Mr. Speaker, am I to understand that what you said was that we are wasting the time of the House with these amendments and motions? Is that what you said, Mr. Speaker?
Lost his last election, in 2000, with 42% of the vote.
Division No. 937 March 13th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, am I to understand that what you said was that we are wasting the time of the House with these amendments and motions? Is that what you said, Mr. Speaker?
Division No. 937 March 13th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The speed at which you are reading out these motions is more akin to that of an auctioneer or the commentator at a horse race than to that of a Speaker of the House of Commons.
This being a bill on clarity, it would be necessary for what you are reading to be clear to all those who are listening.
An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference March 3rd, 2000
moved:
Motion No. 9
That Bill C-20, in the preamble, be amended by replacing lines 16 and 17 on page 1 with the following:
“Whereas the Supreme Court of Canada has given an opinion that the result of a referendum on”
An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference March 3rd, 2000
moved:
Motion No. 5
That Bill C-20, in the preamble, be amended by replacing lines 1 and 2 on page 1 with the following:
“Whereas the Supreme Court of Canada has given an opinion that there is no right, under interna-”
Points Of Order March 3rd, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. This concerns the permissibility of some of my amendments to Bill C-20 at report stage, which I submitted this week to the Journals Branch.
I am rising now on a point of order so that you may rule on this, at your earliest convenience, before we start debating Bill C-20. The House of Commons Procedure and Practices , by Marleau and Montpetit, says on page 538, and I quote:
Points of Order respecting procedure must be raised promptly and before the question has passed to a stage at which the objection would be out of place.
This is of the utmost importance. Some of the amendments I am proposing are aimed at clarifying the wording of clauses 1(5) and 2(3) of Bill C-20.
These clauses state that the House of Commons shall take into account any views it considers to be relevant to the consideration of the question and the will to secede.
My amendments, which were rejected, are only aimed at specifying that these views can be the ones of the government of the province that wants to secede and, in my humble opinion, my amendments do not go beyond the scope of the bill. However, they were deemed out of order, which seems to indicate that my freedom of expression has been restricted.
I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, since you are the guardian of the privileges of members of the House, particularly those in the opposition. On this issue, the
House of Commons Procedure and Practice , by Marleau and Montpetit, also specifies, on page 261, and I quote:
It is the responsibility of the Speaker to act as the guardian of the rights and privileges of Members and of the House as an institution.
It goes on to say:
Freedom of speech may be the most important of the privileges accorded to Members of Parliament; it has been described as:
...a fundamental right without which they would be hampered in the performance of their duties. It permits them to speak in the House without inhibition, to refer to any matter or express any opinion as they see fit, to say what they feel needs to be said in the furtherance of the national interest and the aspirations of their constituents.
Since you are the guardian of the privileges of this House and of its members, I draw your attention to the consequences of ruling out of order the amendments I submitted as a member representing his fellow citizens.
With all due respect, I do not understand why I cannot discuss these amendments. Because you ruled them as being out of order, not only myself, but all the members of this House are prevented from debating them.
This is an important and urgent matter, but you should take the time to examine the situation and make an informed decision. Your ruling will determine the freedom that the members of this House will enjoy in the future. Neither I nor my colleagues want to see this freedom of speech challenged only because my amendments deal with Bill C-20.
To conclude, I would like to quote constitutional experts whom our PC colleague quoted this morning, namely professors Brun and Tremblay, who, in the fifth edition of their book on constitutional law, wrote the following:
The safeguarding the rights of the opposition is one of the most fundamental unwritten rules that the Speaker of the House must advocate, if necessary.
Mr. Speaker, we need you to be the guardian of our privilege to speak, to amend legislation, to introduce amendments that were ruled out of order and should not have been.
Privilege March 3rd, 2000
I would appreciate it if you allowed me to add something. You quoted a comment made by a predecessor of yours in the sixties.
We are now in the electronic era. Like my colleague, I find there is a serious problem, because the clerk of that committee told me, the day after the proceedings, that the minutes of the proceedings of the legislative committee on Bill C-20 would be posted in the coming days. We are already one week past that deadline and the minutes have yet to be posted.
Based on the statements—
Privilege March 3rd, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order on this.
Division No. 752 February 28th, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I add my voice to those of the hon. member for Frontenac—Megantic and our health critic, the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, to say that after having supported the principle of Bill C-13 at second reading, the Bloc Quebecois now prefers to reserve judgment because of what the government intends to do about the amendments which were moved by the Bloc Quebecois to ensure that the Constitution is respected.
Since this debate is about health, and even health care, which is a provincial jurisdiction, and since Quebec is particularly concerned about federal encroachments in this area, encroachments which this Liberal government has sought to multiply since 1993, the Bloc Quebecois will feel an obligation to express its dissent about this bill establishing the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, if the amendments it moved are not carried.
The Bloc decided to take this position after a thorough examination of the bill, after having consulted the members of the community and having reached the conclusion that, again, this bill was a manifestation of this government's bad habit, a habit it could never get rid of, to use its spending power in areas of provincial jurisdiction.
Besides, this government might want to do the same today, when the Finance Minister tables his budget, since it has accumulated billions of dollars on the back of the poorest in our society and on the back of the provinces by drastically reducing social transfer payments.
So this government could well be tempted again today, in the area of health but also in education or social programs, to spend money it has accumulated that should be given back to provinces, and among them Quebec, which wants, with the means it should have at its disposal, to fulfil its responsibilities in areas which are under its jurisdiction.
This does not mean that the Bloc Quebecois does not support this budget increase for research and development. It does support this budget increase. It also salutes the efforts of researchers—and there are many researchers in Quebec who want to see an increase in research budgets.
In fact, health researchers in Quebec are among the most effective in Canada. They are the ones who succeed in obtaining the largest financial support, which proves that health research in Quebec is very dynamic and can rely on the support and the exceptional work of researchers in the major institutes that already exist in Quebec, in our major laboratories and also in our universities.
These researchers, who have helped in the drafting of this bill to obtain innovative tools to improve the sharing of health information and to support the development of advanced health technologies, must understand the Bill C-13 in its current form—and that is what the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve tried to explain to be very transparent with regard to the position the Bloc Quebecois is putting forward in the House today—could seriously encroach on provincial jurisdictions in the area of health.
Beyond health research per se, the bill often refers to health related issues without ever recognizing the provinces' responsibility with regard to delivering health services to the public, which I think is worth mentioning in the House.
In fact, the provinces' role is reduced to that of any other player. As in the case of any person or organization involved in the area of health, national mandates are given. In fact, the word national is being used more and more in the House. Everything the federal government does now is no longer federal but national. They want it to be national because they consider Canada a nation, whereas Quebec has always considered itself a nation and continues its efforts to make Quebec an open and pluralistic nation, one in which all citizens are equal and can play their part in building the Quebec nation.
There is another competing project, however, that of a Canadian nation, a nation that of course calls upon a national government, one which has a tendency to consider the provinces as municipalities—one of the first Prime Ministers of this country, John A. Macdonald, considered provinces to be big municipalities. This is unacceptable to the Bloc Quebecois, and our opposition is just one more instance in a long history of opposition by all the governments of Quebec, one after the other, which have constantly raised the importance of respecting the division of powers in the health field as in all areas that fall exclusively under provincial jurisdiction.
It will come as no surprise that this is, once again, a reason for the Bloc Quebecois members to defend the interests of Quebec in this House, but it is also an opportunity to remind people of something: the alternative to an endlessly centralizing federalism, of which Bill C-13 is just one more example, is a project to make Quebec sovereign and able to be its own master over health and other areas, able to freely control its future, to create research institutes in the way that it wishes, and able to ensure that Quebec researchers can have access to what is required in order to carry out the innovative research they plan to do.
The Bloc Quebecois cannot, therefore, endorse this bill as presently worded, and it insists on stating in this House that the problem does not lie with the creation of institutes per se. Research and development might fall within the category of residual powers and thus, theoretically, under federal jurisdiction. In the end, after careful analysis and reading, the bill provides for a real possibility of direct infringement of provincial jurisdiction in public health services, infringement that will, as happens all too often, not involve proper consultation with the provinces.
I may be permitted to remind this House that a few weeks ago, the start of this month, marked the first anniversary of the agreement, the framework agreement on social union, an anniversary that was not celebrated in Quebec, because the formula in this case too will permit the federal government—as the Minister of Health himself has said—to unjustly claim jurisdiction over health care and to impose its views on Quebec, even though Quebec opposes this bill's application to Quebecers and the agreement's application to it.
The Bloc Quebecois is therefore proposing a series of amendments aimed primarily at underscoring the importance of respect for the division of powers and at reaffirming the primacy of provincial jurisdiction in the field of health.
In closing, I would point out once again that in this House, despite claims of concern over health care, the government has unilaterally—it has the habit of doing things unilaterally—and irresponsibly stopped funding the health networks put in place in 1993 by its famous Canada health and social transfer program.
It is commendable that it is investing more in research, but it must not lose sight of the need to re-establish the transfer payments to the provinces. The research institutes must not be a means for the federal government to meddle in areas of Quebec jurisdiction.
Point Of Order February 23rd, 2000
Mr. Speaker, following the introduction of Bill C-20, which denies the fundamental rights and prerogatives of Quebecers and of the state of Quebec, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House for the withdrawal of this bill.
Bill C-20 February 21st, 2000
Mr. Speaker, because of this undemocratic bill in the Canadian parliament, the Quebec National Assembly had to introduce its own Bill 99 on the fundamental rights and prerogatives of the people and the state of Quebec.
Can the minister clearly tell us today which of the two acts will take precedence in determining the clarity of the referendum process: Bill C-20 in the House of Commons, or Bill 99 in the Quebec National Assembly?