Debates of Dec. 5th, 2024

Foreign Affairs and International Development

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order. There is a member who is trying to make a comment but should not do that until he is recognized, if he is recognized.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, “procedural nonsense” were the words used by the member opposite. The chair of the status of women committee is saying that a debate in the House about protecting women's rights and their autonomy is procedural nonsense. I think they have just revealed exactly who they are.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, members would know, from looking down south, the pernicious ways in which policy is cooked up by fanatics, right-wing extremists, policy lapdogs for people like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller under the auspices of project 2025. We know that those same policy extremists advise the Conservative Party of Canada on its policy.

Could the hon. member perhaps expand on why these back-channel policy extremists could potentially influence the next federal election with these pernicious far-right ideologies?

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am very happy that my hon. colleague raised the issue of what has happened in the United States, because there is an increase in the demeaning objectification of women. Words matter. What they say has led to an eroding of rights of women in the United States. The irony is that a family member of mine had to go to the United States to be able to get an abortion, and now there are women in the United States who have to come to Canada. This is something that we have to stop because it is a risk. It is here.

That right-wing rhetoric that the member is talking about is alive and well. We are seeing it in the House today in the way that Conservatives are heckling the women who are standing up for our rights.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague and I attended certain committee meetings dealing with this study. I will ask my colleague the same question I asked my NDP colleague a bit earlier.

We really saw that certain witnesses had religious motivations. Their faith was the reason they had come to talk about the issue of women's reproductive rights. Why did members of my colleague's party, the Liberal Party, oppose the motion that the Bloc Québécois tried to move yesterday to basically repeal this religious exemption? This motion sought to take one more essential step toward secularism, because, all too often, the relationship between religion and women's rights becomes muddled, and women's rights are violated in the name of religion.

Why did her party oppose yesterday's motion underlining the importance of removing religious exemptions from the Criminal Code and emphasizing the importance of state secularism?

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think this issue about religion and rights is actually a very important one. This is about supporting a woman's right to choose. Look at the case that I talked about. This was someone who was deeply religious and she made a choice. I think it is not up to anybody, no matter what their faith, to tell another person what they should do, any more than we would tell that person of faith what they should do with their body.

The important part here is choice. I did not get elected to be the one to tell a woman what she should do. That should be something between the woman, her doctor and whatever faith or god she might believe in. However, that is her choice and hers alone.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to participate in debate on the concurrence motion that has been put forward by the NDP. For those who might be watching and are not fully aware of what happened in the House today, I would like to set the picture so they can appreciate what happened.

We originally had the Leader of the Opposition here, who was going to lead off on his opposition motion today. He came and he sat in his seat. He was flanked, in the perfect formation behind him to get the best camera angle, by his most loyal MPs. They sat there. They were all ready to go and we could see him getting ready. He was ready to kick off the day with his great speech that he probably conjured up in his mind while in the shower this morning. Then moments before he had the opportunity to rise to do that, and to have the excitement of his members behind him cheering him on endlessly, suddenly the NDP did to the Conservatives what they have been doing to the House for three months.

For three months now, the Conservatives have been putting up concurrence motions to filibuster and to prevent this House from doing any business. I must admit, I found it absolutely wild earlier when the member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington, my neighbour, challenged the government and the NDP on procedural tactics, when the Conservatives have been doing that for three solid months. The NDP did nothing more to the Leader of the Opposition and the Conservatives today than what the Conservatives have been doing for months. They just got a taste of their own medicine this morning. That is it.

It was quite a moment. I sat in my chair and saw that the Leader of the Opposition knew right away what happened. He jumped out of his seat and he marched right out of here, leaving the flank of MPs sitting behind him in the perfect formation absolutely bewildered. They had no idea what had just happened. The Leader of the Opposition did not bother telling them. He just marched right out of here because he knew exactly what had happened. He left them behind to wonder what possibly could have just occurred and why their great leader was not giving his amazing speech right now.

That is what happened. That is what the NDP did. Unfortunately, that is what this place has turned into. It has turned into a tit-for-tat. If they do something to us, we are going to do something to them. We are going to have procedural games here; we are going to have procedural games there. However, I will hand it to the NDP members for one thing. They brought forward an issue that is incredibly important in today's political context.

We have, regrettably, seen a regression, with the loudest voices out there, the voices that appear to be the most influential or incredibly influential, trying desperately to roll back the clock on women's rights. I said in a question earlier today that my mother participated in the movement to secure these rights back in the 1980s. I remember as a child wondering what she was doing and what that was all about, because I did not fully understand it. What I do know, and I fully understand today, is my wife benefited from that incredible work my mother's generation did and her mother's generation did.

Now, unfortunately, I am left wondering what the future holds for my daughter. I hear Conservatives, and I mean small-c conservatives and big-C Conservatives, talk about rolling back a woman's right to choose.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I hear them saying, “Oh God, what is he talking about?” I will tell members exactly what I am talking about.

I am talking about their colleagues who go on documentaries and are asked questions like, “Is it possible for us to completely ban abortion, or is it crazy to even think about it?” That question was asked of the member for Peace River—Westlock, who we know to be at the centre of the Conservative Party of Canada's movement, along with one or two other MPs, to do exactly that. This was his answer to that question: “Anything is possible. I thought that overturning Roe v. Wade in the United States was impossible, but yet here we are today.”

Anybody out there who happens to have CPAC on today and is watching this can google the Peace River—Westlock MP and “banning abortion”, go into the video section and find the video almost instantly. Conservatives roll their eyes and say the Liberals, NDP and progressives are just trying to paint them as bad guys, but they would never actually do that. Then why are their MPs making these comments? Why do they have MPs who participate in the pro-life marches in front of this place every spring and get up to the microphone and actually say, “We can do this”? That is what they do. They should not try to dismiss it or suggest it is not the case.

What else do Conservatives do? They continually line up candidates to run for them who have well-known positions of being anti-choice. That is what Canadians are faced with.

For those out there who may want to believe the Leader of the Opposition when he says he would never ban abortion, just look at his track record, and that of Stephen Harper, saying he would never do those kind of things. They will. They might not do it in a very direct form of introducing a bill that says, “We ban abortion”, but they will do it in other ways. They will do it by taking money and resources away from institutions and agencies that educate and inform women, and by providing resources to those who would like to suppress that right. They will do it through private members' bills and say, “Oh, this is just a private members' bill; it is up for anybody to vote on. Members can vote their conscience; that is what private members' bills are all about.” That is how they will do it.

For those out there who think that if the Conservative Party of Canada forms government, they will bring in a bill that says, “We ban abortion,” the Conservatives will not do it like that; they will do it in more calculated ways to achieve their end objective without being so transparent. It is extremely important that this issue be taken seriously.

To give more context to the Conservative Party of Canada, the Campaign Life Coalition has three ratings: green, yellow and red. Green means it totally supports the candidate because they believe in the group's values. Yellow means it does not know but thinks the candidate can be influenced. Red means the candidate would never support the group in this endeavour. The Campaign Life Coalition has 40 MPs currently sitting in the House it has deemed green and another 40 MPs it has deemed yellow. That is 80 sitting MPs. The Campaign Life Coalition deems a majority of the Conservative caucus appropriate to represent its views.

Nobody should be fooled by the false narrative of the Leader of the Opposition. The Conservatives will prohibit and restrict a woman's right to choose. They will not do it in a very transparent and obvious way, like introducing a bill, but they will certainly do it in other ways. We need to stand up to protect the work that my mother's generation did. We also need to stand up for future generations, for my daughter and her generation, so they can live with the same experiences my wife benefited from that came from those who did the work in the 1970s and 1980s.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, one of the deep fears I have is that there is a creeping attack on women's rights in Canada and around the world. We know that, under Stephen Harper, the Conservative Party cut all supports for reproductive health care with regard to Global Affairs Canada and international affairs.

The member spoke about some of the members of Parliament who are named as being supportive of attacks on women's health care, but I have to point out that there are members on his bench who are also named. The member for Winnipeg North and the member for Scarborough—Guildwood have also been added to that list. Therefore, we have to be aware that there are people within the government and the opposition who do not fundamentally believe women have a right to health care. That should be a concern for every one of us in the House.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a concern of mine and I will use every opportunity to talk to any member of the House, regardless of political party, about why they should support a woman's right to choose.

I will remind the member that our Prime Minister, who was a leader at the time in 2014, made it very clear that if a person wanted to sit in the Liberal Party, they must vote in favour of legislation that protects a woman's right to choose, full stop.

I also want to say the member was right when she said Conservatives will slowly take away money and resources. That is how they will do it. They are not going to show up here on day one, if they form government, and introduce Bill C-1, which would say they ban a woman's right to choose; they are going to show up here and, one by one, through budget bills and other measures, remove those resources and make it more difficult for a woman to have that right to choose.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Madam Speaker, I want to pick up on the notion of how women's rights are being undermined in slow and insidious ways.

As a nurse, who went to nursing school in the 1970s, I saw the impact of a lack of choice for women far too many times. I also saw it in my work in the community with the most vulnerable.

I wonder if my colleague could speak to the many ways the government is working to enhance women's rights, certainly through the right to choose, but also through programs like $10-a-day child care, pharmacare, the school lunch program and ways we give women the ability to be financially independent and able to make choices within the family. We can really move this conversation out to all of the things we do through housing, access to food and finances, and also the right to choose what we do with our bodies.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, that is what we need to do. As a matter of fact, the government agrees with this report and, in the response to this report, it agrees with a number of the recommendations that came from committee as to how strengthen the supports the member speaks of.

However, I think the member is talking about a broader issue: How do we give women the tools to properly be equals in society. Unfortunately, we see Conservative policies and positions that try to roll that back. She is absolutely right when she talks about $10-a-day child care. We know women are more often the ones who stay at home with children. This is about making sure they have the choice, that if they want to go into the workforce, they are not subject to having to stay at home because they do not have child care.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member talked about Conservatives slowly cutting funding for abortion access, that Conservative creep that would restrict a woman's right to choose.

However, under the Liberal government, we have seen the closure of Clinic 554 in New Brunswick. I went to high school in New Brunswick and remember sitting with a friend as she looked at driving to Montreal, 14 hours away, because she could not get access. I did not think I would be standing here, two decades later, with the same issue coming up for young people in New Brunswick.

Can the member answer for the government's inaction on this?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be honest. I do not know much about this particular clinic and why it closed. Typically, the clinics are under the jurisdiction of the province. I do not know if that is the exact case in this situation.

I will say that it is important, and the member is absolutely right, that nobody should have to drive 14 hours to get the care they are looking for. We need to properly fund those and make sure they are in place.

What I find most surprising about my question and answer period is that there was not a single question from Conservatives.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Madam Speaker, what we are witnessing today is an attempt by the NDP to stop our confidence motion on the NDP leader's words. What we are seeing today is a continuation of the meltdown by NDP members because of our confidence motion that uses the NDP leader's words that purport to stand up for unions and the unions' right to strike.

We actually saw a terrible meltdown last week, as the NDP had to continue to prop up the government. NDP members are clearly frustrated and upset that their sellout leader continues to do this. In fact, they charged a Conservative member's seat—

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member well knows that he is not allowed to use unparliamentary language. This has been ruled on before. I would ask the member to apologize and withdraw.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I am sorry, but I must have missed what the hon. member said, so I will get the information and come back to the House. Again, when hon. members rise, it would be great if they could say what standing order they are rising on.

The hon. member for Dufferin—Caledon.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Madam Speaker, we are continuing to see the meltdown. Now NDP members are melting down to interrupt my speech because they are unhappy with the fact that the NDP leader continues to prop up a corrupt Liberal government.

There was a time when they had an NDP leader who stood up against corruption. Former NDP leader Jack Layton brought down a corrupt Liberal government as a result of the corruption in which its members were engaging. Unfortunately, what we see now is an NDP party that supports the continued ongoing corruption, such as the corruption in the green slush fund. We have now seen corruption in the CEBA business loans. Very obviously, some members are—

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point or order. What we are debating today is women's access to reproductive rights. To this point I do not see the relevance in the speech of the member.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Again, I would ask members to quote the Standing Orders. There is some latitude given to members during their speeches, and I am sure the hon. member will be relating the relevance of what he is saying. I want to ensure members know that their speeches are supposed to be on the matter before the House.

The hon. member for Victoria.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, on the first point of order I raised, Standing Order 18 talks about disrespectful or offensive language. The member said “sellout”—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Hon. members, I am the Chair, and I will listen to what the hon. member is saying. She has quoted her Standing Order. If she wants to add additional information to that point of order, I will hear it. As I indicated, we are checking right now to see what was said. Obviously, it has caused a disturbance, and I would ask members to not use certain language that they know will cause a disturbance. That way, the House can run smoothly.

The hon. member for Victoria.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, I wanted to ensure to that members know that on disrespectful or offensive language, Standing Order 18 states “No member shall speak disrespectfully” of members in the House.