Nathan Cullen

[Privilege, June 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's point of privilege. There have been many cases in the past where it has been found to be a breach of a member's privilege when someone suggests that he or she is the member of Parliament when he or she is not, regardless of whether it is a former member of Parliament, some other constituent or a Canadian.

I would remind the Conservative Party that it did the same thing in my riding when the member for Cariboo—Prince George assigned a go-to person and implied that the people in my particular riding should not go to their member of Parliament because they had chosen wrong in the last election. I am using his words, not mine.

We need to be consistent in our application of this rule from all sides and that when a member of Parliament is elected he or she must be allowed to do his or her work with no cloud presented as to who the representative is.

This practice has been done previously by the government, but it has stopped doing it, partly because of the public outcry. However, in this case, if what my friend from Labrador is saying is true, then we would seek those documents as well.

I think, Mr. Speaker, you will be urged to find a prima facie case of privilege because it prevents the member from doing his elected duties for the people there.

[Ethics, June 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism has now had seven opportunities in this place to do the right thing.

We know the Conservatives were very disappointed that their Wildrose cousins were unsuccessful in the last election, but it does not give them the right to insult the government that did win that election.

Let us give him one more opportunity to do the honourable thing, the right thing, and stand in his place and say, “I'm sorry”.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, recently in your ruling, you talked about the extraordinary nature of the bill we have been dealing with. We have had somewhat of an extraordinary experience, the longest Wednesday, hump day, in Canadian history.

I thank all the people who support our work as members of Parliament: the table staff, the pages, all of the people on Parliament Hill who support our ability to do our jobs. They deserve our greatest appreciation.

I want to say a huge thank you to the entire team, the journalists, the public present in the House and everyone following us on the Internet. Thank you to everyone.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order. I thank the Chief Government Whip for the offer. I know it came under some good advisement from the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The suggestion might work better for the opposition if it were combined with a unanimous resolution to then immediately move to question period, in which we could then put the government to account, an offer we made to the government before. We could consider such a motion, if given some time for that consideration.

Otherwise, I think we should continue with the process that we have before us.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, on the point of order, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism will confirm that the vote had commenced. There had been some disruption with some water and the laptop of the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, which may have thrown off his timing coming in. However, his vote was recorded but should not have been because the vote had already commenced.

Mr. Speaker, you can confirm that with him.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, in a previous incarnation of Parliament, when a number of votes were being passed, in that case surrounding the Nisga'a treaty, as members will remember, there was unanimous consent sought by the House, and I believe achieved, in order to see question period at 2 p.m.

There have been consultations among the parties. I am hoping that if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to present the following motion:

That notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, the recorded divisions at report stage on Bill C-38, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures, shall be temporarily suspended after the division taking place at 2:10 p.m is concluded; that the House immediately proceed to a period of oral questions, pursuant to Standing Order 30; and that no later than 3:00 p.m. today, all proceedings taking place at that time shall be immediately suspended for the House to resume the taking of the deferred recorded divisions at report stage of Bill C-38, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures, to allow members of Parliament to put questions to the government of the day.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I realize that the hours have been many and that it is a difficult challenge for you to be aware of all members as they are coming and going. A number of our members did watch members come in after the vote started, but as we move forward we will of course take your ruling now to accept their votes because this is your decision.

However, between you and the table, as we go through the next number of hours I would suggest that it is vigilance once the vote has been called that removes the discretion involved and allows us to have a conversation about who is actually in the House. Otherwise, we will have these constant arguments among members that are unfruitful to the process of voting.

[Privilege, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, arising from a question of privilege that we raised just recently, it is incumbent upon us to respond to the government's intervention on this point.

As you will remember, Mr. Speaker, the question of privilege had directly to do with the access to information that all members of Parliament require for the vote that is coming quite shortly with respect to Bill C-38.

The question of privilege that was raised is a significant one because it talks about the central role of members of Parliament from all sides and, in particular, the role of the opposition to hold the government to account. We listened very carefully to the House leader's response from the government, and perhaps he was ill-prepared or ill-informed, but his points beared no merit to the case that we presented. We wanted to ensure, Mr. Speaker, that you understood the case as put forward by Canada's official opposition. In particular, the government House leader raised the issue of timing.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, questions of privilege must be raised at the earliest possible moment. The fact is that since the budget was introduced, we have sought, through every available means that we have at our disposal, such as questions on the order paper, during question period, at committee and through the Parliamentary Budget Officer, to find out what the implications are of this particular piece of legislation, in particular, the cuts to services and the cuts to employment that Canadians will be facing.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, from our deposition of yesterday, that information exists. The government has refused to offer that information for what we believe borders on bogus terms that came from the Privy Council Office directly, which works, obviously, hand-in-hand with the Prime Minister.

It is unlawful for the Privy Council Office to keep this information from parliamentarians and from the Parliamentary Budget Office. The timeliness of this was required as we waited for the government to provide the information that it was legally obligated to do. It was only after its final refusal in letters dated April 12 and then confirmed on May 9 that we knew that we had a question of privilege in front of us.

We have demanded and continue to demand that the government release this information so that we do not have members of Parliament voting blind on a piece of legislation. Again, it is incumbent upon all members of Parliament to be informed before they vote. The fact that the Conservatives seem to have no problem voting blind is a concern to me but not our problem. Our concern in the opposition is that we have everything available to us before we vote.

The third point, which is an important one, is that, in the intervention from the Privy Council Office, the Prime Minister's chief bureaucrat, it is illegal to break section 79.3(1) of the Parliament Canada Act, which is to hold known information from parliamentarians,in this case, holding it directly from members of Parliament and also through an officer of Parliament in the Parliamentary Budget Officer. We have been demanding this information for quite some time.

The last point is that the government house leader made some response that we needed to cite any particular section or provision of the bill, but he knows better than this. As we know, a question of privilege is the intervention on the rights of all members of Parliament to perform our duties. The particular example here with Bill C-38, the Trojan Horse bill, is one more example that privilege applies in the individual or the collective when members of Parliament are unable to perform our functions on behalf of Canadians while the government knowingly withholds information that is pertinent to the vote that we are about to take.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, and as Speaker Milliken knew in one of his last rulings before leaving this place, this is significant. In the case of Speaker Milliken's ruling, it had to do with the Afghan detainees. In this case, it has to do with the budget. However, the consistency of withholding information is the same. This is problematic, not just for the government in place now but for the function of Parliament and for the sanctimony with which we hold this place.

In order to do our jobs for those we represent every day, we must have the information that exists. The information exists and it has existed for some weeks. The government has refused, at all stages and at every opportunity we have given it, to respond in an honest and forthright way.

The second act the Conservatives moved once in government was the accountability act. This breaks their own act, but, more importantly, it breaks the right and respect that we have for this place and the privilege that members of Parliament have to seek the truth and to understand the information available to us so we can vote with a clear conscience. That is a principle of Parliament and one that we will consistently hold.

Mr. Speaker, as you will make your ruling in some hours to come, I ask that you find this to be a breach of privilege in the individual and the collective case.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 12th, 2012]

With all the interruptions from the government House leader, I will continue.

If the government wants to say that the principles it used to hold while in opposition are no longer principles it holds so dear, that is fine. That is for it to work out with the people it seeks to represent.

For us, a principle is a principle. The fact is that this is a Parliament, based within the very name itself, a place where we discuss the matters of the nation not cram through omnibus Trojan Horse bills and start to redefine what a day actually is. I think most Canadians would find this entire discussion not just obtuse but obscene.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 12th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, the government House leader makes some interesting points.

He talks about the usual circumstances, but if members will remember, just yesterday in the Speaker's ruling on trying to allocate the number of votes and amendments to Bill C-38, the omnibus Trojan Horse budget bill we are talking about, the Speaker himself a number of times referred to these as extraordinary circumstances. Part of the reason for that is that this is an extraordinarily bad bill, massive in its implications and broad-sweeping.

To suggest that the government, and I want to get this right, in my friend's motion, seeks to have a distinction between “a” sitting day and not “the” sitting day is a debate that may be lost in its minutiae on Canadians, yet is important in its implications of what the government is doing.

We are in the midst of debating another closure motion from the government, another motion to shut down debate. It is the 26th time the government has moved time allocation and closure in this House. Twenty-six times is a lot for any government, in fact a record that the government seems proud to be breaking and setting anew for Canadian democracy.

The question and the challenge we have with this motion is that in redefining what “a day” is, the government is essentially trying to further speed its agenda through the House of Commons, to further shut down the amount of time MPs have to understand the implications of more than 420 pages of a budget implementation bill, and to further suggest to Canadians that the House of Commons and the members of Parliament do not have the responsibility to hold government to account.

We in the NDP take this job extremely seriously. I lament the fact that my friends across the way do not share that responsibility and feel that shutting down debate, invoking closures and time allocations, should be de rigueur for the government, and I lament that we are now into a debate about defining what the difference is between “a” sitting day and “the” sitting day and trying to pretend that this is somehow a normal circumstance.

There is nothing normal about the circumstance at all. It is extraordinary, as the Speaker of the House said just yesterday. If the Speaker wants to rule that we are going to change the definition of a day, and the government seems so encouraged to change the definition of what debate and democracy may mean, the government has a certain ease with which it is removing principles it used to hold, principles that it actually said at one point—