Mr. Speaker, as I was saying earlier, I have been in the House for about nine years now, and I have to say, Bill C‑5 is the worst bill I have ever worked on. It is the worst bill I have ever seen make its way through the House. These are strong words, but it is the truth.
The government's approach reveals a thoroughly autocratic management style. Despite everything, we managed to get rid of a few irritants, a few items that were blatantly unacceptable, although many others remain. In fact, we had to twist the government's arm to get last-minute gains like having the Indian Act and the Official Languages Act removed from the list of acts that could be sidestepped under the major projects bill.
It should not be a herculean task to prevent the government from bypassing every law on the books to please the Liberal Party's pals. Some laws should be untouchable. Francophone rights should not even be up for discussion; nor should indigenous rights. We won those small victories because we got a little last-minute support on a few things from the Conservative Party.
We also managed to achieve a little more transparency around the use and application of this act thanks to an oversight committee similar to the one we have for emergency measures. We also made sure that the special powers given to ministers cannot be used when Parliament is dissolved or the House is adjourned. These are small victories, but they do not change the substance of the bill.
We also proposed other amendments that sought to improve environmental oversight, but they were rejected by the Liberal-Conservative coalition, as were our amendments aimed at giving Quebec the right to say no to projects that Ottawa wants to fast-track. We proposed amendments to force the bill and the government to respect the jurisdictions of Quebec and the other provinces and territories, but those amendments were also rejected by the Liberal-Conservative coalition.
We introduced an amendment to stop certain projects from being fast-tracked and to give the House the power to do that. This amendment would have allowed the House to draw attention to the fact that the government was going too far when it was not happy with these fast-tracked projects. Once again, our amendment was rejected by the Liberal-Conservative coalition. We wanted to completely eliminate the power to circumvent laws by order in council for major projects. That was also challenged and rejected by the Liberal-Conservative coalition.
As we know, normally, the larger the project, the greater its impact and the more social dialogue it requires. However, in this case, we are seeing the opposite: The larger the project, the more political games there will be. The larger the project, the more people will have to suffer the consequences of something that they were not even consulted about.
This opens the door to all sorts of biased applications, all sorts of arbitrary decisions and greater cronyism. One would think we are living in a banana republic. Usually, in modern democracies, it is the opposite. We have the executive branch, the legislative branch and the judicial branch, which are all independent from one another. However, what we are seeing here is the executive branch giving itself the power to bypass the legislative branch. That is unfortunate and it is really problematic to see the government being given the power to choose projects, the power to choose what projects should be designated as being in the national interest, the power to choose the conditions that will apply to projects, and the power to circumvent laws that this Parliament passed, all by order in council. The government is even being given the power to issue an order changing the project conditions midstream, if the developers do not like them.
The bill that is before us is really serious, and I do not understand why members of the House do not realize that. Normally, checks and balances exist in a society for good reason: to prevent the abuse of power. What we are seeing on the other side of the House is a government that wants to give itself all the power and govern like our neighbours south of the border. We are speaking out against that. I thought that this was something that we wanted to do away with in the last election, but this is what we are seeing the government do today.
We should not trust a government that not only wants to govern by order in council, but also wants to govern in secret, with no accountability.