Madam Speaker, sometimes we have seen it all in politics. I just listened to a 30-minute speech by the member for Winnipeg North talking about how we should quickly pass legislation. That member consistently gets the award for the most words spoken in Parliament, yet all of a sudden, it is time for no one else to speak. It is time to rush legislation through and we should not debate anything. Some days we have seen it all in the House of Commons.
When we talk about Bill C-24, we are looking at three important things that the government is trying to do. I will agree that they are important. The government is trying to increase the number of weeks available to workers through EI, it is trying to make changes to rules for self-employed workers who have opted into the EI system and, of course, it is trying to fix its original blunder in the recovery sickness benefit that, because of a loophole, allowed leisure travellers to come back to Canada and claim the recovery sickness benefit after their vacations, while they were quarantining.
The question might be asked: Why did that happen? Maybe it was because of exactly what the member for Winnipeg North was just asking us to do: speedily pass legislation without review or debate. When that is done, we end up trying to patch the holes in the leaky ship five months later. That is what we are doing here today.
I want to talk about that a little. The speech we just heard from the member for Winnipeg North is the epitome of what is happening in the House of Commons these days. Legislation gets dropped, then we are told that it is urgent, important legislation, and that it should not be debated but should be rushed through committee, because we have to help Canadians.
Of course we have to help Canadians. That is what we are all here for. That is why we vote in favour of the majority of legislation for benefits for workers from the government.
However, the process is the problem. These bills could have been introduced at the start of Parliament. We have been here for two months, since the session resumed. Where was this bill? Why was it not here?
We have known of the problems with the Canada recovery sickness benefit for five months. Why was it not introduced five months ago? We have known of the loophole.
Instead, we get a piece of legislation put forward to us, then all of the proxies go out about how the opposition, especially those terrible Conservatives, are delaying this legislation and obstructing Parliament.
When there is a failure to plan, there is a plan to fail. That is what the government repeatedly does. It does not plan its legislative agenda properly. All of a sudden, it wakes up one day and says, “Oh my goodness, we need to introduce legislation on this. Let's get this passed quickly. Let's not review it. Oh, there are problems with it? Well, we will fix that someday.”
This is not the way that things should be run. It is a cynical pattern, and it is a clear pattern. We have seen articles on this as recently as February 28. “Conservatives accused of 'playing politics' in the House: Liberals are accusing the Conservatives of systematically blocking the government's legislative agenda.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. Bills are introduced. We have procedures to debate them. In debate, we find problems with legislation, such as the problems with the recovery sickness benefit.
The members of the Liberal government say that debate has so little value that it should not occur. They want this legislation to be debated for two hours, and the member for Winnipeg North just added his 30-minute contribution. It was a valuable contribution of course, but he wants a quarter of the debate to be his. I am not sure what we would say if we were in kindergarten, but we might say that the member was trying to hog all the toys.
We can look at February 24 and see the same thing. The Liberals went out to the press and said:
Unfortunately the work of the House has been held up by Conservatives obstructing [this legislation].... We are calling on the Conservatives to put politics aside.
I am calling on the government to better manage its calendar, to better manage its legislation and to introduce legislation on a timely basis. We have been in the pandemic for a year and we know these things have to get done. We had a big break at Christmas, and the government probably could have done some work and prepared some legislation so that it would be ready to go when we came back, instead of just dropping it on the Order Paper and telling us that we better pass it in two hours. That is not the way we should govern.
There is a question we might want to ask: Why did the Liberals do things this way and what is their end game? Well, one, this is political. They want to shamelessly blame the opposition parties for holding up the benefits for Canadians, who, of course, need those benefits. Two, we have issues with the government's transparency. It is a big problem. The Liberals do not want transparency, because they do not want us to know what is actually going on with legislation and other things. It is very well documented.
Members might recall that the government said it would be open by default. It was a signature promise by the Prime Minister back in 2015. I know that was six years ago, but it was his big thing. Guess what has happened since then? As noted in an article in the Telegraph-Journal:
In its latest edition, Canada’s Access to Information Act ranks 50th out of 128, behind stalwarts of transparency such as Russia (43rd), Pakistan (32nd) and South Sudan (12th). That’s hardly a spot we want to find ourselves in given just how important a strong right to information is when it comes to holding our leaders accountable.
Another article from February noted, “Government and its information should be open by default”, as the Prime Minister promised. “Data paid for by Canadians belongs to Canadians. We will restore trust in our democracy, and that begins with trusting Canadians.” Who said that? It was the Prime Minister, a mere six years ago.
However, when do we get this transparency? For example, all the opposition parties have been calling on the government to release the vaccination contracts. Have we received those contracts? No, we have not, because there is an absolute lack of transparency.
Why is this lack of transparency so important for Bill C-24? Well, the Liberals are making changes to the Canada recovery sickness benefit, and they are making the changes because they rushed through legislation that allowed people on a leisure vacation to come back and, during their mandatory quarantine, claim the benefit. Constituents in my riding of Dufferin—Caledon find this absolutely outrageous. It was raised repeatedly with the government, and it has taken months and months to try to fix it. Here are my questions. How much did this cost taxpayers? How many people have claimed this benefit? How many millions of dollars have been spent?
We know the Liberals like to filibuster at committee. They accuse us of filibustering legislation, but boy oh boy we are rank amateurs when it comes to that. Look at any committee demanding information from the government and it is delay and obstruct. It refuses to give the information. We have seen it in the WE Charity scandal and when we ask for vaccine contracts. The health committee has been filibustered for ages over that issue.
Why do I think that is important? It is because governments make choices during a pandemic, and during this pandemic the government has made a really big choice. I have raised this question with government members many times: Why are they not providing any funding to new businesses and start-ups? They had clearly made the decision that they are not going to do it. Is it an economic reason? We do not know because they will not answer the question. If it is an economic reason, they are saying they have made the economic choice to let these businesses fail. However, how much money did the government waste on giving vacation returnees access to this benefit? That money could have been given to support new businesses.
When I spoke to this with respect to Bill C-14, I told members opposite that they should spend some time talking on the telephone with new businesses that are going bankrupt. People have invested their life savings and their family's savings. They may have taken out a mortgage on their home to fund a business, and they are going to lose it all.
I have written pleas and letters to the finance minister, the Prime Minister and to the small business minister. None of those letters get answered and nothing changes. We do not end up with any support for small business.
I bet they would be grateful for the $5 million, $10 million or $50 million spent on this benefit to people returning from vacations. Will we see that information? Will my colleagues on the other side of the House commit to looking into how much money was spent on this benefit for returning vacationers and inform the House? I doubt it because it is very difficult to get information from the government, whether it is vaccine contracts or how many people accessed this benefit who should not have accessed it.
For members of the government to say that Parliament is so small, that we do not need to debate legislation, is an insult to all Parliamentarians that—
