Charlie Angus

[Business of Supply, September 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I take my role very seriously.

The fact that I practise my questions does not make me unparliamentary. I think it makes me more professional. I would like to think that my hon. colleague would come here prepared, as I do.

[Business of Supply, September 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to sound like I am getting long in the tooth from my many years here, but what he is asking us is this. If the Speaker had the authority to rule whether a question was relevant, what would we end up with? We would end up with the Westminster parliamentary tradition.

I do not know where my friend thinks he is sitting, but the Speaker has that authority. What would we end up with? We would end up with the tradition of the Speaker that exists in every Parliament in the western world.

What we are saying is that when the Speaker comes to the House and says that he does not have the authority to tell someone who stands and swears six times in a row and produces ruthless, ignorant gibberish in a question about going to war, if the Speaker says he does not have the authority to fix that, then it is our obligation, all parliamentarians, to do the right thing and fix the Standing Orders.

[Business of Supply, September 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, in my 10 years, I do remember when it was considered contempt of Parliament to mislead the House in an answer. Again, one could obfuscate. One could make a mistake. However, someone who set out to mislead Parliament, that was considered the most egregious crime that a member could commit, whether it was a sitting prime minister of whether it was a minister of the crown, and there were consequences.

We are at a point now where people just respond somehow with “Get over it”, “Come on”, “Welcome to Parliament”, “It's question period; it's not answer period”. However, the fundamental respect for even telling the truth seems to have been lost within this last Parliament, and that is a concern.

The Standing Orders have always been clear, in terms of the obligation to respond as best one can and as truthfully as one can. The fact that we even have to make it clear shows the fundamental problem that we are seeing in this democracy right now.

[Business of Supply, September 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, as always it is a great honour to stand in this House. In standing and speaking for the people of Timmins—James Bay, I never forget the honour I have in carrying their trust and being part of an institution that predates me by many centuries, and which I hope to God will continue on. It is something we are all part of.

Tonight we are debating an issue which in the many lows I have seen in our Parliament may be among the lowest. This is not to dwell on it, but sometimes there may be a breaking point when parliamentarians need to step back and say that there is something fundamentally going wrong within this House. This is not to denigrate the role of the Speaker, but I was very surprised when the Speaker threw up his hands in response to such a crisis, and said that he reads the rules literally, and unless it was written literally, he is not able to act. I was very surprised by that. However, what we are attempting to do tonight is to provide those tools.

We need to look at the issue at hand and what sparked this motion.

In the 10 years that I have been here, I have seen a continual decline in the quality of discussion. I am not trying to present anything naive such that there was a glory day of Parliament. I think Parliament has always been somewhat of a challenged place because it is made up of human beings. This is what democracy is. We have had better conversations and we have had low-brow conversations within this House.

However, the most serious thing that we are ever asked to do as legislators is to consider sending men and women into harm's way. That is the most serious thing that will ever confront any of us. Therefore, when the Leader of the Opposition asks a respectful question in question period and is treated to ignorant gibberish as a response and the Speaker says it is allowable, then we have a problem. When the responder for the crown can swear in question period not once but six times over three questions and that can be considered parliamentary because it is part of question period, because as we are told, “Well, it is question period, not answer period”, that is really not acceptable.

I have heard my hon. colleagues from the Conservatives tell us that this motion would somehow tie their hands unfairly. Yet, we know from within this Parliament that the Speaker has enforced the rules, that if the question is not pertinent to the issues of government, he cuts off the question. I have seen questions cut off numerous times in this session. The Speaker will tell us that if he feels the questions coming from the opposition are not respectful enough of ministers, he will cut off those questions, and he has cut off those questions. However, it is perfectly acceptable within his reading of the Standing Orders to treat the Leader of the Opposition to such contempt on the issue of Canadians going to war as somehow being parliamentary, but we know it is not.

We do have to address this issue. We have to address how it is in the interpretation of this House acceptable to swear six times in three questions and consider that to be parliamentary, or to respond on the issue of Canadians fighting in Iraq with some of the most ignorant drivel that I have ever heard in this House is parliamentary, but to call it out and question it is unparliamentary.

We see this pattern repeated again and again in this Parliament. We see it even with the apology. Normally when a member makes a mistake and comes into the House and gives an apology, the issue is considered done. It is sort of a gentlemen's and gentlewomen's code that we have always had. However, we saw an apology come after three days of defiant repetition of this side-show gibberish. The member stated in the apology that he did it on his own, that nobody told him to do it, but within minutes of that apology, we are seeing reports that that is simply not true. We are hearing that the plan had come right from the Prime Minister's Office and that the member was told by Alykhan Velshi, the director of issues management within the Prime Minister's Office, to say these lines.

Suddenly now it is parliamentary to stand up with an apology and not tell the truth, but it would be unparliamentary for me to challenge it because somehow, as an hon. member, we are supposed to take him at his word, even when the apology is simply not credible and not truthful.

What we are speaking about is something bigger than decorum. We are speaking about something that is bigger than just this charade that is being played out within Parliament, this contempt of democracy where we call each other honourable members and we stand and talk about the institution of Parliament and speak in the third person, but what we are seeing is that our parliamentary system is becoming increasingly a sideshow. It is a Potemkin democracy.

We see the officers of Parliament continually undermined in their work. Their role as independent officers of Parliament is to hold government and members to account. Yet we see that their ability to do their job is continually undermined.

We have seen how the parliamentary committees have been turned into a circus, once again, a sideshow, taking away the traditional role which the parliamentary committees had. We are not naive about this. There is a fundamental obligation to Parliament to work together, but that does not happen anymore. I have seen the deterioration.

The only thing that is left for Canadians to tune into now is that 45 minutes of question period where the issues of the day are supposed to be debated, where ministers of the crown are supposed to stand and answer. I used to tell my American friends that no matter what they say about the parliamentary tradition, we have a fundamentally vital Parliament because we know ministers of the crown have to stand and answer. However, it is getting harder and harder to tell Canadians that they can look to question period as a credible place to get answers.

This is not to say that in changing the Standing Orders the ministers cannot hesitate. It does not mean they cannot prevaricate when it comes to answering. It also does not mean they are not allowed to obfuscate, which we know they have done many times and they consider that part of the parliamentary tradition. It means they cannot denigrate this place through ignorant sideshow antics that take the fundamental credibility of the House to do its job and shoots it right down into a sideshow. That has to stop.

We know that in the parliamentary tradition the Speaker does have that obligation to stand and say that there is a bigger institution. I heard our hon. Speaker talk the other day about the obligation we all have to respect the office of the Speaker. I certainly believe that. But I do not believe it is the respect of the Speaker because he wears the black robe, but because the Speaker represents the obligation of Parliament to stand for something besides the cretin act that it has become. If the Speaker tells us that he does not somehow read the authority that stands in the Standing Orders that there have to be questions of relevance and answers of relevance, that somehow question period is exempt, then we have to change the Standing Orders because question period of all the periods of discussion in the House is when the matters of the day, the matters of national and international importance have to be addressed. If we see a pattern developing where this can be turned into something that is absolutely meaningless, then there is absolutely no credibility left in this Parliament.

I am sure many of my hon. colleagues have seen where the speaker in the British Parliament called out the prime minister of the day on questions of relevancy. That is a reminder of a larger obligation. We see within the British parliamentary system where within its committees if they do not actually have unanimous reports, it is considered a failure of the parliamentary system because within the committee system parties are supposed to work together. Under this present Conservative government that would never happen.

We are debating an important issue tonight and I actually hope that the government will even allow it to come to a vote. We saw the procedural shenanigans it came up with before. Once again, the opposition day is one of the few opportunities that opposition members have to set the agenda, and the first response of the government this morning was to attempt to play procedural high jinks and prevent it from getting to a vote.

I think the Conservatives felt the blowback from the Canadian people who say they are tired of this attitude, this contempt for Parliament. They want a vote. They want us to behave better than how we have been behaving. If the questions that are put in the House of Commons in question period have to be based on the relevance of government business, then there has to be a quid pro quo and recognition that the answers somehow must be relevant to that. I think all of us pray that we will never see such a spectacle again as we saw last week.

[International Trade, September 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the downside of the Prime Minister's very bad week was that it cost Canadian taxpayers half a million dollars for a photo op. The Conservatives tell us that there is no money for veterans offices, they cannot afford to deliver the mail, and 65-year-old miners cannot afford to retire, but they can take a couple of European bureaucrats and fly them across the ocean for a photo op.

I would like the minister to tell us how much it cost for flights and security for this faux second signing of this trade deal.

[Municipal Leadership in Northern Ontario, September 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to three great northerners who have served our region with distinction and honour.

Mayor Tom Laughren of Timmins, Kirkland Lake Mayor Bill Enouy and Gilles Forget, the mayor of Iroquois Falls, will be retiring from municipal life.

I worked with Tom Laughren on many files. This man has always put the interests of the city of Timmins and the people of the north ahead of any personal interests.

Bill Enouy is a dedicated fighter for Kirkland Lake. The thing with Bill is that we always know where he stands and Kirkland Lake is a better place because of his public service.

Gilles Forget has done the heavy lifting in Iroquois Falls as we have struggled with the declining paper economy and the struggle with our mill, yet he maintained a strong and viable community.

The great thing about living in the north is that before one's affiliation or political title, one is a northerner first and foremost. I would like to thank these dedicated servants for representing the north and I would like to wish well all the people running for municipal office in the great region of northern Ontario.

[National Defence, September 26th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, sending Canadian men and women into harm's way is the most serious responsibility we have as legislators. yet the Prime Minister has refused to answer a single question in the House about the deployment for war.

It was in New York that he first mused about sending bombers to Iraq. Meanwhile, his hand-picked spokesman has treated the House of Commons as a crude circus, underlining Conservatives' disrespect not just for the institution of Parliament but for the Canadian people.

The Conservatives have systematically undermined the independent officers of Parliament who hold government to account; they have created black holes of secrecy around their ministers and turned parliamentary committees into kangaroo courts. However, now they have reduced Parliament itself to a debased sideshow on the eve of a war.

In a minute, the Leader of the Opposition will rise to ask the Prime Minister questions about the plan to deploy troops to Iraq. The Prime Minister has a chance to answer these questions in the House about sending our men and women overseas to fight another war. Will the Prime Minister do this?

[Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, September 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, does the minister have to demean the House with his childish stunts, really, when we are talking about the constitutionality of legislation? It is pitiful.

[Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, September 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the issue on which the people who are watching need to stay focused is that legislation dealing with prostitution is a very serious issue that needs to be put forward in a manner that would pass the constitutional requirements of this country.

We have a Minister of Justice who announced that the debate will be cut of at a time when numerous legal experts have questioned the constitutionality of this legislation. Parliament is being asked to go along with the Potemkin democratic charade that we see with this House, where the people who are supposed to make legislation are being pushed to the side and the legislation forced through when all the signs are showing that this will fail once again at the Supreme Court.

It comes down to the credibility of the government and the Minister of Justice, who time and time again have thought that the only solution for laws in this country is to butt heads with the Supreme Court and lose, time and time again. If we are to deal with legislation in this country, we have a responsibility to do it properly through the House of Commons so that we ensure that all due diligence is done.

All the language and insults that we have been hearing from the Minister of Justice against people who are speaking up on this will not change that fact. If it will not meet the constitutional requirements, then we are wasting our time in the House of Commons with this legislation.

[Petitions, September 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to stand in the House to bring forward a petition signed by hundreds of people in the community of North Bay who are frustrated with the plan by the government to allow the end of door-to-door service by Canada Post, with 6,000 to 8,000 jobs being lost.

The petitioners have also expressed their deep frustration that they have no real political representation in North Bay that is willing stand up and defend the interests of the people who are trying to protect home delivery.