David Christopherson

[Committees of the House, April 3rd, 2017]

They did not put a time on it.

[Committees of the House, April 3rd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the member for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame for his remarks. He was doing pretty good there for a while, and then he got into a couple of rough bumps.

I know time is tight on these questions and answers, but there are a couple of things that absolutely scream out to be responded to. The first is, the member talked about the McGrath report and holds it up as something they want to do. In that report, they talk about how proud they are of the fact that they did not have to have any votes. The member says they are not saying that there have to be votes, though I am not really sure. It depends on what part of his speech we are referring to, as he kind of bounces around.

Here is the reality. There is no open, give-and-take, free discussion, as we would all like to have, if the government insists on retaining the right to ram it through if it does not agree with the proposed unanimity. This is the issue. The government keeps saying it does not know why the opposition is doing this, why it is causing such turmoil. By the way, they were the ones who forced it 24-7, not us. They wonder why we cannot have a nice discussion, why we cannot just talk about these things.

Let me ask the hon. member this question. If he were prepared to guarantee that there would be no ramming through, under no condition would the government believe it had the right to ram something through, would he accept that then we could have a fair and informed discussion? He must recognize that as long as the government retains the right, or believes that it retains the right to unilaterally ram it through, the idea of having nice, equal, fair-minded discussions is just not going to happen, for obvious reasons.

[Privilege, March 23rd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, as members know, we have dealt with this issue on a number of occasions, and the most recent was not that long ago. While I was not a party to the incident that is on the floor now, I had been involved in discussions at PROC and the issuance of those reports.

I know how seriously you take this, Mr. Speaker, but you also know how seriously we took this at PROC. In fact, I cannot quote exactly, but I made the comment that I would not be very surprised, given my experience in this place, if no matter how much assurance we got, somehow we would find ourselves right back here again. It seems as if that has happened.

I do not want to go on at any great length, but as members know, there are times when we know that there will not be regular procedures here, regardless of what they are. Over and over again, we had the assurances from the people responsible that one of the first things they would do is always ensure that the constitutional right of members of Parliament to have access to the House, especially when there is a vote, would be paramount. Yet, time and time again, we find ourselves right back here again. In the incident case, the security argument can be made, but our problem is that we keep saying that, if this is planned ahead of time, and we are told they do plan, then we would not have these incidents.

I will not go on, except that I want to shore up the arguments of the hon. member and add my voice and support to having this matter go to PROC where, yes, once again we will go through this, and we will keep doing it until we finally have the 100% guaranteed access that the Constitution provides for every member of the House.

[Rules of the House, March 23rd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, this goes well beyond an innocent discussion paper. The government House leader should not insult our intelligence by claiming otherwise.

However, if she is serious about that, if she is really truly sincere that her motives are pure, will she now stand in her place and tell this House that she accepts that her government has no mandate to change the rules of democracy over the united objections of the opposition? If she will not, then it is pretty clear that her protests of innocence are even more shallow than they sound.

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, February 17th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, that is an excellent point, because it suggests that in the last Parliament, had the previous government wanted to get its bill through, it would have likely had to get support from one of the other parties, and the condition for that support might have been the ecological integrity issue, which is germane and the central focal point of Bill C-18.

Therefore, it is an important issue to keep in mind, especially when we know from polling that Canadians really want us to try to work together as much as we can. However, this system does not lend itself to that. If we had proportional representation, it would actually force us to find ways to work together, as they do in most of the other modern democracies around the world. Most of them have gone to PR. If we look at New Zealand, there is a reason it went there. They reviewed it after a few elections and stayed with it.

It really is that fundamental issue, as my friend has mentioned, of having to put a little bit of water in one's wine to get support from others. At the end of the day, it could have given us this park under one bill and saved us a whole lot of time and been far more efficient, and the people in the Toronto area could have enjoyed this park much sooner.

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, February 17th, 2017]

It is part of the bill. I know. What I am saying is that I think that is an important part of it too.

It is a motherhood bill. Did you want to fight about it? We can have a fight, but I do not know what we would fight about. We all--

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, February 17th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I confess, I am not 100% sure what the question is. I think he was asking about how much support and enthusiasm we might give to parks in the member's area, or ecological issues--

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, February 17th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I can understand why the hon. member is proud. He should be proud. It is quite an achievement for him that he is able to deliver this.

He asked about ecological integrity. I have to get out of the habit of giving the Liberals credit, but I do give the provincial government kudos too for refusing to water down the importance of ecological integrity in terms of the protections that would be brought to this new national park. As I understand it, the previous federal government did not bring forward the kinds of protections that would meet or exceed those in place under the provincial government. The provincial government was not about to let go of its area of responsibility until it knew that it was going to go somewhere where it would be protected.

The province played its role, and the House is now playing its role in bringing this about. I congratulate the hon. member on getting this up so early in its government mandate. There is a lot of householder material here for bringing and bragging.

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, February 17th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, we have to mark this moment down, because I am going to agree with the hon. member. I think this is a good day, a good bill, and an important issue. We are pleased to support it.

Again, we would hope that this is only the beginning, that it is not meant to be just a storefront issue, and that there will be a lot more attention in this area. We have high hopes. To answer the member's question, yes, we should all be proud of the fact that we have this new designation.

Let me just say, notwithstanding the shots I took at the previous government, that virtually every party that has been in power has contributed somewhat to the national park system. I know that there are Conservative leaders who have made their mark in this area. The Liberals have done it in the past and are doing it again today.

To the hon. member, yes, the government is doing a good thing with this bill. It makes Canada a better place, and we in the third party are pleased to support it.

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, February 17th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, of course I will follow your ruling. I would say this to my friend. One thing he should be careful of is to not challenge the Speaker. When the Speaker asks him to sit down, he should sit down. He should trust me that this a good piece of advice.

I understand the concern. The hon. member said it was trivializing. I do not think that is fair at all. I could make an argument about how if this was a proportional representation House we might be able to deal with Bill C-18, and a whole lot of other things, more co-operatively, and move them through more quickly. That would be the opposite of trivializing. It would make it a greater priority, and allow it to get through even more quickly. Therefore, there are linkages to all of these things.

I can understand that maybe the member has nothing better to do than to make sure that nobody steps one millimetre outside the boundaries of debate, and that is fine, if that is what the member wants to do with his time. However, I would rather focus on the issues of the day, and the matter in front of us is Bill C-18.

One of the interesting things about Bill C-18 is that there seems to be some debate and concern with respect to the idea of ecological integrity. I am not an expert, but there are those who are suggesting that is a problem. However, when I listened to the experts, who know this issue, they said that this is key.

I want to read a quote from Jim Robb, the General Manager of the Friends of the Rouge Watershed, who stated on December 8, 2016:

Ecological integrity, is it justified? Of course it is. This is one of the most biodiverse areas in all of Canada. Yes, there will be challenges. Yes, this is an aspirational goal, but we can do it...The diversity is so great here and the potential is so high that we should choose no other goal than what has been put forward before you.

During the questions and answers, if there is a focus on that, I would be especially interested to hear from those who have a concern about it. Again, I am not an expert, but from a layperson's point of view it looks like this is a good thing, and one we should be most pleased about.

As I wind up my remarks, it is also worth mentioning that the previous government tried to play a bit of a shell game by announcing it was going to create this park but then did not provide the protections that were necessary, not even to the point where the provincial government would be willing to turn over its lands to the federal government and put it under the umbrella of the national parks system. Therefore, the primary thing this bill does is to bring into force a number of those protections and supports for the park that would then meet the minimum standard of the provincial government in Queen's Park, so that it would feel comfortable knowing that the standards it had in place would at least be met or exceeded. To that degree, we do acknowledge that this is a good bill. We supported it at second reading and took it to committee. We did not get everything we wanted. However, on balance, we are prepared to support this bill. We think it is a good thing.

It is good to point out that the last government played a bit of a shell game. We saw a lot of that, where it would announce things, but if we had a look underneath the shell, there was no pea there, and if we looked under all three shells, there was still no pea there. The former government tried to make it look like it was a tree hugger, when in reality all it was doing was building a cardboard cut-out of a park, like on a Hollywood movie set, rather than implementing the full-blown measures that needed to be taken, which we find in Bill C-18. That is why I am willing to support it.

I certainly hope that no one thinks that this has been trivialized. I still would have liked an opportunity to talk about some of the other issues, but I will look for those opportunities when they are in order so that I am consistent with the rules.

However, at the end of the day, let me say that this bill is completing a job that the previous government started, and we are pleased to be here to support it, and see the proper thing done with this park and with this bill.