Debates of April 29th, 2024

Notification of Members Following Foreign Interference

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

Mr. Speaker, as I informed your office earlier this morning, I am rising today on a matter of privilege. I will briefly outline the material facts of the case and then proceed to lay out the procedural elements as to why I believe this is a matter of privilege. I will be as brief as possible.

The member for Scarborough—Guildwood and I serve as co-chairs in an organization called the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, or IPAC. IPAC is an international cross-party group of legislators working together toward reform on how democratic countries approach China, with co-chairs representing a cross-section of the world's major political parties, Republicans and Democrats in the United States, Liberal and Labor in Australia, politicians from the left and right in Europe and diverse political parties across Asia and Africa. I am very proud of the work of this organization.

IPAC involvement is an integral part of what I do as a member of Parliament. I am sure many other IPAC members would say the same. IPAC is an association of legislators. It aims at and it does inform our parliamentary work and collaboration on a day-to-day basis. It is not some extracurricular personal or volunteer engagement; IPAC involvement is very directly part of and is informing my parliamentary service in an ongoing way.

Notably, the very first IPAC event I attended was a briefing on the situation of Uyghurs. That briefing led me to the personal conclusion that Uyghurs were being subject to genocide. At that time, I was a member of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights and following the IPAC briefing, I worked with colleagues to convene that subcommittee for special hearings in the summer of 2020 on the situation of Uyghurs, which ultimately led to the subcommittee's determination and subsequently Parliament's determination that Uyghurs were and are subject to an ongoing genocide. There was a line between information IPAC gathered and shared about Uyghurs and our own groundbreaking determination on the matter.

In early 2022, when informal debates were happening about whether to restart the Special Committee on the Canada-People's Republic of China Relationship, members of the international legislators' network expressed support for the reinstatement of the committee as playing an important role in the global conversation around China policy. The committee was ultimately re-established.

These are two of many examples whereby the work of IPAC informed the work of our Parliament. Additionally, as our party's shadow minister for international development, I would highlight that the sessions I have attended through IPAC and the relationships I have formed with legislators from around the world through IPAC, including in the global south, have shaped my awareness and understanding of a broad range of issues.

Because of its good and effective work, IPAC has, unsurprisingly, become a target for the CCP. In fact, in the Jimmy Lai sham trial in Hong Kong, IPAC's executive director Luke de Pulford and IPAC's Japan director Shiori Kanno have been accused as co-conspirators. Mr. de Pulford recently testified before Canada's Subcommittee on International Human Rights regarding this matter. Because IPAC is creating an effective global coalition of democratic legislators to challenge CCP abuses, it has become a unique target of the CCP, particularly its secretariat but also its legislators.

Five days ago, the member for Scarborough—Guildwood and I were briefed by Mr. de Pulford and other IPAC staff members about a cyber-attack launched against us and 16 other Canadian parliamentarians in 2021. This attack was launched by the group known as APT31, Advanced Persistent Threat 31. It is a known PRC state-backed hacking outfit. This was part of a coordinated attack on IPAC-affiliated legislators throughout the world. IPAC learned about this attack in general through an unsealed indictment released by the U.S. Department of Justice on March 25 of this year. The indictment is also publicly available.

The fact that Canadians were targeted and the names of those targeted has been revealed through subsequent correspondence between IPAC and the U.S. government and covered in this morning's Globe and Mail. This morning's Globe and Mail story covers the matter in detail and lays out the chain of events.

Not all of the Canadian parliamentarians affected have confirmed that their names can be mentioned, and we have committed to not naming members without their agreement. Significant efforts have been made to ensure all are aware. I can confirm that the members affected include myself, the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, the member for Humber River—Black Creek, the member for Calgary Shepard, the member for Calgary Midnapore, the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman and Senator McPhedran from the other place.

This was identified as a progressive reconnaissance attack, an attack aimed at gathering basic but useful information to be used for subsequent escalating attacks against us.

As mentioned, the IPAC Secretariat found out about this attack quite recently through the unsealing of an indictment in the United States. The relevant section of the indictment reads as follows:

In addition to targeting U.S. government and political officials, the Conspirators also targeted other government officials around the world who expressed criticism of the PRC government. For example, in or about 2021, the Conspirators targeted the email accounts of various government individuals from across the world who were part of the InterParliamentary Alliance on China (“IPAC”), a group founded in 2020 on the anniversary of the1989 Tiananmen Square protests whose stated purpose was to counter the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party to the international order and democratic principles. In or about January 2021, the Conspirators registered and used ten Conspirator-created accounts on an identified mass email and mail merge system to send more than 1,000 emails to more than 400 unique accounts of individuals associated with IPAC. Similar to the mailing tools utilized to target U.S. officials and politicians, the mailing tool used in this campaign allowed the Conspirators to track delivery metrics on emails and receive data from victims that opened the emails, including the victims’ IP addresses, browser types, and operating systems.

The IPAC Secretariat contacted the U.S. government to ask why this information had not been shared with IPAC-affiliated legislators earlier. This question is answered in an email sent by Mr. de Pulford to targeted legislators last week. Mr. de Pulford wrote, “The FBI made clear that they were prevented from informing legislators around the world directly by their own rules regarding sovereignty. For this reason, in 2022, when they learned about the attack, the FBI issued Foreign Dissemination Requests (FDRs) to every government with impacted legislators. To our knowledge, only 2 of those governments informed their legislators.” This information has all been confirmed in today's The Globe and Mail.

The FBI has confirmed that Canadian parliamentarians were targeted with a progressive cyber-attack by a foreign government. The FBI informed the Canadian government and information was not shared with Canadian legislators.

As the member for Scarborough—Guildwood and I have already said in a joint statement, it is unacceptable that we were not informed about this. Following another incident where a member of parliament was targeted by the PRC and not informed about it, assurances have been given that members would be informed going forward, but this still appears not to be happening. The government, in fact, issued a directive last May saying that members of Parliament should be informed in such cases, and yet members of Parliament were not informed.

It would have been particularly important for us to be informed because of the progressive nature of the attack. We could have worked with the appropriate authorities to take steps to protect ourselves and ensure the security and functioning of our parliamentary and personal email accounts, but we were not able to because we were not informed. This affected the security of our work as parliamentarians and potentially allowed a foreign entity to have greater awareness of and to seek to counter our efforts.

These are the substantive details of the issue, and now I will proceed to some procedural aspects and precedents.

The House recently dealt with a question of privilege raised by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills regarding threats made against his family by representatives of a foreign government, the same foreign government we are discussing today. These cases are different insofar as this case involves hacking, monitoring and potential disruption as opposed to personal threats. However, both involve cases of parliamentarians, identified based on their parliamentary activities, where a foreign government was seeking to interfere with their parliamentary work and where parliamentarians were not informed.

Based on that, the precedent set by the ruling from your predecessor, Mr. Speaker, on the question from the member for Wellington—Halton Hills clearly applies. When raising this question of privilege regarding foreign interference three days short of a year ago, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills cited House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, at pages 107 to 108, which states:

In order to fulfill their parliamentary duties, Members should be able to go about their parliamentary business undisturbed....Any form of intimidation of a Member with respect to the Member’s actions during a proceeding in Parliament could amount to contempt

In the previous case, the member was not informed of threats being made. The Speaker found that the existence of those threats, which the government knew about all along, constituted a prima facie instance of the breach of his parliamentary privilege, and the House subsequently agreed to put the matter to the procedure and House affairs committee.

In the present case, we know that 18 Canadian parliamentarians were the subject of the first stage of a progressive attack, the full scope or intentions of which remain unknown but which was clearly targeted at critics of a particular foreign government with the goal of impacting their work in some way. The extent to which that work was impacted, through the subsequent disruption of communications or through monitoring of our activities to facilitate the disruption in other areas, remains a relative unknown. However, we do know that our work as parliamentarians was under attack and that once again Canadian authorities responsible for protecting our democracy did not pass critical information along to parliamentarians, information that they had.

Should this matter be considered by a committee, one remedy we may want to consider is having Parliament ask foreign like-minded intelligence agencies to inform Parliament directly of threats against its members. However, for the time being, the appropriate step is a referral to committee for further study.

In the interest of time, I will not cite all of the procedural arguments used by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills or read from the ruling of the Speaker at that time. All that information is clearly accessible and highly relevant.

There is one other much older precedent that I would like to put before the House, where attempted electronic surveillance of Parliament was found to violate parliamentary privilege. The case is from 1973, when the NDP caucus room was bugged, as apparently discovered by Mr. Ed Broadbent and as reported to the House by Mr. David Lewis. The matter was of such urgency that Mr. Lewis was able to rise without having given the proper notice and without even having the relevant privilege motion in readiness. Mr. Lewis informed the House that a CTV employee had bugged, and apparently later admitted to bugging, the NDP caucus room. The planting of bugs was the 1973 version of modern digital hacking and surveillance.

A couple of things are notable about this case and the precedent it set.

First, interestingly, Mr. Lewis considered the intentions of the CTV employee to be fairly benign. He did not see in them an actual attempt to impact the proceedings of caucus or even to report on its deliberations. Apparently, the reporter simply wanted to demonstrate the ease with which a bug could be placed.

However, notwithstanding his general willingness to view the intentions of CTV in a charitable light, Mr. Lewis noted, “Whatever [the intentions], admirable or not, the people responsible for this in the CTV network may have had in mind, I suggest to you, Sir, that it is a violation of everything I can think of in connection with the privileges of parliament.” In this case, the intentions of the bugging were not even considered. The fact that the attempt at bugging had been made was sufficient to justify the quick determination that privilege had been violated.

The second notable feature of this case is that the matter was disposed of in a somewhat irregular way. Mr. Lewis raised the question of privilege without the proper notice and without a motion ready to move. In response, the Speaker immediately told the House, “it is obvious to the Chair that there is a prima facie case of breach of privilege.” The Speaker suggested that the matter be paused until Mr. Lewis could bring the appropriate motion. However, members agreed instead to propose and adopt a quick remedy to the question of privilege right away. A motion was adopted by unanimous consent to order CTV to surrender any tapes acquired through the bugging of the NDP caucus meeting.

In this case, the view of the House was that a simple remedy was appropriate. The case in question was much less complicated than the present case, because in 1973 the person responsible for the bugging had already confessed and the House felt confident that the associated tapes could be easily accessed.

Obviously, in the present case, the discussion of remedy is more complicated and would in my view require the usual process of a committee study.

However, regardless, the Speaker clearly indicated right away, without even needing to reflect on the circumstances, that the bugging of a caucus room, regardless of the intention of the person doing the bugging or the subsequent use of the tapes, constituted a clear prima facie case of breach of privilege. The attack on our email accounts by a foreign actor clearly much more dangerous than CTV demonstrably exceeds in seriousness the matter that a previous Speaker saw as an immediate and obvious breach of privilege. Although we do not have the benefit of a lengthy written ruling read by the Speaker, we have for the record the clear judgment of the Speaker and the subsequent unanimous judgment of the House.

In light of the facts and the precedents, I suppose it is evident that I feel this is a rather clear and obvious matter, and I expect that my colleagues and other parties will generally concur. I am ready at the earliest moment to move the appropriate motion.

Members of the House have had fine and important words to say and I believe, in many cases, to say sincerely about the need to combat foreign interference. The member for Scarborough—Guildwood and I have been able to speak with one voice on this matter. Still, despite the many professions, it seems that there is still a gap in terms of informing and protecting members of Parliament in the exercise of their parliamentary duties, and this is a matter which should be taken up as soon as possible.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

I thank the hon. member from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for raising this very serious matter. I will come back to the member very quickly on this.

The hon. member from Humber River—Black Creek is rising on the same question of privilege.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for using a question of privilege this morning to raise a very important issue.

Many of us are members of the IPAC organization. What has happened here is a breach of our privileges. This goes back to 2022. It is a very serious breach of our privileges. The fact is that we continue to be so naive.

We are the voices of Canadians. Whether we are talking about China, Iran or Russia, we have to be able to speak with the protection that is required and not be concerned about being intimidated or hacked or other things that would happen to us. It is another way of intimidation in a very serious way. I would expect that our government would ensure we have the necessary information to protect ourselves and make sure our systems are protected.

I very much look forward to the motion that my colleague is interested in putting on the floor and whatever actions we can take. We all need to know that we are free to voice our concerns on behalf of our residents and be safe in doing that.

It is very important that we get some answers here as to why we were not notified, what is happening next and how we better protect ourselves in the future.

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

Mr. Speaker, on the same question of privilege, I have been listening very attentively to the interventions by both members and understand the need to proceed to a ruling as quickly as possible, but I would like to reserve the ability to intervene, in very short order, in the course of the next hour or so.

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

Mr. Speaker, as I am sure you and members understand and appreciate, the government takes foreign interference very seriously. I would like to review what has been said this morning, as this is the first I have heard of it, and report back to the Speaker in terms of a position on it.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

I thank all hon. members, especially the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, for bringing this issue to the attention of the Speaker. We will come back forthwith with a determination on this.

Amendments to the Standing Orders

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

moved:

That:

(a) in the opinion of the House,

(i) the ability to propose amendments to the Standing Orders is essential to adapt and improve parliamentary procedures and to the rights of members,

(ii) it is crucial to maintain open and transparent debate on proposed changes to the Standing Orders, free from undue procedural restrictions by the government or a subset of members,

(iii) all Members of the House, not the government nor a subset of members, should be the final authority as to how long proposed changes to the Standing Orders should be considered;

(b) it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to undertake a study on the advisability of amending the Standing Orders as follows:

(i) by adding, after Standing Order 56.1(1)(b), the following new Standing Order:

“56.1(1)(c) For greater certainty, this Standing Order does not apply to proceedings that propose amendments to the Standing Orders.”,

(ii) by adding, after Standing Order 57, the following new standing order:

“57(2) This Standing Order does not apply to proceedings that propose amendments to the Standing Orders. For greater certainty, the question cannot be put on a motion pursuant to Standing Order 57 that would apply to proceedings that propose amendments to the Standing Orders.”,

(iii) by adding, after Standing Order 61, the following new standing order:

“61(3) This Standing Order does not apply to proceedings that propose amendments to the Standing Orders. For greater certainty, the question cannot be put on a motion pursuant to Standing Order 61 that would apply to proceedings that propose amendments to the Standing Orders.”,

(iv) by adding, after Standing Order 66(2)(c), the following new section:

“66(2)(d) Notwithstanding any other standing order, a motion for the concurrence in a report from a standing or special committee wherein the report proposes amendments to the Standing Orders shall:

(i) in the first instance, be considered until no member wishes to speak, upon which the Speaker shall put all questions necessary to dispose of the motion without further debate or amendment, or until debate is adjourned or interrupted, or for three hours, whichever is earlier, upon which time debate on the motion shall be resumed at the ordinary hour of daily adjournment on the day designated pursuant to paragraph (a) of this section, and

(ii) in the second and any subsequent instances, be considered until no member wishes to speak, upon which the Speaker shall put all questions necessary to dispose of the motion without further debate or amendment, or until debate is adjourned or interrupted, or for an additional three hours, whichever is earlier, upon which time debate on the motion shall again be resumed at the ordinary hour of daily adjournment on the day subsequently designated pursuant to paragraph (a) of this section.”,

(v) by adding, after Standing Order 81(13), the following new section:

“81(13)(b) If the motion proposes amendments to the Standing Orders, a question on the referral of the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs is deemed put at the end of the debate and, if resolved in the affirmative, it shall become an order of reference to the committee to consider the motion and to report observations and recommendations on the motion back to the House not later than 75 sitting days after the referral”;

(vi) in Standing Order 93(1)(a), by adding, at the end, the following: “If the motion proposes amendments to the Standing Orders, a question on the referral of the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs is deemed put at the end of the debate and, if resolved in the affirmative, it shall become an order of reference to the committee to consider the motion and to report observations and recommendations on the motion back to the House not later than 75 sitting days after the referral”; and

(c) the committee report its findings to the House no later than 75 sitting days following the adoption of this motion.

The purpose of Motion No. 109 is to ensure that no future government would be able to amend the Standing Orders without the consent of all recognized parties. In the time allocated to me, I will attempt to lay out the case for this motion in three parts.

First, I will explain the mechanics of how Motion No. 109 would eliminate the power to make non-consensual changes to the Standing Orders.

Second, I will explain, in a few words, the danger that exists whenever a majority government has the ability to unilaterally change the Standing Orders, as it currently does. This demonstration will consist of a brief history of unilateral changes to our Standing Orders, in the course of which I will quote some of the warnings given by MPs of all parties during past debates in which closure was used to ram through non-consensual changes to the rules.

Third, I will explain how I propose to ensure that the suggested amendments contained in Motion No. 109 are not themselves forced upon the House in a peremptory vote following the two hours of debate that is typical for a private member's motion. This is, after all, a technically complex issue worthy of discussion, review and perhaps expert testimony at a parliamentary committee.

Now, let us start with the first of these three topics.

Motion No. 109 contains a proposal to amend the Standing Orders in several places, modifying existing provisions that permit the government to unilaterally terminate debate and force a vote. The goal is to create a situation in which it will no longer be possible to apply these debate-limiting clauses to any vote to amend the Standing Orders, but not to limit the existing provisions for closure and time allocation in any other way.

Specifically, Motion No. 109 places limiting clauses immediately after the following existing Standing Orders: Standing Order 56.1(1)(b), Standing Order 57, Standing Order 61 and Standing Order 66(2)(c). The practical result is that if Motion No. 109 is adopted, it will never again be possible for a government to bring to a conclusion the debate on a proposed amendment to the Standing Orders unless there is all-party consent for the debate to end and for a vote to be taken. In the absence of consent on any future change to the Standing Orders, debate would simply continue indefinitely. Knowing this to be the case, future governments would find it necessary to obtain such consent: in other words, to build a consensus.

To be clear, Motion No. 109 does not create a situation in which unanimous consent would be required for future changes to the Standing Orders. As a practical matter, the mechanism of delay that I propose is only available to organized groups of a certain size. A group of MPs with a dozen members, which under our rules is the minimum size to achieve party status, is big enough to deny consent, but an individual MP does not have the stamina needed to hold up debate on a motion that has the support of all of his or her colleagues. Numerous examples exist to prove this point.

The description I have just given, as to how Motion No. 109 would achieve its goal, is as antiseptic and as neutral as I can make it, but of course I am an enthusiastic advocate for that goal. Therefore, let me now, in the second part of this three-part discussion, lay out the case for stripping the government of its power to unilaterally change the Standing Orders.

I have to start by emphasizing the enormous importance of the Standing Orders. The Standing Orders are the de facto constitution of the House of Commons. They are the rules of the game, so to speak. Our Standing Orders descend from those of the House of Commons in Westminster, which were already centuries old when they were imported to Canada in 1791, with the first sittings of the legislative assemblies of Upper and Lower Canada. When new constitutions were adopted in 1841 and 1867, the pre-existing Standing Orders were re-adopted, with suitable amendments. For example, when the brand new House of Commons met for the very first time, on November 6, 1867, its first order of business was to adopt what were styled the “Rules, Orders, and Forms of Proceeding of the Legislative Assembly of [the former province of] Canada”.

The Standing Orders have continued evolving since 1867, and, as would be expected of a set of rules that have been steadily adjusted and improved for such a vast span of time by so many participants, they are, in many respects, the best rules of order in the world.

During the long history, on Canadian soil, of our Standing Orders, a convention has developed that governments ought not to amend the Standing Orders without all-party consent. Most governments, most of the time, have respected this convention. Regrettably, however, this convention has never quite jelled, unlike, for example, the confidence convention.

On several occasions over the course of the past century or so, governments have changed the rules unilaterally. They have placed time limits on debate in order to force a vote in which the government's majority ensures that the desired change will occur, despite the absence of a consensus.

The first occasion on which limits on debate were used in order to force through non-consensual amendments to the Standing Orders was in 1913. Closure has since been used to do the same thing in 1969, in 1991 and several times under the current government. It is worth noting that there is a pattern to such votes. Closure has consistently been used when the goal is to enact changes to the Standing Orders that would give new tools to the government to more effectively limit the amount of debate that takes place in the House of Commons.

When this happens, open debate is constrained in the short run in the service of giving the government greater powers to constrain debate in the long run. It goes without saying that such changes restrict the ability of the House of Commons to perform its constitutional role of limiting the power of the executive. I would note that this is a power our predecessors had to fight for and, in some cases, to die for, both in England in the 1600s and on these shores in the rebellions of 1837.

As noted a moment ago, the first time that restrictions on debate were applied to a vote on the Standing Orders was in 1913. A previously unused standing order that had existed since 1867 was employed to curtail the debate on the vote that had introduced a new standing order, Standing Order 57. Ever since, this particular standing order has made it possible for the government of the day to impose drastic time limits on the debate on any motion.

Standing Order 57 is what we MPs most frequently refer to when we speak of closure. The section 57 closure rule was used in 1969 to force a vote on the adoption of Standing Order 78, which permits the government to apply a new version of closure in debates on legislation; this form of closure is known as time allocation. In 1991, closure was used once more to impose Standing Order 56.1, which permits the government to apply yet another new version of closure, this time to motions regarding routine proceedings. Under the current Prime Minister, closure has been used repeatedly to force the House to adopt non-consensus amendments to the Standing Orders.

Specifically, closure has been used to curtail debate and to force votes on the following four occasions: May 26, 2020; November 25, 2021; June 23, 2022; and June 15, 2023. Aside from the comments I made a moment ago about the martyrs of parliamentary democracy from the 17th and 19th centuries, I do not propose today to deal with whether closure and time allocation are good or bad things or whether closure or time allocation are used judiciously or too much; I specifically want to avoid participating in comparisons of the records of the current government and the last one regarding the use of closure.

Other figures more prominent than I have already weighed in on these matters: In 1932, Mackenzie King described closure as the “most coercive and arbitrary” measure a government could enforce. In 1962, John Diefenbaker put the abolition of closure into the throne speech, only to have his government fall before it could be voted on.

I can only observe that Motion No. 109 would not reduce, eliminate or otherwise affect closure and time allocation in any way other than to prohibit their application to debates on changing the Standing Orders themselves. However, I do propose to suggest that it is very unwise to allow a situation to persist under which the Standing Orders, the rules by which all business is conducted in this place, are subject to amendment without the consent of all parties. It is simply wrong that debate on such amendments can be curtailed by a closure motion, by reference to the previous question or by any other means.

We can imagine how unfair any sport would be if, in mid-game, one side had the ability to change the rules to its own advantage for the duration of the game. It does not matter which sport, whether hockey, soccer, baseball or tennis. We can think of how meaningless our constitutional division of power with the provinces would be if the federal government could unilaterally amend the Constitution. There is, in short, a good reason for the protection of organic or constitutional laws by means of rules requiring more than mere majority consent, such as the federal Constitution's requirement that most amendments be approved only if agreed to by Parliament and by seven provincial legislatures.

It is time to extend similar protections to the rules governing the House of Commons, and that is what Motion No. 109 seeks to do.

However, members should not take my word for it; they can consider instead what the leaders of the two largest opposition parties said in 1969 when, without the support of a single opposition MP, the government gave itself the ability to curtail debate on any bill and then curtailed debate on the new standing order giving it this power. Robert Stanfield, who was then leader of the opposition, warned:

The use of closure to force through rule changes [that] are opposed by every member of the opposition [would establish] the precedent that the majority in this house can change the rules so as to permit, if it chooses, only the most nominal consideration of legislation by this house. Backed by closure the majority could put through changes in the rules that would eliminate all stages of discussion except one.

Tommy Douglas, who was then the leader of the New Democratic Party, expressed his alarm as follows:

If a majority can at any time use its weight of numbers in the House of Commons to change the rules, how long will the rights of the minority in Parliament continue to exist? If the government unilaterally can change the rules, as it is seeking to do now, what can it do next session and the session after that?

Well, although the changes that Stanfield and Douglas feared were not implemented in the next session, nor in the session after that, the unilateral changes that were imposed in 1991 and then by the current government showed that their words were prophetic.

I will now read a few observations made during the truncated debate on the most recent set of non-consensual changes from 2023. All the following comments were made by hon. members who still sit in this place.

The member for Hamilton Centre, who is a New Democrat, asked:

If this [set of amendments to the Standing Orders] was such a priority, why was it not introduced a bit earlier, which perhaps would have provided for a fullness of discussion and debate and might not have forced us into closure and would have allowed for all of these nuances and democratic principles to be fully fleshed out?

The member for Kitchener Centre, who sits for the Greens, stated:

there is not even a chance to propose amendments. It is already a take-it-or-leave-it approach, and on top of that, we are now being limited in our debate.... I can speak for myself in saying that I am still researching, reading and listening to inform my own vote on this measure.

The member for Montcalm, who sits for the Bloc Québécois, described the proposed changes to the Standing Orders as “despicable”; he added, “Doing it with a closure motion is even more despicable.” He went on to state that the Government House Leader “should have consulted us instead of unilaterally doing what he is doing today. I would like him to have this done to him when he is on the other side of the House after the next election just to see how he likes it.”

Of course, Mr. Speaker, the goal of Motion No. 109 is to guarantee that, whichever party forms government following the next election, unilateral changes to the Standing Orders will never take place again and no MP will ever again have to express this kind of frustration.

I will now turn to the third of the three topics of this talk and take a few minutes to describe how Motion No. 109 ensures that the amendments to the Standing Orders written into the text of the motion are not themselves the subject of only two hours of debate in this place, followed by a peremptory vote.

Motion No. 109 is divided into three parts. The first section is a preamble, explaining the rationale of the motion. The second part provides the text that I am proposing to add to the Standing Orders and states that “it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to undertake a study on the advisability of amending the Standing Orders”. The third section instructs the committee to report its findings to the House no later than 75 days following the adoption of this motion. At that time, the House would have the opportunity to vote on the committee's report.

Regrettably, as the Standing Orders now exist, they do not permit the same rules to be applied to the vote on Motion No. 109 as Motion No. 109 would cause to be applied from that point onward. There is, therefore, a certain inadvertent irony. It is not impossible that, in the vote on Motion No. 109, party discipline will be applied by one or more of the parties and that the motion could pass with one party voting unanimously against it.

I have no antidote for this except to encourage all parties to adopt the approach that was used in 2015 when a motion that I had proposed to amend the Standing Orders to allow for the election of the Speaker by preferential ballot was referred to the committee on procedure and House affairs and then was reported by that committee to the House. In the vote that followed, the whips of all parties allowed their MPs to vote freely, and every single caucus in the House split, with some voting in favour and others against but, of course, the majority voting in favour. This was the only truly free vote for every single MP in the House in the entire four-year life of the 41st Parliament, and I hope that it will serve as the model for the vote that may eventually take place on Motion No. 109.

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

Mr. Speaker, I truly appreciate the efforts of the member in terms of raising what I love talking about, which is the Standing Orders and ways in which we can ensure that the House functions in a more democratic and principled way. I very much appreciate it. It might bore a lot of other people, but I find it exceptionally interesting.

Even when I was in opposition, and I have been in opposition far more years than I have been in government, there was the issue of programming. We see that in private members' bills. Does the member opposite see any way in which programming can be incorporated in terms of government legislation?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I actually have no comments on government legislation. As I observed in my remarks, my goal is to deal with programming motions of closure and time allocations, as they relate to motions to amend the Standing Orders, and absolutely nothing else.

There is an argument that, because of the volume of business before the House, we need to have a limited time for each debate. That is the basis on which each of the successive restrictions on the length of debates were justified in 1913, 1969 and 1991. That may or may not have legitimacy vis-à-vis legislation and other matters before the House; however, vis-à-vis discussions of the Standing Orders, I think there should be no programming motions whatsoever.

The only solution is consensus. That involves taking the time to find consensus and showing the willingness to compromise that may be necessary.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have to hand it to the opposition member. His motion makes sense. At the same time, it does not. Why would I say that? Because amending the Standing Orders of the House of Commons should be done by consensus.

As we saw last year, unfortunately, some people do not seek consensus in the House. I think it is kind of sad that anyone would have to move a motion to ensure more discussion when it is time to amend the Standing Orders, but I understand the process. The Bloc Québécois will support this motion.

Still, does my colleague agree that it is sad and strange that someone has to move this kind of motion instead of just assuming that consensus would be the norm in such situations? It is in the interest of all parliamentarians to agree on the rules that govern how the House operates.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think that my hon. colleague is right. He used the word “strange”. In a way, it is strange to have a system that allows party line votes on a motion that would change that system to a consensus system. I do not have the magical power to change that. I am simply making an observation, and I hope that the spirit of consensus will prevail here.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge the work of the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, who is, in a way, a dean in the House and who has always raised questions about the Standing Orders. This motion seems to be in line with all of his parliamentary work.

The NDP will be supporting this motion. We believe that it is time to build that consensus. I heard my colleague from the Bloc also say that he will be supporting it, but my colleague, the MP for Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, indicated that there was some uncertainty around the vote as to what would come out of the procedure and House affairs committee.

Are the members of the Conservative caucus also supporting the motion?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I hope so. To remember an example from 2015, I proposed changes to the Standing Orders that would affect the election of the Speaker. The decision made at the procedure and House affairs committee caused parties to alter how they handled the vote in each case. Parties were encouraged to allow their members to vote freely. Since the report from the procedure and House affairs committee was a unanimous report, all the parties took it back and decided to make that decision.

That could happen again. That is actually what I would prefer to happen, if possible, but I cannot force that to happen. I think this model is worth examining. Of course, the committee records from that time are all publicly available. They might be helpful to all of us in this circumstance.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am quite encouraged by the member's motion. However, there are a number of questions and thoughts I would like to share with the member.

To start off, we have to look at what we have witnessed over the years, or at least what I have witnessed, which is that it is very difficult to change the Standing Orders in any form. I have personally attempted to do that on many occasions, both formally and informally. Attempting to modernize the Parliament of Canada by making changes to our Standing Orders has been exceptionally challenging, but let there be no doubt that the need for change is there and that it should be modernized.

As a good example of those challenges, all one needs to do is to look at the pandemic and the hybrid system we have today. One of the most significant changes that was incorporated was the voting application. Prior to the voting application, all members had to physically be inside the chamber in order to be able to vote. The impact of that change is so profound that I would suggest it is the most significant change we have witnessed here in Ottawa in the last 70-plus years. It has assisted in modernizing and facilitating members of Parliament on both sides of the House. One would have thought that particular change would have been supported unanimously, but that was not the case. It was not supported. If we were to take what the member is suggesting today, would that change have taken place? I suspect not. I have found, over the years, that it is exceptionally difficult to make the types of changes necessary in order to allow this Parliament's rules to be modernized.

Another good example is the question I posed to the member. We understand why time allocation is used. Even when I was in opposition, I argued that time allocation was necessary at times in order for the government to get its legislation through because it does not take much to prevent legislation from passing. If we did not have the time allocation tool, we would not be able to get legislation through, and there are many examples. I believe there are ways we could ensure that debate could take place on legislation for literally hundreds of members and could still ensure legislation is passed. We cannot use the rules to the degree that we frustrate Parliament and make it, in essence, dysfunctional. For example, we have seen private members' bills get through because they are programmed. Some of those private members' bills are fairly substantial. We have had opposition days that, because they are programmed, a vote has occurred and has been done in a timely fashion.

I would suggest that the rules could also be changed to enable some form of programming, with exceptions, on certain pieces of legislation, to ultimately give this place a healthier environment from legislative and budgetary perspectives, which would give more power to individual members of Parliament. There are ways we can do it, but it requires changes to the Standing Orders.

Why have I said it in that manner, when the member, in response to my question, said that this is really about the mechanism or the process of change? I like what is being suggested in terms of how it should be done on the consensus of all political parties. I love that aspect of it. However, how do we ensure that takes place so that we can at least modernize the current Standing Orders?

Let us say, for example, that the member is successful and that, in order for government legislation to pass, every member has the right to speak to that legislation. Even if that legislation is amended, we could filibuster one piece of legislation virtually endlessly. If a political party is determined to frustrate the House of Commons or to kill any sort of legislation so that it could not pass, it would not take much.

Back in the 1930s and the 1940s, we saw legislation being passed. However, if an opposition party or a group of 12 individuals, and quite frankly, it would not even take 12, is determined to prevent all forms of legislation from passing, with the exception of those that come through private member's hour because that is programmed, they could prevent legislation from ultimately passing the House of Commons.

I do not say this as a government member. I say it out of the concern I had when I was in opposition, and I am on the record as having expressed concerns about it back then. I say this as someone who has been in opposition for most of my political career, which is over 30 years. I understand the importance of the Standing Orders from an opposition member's perspective.

I am suggesting that it is all fine and wonderful, and I support the member's motion. I would like to see the motion pass through. However, along with the motion passing, we have to make changes that would at least address some of the biggest concerns.

We often hear that we need to change the dress code, and we can change the dress code. There are other rules we can change; it is the low-hanging fruit, if we can put it that way. However, there are more substantive changes that need to be made. I have commented in more detail, on some of those issues, about how we could enable more members of Parliament to participate in debate, and a possible option would be to have a dual chamber.

How can we pass a motion of this substance, which I favour, without looking at the types of changes necessary to modernize Canada's House of Commons? We should be playing a strong leadership role because provincial legislatures look to Ottawa. I know that first-hand from my involvement in the House leadership team in Manitoba. Other countries look to Ottawa in terms of how our parliamentary system works.

There is so much that needs to be done in regard to our Standing Orders. We need to modernize our Standing Orders. I say that first and foremost as a parliamentarian who has been on both government and opposition benches. I look forward to this motion going to committee, where there would hopefully be a great deal of discussion, and it would also take into consideration other aspects of how we could modernize our Standing Orders. It is time to do that and to reflect on the advantages of things like the voting application and how it has profoundly made this a better place for everyone.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would just like to provide a definition of the House Standing Orders, since that is what we are talking about today. We are talking about amending the Standing Orders. According to Bosc and Gagnon, the Standing Orders “are seen as an exercise of the parliamentary privilege of the House to regulate its own internal affairs.” What I get from that is that these are the rules of the game. Regardless of whether one is a Liberal, Conservative, Bloc, New Democrat or Green member, we must agree on the rules of the game. This is not about the core values of each party. That is not what we are challenging each other on. There are plenty of other topics on which we can challenge each other.

I think that we are capable of agreeing about the Standing Orders of the House, which, quite simply, we must follow. It is through consensus that parliamentarians have determined the changes the House has made over the course of its history. There have been a few exceptions, but for the most part this is how things have worked. We have historically sought consensus to ensure that everyone can agree on the new rules to be adopted and the House can operate as democratically as possible. If, for one reason or another, a political party wants to change the rules of the game, even if it is the majority party, it must talk it over with the others and reach agreement with everyone. Otherwise, the process starts looking like the tyranny of the majority.

In this case, when we read the motion, we can see why our colleague, whom I salute, decided to move it. There was a rather serious case last year, and that is why we are in the unfortunate position today of having to read a motion to remind us of the duties of the House when the time comes to deal with the various rules that govern us.

When I listened to the member for Winnipeg North, I was honestly flabbergasted, to put it mildly. He told us that last year we adopted the most important rule changes in 70 years. There was no consensus. In proceeding with their overhaul, the Liberals said that regardless of what the others think, we do not care, this is the direction we are going in. That is outrageous.

He himself said that the changes were exceptional—all the more reason, then, for everyone to sit down together and try to adopt these changes. He went on to tell us that it was safe to assume that a consensus could not have been reached. However, his party did not even try to achieve that consensus, not even for a second. I know because I participated in the discussions as leader of the Bloc Québécois. That is the leader’s job. We discussed it among ourselves. That did not last long; indeed, it was over in the blink of an eye. When he says that a consensus might not have been achievable, my response is that he should have at least made an honest effort to seek one out.

The changes made in the House, such as virtual presence, electronic voting and taking powers away from the opposition, were significant changes, despite the fact that the parties had shown that they could come to an agreement. When the pandemic hit in 2020, the parties reached just such an agreement. On a number of occasions, we unanimously adopted transitional and temporary changes in the House. Everyone agreed and showed a willingness to co-operate because we were facing an exceptional situation. I hope that people are here to work for the good of Canadians. The best way of making sure we are working for the good of Canadians is to agree on the rules that govern our actions.

The changes they brought in were the subject of 11 hours of debate, all told. The Liberals often say that the Conservatives block legislation by filibustering, but they themselves imposed closure, and there were only 11 hours of debate in total. They cannot say this time that the Conservatives tried to filibuster. We were not even there. Everything was settled before we even had a chance to say a word. We were not given an opportunity to propose any substantive amendments.

As leader of the Bloc Québécois, I approached the government House leader, who is now the Health Minister, to say that I was prepared to sit down with him and discuss the Bloc Québécois’s ideas. The Bloc members believed that the virtual format should not be the rule, but rather the exception. We did not want to stop it altogether, but rather come up with a way to regulate it. We had solutions to propose that everyone could get behind, but there was no discussion, not a word, nothing.

One has to ask how they could do such a thing as a minority government. How did they decide that members would vote electronically and participate virtually as much as they wanted, all while limiting the House’s powers? How were they able to get away with that? They had help from the NDP. The NDP helped them. When I read what they were proposing, I saw a lot of the NDP in it. We know that the NDP has members in British Columbia. It is more difficult for them to travel. Participating virtually is more convenient for them. That is a known fact.

As a result, two political parties managed to change the Standing Orders without asking anyone or talking for one second to the Conservative Party or the Bloc Québécois. The Bloc Québécois has a reputation of being accommodating. We can sit down, stay above the fray, discuss issues and find solutions. We can do that, and we have proven it on many occasions. However, I was not even included in the discussions. They were not interested at all. Of course, this is not right.

That was the situation I found myself in. I did not have much parliamentary experience; I had not been here very long. I came from a different world, from provincial politics, although my political colour did not change, of course. I looked at the situation, but it made no sense to me that a G7 country would change its rules like that. These rules are so important that the member for Winnipeg North called them the most significant changes in 70 years. He told us to open wide and then he shoved those changes down our throats. That is how it was done in a democratic country. In the land of the monarchy, the modern-day Louis XIV, that is what the Liberals did, and they are happy about it. They say they could not have achieved consensus, that it was impossible. It would have been as difficult to get consensus as it would be to put nail polish on a tarantula. However, they did not even try.

What does the motion say? Basically, it is divided into two parts.

The first part addresses motions such as oral motions for immediate voting that require 25 members. The motion would make it impossible to change the Standing Orders through that method. It would also be impossible to change the Standing Orders with a closure motion or through a previous question.

The second part indicates that a motion for concurrence in a report from committee should be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which will report its findings 75 days later. The same applies to motions submitted by the opposition. The same applies to motions concerning the order of precedence of private members’ business. Either we cannot do what the Liberals did by imposing closure and making a unilateral decision as the government, or we can vote and then refer the report to the Standing Committee on Procedures and House Affairs, which will report its findings and its recommendations 75 days later.

The problem is that we are not obliged to vote in favour of the committee’s changes.

The Liberals are a minority government, but they were still able to do it. Personally, I am afraid. No one needs a Nobel prize in mathematics to understand that the Conservatives have a chance of winning. They may form a minority government. If the Bloc Québécois has enough seats, we may be able to block the majority and they will have to listen to people. However, if they win a majority, what is going to happen? There will have been a precedent. They will say that the previous government messed around with the Standing Orders, that it had a good experience and believed nothing amiss. The Liberals will probably be an opposition party. The Conservatives will say that the members of the previous government did it a few years ago, so they can certainly do the same thing; they can start fiddling with the Standing Orders if it serves their purpose. That will be something to see. That is how Canada currently works. Canada is a great democracy with great members of Parliament who care about the interests and the value of our society. Bravo.

The Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of the motion, although we should not need such a motion. I thought that we were smart enough to reach a consensus on amendments to the Standing Orders, but we will have to live with it and we will vote in favour of the motion.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and add my voice, the voice of the New Democrats and the NDP caucus, and say that we are in favour of the amendments proposed in Motion No. 109.

I would just like to comment on the statements made by my colleague from La Prairie, who just made an impassioned speech about virtual Parliament. It needs to be said that 80% of the Bloc Québécois and its caucus voted virtually against a virtual Parliament. At some point, enough is enough. If they are against a virtual Parliament, they can sit in the House and say so. When 80% of the Bloc Québécois’s caucus votes against a virtual Parliament but votes remotely while saying that actions speak louder than words, it clearly shows that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of a virtual Parliament.

I would point out that the Conservative Party did likewise. Two-thirds of the Conservative members voted virtually when they voted against the virtual Parliament. There can be no explanation for such contradictions, but it is now a matter of historical record. I think that in 10 or 20 years, people will still be talking about the fact that both these parties, in voting against a virtual Parliament, did so virtually. Their actions suggested that they were in favour of a virtual Parliament, yet they voted against it. This is for them to explain, but it was important to provide these responses.

There is no doubt that for the NDP, it has always been important to have a consensus in the House. When it comes to amending the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, from Tommy Douglas right up until today, we have always stressed the importance of consensus. That is why we are supporting Motion No. 109. I sang a member's praises earlier. This is not something I do often in the House, but my colleague from Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston often takes the interests of Parliament and democracy to heart. I do not doubt his sincerity on this subject. I think that Motion No. 109 is important.

This is a multi-part motion. As we know, it begins with the preamble that my colleague mentioned earlier and with which we agree. He then spoke about the six standing orders that should be amended or added in order to require a consensus before any changes whatsoever can be made to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. The third part is about referring the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, before it is returned here to the House no later than 75 days following the adoption of this motion.

All three parts are extremely important. We support the preamble. We support the principle of amending six standing orders. It makes sense. We also support the idea of referring the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for a more in-depth study. The committee will certainly need to hold additional meetings. After that, the motion will have to return to the House for debate with an eye to amending the Standing Orders to put in place the changes in question.

As my colleague mentioned, there is no telling whether all the parties will support the motion. My colleague hopes that the Conservative Party members will support it. As we have seen, the Bloc Québécois members support the motion. The NDP members support the motion. We do not know as yet, but we hope that the members of the Liberal Party will support it as well. In this way, we could implement these changes to the Standing Orders of the House, hopefully unanimously.

It is important that we work on a consensus model. This is why the NDP is saying very clearly that we support Motion No. 109. We believe that it is important to have these principles around the Standing Orders, which do, as my colleague from Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston pointed out, date back centuries, to ensure that there is consensus around modification of the Standing Orders. This is something that Tommy Douglas stood for and that leaders of the NDP have always stood for.

I do want to come back, though, to the reference to virtual Parliament, to use that as some sort of precedence, when we had very clear support from all members of all caucuses in the House of Commons. However, there were two party caucuses that voted against continuing the virtual Parliament, despite the many benefits that we have seen to our constituents and to our families, etc. It is important to note that two-thirds of the Conservative MPs who voted against that change to the Standing Order voted virtually. I have the numbers right here: There were 77 Conservative MPs who voted virtually against the virtual Parliament, and 25 of the 32 Bloc members voted virtually against the virtual Parliament.

There is always an important search for consensus. However, Conservative MPs and Bloc MPs were saying that they were opposed to virtual Parliament but were voting virtually because they obviously saw the advantages of virtual Parliament. The reality, though, of members of those two caucuses in this case voting virtually against an important change to the Standing Orders is something that will remain part of the history of the House of Commons. It is something they cannot change or deny. The facts are there and will always be there. Any time we have a debate about Standing Orders, I will mention, and I think my colleagues will as well, that 80% of the Bloc MPs and two-thirds of the Conservative MPs voted virtually against virtual Parliament.

To get the good faith that is important for changes to the Standing Orders, we need to have good faith from all parties, and we need to make sure that we put into place measures that benefit Canadians: Canadian MPs, families, constituents and everyone. Virtual Parliament provisions clearly do that; they allow us to be at important events and emergencies in our constituencies in the most vast and the largest democracy on Earth. I came here yesterday. It was a 5,000-kilometre trip to get to Ottawa, and it will be 5,000 kilometres going home on Friday. That takes me halfway around the globe. My colleague from Edmonton Strathcona and my colleague from Edmonton Griesbach make similar types of trips across the vast expanse of our democracy.

It is important, of course, that we make provisions for that. If there is an emergency in New Westminster—Burnaby, we cannot necessarily be at that emergency and also be voting on behalf of our constituents in Ottawa. The virtual Parliament provisions that were supported by all parties, because of the fact that the majority of all parties voted virtually in that important vote, signify the ability of Parliament to make modifications that would provide more support to Canadians in their ridings and would give the ability to members of Parliament to work harder and smarter in such a way as to serve their constituents better. That is an illustrative example that we will need to take forward.

The reality is that Motion No. 109 and the search for consensus and having the provisions made to the Standing Orders so we could look for and build on that consensus is something we fully support. I thank the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston for bringing the motion forward. We will be voting yes.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in strong support of Motion No. 109, which was introduced by my colleague, the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston.

The motion would instruct the procedure and House affairs committee to undertake a study with respect to a series of proposed amendments to the Standing Orders that would, taken together, have the effect of preventing any government from unilaterally amending the Standing Orders without all-party consent. Therefore, consistent with that, the motion would instruct the procedure and House affairs committee to consider prohibiting the use of closure and other time limitation procedures. It would take away the ability of the government to use the hammer of closure to ram through changes to the Standing Orders.

The motion reflects what has become a convention, as our Standing Orders have been evolving since 1867, and of course, in some instances, they go back centuries to the British House of Commons. The convention has been that a government ought not amend the Standing Orders absent all-party support. As a general rule, there has been an effort to reach consensus.

We have seen a significant evolution in our Standing Orders. One such example was in the mid-1980s. At the time, there was a general view that Parliament was not in step with the times and that there needed to be a series of steps taken to modernize Parliament. Upon being elected in 1984, Prime Minister Mulroney appointed James McGrath, the then member for St. John's East, to chair an all-party parliamentary committee that looked at parliamentary reform. The mandate of that committee included reviewing the Standing Orders. Out of the McGrath report came multiple recommendations for amendments to the Standing Orders, all of which were adopted, including one of the most significant, which was the election of the Speaker of the House of Commons. Up until that time, the election was a mere formality based upon the appointment or recommendation of the Prime Minister.

My point is that there is an instance where members from all parties worked collaboratively, undertook a thorough study and came back with recommendations, and based upon that consensus, the Standing Orders were amended. It is true that convention has not always been consistently applied. There have been, up until the election of the current government, rare instances where governments have invoked closure. My colleague from Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston noted that it happened prior to the election of the Liberal government on three occasions: in 1913, 1969 and 1991. It is very rare.

Since the election of the Liberals, what was a rare instance of not respecting the convention has become the practice of the Liberals. They have run roughshod over the House and have, on multiple occasions, either sought to ram through or have, in fact, rammed through changes to the Standing Orders, underscoring the need and timeliness of the motion.

Notification of Members Following Foreign Interference

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on the point of privilege that was brought forward earlier today by the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

The New Democratic Party is very concerned about the recent news that all members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China could have been or were targets of cyber-attacks from hackers who were linked to Beijing. I am a member of IPAC, and I am deeply concerned because I do not know the details. I do not have the information I need to know whether my personal emails were hacked or whether there were cyber-attacks made against me, other members of the New Democratic Party or, indeed, any member of the House.

I am concerned that this information came forward from the U.S. government, and our government did not provide that information to legislators. I am concerned because this is not the first time I have felt that the government has withheld information from members of Parliament, from legislators.

I think back as well to the time when the members of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights were called out and sanctioned by the Chinese government. As a member of that committee, I found all of this out on Twitter. There was no support provided to me as a parliamentarian by the government, and I find that unacceptable.

I also find it unacceptable that it seems we are repeatedly having to ask the government of the day to provide the information to parliamentarians that they need to do their work. We do not know what the Government of Canada knows. We do not know when it knew it, and we certainly do not know why it did not alert those members who may have been impacted by this work.

Legislators need to have this information. They need to be able to feel they are protected. They need to be able to feel they are safe in doing their work, that they have the tools to do it and that the information is being provided to them.

I do believe this constitutes a violation of parliamentarians' privilege, and it is vitally important we get to the bottom of this.

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

I thank the hon. member for the intervention.

The Speaker is looking forward to hearing from all parties on this particular issue.

The House resumed from April 18 consideration of the motion that this House approve in general the budgetary policy of the government, of the amendment and of the amendment to the amendment.

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

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

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise to speak to the budgetary measures of the government. It is one of the ways the government can clearly demonstrate the types of things that we are doing, taking into consideration legislation and budget measures.

Maybe one of the best ways to start off would be by acknowledging that, at the end of the day, to be there in a real and tangible way to support Canada's middle class, and those aspiring to be a part of it, we need to think about how government can ensure that there is a higher sense of fairness, whether that is through taxation or through providing for future generations. There needs to be opportunities to succeed. This is something that the government has taken very seriously, virtually from day one.

I have made reference previously to the types of actions we have taken, such as a reduction of middle-class taxes, an increase for the wealthiest one per cent to make a larger contribution towards taxes, an enhancement of programs for seniors through the guaranteed income supplement and an enhancement of the Canada child benefit program. This has been all the way through, and going into the pandemic, we were there to support our seniors, people with disabilities, employers and small businesses, as well as individual Canadians, through programs such as CERB.

Continuing to fast-forward, we can see very clearly in the initiatives we have taken over the years as a government, and would continue to take through the budget, that we have a government that is very much progressive, caring and fair while dealing with the economy. We realize that a healthy middle class and a healthy economy is good for all. We recognize that there are serious issues that Canadians are facing, such as affordability and housing in many different communities. These are issues that we continue to work on, and this budget amplifies that work. People who are following the budget debate know that the government is very aware of those issues, as Liberal members of Parliament from all regions of the country have expressed their thoughts.

This budget is really and truly a reflection of what Canadians have been telling us as a government and as individual parliamentarians. It is, for all intents and purposes, a budget for Canadians. I think of the types of things that one sees in the budget. On the progressive side, one can talk about one of my personal favourites, which is pharmacare, and its significant step forward on pharmacare. It is a continuation of what I believe Canadians are so passionate about, our health care, the Canada Health Act, and the way in which we, as a government in the previous budget, brought forward close to $200 billion over a 10-year period to ensure that future generations of Canadians will have health care that is accessible, and that has the health care workers necessary. For me, that is a very important issue because it is an important issue for my constituents.

I could talk about other issues being addressed by this particular budget, such as the $10-a-day child care or the disability benefit. There are many different aspects, but I want to highlight one of the things that I think is really important. That is the issue of the economy itself and how the rest of the world looks at Canada. In the first three quarters, on a per-capita basis in foreign direct investment, Canada was number one out of the G7. Throughout the world, on a per-capita basis, we were number three. People and businesses around the world are looking at Canada. That is no surprise because no government in our history has signed off on more trade agreements than this government has.

We are starting to see the results in many different ways. By supporting industry, industries that were virtually non-existent before have come to life. There was the recent announcement, for example, of Honda, which is piggybacking off of Volkswagen. In terms of future green jobs, the government is very proactive at building a healthy economy. We see that in the generation of over two million jobs over the last number of years through the actions of the government, working with Canadians.

I connect our record of being there to having a healthier economy and building a stronger economy for Canada's middle class and those aspiring to be a part of it, for future generations. That is something we, as a government, take very seriously, as we continue to take the measures necessary to support Canadians in addressing the issues we know they are concerned about.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Winnipeg North mentioned CERB, basically an NDP initiative through which everyone agreed that Canadians needed at least $2,000 a month to live in this country, yet in this budget we have supports for people with disabilities that amount to $200 a month. When combined with provincial supports, it is far less than what is needed for those people to live here in Canada.

I have been deluged by comments from people with disabilities. This is an insult. The government should have done nothing, almost, rather than bring this in.

I am just wondering whether he and his government will commit to fixing this over the coming months, so that we can truly support people with disabilities in this country with an income they can live on.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I can appreciate some of the things the member is saying. Where I tend to disagree is that I would not do anything to discourage or belittle the fact that we now have a disability program, which is a significant step forward.

There are a couple of things that we need to be concerned about with regard to that specific program. One is that we do have to watch other jurisdictions to make sure that they are not going to be clawing back any supports as a direct result of the federal government program. That is a concern that I have, which I know is shared by many individuals.

In regard to the actual amount, I think this is a good starting point. We will have to wait and see in terms of how it ultimately evolves. The bottom line is that, within the budget, we will see different types of programs. That is why I mentioned those progressive programs. I think this is an excellent example where the Government of Canada has taken the initiative to ensure that we are at least moving forward in a substantial way.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to draw to the member's attention to, in the 2021 Liberal campaign platform, a promise that has been unkept, the $4.5-billion mental health transfer. They put that promise out in front of Canadians because they wanted Canadians to vote for them, to elect them to be the government, and then they abandoned it. There is no mention of that in the last three budgets, including this budget.

I ask the member to stand up right now and tell the House where the Canada mental health transfer is. Where is the $4.5 billion?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would not want the member across the way to mislead because of the Conservative spin on this particular issue.

At the end of the day, no government has invested more, historically, in health care than this government has. That was prior to the commitment of $198 billion that was announced in the last budget. No government has invested more in mental health or has highlighted the issue of mental health more than this government has.

To make some sort of false accusation that the government has been dropping the ball on recognizing the importance of mental health, when, historically, we have outshone any other national government on the issue, I think, does a bit of a disservice. I am very proud of the way in which we have advanced and continue to advance the importance of mental health, today and into the future.