Mr. Speaker, you will probably notice that I rarely get to my feet these days in this 41st Parliament. There are very few occasions that I feel are important enough that I should contribute. Usually the points that I need to have on the record I hear very capably put on the record by others.
However, in this case, on behalf of the constituents that I represent in the riding of Winnipeg Centre, I feel it is important that I rise today to express how profoundly disappointed I am in the government, how profoundly I disagree with the tone, the content, and the process we are dealing with in this important piece of legislation, the subject matter of which deals with the very rights and freedoms by which we define ourselves as Canadians.
One does not deal with that kind of potential infringement on our rights and freedoms in a day-and-a-half debate, with closure imposed at every stage of this bill. It is fundamentally wrong, and I condemn the Conservative government for tampering and tinkering with these rights and freedoms in such a frivolous manner. It offends the very sensibilities of Canadians who profess to value our democratic principles.
Let me begin with the process. For the 95th time in the 41st Parliament, the Conservatives have moved closure on a bill. One may ask how many times or on how many bills the Conservatives have moved closure; the answer would be all of them. Every single time, they have decided to run roughshod over everything that is good and decent about our parliamentary democracy. Every chance they get, they abuse the powers. They do away with all the checks and balances that were put in place so that our Westminster parliamentary democracy is the best in the world. They do away with the checks and balances that protect us against the abuse of power, which is indeed possible under this system.
Why do they have to deny the other elements of our democratic process, which is the legitimate right of the opposition to bring forward the concerns of the constituencies that we represent? I can tell members that the people in the riding of Winnipeg Centre are horrified by Bill C-51. I know that because I stood with them in front of city hall, in front of a crowd of 1,500 people, who gathered to object to the potential infringements on their rights and freedoms to privacy, the right to assemble, and the various other elements that could be affected by this bill.
I know this because right across the country, Canadians have had to take to the streets. That is because their elected representatives, those of us in the chamber, are denied the opportunity to bring forward their valid points of view through the conventional method, which is reasoned debate and amendments. What the Conservatives do not understand is that what makes our parliamentary democracy work in this Westminster style is that there is a duty to accommodate the legitimate concerns, at least some of them, of the majority of Canadians who did not vote for their members.
One of my mentors was Gary Doer, the former premier of Manitoba. When he was first elected, he explained that we have an obligation to represent all of the people, not just those who voted for us. If the majority of Canadians have legitimate concerns on this bill, they deserve the right to be heard. They should not be shut down by closure at ever stage of this bill, just like every stage of every other bill.
At the committee stage, which used to be the last vestige of some semblance of non-partisan co-operation, for this broad-sweeping bill that impacts our rights and freedoms, they contemplated three meetings of two hours each per meeting, allowing for a few witnesses. Then, of course, they used their majority on the committee to stack the witnesses so that more witnesses who were in favour of the bill than opposed it were heard.
It was only through Herculean efforts that we managed to get a lousy eight or nine meetings. Again, these were not all-day meetings; these were two-hour meetings. These matters are of such substance and weight that they deserve the full consideration of the chamber, until every member is satisfied that his or her voice has been heard, and, let me say, some accommodation has been made to the legitimate concerns brought forward by those of us representing constituencies that are not governed by the ruling party.
Let me say in the limited amount of time I have, and I mean limited, that we are facing the biggest bait and switch in Canadian history. Until a few months ago, the current Conservative government wanted to go into the next federal election with the ballot box question being the economy. What happened then was that the price of oil tanked.
When they have no industrial strategy and they put all of their eggs in one basket, and that basket drops and all the eggs break, they have nothing left but to switch to that old neo-conservative hobby horse, the politics of fear. Now the Conservatives want the ballot box question to be on who is going to protect Canadians from this jihadist that is going to sneak into their bedrooms and murder them when they are asleep. That is the ballot box question they want now. It is the cheapest, most cynical style of politics in the world, and they specialize in it.
I can give example after example of the Conservatives' criminal justice bills. They bombarded my riding with leaflets, which were illegal mailings I would argue. They sent parliamentary privilege mailings into my riding. The leaflets are of a guy sneaking into a bedroom with a knife held up, showing that this junkie is going to murder Canadians in their sleep unless they vote for the Conservatives who are going to protect them. That is the kind of cheap debate and politics that we are subjected to here, instead of the real and legitimate concerns of global terrorism, on which we are perfectly happy to have a debate.
In the final minutes that I have, let me say that I do not understand the strategy of the third party. All of the opposition parties have condemned this bill as being a potential infringement of the rights and freedoms by which we define ourselves as Canadians. However, the members of the third party, in a gutless, spineless, and feckless approach, have said said that they oppose it, they are against it, but they are going to vote for it. Is there any reasoning? That is the most convoluted pretzel logic I have ever heard in my life.
My only message for Canadians is to use their vote, that most valuable thing they as citizens have in a democracy, and to say to whomever is on their doorstep in the federal election, “Is your party voting for Bill C-51? Because if it is, I am not voting for you”.
