Debates of Dec. 8th, 2025

International Trade

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

Mr. Speaker, I present, on behalf of the Standing Committee on International Trade, the fourth report, “Addressing Unjustified United States Tariffs on Certain Goods in the Canadian Steel, Aluminum, Automotive and Softwood Lumber Sectors”.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, November 27, the committee has agreed to report the following:

that the committee report to the House that it condemns the unjustified American tariffs on the Canadian steel, aluminum, automotive, and softwood lumber industries, and that it calls upon the government to live up to the promise it made in the election

Public Accounts

[John Williamson, Conservative, Saint John—St. Croix, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, two reports from the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

The third report is entitled “Connectivity in Rural and Remote Areas”, and the fourth report is entitled “Forests and Climate Change”.

Mr. Speaker, I believe, with your consent, we will hear next from the hon. member for Calgary Midnapore, who will table a dissenting report from the Conservative Party of Canada.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to each of these two reports.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table, in both official languages, the dissenting opinion on behalf of the members of the Conservative Party.

Conservative members on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts agree with the Auditor General's finding that a serious digital divide continues to exist in Canada. This divide is prevalent despite years of promises on universal connectivity from successive Liberal governments. The government has failed to connect hundreds of thousands of rural, remote and indigenous households with essential broadband and mobile coverage, which is critical not only to rural Canadians for full participation in Canada's modern and connected economy, but also for the safety and security of all Canadians.

Our Conservative dissenting report provides five recommendations that stand up for rural Canadians and will ensure action is taken to keep them connected. The Government of Canada must act to provide broadband and mobile connectivity to all Canadians, regardless of their postal code. Our common-sense recommendations will ensure that this is the case.

Liaison

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to seek concurrence on the first report of the Liaison Committee, which details the work of the standing committees of the House. I am doing so to sound the alarm over the systematic obstruction we are witnessing on multiple committee fronts, perpetrated by the Liberal government.

I will split my time, as well, with the member for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South.

In addition to my work as chair of the ethics committee, I serve as the Conservative caucus committee coordinator. As part of my responsibilities, I make a point of observing a wide cross-section of standing committees and can report that Liberal obstruction tactics include purposely not scheduling meetings, intentionally withholding ministers from facing accountability at committee, preventing witnesses from testifying, lengthy filibusters and breaking procedural rules to their advantage.

In a phrase, the Prime Minister treats Parliament like a corporate boardroom meant only to rubber-stamp his agenda. I have news for him and his government: This is a G7 democracy, not a meeting of shareholders.

This is a minority Parliament. Committees are composed in such a way that the Liberals must work with at least one opposition party to advance the government's agenda. It also means that when opposition parties unite to hold the government to account, the government must comply with the will of the committee. However, rather than working constructively with opposition parties, the Liberals prefer to take their ball and go home.

Allow me to cite some examples of Liberal obstruction.

At the justice committee, after Conservatives worked productively to receive witness testimony on Bill C-9, the Liberal law on hate speech, the committee got bogged down by a Liberal filibuster on a Conservative motion that called for the strongest legislative response possible to the Supreme Court ruling that struck down mandatory prison time for those convicted of possession of child sexual abuse and exploitation material.

That is right. Rather than prioritize legislation on hate crimes or bail, the Liberals ran cover for an egregious court decision that eases sentences for perverts in possession of child pornography. They filibustered three meetings: November 6, November 18 and November 20.

Following a filibuster on December 2, after it became clear that the Liberals were not serious about their hate crime bill, Conservatives moved that the committee prioritize the bail bill, Bill C-14. Given the daily news reports of violent crimes being committed by repeat offenders, I would think the Liberals might have wanted to work with us to pass that bail law. Conservatives are of the view that, while the bill does not go nearly far enough to fix the broken bail system, a partial measure is better than nothing.

What did the Liberals do with our offer to work quickly on Bill C-14? They voted to adjourn debate. Instead, the Minister of Justice went rogue and made a deal with the Bloc to remove religious protections built into the Criminal Code as part of the hate speech bill, leading to division in their own caucus and a stalled agenda at the committee.

Nevertheless, Conservatives agreed to work constructively through the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. The Liberals secured committee resources through to midnight on December 2, but after passing just one clause that day, they quickly adjourned the meeting, preventing the committee from dealing with the amendment on the religious exemption.

Since then, the chair refused to schedule a meeting on December 4 and has yet to put out a meeting notice for this week. While the Liberals obstruct their own agenda, the victims of crime are the ones who suffer.

I will reiterate our offer: Conservatives would be pleased to set aside other work before the committee to see that Bill C-14 becomes law.

Liberal obstruction goes far beyond just the justice committee. At the transport committee, the Conservative Party worked constructively and efficiently on Bill C-5, the so-called Building Canada Act. I note that, since its passage, not one project has been listed in the national interest, and the promise the Liberals made to approve projects and build Canada remains unfulfilled.

Conservatives secured several amendments to that bill, which included protections for indigenous people, as well as ethics and oversight provisions. One might think this would have created some goodwill among parties at the committee table. It did not.

The committee conducted a study on the Driver Inc. issue and examined ways to improve highway safety. Opposition members proposed extending the study by two sessions in order to hear from victims of trucking accidents and obtain related documents from the government. The Liberals are determined not to show Canadians that the government is unable to keep them safe, so they have launched a procedural war against this motion.

To prevent debate, the Liberal chair cancelled meetings scheduled for November 18 and 20. The members of the opposition used an extraordinary tool to force an emergency meeting through Standing Order 106(4), which began on November 25. If members consult the parliamentary website, they will see that the meeting that began on November 25 is still ongoing.

As of now, this is a 13-day meeting. The Liberals began by filibustering for hours, which was followed by a multi-day suspension, another Standing Order 106(4) letter to force the recall of the committee, another four-hour filibuster by the Liberals and another multi-day suspension. At one point, the chair attempted to mislead committee members that a suspension would last 30 minutes, but then he exited out the back door and allowed the suspension to last for days.

Rather than get answers for victims or prepare recommendations for expanded road safety, the Liberals are obstructing the work of the transport committee. We are seeing similar obstruction tactics by chairs at other committees, such as at the finance, science and research, health, and human resources committees, and more. I am pleased to begin this important debate to allow members of the House to air the grievances they have with the conduct of the chairs of these committees. It is a committee Festivus, if one will.

Unfortunately, Liberal chairs are not the only ones obstructing committee work. Ministers of the Crown are also direct participants in this obstruction. We have seen multiple absent ministers. The justice committee invited the Minister of Justice to appear in relation to his mandate and priorities on September 23. He has yet to appear. The Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety were also invited to participate as witnesses in the justice committee study on the bail system. Both ministers declined to participate.

This dynamic duo was repeatedly invited to the status of women committee to participate in its study of section 810 of the Criminal Code and women's safety. Again, they have ignored that invitation. The Minister of Justice was also invited to the national defence committee as part of its study on Bill C-11, the military justice system modernization act, given that he would be responsible for the civilian process to deal with sexual harassment in the military. Again, he obstructed the work of the committee and refused to appear.

The finance minister refused the request of the industry committee to appear with respect to the Stellantis contract, despite the fact that he was the minister who signed the deal and the contract in the first place, which has yet to demonstrate any form of job guarantee for Canadian workers. The public safety minister refused to appear at the transport committee as part of its investigation into security concerns around the decision of the Infrastructure Bank to fund the purchase of new vessels from China for BC Ferries.

The Liberals have run interference to prevent the Minister of Industry from appearing at the public safety committee on Bill C-8, even though their proposed law would give her sweeping powers to remove the Internet from citizens. The Minister of Artificial Intelligence has failed to appear at the ethics committee, despite 11 requests to do so, or the status of women committee as it conducts studies on the various impacts of AI on Canadian life.

The Minister of the Environment, Climate Change and Nature has ignored three invitations from the environment committee related to the industrial carbon tax, the global carbon tax on marine transport and the EV mandate. The Minister of Indigenous Services has failed to appear at the indigenous affairs committee to respond to the Auditor General's report on progress for indigenous communities.

The Minister of Jobs and Families, the Minister of Housing and Infrastructure, the Minister of Health, the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, the Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement, the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Industry, the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Finance have all failed to appear before committees on the supplementary estimates.

Billions of tax dollars are going unscrutinized before they go out the door. The list goes on. There is a lot more to say on the Liberal attack on and decline in our democracy, and the attack on committees, but I am short on time. In conclusion, we demand, on behalf of Canadians, that the Liberals end their obstruction and start being accountable for every dollar they spend, law they propose and incursion of freedom they attempt to do.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is truly amazing to hear Conservative members use a filibuster to try to justify their disappointing actions, which I have witnessed for weeks now. I cannot believe that they are accusing the government of not wanting to see its own legislation pass. Today is a good example of it.

When will the Conservatives stop filibustering the budget implementation bill? They have been on it for days and days. They have zero credibility on the interests of serving Canadians, quite frankly.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member spends all of his time in the House. He should be out watching the committees, as I am, to see the level of obstruction that is going on by the Liberal Party in almost every committee. The challenge right now is that the Liberals know they do not have the majority on every committee, so their only process in not allowing the opposition members, whether they are the Conservatives or the Bloc Québécois, to deal with important committee business is to take their ball, go home, and have their Liberal chairs cancel the meetings, or worse yet, call for a suspension and then never come back, as they did in one of the committees, despite the fact that they had seven hours of additional resources available to them.

The Liberals are obstructing democracy in this place, not the opposition parties.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is frustrating to speak on this subject because both sides are right.

With respect to the substance of the issue raised by the Conservatives, it is true that the waste of resources and the limited work completed this fall is appalling. My colleague is absolutely right. However, the last question asked by the Liberals is just as relevant.

I want to ask the Conservative member, whom I appreciate greatly, the following question: Does he remember last fall? The Conservatives blocked the work of Parliament for an endless period of time. Does he or does he not remember? I agree with him that this should not happen again. He is absolutely right, that should not happen anymore.

I want to hear his thoughts about the witnesses. When there is a filibuster and witnesses are seated at the end of the table, they sometimes wait for two hours. Does my colleague understand why they might no longer want to testify at the next committee meeting?

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

Mr. Speaker, I do have the utmost respect for the hon. member as his party's whip. If the member recalls, last fall this place was seized because the government refused to provide the documents regarding the sustainable development technology fund to a committee of Parliament. It refused. There were 11,000 documents counted last fall that were not being given to a parliamentary committee, despite the fact that the parliamentary committee had demanded that those documents be turned over. I think it is a pattern of these Liberals.

I once heard a very smart person say that the Liberals want an audience. They do not want an opposition. They do not want us to fulfill our constitutional obligation to hold them to account, and that is precisely what is happening in our committees right now.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank the member for moving this motion. If he had not done so, we would not have had this opportunity to debate the deplorable conduct of the Liberals in committee.

In his first intervention here, it was as though the member for Winnipeg North was unaware that his own colleagues are filibustering their own bills at committee. At the finance committee, not once, but twice, in two different meetings, Liberal members filibustered the clause-by-clause review of Bill C-4.

Could the member talk about the Liberal filibusters at committee?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is absurd that we are seeing the government filibuster its own bills, and there is a reason they are doing this. It is because, on every committee, not just the oversight committees, they do not hold the majority. The majority has been held by the opposition parties. After the committees were formed, between the Conservatives and the Bloc, we hold the majority, which means that no vote ever gets to a Liberal chair. What they do instead is cancel the meetings, or take their ball and go home, only to regroup and come back.

What we are seeing is a pattern across all committees, and no member in this place should be surprised, including—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour, as always, to rise on behalf of the people of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South.

My colleague from Barrie South—Innisfil did a tremendous job explaining the breadth of Liberal obstruction right now. There is a logical inconsistency here that I do not believe should be all that surprising coming from the Liberal Party, but they are obstructing their own agenda. The Liberals are obstructing their own legislation.

I can speak specifically to what has been happening on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, a committee I was honoured to be named to shortly after I was sworn in as a member of Parliament, and a committee that is very relevant to the people in my riding, for whom crime has been a top issue. I sent out a household mailer to the people in my riding a couple of months back, and it was about crime, justice and the revolving-door bail crisis. The police chiefs in St. Thomas, Aylmer and London, and officers with the Ontario Provincial Police, have all said the same thing, which is that they are tired of arresting people in the morning only to find them on the streets again, sometimes that afternoon.

We demanded action. Canadians demanded action on bail. We were told that the Liberal government would make bail a top priority. On the justice committee, we were expecting to be able to do incredibly important, timely work on this. We actually initiated a study on bail, and extended invitations, as part of that study, to the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety. Shockingly, months later, neither has appeared on this.

Now, it is possible that the Minister of Public Safety is still hard at work getting his RPAL, and that is why he has not had time to come before the committee. The Minister of Justice said he would only come before committee to talk about Bill C-9, the Liberal government's anti-hate bill. The very first justice bill that the Liberal government put forward was not on revolving-door bail and it was not on mandatory minimums for child predators; it was on cracking down on freedom of expression, cracking down on what people post online. That was the very first priority of the Minister of Justice. I will get to how that is going for the Liberal government in a moment.

It was interesting that the Minister of Justice did not want to speak about bail. He did not want to come to committee, and has not yet responded to our invitation for him to speak to his mandate and priorities. We are seeing now that the Minister of Justice is providing the same level of excellence he delivered as the Minister of Housing and Minister of Immigration. He is bringing that to the justice file, and Canadians are suffering.

Let us talk about what has been happening in the last few weeks alone. There was a meeting at the end of November that the Liberals simply did not call. There was another meeting that the Liberals did not call, and another meeting that the Liberals cancelled. As of today, we do not know if the justice committee will be meeting tomorrow at a regularly scheduled time. No notice of meeting has been issued. The notice of meeting for our Tuesday meetings almost always comes on the Friday before, so I suspect we are not going to be meeting tomorrow, although I would love to be proven wrong.

It was interesting, just a couple of hours ago in question period, that the Minister of Justice stood up, facing questions from our colleagues in the Bloc Québécois about the government's bungling of Bill C-9. He would not give a clear answer as to what the Liberal government's view is of the amendment that we understand is forthcoming from the Bloc to remove long-standing religious free speech protections from criminal law. What the Minister of Justice said was, “Whoa, the committee will decide this.” How is the committee going to decide anything when the Liberals are either not calling meetings or are cancelling meetings on their bill?

Now, what we learned in the last couple of days is rather interesting. In fact, just this morning, there was an article in which we learned that the Minister of Justice initiated a secret deal with the Bloc Québécois, where the Bloc would support Bill C-9 in exchange for the Liberals supporting the Bloc amendment removing religious freedom protections, making it so that someone could be criminally prosecuted for expressing good faith religious beliefs or even quoting scripture.

This is the government that promoted the previous chair of the justice committee to the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture after he said that prosecutors should be able to, “press charges” for people who quote verses of scripture that he deems to be hateful. It is good to know that falling upwards, the long-standing Liberal pastime and career trajectory, is still available.

This is so interesting because the Liberals, when they are faced with questions about where they stand on this, hide behind the committee process, yet members of the committee are saying, “Let us do our jobs.” Conservatives have stood ready at the last two meetings of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to work until midnight, and resources have been available. On this issue that the government says is such a priority, to get through clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-9, we have stood ready to do that even though, as I said at the justice committee and as I said in the House of Commons, we do not believe that Bill C-9 should have been prioritized above bail reform.

However, when the Liberals obstruct Bill C-9, which they are doing right now, when they obstruct their own bill, they are also obstructing every other justice priority they said they have. They have obstructed the committee's work on Bill C-14, a bail bill, which is very welcome in that it acknowledges how bad the bail system has gotten. Although, I believe there are a number of amendments that need to be put forward on Bill C-14 so that it does what we need it to do to fix Liberal bail in this country, we cannot do any of that, because the Liberals cannot figure out where they stand on Bill C-9.

When I mentioned the Minister of Justice's secret deal with the Bloc Québécois, the interesting tidbit that came out in the media today is that he forgot to tell the Prime Minister that he was making that deal. Now, the Liberals are in turmoil while they figure out where they stand on their own legislation and amendments to it, and Canadians expecting the justice committee to work on fixing the criminal justice system have to wait while the Liberals get their act together.

Similarly, earlier this fall, we passed a very critical report before the justice committee calling on the government to send a strong message that it will not tolerate judicial leniency for people convicted of peddling in and viewing child sexual exploitation and abuse material. What should have been a very quick, unanimous decision by the committee after the Supreme Court made an absolutely egregious ruling that a one-year sentence for those offences was “cruel and unusual punishment”, instead took two meetings. The Liberals filibustered this, preventing us from working on anything. We finally adopted that motion, and it came before the House. I am grateful for it, but we lost critical time to do everything else, again, because of Liberal obstruction and Liberal filibustering.

The Liberals do not know how to govern in a minority Parliament, evidently. They do not know that they have to work with other parties. I guess the Minister of Justice tried to do this, although his way of working with other parties was to launch a full-out assault on religious freedom. That is not what bipartisanship is supposed to look like.

We are still ready and eager to do the work. The reason I put forward a motion at the justice committee a couple of weeks ago to reset the committee's priorities was that it was clear that we were headed towards exactly the situation we find ourselves in: a bill where, in the words of the chair of the justice committee before this very House the other day, there is no path forward right now.

We still believe we should prioritize bail, and I would welcome the justice committee to actually call a meeting. We have two designated spots before the House rises for the winter break. I would certainly hope that Liberal members of Parliament do not want to face their constituents and say that they did not deliver on any of their justice priorities, because that is what is going to be happening now.

All the Canadians who are concerned about revolving-door bail and all of the frontline police officers, police chiefs and first responders who have been crying out for years for action have gotten nothing from the Liberal government. They have gotten a commitment from the public safety minister that they are going to go full steam ahead on the gun confiscation scheme, but nothing to put repeat offenders behind bars where they belong. Legislation, we understand, is forthcoming from the government to perhaps deal with the issue of mandatory minimum sentences for child sexual predators. However, again, no action is possible on that, because of Liberal obstruction on committee.

I am a new member of Parliament. I came here with a mandate, and I came here to get to work. The Liberal government, if it does not want to co-operate, needs to get out of the way. Right now, the Liberals are getting in their own way and the way of Canadians, and we will not stand for it.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite might be a new member, but he has been schooled well by the Conservative Party in the sense that I understand he participated in that very filibuster with regard to the hate legislation. I think he brought up something about his dog and that his wife likes cats, or he likes dogs and his wife likes cats. I do not know all the details of it, but the point is that he is a quick learner and he knows how to filibuster, apparently.

At the end of the day, when we talk about what Canadians and the constituents the member represents want, they want bail reform legislation. It is important. This is the question: Why will the Conservative Party not allow the bail reform legislation to become law?

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as a new member, I do not know how I am supposed to allow it to become law when that member's party is not calling the meeting, Again, I am new here, but I do not believe it is possible to let any justice bills become law when the Liberals keep cancelling meetings.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to be clear. I agree with him that the adjournment of last week's meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights was deplorable.

Am I to understand that if the committee meets tomorrow evening or Thursday evening, my Conservative colleagues will not filibuster? Is that a promise?

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it has been a pleasure to work with my colleague. We have very different ideas on some of the things that are coming before the committee, but I always know where my colleague stands. I and my colleagues on the justice committee remain ready to deal with clause-by-clause consideration on Bill C-9. We are 100% opposed to the assault on religious freedom that has been proposed and discussed, and it is shameful that the Liberals will not, in the House, state what their intention is on that.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, at the transport committee, we had the chair suspend for 30 minutes, get up and then leave out the back door.

While I did hear about the justice committee's cancelling of numerous meetings, the gavelling of meetings and the filibustering, was there anything as bad as that, or was the transportation committee the worst for Liberal conduct?

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have not had the opportunity yet to sit in on a transport committee meeting, so I cannot speak for what is happening there except to say that there does seem to be a pattern here spanning multiple committees. I understand the citizenship and immigration committee has no meetings scheduled for this week. At the environment and sustainable development committee, the minister has not appeared. I mentioned the lack of appearance by the justice minister at the justice committee on his mandate and priorities. The minister has not appeared for fisheries and oceans.

There does seem to be a trend here. I think it is very important that we are discussing the motion we are right now before the House, because the Liberal government cannot point fingers regarding its agenda not being passed when it holds the keys and the decision-making authority on when to schedule committee meetings.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the member would concede the irony we are witnessing today in the House of Commons. Right now, we were supposed to be debating the budget implementation bill, but the Conservatives have made the decision once again to prevent MPs from being able to carry forward on Bill C-15 by bringing forward this concurrence motion. That in itself is another filibuster preventing the Canadian legislation that we are proposing.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when I first came here, I understood that committees were to be masters of their domains, but committees are also a product of the House of Commons. When committees fail to do their work, it must be raised in the House of Commons because there is no way to raise it on a non-existing committee meeting's agenda. I would love nothing more than for all of us to be able to have these discussions in our respective committees, but that is not possible because that member's colleagues will not have the darned meetings.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there is a great deal of irony here. To those individuals who might be following this debate or listening to what has been taking place in Ottawa today, I will say that it is not as pathetic as it was last fall, when we saw the Conservatives virtually shut down the House of Commons with their behaviour. It is not quite as bad as that, but it is getting closer and closer to that point.

It is important that we reflect by looking in the mirror and question why it is the Conservative Party continues, day in and day out, to want to serve the interests of its own political party and the leadership of the Conservative Party, rather than actually serving the interests of Canadians. Let there be absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the reason Conservatives are doing this is purely self-serving. They are preventing legislation from passing.

How many hours of debate have we had on their motion to amend the budget implementation bill? Take a look at how many days we have spent on that. We just had a vote on it and, once again, the Conservatives do not want to debate it. They even had concurrence motions on their amendment to the budget. It is ridiculous in terms of the attitude and the way in which Conservative Party members, day in and day out, try to deny Canadians what they expect from both the government and the opposition.

I will remind members opposite that last April, a minority government was elected. The Government of Canada and the Prime Minister committed to working for Canadians every day. On the other hand, we see the Conservative Party flip-flopping and most of the time not working for the best interests of Canadians. However, in the election, it was very clear that Canadians wanted a higher sense of co-operation among the political parties. That is why we saw the Prime Minister commit to meeting with all the different premiers, the territories, indigenous leaders and so forth. Why? In that election, we made a couple of really solid commitments, one of which was to build a strong Canada.

That is the big commitment that we made to Canadians. We said that we were going to make Canada the strongest nation in the G7 on a per capita basis. The Prime Minister and every single Liberal member of our caucus is striving to do just that. Time and time again, what we witness is the Conservative Party of Canada standing in the way, being a roadblock and preventing legislation from passing, whether it is budget or bail reform legislation.

I believe that if there was an election today, the Conservatives would be taught a lesson in terms of how completely unacceptable their behaviour is. A good example of that, the best example I could give offhand before I get back to building strong, is the bail reform legislation. Shame on the Conservative Party. At the end of the day, we have provinces, territories, law enforcement officers and numerous other stakeholders out there who got behind the bail reform legislation. It should have been a no-brainer. I remember standing up weeks ago asking for the opposition to see this legislation through.

On many occasions, I asked members of Parliament from the Conservative caucus to make a simple commitment. The Prime Minister said we were going to bring in bail reform legislation. The commitment I asked from a whole spectrum of Conservatives, back just a few weeks ago, was whether they would allow bail reform legislation to become law before the end of the year. That has been met with a huge roadblock. Virtually from the time I first mentioned it weeks ago, there has been no goodwill coming from Conservative Party members to say they want to pass this legislation and are prepared to see it pass before the end of the year. Instead, Conservatives continue to filibuster and come up with excuses. Now they are saying it is because of actions at the committee.

Let us take a look at one of the stupid motions, I would suggest, the Conservative Party is bringing forward and expects the government of the day to support. Conservatives talk about the hate legislation, which is what we are being criticized on. They say the Liberals are filibustering in committee. Let us read the amendment. Here is what the Conservatives want the committee to do. The amendment says, in part. “the committee be granted the power to travel throughout Canada to hear testimony from interested parties and that the necessary staff do accompany the committee.”

They want the Government of Canada to pay millions of dollars to accommodate the disinformation they continuously feed Canadians. That is what that committee is all about, and they want the taxpayer to pay for it. Why should the Government of Canada allow the Conservative Party to go on a free, taxpayer-funded, road trip so they can spread nothing but misinformation to Canadians? That is the motion they are proposing. If I were sitting on that committee I would not accept it either, and I would want to make sure it is defeated.

I respect Canadians far more than the Conservatives do. If we look at the budget implementation bill, we will see it is a reflection of what Canadians expect the Government of Canada to deliver. It is a true reflection of what Canadians want, yet the Conservative Party continues to filibuster the legislation. Within the legislation there are some very wonderful things, such as, for example, expanding military expenditures.

When the Conservative leader sat in caucus and was in cabinet, the Conservatives financed military expenditures to less than 1% of Canada's GDP. We were the laughingstock of the G7 because of our lack of commitment to properly and adequately support our Canadian Forces. In the current budget, there are substantial increases that would enable industries to grow, whether it is the aerospace industry in Winnipeg or Quebec, or military operations, and to become a world leader. We can do that. That is included in the budget.

Another thing included in the budget is the national school food program. It is a wonderful program. I really and truly do not think the Conservatives understand it. Some members say it is nothing but garbage and that they are going to get rid of that particular program. They have no concept of what is taking place in our classrooms. For 30 years we heard from schools in different areas of the country, saying there are children who cannot learn because they have not had proper nutrition before coming to school.

We now have a Prime Minister who sees the value of supporting children in every region of the country, and we have made the program permanent to ensure nutritious food in schools. That is going to help Canadians. Every child will benefit from that particular program. It has been an issue that for decades, well over 30 years, schools, trustees and others have been advocating for.

What do the Conservatives say? They do not like it. Why? They say that there is no such thing as children learning on an empty stomach. How naive is that? The Conservatives are going to vote against the program. One of their members literally called it “garbage”, and others reinforced that.

There are substantial things within the legislation. We debated a Conservative amendment to the bill for days, hours and hours. We just finished voting on it. We were just about to go to debate on the legislation itself, when the Conservatives brought up a concurrence motion in order to once again prevent the debate from taking place. How things have changed. It is the leader of the Conservative Party, I would argue, who is leading the way.

I would hate to be a red Tory sitting in the Conservative caucus; that has to be very depressing, because there are so many things that can and should be happening. However, because of the direction of the Conservative House leadership team, particularly the leader of the Conservative Party, they are doing more damage rather than helping the system.

They do not even see that, because they refuse to recognize the value of at least allowing things to get through the House in some sort of orderly fashion. Whether there is a minority government or a majority, it should not matter; members should be supportive. Even when I was sitting in opposition, I recognized that at times the government needed to use time allocation because it is an effective tool in order to get legislation through.

The federal government needs to have legislative programming much like, but expanded more than, Private Members' Business, but that is what we need. We need rule changes. We need to modernize the House of Commons because we have to protect what is in the interest of Canadians, and I do not see that coming from the opposition. Sure, it is easy for opposition members to stand up and say, “We want more debate time on bill X or bill Y, and that is the reason we are not passing legislation.”

I say that is a bogus argument, and I do not say that lightly. The last time I stood up to debate the behaviour of the Conservative Party members, I made the suggestion that we give unanimous consent to sit until midnight so more Conservatives could actually speak to the legislation. When I made the suggestion, a number of them said, “Oh, yeah, why not? Let's do it.” Therefore I actually proposed it; I asked for unanimous consent to be able to sit that extra time.

After all, Canadians do not mind. Millions of Canadians work past 6:30 in the evening. Why can we not? I asked the question after hearing all the enthusiasm for working late coming from the Conservative Party. The moment I asked, what was the response?

[An hon. member]

No.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

It was absolutely “no”; there was not one Conservative who agreed.

Mr. Speaker, even individuals who were saying yes until I posed the question flip-flopped on the issue, because I called their bluff.

It is not about their wanting more time to debate. No, it is about the leader of the Conservative Party and the Conservative Party House leadership team, who really feel compelled to do two things. The first is character assassination. It does not matter what one does or say; they want to focus on trying to make the Prime Minister look as though he were some sort of a corrupt individual, and we all know that is not true.

A few Conservatives are actually applauding that, because it is an actual tactic the Conservatives use: They have no problem attacking the character of an individual just for the sake of scoring some cheap political points. That is one of the things coming from the Conservative Party, and it is consistent.

The other thing is that the Conservatives really and truly go out of their way to prevent legislation from passing. However, the irony is that they are not only doing a disservice for Canadians; they are also not allowing the opportunity for the House to deliver on important things for Canadians, and that is really sad. We hear from the Conservative benches at times that they want good legislation passed, especially when we get into Private Members' Business.

We spoke to a wonderful piece of legislation this morning during Private Members' Business. I indicated that it is something we are very much open to, as we have actually supported other pieces of private members' legislation. If it is good for Canadians, we should recognize that and at least facilitate some sort of passage, but the Conservatives do not do that, because when it comes to critical government legislation, they really do not want it to pass.

Here is what is going to happen, and I can already see it. At the end of the week, the Conservatives will say, “Well, those Liberals are so bad because they cannot even have a legislative agenda that has them pass the legislation. They did not pass bail reform legislation.” The Conservatives are actually going to criticize us, yet they are the ones who are preventing it from passing.

At the end of the day, it is not like it takes a great effort to filibuster and prevent legislation from passing. We know that. I have said in the past that they can give me any public high school in Canada. I can identify some students from that high school, and with 12 of them I can prevent legislation from passing. That is a no-brainer; it is not that difficult.

The real challenge, however, is trying to be a little more creative. The Conservatives can still be an opposition party, but they should be creative.

Look at it this way. Members will remember back in June, the leader of the Conservative party did not have a seat in the House. Do members know what was really good? We were able to pass Bill C-5, an election platform from the Prime Minister and the government to build one Canadian economy to consider major projects in this country and how we can advance them and take down trade and labour barriers. I and many members spoke to the legislation. It was good legislation.

The Conservative Party, in June, without its leader's sitting in the House, concurred. We could not have passed that legislation if it had not been for the Conservatives, at least in part, and I would say that it is because they did not have their leader here that we were able to pass it.

That legislation took a great effort, just like the bail reform legislation. Compare the two: If we look at the number of meetings and discussions the Prime Minister had with the different premiers in bringing forward Bill C-5, what we see is that there was a consensus built. It was with more than just premiers; it was also with indigenous leaders, many other stakeholders, and indigenous governments.

Now let us take a look at the bail reform legislation. Even more extensive work was done on it. Not only was the Prime Minister making that commitment to Canadians, but the Minister of Justice and the Secretary of State for Combatting Crime also took on the file and advanced it. It took a great deal of time and effort to build the consensus that was built. Everyone, including law enforcement officers, provinces, territories, indigenous people and communities as a whole, seems to recognize the value of the bail reform legislation.

I would have thought it would have passed, but because the leader of the Conservative Party has made the decision with his House leadership team that they are not going to allow that legislation to pass, it is not going to, yet we all know it is what our constituents want.

I serve the residents of Winnipeg North first and foremost, and I believe they want bail reform legislation. The reason they do not have bail reform legislation is the behaviour of the Conservative Party of Canada; that is the roadblock. Whether it is the budget that provides tax relief for Canadians, or whether it is bail legislation or other pieces of legislation, like the hate legislation or legislation on strengthening our borders, the Conservative Party of Canada is the biggest roadblock we have.

I would challenge the Conservative Party to reflect on the actions it is taking. I would suggest that it is time the Conservatives start putting the interests of Canadians ahead of the interests of their own political party.

With that, I move:

That the question be now put.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola.

Conservatives have been asking for bail reform since I came to the House, which is almost five years now, and the member consistently told us, like the Liberals, that there was no problem.

The justice committee meeting was cancelled last week. Last week we voted on Bailey's law, Bill C-225. Should we not be doing some work? Will the member support discussing intimate partner violence, rather than having the Liberal chair cancel the committee meeting again?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member who just posed the question has actually stood in the House on more than one occasion and asked for unanimous consent to pass legislation from first reading, second reading, a committee, third reading and right through with zero debate.

Can my colleagues imagine the amount of frustration that members of the Liberal caucus have in regard to the bail reform legislation? Just months ago, the Prime Minister made a commitment on bail reform legislation. The member, if he was genuine in his thoughts, should be talking to the House leadership within the Conservative Party, and we should be passing bail reform legislation. There is no excuse except for the Conservative Party of Canada. It should become the law.