Madam Speaker, I am happy to rise to speak to Motion No. 7. The hon. House leader gave a very impassioned speech about how we all worked together when this crisis first hit. We worked together immediately so that we would have a safe situation here in Ottawa, whereby the House was suspended on March 13 and we all went back to our ridings and began the hard work of dealing with this pandemic.
However, when the House was suspended at that time, I do not think any of us thought that the government would use that opportunity to circumvent democracy and shut Parliament down for this long a period of time. That was never what Conservatives wanted.
Motion No. 7 would continue the shutdown of democracy. It would continue the shutdown of Parliament. It would continue the shutdown of all members of Parliament who do the work that Canadians elected us to do. What Motion No. 7 would do is re-establish the special committee. Although the special committee is one in which questions can be asked, we certainly are not seeing questions answered. There are many things that the opposition can do when Parliament is actually sitting in order to try to get answers and hold the government to account. That is not going to be happening if this motion passes.
I want to remind Canadians that there are a number of things that we can do as opposition members, including opposition days where we can have full days to debate issues that members of the opposition parties feel are important. Private members' business is allowed to come forward when Parliament is sitting. Under this motion, no private members' business would come forward until probably the end of September. There are questions on the Order Paper that can be posed, whereby very specific and detailed questions are answered, and we have seen so much information come out over the years from questions on the Order Paper. The opposition is not going to be allowed to do that. There are debates and discussions around important committee reports that happen when Parliament is sitting. That will not be happening under this special committee.
Let us be very clear. For all Canadians, for everyone in the House, Parliament would not be resuming. A committee would be resuming and it would be resuming in this place, face to face. This begs the question: If we can resume here four days a week as a committee, why in the world can we not resume as parliamentarians and as a full Parliament?
We had a study done just recently by the PROC committee. It was a good study, but it was probably too short. The committee probably will need more time, and I think it will be getting more time, to do some work that it is doing. There was some fantastic testimony given on why Parliament is essential. Some might suggest this is just about people getting media coverage. What an insult that is to what every single one of us does every single day when Parliament has been sitting and has sat for the last 150 years. We are here to do a job, whether it is in government or in opposition; whether it is the main opposition party, the second opposition party or even that third opposition party over there. Those members are here to do a job as well, and I do not think any of us are going to insult the third party there, even though its numbers are reduced, by saying that the members are here just to get attention.
Let me quote Marc Bosc, former acting clerk of the House. He articulated Parliament's place. Here is what he said:
In too many countries around the world, dominant executive branches of government eclipse parliament. This makes parliaments weaker and less relevant. That imbalance needs to be addressed, especially in a time of crisis.
That is what we are in, Madam Speaker. He continued:
The House of Commons [not committee] needs to be functioning and needs to be seen by Canadians as functioning. I want to be clear. Parliament, particularly the House of Commons [not committee] is an essential service to the country, and members of Parliament are also essential workers.
These views are not just academic concerns. Veteran observers of Canadian politics have made similar points. John Ibbitson, for example, wrote:
Everything that is being debated on Twitter and Facebook and in the news media needs to be debated on the floor of the House [of Commons] and in Question Period.
Again, that is not a committee. He is talking about being in Parliament in the House of Commons and on the floor of the House of Commons. He continued:
Canada is a parliamentary democracy, health emergency or no health emergency....The opposition parties have every right to raise these issues, and the governing party has every right to defend its record. The place to do that is in Parliament, not just once a day in front of a microphone.
Who has been doing that every day in front of a microphone, getting out in front of his cottage, answering a few questions, smiling, telling everybody how he feels and that is it? That is not Parliament. That is not the way our democracy works.
Manon Cornellier, a Quebec journalist, said in Le Devoir, “The Conservatives…are right to require the government to be more accountable. Constant speeches and press conferences cannot replace the duty of ministers and the Prime Minister to be accountable before elected representatives. In a British type of Parliament, the existence of the government depends on the trust of the House”: not a committee but the House, Parliament. “Ultimately, the government must answer for its actions and decisions...”
A lot of academics and media ask this, but more importantly every day my constituents ask me why Parliament is not sitting. They say we are in a middle of a crisis and they have elected me to sit in Parliament. I have had to tell them that the government, together with the help of some of the other parties, has tied our hands behind our backs. We have still been able to do a lot of good work here in opposition. We have seen the work we have done. The government House leader has even acknowledged that pretty well every one of the programs that the government introduced, we as opposition made better, because we did not allow anyone to shut our voice down and we used every tool available.
That is why we want Parliament to sit. We want to deliver better results for Canadians. We know that in a democracy when the government is challenged, when it has to defend what it is doing and maybe improve it, when it has to listen to us on our opposition days and take a position, it is better for Canadians. That is the whole reason Conservatives want Parliament to sit.
That, then, comes to the question of why the government would not want Parliament to sit. Why would the Liberal government prefer to stand up every day, as the Prime Minister does in front of his cottage, answer a few questions and announce some programs for people, but not come back to Parliament? For a long time, the government was saying it was concerned about the health and safety of people in the precinct and members of Parliament. That wears very thin because its own motion calls us all back here four days a week.
Four days a week we are going to be here in the committee, face to face, practising physical distancing and being very responsible, which is what Conservatives have advocated for. However, the Prime Minister does not want Parliament. Therefore, the whole argument of safety is actually pretty thin. I would say it is a thin excuse and not a real reason.
I would suggest the real reason Liberals do not want Parliament to sit is because they do not want the full accountability, the full scrutiny and the full responsibility that will come when Parliament does sit. Make no mistake: We will sit again. Conservatives will stand ready any time to come back as Parliament and hold the government to account for its response to this pandemic, for its lack of response, for its lack of dealing with things in a timely way, for its lack of supporting and providing protection for Canadians.
Make no mistake: The day of reckoning will come for the Prime Minister. He may think he is going to escape Parliament now, but the day will come. Conservatives will hold the government to account. We will do our job. Conservatives stand ready, willing and able to do the job for Canadians that it seems nobody else in this place wants to do.
