Michel Guimond

[Canada Information Office, February 28th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in a similar vein, is the House aware that the federal government's hiring policy for the public service does not apply to the CIO?

How does the minister explain this, unless it is because he has decided to free himself of inconvenient rules so that he can hire whom he wants, when he wants and how he wants?

[Canada Information Office, February 28th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Public Works and Government Services.

We have learned that the budget of the Canada Information Office, the federal government's propaganda machine, was increased by 150%. This means a 150% increase in patronage and contracts to friends of the government.

How can the federal government justify such generosity when it comes to propaganda, patronage and cronies?

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

—because it happens regularly, on a weekly basis.

My Latin teacher used to say tempus fugit, time flies. Since you are signalling that I have only one minute left, I simply want to conclude on this: What power will the opposition have if it has increasingly less access to the parliamentary tools that are necessary to the expression of a true democracy? How will opposition members be able to protect the fundamental interests of their fellow citizens?

From the moment that a government stops listening to the public and adopts a piecemeal approach based on a strictly partisan agenda that takes into account only the interests of a few, all our institutions lose their meaning.

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

—or 17.4% of the time, which is almost double. The hon. member for Verchères—Les-Patriotes tells me that it was more than 60 times—

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

Let them abolish it. Let us say that if there are savings to be made, we should shut it down. Shut it down for six, eight, nine months a year. We should try to compress all of parliament's work into one week. If we sit for just one week, we will save $27,000 an hour times 24 hours for 51 weeks. That will save a bundle.

Democracy does have a price, and I think that passing a motion such as Motion No. 2 would be to deny the right of all parties, including the opposition parties of course, to introduce amendments.

While the government is using this faulty argument, while it is trying to prevent us from representing our constituents, it has, since 1993, pocketed no less than $31 billion of the surplus in the EI fund, money that belonged to unemployed workers. The government has many ways of limiting opposition to a bill.

I will give an example. We do not need to give the government House leader ideas for keeping us down; he has all sorts of his own. One of the tools used by the government House leader is closure.

What is the main reason for closure? It is intended to silence the opposition members. The government House leader decrees “There will be another two and a half hours of debate on such and such a bill. We feel that you will have said all you had to say in those two and a half hours and we are not interested in hearing any more. It does not matter whether you can provide additional arguments, whether research assistants found a study somewhere in the world or in Canada to show to the government that it is headed in the wrong direction. The government has decided to put an end to the debate after two and a half hours with a gag order. You will have said all you had to say by then”. I say two and a half hours, but it could be one hour, three hours or three days. We cannot accept such a measure.

From 1984 to 1993, the Conservative government used a gag order 49 times for 519 bills, or 9.4% of the time. In the seven years it has been in office, the Liberal government has resorted to closure 60 times for 350 bills—

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

Of course, government members are applauding. They would love that, but they really should not applaud when I make such comments. This is what they are aiming for, but in a somewhat more hypocritical if not subtle way.

The process whereby the opposition tries to amend an act is a sound, democratic process, and the opposition has a duty to ensure that the government respects the public in managing the affairs of the state.

Depriving opposition parties of the tools that they need to do their job tends to change the role of our democratic institutions. This is a serious matter. It is through debates and decisions made democratically in the interest of all that a government should manage public affairs, not in the interest of a fistful of individuals, and not in the interest of a certain group of members who sit in cabinet.

The role of each and everyone of the 301 elected parliamentarians, whether they sit in the fifth row on the opposition side or on the government side, is to improve the legislation, unless the government House leader thinks he has a monopoly on truth, in which case I am wasting my time, I should sit down immediately and no one else should talk.

With all due respect, I submit that the government House leader does not have a monopoly on truth. At any rate, all we on this side have to do is look at the way he directs the work of this House to see that he does not have a monopoly on the truth.

The government is calling upon the institution you represent, Mr. Speaker, to intervene in order to limit opposition delaying tactics. The government House leader is giving this reason to all the media: “I do not want to see MPs turned into voting machines”.

I regret to inform hon. members that we were elected to listen to the debates, to get some idea of what bills are about, and to respect the concerns and needs of our fellow citizens. Then, having done all that, our fellow citizens expect us to come here precisely for that reason, to vote. Is that being voting machines? If, within one year, we are able to pass 600 pieces of progressive legislation which will help improve society, which will add something to democracy, to the relationship between citizens and their government—for this is what we often fault government for, and I do not necessarily mean this one, or a provincial one—we will have done our duty as parliamentarians.

When the people listening to us run into us at the mall buying groceries, what criticism do they often share with us? They fault government for being out of touch with their concerns, with not listening to them. That is why they elect someone and tell them “You, sir or madam, are the one we have decided to send to Ottawa to represent us in parliament, and we want you to be our spokesperson. We want you to be the one to speak on our behalf”. Is that what being a voting machine means?

The Leader of the Government in the House of Commons added that dilatory motions can lead to hours of unnecessary voting. This is once again a value judgment on the part of the government House leader. That is what he thinks. He is the one who feels the voting is unnecessary, but if the government introduces bills that are reasonable, if the government House leader introduces bills that are valid, that have the approval of society and all the political parties, we are in agreement.

Members have seen that, in such cases, there have been no lengthy debates for hours and hours and no amendments. When there is a consensus on the bill, we can pass it quickly. For sure, when the government introduces bills that are meaningless, such as the bill on young offenders, such as the clarity bill, such as the bill on the Nisga'a treaty, which our Canadian Alliance colleagues considered inappropriate for the people they represent, naturally amendments are tabled.

This is the right of parliamentarians. The best proof that it is a right is that we do not use it unreasonably and in a repetitive fashion with every bill. You use a right when you want to, when you feel a need to use it. A right and a privilege for an MP, that is what that is.

The government says that we are voting unnecessarily for hours and that it costs some $27,000 for each hour of overtime the House sits. I say to the government House leader that democracy has no price. If we find that $27,000 is too much, and if the government House leader wants to make cuts—

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

A motion for closure, I agree with the hon. member for Roberval, has very serious implications. It is appropriate to read it.

Mr. Speaker, let me say from the outset that it is not the integrity of the Speaker or of the Chair, as it is called, that is being questioned, but the action taken by the government House leader.

The motion reads as follows:

That section (5) of the Standing Order 76 and section (5) of the Standing Order 76.1 be amended by adding at the conclusion of the notes thereto the following:

“For greater clarity, the Speaker will not select for debate a motion or series of motions of a repetitive, frivolous or vexatious nature or of a nature that would serve merely to prolong unnecessarily proceedings at the report stage and, in exercising this power of selection, the Speaker shall be guided by the practice followed in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.”

Mr. Speaker, I know that you are a man of law. I did say a man of law not a man of the right.

I know that the government has hit one of your tender spots. I do not know you well enough to know all your tender spots, like in hockey, when they know a player has bad knees for instance, and focus on them, but I do know, with his reference to the parliamentary system of the United Kingdom, that the government House leader has hit on one of your soft spots, because you are greatly fond of the parliamentary system as it prevails in the United Kingdom.

This motion contains elements which give incredible latitude and we cannot subscribe to them. Who, for instance, will be the one to determine whether motions are indeed repetitive, frivolous or vexatious?

I submit, respectfully, that in parliamentary law these are totally subjective concepts. There is nothing objective about this. We are in the realm of subjectivity.

With this motion, then, the government wants to give itself a clear conscience by including an initiative we consider totally partisan, something it had been thinking about for a very long time, but did not want to take the fall for. Taking advantage of the election last November 27, and the first block of the new session, the first five weeks of sittings, the government, and the government House leader in particular, said to itself “Now is the time to strike”. I submit that the government is going to have to take the fall for this.

This motion confers upon the Speaker the right to decide on the motives and motivations of the members of the opposition when they bring in amendments in the House.

If the opposition is denied the right to bring forward amendments or if our amendments are subjected to an arbitrary decision, what is there left of the opposition? Is the government unhappy with the fact there is an opposition? Would the government like to have had all the 301 seats in this 37th parliament?

I think that the members on this side of the House are legitimate as well. In other words, they are elected just as democratically as the members on the other side. Does that mean that the government is unhappy about having an opposition?

There is no doubt that, when the government House leader presented his motion, he certainly did not think his own motions in amendment could be frivolous or vexatious. This is surely not the case with the some 200 amendments to Bill C-7 on young offenders.

This motion is very insulting to any self-respecting political party working sincerely to improve legislation introduced by the government.

Thus, according to the motion the government introduced, the Speaker will have the power to judge, to all intents and purposes, the relevance of any party's political strategy. This Liberal government wants as little criticism as possible and imposes changes to the standing orders in order to manage public affairs on its own.

Here we have a basic question before us. Does a mathematical majority of members give the government the right to do everything? Can the government usurp this power simply because it had a standing of 172 seats at the latest election? Does that give it the right, literally, to negate any opposition? If this government is democratic and transparent, as it claims, what is the point of presenting such a motion as Motion No. 2, presented by the government House leader?

There is a political price to pay for managing public affairs.

When government decisions are not popular, they must be debated in parliament. The opposition has a legitimate role in parliament of working to amend legislation. If this right is withdrawn, we might as well ask what is the point of committee work, and of making speeches in the House, most of the time before empty chairs. What is the purpose?

I have a suggestion for the government. If the government wants to move quickly, all it has to do is introduce its bills and say “There will be no debate on this bill that we have put together. No opposition member will speak. Only members of the party in power will be allowed to speak. There will be no parliamentary committees, and no witnesses will be called to appear before them. I, such and such a minister, rise to introduce a bill, and I ask my Liberal colleagues in the government majority if they have any speeches to make. I give them the floor and I order that we proceed immediately to pass the bill at first, second and third readings”. Bingo. We send it to the other chamber and that is that, no more discussion.

Is this the kind of democracy that the Liberals want and the kind of country in which they want to live? If so, we need to know. I think they should have been just as plain about it in the campaign leading up to the November 27 election.

The process whereby the opposition tries to amend an act is, in itself, a sound process in a democracy. It is the expression of democracy by a part of the population that does not think like the government. I looked at the situation, and we on this side of the House should be lobotomized to ensure that nothing the members opposite say will be questioned.

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I will try not to raise the pitch used by the hon. member for Mississauga West in his speech.

Those who are listening to us and winding down in their living rooms now that their children are in bed have heard examples taken from hockey by the member for Mississauga West. With all due respect for the hon. member, his speech was worthy of a chihuahua. Members know that a chihuahua is a small dog that yaps a lot but does not bite. So, the member for Mississauga West made a speech worthy of a chihuahua. I am only referring to the pitch of the speech, not its content.

Getting back to the issue before us, it is unfortunate that we must debate until 11 p.m. the government House leader's Motion No. 2, because this motion—

[Bay Of Beauport, February 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, recently, we were delighted to discover that three Liberal MPs from the Quebec City region supported the position of the Bloc Quebecois in the matter of Beauport Bay.

No doubt, rather embarrassed at failing to block the municipal amalgamations, an important plank in their election platform, they are supporting the position of the Bloc Quebecois. Big deal, welcome to the side of common sense.

The Quebec City port authority has for the past 20 years blocked the development of an exceptional site for recreational and tourism purposes, one of the rare places Quebecers still have access to the St. Lawrence, Beauport Bay.

Worse yet, in December, this agency stated quite seriously that it wanted to turn the existing beach into a terminal for bulk carriers and recreate the beach a little further along by encroaching on the river. This announcement caused a public outcry and mobilized public opinion.

The port authority will reveal its final plan for the use of the land soon. Let us hope that it will note the regional consensus over the future of Beauport Bay.

[Health, February 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time that Health Canada has been on the hot seat. There was the tainted blood scandal, cancer causing breast implants, the whistleblowing by scientists on bovine growth hormones.

What the European Union objects to is Canada allowing the unrestricted sale of cancer causing hormones that might pose a threat to human health.

How can the minister justify allowing the use of these hormones in Canada when they are banned in Europe because they are a threat to health? Is this the best system in the world?