Jay Hill

[Commissioner of Lobbying, June 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, as the chief government whip said, there have been some extensive consultations among all parties and I have three motions that I would like to deal with today.

The first motion is as follows. I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, in accordance with subsection 4.1(1) of the Lobbying Act, Chapter 44 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985, this House approve the appointment of Karen E. Shepherd as Commissioner of Lobbying.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the remarks by the whip of the official opposition about the motion I brought forward today.

I am very disappointed not only that he indicated that the official opposition will be voting against the motion, but more importantly, I am very disappointed that he offered no compelling reason other than to revisit what he sees as slights from the past.

I was also more than a little surprised that he would stand up and actually brag about this so-called coalition of the three opposition parties, which went on just before Christmas when they tried to overthrow the democratically chosen government that Canadians chose last October, and why he wanted to revisit that particular period of our political history.

In all sincerity and honesty, I want to move forward, and I said this throughout my remarks. He quoted my remarks from last Thursday's question. I have no problem repeating them often, either in this place or to a television camera outside, that we have had great co-operation between all of the parties in getting a lot of the legislation through. However, as I laid out, there is much more to be done.

I want to look forward and move forward. He used the hockey analogy. I think if he and his colleagues vote against this motion to work just a little bit harder for Canadians, to try to get more legislation dealt with before the House rises, he will find himself in the penalty box.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 9th, 2009]

Again, Mr. Speaker, my colleague the Bloc Québécois House leader made the very point that I was trying to make, as did the NDP House leader. As I said in my remarks, one of the complaints of the NDP members is that we criticize them when they begin a filibuster or when they continue a filibuster on legislation. Filibustering is a time-honoured process, whether it is at committee or in the chamber. I recognize that. It makes life difficult for any government, be it a majority government or, even more so, a minority government.

Having said that, the member is talking against her own position. She has taken the position, not only in the chamber, but on panels and in interviews with the media, that they would like to debate more. Well, here I am. I am giving the House the opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, I see you are indicating that I am running out of time. That is a sad day, because I would like to have replied in greater depth. If we accept this motion and extend these hours, I would have the opportunity to reply to my hon. colleague in greater depth than I have in this debate today.

To conclude my remarks, I urge all opposition members to consider very carefully that we should be working a bit harder. It is not unusual, as I laid out in my remarks, for the House to sit late at night.

They are heckling now, but there is nothing dictatorial about trying to work collectively to get more legislation done.

I would dispute the NDP House leader saying that this is not substantive legislation. If I had more time, I would show the House, step by step, that this is very substantive legislation, which could have a profound impact on Canadians' lives and on their well-being.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I say with the utmost respect to my hon. colleague, the House leader for the Bloc Québécois, that in his remarks he made my exact point of the need for the extension of hours.

He named the three bills that have been somewhat problematic to get agreement on from both sides of the chamber: Bill C-8, the matrimonial real property bill, to which my Liberal colleague referred as well; Bill C-19, investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions bill; and Bill C-23, the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement bill.

He went on to say that he would like to see some debate in depth. That is exactly what can be accomplished by extending the hours. I say that with all sincerity and reasonableness. If those bills are problematic, then why not work a little bit harder for Canadians?

We all know that Canadians are hurting. Canadians are struggling right now. They want to see this Parliament work. As I stated throughout my remarks, by and large Parliament has been working. We have been getting legislation through the House.

As I say, he made the actual point that I have been trying to make in that we need to have the additional time with only some 33 hours remaining of debate time for government legislation before the House rises. I do not think it is unreasonable to extend the hours and have a few more hours to debate bills like those.

I also referred to the House leaders and the whips. Quite some time ago, weeks ago in fact, I said that we would be introducing additional legislation. In particular, the Minister of Justice has been doing that. We will also have other legislation that was not on the list, as I said, which we would like to see debated before the House rises.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague indicated, there are a number of bills before the House. Obviously I did not have the chance or I would have taken a couple of hours to go through all of them and the various stages they are at. I expressed my appreciation to the opposition for the co-operation we have had thus far.

To encapsulate what has unfolded since early February, we are currently at the point where we have introduced 41 bills in this Parliament, some of them in the Senate but the majority in the House. Nine of them have received royal assent, in other words passed into law thus far. Two bills are awaiting royal assent. Sixteen of the bills are in the Senate. Four of those 16 actually originated there. That comprises 27 of the 41 bills. That means 14 bills are in various stages on the House side. As I said in my remarks, we are still introducing additional bills.

On the specific question of Bill C-8, we understand there is opposition to this piece of legislation. That is why we worked very hard with the opposition to try to get agreement to send it to committee where it could receive a thorough review and witnesses could be called. However, for whatever reason, a minority of the opposition wanted to combine to try to defeat the bill by moving a hoist motion. Fortunately, that did not happen.

It would still be my intent to call that bill, have more debate and hopefully get it to committee where it could be studied thoroughly. We on the government side believe it is only right that we extend the same rights and protection to aboriginal women on reserve that other Canadian women have.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to move the following motion. I move:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 27(1), except for Friday, June 12 and Friday, June 19, 2009, commencing on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 and concluding on Tuesday, June 23, 2009, the House shall continue to sit until 10 p.m.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by stating what might be obvious to folks who watch the proceedings of Parliament closely. By and large, I would have to say that this session of Parliament has been quite amicable and cooperative. I appreciate the efforts by the opposition to help the government get its agenda through Parliament.

As I recently said at a fundraising event for the Children's Bridge Foundation, I was reflecting on this place and reflected that this truly is the house of the common people. I also reflected on that word “common”. I thought that during the time of a minority Parliament, it is important for all of us to reflect on what we have in common: the things that we share as legislators regardless of our partisan differences. Regardless of what it is we want to see for Canada, I do believe very sincerely that all legislators and parliamentarians have the best interests of the country at heart.

I think that it is important that we try to work on those things that we have in common. I believe that there have been many instances in the last five or six months in this place when we have done that. I want to begin my remarks by commending the opposition for oftentimes trying to look beyond partisan differences, look to what we have in common, and actually accomplish things for the people of Canada.

While I am pleased with the progress that we have made thus far, not only as a government but as a Parliament working collectively, there is much more that we can accomplish for Canadians. As I have been saying about this cooperative atmosphere that is sometimes prevalent here, I think that some people who watch the daily proceedings of the House of Commons would actually dispute that.

If one were to watch the 45-minute question period every day, one might be surprised to hear me say that we actually work cooperatively and quite well together. While question period serves an important purpose and is the main focus for the media, no acts are amended, no new laws are created, and no funds for important programs are approved during that period of time.

Today, for example, there are 285 minutes dedicated for government legislation and 60 minutes for private members' business. Lots of time and effort goes into these minutes each day. More importantly, they can also be productive minutes. Thus far this session, our House has passed some 25 bills, including Bill C-33, which restores war veterans allowances to Allied veterans and their families. This required all-party consent and we all agreed that this was in the best interests of not only our veterans but the country.

Bill C-14, our bill to fight organized crime, is currently before committee in the other place. Bill C-29, the agricultural loans bill, will guarantee an estimated $1 billion in loans over the next five years to Canadian farm families and cooperatives. This is all important legislation that we worked together on to further it along the parliamentary agenda.

Our Standing Orders include a specific provision for the extension of sitting hours during the last two sitting weeks in June. In fact, I reflect on my 16 years in this place. It has often been a point of confusion when members, and especially rookie members, look at the calendar and see the last couple of weeks with asterisks beside the dates. They think that those weeks are disposable somehow, but they are not. They are that way because the government has the right to serve, without notice, the motion that I am moving today to extend hours and work into the evening.

At this point in my remarks, I also want to inject the fact that up until quite recently in parliamentary history, the House of Commons sat into the evening for debate almost every night. It has been a relatively new phenomenon that we do not have evening sittings. The only exceptions to that in the recent Parliaments have been for emergency debates or take note debates. Other than that, we do not usually sit in the evenings. It is quite a new phenomenon.

What I am moving today is not something unusual. These rules provide a mechanism to advance government business before members leave Ottawa to work in their constituencies over the summer.

We have a lot of important work to do before the House rises for the summer. After we subtract the three days for opposition supply days and the time for private members' business, we only have 33 hours and 45 minutes remaining to complete our government business before the House rises on the evening of June 23.

Extending the House sitting hours over the next two weeks would allow us to make progress on government bills, such as: Bill C-26, legislation to tackle property theft, which we expect to receive back from the justice committee this week; Bill C-34, the protecting victims from sexual offenders act, which would strengthen the national sex offender registry to provide the police with more effective tools to protect children from sexual predators; Bill C-35, the justice for victims of terrorism act; Bill C-36, which would repeal the faint hope clause in the Criminal Code so that criminals who commit first or second degree murder will no longer be able to apply for early parole; and Bill C-6, the consumer products safety bill, which was reported from committee yesterday. Adopting this bill would protect the health and safety of Canadians by allowing the recall of unsafe consumer products. I urge members to adopt that bill with the utmost speed when we call it for debate later this week.

Other bills we would like to make progress on include: Bill C-32, which cracks down on tobacco marketing aimed at youth, which received unanimous support at second reading and we hope that health committee can report the bill back shortly so that the House can consider its passage before the summer; and Bill C-23, the Colombia free trade bill.

While not unanimous, I am grateful for the support of most members opposite in enabling the House to pass Bill C-24, the Peru free trade bill. Both Bill C-24 and Bill C-23 would expand market access for Canadian companies at a difficult time. I inject that this is especially important to our farmers who will have new marketing opportunities open up for them because of these two free trade bills.

This is just some of the important work to be done on our government's commitments. It does not take into account additional new legislation that we continue to introduce every week.

I notice the justice minister is sitting here and nodding as I relay a number of justice bills. The Minister of Justice has been extremely active in bringing forward a succession of important justice reforms. This is one of the reasons that I ran for Parliament 16 years ago. I know many legislators on both sides of the House hold near and dear to their hearts the importance of protecting victims and their families and of reforming and changing the justice system in our country to ensure that criminals are held accountable for their actions.

My intent regarding this period of extension would be, and I have discussed this with the opposition House leaders and whips, to set a goal each day as to what we wanted to accomplish. When we accomplished that goal, we would adjourn for the day. Even though the motion says that we would sit until 10 o'clock Monday to Thursday, it may not be necessary to sit until 10. We could work co-operatively and collectively together. If we actually achieved our goals that day at 7 o'clock or 7:20 p.m., we would see the clock at 10 and the House would rise. I think that is reasonable.

I am asking for a simple management tool to maximize our progress with the weeks that are left, a little over two weeks. I am not asking for a shortcut. I am not asking to curtail debate. I am proposing that we work a little harder to get the job done. As I said, I believe I am making a reasonable approach of adjourning each day after we meet modest goals. All parties would agree to these goals. This is not a blank cheque. I cannot adjourn the House without support from the opposition, nor can I prevent an adjournment motion from being adopted without opposition support. The motion has co-operation built right into it.

Sitting late in June is part of the normal process, as I referred to earlier. It is one of the procedures required to make Parliament work and be more efficient. According to the Annotated Standing Orders of the House of Commons:

Although this Standing Order dates back only to 1982, it reflects a long-standing practice which, in its variations, has existed since Confederation. The practice has meant that in virtually every session since 1867, in the days leading up to prorogation or, more recently, to the summer adjournment, the House has arranged for longer hours of sitting in order to complete or advance the business still pending.

A motion pursuant to Standing Order 27 has only been refused once and that was last year. Even under the minority government of Paul Martin, the motion had sufficient opposition support to be adopted. There is bound to be some business that one opposition party wants to avoid, but generally there should be enough interest on the part of the opposition to get legislation passed before the summer recess.

The House leader of the official opposition is often on his feet after question period trying to get speedy passage to some of our justice bills. Here is a chance for him, and collectively Parliament, to actually get that done.

The NDP members complain that we accuse them of delaying legislation when all they want to do, or so they say, is put up a few more speakers to a bill. Here again we are giving them the opportunity to do exactly that.

I am therefore seeking the support of all members to extend our sitting hours so that we can complete work on important bills which will address the concerns of Canadians before we adjourn for the summer.

[Business of the House, June 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am only too happy to respond as I do every Thursday, with transparency, openness and in a spirit of co-operation with my colleagues across the way.

Today and tomorrow we will consider Bill C-15, the drug offence bill. However, as my colleague the Minister of Justice noted, the NDP members seem to be unnecessarily dragging the debate on the bill out. We will also consider Bill C-25, truth in sentencing; Bill C-34, protecting victims from sex offenders; Bill C-19, anti-terrorism; and Bill C-30, the Senate ethics bill.

Next week I intend to add to this list, Bill S-4, identity theft; and Bill C-6, consumer product safety.

As always, I will give priority to any bills that have been reported back from our hard-working standing committees.

In the response to the question about the allotted days, within the next week I will be designating Thursday, June 11 as an allotted day.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. Liberal House leader often asks specific questions about specific bills on Thursday, so I hope you will entertain a few comments of my own.

First of all, I would like to recognize that, to date at least, there has been good co-operation from the opposition in moving our legislative agenda forward, not only in this chamber but in the other place as well. I want to thank the opposition for that co-operation.

However, yesterday we passed in this place, at all stages and without debate, Bill C-33, the bill that will extend benefits to allied veterans and their families. For this bill to become law, we need the same co-operation in the Senate. I would urge the opposition House leader to deliver that message to his senators.

I understand that the Governor General is here today and could actually give royal assent to the bill. It would not only be symbolic but a substantial gesture to those veterans who are reflecting on and participating in the 65th anniversary of D-Day on June 6, this weekend.

The other bill I want to specifically mention is Bill C-29, the agricultural loans bill. In one of his Thursday questions, the member for Wascana took an interest in this bill. He suggested, and I quote from Hansard, that “we might be able to dispose of it at all stages”. I appreciate that level of support for this important and time-sensitive bill in the House, but the member needs to coordinate his support with his Senate colleagues in order to get this bill passed and the increased loans made available to our farmers in a timely manner.

Any communication from the member for Wascana and any persuasiveness he may bring to bear upon his Liberal colleagues in the other place would be greatly appreciated by me and the government.

[War Veterans Allowance Act, June 3rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations among all the parties and I think and hope you would find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practices of the House, Bill C-33, An Act to amend the War Veterans Allowance Act, be deemed to have been read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole, deemed considered in Committee of the Whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at the report stage and deemed read a third time and passed.

I draw attention of the House to the words “without amendment” because there was some issue about whether it was going to be amended or not. It is not amended.

[Business of the House, June 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, my apologies for interrupting the debate but there have been consultations and discussions between all parties and I think if you were to seek it you would find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, on Wednesday, June 3, Statements by Ministers, pursuant to Standing Order 33, shall take place at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions followed by a moment of silence; any recorded division previously deferred to Wednesday, June 3, shall be taken up at the end of the moment of silence provided that the time taken for the ministerial statement and the deferred recorded divisions shall be added to the time provided for Government Orders; and, notwithstanding Standing Order 30(7), Private Members' Business shall begin no later than 7:00 p.m.

[Business of the House, May 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to my colleague's questions. Before I get to his specific questions, perhaps we will revert to the more traditional response, which is to lay out the anticipated business for the week ahead.

As members know, today we completed debate at third reading stage of Bill S-2, the customs act. We will continue and hopefully complete the second reading stage of Bill C-20, Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act. Following Bill C-20, we will call at second reading, Bill C-30, Senate Ethics Act.

Tonight the House will go into committee of the whole to consider the main estimates of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Tomorrow we will begin debate on Bill C-24, Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act. The back-up bills for tomorrow will be any unfinished business left over from today.

Next week we will continue with any unfinished business from this week, with the addition of Bill C-15, drug offences, which is at report stage and third reading stage.

We will also consider Bill C-32, the bill that will crack down on tobacco marketing aimed at our youth, and Bill C-19, investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions. These bills are at second reading.

As I have been doing, I will also give priority consideration to any bills that are reported back from our standing committees.

Finally, I would like to note that on Monday, June 1, at 10 a.m., there will be a memorial service in the Senate chamber to honour the memory of parliamentarians who have passed away since April 30, 2008.

As well, in response to the specific questions, the hon. opposition House leader would know full well that we just had our House leaders meeting of all four parties and their whips. I thought I took extraordinary steps to inform my colleagues about the anticipated business that I intend to call between now and the House rising on June 23. He has all of that information. He knows as well that much of this is tentative and subject to change because we do not know exactly how fast committees will move and how long debate will take in this place. Having said that, I have tried to be as transparent and as open with my colleagues as possible.

As far as specific questions about the three remaining supply days, I will be designating them in the future, although I did indicate tentative dates for all three, and the member is well aware of that information; in fact, I think it has been made public.