Madam Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my colleagues, particularly my colleague from Jonquière, who proposed this piece of legislation and exposed some of the issues that underlie it, which are very important in our world today. He has stressed the importance of international treaties, which are now as important as they have ever been.
I want to reiterate the comments made by my colleagues and thank the member for Jonquière for raising the issues addressed in the bill. Our government is a strong advocate for integrity, transparency and accountability in the treaty-making process.
However, I assert that the current processes that we use in the House, in our Parliament and in our governments strike a very good balance between, on the one hand, ensuring respect for all the principles we have in the House, including processes that allow the opposition to initiate debate on any given treaty, and on the other hand ensuring the continued functioning of Parliament and timely response to a changing world. Both items are imperative for a well-functioning Canada in a very turbulent world.
The resumption of debate on this bill comes at a very critical time, after we have spent a great deal of time away from the House contemplating global events and our place in them and while we watch a world that changes every day.
Last week in Davos the Prime Minister laid out the challenges we face. We are clear-eyed about the facts. The global order has been ruptured, and Canada's posture and assumptions must change with it. We are also clear-eyed about our priorities. We will remain grounded in Canadian principles and Canadian values while, at the same time, building issue-based coalitions that will drive our economic growth and create opportunities for Canadians.
As Canada diversifies its global partnerships to protect jobs and stimulate economic growth, we cannot afford to have our efforts derailed. We are rapidly diversifying our activities abroad. In just six months, we have signed roughly 12 trade and security agreements on four continents, all of which have been or will be tabled in the House, along with any legislative measures required to ratify them.
As our speed ramps up and as the world continues to change, we cannot afford to create new burdensome processes in Parliament that would simply result in gridlock that would derail the hard work that is going on to build these new partnerships for Canadians and Canadian businesses. To that end, I share the concerns already raised in the House by the members for Wellington—Halton Hills North and Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga about the impact this bill would have on the work of Parliament and the undue burden, without benefit, that a study for each treaty would create for committee work and for debate in the House.
I would reiterate that it would be without significant value for Canadians. This would be burden without benefit.
At the federal level, the imposition of an obligation to obtain the advice of Parliament for the ratification of all important treaties, as considered in this bill, would weaken the ability of any government to respond to time-sensitive international developments and opportunities and to ensure that we secure benefits from Canada's bilateral and multilateral international partners.
Canadians want action as we face global challenges, and they want that action quickly. They want a responsive government, as has been demonstrated by the Prime Minister. The Bloc Québécois has purported that the bill is, above all, designed to ensure that Parliament has a say in the trade deals that the government is negotiating, but I would emphasize that all such agreements require implementing legislation and follow due process every time they are about to be ratified.
Indeed, at this time, even as we speak, on the Order Paper we have two pieces of implementing legislation on trade deals: one with the U.K., a very important piece of legislation that would ensure Canadian businesses can engage with U.K. counterparts and that Canadian consumers would benefit from that trade; and another one with Indonesia, one of the key economic partners we have in the ASEAN world. It is an important economy that Canada and Canadian businesses need to have access to. As I said, those bills are right now before the House for members' consideration, for debate in this place and for Parliament to speak on.
Most of the Bloc Québécois's public messaging on this bill has referred to a vote on all major treaties, but I would like to point out that there is no reference to a mandatory vote in the text of the bill.
Nevertheless, under our current Standing Orders agreed to by this Parliament, there are two principal ways that a treaty could be voted on in the House. It is within the right of opposition parties to have an opposition day, and hence a motion, through which a treaty could be debated and discussed if it is important to that party. That would ensure that it comes before the House if it is something that the Bloc Québécois or the Conservative Party wants to debate.
The second way is through a concurrence motion on a committee report. There are many committee reports that do not receive concurrence motions, but an opposition member, in particular, or a government member could decide to move concurrence in a report and have a debate in the House, which takes precedence to any other business of the House.
Other members have already pointed out that the sheer number of treaties tabled in any given parliamentary session would paralyze Parliament and use up the limited number of opposition days. I will instead focus on two related issues: parliamentary autonomy and the current structure, timeline and mechanisms for votes on concurrence debates.
The bill uses the phrase “within a reasonable timeline” when setting out procedure for committee reporting. The most obvious challenge with this clause is that it is not a defined period. The less obvious challenge is that it fails to recognize the prerogative of standing committees to set their own agendas. This is critical in work that comes before committees. This parliamentary autonomy is an important aspect of our democracy and of parliamentary privilege writ large to take all the necessary time to study the matters that are important to Canadians, with a view to improving the lives of Canadians.
If we want to preserve this parliamentary autonomy, we also need to recognize that, under this legislation, a committee could choose to never study a treaty. This would have the practical effect of killing a treaty, since the bill would make it illegal to ratify a treaty before such a study has taken place.
A similar issue arises with the concurrence motion process laid out in the bill even when the study does happen and a report is generated with recommendations and tabled in the House. As we know, concurrence motions cannot be moved until after the government has tabled its response to the report, 120 days on top of the time it takes to do the study itself. This is something that will simply paralyze Parliament.
In closing, I want to say that we value the input of parliamentarians before treaties are made, while they are under discussion and as they approach ratification. We have processes in place to make sure that happens. We want to engage with everyone in the House on these treaties. This bill would not help. It is burden without benefit, and we want to ensure that everyone in the House votes against this bill.