before any of that could take place, the Prime Minister advised the dissolution of this place and, along with that, the four orders of this House were dissolved.

Now we have an extra-parliamentary committee, a committee that sits outside of this place, which is reviewing these documents. Members like me have no access to that process or those documents. Having initiated an inquiry in this House, this House has been unable to get to the bottom of what happened at the Winnipeg lab and, therefore, has been unable to hold the government accountable.

More recently, a similar situation occurred. When the story broke last November 7 that the government knew for years that Beijing was conducting foreign interference operations targeting our elections and involving this democratic institution, this House and its committees began to uphold their constitutional role. They began to ask questions in this House and to conduct studies in committees to find out exactly what happened.

Despite the passage of eight months, we have found out little. All we have received are heavily redacted documents, scraps of information here and there and nothing that will lead us to a definitive conclusion. Most of the information we have received has come from outside Parliament, from media reports. Most of what we have gotten from the government is a mountain of process outside Parliament; NSICOP, NSIRA and the special rapporteur, all of which are appointed by and accountable to the Prime Minister.

We have gotten so desperate that we are willing to support the establishment of an independent public inquiry outside of Parliament so that we can get answers as to what happened. While this inquiry would stand outside of Parliament, at least it would be independent and would have all the powers that this House supposedly has to call for witnesses, to order the production of documents and to get to the bottom of who knew what and when. At least a public inquiry would hold the government accountable. We should aspire to a Parliament that can do the work we are punting to a public inquiry, and that leads me to the motion in front of the House today.

The House of Commons is the only national democratic institution there is in Canada. The introduction of this motion will diminish a place that is already struggling to fulfill its constitutional role: to hold the government accountable. Hybrid Parliament has made this House and its committees less efficient. Our output has declined. Here is one example. Votes in this place before hybrid Parliament used to take eight minutes. They now take at least 10 minutes and, in many cases, 12 minutes. At 12 minutes, votes take fully 50% more time than they did before hybrid Parliament.

I have counted and last year we had 227 votes. If we multiply that by four minutes per vote, it is 15 hours of lost time, almost two days of sittings. In 2019, the first full day before the pandemic, we had 403 votes. If we multiply that by four minutes lost per vote, it is 26 hours of lost time. That is three or four sitting days of this House.

This is but one example of the inefficiencies a hybrid Parliament is creating. Others are time lost because of microphone checks, technology failures and the cancellation of committee meetings due to a lack of technology resources.

All of these things have led to a less efficient Parliament and a reduction in the work we do here.

The Canada-China committee has been cancelled three times in the past four weeks because of the technology limitations of a hybrid Parliament. It is one of the most important committees of this House, which is doing work on the relationship between Canada and the People's Republic of China.

More important than all of that is the loss of the magnificence of this place and its committees when we meet in person, when all eyes are on the other, watching the cut and thrust of debate, watching government officials testifying in person at committee and watching how Canadians' representatives are standing up for the things they believe in. That is why we are investing $5 billion in the buildings of this place. That is why the fathers of Confederation spent vast sums of money they did not have building Parliament Hill; they understood the importance of meeting in person. They could have built much more modest buildings than they did, out of wood or fieldstone, but they did not. They understood the importance of interacting with others in person.

The tyranny of technology is to turn us all virtual. We must resist. We are the only major western democracy that still has a hybrid Parliament and now the government is proposing to make it permanent. The U.K. House of Commons ended hybrid sittings on July 22, 2021, two years ago. The U.S. House of Representatives ended hybrid sittings on January 9 of this year. The Australian Parliament ended hybrid sittings on July 25 of last year. Only the current government is proposing to make hybrid sittings permanent.

The French National Assembly never had hybrid sittings. In fact, in April of 2021, the French Constitutional Council declared a proposal from the assembly unconstitutional because the measures were not precise enough. That proposal would have modified the assembly's rules of procedure in order to allow for remote participation in plenary and committee meetings under exceptional circumstances.

In our Constitution, the Constitution Act, 1867, section 48 requires the presence of a certain number of members in this place for this House to meet. The framers of our Constitution thought it so important that a certain number of members be present in person for this House to meet that they put it into the Constitution. They did not allow members to “mail it in”, as one could do in those days, to allow this House to meet.

I will finish by saying this. We already sit far less than national legislatures in other western democracies. The U.S. House of Representatives typically sits between 164 and 192 days a year. The U.K. House of Commons typically sits between 146 and 162 days a year. We only sit 129 days a year.

We also sit far less than we used to. We used to sit 160 to 170 days a year during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. During the Pearson era, when Parliament was so effective in dealing with framework legislation on major initiatives like the Canada pension plan, our public health care system and the national flag, the House sat 160 to 170 days a year, eight weeks longer than the 26 weeks we sit today.

The motion in front of us today will further weaken and diminish this place. Therefore, I urge all members to vote against this motion.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the hon. parliamentary secretary that he was trying to ask questions while the hon. member was speaking. He has been here long enough to know that he is to wait for questions and comments.

Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

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

Madam Speaker, I have to point out the hypocrisy here. Let us really stop and think about this.

The Conservative Party says no to the hybrid and the voting application. However, in the last vote we had, 65 Conservative members of Parliament, the member's colleagues in his party, voted using the hybrid application; 43 of them voted in person. Can members imagine? A person is voting against the voting application in the hybrid format, and they are on their phone, saying, “I do not want to be able to vote with my phone.” It sounds pretty stupid to me.

Does the hon. member believe that he really has the full support from his entire caucus, in terms of the statement he has just made?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, the voting app is actually driving people out of this place.

If there are two votes to take place in this chamber, they take at least 20 to 24 minutes. If one is using the voting app, one can literally take about 30 seconds of those 24 minutes to vote. If one sits in the chamber, one actually cannot do certain things while the voting takes place, across those two votes. One cannot, for example, be on a phone call with somebody else. One cannot be doing something other than what one is permitted to do in the House.

The voting app, perversely, is actually driving members out of the chamber. This is why these sorts of measures need to be ended and sunsetted, as has been done in other western democracies.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my hon. colleague for his excellent speech.

I would like to respond to the parliamentary secretary representing the government. For days now, the government has been giving examples like the one about the voting application to claim that everything in the motion is positive. However, the motion includes a lot of other things.

We, the Bloc Québécois, are not opposed to the voting application. However, the motion contains other things that cannot be changed or seriously debated to make them better. That is a problem.

The biggest problem, however, is this: In the entire history of Parliament, such changes have always been adopted unanimously by the House to protect every elected official. As far as minor changes go, one exception was made under Pierre Elliott Trudeau. It was the first time in history that the rules were amended by a simple majority. What does my hon. colleague think about that?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question and for sharing his perspective with us. This is a very important point.

To this point, generally speaking, permanent changes to the Standing Orders of this chamber have been done on a consensual basis, involving support among all the parties of the House. There have been exceptions to that rule, but they were rare.

I think the government is setting a dangerous precedent here in proposing this change without the consent of the second-largest party in this place, the official opposition. I think it is a very dangerous precedent that does not bode well for future changes to this place.

For that reason, I do not think the change should be made permanent. I think that there would be a consensus among all recognized parties in the House to have hybrid Parliament go on but to have a sunset clause, where it would expire at the end of this Parliament.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's service to Canada, but the fact is that we had even greater problems with many of the things he raised in his speech when the Harper regime was in place.

I lived through the lack of access to documents and the refusal of ministers to talk to members of Parliament; I saw it first-hand. As for the things he is raising now, for example, the time it takes for the House to vote, last Friday, we saw how Conservatives stretched a vote from what should have been 10 minutes to over an hour, through inconsequential, dilatory points of order. We see this in terms of committees. We have had to cancel committees because Conservatives have filibustered to block legislation, such as putting in place dental care and ensuring a grocery rebate for all Canadians, including in their ridings.

Conservatives have been the cause of many of the problems that the member is raising.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, as a lifelong Conservative, I supported Speaker Milliken's rulings regarding the right of this place to order the production of documents, with respect to the Afghan detainee issue, as well as a committee of the House demanding information about the cost of the justice reforms that have been proposed by the government and the cost of the new F-35 jets. I supported them then and I support them now.

Today, as a Conservative, I support the continuation of this House in a way that does not diminish its efficacy, in a way that ends hybrid Parliament at some point, as all other western democracies have already done.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, before I begin my comments, I just want to express my concern about the situation that is unfolding in Manitoba. Tragically, by the latest account, 15 people have been killed in a traffic accident on the Trans-Canada Highway. My thoughts are with the families, obviously, with the victims and with the first responders as well. This is going to be a difficult night for people in Manitoba.

I am actually profoundly disappointed that I am here again, as I was a year ago, when a similar motion to extend the hybrid sitting was proposed before Parliament. As the opposition House leader at the time, I actually spoke for almost two and a half hours on this issue. The theme of what I was talking about last year was, sadly, a decline in our democracy, a decline in our institutions, a lack of respect for the conventions of this place and how Parliament has functioned historically throughout the Westminster system, and particularly in this country for over 156 years. I just cannot express enough how profoundly disappointed I am that not only are we dealing with changes to the Standing Orders on a permanent basis without the consensus of parties, which has again been the convention of this place, but we are also dealing with it in a time allocation motion. Something that will make such a profound change in the way this place operates is being dealt with through just a few hours of debate, with a lack of consensus. It is extremely frustrating and disappointing. I think every Canadian should be concerned about the direction in which the government, aided and abetted by the NDP, is taking not just Parliament but also our institutions, as well as the general lack of respect they have for them.

I recall back in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, that I was the deputy whip, and I happened to sit at PROC. Clearly, at the time, there was a lot of uncertainty and confusion about what was going on. That is when the issue of a hybrid Parliament and the voting app started really taking root in the psyche of parliamentarians. We had to function. We had to make sure that the business of the nation was going to continue, that there was some continuity. We sat down as the PROC committee. Again, I will remind members that it was a Liberal majority at the time, and there were certain patterns that were already starting to evolve. There were things that were being foretold back then that bring us to the day that we are facing today.

I recall that the first issue we were dealing with was the voting application. The Conservative members of the committee issued a dissenting report at that time. There ae some highlights of that report that I would like to mention now. One of them is that the “underlying Liberal motivations left us skeptical”. Members may recall that, back in 2015, when the manifesto of the Liberal campaign policy book was issued, it talked about restructuring the way Parliament functions, so this was their intent back in 2015. What they did was use the pandemic as a means to an end. That end was always to disrupt this place and not allow it to function in the manner in which it was designed. The other aspects of what we were discussing back then included that the “Liberals seemed committed not just to a direction, but to a specific outcome”, as I referenced before, because that was in their campaign policy book.

The committee worked hard. There were long days throughout that summer that we discussed this because of the importance of the issue at the time, but it was all in the “service of a Liberal talking point”. In other words, the fix was in. They knew specifically where they were going.

There were some other things. One of the things in our dissenting report that we highlighted was that the “House of Commons must—and can—[and should] conduct its business in person”. The member for Wellington—Halton Hills just spoke eloquently on that, so I am not going to expand on that. Later on, I am going to give some reasons and examples of why this is important.

As we went on later that summer, we talked about the voting app, and we wrote the dissenting report. Again, a Liberal majority, not a Liberal minority propped up by the NDP, caused us to write this dissenting report.

Several times today, the government members have said that they are surprised about the opposition position on this. Our position was made clear back in 2020 as it related to the hybrid sittings of this House. The report said, “The Official Opposition will strongly resist any effort to exploit the pandemic as a cover to implement a permanent virtual Parliament, with its reduced ability to hold government accountable, gravely undermining our democracy.” It was almost like prophecy back then. We were predicting exactly what was going to happen, that this day would come, and here we are. Why is it important? It is important because of accountability.

In this place, when we gather 338 members, our constitutional obligation is to hold the government to account. As We saw throughout the pandemic, as we are seeing as recently as this week, just how difficult it is to hold the government to account when its members are not in this House or when they are simply voting by the app. It is not just parliamentarians holding the government to account. It is the media. In such a situation as we are seeing this week and over the past couple of weeks, with the Minister of Public Safety, how can the media, Canadians and their representatives in this place hold the government to account if its members are hiding out on a TV screen or if they are voting by app?

There are so many things that I cannot even do them justice within 10 minutes as I discuss the challenges that this hybrid system presents. There is the fact that it is not being done on consensus but is being rammed down the throats of Canadians, fundamentally changing the way this institution operates. We cannot do it justice within 10 minutes, and we certainly cannot explain why this is an ill-conceived idea through the proposal of time allocation. Again, it was supposed to be temporary.

Human-to-human interaction is critical in this place; it is critical that I, as a member of Parliament in the opposition, can go and speak to a minister who is present in this place. I will give an example. At ethics committee the other day, we were dealing with an issue on the access to information report, which we expect to be tabled at some point over the next few days. There was a discussion that was engaged in between members of the committee who were in that room. It was about how we were going to move forward on a stalemate situation that we were facing. As the meeting continued, those members from the Bloc, the NDP, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party got together and worked out a deal to end the stalemate. That cannot happen when we are sitting on a TV screen or voting on an app. Those things have to happen in person, and this is why it is critical that we do not support hybrid sittings.

We are the only western democracy in the world and there is no other legislature in Canada that is voting by an app, that is not meeting in person or utilizing a hybrid system. There is not one, and that should tell members everything they need to know about why this proposition is wrong. If we cannot set the example of what this institution means to this country, as the premier democratic symbol in this country, then it is awfully difficult to expect others to follow suit. I happen to think that it still means a lot. There are legislatures in this country that are leaders in this regard, yet here we are, not the leader.

There are a couple more issues that I want to touch on. The first is interpretation. We have seen an increase in injuries to our interpreters as a result of the hybrid system. The system has become better, but the problem still exists, and it is going to continue to exist as a result of this hybrid system. I cannot support this. We have to return in person for the sake of our democracy and not continue down this path. We need accountability. We need transparency. We cannot continue down this path as a democracy in decline. Sadly, this motion would do that.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Madam Speaker, the previous speaker mentioned that no other parliament in the world continued to allow a hybrid parliament, and the member himself mentioned that no other government in Canada was doing it. However, and perhaps I am wrong in this, my understanding is that the Scottish Parliament has decided to continue to allow a hybrid parliament, as has the Welsh Parliament. In addition, the Estonian government has also decided to do that, and the last I heard, New Zealand was still trying to decide on this matter.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think I was pretty clear in what I said, which was that there is no other western democracy. I was referring specifically to national legislatures. There are provincial legislatures in Canada, but not one of them is using a hybrid model or a voting app. They have all returned to some sense of normalcy, and that is specifically where we need to go. We cannot continue down this path, because, as I said earlier, we are going to continue to see a further decline in democracy.