Matthew Green

[Criminal Code, December 6th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate your indulgence and the suggestion from the hon. member from the Conservative side. Is my microphone okay now?

[Criminal Code, December 6th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, is this better now?

[Criminal Code, December 6th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, one of the first privileges we have when rising in these opening weeks of a new Parliament session is to be granted the opportunity to acknowledge the honour that has been bestowed upon us by our respective constituents as either newly elected or re-elected members of Parliament.

With the Speaker's indulgence, allow me to begin my intervention, as many of us already have, with a brief reflection on the deep gratitude I owe to the people of Hamilton Centre, who have put their trust in me to return to this 44th Parliament to continue the important work of ensuring that the working-class values of Hamilton Centre continue to be well represented in the House of Commons—

[Criminal Code, December 3rd, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, who, as our labour critic, has been incredible in raising the alarm around the issue of contract flipping. One of the concerns we have about this bill is that it raises questions about the entitlement to sick days for workers subject to contract flipping.

Would the hon. member care to comment on how, in principle, workers doing essentially the same work despite a possible change in employer should have their work standards and sick leave entitlements preserved?

[Criminal Code, December 3rd, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I really need to strike while the iron is hot. My good friend from Northumberland—Peterborough South made the bold statement from the Conservative side that we needed more union jobs in Canada, and I could not agree more.

Will the hon. member rise in the House today and join the New Democratic caucus in supporting sectoral bargaining to ensure that more Canadians across the country can have access to well-paying union jobs?

[Criminal Code, December 3rd, 2021]

Madam Speaker, hallelujah, we heard here today this hon. member from the Conservatives say the word “union” perhaps more times than he did in all the days of the last session of Parliament combined. I am more than willing, as is the entire NDP caucus, to continue down that line. He brought up specifically a bill that was first introduced by Chris Charlton and then my colleague Scott Duvall on the construction mobility tax credit.

What other possible worker-friendly and union-friendly policies could this member present to us today that we might find some common ground on?

[Criminal Code, December 3rd, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to capitalize on the good minister's basking in the light.

We have heard much conversation in the House about collaboration. I have to share with members that our labour critic, the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, and of course our entire caucus has been calling on this government to improve the bill by ensuring that workers do not have to wait 11 months for 10 paid sick days, and ensuring that workers have access to the first day of sick leave after a continuous period of employment of at least 60 days. This is with the goal of not unduly delaying access to the first day of sick leave.

There are many ways in which we can improve the bill before us, and I am hopeful that the good minister, in basking in the light, will work with the NDP caucus to close the gaps in the very porous first draft of this legislation.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, December 2nd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, we know what it is like standing up as new members in this House. I know that the hon. member has spoken her people's history into this place in a way that will be recorded in Hansard forever.

I would like to provide the hon. member the opportunity to finish her thoughts, or add more if there was anything missing from her reflections, to the House in this moment.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, December 2nd, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for rising. In the past session, he was a bulwark of the party's truth and reconciliation process, through which the government is engaging in the atrocities that have been uncovered in our residential schools across the country.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has denounced the doctrine of discovery. Four of the commission's calls to action, calls to action 45, 46, 47 and 49, urge the government to publicly disavow the racist and white supremacist notion of the doctrine of discovery. The Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly stated that the heart of reconciliation is to reconcile the pre-existing rights of indigenous peoples with the assertion of Crown sovereignty. The phrase “assertion of Crown sovereignty” is a Canadian euphemism for the doctrine of discovery.

The Mohawk Institute Residential School, which is near my riding, is beginning its painful process of recovering bodies. As we know, close to 7,000 children have been recovered across the country so far. Given its correlation with the deaths of over 7,000 indigenous children, would the hon. member repudiate the doctrine of discovery?

[Privilege, November 23rd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to be here representing my constituents of Hamilton Centre who have imbued me with this very serious duty of coming to the House of Commons to exercise our parliamentary privileges: ones that have been outlined by the hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil as perhaps being in question or under attack. A lot has been said on many of these questions of privilege here today.

I want to congratulate you on your preferment, and I would share that when we elected you yesterday, Mr. Speaker, we did so knowing that we were trying to set a direction for the course of this 44th Parliament that would respect the rights and privileges of every member present in the House.

In trying to learn more about these privileges, I have turned to the jurisprudence, much in the same way my colleagues have, referencing Derek Lee's The Power of Parliamentary Houses to Send for Persons, Papers and Records: A Sourcebook on the Law of Precedent of Parliamentary Subpoena Powers for Canadian and other Houses. I am sure it is on the Speaker's shelf, along with a long list of other jurisprudence that goes back to the 1600s and protects our rights and assures that in this Westminster parliamentary system, we have a balance of power on both sides of the House.

I rise as a New Democrat and think this is an important consideration for your priority, Mr. Speaker, when setting the tone for this 44th Parliament because the Liberal government did have a penchant for circumventing the rules and, in many cases, violating the parliamentary privileges of members of the House of Commons. That has been outlined seven times in this particular question of privilege, three times previously in other points, and multiple times in the last session of Parliament, when you had to intervene in legal proceedings, which was unprecedented.

With this particular case, as committees are being struck it is going to be especially important for you, Mr. Speaker, to provide a clear ruling to show the government and the opposition how seriously we are going to take the jurisprudence on our parliamentary privilege. Because we had a government that chose to run out the clock on the last session, to prorogue it and use procedures to frustrate the basic application of our parliamentary privileges, I believe we would be better off if this was prioritized in a ruling brought forward that clearly defends, with proper evidence, the right for us to use our subpoenas, and to send for documents and records as has been accorded through the historical practices and usages of the House.

Without getting into details or arguing the points and principles of this particular case, I would suggest that this case ought to be used as a precedent for future potential circumventions of our privilege.

I will state in closing that a precedent will be set either way, because a non-decision in this case is also a precedent. It will actually reward, in some instances, the government side's behaviour of circumventing what is, I think, a very clear and well-laid-out long-standing tradition of respecting our parliamentary privileges.

With that, I rise as a member of the New Democratic Party in support of the hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil. I ask that you put express priority particularly on the matter of principle and privilege that has been raised today, because it will send a message to the government about what it is able to get away with in the months to come. I look forward to the Speaker's very learned decision on the matter.