Joe Comartin

[Business of Supply, November 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I never could bring the same passion that my colleague from Acadie--Bathurst brings to these issues, but I totally agree with his description of the underpinning that the rules have for us in order to have democratic debate and the attack on those basic, fundamental rights to have debate in this Parliament.

It is much worse. This is the worst that we have ever seen. The Conservatives were critical of the Liberals when they did this in 2002, but they are actually way ahead of them. They are worse than what the Liberals were.

[Business of Supply, November 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it is a good question with regard to that particular bill, because it was its third incarnation. I used to be on the environment committee, so I was involved in that. I remember Jay Hill, who was the member he is referring to, the former government House leader, taking that position in spite of the fact that we had had 10 days of debate on it at third reading at that stage. We also had lengthy debates in prior Parliaments. However, I believe it was the Reform Party at that time, the predecessor to the Conservative government, raising this issue and doing that.

It is quite clear that when the Conservatives are in government, they are talking an entirely different line than when they sat on this side of the House. After the next election, when we are in government, we would be quite prepared to live under the terms of this motion.

[Business of Supply, November 25th, 2011]

He is playing, Mr. Speaker; it is not this fall, but it is in this session of Parliament.

Well, let us go with another one. Just last week, or earlier this week, we agreed to go through all stages of Bill C-16, which deals with the judiciary within the military. Again, that was in part an initiative that came from us, at the request of the government initially.

There in fact progress has been made. To finish, the question really is, how rapidly do we run important bills through the House? It is way too fast.

[Business of Supply, November 25th, 2011]

Actually, Mr. Speaker, if we take this session, the bills that have moved through this House rapidly have been as a result of the initiative that came from this side of the House. With the mega trials bill, as the justice critic for my party, we put before the House that in fact we should run that through.

By the way, the member is not correct; that bill has in fact had royal assent. It is in place at this point, but it was the result of the initiative from this side of the House.

[Business of Supply, November 25th, 2011]

moved:

That, in the opinion of the House, the thorough examination and debate of proposed legislation on behalf of Canadians is an essential duty of Members of Parliament, and that the curtailment of such debate limits the ability of Members to carry out this duty and constitutes an affront to Canadian democracy; and, therefore,

that the Speaker undertake a study and make recommendations to amend the Standing Orders with respect to closure and time allocation, such that: (i) a Minister would be required to provide justification for the request for such a curtailment of debate; (ii) the Speaker would be required to refuse such a request in the interest of protecting the duty of Members to examine legislation thoroughly, unless the government’s justification sufficiently outweighs the said duty; (iii) criteria would be set out for assessing the government’s justification, which would provide the Speaker with the basis for a decision to allow for the curtailment of debate;

that the Speaker report to the House no later than February 6, 2012;

that a motion to concur in the said report may be moved during Routine Proceedings, and that only when no Member rises to debate the motion, the Speaker shall interrupt any proceedings then before the House and put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment, every question necessary to dispose of the motion; and

if no motion to concur in the report has been previously moved and disposed of on the 20th sitting day following the presentation of the report, Standing Orders 57 and 78 shall be deemed to have been deleted.

Mr. Speaker, this motion has been brought before the House at this time because of the government's gross overuse of shutting down debate in the House, whether it is by a formal closure motion, which shuts down debate immediately, or by time allocation motions, which provide extremely limited time for debate on crucial issues facing both the House and the country more generally.

It is important that we recognize the effect of the motion. It is not that you, Mr. Speaker, need a greater workload, but that is the thrust of the motion. The motion would remove a government's unilateral ability to shut down debate in the House and would allow the Speaker, as an independent officer of Parliament, to make the decision as to when it is appropriate to curtail debate and when it is an abuse of the process. Therefore, a request for curtailment of debate could in fact be rejected by the Speaker of the day.

I have done some analysis of other jurisdictions that have similar parliaments to ours, such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. Going back some 20 or 30 years, all of them moved to provide greater authority to the speaker to regulate when debate should be curtailed, limited or ended. In each of those parliaments, it is quite clear that it is the speaker who ultimately makes the decision in that regard.

The authority is different in each of those legislatures, but the general wording and conduct of the speaker has always been: Is the request for curtailment or ending debate an abuse? Oftentimes the term “of a minority segment of that parliament” is used. It may be a large official opposition or it may be a small third, fourth or fifth party, but the speaker has the authority in each one of those parliaments to make the determination as to whether the request by the government to end or limit debate is an abuse of the rights of the members of Parliament.

I will move on to the context in which this motion is being put forward.

In less than two months of sitting days, we have had time allocation applied to Bill C-13, the budget bill, which was 640 pages long. We were given extremely limited time to debate it. It is the only time, that we have been able to determine, in the history of this country that such a limited amount of time has been given to a budget bill. I know the government House leader said that we had some debate on this in the previous Parliament. However, we have 100 new members of Parliament who were not here and had no opportunity to debate this in the last Parliament.

It is fundamental to our process that a budget bill be given a full extensive debate. We can go back to any number of the authorities where that is repeated over and over again, and not just in this legislature, but in every legislature that works off the Westminster model.

We then had Bill C-18 dealing with the Canadian Wheat Board. This is an institution that is well over 70 years of age. It is iconic in this country. However, on two occasions, at second reading and report stage, we were again slapped with time allocation.

The Wheat Board and the farmers in western Canada were entitled to that debate. The opposition should have been given time in both the House and in committee to deal with that issue. We were given extremely limited time given the significance of what was going to happen if the bill passed, especially when the majority of farmers in western Canada, who use the Wheat Board to sell their wheat, oppose the bill. However, again we were slapped with time allocation on two occasions.

Bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill, is made up of nine former bills brought together. Again the House leader said that we had time to debate this legislation. More than 100 new members did not have time to debate this extremely complex bill because they were not here in the last Parliament.

The Conservatives have accused the opposition of delaying this legislation. On more than one occasion, the NDP has offered to take the part of the bill that deals with crimes against children, sexual predator type crimes, and run it through at all stages. It already passed through the House once before, so we were quite comfortable in having that done. On the more than one occasion that we offered that to the government, it refused and then slapped time allocation on the balance of the bill.

It was the same thing with Bill C-19, the gun control bill. We were given extremely limited time to debate an issue that is topical and very controversial. As the debate has gone on, more and more evidence has come out around reasons to not do away with the long gun registry. There was no opportunity to debate that legislation in the House to any significant degree.

Finally, Bill C-20, the seats bill. The bill proposes to make significant changes to the composition of this Parliament and again we are being limited to a significant degree in our ability to deal with it. I sit on the committee that is looking at the bill and the same thing is happening there. Extreme limitations are being placed at committee with regard to the number of witnesses we are allowed to call.

It just boggles my mind when I try to understand what is going on, and I think I am reasonably intelligent in terms of understanding it. It is a complex process that is being engendered now and it is new. It is not what was here in the last Parliament at all. The bill is a new incarnation of the process. It would make a very significant change, and we are being given nowhere near the amount of time that we will need.

If we continue with the practice as it is right now, Bill C-20 will be out of committee and back before the House either by the end of next week or early the week following, when we have limited time to debate it here in the House and limited time in committee. The same can be said about the other four bills that I just mentioned. They all have had limited time in committee.

That is the context that we have. We have a precedent, if we want to put it that way, in other legislatures.

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent.

As I said earlier, we have this other precedent. If the bill passes, it will mean more work for the Speaker of this Parliament and subsequent Speakers. However, we need to find a much more proper balance in terms of our ability as opposition members to do our job. Our responsibility here is to determine whether legislation coming from the government is appropriate, but we are not able to do that in the amount of time that we are being given at this point. We need to take the government's ability to limit time and place it in the hands of an independent member and, in this case, that would be the Speaker and his successors.

[Privilege, November 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, just as we ran into the technical problem, I was pointing out that a second aspect of the seeking of a finding of breach of privilege by the President of the Treasury Board was more a question of debate. Information that, as he perceives it, breaches privilege was given in the media outside this chamber and outside of committee. Mr. Speaker, if that is what his criticism is, I would suggest it is beyond the scope of your role as the Speaker of this House and that he would be better to take it up directly with media sources.

If in fact there is a breach of privilege, we could see that it could be established without in any way finding that the source of that breach of privilege was the member for Timmins—James Bay, given the dispute we have over the facts.

I want to go back to the initial comments I made. If there is a breach of privilege here, we could see that finding, but we are not at all suggesting or admitting that the member for Timmins—James Bay is the source of it. There may have been a breach here because the statements made by the President of the Treasury Board in committee clearly had been altered. He sees that, and we see it on this side of the House.

I believe it behooves your office, Mr. Speaker, to investigate that matter. We are not opposed at all to that finding. However, we are saying very clearly that we are adamantly opposed to a determination that the cause or source of the breach of privilege is the member for Timmins—James Bay. There may be a general determination that his privileges have been breached, because the records have been altered. We should get to the bottom of that, if for no other reason than to make sure it never happens again.

[Privilege, November 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, if in fact the request is for you, Mr. Speaker, and your office to determine whether the blues were altered and how, members on this side of the House would be in full support of that.

However, we would note that the point that was at issue, and would ask you to address it if that is the thrust of where we are going, is how the formal commitment contained within the committee blues for the President of the Treasury Board to provide documents to the public through the committee was struck from the official record.

You have repeatedly heard the term “sure, sure” in response to questions from the member for Timmins—James Bay, and that those words had been taken out. I think the President of the Treasury Board was in fact admitting that it happened, that the initial draft came with the word “sure” twice in response to questions from the member for Timmins—James Bay, and that they were not there in the official record when it was finalized. How that came about, we would like to know.

On the other hand, if the government seeks to engage in a thorough debate about how it is that the Conservative government, through its ministers, continues to withhold vital information about how public money was spent by the President of the Treasury Board, we would respond very vigorously that we would like to do that as well; that is, engage in that debate.

It is entirely possible that the privileges of all of the members of the House were breached by his actions in the public accounts committee, first by saying “sure”, and then by not giving the documents, as he appears to have made a very clear commitment in that regard.

However, if the President of the Treasury Board is hoping to correct the record as to what was said to the media in the press conference in the morning, if that was the thrust of where he was going, and I had some sense of that although it was not entirely clear, that is beyond the purview of you and this Chamber.

Therefore, if he wants to try to correct whatever impression was left there, that is a question of debate--

[Privilege, November 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I had advised you that I would be responding to the question of privilege that was raised by the President of the Treasury Board yesterday.

I stand to respond to the question of privilege he raised. He raised it with respect to the apparent altering of the official record of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

The first note I would make is that there seems to be some ambiguity. I was not quite sure where he was going with this, so I will perhaps pose this rhetorical question. Is he asking the Speaker to rule on whether and how the blues were altered? It was not entirely clear, but I think that is where he was going.

If that is the thrust of his question of privilege, certainly members on the official opposition side would—

[Points of Order, November 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to stand, but that last comment cannot go without a response.

Mr. Speaker, you heard very clearly from our whip. We all sponsor members of the general public to come here and sit in the galleries. We do that every single day.

To then attribute misbehaviour on behalf of one of those people that we sponsored to the individual who was the sponsor is just totally inappropriate. To make that kind of comment is wrong because at any given time one of those people who we provided a pass to sit in these galleries could be doing the same thing.

This weekend I will have been here 11 years. I have been through five incidents, and in not one of those incidents, and I include the one that happened yesterday, can we point to the member of Parliament who allowed the person to have the pass as having any foreknowledge that there was going to be an incident.

We have had five incidents, and I do not believe there have been any other incidents. I was in the chamber every single time and there has never been an occasion when we could show that the member who was the sponsor had any knowledge of what was going to happen.

[Business of the House, November 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I have noticed a disturbing trend developing around the Thursday question over the past several weeks. It is a trend that allows the government House leader to take advantage of a certain convention.

The hon. member on the government side is using the Thursday statement to create spin and rhetoric concerning the government's legislative agenda.

Last week, even after my colleague from Laurier—Sainte-Marie reminded the House that there was no place for debate in the Thursday statement, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons made a 600-word speech on the virtues of the schedule, instead of simply reading out the schedule.

That is what he is supposed to be doing. In fact, he argued in favour of a number of bills, including Bills C-18, C-13 and others.

If you review the record, Mr. Speaker, there can be no doubt that it was debate, not simply providing information, as the Thursday question is supposed be for.

Also, Mr. Speaker, you will know as well as anyone else that this past week, the government voted to shut down healthy debate for the 10th time in this Parliament. It continues to undermine Canadian democratic principles by ramming bills through the House without adequate debate. This, too, is a radical and much more serious departure from the traditions of this place, which enshrine the duty of MPs to exam and debate legislation comprehensively before passing judgment on it.

I would ask the government House leader what the business of the House will be for the next week. I would also ask, if he is allowed to stray from his talking points, if he perhaps could spare us the spin from the Conservative war room and curtail his own debate rather than that of MPs trying to do their jobs on behalf of all Canadians.