Peter Julian

[Committees of the House, December 3rd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, the Liberals are fake environmentalists, but the Conservatives hate environmentalists. I would at least go with the people who attempt to understand the environment compared with those members from the Conservative Party who actually want to destroy the environment with impunity and have proven that every time they have been in power.

[Committees of the House, December 3rd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, at least the Liberals arguably recognize climate change. Conservatives are heckling over there, but Conservatives have no lessons to give to anybody, because they do not even believe in the reality of climate change. I would suggest that Conservative MPs actually talk to their constituents, particularly younger constituents, because they certainly understand the impacts of climate change. They want to see action. They do not want to see the “ostrich stuck in the sand” attitude of the Conservative Party of Canada.

[Committees of the House, December 3rd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it is true that, on paper, Liberals have great plans. For 30 years, they planned to put pharmacare in place. For decades, in every election, they promised to put dental care in place. They always have great plans at election time; once the election is over, they simply tear up their platform. Their platform was very good, but they never implemented it. That is the problem; that is the difference. That is the hypocrisy of the Liberal government: They simply do not put it in place.

[Committees of the House, December 3rd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to follow my colleague from Victoria. She has a very powerful voice when it comes to climate change and Canada's role in addressing that reality.

I could not agree with her more about how the Conservatives are denying the very existence of climate change. I will come back to that in a few moments.

When the Conservatives were in office, they simply denied the existence of climate change, which was irresponsible. As we will see later on, the result is that people have died and communities have disappeared because of the Conservatives' irresponsibility. Then, the Liberals took office. They are well aware that climate change exists, but they have done little or nothing to combat it. The whole climate change file has been a disaster for the past 20 years.

However, there has been no shortage of resources. The Harper government and the current government provided a combined $1 trillion to boost the cash flow of Canada's big banks in order to sweeten their profits, executive bonuses and dividends. Together, both governments doled out $1 trillion. They also let a total $500 billion go to tax havens. The Conservatives set that up and the Liberals kept it going.

As my colleague just said, the two governments combined have paid out a total of $100 billion in subsidies to oil company executives. The Liberals, in a panic, set up a form of funding to finance Trans Mountain when the private sector refused to have anything to do with it. That cost us $35 billion. It took 24 hours for the Liberals to decide to invest $35 billion in a pipeline construction project that would never turn a profit, as we know all too well. The Parliamentary Budget Officer clearly said that it would never make a profit. Moreover, the environmental impacts are well known.

For the past 20 years, neither party has taken the environment and climate change seriously, and there is no doubt we are now seeing the result of that. Their policies have had real consequences. In a moment, I will talk about the repercussions in my province, British Columbia, but we have seen repercussions across Canada. Forestry communities are in crisis. There have been record-breaking numbers of forest fires. There have been floods across the country. There have been intense heat waves. There have been all kinds of weather-related crises, many of which catch people off guard. The Conservatives deny that it is real. The Liberals say it is real, but they do not want to do anything about it.

What is the reality when we see 20 years of complete inaction on the environment and climate change, yet there are massive subsidies for other things? Between the Liberals and the Conservatives together, $1 trillion was given in liquidity supports to Canada's big banks, half a trillion dollars was given to overseas tax savings, and $100 billion was given to oil and gas CEOs to subsidize what are massive profits to begin with. Of course, the Liberals are aware of this. There was $35 billion given, with a 24-hour turnaround, when they realized the private sector was bowing out of Trans Mountain.

That is the reality of what we have seen over the last 20 years. That is why so many people are saying it is time to push aside the Liberals and the Conservatives and elect a government that actually understands the importance of taking action on climate change and the opportunity that comes from this.

The reality is that the Joe Biden administration in the United States has put in place infrastructure that we have seen for clean energy across the U.S. Those investments have made a huge difference. A number of American cities and states are asking for clean energy, and if Canada actually stepped up, the market and the job creation coming from that would be enormous.

We have not seen that imagination and foresight from either Conservatives, who are climate change deniers, or the Liberal government, which pays lip service to climate change. It does nothing to actually put in place the infrastructure that would lead to those substantial investments and the kinds of clean energy jobs of tomorrow that we want to see. We know what the opposite impacts are. Canada could lead the world in clean energy investments. We have virtually unlimited ability and capacity, when we talk about climate change and combatting it with clean energy investments in wind, solar and tidal, as well as unlimited potential for clean energy production. However, the Liberals have not stepped forward to put in place the infrastructure or to make those investments.

We have seen the opposite impacts, and my colleague from Victoria spoke very eloquently about this. When the heat dome hit in my region of British Columbia, when it descended on the Lower Mainland, what happened was an incredible overloading of our emergency services. Firefighters and ambulance paramedics will tell us about how they simply were not able to keep up with the emergency demands over those days. Therefore, people slowly succumbed in low-level apartments that did not have air conditioning and that were not equipped for the size and scope of the heat dome.

Emergency services were so overwhelmed that the system was at the point of breaking. Fortunately, this time, the heat dome finally broke. The result was that over 600 residents of the Lower Mainland died in that tragedy. In my riding of New Westminster—Burnaby, seniors, people with disabilities and shut-ins died quietly because of the intense heat. This happened particularly on the west side of New Westminster, where there are a lot of older low-rise apartments with no access to air conditioning. Dozens died in my riding. Hundreds died across the Lower Mainland.

Members will recall as well that we have seen a number of communities. I spoke about forest fires and the impacts. We have seen entire communities simply disappear in North America because of the climate crisis. We are seeing record levels of flooding, and in British Columbia, just in the last few years, we have had two atmospheric rivers and such torrential rains that we have been cut off from the rest of Canada. These tragedies are all preventable if we take action to combat climate change.

Younger Canadians see the impacts and see successive governments, Conservative and Liberal, that do little to nothing to actually combat the climate crisis, to prepare us for what is to come, to mitigate the impacts of climate change or to ensure that Canada and communities are protected. Seniors, shut-ins and people with disabilities are in apartments that are not built for the profound impacts of climate change. We must put in place measures so that, when a heat dome comes again, they can actually survive such a tremendous, terrible impact. It is a question of when, not if.

We have had successive governments, both Conservative and Liberal, that have done nothing as we have become more and more aware of climate change. What members are hearing from the New Democrats today is that New Democrats believe in making those investments, combatting climate change and fighting that fight as if we intend to win it.

[Privilege, December 2nd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I would like to add a few things to the excellent question of privilege that was raised by the member for London—Fanshawe on Friday. I know that the Speaker will address this question of privilege in the coming days, and I wanted to add new elements and raise some important points.

The member for London—Fanshawe spoke about Standing Order 16(1), which is on decorum. I will read it: “When the Speaker is putting a question, no member shall enter, walk out of or across the House, or make any noise or disturbance.” That is precisely what happened on Thursday. It was a sad evening in the history of our Parliament. There was utter chaos.

Also, the member for London—Fanshawe read an excerpt from the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, which is our procedural bible. In chapter, 3, page 107, it states:

In order to fulfill their parliamentary duties, Members should be able to go about their parliamentary business undisturbed. Assaulting, threatening, or insulting a Member during a proceeding of Parliament, or while the Member is circulating within the Parliamentary Precinct, is a violation of the rights of Parliament.

She also cited Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, chapter 12, page 241, which states, “Any form of intimidation of a Member with respect to the Member's actions during a proceeding in Parliament could amount to contempt.”

When we consider all these aspects, there is no doubt that this is indeed a prima facie question of privilege.

I would like to add what the Chair could have done, the powers given to the Chair, from a ruling made on March 30, 2000, by the former deputy speaker Peter Milliken, who said the following when there was disorder during a vote in the House of Commons, which is a key part of our work. Deputy Speaker Milliken said, “The Chair will say that if members persist in...some other demonstration of that kind which is inappropriate in the House, the Chair will have no reluctance in directing the clerk to strike the hon. member's name from the list of those who have voted and continue to strike it if the conduct persists and, if necessary, take further measures.”

It is very clear that the Speaker could have intervened in what was an absolute collapse of order in the House of Commons during the vote. The member for London—Fanshawe was very clear, as I believe other members have been; they could not even hear whether their name had been called for the vote. That is clearly stopping their ability to do their work.

We need to get to the real issue here, and I am citing Speaker Regan on November 20, 2018, on the use of alcohol in the House of Commons. He said at that time, in the Speaker's ruling, that “it is incumbent upon all of us to ensure that Parliament is a healthy and safe workplace for everyone.”

By no means all Conservative MPs, but some Conservative MPs, had very clearly consumed alcohol before they came into the House. That is something that is strictly prohibited in any workplace. I have worked in factories. I have worked in an oil refinery and in breweries. In no place is it acceptable to come to work having consumed alcohol, especially in excess. In the oil refinery where I worked, if somebody had come to work drunk, they would have been summarily fired because not only are they putting at risk their own lives in a very dangerous work environment, but they are putting in jeopardy the lives of others in the workplace. It is completely unacceptable.

As you were aware, Madam Speaker, because the Speaker's office was notified, the pages were withdrawn from the opposition lobby because of safety issues. What an unbelievable circumstance, that the pages who do such incredible work for us, who are part of the work we do each and every day, had to be withdrawn because of the drunk and disorderly conduct of some Conservative MPs. It is absolutely unacceptable that this situation happened and it is unbelievable to me that we have not had Conservative MPs standing and profusely apologizing for their conduct on Thursday night.

I also want to say that the Speaker could have taken action and chose not to on Thursday night, and I find that extremely disappointing.

The reality is that whips have an important role in the House of Commons, and it is a codified role. I want to reference appendix II of the Standing Orders. The whip's role with regard to dealing with allegations of harassment is explicit in the code of conduct for members of the House of Commons. Whips have a semi-codified role with regard to managing the conduct of their members and the appropriateness of their behaviour. For the whip to allow visibly drunk members of the Conservative caucus to come into the House of Commons and disrupt the proceedings in a drunk and disorderly fashion is absolutely unacceptable, and the whip bears responsibility as well.

When the member for London—Fanshawe rose on Friday and offered a very fulsome and well-thought-out question of privilege, we saw a number of Conservative MPs rise and spew misinformation and not a single one of them ever responded to the question of privilege. They did not cite a single standing order or a single citation from our procedural bible because they cannot. If they try to do the same thing now, unless they are citing standing orders or citing aspects of the procedural bible that governs our activities, they should not be able to go on at length spewing misinformation.

My final point is this: In the coming days, the Speaker will be asked to make a decision on this. In my mind, there is no doubt this is a prima facie case of privilege that should come to the House and then the House can decide whether the matter gets referred to the procedure and House affairs committee.

[Government Business No. 43—Proceedings on Bill C‑78, November 27th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I find it a bit disturbing that a member from Saskatchewan, where there are cases of scurvy, would say things are great in Saskatchewan.

The reality is there was a recent election. The people of Regina and the people of Saskatoon, the two principal cities in Saskatchewan, did not vote Conservative. They voted New Democrat. In fact, all of the ridings in Regina and all of the ridings except one in Saskatoon voted NDP. That shows people in Saskatchewan do not feel Saskatchewan is going in the right direction at all. They gave a warning to Scott Moe and to every single Conservative federal MP to not take them for granted anymore—

[Government Business No. 43—Proceedings on Bill C‑78, November 27th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I would like to start off by saying the Liberals were not passionate about pharmacare when, three and a half years ago, they stood in the House and voted down the NDP's bill on the Canadian pharmacare act. They voted with the Conservatives. It was the evil coalition of Liberals and Conservatives, a corporate coalition, voting down pharmacare.

I am glad that three and a half years later we have put in place the rudiments of pharmacare. It is going to help people with diabetes and contraception, but yes, absolutely, we need to move beyond that to all classes of drugs. This is a no-brainer. It would save $4 billion for Canadians and save hundreds of lives every year.

I am hoping the Liberals have changed their heart from their previous mistakes and that they actually become passionate about what the NDP has brought to this country. Will the Conservatives cut it and scrap it? Absolutely. I would not trust anything in the hands of the member for Carleton. After 20 years, he has accomplished nothing.

[Government Business No. 43—Proceedings on Bill C‑78, November 27th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, my goodness, the Conservatives are a sensitive group. They are just so sensitive to criticism. They are sensitive about their record and sensitive to criticism.

Let us continue the comparison. The member for Carleton, in 20 years, has accomplished one singular accomplishment: He managed, as housing minister, to build six homes. That is great. However, the Conservatives are right to point out that the housing prices have doubled under the Liberals, and they are right to point out that the food bank lineups, as tragic as they are, have doubled in size. What Conservatives will not admit is that the same thing happened under the Harper regime. Housing prices doubled under Harper, and the Conservatives have never admitted to that. They have never apologized for their role in that. Of course, as well, we know that food bank lineups doubled during the Harper regime. What Canadians are living through is half the responsibility of the Conservatives and half the responsibility of the Liberals.

Now, the Liberals, to their credit, will accept NDP leadership, and we get things done, such as dental care and pharmacare. We finally having investments in affordable housing. The member for Carleton thought it was cool to build six homes in his long tenure as minister of housing. The Liberals now have the wherewithal, because of the NDP pressure in the last budget, to build hundreds of thousands of homes over the next few years, and we take full credit for having made that advantage.

When we look at the member for Carleton, we see there were six homes built in 20 years. Now, let us look at what the member for Burnaby South has accomplished just in the last 20 weeks.

In the last 20 weeks, we have this GST relief, which we will be voting on tomorrow, that would take the GST off of family essentials. The GST, I have to mention, is a Conservative tax.

Conservative MPs can thank New Democrats for working on behalf of their constituents, but they will not, because Conservatives do not do that. They do not thank us. Each one of the MPs who are in the House has 3,000 constituents who are getting dental care. They have dental care because of the NDP, but I have never had a conservative MP come up and say, “Thank you, NDP, for fighting so hard for my constituents.”

For the GST, it would be similar. We are going to make sure that Conservatives' constituents are taken care of. We are going to take the Conservative GST off of family essentials, and that is going to make a difference. Does it go as far as the NDP would go? No, we would include home heating. We would include telecom, where we pay far too much, to ensure that Canadians have that, and we would make this permanent. However, we are not going to block a bill when we know that it would benefit Canadians right across the country. We are going to make sure that the bill gets through, and that is why we are coming back to this motion so that we can actually get it through.

If we ask Conservatives to do anything, they never will. It will take them years and years. They will offer a ton of excuses, but they will never get things done on behalf of their constituents. Their modus operandi is to make things as bad as possible. They certainly succeeded in the Harper regime in doubling housing prices and food bank lineups, and now the Liberals, unfortunately, saw that as an example and did the same thing. The reality is, in this corner of the House with the NDP, we actually believe in doing things that will benefit people, which is why we are going to be supporting the bill, and making sure that it is implemented tomorrow night.

Let us come back to this comparison. On the one hand, we have the member for Carleton, with 20 years and a fat pension. My goodness, it is a $20-million pension. The fattest pension in Parliament is for the member of Carleton. It is just a big, fat pension. Of course, in the 20 years it took to earn that pension, he built six houses.

Now, let us look at the member for Burnaby South over the last 20 weeks. A million Canadians have dental care because of the work done by the member for Burnaby South and the members of the NDP caucus over the last 20 weeks. In the last 20 weeks, we also got the pharmacare bill through the House and through the Senate. In just a matter of a few days, we are going to have agreements with provinces to start the flow of that medication. That means that everybody with diabetes, and there are four million people with diabetes in this country, will have their diabetes medication covered. Some of them are now paying $1,000 or $1,500 every month for their diabetes medication.

Constituents, like my constituent, Amber, paying $1,000 a month for her diabetes medication, will have that crushing financial burden taken off their shoulders. That is an important fundamental shift in how we treat health care and expand health care for four million Canadians. Provinces are signing on and have already expressed interest, except for Conservative provinces, which I will come back to in a moment. When they sign, what we will see is a fundamental relief in that crushing financial burden that comes from diabetes, and many families looking for contraception will not have to struggle to see whether they have enough money to pay for their contraception and family planning.

I will come back to the Conservative provinces. We have a couple of provinces that have the worst health outcomes in the country and they are Conservative. When we look at Conservative provinces, we see the highest crime rate and we see the poorest health outcomes. Those two are connected. Conservatives will say, “We are never going to sign on to pharmacare.” However, the reality is we saw the same opposition by Conservative provinces to universal health care, one of Canada's proudest achievements. In fact, when we ask Canadians what institution they admire most, they say it is universal health care in this country.

Tommy Douglas, the first leader of the NDP, was the founder of universal health care in this country and always believed that pharmacare was the next step. However, when we got universal health care through this House at that time, the Conservative provinces opposed it. What happened? First, the provinces that signed on saw how universal health care was a benefit and some of the Conservative provinces' leaders suddenly realized they had a political problem if they did not sign on, so they actually had the foresight to sign on to universal health care. There were some Conservative provinces that did not, run by very stubborn Conservative leaders who did not really care about their populations at all. What happened, and this is why it took three years to fully implement universal health care, is that those Conservative leaders were defeated. Their population said, “hell no; we are not going to allow this Conservative extremist to block our universal health care.”

I predict that the same thing will happen with universal pharmacare and what we are going to see is Canadians demanding pharmacare as the provinces sign on and people get the benefit. Why should somebody with diabetes in Alberta have to pay and pay, when in British Columbia, which has a progressive NDP government that is signing on to universal pharmacare, that person has their diabetes medication and devices covered?

When we look at the accomplishments of the member for Burnaby South over the last 20 weeks, which include things like anti-scab legislation, affordable housing, dental care, pharmacare and I could go on and on, we can see that the member for Burnaby South has done 10 times more, if not 20 times more, than the member for Carleton with his fat pension has done in 20 years. That is the comparison that people are going to see when we have our election in 2025. We know it is scheduled then, and that is when Canadians will make that comparison. Do we go with somebody who is all hot air, or do we go with somebody who has actually done things for us? I do caution Conservative MPs who have had 3,000 or 3,500 constituents in their ridings who already benefit from the NDP dental care plan. They might have to think a bit, when they are campaigning, about how they explain why they have opposed something that has benefited so many of their constituents.

The final thing that I want to mention is the issue that the member for Carleton has raised. I think he said that it is a “trick”. He likes to say that. He likes to say that programs do not exist. It is very Trumpian. It is sort of saying, “I am just going to pretend that there is a different reality”, with respect to dental care, for example. However, the reality is that there is a former Conservative leader who called for exactly this type of program of Christmas temporary GST relief. That was Erin O'Toole, and there is video on that, so I would encourage my Conservative colleagues to actually watch and educate themselves and see Erin O'Toole calling for exactly the same thing that the NDP is bringing to the House tonight.

The proposed GST relief on essentials would make a difference right across the country. The NDP would do it better and do it differently, but we are not going to stand in the way of something that is going to benefit people. It is for that reason we will be supporting the bill and supporting the motion tonight.

I am going to sit down now. I am going to be contacting my chair, and I just want to assure Conservatives that when I contact my chair, I am not going to change my mind and pretend I should still speak, or try to play some games. I am just going to sit down—

[Government Business No. 43—Proceedings on Bill C‑78, November 27th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I retract the expression that caused such offence.

I hope that Conservatives will take that as a lesson the next time they use blatantly insulting and unparliamentary language in the House and refuse to withdraw it. This is how adults work in the House of Commons. This is how we should work in Parliament. When the Speaker asks us to withdraw, we withdraw. Unfortunately, we have never seen a Conservative do that because they do not want to respect Parliament.

[Government Business No. 43—Proceedings on Bill C‑78, November 27th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I know it is difficult for Conservatives to hear the truth. I know that it pains them, because they live in a weird silo where everything they have done is good, but they have a terrible record.

If they do not want to listen, they can simply leave the House, as the Speaker pointed out. They certainly did not have any problem leaving the House yesterday. When we had the emergency debate on the Trump tariffs, every party was here. The Green Party was here the whole time. The Bloc Québécois was here the whole time. The NDP was here the whole time. The Liberals were here the whole time. The Conservatives showed up late to work and then booked off early because they do not give a damn about this country and certainly do not give a damn—