David Christopherson

[Business of Supply, June 17th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that detailed, succinct analysis of what is going on here today. I can appreciate the fact that the member is upset. Those members were hijacked. They are the second party. They are the official opposition. It was the fourth party, the NDP, that had its motion passed through the House. That is what they are upset about. They are trying to regain a little ground.

The hon. member used the word “enhance”. I dissected the Liberals' amendment and motion line by line and I defy the official opposition to stand and show me or anyone else where their motion is an enhancement as opposed to a duplication of the work that is being done.

[Business of Supply, June 17th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, there is definitely a cost and if we are duplicating work, it is a waste. When special committees need to be struck, the money is not really the issue. If it is important work that needs to be done. That is why there are budgets to do the work. I think the member's point is very well taken. In this case, it is a waste.

As I read this and, like the hon. member, I was struggling to figure out what the thinking was. If I follow this correctly, we are supposed to finish our work at the committee and then after that this new committee gets struck. It takes our work and then I am not sure what it does. Our work is meant to finalize the issue and make recommendations back to the House.

I am not sure what the committee would do. In that regard, it is a total waste of money and time. It is also a waste of intellectual opportunity to bring in something like this today. I agree with the member. It is waste all around.

[Business of Supply, June 17th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague said, “something real”.

I do not agree with the government on too much with regard to prorogation. However, on the specific narrow issue of whether or not this is a redundant, ridiculous, unnecessary motion, I agree wholeheartedly. It is a shame that the official opposition gives us this motion as its homework. Any teachers in the room I suspect would be giving the official opposition an F.

Let us go back to the amendments that are supposed to make this motion relevant and make it all fresh and okay and actually mean something, “that the committee consist of”, and there are the details of what the new super spiffy committee would look like. The Liberals have outlined who would be on it.

It goes on, “that the committee have all of the powers of a Standing Committee as provided in the Standing Orders”. That is a great idea. It really is. If we are going to look at something this serious, we want to make sure that we have all the powers of a standing committee to do the job properly. Therefore, the House, in its wisdom, sent this motion to, oh, yes, a standing committee. Come on, how lame.

Let us go on to the spiffiness, “that the members to serve on the said committee be appointed by the Whip of each party depositing with the Clerk of the House a list of his or her party's members of the committee no later than June 23, 2010”. That is really important.

It goes on, “that membership substitutions be permitted to be made from time to time, if required, in the manner provided for in Standing Order 114(2)”. That would be kind of like what we can do in standing committees. We want to ensure the special committee has all the powers of a standing committee because the current standing committee does not have, well, see what happens when we try to do Liberal think? It does not work. It does not take us anywhere.

Here is the best. This is my favourite, by far. This is the one I love. It is the last amendment, the spiffying-up amendment, “by deleting the words 'June 23, 2010' and substituting the following: 'November 2, 2010'.”. Why is that there? If the Liberals had not put that in there, this new spiffy special committee would have to report in six days.

Granted, it made a whole lot of sense back in April when the Liberals originally tabled the motion. However, the fact that this special committee would be due to report in six days and they have had to amend the reporting date really underscores just how laughable and sad state of affairs the official opposition has presented itself today.

Again, I appreciated the remarks of the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader who sits on the committee as a regular member, as do some other members who are here today. I thought the Liberals would have a good point if it ever came out that the committee was not working right. That would be the best argument they would have, if the committee were log-jammed and we were into political partisan fighting, as is occurring in some of the other committees. I thought, boy, if that came out they might have a bit of an argument. The problem is it is not true.

The committee is working fine. It really is. We have not gotten into the deliberations of what we want to do about changes. That is where the real sparks are going to fly, and that will happen in due course, just like we do with everything else around here.

However, the committee members right now are respectful, as my colleague the parliamentary secretary said. At this stage, we are trying to learn. Most of us here, while we are privileged and honoured to cast the votes that decide the laws of Canada, are not all constitutional experts and that is good. We need constitutional experts but we also need people who take that expertise and apply it to law-making in a way that benefits the majority of people. That is where elected representatives come into it. We are the interface between the people in our ridings and this place. However, the member would have us start that all over again.

We have 16 of the smartest, most patriotic, probably high priced, constitutional advisers in the entire country and the debates in question are not acrimonious. We are legitimately trying to get up to speed, members from all three caucuses. We listen, we ask questions, we read and assimilate the information and we bring in the next presenters. We pose questions to them based on some of the arguments of others, because they do not always agree, which is what makes it so fascinating.

My point is the committee is doing exactly what it should do. When some questions come out, the government looks better or worse depending on the issue, but we are not doing like I am doing now, into full flight debate and going at each other. That is not going on.

The official opposition cannot even say the committee is not working right and therefore we need this other committee. There are three relevant points of the debate today. First is the government's abuse of prorogation has to stop. Second, the House has already been seized with the issue and passed a motion by the member for Toronto—Danforth expressing one formula. That was sent to the committee and the committee is now having its deliberations. Third, this is an absolute waste of an official opposition day, period, let alone the official opposition bringing in a motion that calls for a committee to deliver a report due in six days from the day we debate it.

Some might say if it were the Bloc and the NDP, they do not have the same resources, what they do is not as important as the official opposition and that is the reality of this place. However, that is not the case. The Liberals purport to be a government in waiting. We keep waiting to see where the government is going to be. It sure is not in this motion and it is not around whatever little thinking went into it. I guess that is really the point. There does not seem to have been any thought. It is as if we are getting toward the end of the game and we can just slack off. It looks like slacking off, like it is the last day, it does not matter so why do we not put that forward and debate it for awhile?

[Business of Supply, June 17th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this motion.

Let me first make it crystal clear lest there be any doubt on anyone's part, that we on this side of the House, the NDP members, feel just as strongly as anybody about prorogation and the abuse of it by the current government. We are totally outraged.

There were demonstrations in my riding, downtown in Gore Park. People went out into the cold, frigid Canadian winter to protest their anger at the government's shutting down their Parliament. Every one of my colleagues attended rallies and committee meetings. They met with people and talked about this with local media. It was the main focus for weeks and weeks at the beginning of this year.

In fact, the NDP felt so strongly against what the government was doing in its abuse of prorogation that when we finally got back into this place, on March 17 the leader of the NDP, the member for Toronto—Danforth, placed a motion before the House, which was approved by this House, which states the following:

That, in the opinion of the House, the Prime Minister shall not advise the Governor General to prorogue any session of any Parliament for longer than seven calendar days without a specific resolution of this House of Commons to support such a prorogation.

I would note parenthetically that following that motion carrying in the House, the committee met a mere 10 days after the Liberals first tabled their original motion.

That motion was debated in the House, passed, and went to the appropriate committee, that being the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. As the democratic reform critic, I substitute in whenever this comes up and the committee has been dealing with that since April 22, which is exactly what the motion before us says.

The opening words of the unamended motion, because it has to be amended to make it fit today, states:

That a special committee of the House be hereby established to undertake an immediate study of all relevant issues pertaining to prorogation, including the circumstances in which a request that Parliament be prorogued would be appropriate or inappropriate, and the nature of any rule changes (either by way of the Standing Orders or legislation or both) that may be necessary to avoid any future misuse of prorogation.

It goes on, but those are the basic instructions. The problem is that those basic instructions are exactly the mandate of the committee that is now seized of the motion that was passed by the House earlier, having been moved by the leader of my party, the member for Toronto—Danforth.

I am all for kicking the government every chance I get regarding prorogation, absolutely, let us go for it, but we did that writ large. Canadians did a pretty good job of making sure that prorogation is now as well known as any other political term might be in this country whereas before it was hardly known at all. There are a lot of Canadians who are still angry. That is why we have the committee.

I understand the official opposition wanted a vehicle to kick the government regarding prorogation. Fair enough, if that is the most burning issue, given the fact that the incident in question happened six months ago and a committee is already dealing with this issue, and I will get into the work it has already done in a moment, but if that is what the Liberals want to do, if they feel that is the burning issue, okay.

However, one really would think that with all the supports the official opposition has, it could have come up with something a little more imaginative. At the very least, it could have come up with something that does not so obviously duplicate something we have done in the past.

It really does look like the official opposition, after having made a big deal of wanting its opposition days, realized it had one on the last day and thought about what it would do. It panicked, grabbed it off the shelf, brushed off the dust, submitted it and said it will spend the afternoon kicking around prorogation. Since it is the last day of the House, nobody is paying attention anyway and it does not need to do too much with it.

That seems to be the approach the official opposition takes on opposition days. It was not that long ago the official opposition moved a motion and it failed, in part because it did not have all its members on side. It had not talked to its members to see how they would vote.

This is one of the few opportunities where the opposition gets to control the floor of the House of Commons. Usually, under the normal rules, the government calls the shots. That is just the way the system works. We rarely get these opportunities. On the last opposition day we would have thought the official opposition would want to go out with a bang, or at least go out looking clever. Now it is not even going to go out looking competent.

I want to say a couple of words about the committee and then I want to speak very directly to the amendment because there are points to be made.

First, for anyone who is watching, the motion before us by the Liberals calls for a special committee to be struck and then it goes into great length about the details of who will be on it, who will chair it, all those details and so on.

The problem is that we already have a committee that is dealing with that issue and dealing with an NDP motion that passed the House. The committee started meeting on April 22. We have had 10 meetings. We have met for 15 committee hours. We have heard from 16 presenters. So 10 meetings, 15 hours, 16 presenters, and what? Do we throw that away? Will we just say it does not matter, throw that away and call it a practice run?

The Liberal House leader during one of his famous Regina monologues went on to tell us all about how the amendments make everything wonderful. Do not worry. The original motion was kind of stale-dated but the amendments today fix that and make everything relevant. So the Liberals are exactly where they need to be.

Let us have a look at some of these amendments:

that the special committee also take into account any report on prorogation that may be forthcoming from the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, and provide an analysis of the consequences of the use of prorogation as a device to avoid accountability or to silence voices that may wish to express disagreement with the government;

That is what the committee is doing. The committee is going to be holding hearings. We have heard from 16 experts, some of the leading constitutional lawyers, professors and political scientists in the country, people who are designated as advisers to the Governor General on constitutional matters.

Our plan is at the end of that, we will start writing a report. Will we agree on the report? I doubt it. Is it going to be fascinating to see where we end up? Yes. Is it loaded with all kinds of partisan politics? Yes. Is it important and affects the future of how we operate this place? Yes again.

The amendment does not add anything new. It just duplicates what we have already done. It makes it sound as though there is a process that the Liberals have really thought through.

It drives us crazy when the Liberals will not admit when they have screwed up. They have to dig themselves further and further into a hole. They leave the impression that the committee can do its work and then they will take the report, and will do what? Real committee work? Will they somehow do the finished product? It does not make any sense at all. One need not to have been here for too many years or to know much about politics to figure out that it does not make a whole lot of sense to start up a special committee to do work that is already being done by a committee.

These amendments are an attempt to make the official opposition look fresh and to make it look relevant and it is not.

A colleague from another party mentioned something interesting to me so I do not take ownership of this, but on that side of the House there is a fake lake, and on this side of the House there is a fake motion. Really, what we are dealing with here is a fake motion that does not mean anything.

If the Liberal members want to rant against the government regarding prorogation, okay. If that is their political priority, I do not quite get it, but that is fine. They have that right. But why not do something imaginative, come up with something relevant, something that furthers the issue?

[Business of Supply, June 17th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am curious. The amendment now before us is that we change the date in the motion that was tabled, which was that a special committee report would be due in six days, to now make it November. This just gets curiouser and curiouser, so I am further curious.

We now have a committee, and the hon. member has been present for most of the meetings that I and other members have been at. I am curious about what the member would do with all the committee work that has been done so far. Do we just throw that all overboard and start over? Just exactly what, from a practical point of view, does the official opposition want us to do with the amendment in front of us calling for a special committee when we already have a committee doing working exactly that issue?

[Business of Supply, June 17th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, when this was brought to my attention yesterday I was bemused.

I understand prorogation is a hot issue with the Liberals, as it is with us, but this motion calls for a special committee. If I am right, this motion has been kicking around for a number of months and it would seem that at the last minute, after the official opposition fought to get more opposition days, it just reached on a shelf and picked one item to fill in the time with it.

The motion calls for a special committee but we already have a committee that has been holding meetings for months. I did not hear all of the member's remarks, but the motion calls for a report that would be due in six days.

I would like to know why this motion is even in front of us since it does not seem to make an awful lot of sense.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, June 3rd, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I compliment my colleague from Churchill for an excellent analysis of this critical issue. I would also point out that I think any arm's-length observer in this place will recognize a rising star in the making. I want to publicly state what a phenomenal job the member is doing, not only for her constituents but for her generation.

On the generational issue, one of the big concerns that a lot of us have is the number of young people who are not voting, who are saying “a pox on all our houses”, and just checking right out of the whole political process because they do not think it is democratic, meaningful or that it helps them in any way.

With something as cynical as this document is, which plays all these democratic games and denies democracy, I wonder if the member for Churchill sees a concern in terms of how this will affect younger people and their cynicism toward the whole democratic process and the things that we do here.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, June 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, regarding Canada Post, for which I was the critic until recently, it is clear why the government stuffed it in here because the Liberals are onside with them when it is controversial. The Liberals are playing games with the postal workers by telling them, “Do not worry, we are with you”, and then not providing the votes necessary to stop the government from what it is doing.

This helps the Liberals. Maybe one reason they are not speaking so loudly is that this removes a problem. It is unpopular with the public and unpopular with post office workers, yet now it is in a bill and--

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, June 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate the comments of my good friend from Sault Ste. Marie.

We remember those days vividly. He is right, as would be all members on this side of the House at least, and maybe some others also, to be concerned about where this takes us.

I will give people something else to watch out for. The Mike Harris government was big on bringing in legislation that removed the need for more legislation if further changes were wanted. By that I mean the government turned a legislative change that needed to be debated in the House into a regulation change.

It sounds like inside baseball and half of the people who are watching probably are wondering who cares about that, but here is the point. Here is why it matters. When we have to amend a law through legislation, we have to involve this House, all the members and all the processes that are built in to protect democracy. When it is taken out of the legislation and put into regulations, it means that cabinet decides.

I am taking a moment with this because it is really important in terms of democracy. The example I use is a provincial law that says the minister of transportation is empowered to set speed limits on the highways of the province. It is done by regulation so that a new law is not needed every time a change to the speed limit is wanted because of changing traffic patterns. It can be done by regulation and it is fairly straightforward. However, when something critically important is removed from the legislative process, the democratic process is removed, because those regulations are only debated in the cabinet room and cabinet, understandably, is a private, secret meeting in terms of how our system works.

This is another ploy and there are many others that we need to start exposing that deny democracy.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, June 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the minister wants me to speak up a little. Okay, I will speak a little louder for the minister so the minister can hear every word of well-deserved criticism for that member and every other member on that side of the House.

Speaking of this side of the House, if there was the leadership that there should be from the leader of the official opposition to work with the other two parties, to use the fact that we on this side represent the majority of Canadians and majority of votes in the House of Commons, as my colleague from Winnipeg Centre has said, without the vote of somebody on this side of the House or MPs staying home, the Conservatives could not pass anything. We have that control. We have that opportunity. The threat of an election momentarily is suspended. Now is the moment to strike.

Instead, we have the Liberals wanting it both ways. They stand up and criticize. Heck, they could be using some of our speaking notes as they make some of the same criticisms we do, which are really good arguments I might add, but they have no intention of really doing anything. They just want to bark a lot. It is not even that much barking because we are the ones who have to put forward the speakers to keep this bill going. If we folded, this debate would be over.

It is as much with sadness as anger that I look at this situation, particularly since we do not have the imminent threat of an election, as the counterpoint to where we are. We do not want a revolution. What we want to do is bring democracy back to the House. We want this bill split. If we had the support of all the opposition members, the bill would be split.

In fact, the bill would not pass if the majority in the House of Commons stood united, but it is not, and so we are doing what we can. I readily acknowledge it is not nearly as much as we would like. We are the fourth party with the smallest caucus but probably with the greatest determination to stand up to this undemocratic budget bill.

If government members want to sigh and roll their eyes at what they think is just a big waste of time, fine. We have already heard from the government. It is the Conservatives' bill; it is their plan. What we would like is for virtually every opposition member to stand in his or her place and not only speak against the bill but commit to march into the House and exercise the greatest right and privilege that members of this place have: their precious vote. Just the threat of doing it would be enough to get the ball rolling to make changes.

However, as long as the official opposition continues to play official lapdog, the government knows that as long as it puts up with all the speeches from the New Democrats, it will ultimately get its way. The Liberals have given a wink and a nod that they will speak against it and some of them will vote against it, but do not worry, not enough to really do anything, not enough to make a difference, not enough to bring some democracy to this process. Theirs is not that kind of commitment, just the kind that they can put on a news release and base some speeches on.

There is very much to be said but I know we will all get another opportunity to go at this again this afternoon. I look forward to that opportunity. More than anything, I am hoping that during the course of this debate I will see a real official opposition acting like an official opposition and joining with the majority of the House to do the right thing for the majority of Canadians that this side of the House represents.