Nathan Cullen

[Business of the House, November 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise on behalf of the official opposition to ask the government what it has planned for the House for the remainder of this week and for next week.

Today, I will ask questions about Bill C-45, a monster bill from the government, which does not seem to understand the situation at all. The 450-page bill combines issues such as reducing funding for research and development, or protecting lakes in Muskoka, but nowhere else in the country. All of that is found in and among budgetary measures.

What makes even less sense than the bill itself is the lacklustre effort the government made to be transparent about its plan to have the bill studied in committee.

Let us recap where we have come to so far with the government and how its plan, if we can call it that, is going ahead.

Two weeks ago, the government announced a deal to have the committee study the bill, apparently giving it powers for amendments. Since then, motions to conduct these studies at individual committees have been introduced and then suddenly disappeared.

Yesterday, in question period, the Conservative committee chairs refused to answer questions; they did not know or they did not understand them. Just one hour after question period, the finance minister made a commitment that something else would actually happen to perhaps amend the bill.

Now committees can recommend to the FINA committee, but those amendments have no more precedence than motions moved at the committee itself. It only looks like it was a plan written on the back of a napkin, but that would be insulting to plans written on the back of a napkin.

This is the budget of Canada we are talking about. I know relationships take a lot of work, but perhaps the House leader, maybe the whip and the finance minister, could actually get together to organize a conversation to proceed in some logical manner that would allow the bright light of sunshine—

[Petitions, November 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have a number of petitioners here from St. Catharines and areas beyond. They call upon the government to reverse its decision on the Experimental Lakes initiative, which has been providing basic research and science since 1968 into the valuable resource that all Canadians cherish so greatly. The petitioners note that the government has made a decision to cut back on science and our understanding of our lakes and rivers, all the while gutting environmental legislation. They call upon the government to re-fund basic science.

[Conservative Party of Canada, October 31st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons stood in this House and had the audacity to complain about mistruths in members' statements. He was not even trying to be ironic.

The fact is clear to anyone watching that the Conservatives have been propagating outright mistruths in their statements. Propagating falsehoods is nothing new for them. They conveniently ignore their own record when it comes to putting a price on carbon. The Prime Minister himself promised a $65 a tonne price. The Conservatives' election platform committed to a cap and trade system and yet the government House leader is content to watch his MPs stand day after day in the House and repeat statements known to be untrue.

The New Democrats miss hearing about the great events happening in Conservative ridings, so I will make a pledge today. If the Conservatives commit to throwing away their PMO talking points and the daily regurgitation of falsehoods, we will commit to stop doing their jobs for them by talking about the wonderful people and events in their ridings.

[Business of the House, October 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is with some irony that I rise and enter the debate on what is coming next after we had a description of a point of privilege and a monkey-wrench tactic that the Conservatives somehow surprisingly feel okay and comfortable with.

I will quote the hon. House leader from across the way on the last Thursday question response. When talking about what was coming next, he stated:

I look forward to a vigorous policy debate on the economy and not on procedural games.

One would have thought that a week or more would have passed before that particular statement would prove to be false. We know that for their own part the Liberals chose some procedural games as we began to engage on the debate around Bill C-45, the second omnibus bill, the second budget implementation act. Some have called it ominous and some have called it some other names.

We on this side of the House have personally and privately assured the House leader for the Conservatives that we are committed to a procedural-free exercise so that we can have a fulsome debate on all of the problems that we see in Bill C-45. We expected the government to make some initial commitments to that. We then saw the invocation of time allocation today, which is a method that the government has grown very addicted to for shutting down the debate.

My two questions for the hon. House leader across the way are very specific.

First, can we expect to see more of these procedural underminings of the democratic process when dealing with this second omnibus bill, be it in the House or when the bill is sent to the committees?

Second, is the government willing and open to the consideration, now that it has separated the bill into its component parts for sending to these various committees, of opening those committees in their capacity and ability to actually affect the legislation they are studying?

What Canadians will quickly see is that the government has cynically agreed to separate this huge 450-page bill into some pieces for the committees to study, but those committees cannot actually affect the bill they are studying. What kind of a situation is that for members of Parliament or committees? It is a “look but do not touch” policy that is coming from the Conservative government and one that will not allow MPs to do their jobs.

All MPs from all sides should be interested in this question. The ability to hold government to account remains a central and critical role for members of Parliament from all sides, including the Conservatives, who last time expressed some lament at having brought in and passed such a massive bill.

Therefore, will the government commit to no more of these procedural tactics to shut down debate, be it here, at committee stage or further stages of this bill so that Canadians can finally get a look at what the government is trying to do to them and MPs can do their jobs?

Will the government be open to the suggestion that, now that it has divided up the bill into its proper topics for various committees to study, that those committees actually do more than study and do the job that every committee has always done with every piece of legislation throughout parliamentary history, which is to be able to affect and improve it and correct the errors that are inherent in any piece of legislation, particularly one coming from the current government?

[Privilege, October 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, obviously I rise in support of my colleague. I just have a comment for my colleagues across the way in the Conservative Party. Essentially, this was a tactic. It was a conscious tactic to shut down a member of Parliament's ability to do their work with a vital tool that we all use in this place.

If the House leader of the Conservative Party is suggesting this was a known and acceptable tactic on behalf of the Conservative Party and that this is the path Conservatives want to use to take members of Parliament down and that jamming other people's email accounts is a good idea for a democracy and a good idea for MPs doing their work, I am not sure this is the type of battle they actually wish to enjoin.

This is something that the member obviously did with full conscious knowledge as to what effect it would have on my colleague's ability to do his job. This is the area we are talking about in privilege.

I do not know why the Conservatives would not take this matter seriously because simply by dismissing it and waving it beyond would invite such further attacks on their own personal accounts, which is something we are not in a position or willing to do. We think the idea of public discourse is a good thing. We think the idea that members of Parliament would consciously try to disrupt and inhibit the behaviour and work of other MPs is a bad thing and that is why we have rules in this place about privilege, the privilege to do our work as members of Parliament, as my friend from Vancouver has so ably done.

I hope you find in favour of this case, Mr. Speaker, and I would hope the Conservatives would take an issue as serious as this a little more seriously.

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, October 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have two very succinct points for my friend across the way.

First, this is the natural stage of a bill which the government has chosen today procedurally to shut down debate. The Conservatives are limiting the amount of time that MPs will have to interact and hold the government to account. I will look for a very specific commitment from my friend because he has made much of these committees that will now have a chance to look at the bill but not actually affect the bill, which is a strange way to divide the bill for further studies. MPs will be there, they can look at it, they can hear from witnesses but they cannot make any amendments for changes.

The government says that it wants full debate and study at these committees. Will the member's government commit to not moving time allocation and closure, which it has done for the first stage, at the second stage and third stage which is when it comes back to the House? Will he commit to at least that today for Canadians, that there will be no time allocation at committee, that we can hear from those witnesses, take the testimony, improve the mistakes and make this bill something that will actually hold up in court, in law and in practice?

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, October 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for that direction. I hope it is not too much like question period in the sense that when we ask a question of the government, we might get an actual answer. Hope springs eternal.

I am just going to quote my hon. friend across the way, the government House leader, who just last week said, “I look forward to a vigorous policy debate on the economy and not on procedural games”. Yet the first thing the government chooses to do today is to play procedural games.

There are two questions being put before the House. One is time allocation, closure, shutting down debate on this omnibus budget bill and the second is something the Conservatives used to decry when the Liberals did it. They are ramming together a whole bunch of issues, which have nothing to do with the budget at all. The Navigable Waters Protection Act has been getting some obvious attention. An environmental protection act that was used to protect Canada's environment from things like pipeline leaks is now rammed into a budget bill.

If my hon. friend across the way said he was looking forward to a debate and not procedural games, then why is it that the first thing the government has chosen to do is to use procedural games to shut down debate on such a massive 450-page omnibus budget bill, which the government admits contains so many things that were not in the budget. In fact, the Minister of Transport had to delete web pages in the middle of the night that referred to the Navigable Waters Protection Act as an act that actually protects the environment. That was not in the budget despite what the international affairs minister says. He says, “Look on page 282. There it is in black and white”, but we look and it is not there.

I am wondering where those principles and scruples that the Conservatives used to have about some basic democratic values went. Those fundamentals said that the House of Commons should hold the government to account, that the budget is the major document the government moves every year and that it is the duty and responsibility of all MPs, not just those in opposition but in government, to hold the government to account. The first thing the Conservatives do is play a procedural game by shutting down debate in this place, prematurely, on such an important document as the budget.

[Budget Implementation, October 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance promised no surprises but then tabled a bill full of things never mentioned in his budget document. Navigable waters was not in the budget but that did not save it from being gutted. Labour Code changes were never raised, but surprise, there they were in the bill.

A few minutes ago, we negotiated to split MPs' and senators' pensions from the omnibus bill. Apparently, splitting the bill is possible after all. Why will the Conservatives not do it for the other surprises: for research and development and for navigable waters? Why will they not do it for the environment?

[Budget Implementation, October 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, they were lying in the spring and they are lying again this fall. That might work for the Conservatives, but it does not work for Canadians.

This bill threatens Canada's wetlands, lakes and rivers, and it is generous to those who want to install pipelines without assessing the risk.

If they were proud of these changes, they would split the bill and allow the Standing Committee on the Environment to do its job. The government has to be flexible. It was open to taking out the part on MP pensions. Why not study other parts of the bill separately?

[Budget Implementation, October 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have still not learned their lesson. They have introduced another monstrous 450-page bill. Despite what the Minister of Finance claims, his bill is full of surprises that were not in his budget.

Will the minister agree to split the bill so that we may study the surprises separately?