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?