Peter Julian

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, this is another sad day in the history of our Parliament. Unfortunately, this is the 71st time the government has used time allocation to shut down debate on an issue.

A few weeks ago, the Conservatives broke the corrupt Liberals' sorry record for the number of time allocations during a single Parliament, a record that the Conservatives always used to condemn. They always used to say that this was no place for time allocation motions. Now, with their 71st, they have left the Liberals' record far behind. The Conservatives are worse than the Liberals, and that is not very impressive.

The headline this weekend in the Vancouver Sun was, “[Prime Minister's] Abuse of Power Comes Daily”. It talked about the culture of secrecy, partisanship, and contempt for due process that runs rampant in the current government. This is particularly the case with Bill C-24.

Bill C-24 is controversial. It has had opposition from across this country. The Conservatives used closure to try to ram it through, but they said in committee that they would actually consider amendments. However, the bill comes back from committee, not only without being amended, but even more appalling, this Conservative majority did not allow any witnesses to consider the bill. That is the real reason they are using closure.

It is an embarrassing bill, one that is not going to stand up in court, and it is igniting a lot of opposition across the country. Instead of having a proper parliamentary debate, instead of allowing witnesses to speak on the bill and have Canadian groups in who are actually concerned about the bill, the Conservatives have shut that process down: no amendments and not a single witness. Is that not the real reason the Conservatives are bringing in closure? Is it because they know that witnesses speaking to the bill will criticize it?

Of course, if there are amendments that could be brought in, all they could do is improve upon a bill that has a bad principle and a bad direction. However, is that not the real reason the Conservatives are bringing in closure today? They want to shut down debate before the public becomes aware of what they have done with the bill.

[Business of the House, June 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would just mention to the leader on the government side that if nobody showed up for the shift to repair his car, his car would not be repaired.

Very briefly, I want to come to the issue of Standing Order 56.1 and the point of order that was raised, with comments from both sides. I would like to get a sense as to when you will be replying to that particular point of order, Mr. Speaker.

[Business of the House, June 5th, 2014]

I have two numbers for this week's Thursday statement.

The first number is 70, which is the number of times this government has moved time allocation or closure motions since the beginning of this Parliament.

That is the worst record of any government in the history of Canada. Never has there been a worse government when it comes to opting out of or not wanting to engage in a rigorous legislative process. As we know, this is causing serious problems.

For example, half a dozen bills have been rejected by the courts since this government came to power. Almost another half-dozen had to be redone because the government botched them the first time around when it refused to follow a rigorous legislative process. It was forced to introduce other bills to fix the problems that were in the first versions. That is it for the first number.

The second figure they were mentioning today, the figure of the week, is 49. Forty-nine is the number of missed speaking shifts by Conservative MPs since we began evening sessions.

Mr. Speaker, you will recall that last week Conservatives were saying they were going to work hard they were going to work in the evening, but it is now 49 times that they have not shown up for their speaking spots. They missed their speaking shifts.

Nurses and doctors show up for their shifts in the hospital. Construction workers and labourers show up on the job site. Servers and hotel workers show up for their shifts. Canadians are very hard-working. Canadians show up for their shifts, and Conservatives should show up for theirs. That is what we feel.

My question is very simple. Will Conservative MPs finally show up this evening for their speaking spots?

Second, will they actually allow the official opposition to help correct the many problems that their legislation has and subject their legislation to rigorous legislative tests, which means that instead of putting in closure and time allocation, they actually allow for healthy debate in the House of Commons? Will they allow for healthy debate?

[Democratic Reform, June 5th, 2014]

Now, the information is coming out, Mr. Speaker.

The Conservatives' deeply flawed Bill C-23 failed to effectively target deceptive phone calls. Now we can see why.

At the trial of a former Conservative staffer, one of the witnesses has just stated:

This scheme was clearly wide-spread, national and well organized. It required access, and ultimately complicity from someone higher up in the campaign....

Given these troubling allegations, would the government agree to finally introduce a bill that would actually go after these kinds of national voter suppression crimes, yes or no?

[Democratic Reform, June 5th, 2014]

Just today, at the electoral fraud trial in Guelph, we learned that Andrew Prescott, who was involved in the Conservatives' 2011 campaign, said that these fraudulent robocalls were organized at the national level. However, the Conservatives' electoral “deform” does not address this problem.

Why leave the door wide open to more electoral fraud like this?

[Democratic Reform, June 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-23, the electoral “deform”, has been criticized far and wide. Just today, at the electoral fraud trial in Guelph, we learned that Andrew Prescott—

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, June 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, words fail me.

Let us not forget that in the 35th and 36th Parliaments the Conservatives were criticizing the corrupt Liberals at the time. The Conservatives said that the Liberals moved 67 time allocation motions. The Conservatives were clear. They said they would be different from the Liberals: they would be a transparent government, with a fresh new approach and they would not be corrupt.

However, the Conservatives have a rather sorry record these days, with the number of time allocation motions and closure motions they have used. The Liberals moved 67 such motions at the time. The Conservatives are currently at 70. This is the 70th time they are limiting members' speaking time and muzzling Parliament.

It is not as though the Conservatives were introducing good bills. They have introduced bills that the Supreme Court has rejected. Others were so botched that the Conservatives ended up having to waste taxpayers' money to introduce new bills to fix the ones that were botched. They introduce bad bills and then they want to muzzle MPs. Last night, 49 Conservative MPs refused to show up when it was their turn to speak. This is unacceptable.

The worst part of this closure motion, this time allocation motion, is the provisions of the bill. We are talking about FATCA, whereby a million Canadians of American origin would simply be flushed away by the current government. They would have no constitutional protections, no privacy protections. Even though we pushed for them at committee, the government refused to adopt them.

We have also seen, in this particular bill, that railway safety and transparency would be blown away, because in secret, the government could reduce the railway safety provisions that are already inadequate.

After the tragedy last year of Lac-Mégantic, one would think the government would be a little wiser and just a little more attuned to public opinion.

My question is very simple. Why is the government trying to hide from the public these horrible provisions in the bill by ramming the bill through without proper debate in the House of Commons?

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, June 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate the comments by the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. It is clear that she works very hard for her constituents.

Earlier this evening we saw that no costing had been done for certain aspects of this budget.

What does the member think, and what do the people of Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot think, about a government that does not even cost its budget?

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, June 4th, 2014]

These are in a budget bill?

[Agricultural Growth Act, June 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the government has moved another time allocation motion. This is the 69th one.

The Conservatives are proud of that, but it was different when they were the opposition. They said that the Liberals were corrupt and that the Conservatives would run things differently and allow debate in the House of Commons. However, they have now matched the corrupt Liberals' sorry record with their 69th time allocation motion. They are as bad as the Liberals. It is appalling. Canadians deserve better.

Equally appalling is the fact that the Conservatives do not even show up for debate. They move a time allocation motion because they say they are in a hurry. However, since last Tuesday, they have missed 49 shifts in the House of Commons. That is appalling.

Nurses, doctors, construction workers and everyone else shows up for their shift. Could it get any better for the Conservatives? They have missed 49 shifts in just seven days. That is appalling.

Canadians deserve better than Conservative MPs who do not show up for work.

My question is very simple. We are talking about a bill that has some aspects we support, of course, and some aspects that have provoked some real controversy. There is no doubt that there are concerns about this bill. It has had only a few hours of debate. The government has simply been refusing to table it for debate so we can actually have the discussion on the floor of the House of Commons.

My question is simply this: Is the government moving time allocation, another one, which is now 69 times, because it is afraid of the controversy this bill has had in certain aspects and does not want to have Canadians learning about some of the aspects of the bill people find problematic?