Debates of June 16th, 2023

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Bill S-8—Time Allocation Motion

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Minister of Seniors]

moved:

That in relation to Bill S-8, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, to make consequential amendments to other Acts and to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, not more than five further hours shall be allotted to the consideration of the report stage and five hours shall be allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said bill; and

That, at the expiry of the five hours provided for the consideration at report stage and the five hours provided for the consideration at third reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.

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

Pursuant to Standing Order 67.1, there will now be a 30-minute question period. I invite hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise in their places or use the “raise hand” function so the Chair has some idea of the number of members who wish to participate in the question period.

We will begin with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Parliament is about to rise for the summer, but once again, the government is showing us that, despite its coalition with the NDP, it cannot manage the House agenda without having to ram through legislation by using time allocation motions. This is unfortunate, because the government is responsible for the agenda and the business of the House. If only it had managed things differently, we could have gotten through the bills that it wanted to see passed before the summer without having to adopt all these time allocation motions.

As we saw this week, the worst part is that the government even moved a time allocation motion to change the Standing Orders, which is completely unacceptable and breaks with every tradition, since major changes are normally made by consensus.

Will the Liberals admit that they are simply incapable of managing the House and that they could not care less what the opposition parties think?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Minister of Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for my hon. colleague and had the opportunity to spend my first few years as a member of Parliament on the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities with him. Unfortunately, in this particular instance I have a different perspective.

The use of time allocation, I remind him, was a routine part of proceedings before we formed government in 2015. There are many hundreds of examples when former House leader Peter Van Loan used the exact same tool to put forward significant omnibus legislation when the opposition wanted to have a say.

The reality is that, as a result of our trying to get a number of things done as we approach the summer session and as a result of certain tactics being deployed by His Majesty's loyal opposition, we found ourselves in a scenario where we were being threatened with filibusters that would potentially continue through to the end of the session and that were going to delay important things from getting done.

This is a particular piece of legislation that has been well litigated in this chamber and the other, and we now have an opportunity to move forward on an issue for which I expect there is largely agreement between multiple parties. This will enable us to move over to other priorities I know people in parts of Canada care deeply about, whether it is protecting the environment, advancing health care reforms or including investments that will make life more affordable.

We need to be able to have these debates and complete legislation in a timely way, and I am going to be pleased to see Bill S-8 form part of Canadian law hopefully in the very near future.

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I just want to say that there was a problem with the interpretation as you were rereading the motion, but the interpretation was working when the government member read it, so we were able to hear it then. With that, I thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question for my colleague, for whom I have a great deal of respect, concerns the competence of his House leader. We have seen him run roughshod over the practices and traditions of the House by amending the Standing Orders without unanimous consent and by imposing time allocation.

We sat late all week. We worked a lot of overtime last week and even before that. Summer is right around the corner, and several bills are being rushed through. We have been sitting a lot.

Does my colleague think that in addition to trampling on the practices and traditions of the House, his House leader is bad at planning?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, to the contrary, my answer is no.

I too have great respect for my colleague. Again, in this instance, I think it is appropriate to exercise the government's ability to use time allocation in order to complete a piece of legislation that would make a fundamentally important change to render people inadmissible to Canada who have been sanctioned for gross human rights violations, for corruption and now for serious injuries to international peace and security.

This is something on which I do expect there is largely agreement among the parties. It would result in ensuring that the many people who have been sanctioned as a result of their participation in Russia's invasion into Ukraine or the massive abuses that are taking place against innocent people in Iran are not admissible to Canada.

My view is that the House leader has done an exemplary job of managing the agenda of the House in order to implement important reforms that we have worked together with opposition parties to secure, and this is the latest example that will allow us to move forward expeditiously with legislation that would improve Canada's laws and better serve Canadians by rendering inadmissible people the government has sanctioned for serious injuries to international peace and security, which I hope is something that will receive the unanimous support of members in this chamber.

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

Mr. Speaker, it has been said many times that there are two Bloc parties in the House of Commons. There is the Bloc Québécois and the “block everything” party. The “block everything” party, the Conservatives, have blocked everything from dental care to the grocery rebate to affordable housing. Yesterday, we will remember, they blocked the hybrid Parliament, except that two-thirds of Conservatives used the hybrid provisions to vote against the hybrid Parliament. We just cannot make this stuff up. Now they are blocking Bill S-8.

My question to my hon. colleague is simply this. Why is the “block everything” party blocking everything that would actually help their constituents, including dental care, which would help about 10,000 people in each and every Conservative riding?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but feel this question period is a reunion among friends. I mentioned my friend with whom I sat on the transport committee for a few years. The next two questioners I have spent considerable time on the finance committee with, which I very much enjoyed.

I cannot speak for His Majesty's loyal opposition, but I can observe from my own perspective a desire to interfere with the government's agenda for fear that people may actually see that the government is advancing measures that help people in communities. I believe there is a dissonance between the Conservatives' perspective on time allocation today compared with when they actually held government prior to October of 2015, a time when we will see hundreds of examples of the government of the day using this very specific remedy in order to advance legislation when opposition parties were in disagreement.

I sense that when time allocation is being objected to on an area where significant debate has already taken place and where I expect potential unanimous agreement, this is more about the political effort to make sure the government cannot advance its agenda to help Canadians rather than it is the need to exhaust debate further.

These issues have been litigated in this chamber and in the other place. They would render inadmissible people conducting themselves in a way that seriously injures international peace and security. This is something I hope we can get behind, because the criminals responsible for Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the criminals responsible for the death of Mahsa Amini and for the many other protesters who have now been harassed, punished or killed do not deserve to come to Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to reinforce what the minister is saying with regard to sanctions that are in place and preventing the individuals on whom the sanctions have been applied from being able to come into Canada. The minister is correct when he says there is broad support for it. Canadians as a whole, I believe, are behind the legislation. What we have seen in the debates I have witnessed in the chamber is that all parties will, in fact, be supporting the legislation.

The minister said earlier in his first answer that, when legislation is receiving such good support, sometimes it is better to see it pass so we can get to other subject matters on which there might be more division, which would allow for additional debate, given the fact, and this is the big issue, that there is a finite amount of time.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it will come as no surprise that I agree entirely with my hon. colleague who has posed the question.

The reality is that I have to come to understand over my now nearly eight years in this institution, that the greatest currency that any of us have in Parliament is time. There are a finite number of legislative days in which we have to advance laws that will improve the quality of life that Canadians get to enjoy. This particular idea is one that will render inadmissible some of the people who are responsible for the greatest sins committed globally in recent history. Those people should be inadmissible to Canada.

Where there is widespread agreement, particularly where this builds upon a multipartisan committee report and builds upon multipartisan support for the Magnitsky act sanctions that were put in place to begin with, we have an opportunity to quickly agree, do the right thing and then have serious debates on other issues that matter to Canadians. My constituents sent me because they wanted me to focus on things like making sure communities have access to primary care, making sure we protect our environment, making sure that we create jobs for people in our community and that life is more affordable for others.

It is important that we get to these issues where there may be constructive debates and differing ideologies, but on the things where we truly agree, where debate has been exhausted, it is important we make a decision to improve the quality of the laws that exist in Canada so that we can focus on improving the quality of life Canadians get to enjoy.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my concern around this legislation is not so much with the text of the bill as with the way that the government uses the sanctions tools that are available to it. Parliament gives the government sanctions tools, and then it is up to the government to determine how to use them. The government has been relatively limited and ineffective in its use of sanctions tools. There are also, I think, significant gaps in enforcement.

I want to ask the government a particular question about their sanctions regime and I hope we will hear an answer. Why has the government stopped using the Magnitsky act to sanction human rights abusers? It has been a number of years since that particular legislative tool has been used.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy questions from the hon. member. I find them to be thoughtful, even though we often find ourselves in disagreement. I think to have respectful engagement on issues that matter is very important.

With respect, there are a number of different kinds of sanctions that may be most appropriate for different kinds of scenarios. In fact, before the changes to Bill S-8, there are certain kinds, including for human rights abuses, that could be launched more through our sanctions regime. We also had the opportunity to sanction individuals for significant acts of corruption, both of which could have rendered a person inadmissible. Going forward, we will be able to render people inadmissible as well for violations that cause interruptions to global peace and security. For what it is worth, there is another expansion that will ensure that we are not just dealing with acts committed by countries but also substate actors and terror organizations.

I think, going forward, when the facts justify it, it may be most appropriate to use sanctions for human rights abuses, but in the present instance we have seen a significant increase, as a result, in particular, of Russia's latest invasion into Ukraine, of bad actors who I think are complicit in those kinds of actions that have interrupted global peace and security. Whether it is for gross and systematic human rights violations, whether it is for significant acts of corruption or whether it is for this new power that will be rendering people inadmissible based on their erosion of international peace and security, I think all of those groups deserve to be sanctioned with inadmissibility, not just the pre-existing consequences that were available under the particular piece of legislation that is at issue in this particular debate.

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

Mr. Speaker, I recall a very dismal decade of the Harper regime where time allocation was used all the time, but always to eliminate or push down rights or strip away things from people. We saw time allocation used to strip away pensions, forcing seniors to work longer years of their lives, often in physical labour. I spoke on the floor of the House of Commons, members will recall, about the damage that the Harper regime was doing. They forced that through. They stripped away environmental protections. They covered up their myriad scandals over the period of a decade, all using time allocation, 150 times.

Now, in this Parliament, we see time allocation having to be used because of the Conservatives blocking things such as a sanctions list or an improved sanctions regime. It just does not seem to make sense.

I wanted to ask my colleague what the logic is around this, when Conservatives block important legislation that will actually benefit the country. What does my colleague think is behind that approach of blocking every single piece of legislation?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, to respond to my hon. colleague, it is important that we understand that time allocation is not inherently a good nor a bad thing. The appropriateness of its use depends on how it is implemented in a given set of circumstances. To one extreme, if the government is using time allocation to stifle debate or avoid accountability, I think most people would agree that is a bad thing, but on the other side of the equation, it is possible that time allocation can be used to get things done, particularly in an instance such as this, where there is widespread agreement on an issue and where there has been debate.

To answer the member's question specifically, my belief is that the opposition by the Conservatives to the use of time allocation in this instance is driven by a desire to eat up some of the legislative time that remains to avoid having the government accomplish other things it has committed to doing to improve the quality of life of Canadians.

Of course, when we go home in the summer, having completed debates and passed good laws, it is something we will want to talk to people about in our communities. To the extent that Conservatives see government members or other members of this House talking about the good they have done for Canadians, there may be a partisan disadvantage to having had Parliament accomplish more things.

My view is that we should spend less time thinking about the partisan advantage we may gain and more time trying to get things done, so we can serve the people who have sent us here from our communities right across Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, I can recall the days when I was in opposition, and I spent a good number of days in opposition. Even back then I would articulate as to why time allocation can be an effective tool in getting legislation through. Opposition at times can, in fact, cause a great deal of frustration of the legislative process, because it does not take much to prevent legislation from being passed. All it needs is putting up speakers or possibly moving an amendment. A classroom of grade 12 students from any high school in Winnipeg North, I can assure members, would be able to prevent any legislation from ultimately being passed or force the government to bring in time allocation. It does not take much.

The issue is having an adequate amount of debate, and looking for that support, as the minister says, such as with Bill C-35, on the national child care program. Everyone was supporting it. Everyone said they were going to be voting in favour of it. We can look at the amount of debate. Without time allocation, we never would have gotten it passed earlier.

I have a question for the member, and he has already spoken to a good part of it already. There is a need. It can be a useful tool, and I think we have been able to demonstrate good decision-making in terms of when we need to bring in time allocation.

That is more of a comment than a question, but the member can feel free to provide other thoughts.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I often try to put myself in the shoes of a non-partisan observer, thinking about what debates may transpire in this chamber, in order to determine what may be appropriate, in terms of both the substance and the procedure of our debates.

My sense is that people who come from my community would like to see that we give an opportunity for parliamentarians who have a particular point of view to put that view forward in the House of Commons and to have people who come from different communities and different walks of life and have different lived experiences do the same. At the end of that reasonable debate, there should be a vote to determine whether the proposal should be adopted by the House of Commons and adopted into Canadian law, should the other chamber in Parliament also agree on the same form of that legislation.

This particular instance provides an excellent example of when time allocation is perfectly appropriate. There has been significant debate; the other chamber has adopted the law, and we are now dealing with the final stage of proceedings when it comes to doing something I think all members in this chamber will eventually support, which is to render inadmissible people who have been sanctioned for egregious conduct of the highest order.

When we have widespread agreement and when we have had significant debate, I think Canadians expect us to put it to a vote and move on to things that will allow us to deliver additional supports to their families, improve the quality of the services they enjoy and protect our natural environment.

I think the debate has been exhausted. I think time allocation is appropriate, and we will be able to get this done to improve the quality of laws we have on the books in this country.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, using time allocation seems to be a tradition the government has been doing for the last eight years. Because of that, the first impression comes to mind that it is an inability to deliver on time, to be able to manage properly and to have run the operation as smoothly as it should be run. That has to do—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I am not addressing the NDP member there, if he can give me some quiet time.

Time allocation has been used more widely than ever, and it is a sign of the inability to manage properly. The assumption that it is always the official opposition that pushes the government toward that is not entirely correct.

Why is the government selective on using time allocation? On good things, it does not, but on certain other things it goes all the way.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, with enormous respect for my colleague, it is revisionist history to suggest time allocation is being used more now than ever in history. I would point him to the many instances when the former House leader of the Conservative government, when it was in power before October 2015, implemented time allocation measures on hundreds of occasions in order to stifle debate.

The reality is, we use it sometimes and not others because it makes sense sometimes but not others. When there has not been sufficient debate to bring forward the best ideas from parliamentarians who represent communities across Canada, then I do not think we should be moving forward with time allocation.

It is the same when there is not an opportunity for people to have put their voices on the record in an attempt to further the debate and potentially change the legislation for the better. Those are opportunities where we should give space for people to contribute their ideas further.

When there is such widespread agreement, when people have had the opportunity to put their voices on the record and when there is not a lineup of speakers who are still trying to improve the quality of the laws we are debating, it is entirely appropriate to use time allocation to prevent opposition parties from using procedural delay tactics designed to prevent the government from implementing the agenda it has committed to Canadians that it would implement.

This is a perfect example of when time allocation is appropriate. There is widespread agreement, and there has been sufficient debate. We can all move forward knowing that this is going to improve the quality of our sanctions laws and inadmissibility regime in Canada, and I think it is appropriate that we wrap this debate up and continue to work on the things that matter most to Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to share my opinion on the gag orders, because judging by what the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader and the minister are saying, one would have to wonder whether gag orders are not the best thing since sliced bread. I consider gag orders to be a technique used to systematically muzzle the elected members of the House, which is unacceptable.

I believe that when the government invokes closure, it is because the government House leader has mismanaged the time spent on House business. All parties support Bill S‑8. We are now at third reading, the committee did a good job, everything is going well, and I do not think that there were many members who wanted to speak at this stage.

I will give an example. Last night, until midnight, we discussed Bill C‑9. We have discussed this several times before, even before the last election. Why has the government House leader not been able to say that this is important, that it enjoys a fairly broad consensus and that it will be implemented quickly? Instead, it takes years to be adopted and implemented.

I have two other examples. Closure was also invoked for Bill C‑47 , the budget implementation bill. It is hundreds of pages long and all the organizations that wanted to delve into it would have needed time to do so. Imposing closure on such a bill limits the amount of time available to go through it and the ability to correct the flaws in committee.

One last and extreme example dates back to the pandemic, when the government was not taking action. At one point, it came up with a bill that was to go through all stages immediately. We asked for a few weeks to study it. We wanted it to be introduced so that people could go through it and improve it. However, the government did not want to do that and said that everything had to be passed as soon as possible, without any study or review. Well, it then had to present other bills to fix the first one. That is an unacceptable and absolutely amateurish way of doing things.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague has included a number of aspects in his question. I will do my best to address them in the time provided for in this particular instance.

I think it is important to recognize that, in any given instance, reasonable people can disagree on the appropriateness of a procedural measure used in the House of Commons. In this particular instance, where there is widespread agreement and where there has been sufficient debate, I think it is entirely appropriate.

The member cited Bill C-47, the budget implementation act. With enormous respect to all members of this House, I did not hear a novel argument put forward in that debate. We had an opportunity to debate the measures that were included in the budget. We had an opportunity to further debate some of the measures that were being implemented in Bill C-47.

My view is that with the supports that were going to be delivered to Canadians, including tax breaks for skilled tradespeople, advancing child care, other pieces of law that were dealt with previously and getting grocery rebates to people, there was an opportunity for us to deliver the supports that people had counted upon expeditiously. In my view, having not heard novel arguments being presented in the House of Commons, and needing to get supports to people in a timely manner at a time when those supports were most needed, it was also appropriate.

The wonderful thing about our democracy is that this decision is not made by any one individual, even by the cabinet. It is made by a majority of members who are elected to the House of Commons by the communities who sent them here. In each instance, time allocation has been supported by a majority of members.

I think that is the appropriate way to deal with the present issue, particularly given the widespread agreement and significant debate that have already taken place.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, I would like to thank the member for his informed responses to all of our questions.

I still feel quite new as an MP, with this being my first term, so sometimes it feels like it takes me a while to learn some of these procedures, and time allocation is something that I am still getting myself familiar with. When I think about the last two years that we have sat here, with all the filibustering that we have seen and all the opportunities when we could have had more informed debates on important issues like addressing indigenous housing, indigenous poverty and the justice system that is very unfair to indigenous people, I wonder if the minister can explain, especially with Bill S-8, why time allocation is so important and what led up to this debate today.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, though my colleague may be a new member, I can say she provides immense value to the debates that take place in this chamber, and I thank her for her presence here and the representation of her community. The member has learned a lesson, though she may be in her first term, far more quickly than I did when I was in my first term.

When I was first elected, I wanted to chase every car, make every argument and take part in every single debate. What I came to understand was that the greatest currency we have as parliamentarians is the time during which we can put forward the arguments that support our communities. Every minute that we spend on one issue is a minute we do not spend on another.

When we are dealing with an issue such as in Bill S-8, something a simple as rendering inadmissible some of the worst criminals who are responsible, in this case, for the latest invasion into Ukraine by Russia, and when we are dealing with the people who are responsible for the persecution of innocent people in Iran, following the death of Mahsa Amini, because they had the audacity to protest this egregious behaviour by their government, I think we can agree that we have had the debate we needed to have and that now we have the ability to move on to deal with other pressing issues, such as those the member referenced in her question. I look forward to hearing her perspective on those important debates as soon as we are able to wrap up this measure as quickly as possible.