Jim Abbott

[Judges Act, April 14th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment the member for Etobicoke North on his past service to the House. I understand he has decided that when we reach the point of going to a general election he will not run again. I would like to acknowledge the fact that he has been a consistently solid contributor to the affairs of the nation.

It is within that spirit that I wonder if he might want to reconsider some comments he made. I say this with the deepest sincerity. The member was talking about the fact that a Mr. Gwyn Morgan, who had been given the job of becoming involved in the appointments process, ended up not being confirmed by the opposition. This was immensely regrettable because of the standing of Mr. Morgan within the corporate community of Canada and indeed within his own community around Calgary.

It really gives us a good reason for why many people of exceptionally high calibre who could be contributing to public life in Canada choose to stay away. As a matter of fact, he was given the appointment by our current Prime Minister and was going to be getting the princely sum of $1 per year in order to carry out this function. In fact, it did not happen.

I wonder if the member might want to reconsider his comments, because certainly a person of the immensely high calibre of Gwyn Morgan, whether he happened to have been associated with our party, the member's party or any other party, is really quite irrelevant. He would have brought a tremendous asset base to this chamber and was prepared to do it virtually as a volunteer, obviously, for a $1 fee. I wonder if the member, who I know is a very honourable gentleman, might want to reconsider his inference toward Mr. Morgan.

[Judges Act, April 14th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, perhaps the member needs a lesson on how to filibuster. He has to be talking about Bill C-31. He cannot just mention Bill C-31 and change from filibustering and talk about immigration. Then he says Bill C-31 which makes it all right for him to go into a bit of a diatribe on what he thinks about Senate reform. This has to stop at this point. The member must be relevant on talking about Bill C-31 if he indeed wants to continue this filibuster.

[Judges Act, April 14th, 2008]

How is that relevant?

[Judges Act, April 14th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, out of respect to you and this House, I withdraw those remarks. Unfortunately, I did go over the top.

I must admit, though, that I am somewhat frustrated when we have a bill here that everybody seems to be in agreement with, and the Liberals, for some reason, are doing nothing but filibustering. I find it deeply regrettable because we could be getting on with other House business.

They will go out in front of the House here with Don Newman or Mike Duffy and get on these panels and say that nothing is happening in the House. Of course nothing is happening in the House because the Liberals are filibustering a bill that they happen to agree with.

I wonder if the member could possibly explain that to us. It just seems completely illogical.

[Judges Act, April 14th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I must say that this has been a very humorous afternoon, particularly because the member has been talking about the fact that he does not understand a party that would actually have principle. I can understand that. The Conservatives come to these and many other issues, be they criminal justice, economic reform, things to do with satellites or whatever the issues are, with principles. Of course he would not understand, being a Liberal, because he does not have any principles as it would relate to this issue.

[Judges Act, April 14th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order, I am calling for relevance. It seems to me that if our friends are going to filibuster the least they could do would be to stay on topic. He may be familiar with the Wheat Board because that is his one song that he sings constantly in the House, but surely to goodness he has enough information on this topic to conduct an intelligent filibuster rather than just drifting off into any old topic that he wants.

[Judges Act, April 14th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of the speech that my friend just made where she said she did not want party politics to be part of this debate, I respect the fact that she did some work on her speech over the weekend and wanted to have an opportunity to express herself, but I am asking, could she possibly tell us if there is some reason why we keep having speakers from the Liberal Party?

She has already indicated, and we understand, that the Liberals are going to be voting in favour of this legislation. Combined with the government, it means that the legislation will pass. Hopefully, we will have the cooperation and the vote of the Bloc and NDP as well.

We should be getting on with business. Why do we not just move forward?

We are in agreement with the differences. Although I respectfully have a significant difference of opinion with her on what she was saying, nonetheless we are in favour of this in principle. My question to the member is, can we move forward please?

[French language Television, April 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the heritage minister has taken note of these issues and it is under consideration.

[Arts and Culture, April 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the response is twofold.

First, that report is now being considered by the minister and she will respond in due course.

Second, with respect to the decisions of the CBC, as the member well knows, as he is a member of the committee, we have invited the executives of the CBC to come before the committee to explain to us their future plans with respect to the CBC.

[Arts and Culture, April 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is very important that we take a look at some facts. The facts are that many of the people who were witnesses yesterday were of the 33 organizations that, on March 19, 2001, received the following from the Liberal government.

In a request for their response, they were told by the Liberal government in 2001, “The existing public policy and acceptable share of revenues test, which is presently found in the draft regulations, will be incorporated in the act”. Those organizations wrote back in June saying, “We would agree with the technical amendments outlined in the 2001 discussion paper”. What is the issue?