Peter Julian

[Economic Action Plan 2015 Act, No. 1, May 14th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, this is another sad day. This is the 96th time this government has invoked closure or time allocation in this Parliament. No other government has done that. Canada has never had a government that has abused time allocation and closure as much as this one has. This is a sign of arrogance and incompetence because many of the bills that the government has introduced in the House of Commons have been rejected by the courts. They reject the legislation because the government does not really double-check its bills as much as it needs to.

Sadly, this is the 96th time in this Parliament, which is the worst record of all time. It is three times worse than any other previous government for bringing in closure and time allocation.

The government is going to say that it is trying to do this for our veterans. We will recall that after years of neglect of our nation's veterans and years of just refusing, cutting back on services and treating our nation's veterans with disdain, the Conservatives finally introduced a bill that would help to improve the situation. That is Bill C-58, which has sat on the order paper all week. For days, the NDP has been standing up and asking for unanimous consent to get Bill C-58 for veterans into committee so that veterans can start getting the relief that is called for. Instead, the government is saying that it is going to make them wait even longer with Bill C-59.

The question is very simple. Why are the Conservatives playing so many games with veterans? Why do they not heed the message from Alberta and, instead of showing such arrogance and incompetence, why do they not work with the opposition parties so that they can get good legislation that is not rejected by the courts?

[Business of Supply, May 12th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, as you know, the practice in this House is that we stand and we vote in our seats. The Minister of National Defence is not in his seat. He is in the seat of the Minister of Industry. That is a practice that is a long-standing parliamentary tradition, and since he was not in his seat, I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, to rule on the matter.

[Privilege, May 12th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the member for Sherbrooke, who chairs one of the most prestigious committees on Parliament Hill.

This member has a good understanding and quickly learned the rules and procedures of the House of Commons, as well as the importance of a dialogue among all the parties in the House. However, there was never any dialogue because the government took control. A motion was imposed on the House and now we can see the outcome: there is less access and the planning is worse than before.

Things obviously need to change, and we hope that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs will look at this issue and give the government some very clear direction.

[Privilege, May 12th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her question.

These are all examples of measures that previously were the responsibility of the Speaker's office. In my opinion, everyone had confidence in the structure that was in place. Improvements to training and coordination were needed, as we have always said.

However, the government did not consult us. It could have said to the opposition that this issue requires discussion by all MPs in order to find common ground in the good old Canadian tradition, and to have a consensus on improving the security system and preventing the problems that the member mentioned. Instead, the government is proposing absolutely nothing, neither solutions nor discussions.

The Prime Minister's Office imposed this new system without planning. Even though all police officers are acting in good faith, they have put in place a system that is making access more and more difficult. Naturally, that is a problem.

What we always say to the government is that instead of being partisan, it could sit down with opposition members to reach a consensus and improve security without preventing the public and members from having access to Parliament Hill.

It is obvious that a more practical and understanding government would have a discussion with opposition members. That was not done in this case and we can see the results.

[Privilege, May 12th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the ruling that you just made.

It is worrisome that other members are raising additional questions regarding the quick changes that were imposed by the government a few months ago to the structure that has always been in place on Parliament Hill.

This debate will allow us to talk a little more about an extremely troubling trend. We are seeing more and more opposition members rising in the House because they are being denied access to Parliament. As we have seen in the case of the member for Toronto—Danforth and the other cases that occurred just within the past few days, involving the member for London—Fanshawe and the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, the pattern is becoming increasingly clear.

The member for Ottawa—Vanier also just raised an important point about the equality of the two official languages as it pertains to access to Parliament Hill.

We are seeing these increased concerns raised by members of Parliament and the trend is very worrisome. More and more frequently we are seeing members of Parliament who are not able to access their workplace here on Parliament Hill.

As members of Parliament, we are called upon to do many things and to work very hard on behalf of our constituents. That means often coming into the House with a few minutes' notice to speak on important bills. Often the government does not provide us with the notice that it should, so we have to rapidly get to the House. We also have a government that will often hold surprise votes, particularly on closure and time allocation. We have seen 95 of them through the course of this Parliament. That is beyond, without any doubt, the worst history of any government in Canadian history. It has invoked closure or time allocation 95 times. These votes are often a surprise.

As members of Parliament, we need access to the House so that we can debate the issues, often at a moment's notice because the government does not want to provide that notice. Often at a moment's notice we come here to vote on issues such as time allocation.

The idea that somehow delays of a few minutes are inconsequential and should be dismissed has been the argument we have been hearing from the government side now for a couple of weeks. As these incidents multiply, there are more and more concerns about the ability to actually get into the House of Commons. I profoundly disagree with the idea that the government raises, that it is inconsequential for a member to miss votes or to not be able to take their place in debate,.

Mr. Speaker, why has there been this multiplication of blocked access to Parliament Hill? You know the reason as well as I do. We raised one of the concerns a few months ago when the government rammed through the House major security changes. It rammed them through with very little notice, no consultation with the Speaker, no consultation with opposition parties. It simply rammed through directly from the Prime Minister's Office this idea that they could change the scope of security on Parliament Hill.

I want to quote the member for Hull—Aylmer, our whip at that time, who raised these concerns when the government provoked that sudden debate to shake up the security system here on Parliament Hill. At that time she said that the motion before us will not achieve “better integration, better training, better equipment and more resources dedicated to our safety”, upon which all members of Parliament would agree. She said, “This motion is nothing more than the government's attempt to take away the historic responsibility that the Speaker's office has under the Constitution to protect parliamentarians from the unilateral intrusion of government authority.”

She said:

The fact that the government is using the power of its whip to try to take constitutional rights away from the Speaker and permanently hand control of security in this place over to its own security service is a direct attack on our traditions, our practices and our Constitution. This is an unprecedented attempt to control security in the only place where the government cannot control it: this Parliament. This once again demonstrates that this government, led by the Prime Minister, is obsessed with controlling everything.

What we have seen subsequent to that is the government overriding the Speaker's ability and the Speaker's prerogative. It is a multiplication of the government's attempt to usurp what had been Parliamentary traditions in place in this country for almost a century and a half. We saw that in the reaction both to the issues raised by the member for Toronto—Danforth and the members for Skeena—Bulkley Valley and London—Fanshawe. The government simply said that it has investigated and it dismisses it, when it is your prerogative, Mr. Speaker.

We had never heard those words from any government in Canadian history, but the current government is one that has attacked the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Parliamentary Budget Officer, that has diminished the ability of the Auditor General to do the valuable work that he provides and that has attacked the Chief Electoral Officer. The government has absolutely no respect for institutions, and the Prime Minister seemingly wants to control more and more.

If they want the control, control comes with responsibility. On this side of the House, we have been fighting every step of the way. I profoundly believe that on October 19, we are going to see Canadians, as they did in Alberta, push back on this idea that one party can control everything. They will be electing a vastly different House of Commons on October 19. That vastly different House of Commons will have a majority of New Democratic Party members, and those members will choose a different path under the leadership of the Leader of the Opposition.

They have then taken this control. The PROC report, as my colleague for Toronto—Danforth mentioned so eloquently, actually provided guidelines for that control, and what was needed was better planning. What we have seen is worse planning, which is why the situation on access to Parliament Hill has deteriorated so markedly over the last few weeks. That is why increasingly members of Parliament do not have access to Parliament in an immediate and automatic way, which risks leading to missed votes. It certainly leads to the risk of not being here to speak in debate. However, the better planning has not happened.

Under the Prime Minister's direction, we have seen instead a lot of improvised diplomatic shows, as the member for Toronto—Danforth said so eloquently. The government does not seem to want to answer questions in question period. The Prime Minister does not seem to want to rise to answer questions in the House of Commons. In fact, members will recall that in May and June, 2014, the Prime Minister rose to answer questions in the House only five times in the final five weeks of Parliament. Only five times did the Prime Minister deign to actually respond to questions that were being asked in the House of Commons.

We are seeing the same pattern repeating. I do not recall the last time that the Prime Minister actually rose in the House to answer questions. I think it might have been a week and a half ago. I am not even talking about the quality of questions. I am talking about the fact that he is not rising to answer them at all. However, we are seeing lots of diplomatic shows arranged at the last minute, increasingly preventing our access to Parliament Hill.

This breach of privilege is quite clear, Mr. Speaker. I am glad that you have ruled in favour of the member for Toronto—Danforth and the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, with the participation of many other members. This trend has to stop. The government has to start respecting the traditions of the Speaker and it has to plan better, not worse. Hopefully, the debate that we are having today will lead to better planning on the part of the government so that it is not stopping opposition members.

The officers involved are showing good faith and professionalism, but they are under the direction of a new security apparatus that the government pushed through the House and put into place. The government has the responsibility for better planning to avoid these incidents in the future.

[Privilege, May 11th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to both the government House leader and also to the very cogent arguments raised by the member for Timmins—James Bay.

First, there is no doubt that the question put forward, in what has become the infamous Question No. 1129 with respect to each Senate appointment made by the Prime Minister, is an issue of public policy. It states:

(a) did the government verify that each individual being appointed to the senate met their constitutional residency requirement; (b) how did the government verify that each individual met their constitutional residency requirement; and (c) what are the details verifying that each individual met their constitutional residency requirement?

This is something to which the government has to respond. For the government to try to pretend that any issue touched by the Duffy trial is something that it no longer has to answer as a matter of general public policy is simply absurd. It is an absurd conclusion for the government House leader to stand and say that the government can now define anything it wants as something that remotely or faintly may touch on some trial, that somehow it means the government is simply exempt from responding. It is something the member for Timmins—James Bay pointed out very effectively and very cogently in his argument, and the government House leader simply has not contradicted that.

Second, this goes back to the issue that was raised by Speaker Sauvé 35 years ago, saying that in terms of a prima facie question of privilege to be made there effectively is an argument that could be made when there is a deliberate attempt to deny answers to an hon. member, if it could be shown that such action amounted to improper interference with the hon. member's parliamentary work.

This is a very clear issue where the government is deliberately, because it is an embarrassing issue to it, trying to withhold what is a simple question of public policy, what is a simple constitutional process, and one that the government has responded to for decades. Now that we have the Conservatives entering this twilight zone where I assume they only have a few weeks in their mandate and are perhaps reacting to events in Alberta, they are trying shut down what should be an appropriate public policy response. They should have responded to the question raised in Question No. 1129 by the member for Timmins—James Bay. There is absolutely no reason for them not to. For them to try to throw out these outlandish reasons for why they cannot respond to a simple public policy question on the process that the Prime Minister's Office undertakes is something I think the public certainly sees through.

This is a question of privilege that I hope you will consider over the next little while, Mr. Speaker. If the government is going to respond, we will be responding in kind as well.

[Privilege, May 11th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am using the word “investigate” because that is the word the member for Northumberland—Quinte West used last Friday and it is actually the term that was used by the government House leader in this House subsequent to the question of privilege that was raised by the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley. It is the government itself that is saying, “We are going to investigate these claims”, as I have stressed.

I will say a final time, Mr. Speaker, it is your purview and your role to investigate any possible breaches of privilege that have occurred in the parliamentary precinct.

[Privilege, May 11th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief because we have a very important opposition day motion to honour our nation's veterans coming forward. I look forward to hearing the comments from the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam.

What disturbs me, and I raised this with you last Friday, as well as at a previous point of privilege that the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley raised a few days ago, is that it is the inclination of the government to now investigate breaches of privilege that are raised by members of the opposition. That is not its role. It is not its role to do investigations or to decide on whether it constitutes a breach of privilege or not.

Mr. Speaker, that is your role. I have now raised this three times.

Last Friday the member for Northumberland—Quinte West said, “We are going to investigate this”, as if it is the government's purview and role. This was our concern when the government, the Prime Minister's Office, brought in all of the changes without consulting the opposition or you, just rammed it through Parliament. We are seeing an increasing number of breaches of privilege that are very serious, indeed, and it is your role, not the role of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, not the role of any member of the government, to do these investigations it has been doing.

It is up to you, Mr. Speaker, to do that, and we are confident that you will investigate this and find that a prima facie case of breach of privilege occurred.

[Privilege, May 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the problem. The government has usurped your role as Speaker to look into a question of privilege. It is not up to the partisan Conservative government to look into breaches of privilege; it is up to you, Mr. Speaker. This is exactly the point that was made by the government House leader when the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley raised what is now becoming a pattern of breaches of privilege of members of the House.

New Democrats had raised significant concerns when the government decided to throw up in the air the existing security systems in the House of Commons. It did it in a very irresponsible way. It did not consult the Speaker at all. The Prime Minister's Office decided in a very partisan way how to proceed. Now we are consistently seeing breaches of privilege of members of the opposition.

The government is saying it will look into it. That is entirely inappropriate, and a breach of your privileges, Mr. Speaker; we are asking you to look into this breach of parliamentary privilege, as we asked you to look into the breach of privilege that occurred to the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley and the member for London—Fanshawe. This is becoming a pattern.

We know that you will want to take some time, Mr. Speaker, to reflect and to look into it, but it is your purview, your office, and it is your role as Speaker to look into this, not a partisan Conservative government trying to take over what is clearly an issue of breach of privilege of a member of the opposition.

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague on her excellent speech. She emphasized the importance of this issue and she spoke very eloquently, as she always does.

The government just said that it will vote in favour of this motion, but it does not want to do anything, so basically it is saying yes because it knows that there is an election coming up and that this is an important issue. However, in reality, the government is not going to do anything to implement this measure that Parliament is voting in favour of. We know it is true. The Conservatives do this systematically. They adopt motions and then they do not do anything about them. It is the same as voting no.

I wanted to ask my colleague whether she really thinks that this government is sincere or whether she thinks it will not do anything between now and the October election.