Ralph Goodale

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, June 12th, 2007]

Answer the questions.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, June 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have four or five questions that I would like to address to the government House leader and I will attempt to put them all together at once and, hopefully, the answers could be forthcoming.

First, Standing Order 78 contemplates consultations to achieve an agreement on time allocation among all or, failing that, a majority of the parties in the House. I would like to ask the government why the government House leader did not consult with the official opposition on this particular matter.

I would point out to the government House leader that yesterday, in a debate about Bill C-52, I specifically indicated to him and to the House that from the perspective of the official opposition, we expected Bill C-52 to be disposed of today. I made that comment before the notice was given with respect to the minister's intention under Standing Order 78.

That being the case, having given that very clear overture, I would ask the government why there was no effort to consult about this matter and why there was no attempt to reach an agreement in advance of the minister taking the action that he has today.

Second, in the flow of events around Bill C-52 the government itself only got to its 2007 budget very late in this sitting, about the middle of March, and then the government only pursued debate on Bill C-52 sporadically. At one point there was a full, unexplained three week hiatus in the debate at second reading. Why did the government deliberately delay and avoid its own budget bill at several stages during its course through Parliament before we got to the situation that we are in today? What was the government's strategy in delaying its own legislation?

Third, in the committee proceedings on Bill C-52, the government first tried to avoid any scrutiny whatsoever by avoiding all witnesses being called to the committee. The opposition insisted on basic decent hearings and extracted a commitment from the government to hear at least some witnesses in a serious and dignified manner, especially those who believed that the government had not told them the truth. I am thinking here particularly of people who had invested in income trusts and a number of the provinces which believed they had been betrayed on equalization and the Atlantic accords.

The format for these committee hearings to hear these witnesses was unilaterally changed at the last minute by the Conservative committee chair, thus breaking the all party agreement on how to dispose of Bill C-52. Why did the government violate the agreement that was in place on how to hear these committee witnesses, especially any provincial premiers and especially Premier Calvert?

Fourth, and my final question, the Prime Minister and the government have defended Bill C-52 in blanket terms. They deny, for example, that this bill affects and changes the Atlantic accords but still they admit that discussions are indeed underway to fix the problem that Bill C-52 poses for the Atlantic accords. Either there is something that needs fixing or there is not. If Bill C-52 does not negatively affect the Atlantic accords, then what is being discussed with Premier MacDonald of Nova Scotia and will the same flexibility be shown toward Premier Williams of Newfoundland and Labrador and Premier Calvert of Saskatchewan?

[Certificates of Nomination, June 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the government House leader a few moments ago gave notice to the House of two proposed appointments of officers. I wonder if the government House leader could give us the assurance that the committees to which these two appointments have been referred automatically will have the full opportunity to conduct any hearings that they consider to be appropriate with respect to the two nominees.

Of course, at the end of next week when the normal adjournment of Parliament would occur, the 30 day period that is provided for this matter would run beyond that date. I would like to have the government's assurance that if the committees deem it appropriate to hold hearings with respect to these two appointments, that whether the House is sitting or not, the committees would be at liberty to pursue the matters as they saw fit.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, there is a common saying among all finance ministers, whatever political party they may be part of, that if a budget is still a matter of public debate, never mind parliamentary debate but public debate, after about 48 hours, then there is a problem. If it disappears in 48 hours, it is probably a great success.

This one has gone on now for more than two months and that indicates this is a budget that is in fact seriously flawed. A a great many Canadians, including many of the provinces, have a great deal of difficulty with this budget.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, obviously, there are few issues of greater import to this House or greater import to Canadians than a successful battle against climate change. In respect of the work of this Parliament and the work of our standing committees, one of the finest bits of work that was done was the rewriting of Bill C-30.

The bill was obviously dead on arrival when it was first presented in this House last fall. Everybody agreed, whether they were in Parliament or in the NGO movement or in the private sector or in provincial governments, that Bill C-30 as originally drafted was an utter disaster.

Now a parliamentary committee has gone to work on Bill C-30 and has actually made it a good piece of work. I am glad to say that it includes the vast majority of what my leader first proposed in terms of the concept of a carbon budget and the other measures to get serious in this country and around the world in the battle against climate change.

I think it would be very useful if the government would now pick up the good work that was done by the parliamentary committee, bring Bill C-30 back to this House, so we can have a real debate on the things that need to be done to actually deal with the climate change issue.

In addition to that, I would also hope that we would have a real good discussion about the potential for carbon capture and sequestration in dealing with carbon dioxide which has tremendous potential for improving the climate, not only here in Canada but around the world.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, on the opposition's part we always try to encourage the best possible attendance in the House. In fact, the government may resort to that tactic. It would certainly not be our intention to support the tactic.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, let me say first of all that I think the events on Friday afternoon were quite unfortunate. I had mentioned in my remarks that it would improve the atmosphere in the House, if we did not have any more recourse by the government to that kind of devious tactic.

Obviously, it put the table and the Chair in a very difficult position, and I would like to join the hon. member in congratulating both the table and the Chair for dealing with that matter in accordance with the rules of the House, which solved a bit of a parliamentary crisis at the time.

On the issue of the justice bills, it is true that there has been an enormous number of one-off justice initiatives brought forward through this Parliament. I think 13 or 14 altogether. They had the potential of causing a backlog in the justice committee.

In light of that, we took the extraordinary step, we thought a very constructive step, last October to say that in order to save time in debate, save time in the justice committee, we were prepared to fast-track a number of those initiatives, to see the debate curtailed or focused, and in some cases passed through the entire parliamentary procedure without further debate.

If that offer from the official opposition had been taken up when it was first made in October last year, fully three-quarters of the government's justice agenda would presently be law in this country. It is just not available to the government to say that somehow the official opposition, at least, has been the cause of any delay with respect to the substance of what the government brought forward in its justice bills.

What we did say was that those bills in themselves were insufficient, that we needed to focus also on crime prevention, that we needed to focus also on more police officers on the street, and that we needed to focus also on more Crown prosecutors so that Crown prosecutions and the caseload could be handled in a timely manner.

We also said that we needed modern investigative techniques, and we had to have better coordination between different governments and different law enforcement agencies. We needed new laws to protect children against Internet luring and seniors against identity theft.

We made a whole variety of constructive suggestions about how to have a comprehensive justice agenda, but part of the proposal was to say that, insofar as the government had brought forward an agenda, we were prepared to fast-track three-quarters of that, and I think that was a constructive response.

[Extension of Sitting Hours, June 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the government, in proposing this motion today, has chosen once again to maintain its habitual lack of consultation and reluctance to attempt a collaborative approach to organizing the business of the House.

On more than one occasion, as I think the Chair will remember, I asked directly whether the government intended to make use of Standing Order 27. As other House leaders can confirm, the reply was, “probably not”. I do not think we would be off base in the opposition in expecting that if that were no longer the case, if the government had in fact changed its mind, that it would have decently given us a heads-up that it was going to propose this motion today, at least given us that notice some time earlier than around one o'clock this afternoon.

Frankly, as we saw the government House leader making his travels across the floor of the House, I will not say where he went, the heckling and yelling as he departed the chamber obviously indicates the kind of demeanour of which we have to deal.

I do not see what there is on the order paper at present that this motion will get through the House any more quickly than would have otherwise been the case. I presume, judging by the government House leader's remarks, that the government is principally concerned with Bill C-52, the budget bill.

It has represented to the House and to the public that the government is now extremely concerned the bill will not receive royal assent in time for certain expenditures to be booked in the appropriate fiscal year. Let us be clear. The fiscal year the Conservatives are talking about is 2006-07, and that is the point.

The issue is retroactive fiscal bookings for the last fiscal year, not the future fiscal year, as members would have gathered from the remarks of the government House leader. If there is concern about the lateness of the date, the government really has only itself to blame.

Usually federal budgets are delivered in or about the third week of February, which then permits the introduction of a budget implementation bill by the end of that month. If things are properly managed, this would permit the bill to be in committee before the end of March and to be passed at all stages by the end of May or, at the very latest, the beginning of June.

This year the government chose, for its own partisan reasons, to delay the budget until the third week of March. We did not even see it until then. Then it unilaterally interrupted the budget debate. Then having finished that, belatedly, it interrupted, again, the second reading debate on the budget implementation Bill C-52. That interruption lasted for three full weeks, getting the bill to committee only in the middle of May.

As a consequence, the government then bulldozed the bill through the committee, breaking procedural agreements, denying many interested and informed citizens and groups the right to testify on the bill. Let it be clearly understood that any procedural issue on Bill C-52 is a direct result of government breaking the agreement on the process, which had been fully settled by members of the committee.

Nevertheless, the bill is now only in its third day of debate at third reading and there is every indication that the third reading and final stage would come to an end in debate in the House by the end of business tomorrow at the latest.

It is important to underscore what these dates are with respect to the budget. Remember that the House resumed in the final week of January. The budget was not presented to the House until March 19, fully eight weeks into the parliamentary sitting. That was followed by a ways and means motion and the introduction of the budget bill, but that was delayed because the government interrupted its own budget debate on the financial principles of the government.

Its budget was late, the budget debate was unilaterally delayed by itself and then it finally got around to introducing the budget bill on March 29, which was debated at second reading for the first time on March 30. It was then debated in a haphazard, sporadic fashion, brought forward to the floor by the government, until April 23, and then it was hoisted altogether. The House did not see it again until May 14, full three weeks later.

Finally, it went to the committee, not as a result of any filibuster by the opposition or any party in the opposition. The delay was entirely the procedural mismanagement of the government. It was there for less than two weeks and one of those weeks was a break week when Parliament was not even sitting.

It finally passed through the committee, rather expeditiously, thanks to the cooperation of the opposition, and it was brought back to be debated at report stage on June 4. For how long? One day, that is all the report stage took. Now it is at third reading where there have been three days of debate, and probably a conclusion could have been arrived at very easily by the end of the day tomorrow.

This is why I made the point at the beginning of my remarks that there really is nothing on this order paper that could not be dealt with in the ordinary course of business without the measure the government House leader has introduced. Obviously it is a tactic to blame the opposition for the delays that lie entirely within the control of the government.

What is it then? If it is not Bill C-52, what is it that causes the government to move the motion today? Despite frequent requests for the government to outline its realistic legislative priorities before the summer, all we have heard repeatedly from the government House leader and from others on the government's side is a flow of partisan rhetoric. Legislation has in fact been moving along through the House and through committees, despite the government's erratic management of its agenda.

In fact, the most controversial bill on the order paper, and this is what gives me perhaps a little hope here, is probably Bill C-30, the clean air act, as it has been revised by members of Parliament. Significantly, only the government has been stalling it up to now. However, now we will have some extra time, some extra hours of sitting every day beginning on Wednesday.

Can we then conclude that the extra time the government is seeking is to facilitate the work of the House in consideration of Bill C-30? I certainly hope so. It is in this fervent hope that I indicate to the House that my party, the official Liberal opposition, will support the minister's motion for the extension of hours.

In the time available, in addition to Bill C-52, which will probably be done tomorrow, and in addition to Bill C-30, which I hope the government has the courage to recall and put before the House once again, the official opposition also looks forward to making progress on Bill C-11, lowering freight rates for farmers, on Bill C-14, dealing with foreign adoptions, on Bill C-23, dealing with criminal procedure, on Bill C-29, dealing with Air Canada and the use of official languages, on Bill C-35, dealing with bail reform, on Bill C-47, dealing with the Olympic, on Bill S-6 and Bill C-51, dealing with land claims and on Bill C-40, the private member's legislation that would provide free postage for mail from Canada to our troops in Afghanistan.

Then there is an item that was referred to in question period today. This is the bill we are anxiously awaiting to see, the one dealing with wage earner protection. I hope the government will follow through on the commitment given in question period, that it will table the bill in amended form so it can be passed at all stages and brought into law before Parliament adjourns for the summer recess.

Let me mention one other matter, which is outstanding and which should be dealt with by the House, or at least dealt with by the government when the House is sitting. This is the examination undertaken a few weeks ago by Mr. Brown in connection with the matters that have been of great concern to Canadians in respect of the RCMP pension fund.

As we understand it, there is a report due from Mr. Brown on June 15. That was the original undertaking given by the Minister of Public Safety. It would be very important for us to know that the examination is on time, that we will hear from Mr. Brown on time, and that the Minister of Public Safety will take the step that he promised to take and make that report public immediately.

Perhaps the government might also consider, in whatever time that remains before the summer recess, reforming its approach to the mood in the House. The mood could be improved if the government would refrain from certain of its more hostile practices. For example: no more gratuitous attack ads, no more broken agreements on how witnesses will be heard, no more manuals about dirty tricks for disrupting parliamentary business, and no more devious games to misuse Standing Orders of the House. A little good old fashioned good faith could change the mood for the better.

[Business of the House, June 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, this proceeding is impaired to a considerable extent because, until a moment that is just about to arrive, copies of the motion that was put before the House have not been available to any members of the House in order to deal with the subject matter. I had asked for a copy of the motion and it was provided to me and then taken away. I would like to have the copy again returned to me forthwith so I can see the language of what is being proposed here.

It seems to me that a condition precedent for this matter to proceed to the floor of the House of Commons is this question of urgency. The proceeding under Standing Order 53 specifically contemplates that the matter be urgent. In fact, the Chair is not in a position to even consider this item until the issue of urgency is established. The fact is that the motion does not, on its face or in anything that has been said so far, establish the condition precedent of urgency.

Let me inform members of what the motion says. It reads, “Given we ran out of time today to complete the debate on Bill C-52 and given that the failure to adopt Bill C-52 by both Houses before we adjourn for the summer will result in the loss of $4.3 billion in 2006-07 year-end measures...”, et cetera.

This is hypothetical. This is trying to anticipate events a full two weeks into the future.

The fact is that the issue is not urgent. Bill C-52 has been before the House of Commons for some time. However, let me point out that this Parliament began in the last week of January. The government did not bother to present a budget until March 19. It did not bother to present the budget bill until the end of March. How can it now argue, with two weeks more to go, that it is urgent?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, June 8th, 2007]

No they don't. They want you out.