Peter Julian

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, May 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, 65 times we have had closure and time allocation. That is the deplorable record of the government. Back when Conservatives were trying to replace the former corrupt Liberal government, they said they were going to do things differently. They were not going to ram bad legislation through the House but would actually take the time to consider amendments from the opposition. We all remember that. That is what the Conservatives used to say.

Now, a few years later, the government has a deplorable record: it has used closure and time allocation 65 times. The public has a number of concerns about this controversial bill, which makes it even more deplorable that the government is doing this yet again.

The government does not want to show openness in the House. It simply wants to impose its law, regardless of the consequences. We all know what kinds of consequences these controversial bills have. The bills are so badly botched that the government is forced to introduce new bills to fix the problems. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has systematically rejected bills introduced by this government. This has happened four times in the past few weeks.

My question for my colleague is very simple: why is the government imposing a closure and time allocation motion for the 65th time, especially on such a controversial bill?

[Justice, May 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, they do not listen to anyone, and that is the problem.

We have ever-changing stories from the Prime Minister and his Minister of Justice.

When the decision of the Supreme Court came down, the Prime Minister claimed he was “very surprised” but this week he tells us he knew all along.

The Conservatives have targeted Kevin Page, Sheila Fraser, Marc Mayrand and now even the Chief Justice. In short, any eminent Canadian who disagrees with them.

Why has the Prime Minister gone so far out of his way to pick a fight with the Supreme Court of Canada?

[Extension of Sitting Hours, May 27th, 2014]

Four of them were rejected by the Supreme Court. One you had to correct, and four of them—

[Extension of Sitting Hours, May 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valleyfor really setting the tone for what is happening here, which is the government trying to run roughshod over democratic rights.

I know the member, who is now the finance critic, was the opposition House leader last year in June. My understanding is that most evenings it was the New Democrats who showed up to work and the New Democrats who spoke. Most nights there were very few others, maybe one Conservative and one Liberal speaking every couple of nights.

Could the member tell Canadians what the participation rate was last year when we went through this exercise of steamrolling by the government?

[Extension of Sitting Hours, May 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am very grateful to my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley for speaking to this important motion.

Here we have a situation where the government is trying to handcuff the opposition by saying that only ministers of the crown can propose any dilatory motions. The Liberals are supporting this, so they are supporting handcuffing the opposition.

How does the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley explain this?

[Extension of Sitting Hours, May 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, let us look at the results. In 2013, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said not only are 300,000 more people unemployed in this country, but also what jobs the Conservatives were able to create, 95% of them were part-time jobs. We have Canadians increasingly struggling to make ends meet.

Last month's unemployment figures lost tens of thousands of jobs across this country. How do we know? The manufacturing sector lost 500,000 jobs that were good family-sustaining jobs. What the Conservatives have done is created some part-time jobs for those folks who lost their full-time jobs. Of course, they have the record in terms of creating jobs for temporary foreign workers, but we know what a colossal amount of chaos and debacle the mismanagement of the temporary foreign worker program has been.

Conservatives used to talk about democracy before they became entitled and forgot about their actual electors. The former minister of justice, a Conservative, said this when speaking of the corrupt Liberals who were doing the same kinds of things that the Conservatives condemned at the time. He said on November 28, 2001:

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister of Canada swung an axe across the throat of parliament....members of all parties in parliament lost the ability to express the concerns of Canadians....why did the Prime Minister do the wrong thing by invoking closure?

I think we are getting a body of evidence now that shows very clearly that Conservatives, when they were condemning the corrupt Liberals, acted quite differently than how they are acting now. They condemned those Liberals when they were at the end of their regime, just before they were tossed out by the Canadian public. I guess if anything is encouraging, it is the fact that we are seeing the end of this regime. Increasingly when we look at Conservatives, we are seeing a government that is in disarray and has to use these types of methods, the steamrollers, to try to force through legislation.

The problem is that their legislation is increasingly rejected by courts. The Supreme Court has rejected a number of pieces of legislation even over the last few weeks. We have seen other cases where time allocation or closure has led to Conservatives ramming something through that was so bad they had to bring other legislation to fix the problems that were in the first piece of legislation.

My question for the government House leader is very simple. Why did he not consult with the opposition? Why did he not consult with his caucus? Why is he setting up the same kind of situation where the Conservatives try to ram through legislation that is after the fact rejected by the courts? The Conservatives have to then spend more House time introducing new legislation to fix the old legislation that had real flaws but because there was no debate and accepting of amendments from the opposition, the government ends up spending more parliamentary time fixing the errors it made. Why did the government not just consult with the opposition? Why did it not consult with its own caucus members?

[Extension of Sitting Hours, May 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons says that this is a closure motion, but that the Conservatives are not as bad because they use time allocation motions most often. This is nonetheless one more closure motion on top of the other 64 times the Conservatives have used closure and time allocation.

The Leader of the Government in the House of Commons said that time allocation was different, so let me quote what his leader, the Prime Minister, said on June 12, 1995:

Madam Speaker, this will be the only opportunity I have to address Bill C-68 in the Chamber. I was not able to speak to the bill at second reading because there was time allocation then. Now there is time allocation at report stage and time allocation again at third reading. There has been time allocation at every stage of the bill. It is unfortunate that in the end most members will be lucky to have 10 minutes to speak to this bill.

The Prime Minister, who was only a member then, said that time allocation was just as unacceptable as closure. Now the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons is saying that time allocation is not as bad. However, the Prime Minister said the opposite.

How can the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons account for the fact that his leader, the Prime Minister, criticized the abuse of time allocation when the corrupt Liberals were in power?

[Extension of Sitting Hours, May 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I think what the Conservative House leader has just said is what Canadians already know. The Liberals basically roll over any time the Conservatives have to push their agenda through. That is increasingly what Canadians are saying across the country. Perhaps that is why the leader of the Liberal Party only shows up one-third of the time to question period, while the leader of the official opposition is here every day, holding the government to account, which is the way it should be.

I want to come back to the issue of time allocation and closure because the government House leader loves to throw this around. At one time, though, prior to the Conservatives actually coming into government, they actually felt that debate was important.

I want to quote what the Prime Minister said on December 9, 2002, prior to the Conservative majority:

We have closure today precisely because there is no deadline and there are no plans. Instead of having deadlines, plans and goals, we must insist on moving forward because the government is simply increasingly embarrassed by the state of the debate and it needs to move on.

That was the Prime Minister in 2002. If we fast-forward to 2014, he is putting in place every bad habit that we saw from the former corrupt Liberal government.

My question is quite simple. The Conservatives have now brought in closure and time allocation 64 times. It is a record. It is even as bad as the former Liberal government's was.

Are the Conservatives not just a bit ashamed of themselves? Rather than consulting with the opposition, rather than consulting with their caucus, all they know how to do is impose closure and shut down debate.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, May 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we in the NDP are always ready to work. Last year, the government tried the same trick. However, if we look at the debates that took place every evening in June, sometimes 90%, even up to 95%, of those who came to work and discuss bills were NDP members. That is a record we are very proud of. We are here to work, no question about it.

However, this motion is a licence for laziness. Not only do the Conservatives not come to speak in the House, but now there is also talk of holding no votes in the evening. The votes will be held around question period. Of course, the Conservatives want to prevent the opposition from using the procedures that we are familiar with. That is not democracy as I see it.

I am interested in why the government House leader did not raise this at the House leaders meeting. We are supposed to be meeting shortly.

The NDP has always said that this is the kind of stuff that should be talked about around the table. There was no consultation with the opposition and, of course, no consultation with the Conservative caucus either.

My questions are very simple. Why did the member not consult with the opposition? Why did he not consult with his caucus? Why is he trying to ram this through the House one more time without doing the consultations that are really the hallmark of Canadian democracy?

[Committees of the House, May 26th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the excellent member for Gatineau for raising this important point.

Earlier we spoke about the number of bills that have been rejected by the Supreme Court because this government always tries to ram through legislation instead of putting in place a solid legislative framework that is not problematic. Consequently, the Conservatives either have to introduce another bill to correct the flaws of previous bills or the courts are obliged to reject the bills.

Today the member for Gatineau suggested a way to move forward more quickly, and in a more meaningful and solid manner, precisely so that the positive aspects of the bill dealing with cyberbullying are not rejected just because other aspects require more work.

According to my colleague from Gatineau, would her proposal result in a more effective approach to fighting cyberbullying?