Nathan Cullen

[The Environment, May 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I want to give the Minister of the Environment an opportunity to clear the record.

Every time an independent, arm's-length expert raises concerns with the Conservative government's reckless agenda, such as the Auditor General, the Parliamentary Budget Officer and now the environment commissioner, those experts must be wrong and the Conservative government must be right.

The Conservatives may be content to drink their own bathwater, but to ask Canadians to do the same thing is reprehensible and wrong.

Will the Minister of the Environment clear the record and clear the good name of the environment commissioner and Canada?

[Employment Insurance, May 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians will judge the Prime Minister on his destructive actions, not his false assurances.

Conservatives are also slashing the employment insurance program, which does not belong to them but to the workers who paid into it, without consulting businesses, without consulting workers, without consulting the provinces and without even the integrity to mention this even once in the last federal campaign.

The reality is these changes do not connect people with jobs. They connect people with provincial welfare programs.

When will the government acknowledge that its cynical scheme targets the very businesses, communities and workers upon which our economy relies?

[The Environment, May 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the question is clear. Why is the government cutting environmental protection for Canadians?

The environment commissioner testified that environmental screenings will be reduced from as many as 6,000 per year to as few as 20 or 30. Ninety-nine per cent of the projects that are now screened will not have any screening at all and will, in fact, be rubber-stamped by the government. Some of these are major mining projects, oil sands projects and even some offshore drilling projects, all of which will be rubber-stamped by the government.

How can the Prime Minister justify these reckless attacks on our economy and our environment?

[The Environment, May 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Commissioner of the Environment offered disturbing testimony before the parliamentary committee that is studying the Conservatives' Trojan Horse bill. According to the commissioner, because of this bill, the number of environmental assessments is going to plummet.

This is huge: 99% of environmental assessments will disappear.

Why does the Prime Minister want to attack our environment and our economy?

[Continuation and Resumption of Rail Service Operations Legislation, May 29th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I suppose a question that is very important for the government to answer at this point is that it must demonstrate the panic button that is forcing it, as its members claim, to shut down debate on any of these questions. We have had two of these motions today. The Conservatives seem to be in some sort of effort to break records when it comes to shutting down democratic free and fair debate in this country.

Does the minister not feel at all that the government in fact poisoned the well in these negotiations? Less than 10 hours into the strike mandate the government produced back-to-work legislation. The employer knew this in advance.

How is this not a cynical effort by government in this negotiation and in all future ones to do two things: to send a clear and precise message to employers that free and fair collective bargaining is not important to them anymore, a right that is constitutionally protected, as has been clearly outlined by our leader; second, to send a message to Canadians and Parliament that debate is no longer a problem with which the government is going to have to occupy itself, because it will just shut it down?

The government has invoked closure and censure on Parliament 23 times since being elected to a majority, breaking all records. I do not understand how the minister, who comes from a party that had a history against such moves, seems so comfortable with this process and this procedure.

[Continuation and Resumption of Rail Service Operations Legislation, May 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, for the 23rd time since the last election, the government has invoked closure. Is there not a developing pathology within the Conservative ranks, and a certain attraction and addiction, to shutting down debate in Canada's Parliament to achieve their very narrow interests, often interests that were never talked about in the last campaign? A mandate that the Conservatives never achieved seems to be consistently married to their use of these most brutal measures, measures that Conservatives in previous incarnations used to abhor, used to say that these were wrong for Canada's Parliament and Canada's democracy and went directly against the interests of the Canadian people.

For my friend across the way, I ask why something he despised in opposition the Conservatives have come to love so much in government.

[Continuation and Resumption of Rail Service Operations Legislation, May 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, this is the second time today we are debating an attack on democracy.

There has been a shutdown of the investigation into the F-35 hearings, as well as the refugee abuse bill earlier this morning. It is the 23rd time since being elected to a majority that the government has used this abusive tactic in Parliament, a tactic that it used to say was contemptuous of Parliament and against the democratic values of the House.

The government has to justify using this brutal tool against democracy and against the interests of Canadians.

Because I suggest that the minister may not be moved by my own words, I will repeat the words of the Prime Minister when he believed in the powers and supremacy of this place to actually have debate. He stated:

We have closure today precisely because there is no deadline and there are no plans. Instead of having deadlines, plans and goals, we must insist on moving forward because the government is simply increasingly embarrassed by the state of the debate and it needs to move on.

No more than 10 hours after negotiations began, the minister and the government indicated clearly that they would be introducing back-to-work legislation thereby siding with one side of the table.

I cannot understand how the minister and the government do not realize that they poisoned the well of negotiations between employers and employees and have now poisoned the well of the democratic values of this place to have a fair and free debate by invoking closure and shutting down debate in the House for the 23rd time in just over a year.

Where are the principles that Conservative members used to have for the supremacy of Parliament?

[Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, May 29th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, to help translate what you just read into the record, this is a time allocation. This is another effort by a government seemingly pathologically addicted to shutting down debate. It is closing off debate into the investigation of the F-35 fiasco. Later this afternoon we will likely see closure from the government on the union-busting tactics with respect to the CP Rail strike.

The government must justify why it is panicking and once again using such a brutal tool.

Is the economy in such a state that the government has to panic and pass such a bill?

I understand from previous experience that the government will not be moved by the words of the opposition or the words of the Canadian public who wonder why the government has grown so addicted to using measures like this one, more time allocation at all stages, in committee for any study, for any conversation and consultation with Canadians about critical legislation that will not just have an effect in the moment, but maybe even for a generation to come.

Therefore, I will use the words of the Prime Minister when he used to have principles with respect to this brutal tool:

We have closure today precisely because there is no deadline and there are no plans. Instead of having deadlines, plans and goals, we must insist on moving forward because the government is simply increasingly embarrassed by the state of the debate and it needs to move on.

We see it with respect to the government's so-called budget implementation act and the pipeline implementation act. We see it with respect to the investigation that we are attempting on behalf of Canadians on the F-35 purchase, which is increasingly a sordid series of mis-truths, half-truths and outright lies. The government needs to justify the use of this particular and most brutal form on our democratic values and on the ability of members of Parliament from all sides to do their jobs.

Can the government justify, in any measure, why today it is again shutting down debate, again shutting the door on Canadians and not listening to the democratic will of Canadians and allowing free and fair debate like the Conservative Party used to believe in before it came into power?

[Privilege, May 28th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, once we take a look at the blues from my hon. colleague's notes, we reserve the right to address his point of privilege, unless you are ready to rule on it right now.

[Petitions, May 28th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from a number of residents from Vancouver Island, Powell River and Lund, asking the government to honour and respect the wishes of British Columbians to protect the coastal waters from the threat of supertankers on the coast.