Debates of Oct. 3rd, 2024

Business of the House

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw the government House leader's attention to the following passage from page 95 of Eugene Forsey's “The Question of Confidence in Responsible Government”, which is considered to be the Canadian bible on the confidence convention: “A Ministry which could not control the House sufficiently to carry Supply and essential business would have to be dismissed if it did not resign or seek a new House by dissolution.”

This morning, after reading the projected order of business, published by the House, I noticed the House leader had not bothered to schedule any government business. Since last week, she has been struggling to propose her ways and means motion regarding the small business and middle class tax hikes and the capital gains tax changes, a signature piece of her government's financial agenda. Has she abandoned that initiative? Has she abandoned those tax hikes? Has the minister conceded that she has effectively lost control of the House?

The government prefers to have Parliament ground to a halt rather than handing over the documents that the House lawfully ordered to be produced and transmitted to the RCMP. It would rather keep the House seized with this corruption motion rather than simply complying with the production order and living up to basic expectations of transparency.

If she is going to refuse to comply with the House order and is unable to bring forward any other business to the House, will she at the very least encourage the Prime Minister to dissolve the House so that Canadians can have their say in a carbon tax election?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, that was cute, and I saw that the Conservative House leader was having a hard time not laughing at how ridiculous his statement was.

As the fourth week of fall in the House of Commons approaches, we have made good progress. For one thing, we passed Bill C‑76 to give Jasper the tools it needs to rebuild.

We also debated bills that are important to Canadians, such as Bill C‑71, which extends citizenship by descent beyond the first generation in an inclusive way, protects the value of Canadian citizenship and restores citizenship to Canadians who lost or never acquired it because of outdated provisions under a previous citizenship act.

We debated Bill C‑66, which recognizes that members of the Canadian Armed Forces are always there to protect Canada's security and that we have a duty to protect them from harassment and inappropriate behaviour. This landmark legislation would transform military justice in Canada and respond to outside recommendations by former justices Arbour and Fish of the Supreme Court of Canada.

We also debated Bill C‑63 on online harms, which seeks to provide stronger protection to children online and better protect Canadians from online hate and other types of harmful content.

I would like to thank members of Parliament who have been working constructively to advance these bills. The Conservatives, on the other hand, continue to do everything they can to block the important work of the House and prevent debate on legislation that will help Canadians. They have offered nothing constructive and instead have focused on cheap political stunts and obstruction for the sake of obstruction. They have lost two confidence votes already and continue to paralyze the business of the House.

The government supports debates on the privilege motions concluding quickly so that we can get back to the important work of the House. I extend my hand to any party that wants to work constructively to advance legislation that will help Canadians. Once debate has concluded on both privilege motions, our priority will be resuming debate on the bills I have listed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

We have a point of order from the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, because the government House leader was trying to impute motives to my Thursday statement, I believe it would be fair for me to point out that there is nothing “cute” about Liberal insiders funnelling $400 million to their own companies.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

I am afraid that is debate.

I wish to inform the House that the volume of the earpieces will now be reset. Members using their earpieces at this time will have to readjust the volume.

The House resumed consideration of the motion, and of the amendment.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to read into the record some information on parliamentary privilege from the ourcommons.ca website, which indicates:

Parliamentary privilege refers to the rights and immunities that are deemed necessary for the House of Commons, as an institution, and its members, as representatives of the electorate, to fulfill their functions. It also refers to the powers possessed by the House to protect itself, its members and its procedures from undue interference so that they can carry out effectively their principal functions which are to legislate, deliberate and hold the government to account. Parliamentary privileges were first claimed centuries ago when the English House of Commons was struggling to establish a distinct role for itself within Parliament. These privileges were necessary to protect the House of Commons and its members from the power and interference of the King and the House of Lords. The privileges enjoyed by the House and its members are part of the Constitution and are vital to the proper functioning of Parliament. This is as true today as it was centuries ago when the English House of Commons first fought to secure these privileges and rights.

That puts into perspective here that this is a very serious matter, that any time we are talking about the privileges of the House of Commons, we are talking about a serious matter. That, again, as I said before question period, is why no other business can take place, because protecting the privileges of this House is deemed to be the most important thing that we can do.

That is why the Speaker took the opportunity to deliver a ruling saying that he believed that on the face of it, it was a breach of the privileges of the members of this House, and indeed of this House itself, that the government had refused to turn over documents after a lawful order from the House of Commons. That is what we are discussing today.

All of the bluster and blarney that we heard from the government during question period about how this is somehow about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is absolute nonsense. This is about the privileges of the House of Commons, the privileges that we have to uphold the rule of law, the privileges that we have to demand documents of the government.

It might seem like a quaint thing to refer back to the King and the House of Lords, but without protecting the privileges of this House, we have no authority. We would have a government that could run roughshod over the will of the elected House of Commons, which is what it is trying to do right now.

This is a lawful order, not just from the Conservative Party and the official opposition but from the majority of the House of Commons. The majority of this House has demanded documents, and has done so legally and after consulting with the legal counsel of the House. The government has no authority to redact the documents, to hand over some of them, or in the case of the Privy Council Office, to tell departments to ignore the request of the House of Commons. That is a breach of our privileges. That is why we are discussing this, instead of things like millions of Canadians lining up at the food bank for the first time.

As we heard in question period today, while Canadians are lining up at the food bank, Liberals are lining their pockets. It is a good time to be a Liberal insider. That is what we found under the Sustainable Development Technology Canada fund, where 186 times, the board was found to have been in a conflict. It made decisions on money based on a conflict of interest. That is why the Auditor General has gotten involved. Nearly $400 million of funds from the government have gone to Liberal insiders or have been questioned by the government.

That is why the House of Commons, not the Conservative Party, has demanded that the Auditor General and the government hand over the documents to the RCMP. The RCMP will do with them what they will, but that is not a decision for the government to make. An order has been given from this House to produce the documents and to give them to the RCMP, and it can use those documents to form its own opinions. We cannot have a situation where a lawful order of this House is ignored, amended or changed on the whim of the Prime Minister, his office and his bureaucracy in the PCO. That is not how the House of Commons works. The government, I believe, has violated the privileges, not only of individual members, but of the House itself.

The document I referred to goes on to talk about the structure of privileges. It says:

The privileges of members of the House of Commons provide the absolute immunity they require to perform their parliamentary work, while the collective or corporate rights of the House are the necessary means by which the House effectively discharges its functions. These rights are enjoyed both by individual members of Parliament—because the House cannot perform its functions without its members—and by the House, as a whole, for the protection of its members, as well as its own authority and dignity.

It goes on to list the individual rights and immunities: “Freedom of speech in the House of Commons and committee; Freedom from arrest in civil actions; Exemption from jury duty; Exemption from being subpoenaed to attend court as a witness; Freedom from obstruction, interference and intimidation”.

It then talks about the collective rights of the House of Commons: “To discipline those found in breach of privilege or in contempt and to remove Members for misconduct; To regulate its own internal affairs, including its debates, agenda and facilities; To maintain the attendance and service of its Members; To institute inquiries and demand papers”.

It is very clear that, when our rights are violated, when we are not able to demand papers or our lawful demand for papers is ignored, the rights of the House have been violated, and that is why we are here today. It is because we cannot stand idly by while the government arbitrarily decides that it is above the elected House of Commons and that what it believes is right supersedes what the House of Commons has voted on and has determined is the right thing to do.

If we allow this to happen, if the government can just ignore all of the rules and all of the votes of the House of Commons, where will we be? What if Canadian citizens took the same approach and were able to simply ignore the work that is done here in the House of Commons? That would not be a system that any of us would want to live under, so it is hard to overstate the seriousness of a matter, when the rights and privileges of Parliament are under threat, as they are today.

However, it is not the first time that this government has done something of this nature when it has been faced with a ruling or a decision of the House that it did not like. We will recall in June 2021, when the Liberal government took the Liberal Speaker of the House of Commons to court to block the release of unredacted records about fired scientists under the Winnipeg lab scandal. This had never been done before in the history of Canada. It was so afraid of what would be revealed there and so afraid to allow the will of the House of Commons to be followed that it was going to go to court to undermine the privileges of the House.

If I read through any of the news articles on that matter, one says, “The Speaker's Office will defend the rights of this House. That is something I take very seriously ... The legal system does not have any jurisdiction over the operations of the House. We are our own jurisdiction. That is something we will fight tooth and nail to protect and we will continue to do that.” That was from the former Speaker of the House. Mr. Dufresne, the former law clerk of the House “said the House 'has exclusive authority' when it comes to matters that fall under parliamentary privilege.”

The government has gone to extreme lengths before, and it is doing it again, to protect itself and Liberal insiders from having their secrets revealed and tabling documents that have been lawfully ordered by this House, as required.

We know that the Liberals do not have much time for this House. It is a nuisance. It is not something they value or honour. We saw this with Bill Morneau during COVID, when this House was shut down. Bill Morneau tried to circumvent the rights of members of Parliament to examine and vote on budget matters for two years. He tried to circumvent the rights of this House. Luckily, it was the leader of the opposition at the time, the finance critic, who found that little nugget buried away, called it out and put a stop to it. That is where the Liberals' minds are. Wherever they can, they will undermine Parliament for their own benefit.

I do not know if this breach of privilege will be dealt with by this House anytime soon. Many of us have things that to say about that. The government, of course, could end this today by complying with the lawful order of the House of Commons. If it releases the documents that the House of Commons has demanded it release to the RCMP, this could all be over this afternoon, but we know that is not the inclination of the Liberals because they believe that they know best and that they do not have to abide by the rules. They are putting that on display.

In the meantime, there is yet another question of privilege waiting in the wings. The next item of business after this one is yet another question of privilege because the government failed to comply with the wishes of the elected members of the House of Commons. We have seen time and time again where the government has broken its promises.

In 2015, in the election that brought them to power, the Prime Minister said it was time to “shine more light on government to ensure it remains focused on the people it is meant to serve;” that “government and its information must be open by default”; that data paid for by Canadians belongs to Canadians; that the government will restore trust in our democracy, and that begins with trusting Canadians. He said he would not resort to “legislative tricks” to avoid scrutiny and he would not use prorogation to avoid difficult political circumstances. Of course, he used prorogation in August 2020 to shut down investigations on the WE Charity scandal, and the Information Commissioner has warned that access to information has deteriorated to the point where it no longer serves its intended purposes and no longer meets the expectations or the needs of Canadians.

The Liberals hold in contempt the defined privilege of the House of Commons to call for the production of papers. They have said they do not recognize the authority of the House and they serve a higher authority, which is the Prime Minister of Canada. The Prime Minister of Canada is supposed to be a servant of this House, not its master, and should not be directing the House of Commons to violate the motion that was duly passed by the majority of members of the House of Commons, yet that is exactly what the Prime Minister has done. He has ordered the PMO and the PCO to ignore the lawful order of the House of Commons because he believes he knows best. It is the House that knows best. It is the House that has to exercise its rights. If we do not protect those rights, they will continue to be eroded under the Liberal government that does not care about them at all.

Conservatives would love to be discussing things like the failed Liberal bail policies that allowed a violent repeat offender to shoot a police officer in Toronto yesterday. We would love to be talking about ways we can make that better. We would love to have a debate about whether it is a bad thing to call the offender names when he is a known violent repeat offender who just shot a police officer. The Liberal government and others are propping them up, decrying the language used to describe those individuals. We would be happy to have that debate.

However, today we have to debate to protect the rights and privileges of the House of Commons. The government can make this go away today by complying with the lawful order of this place. If it does not, Conservatives will continue to stand up for these rights and privileges because we were sent here by Canadians to do the people's business. This place must continue to be held in the highest regard and be the highest authority when it comes to the people's business. The rights and privileges of this place must be respected by the government if we are to continue to hold the government to account.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the RCMP wrote to the law clerk of the House of Commons in July, stating that it cannot use any records it obtains through this process because this would affect the charter rights of the suspect. The end goal is that anybody who has done something criminally wrong should be prosecuted. However, the process that we are debating here and that the member is asking for is not going to achieve that.

Very simply, does the hon. member think the RCMP has no other process to obtain these documents legally so that it can use them to the fullest extent in prosecuting anybody who has done anything wrong?

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I find it troubling that the member would imply that a lawful House order or that sending documents to the RCMP to do what it wants with is somehow illegal. We have seen this before with the government. For instance, after the arrive scam scandal, the director of the CBSA sent documents directly to the RCMP. The government has not chosen to do that in this case.

We believe that a House order is lawful. The RCMP will do what it wants with the information. However, it should receive the unredacted information from the House of Commons. We have the right to request this, which is what we have done; the government should listen to this.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the role of the opposition in any government, but particularly a minority government, is not to oppose simply for the sake of it, which is not constructive. It is also, and above all, to ensure that the public gets a better, more complete view of the realities we face. This ensures better representation of the public in the House.

That said, trust also underpins the power of this Parliament. Refusing to hand over documents suggests or raises suspicions that there is something to hide. At the same time, it undermines public trust. For a government, especially a minority government, refusing to hand over documents amounts to shooting itself in the foot.

Is it a question of the appointment process, is it a question of letting organizations manage funds without obligations, or is it a bit of both?

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague: The longer the government fights this matter by refusing to hand over the documents, the more it looks like it has something to hide. Clearly there was something wrong with the appointment process when it came to the board of the SDTC. We saw that the former minister, Navdeep Bains, was made aware that it would be a massive problem if he appointed Liberal-connected insiders who had been receiving money from this fund; there would be inevitable conflicts of interest. He was told that repeatedly, as was the Prime Minister's office and the PCO. It was all ignored.

Now we have a situation where $400 million was awarded to companies that have a connection to Liberal insiders. The number I heard quoted by the member for South Shore—St. Margarets was that there had been an impact on 82% of the contracts in one way or another, and they were under a cloud of suspicion. That is the record of the current government. A program that operated just fine under the previous Conservative government was turned into a Liberal slush fund by the Liberal government, and they did it on purpose.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is said that Canadians will only support our democratic system if they know in their hearts that the rules of our democracy are followed in this place and that we can all represent them. It is a little wild to think that some of us represent over 120,000 people. We are one vote for 120,000 people, and the only way that carries any weight is if the rules of this place are followed. My colleague spoke about the importance of parliamentary supremacy, the right of Parliament to do so many things, and our privilege as parliamentarians.

Can he speak to what happens when the government does not allow this place to function? What is the impact on Canadians' faith in democracy?

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague hit the nail on the head. If Canadians do not have confidence in their democratic institutions, they will not have confidence in the government to deliver services or in the laws that we pass in this place. The whole system breaks down if the House of Commons is not supreme, if our rights and privileges are not upheld. That is why this is taken so seriously. That is why the Speaker has said that nothing else can happen until this matter is dealt with. It is the most important thing that we can deal with; if the privileges and rights of the House of Commons are undermined, then our democratic institutions are undermined. It seems hyperbolic to say that, but this is at the foundation of this debate.

If the government can simply ignore the will of the supreme law-making body in this country, if they can just brush that aside, what does that say about our democratic institutions? What does that say about our democracy? It says that it does not matter. It says that the government can do whatever it wants; there is nobody to hold them to account. The official opposition, the common-sense Conservatives, will continue to hold the government to account by ensuring that the rights and privileges of the members of Parliament and the House of Commons are respected.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I find it very difficult to listen to the hon. member talk about the rights and privileges of this place and say that the rule of this place must be held supreme. In fact, we know that the Conservative Party of Canada did exactly the same thing as the former government. It actively refused to let the House to learn about a number of scandals, such as a $3.1 billion anti-terrorism funding scandal or the $50-million G8 summit slush fund. The list is quite extensive. New Democrats have talked about this before. We absolutely want this investigated. We want to ensure that scandals are not allowed or accepted, whether they happen on the Liberal side or on the Conservative side.

How can the member stand in this place and be so adamant about upholding laws when the former government was as complicit as the current government?

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that old habits die hard. It is tough for the NDP to stop defending the Liberal government, even though they have supposedly ripped up their confidence and supply agreement. Of course, they have continued to support their governance of this country in several votes over the last couple of weeks, keeping the Liberal government in power.

I reject any comparison between what happened under the former Harper government and what is happening right now with this wilful decision to ignore a lawful order of the House of Commons. That did not happen under former prime minister Stephen Harper. When these sorts of matters come up, we will call them out.

I know that the member may want to live in the past and not hold the government to account, as they have not done for the last nine years, but we will do our job. We will hold the government to account, even if the NDP wants to continue to support the corrupt Liberal government.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I hate to alert my hon. colleague that I will ask a question that challenges something he said, but I want to put on the record, first, that I agree with virtually everything he said.

I also want to thank the hon. member for South Shore—St. Margarets because, from corridor conversations, I am quite aware that he seems to have done a whole lot of late-night, red-eyed reading through a lot of documents I have not had the time to read.

What we have here is a very large and important issue. I look forward to speaking to it later in debate today. I am very concerned with charter rights, but I fail to see a charter right being infringed here. I am open to debate to understand how the hon. Leader of the Government in the House of Commons sees a charter right infringement; however, to me, the right of the House to see documents and convey them to the RCMP does not raise a charter issue.

The quibble I have with my hon. friend, the member for Chilliwack—Hope, is just because I like to see things corrected on the record. I was here during the debates that we had right at the beginning of COVID. It was on March 23, actually. The hon. leader of the official opposition now was the finance critic for the Conservative Party back then. I would like to say how much fun we had working together. We did, actually. The hon. leader, the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby, the hon. Bloc Québécois critic for finance and I met regularly with former finance minister Bill Morneau. The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby was the New Democrat finance critic at the time.

We had astonishing levels of agreement, but it was not the now official opposition leader who spotted the little nugget. Everybody spotted it. As the leader of the Green Party, I promise that I spotted it. We went against parliamentary tradition because of COVID. Draft government legislation was shared with us before first reading. We all saw it. The parliamentary budget office flagged it. The former finance minister could not give himself the right to approve budgets several budgets in advance, so it never came to the House.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the current Leader of the Opposition absolutely did flag it. That is why the matter was deleted from the draft legislation. I do not know what role the member herself played, but I was the whip at the time. On our side, it was flagged by our current leader because he read through that document and was not willing to let the finance minister at the time undermine Parliament, which was the intention of the draft legislation.

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

Before proceeding to the next speaker, I just want to make people aware that the point of order has been resolved with the hon. member for Calgary Heritage.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, some of my constituents have written to me asking, “Why is the Liberal government grinding the business of Parliament to a halt?” They have seen reports of the Liberal government doing this. I will break down what is happening here today, why it is so crazy that the Liberal government is allowing this and then what Parliament should be doing in response.

What is happening here? We are debating a motion. This whole process of how we got here started on June 10, when the House of Commons adopted a motion calling for the production of various documents related to SDTC to be turned over to the RCMP for review. For people who might not be familiar with what this means, I will summarize it briefly, and then give a little bit more information afterwards.

On Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC, the Leader of the Opposition summarized the problem very succinctly in a question yesterday when he said that a top government executive took $400 million of other people's money and then gave it to their own companies, which is problematic. My colleague for South Shore—St. Margarets and members of the industry committee and the ethics committee have been pulling at the threads of this scandal for over a year now, and they have uncovered a massive conflict of interest that the RCMP should be looking at.

This is what happened: Parliament passed a motion to send documents related to the scandal to the RCMP. Parliament passed the motion, so it is essentially law that the documents that Parliament ordered be sent to the RCMP, and Parliament is supreme. In response to that motion, which was adopted by the House, government departments either outright refused the House order or redacted the documents that they turned over, citing various provisions. However, they actually ignored what the House order said to do.

Again, to re-emphasize it, this was a duly passed motion of the House of Commons. This was not some random demand, but a motion that was debated in the House of Commons and passed by the House of Commons, so it is essentially law. The motion was to force these government departments to submit these documents over. However, what did they do? They flipped the bird at Parliament, saying, “Uh-uh, we're not sending this over”, which raises a whole host of questions about why government departments would not be sending incriminating documents over to the RCMP. Anybody who is watching this should understand that this is highly problematic. It is also problematic because it breaches members' privileges here. Essentially, the government is saying no to Parliament.

When parliamentarians understood what had happened, the Conservative House leader raised something called a question of privilege. He essentially was asserting that the House's privilege had been breached because the government had not complied with the previous House order, which was the motion that was passed to compel those documents.

Why is this important? It is important because what the government did here was to say that it would not turn over incriminating documents to the RCMP on a major scandal, in spite of the House voting to do so. However, the Conservative House leader then said that the privileges of this place, or the rights that we have when we are all representing people, in my case, roughly 120,000, were violated because the order of the House was not complied with.

For somebody who might find that this sounds too technical, it is basically like looking at something in the Criminal Code and saying, “Well, I'm going to do that anyway, and you can't punish me.” With that question of privilege, the Speaker ruled that privilege had indeed been breached and that this was a problem, which is a good thing, and where we are today.

We have a motion in front of the House as a result of this whole rigmarole. Just to be perfectly clear, the government could have prevented all of this, this entire waste of resources. We can think about how much time has been wasted in trying to force the government to do something that it should have done already. How could it fix this? It could just hand the documents over. It could hand the documents over, per the law that was passed in this place. However, no, here we are today. We are now debating a motion that would refer this whole matter to a standing committee for review.

Essentially, what the Liberals are trying to do here is rag the puck on handing over incriminating documents that the House has already ordered them to turn over. The other thing that is absolutely bananas and ludicrous to me, completely bonkers crackers time, is that the government is trying to say that this is somehow a breach of the Canadian Charter of Rights. However, other colleagues in this place have done a masterful job of explaining that Parliament is supreme. By that, I mean that Parliament makes the laws in this place. We have legislative authority in this place.

If we back up, I looked through the record to read some of the arguments that happened during that debate, and there is a reason the House had this production of documents ordered. Why is that? It is because there is a big scandal going on, and we want transparency for our constituents. We want the process that led to this scandal to be fixed. We want to ensure that anybody who was involved in perpetrating the scandal faces consequences. Why? There are several reasons.

As legislators, we have fiduciary responsibilities for tax dollars. This was a giant debacle that wasted tax dollars. Also, when somebody breaks the rules or breaks the law, that should be examined and they should face consequences. However, here, the Liberal government is preventing that process from happening. Why is that? I think we all know why. It is because something in those documents probably points the finger directly back at the government ministers or, likely, the Prime Minister's Office.

Where have we seen this movie before? I have seen this movie before. I think Canadians have seen this movie several times before. As other colleagues in this place have mentioned, this is not the first time the Liberal government has been found to have violated the privilege of the House by withholding documents.

As mentioned, there was a huge scandal that happened in early 2021 about two employees of the level 4 biohazard lab in Winnipeg. When I say this, it sounds so crazy, but it is true. They were alleged to have, and found to have had, transferred samples of viruses back to China. These two people were in a biohazard lab where some of the world's most deadly viruses were, such as Ebola and Marburg, and they transferred samples of said viruses back to China.

The House ordered the production of documents around that issue. Again, in that situation, the government flipped the bird to Parliament and said it was not handing those documents over, no way, no how. It actually went so far as to sue your office, Mr. Speaker. The government actually sued the Speaker of the House of Commons to delay the transfer of these documents.

What ended up happening with these documents? Just to refresh everybody's memories, instead of handing the documents over, the Prime Minister called an early election in 2021, which wiped the table of Parliament at that point. It bought him time. The point here is that the government has a pattern of completely dismissing the privileges that we hold in the House of Commons.

Over my time in Parliament, I have learned a lot of tough lessons, but there has been one guiding principle through all of this for me, and that is that my power comes from nowhere else than from the people who I represent, combined with the rules and sanctity of this place, particularly through privilege.

Therefore, when my privilege as a parliamentarian is violated, so are all the privileges of my constituents. That is why it is so important for us to push on these issues. If we live in a world where the government can just willfully ignore the duly instructed outcomes of a legislative body, where all of us are duly elected and have responsibilities to our constituents, if the government can just ignore us, then this is not a democracy but a dictatorship. We are not far from that at this point. It is not hyperbole to say that, by the government delaying the will of Parliament, it is eroding and weakening democracy.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I hear grumbles on the other side, but it has to be said.

Mr. Speaker, we either respect the rules of this place, the privileges of parliamentarians and the will of Parliament, or we live in a state that is not a democracy. Again, the Liberal government has repeatedly done this. It has repeatedly refused the will of Parliament. Also, frankly, we have had people called to the bar of this place to be admonished for carrying out the will of the government and obfuscating the will of Parliament, which is unprecedented. I think it happened maybe over 100 years ago.

When I talk about my power and my privileges and where those come from, they come from the people I represent and the rules of this place. I have to remind members of the governing party who do not hold a government position, a position in the executive, that it is their role to also hold the government to account. I understand partisanship, and I understand party whips, but there is a point at which people have to look up the food chain and have constructive dissent to say that something is not right and it is not the will of their constituents. They need to say that they are here to uphold their constituents' interests. I have done that from time to time in this place because I know where my power comes from, and I will not cede that power in any way, shape or form.

It is very disappointing for me to watch members of the governing party, who have been here for a hot minute, as they were elected in 2015, but who have never had to challenge their party in any meaningful way. This is a critical juncture, when they are behind a feckless leader who cannot tell right from wrong in any circumstance. He is literally just trying to find a better job, which he is not going to find. That is why he is clinging to power so desperately. At that point in time, that caucus should be challenging him on everything that he does because he has led his party into a state of moral oblivion.

It is the moral responsibility of the members of the governing party, as the backbenchers in that party, to say that they are not doing this, and at the very least, to do it on this issue. I hear members literally reading off the PMO-approved questions for the day to try to suggest that carrying out the will of Parliament is somehow a charter violation. Come on. It is also their privilege that was breached, by the way, and all of their constituents' privileges that were breached. This is why they will lose their seats in the next election. Why is that? It is because their constituents are losing the sense that they are willing to stand up for them no matter what the PMO says, no matter what the party leader says, and they see they do not have that sense of right from wrong.

This is a pretty clear case of right and wrong. It really is. We have people from very disparate political backgrounds in this place, from the left of the spectrum to the right of the spectrum, saying that we might not agree on policy, and we might not agree on how to deal with an emergent issue, but we are going to agree on one thing, which is that, if this country is supposed to carry out its business to live in a peaceful pluralism, then the rules of this place have to function. They absolutely have to function, and they are not functioning.

That is why we are debating the motion that is before us today. It has been encouraging to hear members of different political stripes say that we can disagree on much but that they are going to agree to uphold the rules of this place. The question then becomes this: At what point do other members of this place stop propping up a government that continues, time and again, day in and day out, to ignore the rules? The government just says that they do not apply to it. It does not even look for ways out or for loopholes; it just ignores the rules of this place. Again, this is not the first time; it is one of countless instances. I have given only two here.

The Prime Minister has breached ethics violations. Members filibuster privilege motions just so they cannot move forward. It is in those moments that the number one priority for all of us who do not hold a government appointment and are not part of the executive branch of government is to hold the government to account. That might be in a caucus meeting or whatnot, but at some point in time we have to say “no, not today, you guys”.

I am hoping there will be members of the Liberal backbench who, at the very least, would do one of two things: abstain on the motion if they cannot find the courage to vote for it, or at least not ask questions that have been repeated by the government House leader. I like to see women in strong roles in the House of Commons; I think it inspires other women to do the same. However, I do not like to hear them repeat the talking points of a feckless man who clearly has lost the moral authority to govern. It is disappointing to me. I also hope that some of the cabinet ministers will think, will look within their heart and will say that they are tired of doing this and that they will not do it anymore.

I have said why it is so important for us to vote in favour of the motion. However, I also understand, as so many people in this place have said, that because we are having to debate another instance of the government's flagrantly dismissing the privileges of the people in this place, we are not debating the business of making life more affordable for Canadians, making it more safe for Canadians to live within their homes and trying to find homes for Canadians. Many do not have a home. There was a report today that said that within eight years the rent in Montreal for, I think, a two-bedroom apartment would be close to $5,000. That would be the average rent in under a decade.

We are on a course of abject failure in this country, but we cannot address any of the issues and have a constructive debate if the rules of this place are not being followed. Therefore I ask the government to end this today by handing the documents over, obeying the will of this place and respecting our democracy so we can move on, on behalf of our constituents.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party believes that it is better at investigations dealing with the bringing forward of criminal charges than our judicial system is, specifically the RCMP, which has expressed extreme discomfort with what the Conservatives are doing. The member is upset because I repeat it. If it is the truth and it is being repeated, one would think it would eventually sink in.

What is the Conservative Party doing with respect to the RCMP's thoughts? To use the Conservative member's term, it is flipping them the bird. Quite frankly, where was its attitude on violating the potential charter rights of individuals when it came to the many scandals the Conservative Party had, whether it was the anti-terrorism scandal, the Phoenix scandal, the G8 spending scandal, the ETS scandal, the F-35 scandal, the Senate scandal and the election scandals? The Conservative Party has a pretty shady record. Never did it go around saying that it was going to collect information even if it violated the charter, in order to give assistance to the RCMP. Why is there a change in attitude and a disregard for the RCMP?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, let me do something that I do not do on a regular basis, which is to quote the leader of the Green Party, who said the same thing that many other people have said in the House of Commons today, which is that she did not find any intellectual basis for the constitutional argument. That is because there is none.

It is such as stretch to argue that it is truth because the government that is trying to hide the documents says it is truth. I know that the member opposite has served for a long time in my home province of Manitoba's legislature. He has, I believe, a daughter who has served for a long time as well in the legislature. At some point, I hope he looks inside and says that he cannot support the PMO and the party leader.

I hope that in that moment, instead of coming in here and saying those sorts of ridiculous things, he has some self-respect and perhaps buys himself a nice lunch instead of coming here to try to say things and convince us of things that we know in our hearts are not true.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to come back to our role as parliamentarians. Our role is to adopt legislation that is useful to the public, that is good for the public.

We are being held back in our role by a refusal to produce documents. This refusal is hampering us in two ways: in our role as legislators who adopt measures that are good for the public and reject those that are not; and in our role as parliamentarians who analyze situations that have the potential of being problematic so as to improve the processes.

What does my colleague think of all that and the trust that is being asked of us in the face of this refusal?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague just underlined the importance of this place and the importance of respecting the rules of this place. In that, I wholeheartedly agree. She and I may vehemently disagree on approaches to public policy, but the reality is that we each have the duly elected right bestowed upon us by all of our constituents to raise our voice on the issues we may disagree with in order to come up with public policy that is in the best interest of Canadians.

However, we can do that, as she said, only when our privileges are respected, when we can get the documents that this place has ordered, when we can examine the government's activities and hold the government to account and when the rules of this place are upheld. When we have an executive government, a branch of government, led by a Prime Minister who has frequently, abjectly and completely ignored and, yes, flipped the bird to this place, then we have a duty to end the government and move on to elect a new government that will not do all of the things that he has done and which have led to the erosion of Canadian democracy over the last decade.