Debates of Dec. 9th, 2024

Access to Parliamentary Precinct

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I wish to very briefly add to the submissions made by my colleague, the member for Thornhill, on the question of privilege she raised last Friday.

I wish to add that the member for Edmonton Griesbach was among the NDP MPs who participated in the anti-Israel demonstration. My staff observed the member among the protesters as they blocked the driveway in front of the Confederation Building.

The House resumed from December 6 consideration of the motion, of the amendment as amended and of the amendment to the amendment.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, before I start, I would like to wish everyone a merry Christmas.

Today, we will talk about the SDTC and some of the actions that happened. It can be a bit technical, but in essence it is a horrendous but fairly simple scandal. It is involves the formation of an organization, a company on the behest of the government, and it had a laudable objective.

We are suffering through a productivity crisis. Our productivity is among the lowest of advanced economies. We would rank at the bottom probably in the G7 and as one of the lower performers in the OECD. Productivity sounds like working hard and all those good things, but that is not substantially what productivity gets a lift by. We can work as hard as we want, but if we do not have the appropriate innovation and technology, we simply will not get ahead as a company or, in this case, as a country.

This example is obviously an exaggeration but does well to show an example. If we are tasked with digging a hole, perhaps a foundation for a house or a building, and if our only technology is a shovel, we will be there for a long time. Even if we have the best workers in the world, we will not be able to compete with someone who has an excavator. Unfortunately, this is too often the case, granted that is exaggerated.

Our machinery, our systems, our technology are often five, or 10 or 15 years behind most of our competition. One of the most significant competitors is right across the border, in the United States of America. Its equipment will often be five to 10 years, on average, younger than ours. If we have an older car, as I do, it does not operate as efficiently or as effectively as a brand-new car, or if it is an older refrigerator, it does not operate as well as a brand-new one. Since we are using older machinery and equipment, we are falling further and further behind.

This brings me to the SDTC, which its laudable objective was to help cure this problem by stimulating the economy, by improving productivity through investments by the government, investments in the economy and in innovation particularly. The idea was that if we innovated, if we came up with some absolutely amazing ideas that we could grow into machinery, we could increase productivity. Productivity, when it is increased, affects nearly all of us. A rising tide lifts all boats.

The idea was to make some investments into these important innovations and technologies to help the Canadian economy and all Canadians. It is a laudable objective. In fact, past governments have even participated and agreed with this. There is some debate on whether a government can do this effectively or not. In this case, we really did not get the opportunity to see whether it could be effective or not. That was because instead of making those investments into equipment, technology and innovation that would help our economy, unfortunately, Liberal cronyism and corruption got the best of this organization.

What happened was the government, with taxpayer dollars, funded $400 million. This is a fiduciary duty. The government was collecting from Canadians from coast to coast, taking that $400 million, putting it into a pot and giving these individuals, the members of the board of the SDTC, the responsibility of finding some of the best innovation to invest in so we can lift the entire standard of living for Canadians from coast to coast.

These people were given a tremendous responsibility, a real fiduciary responsibility. They were giving other people's money to invest on their behalf for the hopeful return of improving the standard of living for all. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth of what happened. We had $400 million, which were basically spent in corruption and given to Liberal insiders instead of actually helping innovation.

There are a number of different facets, including over $50 million given to ineligible contracts. This is just saying that what we are going to do is design a framework to give this $400 million away and in that framework, we are hopefully going to capture and design it well enough so that we are going to get those great companies, those great individuals who have those ideas that can help the productivity issue. They did come up with that framework. Then they decided to take $50 million and not put it within that framework, making it totally ineligible.

The most troubling part of this is that, of that $400 million, tens of millions of dollars were given away in conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest can sound a bit fancy, but what does that all mean?

Let us go back to that pot of money that was been gathered from coast to coast through income tax, sales tax and through the carbon tax. All of this money was taken, put into this pot and SDTC was given the responsibility to administrate and to award these monies. We have this $400 million and then we have this group of people who have to decide where that money goes. Unfortunately, tens of millions of dollars of that went to people who were supposed to objectively decide where that money would go.

In some cases, this is how it would work. There would be an application and then that application would come before these individuals who would be the arbiters of where that money would go. What would happen? One board of directors or one of the members would say that they had a conflict of interest. That is company A. Therefore, that individual would walk out of the room, all the while knowing that they would hear from an individual who had ownership or who had an interest in company B, which was next in line with an application.

We have an interest in company B and we are looking at the grant for company A, knowing full well that in the next half an hour, they are going to decide whether we get the money. The idea that this would not bias someone is just this side of absurd. Hundreds of millions of dollars have gone out the door.

It is important to note, and this is the part that is really under-reported and really not expressed enough, that this money does not come from the Prime Minister's trust fund. That money does not emerge from ether. The is pulled from the hands of hard-working Canadians. It is taken from a single mom. In fact, a single mom earning $40,000 or $50,000 can face a marginal effective tax rate as high as 40%, 50%, even 60%. With the clawbacks and with income tax, that is absolutely what they pay. We can look it up at the Fraser Institute or we can look at C.D. Howe, which has written numerous papers on it. I trust the members to look at this and review it, because that is the reality of it. This money that is being taken from hard-working Canadians is then funnelled, in buckets full, to Liberal insiders.

I want to give one example of where that $400 million could have been spent and where that $400 million could have done, in my estimation, a great deal of good. I have the privilege of being the shadow minister for transportation. In the last couple of transportation committee meetings, we have been discussing and studying the “big dock”. Not many of us will know what the “big dock” is and that is fine. The “big dock” is located in Fort Chipewyan in northern Alberta.

There are two first nations groups and also Métis people that utilize the “big dock”, in addition to a rural municipality. The “big dock” is the centre of activity. It is where children learn to swim. It is often the time where children might throw in their first line to catch that fish. I can remember my son actually catching his first fish. It is such an exciting moment. This is the centre of community. Also, the only way people can get in and out of the community during the summer is through this big dock or wharf. At the transport committee, we learned that this dock and the vicinity was contaminated and that Transport Canada knew about this since 1997.

Most recently, a report in 2017 said there were hydrocarbons, arsenic, and other heavy metals and contaminants that I certainly would not want my children, or anyone's children, to swim or play in. There are even older reports that show there is perhaps radiation surrounding this dock. Transport Canada knew about this.

In the 2017 report, which there was an obligation under the environmental assessment to disclose, the government said it was looking at divesting this. It sent two out of the three indigenous groups this in a package of due diligence. It was a huge package. Those who have practised law know what due diligence can look like. It can be tens of thousands of documents at a time.

The Liberals, through Transport Canada, said it was good enough because they disclosed it. They did not disclose it. They kept it a secret. Since 2017, they knew it was contaminated. Worse, they had to be dragged kicking and screaming. We actually found out about it because the chiefs at the time realized the dock was actually getting covered as the water levels were declining, because sediment was building up around the dock. They needed to dredge it. It was not purely for recreation; as I said, it is the only way out of the community.

When the wildfires struck the area, the communities had difficulty evacuating. They asked in 2023 and again in 2024 to have the area dredged. Transport Canada was reluctant. The communities did not know why, but they knew that if another wildfire hit, the people may not be able to get out. They might literally burn to death. They said, “We are going to do it, whether you want it or not.” What was the response from Transport Canada? “You will be put in jail. If you go ahead and dredge this, you will go to jail.”

The communities were then left in the terrible position of letting their people down by not dredging it, meaning the next wildfire could very well be the end of their people, or they could go to jail. They actually took what I thought was a brilliant course of action. They hired their own toxicologist. They wanted to find out what was going on. They found out a couple of things: first, it was contaminated; second, after the contamination was discovered, the government did not bother to study it for the effect on human health.

The Liberal government, through its agency Transport Canada, knew it was contaminated. The next logical step from a professional toxicologist was to look at the effect of that contamination on human health. Instead of doing that to find out if it would have an impact and what that impact would be, the communities decided to keep this as a commercial port, even though anyone who has been to the big dock would easily say it is much more than an area, a barge dock, where we ship off supplies.

The big dock is a community hub. This is where children swim and fish. The Liberals chose to turn a blind eye to this. That is what they did. It was not until the indigenous people chose to hire their own toxicologist that they found out about the contamination. Here we are now, still dragging the Liberals kicking and streaming. The communities asked for $25 million, which is a fair amount of money. Goodness sakes, for folks in my community, $25 million sounds like a lot of money. However, the government spent $400 million to achieve nothing but padding the pockets of Liberal insiders, and for less than 10% of that investment, we could have cleaned up and remediated the entire area around the big dock.

The government could have built a brand new dock so there was an area for children to swim and fish in and enjoy again, an area where the first peoples, the Chipewyan nation, could evacuate effectively. It could have done that for less than 10% of what it wasted padding the pockets of Liberal insiders.

I have been trying to speak to this in a way I hope most folks can understand when we hear the number $400 million. With the billions the government has spent, we do not know what the deficit is because it will not even tell us. Its public accounts are due by September at the very latest. We are now in December. We still do not know effectively what the deficit is. We will hear criticisms, mostly from that side of the aisle and the folks on the other side of the aisle who support them, that sometimes we ask questions that are too aggressive or even seem petty. However, I have heard the Leader of the Opposition ask this completely substantial and reasonable question: What is the deficit? What type of government does not respond to that type of question six months after it is supposed to have published it?

Do members know what would happen in a private business if a CEO refused to tell people what its losses, revenue and costs were for this long a time? I can tell them exactly what would happen. They would be fired and would go to jail. There is a duty on all of us, as it is not the government's money it is administering or negotiating; it is not the Prime Minister's money. It is that of the people of Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Orono, Cramahe and Brighton, who work day in and day out for it. These are dollars they were hoping to utilize for their children's education. For many of them, their children's education is so far off that they just want to make sure their kids can eat at the end of the week.

Instead of that money going where it can best be spent by the people who earned it, it is sent here, to the ivory white towers, where these folks will tell them they know better. The Liberals will make sure those people do not just spend their money on beer and popcorn; rather, they will take that money and invest it for them because they know better. Well, we have clearly seen that they do not and that the money belongs in the hands of the hard-working people who earned it. It belongs in the hands of our indigenous communities. It belongs in the hands of our farmers, business owners and job creators, because they earned it, they value it and they know where best to spend it.

The next time members hear some story about this great Liberal program that is going to come out and revolutionize the world, I want them to think about the single mother who is putting water in the milk to make sure her child has enough to get through the end of the week. Is it worth taking another $20 or $30 from her for this great imaginary program that will never do anything but build bureaucracy?

We need to return to being the freest country in the world. We need to return to being a country where everyone has opportunities, where it does not matter who they are or where they came from, but how hard they work, what they want to accomplish and who they want to be.

It has been a privilege to rise.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I find it quite interesting to hear my colleague across the way make all these comments this morning. We both sit on the transport committee and he did a great job playing with the facts. He said we have turned a blind eye, but I would like to remind him that when the Conservatives, under Stephen Harper, found out about this contamination, they not only turned a blind eye but completely shut off their ears because they did not want to know anything about it. Moreover, they were ready to sell it.

Can the member explain why there was inaction in those years and why the Conservative government was trying to get rid of this problem and sell it off?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is an epidemic on this side of the aisle. It is called “whataboutism”. The Liberals refuse to accept accountability or responsibility for anything. Quite frankly, I do not care if the contamination can be traced back to John A. Macdonald. The fact is, over the last nine years, the government knew about it and did nothing.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

The hon. member for Alfred-Pellan already had an opportunity to speak. If he wishes to have the floor again, he can rise to be recognized by the Chair.

The hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the measure that the Conservatives put forward this morning is fairly interesting.

However, does my colleague not think that it is incomplete and that there are other more worthwhile measures that could be put in place, for example, a regular, ongoing investment by the federal government in social and affordable housing, since it is urgent that we reduce the imbalance between supply and demand on the market?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is not exactly what my speech was on, but I am happy to answer the question. The reality is that we have a supply and demand issue. The government benches have one solution: building bureaucracy. We have another solution: building houses. According to experts, the leader's plan of just removing the GST would create over 30,000 home builds. The more homes we build, the less houses cost and the more chances we have for folks to walk across that threshold and enjoy the dream of home ownership.

[Leila Dance, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I attended the transport committee with the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South. During the meeting that he spoke about regarding the big dock, the director for the contaminated sites division from the Government of Canada informed the committee that there is a list of 24,000 contaminated sites across this country, with only 238 being monitored by the government. Will the member promise that, if he becomes part of the government, he will commit to cleaning up these sites and managing all new sites in a fast and effective way?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to serve with the hon. member. That was actually in response to my question with respect to the contaminated sites. There are 24,000 of them, and $400 million would not have cleaned up those 24,000 sites, but it sure as hell would have been a lot more effective than the $400 million that was spent to pad Liberal insiders' pockets.

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

Mr. Speaker, while Conservatives are focused on axing the tax, building the homes, fixing the budget and stopping the crime, Liberals are trying to distract with their temporary tax trick. The member has a background of immense experience in supporting small business owners and understanding legal technicalities that impact businesses. One thing we have been hearing about is the administrative and compliance costs associated with how the government is going to be switching the rules around GST back and forth; this is going to create an immense burden for small business owners. Rather than our proposal for eliminating the carbon tax everywhere and for good, which is clear and simple, what the Liberals are doing imposes a major burden on small business owners. Would the member share a bit about that?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am just going to spend a little time quickly talking about efficiency and how an economy works. We can think of capitalism as the allocation of resources based on consumer demands; what consumers want, they will get through a system of purchases and otherwise. The more efficient that is, the more those goods get out effectively and the wealthier everyone is. Every time the government puts in a regulation, it makes the system less efficient. Some of the regulations the government puts in are needed, so members should not take me the wrong way. This means that there will be more money going to Ottawa and less money going to Canadians. Particularly where the regulations create temporary, short-term distortions, they can actually do a lot of permanent harm to the economy. This is because they disrupt the efficiency of the economy, and the buy-and-sell signals that exist in a capitalist economy are distorted. I would love to believe that this had a good intention, but I can almost guarantee that the outcome will be negative for most Canadians.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Rural Economic Development and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is a hard-working MP, and I appreciate that. However, I have to be honest. I am surprised that the Conservatives decided to talk about housing today, especially when their leader has clearly indicated that he intends to cut the accelerator program, as well as the housing infrastructure program. The accelerator program is going to build over 750,000 homes in the next decade. That is quite impressive.

Canadians can see what is happening. There is a trend. The Conservatives are now voting against many great programs, including the school food program, the child care program, the dental program and the pharmacare program. Canadians know where the Conservatives would make their cuts.

Is the member one of the MPs who has the gag order or has been silenced regarding speaking about all the good things the accelerator program has brought and will bring to Canadians?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I actually had the opportunity to ask the Minister of Housing about houses. This is a question I put to him. I was in a committee, the Minister of Housing was right there in front of me, and I asked him how many houses the accelerator would build. He said none, that it would not build any houses. We can hear the tape. In fact, if anyone has seen our commercials, they probably have seen it, but the reality is it does not build any houses. It builds bureaucracy, as opposed to our housing plan, which is the removal of GST; the Liberals' own housing expert says that it will build over 30,000 homes. We can decide between zero and 30,000.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizens' Services]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague and friend for his speech. I serve with him on the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

I also want to thank him for his introductory course on how we can build a Canadian economy that revolves around small businesses. I like how he said that his selection criteria were based on permanent or long-term measures, rather than on measures that are not good and that last only for two months, like the GST holiday. Why, then, did my opposition colleague vote against permanent measures like the Canada child benefit, the school food program and housing measures?

These are long-term decisions. Why did my colleague vote against them?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives have a very different view and vision. The Liberals want to build bureaucracy. We want to axe the tax, fix the budget, build the homes and stop the crime. We look forward to that, and I believe fundamentally that a dollar in the pocket of a Canadian goes a hell of a lot farther than a dollar in the pocket of a bureaucrat.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member has talked specifically about this program that we are debating today, SDTC, and about how it actually functioned for about 20 years with no issues. It is only in the last few years that some insider appointments by the current Liberal government have created this problem. Could he just elaborate on the damage the government has done to this program?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the corruption and rot of the government have destroyed many institutions, including SDTC.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to be changing the channel on the Conservative speeches that the House has been stuck with for the last two months.

For the benefit of my constituents in the great riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, I will note that the House of Commons has been held up since the end of September because of an ongoing argument over a House order to produce documents from Sustainable Development Technology Canada. That order was made by the House back in June; of course, because the government has not complied with it, we are faced with a motion of privilege. Basically, a privilege motion is brought forward by any member who feels that their personal rights as an MP of the House or the rights of the House as a collectivity have been breached. In this case, it was brought forward by the Conservatives.

The original motion that we are dealing with is very simple, and I will read it out for the record: “That the government's failure of fully providing documents, as ordered by the House on June 10, 2024, be hereby referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs”. The Conservatives, throughout the last couple of months, have been putting forward different variations of amendments and subamendments, but I will just stick to debate on the motion because I think that is an order with language that people can clearly understand.

On the face of it, it seems simple enough. The unfortunate thing is that neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have found a way out of the mess that we are currently in. However, because both of these parties have abdicated their responsibility and are basically stuck in a playground fight with one another, all business of the House of Commons has come to a complete standstill. That is a problem. It costs a lot of money to run this place each and every day. We not only have the sitting members of Parliament, who are collecting their salaries, but we also have an extensive House of Commons administration, which is here to make sure that this place runs as smoothly as possible. I think Canadians would be quite full of regret if they were to see how their taxpayer dollars are being wasted in this frivolous debate, which has been going on for over two months now.

We have incredibly important bills and business of the House that could have been discussed, but instead, day after day, we are just treated to a litany of Conservative MPs, who keep on talking about the same old thing. However, I will say this for the record: I firmly believe that the House absolutely has a constitutionally protected right to send for persons and papers. The House can make an order, which is an important function of Parliament, to send for papers, and those papers could be documents of any kind, physical copies or electronic copies, but really the only limits are that they need to exist and they need to be within Canada. This is an unfettered right; it has been upheld again and again by the parliamentary counsel in rulings. Not only you, Mr. Speaker, but also previous occupants of the chair have reaffirmed that this right exists. Therefore, from the outset, I want to state clearly that I agree with the main thrust of what we are trying to achieve here, which is that the House wants to see all of those documents in their unredacted form.

However, we are at an obvious impasse. The government is unwilling to budge, and the Conservatives are unwilling to stand down. As a result, we are not going anywhere in the House, and important issues in foreign affairs, economic policy, health policy and all the things that Canadians elected us as MPs to come here and deliberate about on their behalf are not getting dealt with. In fact, the only recourse we have as members of Parliament right now is to bring up the occasional concurrence debate on a committee report that has already been tabled. It is not much of a debate because, of course, those committees have already agreed to those reports by majority vote, and they have been duly tabled. Therefore, we are left with the only option of spending three hours here and three hours there debating a report that has already been deliberated in thoroughness at its respective committee.

However, because that is the only avenue we have available to us, that is the only way that we have been able to bring forward important subjects on foreign affairs, on health, on economic policy and, again, on what Canadians are expecting us to do. As we are at an impasse, we have to look at this and try to be the adults in the room.

I will remind people that the Conservatives are filibustering their own motion right now. The motion they have brought forward is to bring this matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. That is a very important committee. That committee not only determines the membership of other standing committees, but it deals with all of these really important issues. If the House is at an impasse, it falls to that committee to deliberate and find a way forward. If we were to arrive at a space where we could send this motion, again, a Conservative motion that they brought forward and are filibustering, if we could find some way to bring this to the procedure and House affairs committee, so that that committee could deliberate on the way forward, then it would allow this House of Commons to get back to the business of debating the issues that matter to Canadians.

Now there are a few things I want to raise, because I have listened to Conservative speech after Conservative speech on this matter and it is unclear exactly what details they are looking for. On one hand, there are major problems with how this funding was allocated. The Auditor General observed that and the committee in its investigation observed that there were obviously major problems. Were they criminal? That is not for me to say. Obviously, there was some gross mishandling of taxpayer dollars and people absolutely need to be held accountable for that, but it is not up to us to determine whether this is a criminal matter. That falls on the independence of the RCMP and also our criminal prosecution services. They are the only ones who can decide whether this proceeds in a criminal way.

There have been some arguments back and forth on whether the House of Commons is within its rights to hand these documents over to the RCMP or whether that would constitute interference in an independent investigation. Again, this is not a question that I am best equipped to answer, nor the House as a collective body. I have repeatedly asked Conservative MPs after their speeches, because there is this uncertainty about what role the RCMP should play in this, if it would not be best to refer this to the PROC committee, call the commissioner of the RCMP forward as a witness and get best guidance from the top RCMP official in the land. I take this very seriously because at two standing committees I serve on, public safety and justice, I can say that I have dealt with this subject matter quite a bit. I have a lot of respect for the work that our police do.

Again, in an effort to find a reasonable and adult way forward, could we not just break this impasse to find a way for the RCMP to appear at that committee to find a way forward? If the procedure and House affairs committee recommends a path forward, then if the House is still not satisfied, we can again continue this privilege debate. However, I think it is sincerely unfair that debating this now very frivolous motion has held up the business of the House for more than two months. I lay the blame equally on both the Conservatives and the Liberals. They have obviously been unable to find a way forward.

What I would say is that a lot of the Conservatives' speeches these days seem to have to fit several criteria, as set out by their leader: They have to be full of hyperbole, they have to fit on a bumper sticker and often they have to rhyme. I think we are lowering the quality of the debate that could be had in this place. I do not think this House as a whole is rising up to the expectations that Canadians have at this moment.

Over the last two and a half months, all I have been witness to, from both the Liberals and the Conservatives, has been Liberal and Conservative members pointing to each other saying they are not as bad as the other when they were in government. To borrow from Tommy Douglas's fable on Mouseland, it is like the mice are being asked to choose between the blue cats and the red cats. At the end of the day, they are all cats and they are all bad for mice. We are not in a good situation.

We are in a cost of living crisis right now. I would much rather spend my time in this House talking about how, over the last 40 years of Conservative and Liberal governments, we have developed a culture in Ottawa that is full of corporate deference. We have seen our corporate tax rates slashed to one of the lowest in the G7. We have seen policies enacted by both Liberals and Conservatives that have allowed mergers and acquisitions to result in the concentrated corporate power we see in so many of our sectors right now, whether it is telecommunications, grocery retail, or even oil and gas.

We keep hearing arguments from the Liberals saying that they have done so much, and that we should look at what they have done and that ask why Canadians are not happy with what they have done. They are obviously missing the mark. They are out of tune. They are led by someone I once described as radioactive. I hope the Liberals understand that they are not going anywhere with the current Prime Minister as their leader.

However, the Conservatives are not doing any better because those bumper sticker slogans full of hyperbole and rhyming are just cheapening the debate. I do not see a very real offer coming from them, especially when their leader is fighting against a system in which he has been a member of Parliament for quite some time now. He was first elected in this place in 2004. I am the same age as the leader of the Conservatives, so when he was first elected, he was 25 years old. At that time, I was out in the wilds of British Columbia, breaking my back as a tree planter. For him to fight against the system that he is so clearly a part of and offer himself as something new is a complete and total joke.

Let us face it. He gets his politics from the time he was Stephen Harper's favourite attack dog. I can say that it was people like him who inspired me to run in this place. I remember when I first saw the Leader of the Opposition on TV and could not believe someone could be elected who was so arrogant, so full of spite and just downright nasty. It is quite obvious from the antics he displays here now that he has not changed his ways. I will always be inspired to run against that kind of politics and against the politics of the Liberals, who believe they are God's gift to Canada and wonder why everyone cannot just be happy with the incredible work they are doing. The Liberals have let people down. They are not doing enough. The Conservatives are going to bring in the exact same types of policies the Harper government was tossed out of office for in 2015, and that is a fact.

The other thing is that the Conservatives stand here and talk about affordability issues when we know the leader of the Conservative Party has already started his fundraising circuit and is going to be frequented by the exact corporate executives who are jacking up prices everywhere and taking Canadians' hard-earned money. Many Canadians would agree with me that billionaires do not need more relief, the working class does, and yet, because of the corporate deference policies that we have seen from these two parties over 40 years, we are at the natural result of those policies. They are, number one, many corporate sectors have seen record profits and, number two, those record profits are happening at a time when Canadians are suffering.

It is not a hard stretch of the imagination to link the fact that in 2023, the corporate grocery retail, five companies that control 80% of the market combined, saw profits of over $6 billion. At the same time, we have a record number of Canadians having to visit food banks. The math is simple. I would agree with my friends that I would rather see the dollars in the pockets of my constituents, but it is not the government removing those dollars, it is corporate profits. More and more of Canadians' net incomes are being spent on the essentials of life: heating, fuel, transportation, housing and food. That is not the government's fault, it is the fault of corporations that have been unfairly jacking up prices. They are acting like a vacuum cleaner, sucking up the hard-earned net dollars of my constituents to pad CEO bonuses, stock buybacks and dividend payouts.

It is a system that needs to be changed. It needs a wholesale cleanup, and we cannot trust the two parties that have built this system. It is not New Democrats, the Green Party or the Bloc Québécois. It is Liberal and Conservative federal governments trading places. Canadians need to realize these two parties, at their core, are but two sides of the same coin. They may quibble over the big partisan talking points of the day, but these two parties are two different sides of the same coin. They fundamentally believe in that neo-liberal economic policy, which over the last 40 years, especially since the greed of the 1980s, has led to deregulation, mergers, acquisitions and unrivalled corporate power that has put Canadians in the economic situation they are in today.

I want to talk briefly about some of the other things that have been held up. I will be personal here. I have a private member's bill, Bill C-277, which was voted on unanimously by the House of Commons at second reading in May. It sailed through the Standing Committee on Health, with some minor amendments, but again, it was unanimously adopted by the Standing Committee on Health and reported back to the House. It is being held up by this filibuster.

There are even good Conservative bills that are being held up by this filibuster, some of the Conservatives' own legislation. There are some good bills from the government that, in those rare occurrences, we can find all-party agreement on, but we are again in a situation now where these are being held up.

Going back to my particular bill, the brain injury community has been without hope for a long time. Bill C-277, is designed to set up a national strategy on brain injuries. I have received compliments from Conservative and Liberal MPs across the political spectrum. They have told me that this is a good bill and this is what is needed. The brain injury community's hopes are being dashed right now because of this filibuster.

Just last week, because of the support this bill has, I sought unanimous consent to see it reported, go through report stage, through third reading and be sent off to the Senate. This was denied by the Conservatives. I have been trying to find ways we can get good legislation through this impasse, but we are at a stage right now, this last week of sitting, where the partisan emotions are so high that we are unable to see past each other's talking points, especially the Liberals and the Conservatives, to find a way to let good legislation go through. This is not only a shame on us as an institution, but it is a shame for Canadians.

With the new incoming Trump administration, the way Canadians are falling behind in the cost of living crisis and what we are going to do with the future of our foreign policy, it is a dangerous world out there. It is not good for Canadians within our borders. We are stuck in this stasis field of continuous filibustering, and the House is not living up to the expectations of Canadians. I urge my fellow parliamentarians to reach for the spirit of Christmas, if they need to, but we need to find a way to break this impasse. We need to find a way to live up to the expectations of our constituents.

I will conclude with the following. I fully agree with the unfettered right of the House of Commons to send for papers. The Liberals have some explaining to do. They need to answer why they are not releasing all of those documents and why some of those documents were redacted. However, I am not going to absolve the Conservatives of responsibility on this either. They are the ones who are putting up speaker after speaker. They are the ones who are preventing us from voting on their motion—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

On a point of order, the hon. member for Hamilton Centre.

Access to Parliamentary Precinct

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to provide additional information to you, as Speaker, on the deliberate matter of privilege that was raised on Friday morning by the Conservative deputy leader, the member for Thornhill.

As the Conservative deputy whip said at the time, “a personal first-hand account is very much part of the information that the Speaker must hear.” Given that I was named by the member for Thornhill, it is only right that I be given the opportunity to respond. The member for Thornhill made a number of wildly misleading accusations of increasing seriousness and severity. She began by saying that the protesters at the Confederation Building lobby on Tuesday morning were organized and supported by me. The accusations grew into talk about NDP-organized protesters.

Her colleague, the member for South Shore—St. Margarets, spoke of NDP complicity and said that the “illegal protest” was assisted by me. In the member for Thornhill's intervention, she stated, in her third paragraph, “The demonstration started around 8:45 a.m. The protesters said they would allow MPs with offices in the building to pass through the crowd”.

I think it important to provide my own account, given that, on personal attacks being made or members' motives being maligned, the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, chapter 13, states:

Remarks which question a Member’s integrity, honesty or character are not in order....

The proceedings of the House are based on a long-standing tradition of respect for the integrity of all Members. Thus, the use of offensive, provocative or threatening language in the House is strictly forbidden. Personal attacks [or] insults...are not in order.

I should share with you that, like all members on the Hill, at 8:45 a.m., I received a situation advisory update on my cellphone, which is customary. That identified a peaceful sit-in at the Confederation Building. That day, in fact, that entire week, we had our constituency assistants from across the country here in Ottawa for training. That is why my staff were with me on that particular day.

A press conference will bear out that I had the role of introducing our Speaker at a press conference shortly after this advisory was sent. At 8:45 a.m., while attending to my responsibilities at the Wellington Building, I did come across an action that was happening, with people in front of the Confederation Building who were demanding for an arms embargo and an end to the Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Mr. Speaker, you may know this, and some members may know this, but I would doubt that many Conservatives would know this. As was witnessed last week, the leader of the Conservative Party called a picket line a rally for striking workers. As Canada's only labour party, we have a long-held tradition of not crossing picket lines. We view this action in the lobby of Confederation to be very much in keeping with a picket line.

While the member for Thornhill was correct that this was an action of maybe a hundred, and the member said that it was perhaps 130, people, led by many Jews against genocide, to suggest that this was somehow an NDP-organized action does not just denigrate the spirit of our parliamentary privileges but also takes away the agency of the tens of thousands of progressive Jews against genocide, and the agency of those who took it upon themselves, as referenced by the member for Thornhill, to be present in the lobby. They would allow people to pass, provided that they heard the message.

I rise on this question of privilege because the hypocrisy coming out of the Conservative caucus would be laughable if it were not so offensive. The actions here between January 22 and February 23, 2022, known as the convoy, shut down this entire precinct's operations, not for 45 minutes, as this action did, but for an entire month.

As is tradition with New Democrats attending picket lines, I went inside the Confederation Building. I stood in the corridor of the doorway so as to not cross what I considered an action demanding MPs to hear the voices of the 100-plus progressive Jews against genocide. I would like to report to the House what I did hear. I heard a call for a motion passed sometime back in March on an opposition day for a full embargo, calls for an end to the genocide and a beautiful expression of Judaism with the blowing of the shofar, the recitation of the Torah and the singing of songs in the Jewish tradition that go back to time immemorial in solidarity with basic notions of justice and peace.

Evidence will show that, through a video that was posted, when I arrived, I was confronted by a PPS officer at the door. I immediately identified myself as a member of Parliament. Despite the wildly inaccurate accusations by the member for Thornhill, I actually stated in that video exchange, which you can certainly take into your consideration, that I was there to bear witness. I was there to observe what was happening with those citizens, Jewish people of conscience who want to end the genocide and are calling for the arms embargo. I also witnessed a highly organized liaison process between PPS and the organizers. PPS, I think, given the sheer number of people, accorded itself in a very professional way to negotiate the protesters' peaceful removal and retreat from the Confederation Building, which did happen and was also recorded on video. Their own organizers said that they were slowly going to leave and that they were going to retreat.

It should be noted that, in comparison, if this is what we are doing here today, photos from the convoy include the former Speaker, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle; the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster; the member for Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan; and the member for Saskatoon—Grasswood. In fact, the leader of the official opposition was in a photo with the member for Miramichi—Grand Lake and convoy supporters. This week, we will finally be tabling the final report on the Emergencies Act review, but it was the OPP that compiled a report on February 6, 2022, more than a week after the Conservative-supported convoy demonstrators first arrived in the national capital region, that became evidence to the public inquiry on the Emergencies Act.

The vexatious comments made by the member for Thornhill are trying to impugn the NDP for standing up and bearing witness to what was otherwise a very brief and beautiful act of what, perhaps, could be called civil disobedience there in the lobby, which will be borne out by whatever processes take place. However, a very quickly negotiated retreat happened well before most people would be coming and going from the building. I can say that I quite readily watched PPS escort many MPs in and out of that particular building.

As we can see, the accusations that we somehow organized this protest to intentionally disrupt or obstruct Conservative members from participating in Parliament are completely fabricated and misleading.

However, the Conservatives did not stop there. They could not help themselves from linking this protest to “mobs [that] target Jewish neighbourhoods, firebomb Jewish schools, obstruct synagogues and wreak havoc”. This is a shameful way to characterize Jewish people of this country in their civil disobedience to genocide. To characterize Jewish people in this way, in my estimation, is a form of anti-Semitism, and it is a disgusting allegation to make. To liken a group of Jewish protesters to anti-Semitic mobs is beneath contempt. Linking members of Parliament, by extension, to such disgusting acts itself can be considered a form of a prime facie breach of our privilege.

Those are my remarks. I am glad that I had an opportunity to finally put that on the record and clear the air on this particular matter.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I also would like to take a moment to share some of my thoughts on the matter of privilege which was raised on Friday morning by the Conservative Party deputy leader, the member for Thornhill. As the Conservative deputy whip said at the time, “a personal first-hand account is very much part of the information that the Speaker must [have]” to make a decision on the matter, and I would like the opportunity to be able to respond.

It is up to the Speaker to determine whether the action amounted to a violation of privilege of the individual member. I want to make it very clear that, from my perspective, for my part, I did not experience any violation of my privilege as a member of Parliament. I was able to access my office without problem, using the entrance. I was able to have my scheduled meetings in my office without any interruption, and my staff were also able to access their office.

I will say that the meeting I had that day had nothing to do with what was happening in the foyer. I was able, with my staff, to get to my office. My guest was able to access my office and we were able to have our meeting. Then my guest was actually able to leave as well.

I want to challenge some of what was said by the member for Thornhill and her Conservative colleagues as they made extreme and misleading allegations that impugned me and my colleagues. She suggested that the action was “aided by New Democrat MPs”, that it was “NDP-organized” and that NDP MPs were “part of this protest, in an effort to impede and obstruct the work of fellow parliamentarians”. Frankly, that is just completely false. I had no knowledge of the protest action; I learned about it from the PPS email that was sent to all members.

I did stop to listen to the protesters on my way in and out of the building, which is where my colleagues and I were photographed listening. This is part of our job. I am not from Israel. I am not from Palestine. I am not Jewish. I am not Muslim. I am not Arab. I require the perspectives of other people to inform the decisions I make as a member of Parliament. Frankly, for me, being in the Confederation Building and seeing people standing up against a genocide happening against children was a moment I will remember for a very long time.

It is part of our job to listen. It is part of our job to understand what is being said by Canadians. I understand that the protest action was organized by a coalition called Jews Say No To Genocide. Something that I have noted that none of the Conservatives have raised is that the issue the protesters, many of whom were Jewish Canadian, were speaking out against is a genocide that has been identified as happening in Gaza and in which Canada has complicity, particularly in arms transfers to Israel.

The protesters were saying, “not in our name”. It is well known that New Democrats are deeply upset with the Canadian government's position and Canada's complicity in the genocide. However, whether or not a parliamentarian agrees with the argument, or whether they are uncomfortable or comfortable with the argument, is irrelevant to the question of privilege. For my part, I believe it is important to hear from Canadians, given the tens of thousands of people who have been killed, especially children, with Canadians' tacit support.

This is why I stopped to give a few minutes of my time to the group. However, to suggest that NDP MPs organized or were part of the protest is entirely false. For my part, I saw a peaceful and very short sit-in. I heard singing. I heard a rabbi speaking to the group about peace. I heard peaceful calls for Canada to end its complicity in a genocide. I believe that the protest action was over within an hour.

It was very, very different from some of the protests on Parliament Hill that have lasted for weeks and weeks, the same protests in which white supremacy symbols were shown and the same protests that my racialized staff had to cross to get to my office. However, that does not have to do with the current question of privilege.

The member for Thornhill stated, “It is not only my privilege that is breached, but it is everybody who has an office in the Confederation Building and those who try to access the parliamentary precinct.” I disagree. As I mentioned earlier, I had a meeting in my office in the Confederation Building for an unrelated issue, and I got in and out of the building with great ease, as did my guest and my staff. My parliamentary work was unobstructed.

For my part, PPS staff were helpful in ensuring that my colleagues and I got to work without a problem. I would like to take a moment to thank them for the work they do and for their professionalism.

I do want to give additional information for you to consider, Mr. Speaker, in response to the speeches made by Conservative members on Friday. First, the term “occupation” was used. It was not an occupation by any means; it was a peaceful and very short sit-in. I want to give some new information on the context of the action, as the Conservatives' choice of words is really very misleading.

Peaceful sit-ins are a common feature of peace movements and civil rights movements. From the Woolworth's lunch counter protests during the civil rights era to women's suffrage movements and peace movements, peaceful sit-ins are a standard tactic of non-violent protest.

In July, 400 people with Jewish Voice for Peace held a sit-in in the atrium of the United States Congress to protest the United States' support for the genocide in Gaza. There was a similar sit-in protest last year at the Alberta legislature, without incident, again protesting Canada's complicity in the horror in Gaza. At the legislature in Texas, there have been a number of peaceful sit-ins over recent years on issues ranging from sanctuary cities to human rights. Other provincial and state legislatures have also had sit-in protests on a range of social justice issues. All of these people have been continuing the non-violent tradition of temporarily taking up public space to protest injustice, and Canadians certainly have the right to protest.

The issue, it seems to me, Mr. Speaker, is not the merits of the protest at the Confederation Building and what it is called, but whether it infringed on the individual member's privilege. To this I would say again that the second access to the building was open, and I personally had no challenges or issues whatsoever accessing my office. A protest's making members uncomfortable is not the same as impeding their work.

The member for Battlefords—Lloydminster said she felt unsafe, but feeling unsafe is not the same as being unsafe. What I saw was a peaceful protest with singing, with chanting in Hebrew, and with seniors and young people united together. I do not quite understand how a person could see this group, which included a rabbi and elders, and feel unsafe.

One might feel uncomfortable maybe, because it should make any person question their thinking about a genocide. We should all feel uncomfortable about our country's complicity in the killing and maiming of children in Gaza, but we should not feel unsafe. It is a case where MPs could have taken a minute to listen to protesters' concerns and hear these Canadians out.

Finally, we want to address a comment by the MP for Thornhill that I find especially troubling: “This is also a continuation of the very tactics that we have seen on our streets from unhinged mobs that think that their petty grievances allow them to target Jewish neighbourhoods, firebomb Jewish schools, obstruct synagogues and wreak havoc on our Canadian values, while abiding and abetting groups that are designated as terrorists in this country.”

There is no question that incidents of anti-Semitism have increased in Canada, and this must be condemned by every member of Parliament in the House. Like all Canadians, Jewish Canadians deserve the right to feel safe in their communities, but the protest was led by Jewish Canadians who are advocating for peace, for human rights and for Canada to uphold its obligations under international law. To suggest that these Jewish Canadians are responsible for anti-Semitic attacks is, in my view, deeply offensive. To suggest that the protesters are part of an “unhinged” mob with “petty grievances” is offensive.

The member for Thornhill can disagree with the protesters, but to insult these people who are protesting the killing of children, the maiming of children and the starving of children is wrong. To suggest that these Jewish protesters who called for peace are aiding terrorism is offensive, and I would ask the member to consider withdrawing the comments.

The protest that happened last Tuesday was a peaceful sit-in. As parliamentarians, we have an obligation to listen to Canadians. As parliamentarians and legislators, we should be doing everything we can to amplify their voices. I would like that to be considered as part of the deliberations.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

The hon. for New Westminster—Burnaby is rising. As the Chair has heard very complete points on the issue last week, I am looking for something new and succinct.

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

Actually, Mr. Speaker, I will be rising tomorrow on the question of privilege.

You will recall that on Friday, the Conservatives took over an hour and a half on this question of privilege with false allegations. We want to ensure that we have the time to respond. False allegations were levelled against a number of our members, so we want to set the record straight. There is no doubt that the question of privilege, which I believe is frivolous, requires a more in-depth response.

Unlike the Conservatives, who tried in a very childish way to disrupt the speech of our leader on Friday, our opposition day, I want to assure members that we will allow the full speaking spot for the Conservatives today on their opposition day, a courtesy they did not extend to us. We believe, in Parliament, that one party needs to step up and be adults. The Conservatives clearly did not do that on Friday. They were childish and disruptive, and we intend to respond to the frivolous question of privilege tomorrow.

We thank you for hearing the interventions today.