Peter Van Loan

[Points of Order, June 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it has come to my attention that I have been inaccurately recorded as voting yea in Division No. 325 at page 9478 of Debates and page 1650 of Journals for Wednesday, June 13. If you were to look at the video, you would clearly see that I stood and voted nay to Motion No. 273, along with my government colleagues.

I would ask that the records of the House be changed to reflect that fact.

[Business of the House, June 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to start my one-day-late Thursday statement with the Conservatives' deep gratitude to all of the staff and pages of the House of Commons, who were forced to endure a rather long Wednesday sitting. I thank them for that and I apologize that they were subjected to it.

On to the remaining business of the House, this afternoon will we complete third reading debate of Bill C-11, the copyright modernization act. On Monday we will have the third reading debate of Bill C-38, the jobs, growth and long-term prosperity act, now that we are past the opposition's theatrical and ideologically driven delay tactics at report stage, which caused you, Madam Speaker, to have to spend an undue length of time here, in particular during the unfortunate act of slow votes, which really achieved nothing but inconvenience to the staff and pages of the House of Commons.

If we have extra time on Monday, we will resume second reading debate on Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act. For the remainder of the week, I want to see the House dispose of the many bills that are still awaiting our work and attention. To accommodate the House, we have voted to sit into the evenings next week.

I would welcome any co-operation from my counterparts on moving these bills forward efficiently. I would like to start with securing second reading and referral to committee before the fall sitting of the following bills: Bill C-24, the Canada—Panama economic growth and prosperity act; Bill C-28, the financial literacy leader act; Bill C-36, the protecting Canada's seniors act; Bill C-15, the military justice bill that I mentioned moments ago; Bill C-27, the first nations financial transparency act; and Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act.

Of course, this is only the start of my list, but it would be a good message for us to send to Canadians to show that we are actually willing to do our jobs, the jobs they sent us here to do, and actually vote and make decisions on the bills before us. A productive last week of the spring sitting of our hard-working Parliament would reassure Canadians that their parliamentarians are here to work.

To get on in that direction, since today is World Elder Abuse Day, I want to draw attention to our Bill C-36, the protecting Canada's seniors act. I believe this bill to combat elder abuse has the support of all parties. I have heard the suggestion of the opposition whip, but I would like to suggest we go one step further. I know the opposition has shown it likes to talk about things; we actually like to make decisions and get things done on this side of the House. With that in mind, and in recognition of this day, it is appropriate to advance this important bill right now and send it to committee for study. Therefore, I would like to ask for unanimous consent for the following motion:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practices of the House, Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (elder abuse) be deemed to have been read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

[Privilege, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, in further response to this question of privilege, which, as I said, seems a little out of place, the reason I challenged the NDP House leader to cite which provisions of the bill or which sections were impugned by the lack of information he was looking for, which normally comes through appropriations, is because he is saying that we cannot go forward with the bill because he does not have the information related to it.

I do not see any of the information that he is seeking being related specifically to any provision of the bill. As I said, the disclosure of government spending on programs like this is normally done through appropriations bills, which are provided to Parliament, not through legislative structures in a budget implementation bill. I am sure the NDP House leader, as he becomes familiar with this process, will come to appreciate that.

The other element I want to address very briefly is the notion of the contrast with the other situations he raises. He raised the situation where there had been a resolution of a parliamentary committee or of Parliament's sending for papers. This budget bill went to the committee and the committee did its evaluation. The committee did not send a request to the government for papers, for information or for any of the things that he here is today seeking. I do not see that those situations are at all analogous.

The core issue is that what he is talking about is not part of a budget bill. The core issue is that what he is talking about is part of an appropriations bill. It is the information that gets disclosed to Parliament through the appropriations process. Therefore, there is really no merit to the question of privilege that has been raised here.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 12th, 2012]

Do you want the votes today or tomorrow?

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 12th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I am rising in response to the point of order raised by the hon. member for Winnipeg North.

Standing Order 78(3) states that the amount of time allotted to any stage of a bill shall be not less than one sitting day. However, it also does not mean we should not take that particular reference to be interpreted as the length of the sitting day on which the bill is scheduled for debate or when the motion is moved.

Standing Order 78(3) affords the government the option to allot a specific number of “days” or “hours”. Sometimes time allocation motions allot sitting days. When a motion refers to a sitting day, we take the timeframe of a sitting day literally. It does not mean how long the day is or what the circumstances dictating the time available for government orders might be. On other occasions, time allocation motions have allotted hours. The hours allotted in those motions were respected.

Let me give some examples. On November 13, 1975, a motion allotting five further hours for the second reading stage of Bill C-58, which amended the Income Tax Act, was adopted; similar motions were adopted on March 10, 1976, for Bill C-68 amendments to the then Medical Care Act; on March 29, 1977, for Bill C-27, the Employment and Immigration Reorganization Act; and on November 22, 1977, for Bill C-11, another bill to amend the Income Tax Act. In relation to Bill C-18, the National Transportation Act, 1986, a motion allotting four hours for report stage and four hours for third reading was adopted on June 15, 1987.

Most recently, the House adopted two such motions last Thursday, June 7, 2012. One allotted five hours for third reading of Bill C-25, pooled registered pension plans act, and the other allotted seven hours for second reading of Bill C-24, the Canada–Panama free trade bill. Needless to say, both motions were in order last week and each was adopted by the House.

Of interest, regarding the 1987 case, the report and third reading stages happened to be the second order of the day called by the government on each sitting day, and the debates were interrupted by the Speaker after the expiry of the time provided for in the time allocation motion but before the end of government orders. It should be further noted that on both occasions, after Bill C-18 was dealt with, the government called a third order of the day.

Looking at our recent example of Bill C-25, yesterday's order paper said we had 2 hours and 24 minutes of debate remaining on the bill. Had we resumed debate on it at 3:00 p.m., after question period last Thursday, the debate would have ended before the end of government orders at 5:30 p.m. With routine proceedings and the consideration of procedural motions, it is not inconceivable to end up with a situation where only a few minutes are available to debate a bill on a given ordinary sitting day. Those few minutes would satisfy the minimum requirement of Standing Order 78(3) if the motion allotted one sitting day.

Our motion refers to hours. When dealing with hours, it makes more sense to interpret the minimum requirement of one sitting day differently because the number of available hours could vary from day to day.

As members are aware, not every sitting day is the same. Under the usual calendar, five and a half hours are set aside for both routine proceedings and government orders on Mondays; six and a half hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays; two and a half hours on Wednesdays and Fridays. The longer routine proceedings take, the less time there is for government orders. When allotting hours, the reference to one sitting day should be interpreted as a sitting day and not the sitting day on which the bill has been scheduled for debate.

I would argue that when referring to hours in a time allocation motion, the minimum allotment of hours should be consistent with the shortest day available under the current Standing Orders, and that is two and a half hours, and that assumes we breeze through routine proceedings in a heartbeat. Of course, our motion contemplates ten hours of debate for report stage and a further eight hours for third reading, which in both cases is at least three times the two and a half hour figure I just cited.

On three of the five sitting days each week, the time available for government business is routinely no more than five hours. Some may ask what impact there may be, given that we are operating under extended hours. I would say it should not be a relevant consideration. Calling government orders is the prerogative of the government. In other words, any item on the order paper could be called this week or this fall, when we are not in extended sittings. However, should the fact we adopted a motion yesterday under Standing Order 27(1) bear relevance to the chair's consideration, let me advance two further points.

First, Wednesday, tomorrow for example, would have at most eight hours for government orders, and the coming Friday is operating in the usual schedule, with two and a half hours for government business.

The government could, if it so chooses, call Bill C-38 on either of those dates, and yet 10 hours could not be fully used in a single day. In fact, I believe everyone understands that we will be calling Bill C-38, in part, tomorrow.

Second, the 1987 precedent that I cited earlier speaks to our present circumstances. On Friday, June 12, 1987, the House adopted a special order respecting sitting hours, effective the following Tuesday. Now, recall that the time allocation motion was adopted on Monday, June 15. The House, knowing that extended hours were upon it, adopted the time allocation order for four hours for each of two different stages of the bill.

Report stage was called on Tuesday, June 16, as the second order of the day, and after all of the recorded votes at report stage there were still a couple of hours left in the day for a third item of government business. Third reading followed the next day, when again there was more than ample time in the day to accommodate that debate.

Looking at the cases I cited earlier, but in both the case of Bill C-18 in 1987 and Bill C-25 on Thursday last week, the minimum requirement of one sitting day was not interpreted by the Speaker as the length of the days on which either bill was scheduled.

Although no ruling was then given in 1987, I would submit that Mr. Speaker Fraser likely interpreted the length of the shortest available day to be the minimum time required by the Standing Orders, and as far as I can surmise, it would also have been the view of the Speaker last week.

Accordingly, I believe our motion should be allowed to stand for the same reason that it allots a greater number of hours than the shortest day on which it could be scheduled. Indeed, it will be a longer number of hours than in the normal circumstance would be provided any day at any other time of the year that we would be debating it in the House.

I believe the precedents are amply demonstrative that the motion you have before you, Madam Speaker, is in order.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 12th, 2012]

moved:

That, in relation to Bill C-38, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures, not more than 10 further hours shall be allotted to the consideration at report stage of the Bill and 8 hours shall be allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said Bill; and

that, at the expiry of the 10 hours for the consideration at report stage and at the expiry of the 8 hours for the consideration at third reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the stage of the Bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act, June 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, as the global recovery remains fragile, especially in Europe, Canadians want their government to focus on what matters: job creation, economic growth and long-term prosperity. We are actually doing that through this bill and economic action plan 2012.

We actually welcome debate on this, although I must note that the opposition parties just voted against lengthening debate here in the House. It seems that they only want to stall and delay the process by forcing hundreds of votes on a bill that they opposed before it was even introduced.

With that in mind, I must advise you, Mr. Speaker, that agreement has not been reached under the provisions of Standing Orders 78(1) or 78(2) concerning the proceedings at report stage and third reading of Bill C-38, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at those stages.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member just spoke about the merits of more debate. I trust that he will support this motion, because that is what this motion is about, allowing more debate until midnight every night in this House.

We talked about accommodating dissent. What will that mean? It will mean a lot of opportunity for him to put his dissent on the record. That is what we want to see, but we also want to see decisions get made, and that has been our approach in governing.

We also want to see that the decisions that are made are made, most importantly, on the priorities for Canadians, and that is the economy, job creation and economic growth. That does not lend itself to simply the budget implementation act, which has been the subject of the longest debate in decades of such a bill in this House.

It also extends to other important economic measures we would like to see passed, things like opening new markets to Canadians goods and services, things like our free trade agreement with Jordan and our free trade agreement with Panama. I suspect that member does not support the free trade agreement with Panama. I suspect he wants to see it opposed. I suspect that is why he does not want to see more hours for debate on that item in this House, even though it will mean jobs for Canadians.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, when Canadians reflect on the opposition parties in Ottawa today, the reason that they often conclude what we see mostly are partisan games from the opposition is that normally the member would be standing up complaining that he does not have enough time to debate. Now, faced with a motion to provide more time for debate, the opposition parties, both of them, indicate that they have a problem with that motion. I find that irony tells us everything we need to know about the motives of the opposition party members in how they approach things.

Our approach, as the hon. member talked about C-38, is to take a look at what is important for Canadians. What they are concerned about most these days is job creation, economic growth and long-term prosperity. We brought forward a legislative agenda, including our budget implementation act, to deliver on things like a tax credit for small business job creation; additional investment in skills development, research and innovation; additional opportunities to harness our natural resource advantages; a way of making sure that we continue to have the most skilled workforce in the world; and bringing forward that comprehensive economic plan, subjecting it to the longest debate in decades in Parliament, the longest committee consideration, but also ensuring that we move forward with real decisions.

The opposition's response is to look for delay and obstruction tactics. It is not to talk about the substance of it, but simply to delay and play games. However, we want to deliver real results and focus on the substance of the economy for the benefit of Canadians.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 11th, 2012]

Not at all, Mr. Speaker. The authority for doing this is in the Standing Orders, which provide that on one day a year, we can move to have extended hours for the last two weeks of our sitting. We have been adopting the approach of running Parliament in a productive, hard-working, orderly fashion, where there is certainty and we actually come to decisions.

Bill C-38, the jobs, growth and long-term prosperity act, is a perfect example. Through our measures and the use of time allocation we have been able to ensure that we had the longest debate ever on a budget implementation bill, certainly the longest in the past two decades but probably ever. Similarly, we have also had the longest consideration in committee, not counting the subcommittee that was established. We are not interested in limiting debate. We are happy to have lots of debate and we have ensured that for some of the bills, some of the priority ones I listed like copyright. There has been far more debate in this Parliament to get to the same stages of bills than in previous Parliaments when the bills passed much sooner.

This is not our concern. Our concern is that we make decisions. That is what we were sent here to do. Canadians voted for us and said they wanted us to go to Parliament, address the important questions, debate them and make decisions on them. That is what we are asking the House to do: actually make decisions on the bills before us so that Canadians can benefit from those changes.