Erin Weir

[Oral Questions, May 16th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the day after the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith was elected in that riding's by-election, I rose in this House to ask about the possibility of adding more independent questions to accommodate the growing number of independent MPs. The Green Party is not a recognized party in this House, so its MPs are adding to the number of independents, which is now 21, the largest ever in Canadian history.

It seems only logical that as the number of independent MPs increases, the number of opportunities for us to participate in question period should increase correspondingly. However, the government House leader rejected this suggestion, stating, “There is a formula to determine the number of questions for each party and for independents.” It would be nice to know what that formula is. Perhaps the government will be able to provide a more detailed answer this evening.

I can certainly say that the soon-to-be-21 independent MPs are now sharing only 14 spots in question period every week. We compare that to the officially recognized opposition parties. An NDP caucus of 41 MPs gets 54 question period spots every week, and a Conservative caucus of 97 MPs gets 120 questions per week. I think we all accept the idea that officially recognized parties would receive some extra questions. They get a bit of a bonus.

However, it seems that the current formula, such as it is, is completely out of whack. To provide a direct comparison, the NDP caucus has about twice as many MPs as the independent group, yet receives nearly four times as many spots in question period every week. It does not strike me that this represents a reasonable allocation of question period opportunities or that it provides a fair chance for independent MPs to speak up for our constituents.

Of course, there is a bit of history to this question. Earlier in this Parliament, the Bloc Québécois, which is also part of the independent group, raised a point of privilege, requesting more spots in question period. The Chair ruled that this was not a matter of privilege. Fair enough, but I want to emphasize that this ruling does not mean that the current allocation is proper or that it makes sense. There may not be a right to more questions as a matter of privilege, but surely common sense would suggest that the allocation of questions should reflect, roughly speaking, the allocation of MPs.

Therefore, when the government House leader says that there is a formula, at the start of this Parliament what that formula meant was that there were as many questions for independents as there were independent MPs. When I became an independent MP, the Speaker added another question to the Tuesday question period to maintain that balance, but since then we have had seven more independent MPs and no additional independent questions. I think that is where the allocation breaks down, and I hope the government would support reallocating some opportunities to independent MPs to restore a proper equilibrium.

[Justice, May 14th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, that case and the SNC-Lavalin controversy have raised questions about interference in our justice system. They have also underscored the need for independent review of decisions made by the director of public prosecutions.

Will the government commit to separate the office of the attorney general from the minister of justice if re-elected?

[Justice, May 14th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, on the Mark Norman case, it has been refreshing to hear the federal NDP leader speak up for due process.

[Foreign Affairs, May 13th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the parliament secretary and congratulate him on his relatively recent appointment as a parliamentary secretary. I believe this might be his very first adjournment debate, and so I would like to welcome him to the late show.

I believe the presentation that he provided might have been compelling back in January when the Government of Canada first decided to recognize Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela. However, I do not think it addresses how things have unfolded since then. This idea of Mr. Guaidó as an interim president who is going to hold new elections, I think, conflicts with the fact that three and half months have gone by. How long is this interim presidency going to last, and at what point is it going to actually translate into elections?

I really have to ask whether the parliamentary secretary would at least acknowledge that things have not unfolded as his government would have hoped.

[Foreign Affairs, May 13th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, near the end of January, I was proud to be the only member of the House to rise to question the Government of Canada's decision to recognize Juan Guaidó standing up in front of a crowd and unilaterally declaring himself to be the President of Venezuela. That is the question that prompts this evening's adjournment debate.

I do not pretend to be an expert on Venezuelan politics, but I do have a clear idea about what Canada's role in the world should be, and I think the best contribution Canada can make, as an honest broker, is as a country that is trusted to mediate when these kinds of disputes come up.

It is certainly legitimate to question the current Maduro government of Venezuela. It is one thing to propose that there should be new elections in that country, but it is quite another to simply recognize an opposition politician's declaration that he is the new president of the country. I would suggest in hindsight that it really has not worked out all that well.

It has now been about three and a half months, and we see that Mr. Guaidó has not clearly established himself as a new government in Venezuela. There have not been new elections in that country. Mr. Guaidó is now appealing to the Venezuelan military and now even directly to the American military to intervene in his favour. It seems that concerns about a coup or armed conflict are really starting to materialize.

I do not have a lengthy speech, but I really hope that the parliamentary secretary can provide the House with a bit of an update on what the government's plan is now.

It has been months since the Canadian government agreed to recognize Mr. Guaidó, and it does not seem as though the goals of that policy have been achieved. The only real consequence of the Government of Canada jumping the gun in that fashion is that it is now very difficult for our country to play any kind of constructive role, to participate as an honest broker or to be seen as any kind of mediator in Venezuela.

I am hoping that the parliamentary secretary can give us an update and a bit of an explanation of what the Government of Canada's plan is for Venezuela going forward.

[Rail Transportation, May 7th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by agreeing with the parliamentary secretary that it is quite disappointing that the Government of Saskatchewan did not take up the funding that the Government of Canada offered to try to restore some intercity bus service. However, the federal government does not simply need to wait for the province to agree to cost-share bus service; the federal government could, on its own, restore passenger rail service on the southern prairies.

I thought it was interesting that the parliamentary secretary began by mentioning that VIA Rail is needed to provide a transport option to Canadians. I want to reiterate that this option does not exist on the southern prairies. It is impossible to travel from Winnipeg to Regina to Calgary by train.

The parliamentary secretary mentioned all the money the government spent in restoring passenger rail service to Churchill, Manitoba. That is a good thing, but it would be far more economical to restore that same service on the southern prairies.

[Rail Transportation, May 7th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, back in December, I asked about restoring Via passenger rail service between Winnipeg, Regina and Calgary. In response, the Minister of Transport tried to reassure me that Via Rail does pass through Saskatchewan. He must have been referring to the quite limited Via Rail service to Saskatoon, but I want to make the distinction between Regina and Saskatoon clear to the parliamentary secretary, because that seemed to be a point of confusion for the minister. My question was about restoring passenger service on the southern Prairie line, from Winnipeg to Regina to Calgary.

One of the original purposes of our Canadian Confederation was to build a railway across the Prairies to the Pacific coast, so it is somewhat ironic that today we do not have passenger rail service in the southern part of the Prairies. Of course, the motivation behind my question was not simply to achieve that historic goal. I think in the present day, we need to recognize the importance of providing accessible transportation options to people and also of providing transportation options that are environmentally friendly.

We had a whole debate in this House for most of today about an opposition motion regarding the price of gasoline, and a lot of the argument came down to whether a higher gasoline price would motivate consumers to drive less. A key part of that question was whether people had concrete alternatives to driving. On the southern Prairies, people do not.

The Saskatchewan Transportation Company and Greyhound have both withdrawn intercity bus service, and as I mentioned, there is no Via Rail service in the southern part of the Prairies. Therefore, people really do not have much of an option other than to drive or fly. We have people without the means to travel for important purposes, and the people who do have the means to travel do not have much choice but to use these more polluting means of transport. That is part of the major rationale for wanting to restore Via Rail service on the southern Prairies.

I am sure that one of the questions is how much this would cost. Is it feasible? Is this a realistic proposal? I took a look at Via Rail's 2017 annual report, which is the most recent annual report available. What it shows is that the subsidy per passenger mile in western Canada, in other words for long-haul travel from Toronto to Vancouver, is about 32¢, which is quite similar to the subsidy of 28¢ per passenger mile across Via Rail's entire system. As well, it is quite a bit less than the subsidies of three dollars and four dollars per passenger mile that we find on some of Via's more remote routes. What I am proposing is actually quite consistent with Via's existing operations.

To put that in terms of total dollars, the subsidy for long-haul travel west of Toronto is $41 million. Extending that to the southern part of the Prairies would presumably cost a comparable amount, which would be quite a bit less than the $350 million currently provided to Via Rail.

[Oral Questions, May 7th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, as the independent whip, it falls to me to congratulate Paul Manly on last night's byelection win in Nanaimo—Ladysmith.

Including him, we will have 21 independent MPs sharing only 14 weekly spots in question period. Would the Prime Minister support reallocating more questions to independents so that Mr. Manly and all of us can better represent our constituents?

[Ethics, May 3rd, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot in this House about SNC-Lavalin, but Saskatchewan people are concerned about another multinational construction company accused of corruption. Vinci Construction took $2 billion to build a bypass around Regina that was supposed to cost only $400 million. Will the government investigate to ensure that the federal funds invested in this boondoggle were not misused?

[Natural Resources, May 1st, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to apologize to the parliamentary secretary. It certainly was not my intention to catch anyone off-guard. The question that this adjournment debate was based on was indeed about energy issues on the agenda of the premier's conference. However, since that conference is over, I wanted to speak about another federal-provincial issue that has a big impact on our energy sector, which is Alberta's proposal to slash its corporate income tax rate to 8%.

I certainly do not expect the parliamentary secretary to come up with a snap response to that issue. However, I would encourage the federal government to seriously consider whether it makes sense to continue extending a 10% corporate tax abatement to corporations in Alberta if that provincial government decides to cut its corporate tax rate below that 10% threshold.

This is an important issue for the House to deal with going forward.