Mr. Speaker, today is the last day we will sit before summer. Usually, on the last day, everyone has a smile on their face. They are in a good mood and they are patting themselves on the back. I would suggest that such is not really the case today. That is not the case because we are finishing our work with a gag order on Bill C-5, a gag order that, incidentally, does not have consensus. We barely had time to study the bill in committee or in the House. In fact, the gag order came in before we even started debate on Bill C‑5.
Normally, when a committee study is completed and there has been some co-operation between the parties, enough amendments have been made to the bill to make it decent, or at least palatable and something we can live with. Generally, the priority is to remove most of the irritants from the bill, and we are able to say that we have at least done that. This time, that is not the case. This time, we are not in a good mood about the bill or about the work done in committee, because we did not have an opportunity to do any real work.
It is particularly sad because closure is generally imposed when a bill has stagnated, when there has been no progress on a bill for months, when there is filibustering. This time, we did not even have time for it to stagnate. There was no time for a filibuster because we did not have time to talk about the bill in the first place. It is sad because not so long ago, we moved an amendment to the government's closure motion that would have granted us more hours of consideration in committee. Instead of having just two hours on Tuesday, we would have had 14 hours, which would have enabled a good number of witnesses to appear. We almost reached an agreement before going to committee. It seemed as if it was going to go ahead, but apparently there were last-minute negotiations behind the scenes, some shenanigans between the government and the Conservatives. As a result of those shenanigans, that did not come to pass, and people who had been called to testify were told by the clerk that they would not be testifying after all. Those are witnesses who had taken time off work, had planned to drive for hours or had already started driving, and could have even boarded a plane. Those witnesses were ultimately told they were not going to testify. What do you make of that, Mr. Speaker? I know you cannot answer, but it makes no sense. It was a lousy way to treat these people. They were treated without respect.
A lot of witnesses, including members of environmental groups, would have appreciated the opportunity to testify about Bill C‑5. However, no witnesses from environmental groups were able to give evidence on Bill C‑5 because the Bloc Québécois was allowed only two witnesses for the duration of the study. That is absolutely ridiculous. More than 60% of the witnesses, whose names we submitted and who were supposed to testify, were ultimately told they could not, even though the clerk had already called to ask them to testify. The whole thing is unbelievable. I consider this a terrible disservice to democracy. It brings shame on this Parliament to have sunk so low. What this government was actually trying to do was to muzzle them. It wanted to deny them a voice. It wanted to silence them and silence their criticism. That is how this government operates.
Worse still, by the time the witnesses appeared in committee, it was too late for us to move amendments. Regardless of what the witnesses had to say, we could not even listen to them or integrate their comments into the bill. That way of doing things makes no sense whatsoever. It is a disgrace, and I hope Quebec society will remember this. I actually hope Canadian society will remember it, too. I know first nations will remember, environmental groups will remember and francophone communities outside Quebec will remember. I know a lot of Quebeckers and unions will remember, too.
When a government seizes all power for itself, disregards the democratic process and refuses to listen to criticism, that is a serious and dangerous situation. It is bad enough that the Conservatives helped them do it, but it is worse still that the Liberals did not vote in favour of one single amendment proposed in committee. They could not have cared less. Like masters, like kings on earth, they had already made all the decisions. That is how this government operates.
