Andrew Scheer

[Speaker of the House of Commons, December 15th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, we have discussed this matter at some length, both in a privilege motion here in the House and at extensive meetings at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Therefore, I will just do a very quick recap of how we came to be here.

The current Speaker comes into the chair after a history of hyperpartisanship, including roles at the executive level of the Liberal Party, as youth party president and as parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister. He was often engaged in partisan filibusters at committee, blocking investigations into corruption at the highest levels of the current government.

We all remember that he was one of the first to rise to speak when a member of the NDP was physically assaulted in this chamber by the Prime Minister. He actually accused that NDP MP of exaggerating her injuries, which is something that took all of us by surprise here in this House and was what I believe to be a very shameful display of defence of a Prime Minister who had clearly broken one of the most fundamental rules of decency, which is not to physically assault each other in this chamber.

After his election, members of the official opposition were willing to respect the decision of the House and to give him the benefit of the doubt. However, a few days ago we saw a video of the Speaker in his robes, which was filmed in his office, congratulating a sitting Liberal member of provincial parliament, praising that individual and participating in a Liberal election convention.

If that was not bad enough, just a few days ago, news came to light that the Speaker attended a Liberal cocktail militant, which I believe translates as a volunteer or an activist cocktail in English, a partisan networking or fundraising event. We have reports from people who were at that event, including the provincial member of Parliament, who indicated that funds were collected for the Liberal campaign war chest, which is a clear partisan activity.

It is for all those reasons that the official opposition believes the Speaker cannot continue in this role. Thus, he must do the right thing and put the integrity and impartiality of the House first and foremost.

That is what we are seeking to do with this motion. We believe it is best for the House and for the Speaker to resolve this very quickly. We believe the Speaker's chair should be vacated and that the current Speaker should step down. If he will not do that, as he has clearly indicated, this motion brings effect to that. It effectively orders the chair to be deemed vacant and a new election for Speaker to be held.

The reason this is important, why Canadians should care about this, is that there are different kinds of checks and balances on the Prime Minister's personal authority in our system. The checks include the Standing Orders of this House, the rules of precedence and the office of the Speaker working to ensure that, even though one particular political party may have a majority of the votes or an effective coalition government with another party, the other opposition parties still have a way to scrutinize; to delay in order to allow more debate, more transparency and accountability; and to propose alternatives. When the Speaker cannot acquit him or herself of the Speaker's responsibilities in an impartial way, that helps erode the check on the power the government has.

I will quickly roll through some of the reasons the Speaker's apology was not sufficient. He claimed that the video for the convention was all a miscommunication. We will park that for a moment.

Even if we were to not consider the Liberal convention he participated in, on the afternoon of December 1, he undertook an interview with Laura Stone of The Globe and Mail.

He paid tribute to outgoing Ontario Liberal Party interim leader John Fraser in glowing terms. He referred to Mr. Fraser's work on behalf of “our party.” He was calm, cool and collected; he took an interview request with a reporter from a national newspaper and offered opinions and comments on an active member of the provincial legislature.

He referred to that party as “our party”, clearly displaying partisan affiliation. We know that there is a discrepancy between the versions of events that the Speaker put forward and that came out of the Ontario Liberal Party, as to the nature of the event, and the apology is just not sufficient.

While the House was seized with this very issue, the Speaker went to Washington, D.C., during a sitting week. This, in and of itself, is a very unusual thing for a Speaker to do. He went on a preplanned trip that he had booked while he was still a parliamentary secretary. Rather than delay that event or have an official delegation from our Parliament, which is the normal practice for Speakers, to take delegations to other Parliaments and other Legislatures to build on that parliamentary diplomacy, he just transferred the trip from his members of Parliament budget to his Speaker budget and went ahead with the trip anyway. Again, on that trip, he relived his glory days as a young Liberal activist. While the House was sitting, members on all sides of the House had to watch the Speaker talking up the Liberal Party of Canada.

There is a reason Speakers avoid all partisan links when they take the Chair. It is to give comfort to members of Parliament from other parties by showing that they truly have put aside their partisan affiliation. The current Speaker has not been doing that from the time he took the Chair, and he continues to display grave errors of judgment.

We can be partisan. We are all elected to this place under a partisan banner. Many of us have long histories of activism in a movement. Even when we come here, some people choose to pour their efforts into the types of things, whether at committee or in the House, that absolutely defend their party and defend their team. There is nothing wrong with that, but those members of Parliament tend not to put themselves forward for Speaker, and, certainly, they tend not to be elected Speaker.

Here we have a current Speaker with that past, but he has not respected the impartiality of the Chair; instead, he has continued to put his partisan affiliation before the House on several occasions now. For those reasons, I am moving the motion today. I would really urge members of Parliament from all parties to reflect on this situation. I understand that there will be many Liberal members of Parliament who will have a knee-jerk reaction to defend their Liberal Speaker.

I know there has clearly been some kind of deal offered with the NDP, as we have seen so often before. They put aside the interests of the members of their party and activists within their movement who want real change; they trade that away, and it is hard to tell what they get back. I look forward to hopefully being able to play poker with the NDP House leader or even the Leader of the NDP one day, because I have a feeling it would be a pretty good round for me. It is unclear what New Democrats get out of all the water they carry for the Liberal government and all the defence they play for the government.

While Canadians are hurting and seeking real change, the NDP has decided to prop up the Liberal government in almost every way, almost every day. The current situation with the Speaker has clearly shown that they are not actually interested in and do not believe the things they say about the integrity of the office of the Speaker and the importance of Parliament. That is as phony as everything we hear from the Liberals.

I am asking them to park that for a moment and just think about the damage that can be done in a short period of time by a Speaker who does not respect impartiality and the important role that he plays in the House. For the good of the institution, I ask them to allow this motion to come to a vote and to vote in favour of it. Thus, the House could have a new election, a fresh start with a Speaker that could make the determination between the roles and responsibilities of a member of Parliament, once they put on the uniform and sit in that chair, and a hyperpartisan MP. The hyperpartisan MP has the right to do what they would like to always defend their party and attack their opponents, but they should do that from a position within the government benches.

[Speaker of the House of Commons, December 15th, 2023]

moved:

That this House resolve that it no longer has confidence in its Speaker, and direct that: (a) the office be deemed vacant effective immediately before the hour of meeting on the second sitting day following the adoption of this resolution; and (b) as the first order of business, at that second sitting day, an election of the Speaker be held, pursuant to Standing Order 2(2)

Madam Speaker, this has been a difficult few weeks for the House and for the office of the Speaker. A lot has been said. We have had a debate on a privilege motion here in the House, and we have had extensive meetings at the procedure and House affairs committee to study the blatant displays of partisanship that the current Speaker has engaged in and the fact that all members of the House have—

[Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act, December 15th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am hoping you will find unanimous consent for this motion, that for the sole purpose of disposing of—

[Canadian Women's Contributions to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Day Act, December 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the whole point of tabling the documents is so that you can read them.

[Canadian Women's Contributions to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Day Act, December 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I regretfully have to inform the House that there is evidence of another partisan activity that the Speaker was engaged with. I have, in my hands, a picture of the Speaker at an event with the hon. member for Pontiac, which was labelled and advertised by the Liberal Party as un cocktail militant.

The Instagram post for the hon. member reads, “This week, I had the privilege of participating in a remarkable event in the company of my colleague [the Speaker]. In this time when the political sphere is in full swing, supporting our colleagues is crucial. I want to express my gratitude to my provincial counterpart and friend André Fortin, as well as his liberal team, for organizing a stimulating evening focused on political discussions, both provincial and regional.”

This is not even the Speaker's riding. This is a neighbouring riding. It is billed as a cocktail, with activists and volunteers.

I would like to seek unanimous consent to table these documents. If any member of Parliament has ever said anything about the importance of the independence and integrity of the Speaker, they should allow me to table these documents and they should have allowed the debate on the Speaker to continue today.

[Points of Order, December 12th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order pursuant to Standing Order 69.1, to ask that you treat Bill C-59, an act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 21, 2023 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023, as an omnibus bill, and divide it for voting purposes at the second and third reading stages.

This argument is, of course, without prejudice to the arguments which were made last week by me in respect of the rule against anticipation and Ways and Means Motion No. 19, which preceded the introduction of Bill C-59, for which the House is still awaiting a ruling from the Speaker.

Section (1) of Standing Order 69.1 provides that “In the case where a government bill seeks to repeal, amend or enact more than one act, and where there is not a common element connecting the various provisions or where unrelated matters are linked, the Speaker shall have the power to divide the questions, for the purposes of voting". Section (2) of the same standing order makes an exception for budget implementation bills, stating, “if the bill has as its main purpose the implementation of a budget and contains only provisions that were announced in the budget presentation”.

As Speaker Regan ruled on November 8, 2017, at page 15143 of the Debates, where a budget bill contains measures which were not part of the budget, this budget bill exemption applies only to those elements which were in the budget itself. The non-budget elements can be divided under the provisions of Standing Order 69.1(1).

In the case of Bill C-59, calling it a budget implementation bill would be exceedingly generous. While reference to the March budget can be found in the long title, the short title ignores this, calling the bill the “fall economic statement implementation act, 2023”. Not even the government House leader, the manager of the government's parliamentary program, used it as a budget implementation bill, judging by her remarks in the last two weekly business statements. On November 23, she told the House, “it is the intention of the government to commence debate next week concerning the bill relating to the fall economic statement”. This past Thursday, she said that priority will be given to the second reading of Bill C-59, an act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement. Therefore, I would argue that the evident treatment given to Bill C-59 by its own proponents, would mean that its main purpose is, indeed, not the implementation of a budget. Accordingly, it would follow that the exemption found in Standing Order 69.1(2) cannot apply here.

I would further argue that Speaker Regan's November 2017 ruling can be distinguished from the facts at hand today, namely that he dealt with a budget bill with a few extra add-ons. Here, we have a bill that is not even being treated, in the main, as a budget implementation bill and that, therefore, cannot even benefit from a partial exemption, since the main purpose of Bill C-59 is not to implement a budget.

Having addressed that matter, I now wish to turn to the matter of treating the bill as an omnibus one, “where there is not a common element connecting the various provisions or where unrelated matters are linked”. In my respectful view, the fact that a series of measures may have been previewed in a fall economic statement does not amount to a so-called common element. Given that fall economic statements are often popularly dubbed “mini-budgets” and that the House itself recognizes that budgets often string together otherwise unrelated things by creating the budget implementation bill exemption in Standing Order 69.1, it is my submission that the mere inclusion of an item in a fall economic statement cannot be sufficient to overcome the treatment required for an omnibus bill.

Even if the Chair might be persuaded that all of the measures are, in one form or another, a matter of broad economic policy, I would refer you to Speaker Regan's March 1, 2018, ruling at page 17551 of the Debates:

In presenting arguments relating to Bill C-63, the hon. member for Calgary Shepard raised an interesting concept from the practice in the Quebec National Assembly. Quoting from page 400 of Parliamentary Procedure in Québec, he stated:

“The principle or principles contained in a bill must not be confused with the field it concerns. To frame the concept of principle in that way would prevent the division of most bills, because they apply to a specific field.”

While their procedure for dividing bills is quite different from ours, the idea of distinguishing the principles of a bill from its field has stayed with me. While each bill is different and so too each case, I believe that Standing Order 69.1 can indeed be applied to a bill where all of the initiatives relate to a specific policy area, if those initiatives are sufficiently distinct to warrant a separate decision of the House.

In this particular instance, I have no trouble agreeing that all of the measures contained in Bill C-69 relate to environmental protection. However, I believe there are distinct initiatives that are sufficiently unrelated that they warrant multiple votes.

Deputy Speaker Bruce Stanton dealt with another similar situation when he ruled on June 18, 2018, at page 21163 of the Debates, in respect of a former Bill C-59, stating it:

...does clearly contain several different initiatives. It establishes new agencies and mechanisms for oversight of national security agencies and deals with information collection and sharing as well as criminal offences relating to terrorism. That said, one could argue, as the parliamentary secretary did, that since these are all matters related to national security, there is, indeed, a common thread between them. However, the question the Chair must ask itself is whether these specific measures should be subjected to separate votes.

He goes on to state, “In this particular case, while the Chair has no trouble agreeing that all of the measures contained in Bill C-59 relate to national security, it is the Chair's view that there are distinct initiatives that are sufficiently unrelated as to warrant dividing the question.”

Therefore, I would suggest that today's bill, Bill C-59, should also be divided for voting purposes at second reading and, if necessary, at third reading.

After a brief review and analysis of the bill's contents, it seems that it could actually be divided into several groupings: clauses 1 to 95, proposing amendments to the Income Tax Act and consequential amendments to other enactments, as well as the bill's short title; clauses 96 to 128, proposing the creation of a digital services tax; clauses 129 to 136, 138 to 143 and 145 to 167, proposing amendments concerning the excise tax, other than the exemption of GST for mental health services, which is also contained in Bill C-323, a matter to which I will return later; clauses 168 to 196, proposing amendments to the laws governing financial institutions; clauses 197 to 208, proposing to create a leave entitlement related to pregnancy loss and to amend the law concerning bereavement leave; clauses 209 to 216, proposing the creation of a Canada water agency; clauses 217 and 218, proposing amendments to the Tobacco and Vaping Products Act; clauses 219 to 230, proposing amendments to the Canadian Payments Act; clauses 231 to 272 proposing various amendments to competition law; clauses 273 to 277, proposing amendments exempting post-secondary schools from the laws concerning bankruptcy and insolvency; clauses 278 to 317, proposing various legislative amendments concerning money laundering, terrorist financing and sanctions evasions; clauses 318 and 319, concerning the information which is published by the government respecting certain transfer payments to the provinces; clauses 320 to 322, proposing amendments concerning the Public Sector Pension Investment Board; and clauses 323 to 341, proposing the creation of a department of housing, infrastructure and communities.

Additionally, I would propose that clauses 137 and 144, concerning the exemption of GST for mental health services, mirroring the provisions of Bill C-323, as well as clauses 342 to 365, creating employment insurance and job protection benefits for adoptive and surrogate parents, replicating the substance of Bill C-318, should also be separated out from Bill C-59. However, in this instance, I would suggest that, instead of a separate vote, these provisions would simply not proceed further given that the House has already taken a decision on the principle of those matters when it adopted the common-sense Conservative private members' bills at second reading.

Approaching it in this fashion might be an elegant solution to squaring the circle in the ruling that remains pending on Ways and Means Motion No. 19.

In short, Bill C-59, the fall economic statement implementation bill, is an omnibus bill under Standing Order 69.1. It qualifies in no way for the budget bill exemption in that rule. It can and should be divided into separate votes, about 14 or so based on the thematic groupings of the bill's clauses. It would, if so divided, offer an elegant solution for a pending Speaker's ruling to reconcile the long-standing rules and precedents of the House respecting multiple decisions on the same question that, for reasons we are awaiting, did not apply to Ways and Means Motion No. 19 and that saw the House vote, yet again, on the principles found in two Conservative private members' bills that had already been adopted at second reading.

[Carbon Pricing, December 11th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, when Liberals have a chance to provide relief to all Canadians and first nations, they say, “We'll see you in court.” They have succeeded, though, in uniting Canadians around one thing: their hatred for the carbon tax.

As hard-working Canadians across the country visit food banks for the first time or turn their thermostats down, northerners are really facing the sting of the carbon tax. The Premier of the Northwest Territories went on to say, “I mean, ideally, a complete exemption for the territory is what we would hope for because, like I said before, the costs are already high”.

Why will the Prime Minister not have some mercy on Canadians and axe the tax?

[Carbon Pricing, December 11th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is causing division and anger in unprecedented ways, with a backlash we may never have seen in this country before: 133 first nations suing the Prime Minister over the carbon tax, several provinces taking the Prime Minister to court to try to stop the tax, one province refusing to collect the tax altogether, and now the Premier of the Northwest Territories asking for a full exemption, saying, “the prices are just getting higher and higher here.”

After eight years, it is clear the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. Will he put his ego aside and axe the tax?

[Supplementary Estimates (B), 2023-24, December 7th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I think we should have a recorded vote on this one.

[Supplementary Estimates (B), 2023-24, December 7th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I hereby request a recorded division.