Debates of Oct. 10th, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am a little surprised to hear my colleague ask that question. Given all the time he spends in the House, he has had the opportunity to ask multiple people here that question multiple times. Furthermore, I pre-emptively answered his question at the beginning of my speech. I do not know if he was listening.

In any case, the issue is not what the police want, what judges want or what anyone else wants. The issue for the government is what the House and Parliament have asked it to do.

We do not know if fraud, criminals or corruption are involved. What we do know is that the Auditor General's report is very worrisome. We also know that there seems to be something fishy going on. In that case, what should we do?

We are asking for the documents and we are asking for transparency. It is that simple.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his participation in this debate because it is very important. In nine years of Liberal rule, we have witnessed scandal after scandal. The latest involves $400 million handed out to Liberal insiders appointed by the Liberal Party. This defies belief. As far as I am concerned, this succession of scandals underscores the need to call an election.

Despite the demands made by the Bloc Québécois, does my colleague agree with me on the need for immediate elections?

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when I speak to my constituents, and I speak to them fairly often since I maintain a very active presence in my riding, not that many express the desire for an election. Most are fed up with the Trudeau government. Most have no desire to see Poilievre take his place. They basically have to choose between the lesser of...

I apologize.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

I remind the hon. member that he may not refer to fellow members by their names. He has just done so twice.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, most people are fed up with the Liberal government but most have no desire to see the Conservatives in power either. They have but one solution, and that is the Bloc Québécois.

We will continue to do our job. It turns out that the Bloc Québécois could hold the balance of power at present. I think we could get some things done if there is co-operation on the other side of the House.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, at the beginning my colleague spoke about the fact that we are in a minority government. I would like to thank him for this reminder because I sense that the government and the official opposition have forgotten that this is precisely the mandate voters gave us during the last general election. Essentially, they told us they did not want either the government or the opposition gumming up the works or trying to manage things as though they alone were lord and master of parliamentary proceedings. Rather, the parties should get along the way they should in a minority government. That was the mandate given to the government. It was to get along and get things done. It was neither to call elections nor impede the business of Parliament.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my colleague's comment.

I would add that the Liberals came to power in 2015. At the time, they formed a majority government, so they acted like a majority government. I think that a majority government should still collaborate with the other parties, but that was not the case with this government. It was completely arrogant.

In 2019 the Liberals formed a minority government. They found this difficult. They called new elections in 2021 and were reelected, but again found themselves in a minority government. It is time they got the message that they are not alone in governing. They must share power with the other parties in the House.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the beginning of the speech given by my colleague from Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères in which he put enormous pressure on me to deliver a quality speech. I will do my best not to disappoint him.

Honestly, there are several reasons why I am happy to speak on this subject today. First, it affords me the opportunity to comment on the question of transparency, accountability and the moral duties we must carry out when we agree to serve our constituents in the House of Commons.

Maybe I was naive, but when I decided to get involved in politics, I had principles and values, among them respect for institutions. I am convinced that we 33 Bloc Québécois members share this value and the desire to do our jobs while respecting institutions. Imagine that, a sovereignist Bloc member is saying that we are here to do our job while respecting the rules of the Parliament of Canada.

One of these rules is that it is up to the House to decide certain things, for example, the documents it wants to have in its possession, the documents it wants to obtain in various situations. Regardless of the situation, the fact remains that it is up to the House to determine the relevancy and necessity of obtaining some document or another. This is not a decision that the House may take and the government can treat as it sees fit. It is incumbent upon the government to respect the will of the House.

The Liberals are arguing that the RCMP says that this would be injecting politics into a police investigation, and that if it wants documents it has the means of requesting them. There is truth in that, but what we are asking for and what we agree on is that an order by the House Speaker be respected. Regardless of the Liberal members' arguments on this motion of privilege, the fact remains that it boils down to a ruling by the Speaker following a request by the House of Commons and its members.

I do not understand why they insist on obstructing. I do not understand why they keep doing as they please and determining what is and is not relevant in the Speaker's rulings. Honestly, I fail to understand the strategy.

Maybe they have something big to hide. Maybe they are trying to protect something big. Who knows. I do not even care to get into the theories about the scandal. The Conservatives have led the way on that, but they are in no position to lecture anyone about such things. If it is something they are trying to hide, it must be one whale of a secret. They are risking the survival of their fragile government, and they are delaying proceedings that could help them gain a friend until the holiday season.

This will hardly come as a scoop but there are currently two Bloc Québécois bills being used as preconditions for the Bloc's support of the Liberal government. The clock is ticking on both bills, and time is running out. If passed and implemented by October 29, they could guarantee the Bloc's support of this government until at least the holiday season, because both bills would be good for seniors aged 65 to 74 in Quebec and across Canada. I am talking about Bill C‑319, introduced by my colleague from Shefford, which has the support of all seniors groups. In a Canada-wide survey, 79% of respondents supported this Bloc demand. I do not understand why the Liberals are stubbornly dragging their feet on these important proceedings.

The other piece of legislation, every bit as important and another of the Bloc's demands in exchange for supporting the government—until the holidays, anyway—is Bill C‑282, which seeks to exclude supply management from any future trade negotiations. The bill is currently being blocked in the Senate by senators Boehm and Harder, whose arrogance defies comprehension.

One of the senators went so far as to insult my colleague, the member for Berthier—Maskinongé, when he appeared before the Senate committee two weeks ago. The senator called him “special”, but not in a very flattering way. This unelected senator criticized the hard work of a member who has worked for years with farmers and agricultural producers in the supply management system to craft a quality piece of legislation. It was insulting. Both senators are blocking the democratic process, and that is shameful. I make no bones about it, I find that shameful.

When we ask the Liberals questions in the House, they respond as though we were born yesterday and have just fallen off the turnip truck. They say they have no control over senators they appointed to the Senate, that these are independent senators. Sure. No one thinks that Liberal appointees to the Senate are purely independent.

Frankly, I do not get their strategy, especially since the last time I checked the polls, the Liberals were at 22% nationally and were projected to capture 53 seats. That means that if the numbers hold up, 107 Liberal members will be gone after the next election. If it were me, I would want to work with the people reaching out and extending a hand, but I will not try to get inside their heads. It is a shame that we find ourselves today with a question of privilege that prevents us from advancing important work for seniors and farmers, not just in Quebec but in Canada as a whole. I do not understand.

Today we are discussing an issue of transparency, respect, jurisdiction and accountability that is an obligation for any public office holder and, by extension, a government. These are concepts the Liberals have a lot of difficulty with.

This is a government that has not come to terms with its minority status, as my colleague from Pierre‑Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères mentioned earlier. It has no respect for parliamentary rules and traditions. There is no better illustration than the number of times it has invoked closure to restrict parliamentary privileges in the House since 2021, at the beginning of its alliance with its NDP friends. I did a quick search up to the beginning of June, and it is not even up to date. At the start of June, we were up to 48 closure motions since the NDP-Liberal marriage. These 48 closure motions allowed the Liberals to circumvent 72 bill stages.

I hear the Conservatives say it is wrong for the government to have gagged them 48 times. I would caution them against complaining too loudly, because between 2011 and 2015, the Harper government invoked closure 104 times. It imposed a gag order on the House 104 times to push through its ideas and bills at the expense of democracy.

As an aside, the most odious part of all this, the worst example, the worst denial of democracy, the worst shirking of parliamentary rules was the indefinite imposition of a hybrid Parliament. Normally, this is something that is done by consensus, with frank, non-partisan discussions among the parties. Traditionally, changes that are so important to the workings of Parliament are made through consensus.

However, the Liberals decided once again to bargain this away in return for some sort of support for some sort of project, because I am guessing that some members preferred watching parliamentary proceedings from their home computer in their comfy clothes, while throwing another load of laundry into the washing machine and making spaghetti sauce for dinner. I find that sad. We deserved a healthy, thoughtful debate on how to improve the way we do things here in the House of Commons.

In short, I find it absurd that we keep talking, talking, talking about transparency with a government that is on its last legs and that we will remember for issues such as WE Charity, for which it went as far as proroguing Parliament to prevent us from getting to the bottom of things. We do not even know how bad the scandal was; we can only imagine. We had so much trouble getting answers about the laboratory in Winnipeg. We still remember that. ArriveCAN was not that long ago. The government gave over $60 million to two dopes working out of their basement. It is crazy. That is financial mismanagement.

At the same time, the fiscal imbalance means that Quebec and the provinces are having an even harder time, year after year, fulfilling their obligations, financing their health care and education systems, and providing housing for newly arrived immigrants and asylum seekers.

The situation is untenable. There are more and more scandals, each of which costs taxpayers a fortune. Frankly, the situation is unjustifiable and inexcusable.

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

Mr. Speaker, we need to talk to the Privacy Commissioner about the amendment to the amendment, because he and is office are the ones that gave all the unredacted documents to the committee and the law clerk.

Does the member think that the government should submit all of the unredacted documents to the committee and the RCMP?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my position in this matter is very simple. All House of Commons requests should be honoured by the government.

The request in question here is that the government provide the documents and that the matter be referred to the committee. The amendment requires that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs call a series of witnesses. The request was made by the House of Commons and the Chair. As a result, the government must comply, because that is the will of the elected members.

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

Mr. Speaker, I posed a question to the previous speaker from the Bloc in regard to the RCMP and how it had expressed a great deal of concern, but the RCMP is not alone. Canada's Auditor General is expressing the very same concern.

Yes, Parliament does have a supreme power, but it does not necessarily mean we should use it in a situation like this. Stephen Harper chose not to do it, and so have other prime ministers and other premiers. There is a need at times for redacted statements.

Does the member believe we should be going against the thoughts that have been expressed by the Auditor General of Canada and the RCMP, by providing unredacted documents?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what matters now is that everything is referred to committee. I agree.

With respect to the other matter, of course, we can hear the Auditor General of Canada's and the RCMP's concerns. I totally agree. However, that does not mean that they take precedence over the House of Commons and Parliament.

We make the rules and the requests. It is not up to the government to decide whether it should obey or not.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague opened an interesting door in his speech. He spoke about the hybrid Parliament, the motion and the fact that things did not go the way they should have, that is, by consensus.

One of the criticisms against this Parliament is that there is less accountability. People often say that ministers and members can hide a little more easily behind a screen. They see the lack of accountability.

My colleague spoke about WE Charity. When Parliament is prorogued, that has consequences, and, of course, it is another way of hiding. Instead of facing the music and doing what is right, in other words, responding to the House's requests, to produce the documents for example, or reaching agreements so that things can move forward—and I know that he also has matters he would like to put forward in the coming weeks— and instead of hiding behind hybrid parliaments and prorogation, the government should be able to face any difficulties and meet our citizens' expectations.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I can only agree 100% with what my colleague from Shefford just said. A duty of accountability and transparency comes with the job.

If they are not prepared to honour that duty, they should step aside. It is unacceptable that the government can shirk its responsibility and duty to render transparent and honest accounts to the public. With everything that has happened in the past five or six years and even longer, we can go back pretty far, I think that the parties that aspire to power here need to examine their conscience.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that was a great intervention by my colleague. I wonder what he is telling his constituents when he goes back home. Are people truly surprised to hear that the Liberal government is this corrupt? The reason why Parliament is backed up right now is because the government and the Prime Minister will not release the documents for which we have all asked. The Conservatives are trying to contribute to our democracy, and the Prime Minister has been very obstructionist. This is why we are doing all of this.

What is the hon. member hearing from his constituents?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to disappoint my Conservative colleague, but our support for this motion is simply a matter of integrity and transparency. Frankly, when I am in my riding of Drummond, I never hear anything about this. Rather, I am asked the following two questions. Why do the Conservatives continue to obstruct Parliament? Why is the government so incompetent?

In short, they do not ask me about technicalities. They are far more concerned about seniors. They are concerned about farmers, about the cost of living, about immigration. These are all subjects we cannot talk about now because Parliament is mired in this never-ending question of privilege.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House and speak for the people of Timmins—James Bay.

We are here with yet another day of Parliament being blocked from doing its work. The people of Canada sent us here to get things done. We have serious issues before us, but we are watching the Conservative puppet show, in this black-and-white world in which they live, interfering and stopping the work of Parliament.

That is not to give any kind of free pass to what the issue is at hand; the issue is very serious. It is the refusal of the Prime Minister to respect the will of Parliament. What that comes down to is a scandal: A liberal scandal, imagine that. If we look at the long history of the country, all the way back to the rum-bottle days on the Rideau, probably not one or two years has gone by without a scandal of Liberals looking after their pals. This has been the story of Canada since the beginning.

As the opposition, we have an obligation to hold the government to account. The fact that the Prime Minister is refusing to turn over these documents is a serious issue. It is also a serious issue because it was my colleagues in the New Democratic Party who began to break open this green slush fund scandal.

These are important issues that have to be addressed, but what we have is a ruling from the Speaker, which is very clear. This issue has to be sent to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs so that parliamentarians can investigate and come back to the House with a decision. This is how Parliament works; this is the process. If that process comes back with a finding of contempt for the Prime Minister, then that is how we operate. What the Conservatives are doing is blocking the call of the Speaker and blocking the work of parliamentarians to get to the bottom of this scandal. It is a very straightforward thing.

The bigger scandal is the absolute failure of the Liberal government to follow through on key promises. For example, people trusted them on housing. We heard about housing again and again, and we asked where that housing was. It is a government that made so many promises and failed. The purpose of opposition is to hold it to account and ask the question why it has failed.

The green fund scandal is a particularly powerful metaphor. I remember when the Prime Minister went to COP26, with his Haida tattoo, and said, “Canada's back”. He made legally binding commitments on the global stage to move Canada to become a leader in the fight against climate change. What have we seen since then? This green slush fund is the perfect example of money that was not sent out the door to do what was promised. Money was sent again and again to oil and gas. In fact, we see that three times as much money goes out under the government to help the oil and gas sector than on clean energy, as our planet burns.

Under the Prime Minister, oil production in Canada, particularly out of the tar sands, has jumped 25% over the Harper government. That is not climate leadership; this is serious negligence on the part of the Prime Minister. Not only is it 25% higher, but thanks to the $34 billion gift to the TMX pipeline, it is going up much higher.

We hear the environment minister talk about emissions going down, but he is not telling the truth. All sectors of the economy have done their part, but emissions continue to rise in oil and gas. We are the only G7 country whose emissions are rising despite the legal commitments made by the Prime Minister. That is the scandal, not of taxpayer money or insider buddies and cronies who hang out with the Prime Minister's pals. It is a scandal about our children's future, because we are now in the heart of the climate crisis. People voted for the Prime Minister to do his job on that. He has failed, and the green slush fund is the perfect example of that.

When I hear my colleagues in the Conservative Party talk about transparency and accountability, and how this is the most corrupt government in history, I have a bit of history in this place and I have seen a lot of corruption over the years. The Liberals are not very good, but they are rank amateurs compared to the Harper days. They tell us to trust them on transparency and accountability.

I listen to the demands of Conservatives to defend the vision of Parliament and the right to obtain documents. It is like people who move into a new neighbourhood and a crocodile knocks on their door. The crocodile says it is their new neighbour and if ever they need it, it will babysit their children. If the people do not know the history of the crocodile, they would think that is so wonderful and they would be more than happy to trust the crocodile to look after their children. However, if they know the history, they would know what a dumb idea that is.

Let us talk a bit about the history. All the language about documents right now brings me back to 2009 when Stephen Harper defied Parliament over the Afghan detainees documents. That was not just a minor scandal. That was a scandal that cut to the very heart of the Canadian nation. It happened in a November 2009 appearance at a parliamentary committee when Richard Colvin testified about evidence of torture of Afghan detainees.

The information that was brought forward was horrific, “pulling out fingernails and toenails, burning with hot oil, beatings, sexual humiliation, and sodomy.” That was raised by our ambassador on what was happening under the watch of the Canadian Army in Afghanistan. We sent our best young and most idealistic people to Afghanistan because they believed they were going to build a new Afghanistan after the Taliban. Instead, we learned that they were being drawn into the corruption of the warlords.

Ambassador Colvin said:

As I learned more about our detainee practices, I came to the conclusion that they were contrary to Canada's values, contrary to Canada's interests, contrary to Canada's official policies, and also contrary to international law....they were un-Canadian, counterproductive, and probably illegal.

That is a scandal.

Parliamentarians asked to examine this, because it was vital for us to reassure the Canadian people that when we sent our soldiers overseas, they maintained the highest standard and to ensure that our role in Afghanistan was to build a better society and not be a front for corruption, torture and abuse. Stephen Harper had no interest in that. He did not mind that our name was being sullied on the international stage, so he refused to turn over the documents to Parliament.

Who was being targeted? The leader of the Conservative Party slurs victims of horrific bombings in Lebanon and the people in Gaza and brags about his hope that people will be bombed in Iran. That is a man who does not have a security clearance or cannot get it making these horrific remarks given the torture and killings are happening. This was happening in Afghanistan and Stephen Harper was covering it up.

Ambassador Colvin, in his testimony, said that the people who were being tortured and sodomized were not the terrorists that the Conservatives denounced. He said that they had no connection to the insurgency and many were local people, farmers, truck drivers, tailors, peasants, random human beings in the wrong place at the wrong time, and, from an intelligence point of view, they had little or no value. We would have thought that if Stephen Harper believed in Canada standing strong on the international stage, he would have been worried about the torture of innocent people who were picked up by the military and the warlords and subjected to brutal torture.

Colvin went on to say, “Instead of winning hearts and minds, we caused Kandaharis to fear the foreigners. Canada's detainee practices, in my view, alienated us from the population and strengthened the insurgency.” The brutal Taliban is back, and it is back because countries like Canada went along with the torture and suppressed the evidence.

Parliament had an obligation. It tried to get access to the documents, but Stephen Harper was not going to let that happen. He would rather allow the torture and abuse of innocent people in Afghanistan under our flag than have Parliament do its job. Harper ignored our commitments under the Geneva Convention. He undermined Canada's efforts to bring trust to Afghanistan—

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have been extremely patient. I have been waiting to get to the actual study that we are debating today. This has been a history lesson. I do not mind the history lesson, but this has nothing to do with the debate.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

Again, this is debating the debate. I would caution everyone to stick to the debate we are having today.

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised the member is that upset. This is about the Afghan documents that—

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

The hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa is once again rising.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Speaker, relevance is very relevant. I am looking for at least a reference to SDTC, $400 million and a scandal, just some kind of relevance—

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

I appreciate the input. A lot of latitude has been given during this whole debate. I would expect the hon. member to come to it at some point in his speech.

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for verification, I am speaking about the Afghan documents that were not turned over by Stephen Harper. That is a precedent. Would you not agree that I am on topic by saying we are talking about a precedent of a prime minister turning over documents?

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

I would say the hon. member is on the same page, as he should be.