Peter Julian

[Agricultural Growth Act, June 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I will be pleased to speak to Bill C-18, though the government did not have the courtesy to actually tell us which bill it was bringing forward. New Democrats always plan in advance, so each one of us has all the bills with us and ready to go for the speech itself—

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties, and I think that if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to see the clock at 12 midnight.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, earlier today the Chair gave a ruling on the comments we made a few weeks ago regarding section 56.1. That also happened very fast.

The suggestion that the House should consider translation time and actually wait for the translation would really change things for the government, which enjoys launching surprise procedural attacks.

In the history of this House, no caucus has ever had as many Quebec members and Francophone members as the NDP caucus, yet there has been no translation rule of this kind over the last three years.

I am surprised that the government would want the House to wait for the translation, given its regular attempts to launch surprise procedural attacks.

This will really change the way we operate in the House. Nonetheless, we believe the situation is quite clear: the question was put and members did understand it well. A vote now needs to be taken.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 12th, 2014]

Please sit down. The Speaker is standing. You cannot interrupt the Speaker.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that both sides are agreeing that the Conservatives said no to the second motion, but the reality is that you put the second motion, Mr. Speaker, because the first motion was adopted unanimously.

That is simple. You put the question. The folks who were listening heard it. The folks who were not listening may not have heard it. I am sorry, but in this game we have to be attentive. The reality is that first motion then put the question of adjourning the House to the House and that, of course, negates Motion No. 10, which ties up a whole range of procedural tools from the opposition.

We are now in a situation in which the House needs to be called to vote. It is not a big thing. I do not think any member of the House would object to voting on it. The reality is that because the motion was put unanimously, overriding Motion No. 10, we are now at the point where the members should be called for a vote. We would like to see that vote.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, you quite properly put the question. At that point the House said agreed, which is why you then moved on to the second motion, which is if the House is in agreement with the terms of the motion that the House now adjourn.

It is true, and I completely agree, that a number of members of the Conservative Party have come in and said they did say no to the second motion. That is very true. We all heard that. We admit that. However, the reason you put the second motion, Mr. Speaker, is that the House agreed to the first motion, which now means that the bells need to ring and we need to call in the members to have a vote on the motion to adjourn. We had unanimous consent from the House to call the vote and unanimous consent was denied. I completely agree. Because unanimous consent was denied, we now have to have a vote.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, you actually put the question twice. The minister and the member for Newmarket—Aurora are quite right to say that the second motion to actually adjourn the House was denied consent, but the first motion was accepted, which means the question has been put. It overrides Motion No. 10 that was adopted two weeks ago. The motion has been put.

Mr. Speaker, you asked if there was unanimous consent to adopt the motion, which would have adjourned the House. I agree with the member for Newmarket—Aurora that a number of Conservative members of Parliament at that point denied consent to adjourn the House, but the question was put unanimously. No one denied consent to put the question, which means the House now has to be called to vote on that question.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, a motion to adjourn the House was just moved. There was unanimous consent to move the motion. As we can see, the motion was not agreed to, so there has to be a vote because there was unanimous consent to move the motion in the House. That changes things. There were two motions. The first motion was for unanimous consent. Some Conservative members said no to the second motion, but the motion was moved in the House, so we have to vote.

[Business of the House, June 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I hope that all of this time does not count for my Thursday question. It will be the longest Thursday question in history.

Last week, there was a half-page of questions and five pages of answers. The principle is sort of like that for a committee of the whole. We ask questions and the government has a little more time to answer them. However, it does not extend to four or five pages of answers.

I have two figures for this week. First, the number 93 represents the number of shifts missed by the Conservatives since we began night shifts. Ninety-three. It is appalling when you think about all the nurses, construction workers and servers who show up for their shift to do their job.

The other figure I would like to mention is the number of rejected bills. Of course, the government House leader said last week that we have to churn those widgets out and then we can take a break. However, the reality is that quality control is the most important aspect. Having worked in factories and having worked as a manual labourer—I am very proud of my background and my family's background—I know that quality control is exceedingly important.

The problem is that the government, over the last year or two, has had the poorest record of product recall in Canadian parliamentary history. It has had more bills rejected by the courts, and it has had to reintroduce legislation to fix the problems in previous legislation that it has introduced. The government has a problem with quality control, and that is why we are proud, as NDP members in the House, to contribute to that quality control by offering more amendments than has any other opposition in parliamentary history to fix the mistakes the Conservatives have made.

My Thursday question is very simple. In the seven days that we have available to us until next Friday, June 20, what steps is the government going to take to bring that quality control under control and to work with the opposition so that it does not have any more badly botched bills or bills that are rejected by the courts and so that it does not have to introduce legislation to fix the problems with the existing bills? Will the government actually work with the opposition over the seven days remaining to us?

[Business of the House, June 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what I wanted to discuss with you. In last week's Hansard, two minutes were dedicated to questions, and that is a part of the principle of the Thursday question. However—