Derek Lee

[Standing Orders of the House of commons, March 13th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, on the motion to amend our Standing Orders, I am hopeful members will have a chance to think this through carefully. It appears that the procedure and House affairs committee, probably as a result of this motion, has undertaken a look at this procedure.

I do not think the government would care too much about this matter. Private members' business is usually not on the government agenda at all. However, I think backbenchers, members who are not members of the cabinet, would have a concern. The matter has at least an indirect and perhaps a direct impact on our ability to get our bills, not our motions, passed fully through the House and the Senate.

I look back about 25 to 30 years ago when the House went through a whole lot of reforms and changes to produce greater empowerment of backbenchers. Private members' business is one of the envelopes of activities that members, who are not members of the government cabinet, have to produce changes in policy and legislation.

It has been recognized by most of us that the route to passage of a private member's bill through the House and through the Senate is a little easier if it is a Senate bill coming to the House, rather than a House bill going to the Senate. There are more MPs and fewer senators. There are more impediments and greater competition in the House to get matters into the stage where they are voted on than it is in the Senate where there are just a few senators.

I also have to point out that we would not normally expect that we would get a lot of original legislation from the Senate. The Senate is not an elected body and one would not think that it would be purporting to generate large volumes of original legislation. It simply, and I say this respectfully, is not the place of the Senate to be a house that generates a lot of original legislation, but it does from time to time, produce private members' business, which is very respectable and quite ready for prime time.

However, we have noticed the numbers increasing over the last few years. It is a practical fact that it is statistically harder for a member of the House to get a bill dealt with in the House and then over to the Senate and fully passed than it is for a senator to get a bill through that house and get it over to this House and passed here.

Members, in looking at this motion, are reacting to that practical fact. It was never intended that it be easier for senators to get their private members' bills passed than it was for MPs. That is simply the way the two sets of rules and the workings of Parliament are at this point.

We have addressed the issue of whether there would be an impact in the Senate of a change to our rules here. It would be naive to expect that there would not be a reaction. If we are not to accord in the House full respect to a bill fully passed by the Senate, why would we expect the Senate would accord full respect to a bill passed in this House and sent there? I think it is naive to suggest that senators would go on with their business and not pay attention to this.

In order to find out, we have to deal with the Senate. For that purpose, I suggest some kind of a conference between the House and the Senate.

I suggest there will be an impact on our private members' business. It will be potentially kneecapped in the Senate because of disinterest in the Senate, feigned or otherwise, as a result of us making it much more difficult for Senate bills that have been approved there to be made into law here in the House. We should not underestimate that. The Senate is not oblivious to what happens in the House. I think we all understand that.

As I mentioned before, the motion by the originating member is catalytic. It should be seen as that. It has caught the attention of both Houses. It is being dealt with by the procedure and House affairs committee. Maybe one of the solutions is to cap the number of Senate private member bills that we allow into the order of precedence in this House in a session, and cap them at a reasonable number. The committee will look at this.

However, in my view, we should not pass this motion. If we pass it, my experience tells me that there will have to be a subsequent change and we will have to back the motion out and deal with it in another way.

Therefore, we should not pass the motion. We should clearly await the disposition of this by the procedure and House affairs committee. Our colleagues are studying this. I have great confidence that if they finish their study in time and report back to us, they will have an arrangement that would suit us and suit our counterparts in the Senate.

[Standing Orders of the House of Commons, March 13th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it is my inclination to oppose this motion, remembering that once this motion is passed by the House, it becomes an amendment to our Standing Orders, and once it is there, the only way we can change or modify it is to back it out. I am not sure that all members--

[Points of Order, March 13th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on the same point generally and not to respond to the hon. member who just spoke.

I note in passing that the items he listed in his point of order where unparliamentary words were used, he listed cases where the Speaker found that they were unparliamentary. The Speaker has not changed the rule book at all. He is currently enforcing and articulating the rules as they are. Just because a member may have transgressed previously in using unparliamentary language does not provide licence for us to abandon the rules now.

The reason I need to rise on a point of order is to explicitly object to two statements that were made during statements by members. Members will recall exactly what they were and the script writers for the Conservative members will know exactly what I am referring to because they were very carefully scripted. These were the statements by the hon. member for Peterborough and the hon. member for Vegreville—Wainwright.

I should point out that this should not be taken as a personal attack. I am doing this for the sole purpose of ensuring that the Chair and the Speaker's ruling are respected. The reason we need to do that was set out in the Speaker's ruling yesterday. I will read the words, which state:

--that such provocative commentary only invites equally inflammatory responses and contributes greatly to the lowering of the tone of our proceedings.

Today I listened to the two members I mentioned make statements that began with generic references to policies or political parties, which the Speaker found to be acceptable, but in the middle or near the end the statements focused precisely on a partisan personal attack on the Leader of the Opposition.

If any members are in doubt about whether this happened, they should reread the statement of the member for Vegreville—Wainwright where he kept it generic or referred to a generic someone throughout the entire statement and at the very end turned it into a personal attack. That was sly, that was sharp and that was cute, but I think the Speaker will find that it offends the ruling he made yesterday.

I do not understand why the members on the government side have this virtually psychopathic addiction to partisan attacks but they appear to be scripted and co-ordinated, and they are there.

The Speaker has said that members' statements are out of bounds for that type of free speech. In normal debate, there is the to and fro and an opportunity to respond but members' statements, there is not.

To ensure respect for the Speaker's ruling yesterday, I am asking the Chair to review the blues and Hansard for those two statements and advise the House whether they were in order or out of order.

[Points of Order, March 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the two government members make their remarks. In one way, they confirm—they did not deny—that the Speaker has made a ruling that confirms the rules and precedent governing our debate in the House, including members' statements, that we do not make personal attacks. That should be an open and shut case. The Speaker has ruled on it.

More serious than that, let me read rule 10, which I will abridge slightly, which states:

The Speaker shall preserve order and decorum, and shall decide questions of order...No debate shall be permitted on any such decision, and no such decision shall be subject to an appeal in the House.

I would point out to members on both sides of the House, but particularly to members opposite, that the Speaker has ruled on a point of order, and I, as one member among many, cannot sit by and allow the Speaker to be challenged, as I think he was being challenged, by both members opposite. It is simply out of order and unacceptable.

The ruling has been made, and I think by far the majority of the House will accept that.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, March 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's remarks. She has very clearly flagged a problem in Bill C-10, but the problem is going along with the bill as additional baggage.

She has talked about principles and the environment, which almost everyone in this place would subscribe to, but could she please address the fact that the Prime Minister has told Parliament that if there is any change to this bill, there will be an election. Is she prepared to tell Canadians she would prefer to go to an election now rather than deliver a stimulus package? That is the choice we have to make.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, March 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, at this stage in considering Bill C-10, we are looking at amendments proposed and discussed earlier. The particular focus of these amendments relates to the Navigable Waters Protection Act, which is contained in part 7 of the bill.

As I mentioned in some questions and comments earlier, this bill is very much about the economy. In fact, everything is about the economy. The amendments proposed now, while arguably rational, were or are calculated to distract from the economic aspects of this bill.

I will admit that I too had prepared amendments in relation to this particular aspect, and to some other aspects, of this bill. I did not proceed with them on the order paper, because my party is of the view that the economy and Canadians who are now at financial risk in the economy deserve greater attention from all of us in the House than do some of the more technical aspects of this bill.

However, in discussing these amendments, I want the record to show that I have some degree of discomfort with the methodology adopted by the government in its decision to include as part of the stimulus package amendments to this very old piece of federal legislation.

It is there for very good reasons. The Navigable Waters Protection Act assures federal jurisdiction for shipping on our navigable waters, an area that continues to be of huge importance to us. These changes are arguably needed in the act, but why has the government chosen a stimulus package and placed technical amendments in the updating of a very old statute in a bill like this?

There actually is a reason, and I think I can see it. It is that the government has seen that there may be some infrastructure investment in bridges, wharves, canals, navigation buoys, levees, dams, docks and other types of structures. These could be the targets of infrastructure spending. Some of the provisions of the Navigable Waters Protection Act might delay or stall the investments in these works.

There are two aspects to this piggybacking of the Navigable Waters Protection Act in the stimulus package: the measures being put forward for adoption may arguably speed up investment, but they may directly or indirectly reduce the potential for protection of aspects of our navigable waters. Most of us around this place will have an eye for that, and we understand it. It is not as if we do not have environmental protection legislation out there. It is not as if we do not have real scientists, engineers and architects preparing this stuff. However, at the end of the day it is very important that we not lose sight of the proper way of doing things with respect to the environment, with respect to access of our citizens to these waters and with respect to the recreation industry. A lot us have received information from the Canadian Rivers Network. That perspective is very legitimate.

The policy aspect of a minister doing end runs around environmental protection legislation and other legislation that might provide for the public interest but that might also delay investment in a stimulus package is a very important consideration. We are not inviting our government here to be stupid, but we are nervous that the legislation will provide some fast-tracking that places the public interest at risk.

In addition to that, there are clauses in the bill that have actually removed the right of Parliament to review the government and ministerial activity after it has taken place. I cannot for the life of me figure out why the government has done this. We may regard this as just technical, but I do not regard it as technical.

There are actually seven clauses in the bill. I will put them on the record right now: clauses 244, 275, 279, 287, 292, 328 and 453. Each of those clauses purports to remove from Parliamentary scrutiny the administrative regulatory action of a government minister or the governor in council. Some of those involve the Navigable Waters Protection Act and other provisions involve other aspect of legislation in the stimulus package. That is simply unacceptable.

Some may say that the impact was inadvertent because the real purpose of putting these provisions in the bill was to avoid the slowing down by the regulatory process at the front end, the prepublication, the consultation, et cetera. Not only is the government trying to remove that pre-enactment scrutiny but it also has the impact of preventing Parliament from reviewing the regulatory actions to begin with, and that involves a whole slew of regulatory activity, which includes orders and exemptions, certificates, rules and directions.

Bill C-10, in these clauses, authorizes either the governor in council or ministers to take these acts and then says to Parliament that these are not statutory instruments and it cannot look at them after. That is absolutely wrong.

It is more than likely that someone from the other place will read some of the debate and more than likely that someone in the other place, that is the Senate, may take an interest in this issue. But at some point, these particular Bill C-10 enactments, including these provisions involving the Navigable Waters Protection Act, will have to be turned around. They will have to be fixed.

I cannot continue comfortably here in the House without trying to do something to fix this. It is now a question of a number of members in the House holding their noses while we pass this economic stimulus package. I cannot stress enough the stupidity of tagging onto economic stimulus legislation a whole lot of contraband in the back of the ambulance. It is not the right place to do it.

I recall another bill in a previous Parliament, also Bill C-10 coincidentally, where, in making a change to the Income Tax Act, this particular government thought it might want to test the waters on what many regarded as a censorship issue. That was just as dumb. We should not be using finance and economic stimulus legislative enactments to deal with other issues like updating the Navigable Waters Protection Act. This should happen in a piece of stand alone legislation.

The bill also has amendments involving the Competition Act. Those amendments should also be stand-alone legislation so the House can truly sink its teeth into it. The problem now is, and I hope Canadians realize it, that we have one bill with all of this in it. The main thrust of the bill is economic stimulus, but we have all of these other add-ons in the back of the truck and a lot of these add-ons, we do not like.

The amendments here are, in part, calculated to get rid of some of that extra baggage, but we are in a situation now, if we are to get the stimulus package moneys through Parliament, authorized, out on the street and creating jobs, we have to pass the bill the way it is now. I regret that, but that is a political reality.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, March 2nd, 2009]

Madam Speaker, as I listened to the member for Outremont, I accept that it is probably very bad for him to put some contraband in the back of the ambulance, in other words, to piggyback changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act onto Bill C-10.

I do not think the hon. member or his party realize that this is not exactly about legislative purism. This is not about the NDP, or the Liberals, or the Bloc or even the Conservatives.

Bill C-10, in a relative sense, is massive legislative initiative to create investment for the Canadian economy. There are warts in the bill, but I urge the hon. member to talk about the stimulus package. If there are warts and mistakes in the bill, we should be able to fix them later.

Could he comment on that?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, March 2nd, 2009]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member is justly recognized as an astute observer in matters of social policy, spending, student assistance, research and a number of other areas. He has noted the really conspicuous propensity of the Conservative government to shrink government. At a time when government should be investing in the economy to assist the economy, could explain why that is there? Is it simply unrestrained prudence or is it just an exuberance to shrink government?

Three of the ministers over there came from an Ontario government that sold an entire highway to get government out of that. Could he comment on that?

[International Cooperation, March 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, as the deadly conflict is unfolding in Sri Lanka, thousands of civilians are trapped and threatened in the conflict zone from which all NGO aid groups are expelled. Canada has pledged aid, but there are no NGOs to deliver it.

I ask the government, will it rise from its mute and weary disinterest on this and tell Sri Lanka now, directly and at the UN, that it has a duty to protect and that Sri Lanka will be judged not by how many fighters have died but by how it treats and protects its own civilians?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, this is a very significant issue and I do not think the government has responded meaningfully to this. Why has the government been unable to get out over $1 billion in stimulus spending in this fiscal year? The money is there. I am sure there are projects there. The government will need to convince Canadians that it is able to get the new stimulus money out more quickly than the last stimulus money where it conspicuously failed.