Matthew Dubé

[Points of Order, February 15th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, recently you underscored the importance of not questioning the veracity of another member's comments and of not calling them a liar. In particular, you told us not to do indirectly what we cannot do directly.

It is for this reason that I think it is inappropriate for the Minister of Public Safety to say that repeating a falsehood does not make it true. It is pretty obvious that his statement was doing something indirectly that we cannot do directly.

It is especially odd considering that the hon. member for Outremont, the leader of the NDP, had every right to comment on the government's silence on Monday. I will not get into a debate here, but I would ask the minister to withdraw his comments.

[Public Safety, February 13th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister needs to defend Canadians against President Trump's discriminatory orders and attacks on privacy.

We have serious concerns about Bill C-23. U.S. officers on Canadian soil would be armed and authorized to conduct strip searches and detain and interrogate Canadians.

In a joint statement just released between the Prime Minister and the President, instead of standing up for Canadians, they decided to double down on information sharing and measures like this that go against Canadians' rights.

Can the minister stand up and confirm that, in the clearest of terms, they will stand up for Canadians' rights once and for all?

[Federal Framework on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Act, February 9th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his work on this file. I also want to thank a resident of Chambly, Patrick Dufresne, a paramedic from Quebec who is in Ottawa today to work on my colleague's bill. In fact, he was the one who alerted me to the importance of working on this matter.

As the NDP public safety critic, I was able to take part in the committee work and my colleague attended a few meetings with us. The committee issued a unanimous report on the need to take action on this matter.

Since this is more of a comment than a question, I will leave it to my colleague to talk in more detail about what needs to be done. Most of all, I want to thank him for his work, although much remains to be done on something like this.

[Business of Supply, February 9th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

Consensus is a rare thing in politics, so rare as to be practically non-existent, but the fact is we put together a committee that represented all of the parties in the House of Commons proportionally. Most of the parties that made up the committee managed to contribute to the report even though there were supplementary reports.

That is not the issue though. The issue is whether, as my colleague so aptly said, the government is trying to hide behind the lack of consensus. I am really looking forward to its next unpopular decision. I hope the government will roll back every other decision that raised the ire of the opposition and the people on the grounds that there was no consensus. When there are demonstrations outside MPs' offices on certain issues, I hope they will apologize and reverse their decisions because of a lack of consensus. I would be surprised if they did. The government is obviously two-faced and just wants to throw all of our work in the trash. It is so disheartening. I hope they will apologize.

[Business of Supply, February 9th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to explain to my colleague the difference between a dissenting report and a supplementary report. A supplementary report can be submitted to explain a point of view on an issue. However, in the end, the main report is the one that is accepted, along with its recommendations.

The fact remains that Liberal members are wondering why they did not propose at least a referendum or something else. I have been an MP for almost six years and I can say that all committees do excellent work. However, it is always very difficult and arduous to come up with a report that reflects the will of the majority on the committee. I am not talking about the will of the party in power, but of the will of the majority of the committee members. My colleague did not make this distinction in his question.

We reached a point where every party was willing to compromise except for the Liberal Party. That was most of the parties on the committee. Having worked on other issues as tough as this one, I can say if that is not consensus, I do not know where the government will find consensus for all of its other policies, because that was the broadest consensus it has had since coming to power.

[Business of Supply, February 9th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Victoria.

Today's debate reminds me of a quote from a famous television show. It makes me think of George Costanza from Seinfeld, who was known for his loosey-goosey relationship with the truth. He said:

It's not misleading if you believe it.

I will let the House figure out which words I had to change to make sure I was using parliamentary language. This is a bit like what we are seeing with the Liberals today. They seem to believe that they did not break this promise. They would have us believe that they did not fuel cynicism with their actions, when they neutralized every human and financial effort made over the past year. The consultations that were held cost $4 million. All of that has gone out the window.

Last summer, I had the opportunity to fill in for some of my NDP colleagues on the committee and hear the expert testimony. I can say that those experts, even those who did not necessarily agree with the mixed member proportional option, did not hesitate to say that the arguments against the system coming from across the aisle were nonsense. The members opposite argued that this system was not stable and that it favoured extremist parties, including those on the far right and those that promote identity politics. Even though this was not the system that these experts would have chosen, they did not hesitate to say that those arguments were patently false.

What I find troubling is that a situation was created that fuelled hope. We worked for one year consulting people and creating a consensus, as they always say on the other side. After all, everyone in politics knows very well that we will never have 100% support from Canadians for any policy we want to implement. If we waited until we had the support of 100% of the population to implement a policy, we would do nothing. We have to accept that there will always be some who disagree.

In view of the fact that a committee with the proportional representation of the parties in the House of Commons managed to produce a report that represented the will of the majority of the parties sitting on the committee, I think that we can say that we achieved a consensus. Let us be honest, that is a rare occurrence in the House of Commons. In fact, there was a greater consensus about what was in the committee's report than there is for most government policies.

Now the government is justifying its decision to maintain the status quo on the grounds that there is a lack of consensus. That is interesting because the government has no problem going ahead with all of its other policies despite the fact that there is far less consensus about the other components of its election platform.

The motion before us today is very important because when members and candidates go door to door in our ridings to meet voters, we all experience the same thing. Inevitably and unfortunately, every time we knock on a door, the people answering say they appreciate our work, our party, or our leader, then they say that they do not want to waste any more time on broken promises and politicians who say whatever it takes to get themselves elected. They say, “Sorry, I'll pass”, and shut the door. Some of us are more persistent; we try to regain people's trust and talk about why they feel cynical.

Sometimes we manage to restore their trust in politicians, but unfortunately, people all too often want nothing to do with us. They are cynical because of situations like the one we are discussing today.

It was a Prime Minister, leader of his party, who repeated thousands of times that he was going to keep this commitment and that it was so important for him to keep his word. He said it was at the core of his work, not only as an MP, but also as the Prime Minister and as a person, all with his hand over his heart, of course. This is what is feeding people's cynicism, especially the segment of the population that is supposedly so important to the Prime Minister, who is also Minister of Youth: young people.

This week my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley hit the nail right on the head in question period. He said that what was most disappointing was not hearing people say that they would never vote for the Liberal Party again. It was hearing people say that they would never vote again, period. Earning voters' trust is extremely difficult; not only so that voters will go and vote for a certain candidate, but so that voters will vote at all. We want people to take an interest in politics and to have confidence in all elected officials.

We can agree that 100% or 99.9% of the people who are here in the House are here for the right reasons. It is possible that some are not. In general, however, everyone is here for the right reasons. When the Prime Minister keeps telling Canadians he is committed to keeping his promise, then turns around and breaks his promise, that hurts us all. In fact, I have that wrong: it is not that he told Canadians, it is that he wrote it in a mandate letter and asked his minister to defend this to Canadians.

Every political party feels the heat from a move like that. When we go back to our ridings, regardless which party we represent or which file we are working on in the House of Commons, we are forced to justify something that undermines Canadians' trust in politicians of every stripe. This is tremendously disappointing to me, but above all, it is disappointing to the people I represent.

That is why we are calling on the Prime Minister to take the time to apologize to Canadians. A broken promise is not just an unmade policy. It also represents lost political capital for every elected member, which slows down all of the projects we may have for our society. It represents a drop in the public's confidence in us.

The government is trying to justify its position by debating the different systems proposed, but that is not what it is all about. The Liberals lacked courage. We even made some concessions. We worked with our Liberal colleagues and were prepared to hold a referendum if necessary. However, the government wanted nothing to do with it.

All the work that was done over the beautiful summer by members who remained at their desks working hard to get a consensus was tossed aside without even a word from the Prime Minister. This undermines all Canadians' confidence in politicians. For that reason, the Prime Minister should apologize to everyone we represent.

[Infrastructure, February 9th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the government is looking at options, so it has not ruled out privatization, which is rather shameful. Airports are not the only infrastructure that the government is looking at privatizing. The Liberals promised to invest in infrastructure. We have been talking a lot about promises lately. As it turns out, the parliamentary budget officer, not the opposition parties, found that most of the infrastructure funding is not actually flowing.

Instead of keeping its promises, the government would rather set up an infrastructure privatization bank. Can the minister reassure Canadians and tell them that it is not planning to sell off our public infrastructure?

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, February 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, we just learned that a Muslim Canadian family was denied entry into the United States. Worse yet, the family members were questioned about their religious beliefs. This is a direct consequence of Donald Trump's discriminatory policy.

Will the government finally join the NDP in vigorously denouncing this shameful treatment of Canadian citizens?

[Public Safety, February 3rd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are right to be worried about the protection of their privacy. The government still has not repealed Bill C-51, which breaches our rights, and now, one of President Trump's orders would hand over Canadian data to the United States without any legal protections.

Groups such as OpenMedia and the BC Civil Liberties Association are asking the government to stand up to Trump and protect Canadians' rights.

When will the minister take seriously the consequences of this order for Canadian citizens?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, February 1st, 2017]

With regard to the collection and retention of metadata or associated data by CSIS: (a) on what dates were the present or former Ministers of Public Safety informed of (i) the existence of the Operational Data Analysis Centre, (ii) the retention of metadata or associated data pertaining to third-parties or individuals who were deemed not to pose a threat, (iii) the possibility this practice could be deemed unlawful; (b) how was the information communicated for each instance in (a); (c) on what dates were the present or former Ministers of Justice informed of (i) the existence of the Operational Data Analysis Centre, (ii) the retention of metadata or associated data pertaining to third-parties or individuals who were deemed not to pose a threat, (iii) the possibility this practice could be deemed unlawful, (iv) the fact that the Federal Court had not been properly informed of this practice; (d) how was the information communicated for each instance in (c); and (e) what is the total number of Canadians whose metadata has been stored by CSIS in each year since 2006?