Mr. Speaker, I think if you were to seek it, you would find unanimous consent to proceed immediately to the deferred recorded divisions that are scheduled for later today.
House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2008, with 64% of the vote.
Manufacturing Industry May 30th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I think if you were to seek it, you would find unanimous consent to proceed immediately to the deferred recorded divisions that are scheduled for later today.
Privilege May 28th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member for Halton wants to continue to heckle, perhaps he can add to the debate after I am done instead of just shouting out his nonsense.
The reality is that this is a similar document that all parties produce to help train their individual members. I note that this internal document, as I say, is not a government document. It is something that was produced by the Conservative Party to assist our chairs.
Since the NDP members are so concerned about this, perhaps they could reveal to us their playbook or explain their tactics when they were delaying and continue to delay Bill C-45, the Fisheries Act; or Bill C-44, the amendments to the Human Rights Act; or their earlier extensive delay in filibustering Bill C-24, the softwood lumber act. In all of those things they employed tactics to delay passage of government legislation.
What about a chapter from their playbook dealing with moving concurrence motions to obstruct government legislation from following the due process and the procedure that we have become accustomed to in passing through the chamber? Instead, they resort, almost daily, to moving concurrence motions to delay that legislation.
I have remarked that the further training of our chairs, our committee members and, indeed, all of our caucus is to ensure that we are well aware of any procedural tools that we might have as a government, recognizing that we are a minority government and that we are outnumbered, not only in the chamber but at each and every standing committee. When we are confronted, as we have been by the opposition parties, which have become increasingly obstructionist, with a lot of legislation, we need to ensure we use every possible tool at our disposal to get our legislation passed through the committees, passed through the chamber and ultimately passed through a Liberal dominated Senate to become law in order that we can keep the promises that we made to the Canadian people in the last election campaign.
I have been noting that the people of Canada did not elect a coalition government of opposition parties. They elected a minority Conservative government and we have been trying to govern as such.
It is certainly my contention that this is an internal party document and that all parties have similar types of documents. It is beyond the pale that we would start out this final week with this bogus question of privilege.
Privilege May 28th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I think this is a question of privilege--
Privilege May 28th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to state unequivocally that it is my belief that this does not, in any way, shape or form, constitute a question of privilege.
I have remarked publicly and have been quoted in a number of media publications over the last few days that I had hoped, and certainly the government had hoped, after the break week--it is always called a break week but it is really not a break for members of Parliament from any of the four parties because it does allow us one week to get back in touch with our constituents on issues that are important to them and sometimes it allows us to refocus away from the day to day machinations of what goes on in the chamber and in Parliament--we would have started out what is the final session before the longer summer break in a better light than with this.
However, the point is that this so-called manual is an internal document that we produced for--
Points of Order May 18th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I too have been here quite some time now, about 14 years or close to it.
I have, as my colleagues have, for the past number of weeks listened to the member for Bourassa denigrate and personally attack our Minister of National Defence. The member says he has been asking these questions properly. The Minister of National Defence is a man with an outstanding 35 year career serving our country in the Canadian armed forces. The member has called him an “arms dealer”. Today he called him a “spendthrift” for the minister's efforts to rebuild the Canadian Forces and to give it the equipment it needs, to give it the tanks it needs.
If he wants me to apologize, I will apologize. I should not have called the member an idiot because even an idiot would support the Minister of National Defence.
Business of Supply May 17th, 2007
You had better check Hansard.
Settlement of International Investment Disputes Act May 15th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, if you were to seek it I think you would find unanimous consent to apply the results of the vote previously taken to the motion on Bill C-53, with Conservative members voting yea, and I would like to add the hon. member for Edmonton—St. Albert.
Budget Implementation Act, 2007 May 15th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I think were you to seek it, you would find unanimous consent to apply the results of the vote just previously taken to the motion currently before the House, with Conservative members present this evening voting yea.
Privilege May 15th, 2007
Someone is saying “a dictatorship”. Do you know what this is, Mr. Speaker? This is merely the latest example of the Liberals' arrogance that they cannot come to terms with the fact that they lost the election. They cannot come to terms with that. Their arrogance is such that they and the other two parties are going to determine who the Conservatives have as chairs.
If we allowed this to stand, they could remove every single one of our chairs. We could play musical chairs until the cows came home, but what would it accomplish, other than allowing the opposition to determine who our chair is? The fact of the matter is there are many opposition members sitting on many standing committees that personally I and some of my colleagues take exception to some of the antics they pull on any given day.
If I were given my choice, I might even suggest that it might be nice to have certain members removed from committees, but it is not my choice of who the opposition parties choose to have on a specific standing committee. In fact, we have a long-standing tradition that when an opposition party, when any party wants to make a change in its membership on a standing committee what happens by the rules of the House is all four whips sign.
I do not ask the hon. member that serves as the whip for the official opposition to justify to me why they want to remove one member and put another member on that committee. I do not do that. It is not my place to do that. It is the Liberals' business who they have on a certain committee and it is the Liberals' business who they choose to let their name stand as vice-chair of a certain committee. I do not try and tell them and dictate and say, “Well, I don't like that person's attitude. I don't like what they said the other day. I don't like what they did last week, so we are going to vote them off the island and we are going to have someone else serve as vice-chair”. It is the Liberals' business who they have as vice-chair. I do not pretend for a minute that I should be able to dictate to them who that person is.
As the government House leader has said, I would suggest very strongly that the leader of the official opposition does not understand the rules very clearly when he thinks that this is a question of privilege. It is not a prima facie question of privilege. Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to rule in that way.
Privilege May 15th, 2007
Someone is heckling from the other side and saying, “You're making it up”. I am not making this up.
The testimony of the committee is there. I would challenge anyone in this country that is interested in this particular issue to find out what was said today, this morning, at the official languages committee.
I was not there but a lot of members were there and it was certainly reported to me that the member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry offered an explanation for his actions.
The reality is, Mr. Speaker, that he still enjoys the support of his colleagues. I as the whip am not going to and no one else in this party is going to try to force one of my colleagues to serve as chair and undermine his credibility when he has no reason to be removed, none, Mr. Speaker.