Questions on the Order Paper  With regard to the Canada Summer Jobs Program for the Summer of 2017: (a) which organizations received funding; and (b) how much funding did each organization receive?

Salaries Act  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for speaking up for Quebec. I have a quick quote from the former president of the Quebec manufacturers and exporters, who says, “We have quite a few development programs with them in areas such as innovation and skilled labour. We are afraid they'll get mixed up with a national policy that won't necessarily work for Quebec.

Salaries Act  Mr. Speaker, my colleague really gets to the heart of the issue. For the government to address this simply in terms of salary, by increasing a minister of state's salary to a full minister's salary, is very inappropriate thing to do. It is inappropriate to increase the salary of someone who has not been given any additional responsibilities, does not have any additional authority, and does not have a department under him or her.

Salaries Act  Mr. Speaker, when it comes to issues of administration and the law, I will certainly defer to my colleague any day of the week. Again, he gets to the heart of the issue, in fleshing out what was said by Margot Young at committee: “Really, there's no gender substance, no equity substance on the basis of gender equality, to this legislation.”

Salaries Act  Mr. Speaker, I am not sure I devalued science or the science minister. In fact, I applauded the current innovation minister for his hard work for all Canadians. However, what I did say is that regardless of how great these people are, regardless of how great ministers or members they are, they cannot have an intimate knowledge of the regions across our country, whether Atlantic Canada, Quebec, the Prairies, northern Ontario, or our territories.

Salaries Act  Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on a couple of the member's thoughts as they related to the whole issue of consultation and listening to Canadians. When this committee was formed it did not listen to one person testify on the wisdom, or not, of removing ministers from the regional economic development agencies.

Salaries Act  Mr. Speaker, following the swearing-in of the Liberal cabinet after the 2015 election, the Prime Minister responded to a question regarding equal gender representation in cabinet with “because it's 2015”. It is now 2017 and the government's cabinet is no more gender equal today than it was then.

Salaries Act  Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her comments. Many times today, the government has referred to gender equity or equality and gender parity in cabinet. However, the expert that appeared at committee clearly pointed out that there is no substance to that fact in terms of this bill.

Salaries Act  Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his work in representing his constituents here in the House. In the first part of his comments, he talked about the regional economic development agencies. This bill would effectively remove the oversight by ministers of those agencies and put all of the control in Mississauga.

Salaries Act  Mr. Speaker, we talked earlier today about the gender equality piece. I want to refer now to the issue of the regional ministers. Currently, we have one minister in Mississauga who is making all of the regional development decisions for across Canada. The disturbing part to me is the fact that during the consultations on Bill C-24, not a single witness was called to discuss the potential implications of this drastic change.

Salaries Act  Madam Speaker, my colleague may have stretched the truth just a bit when he talked about a unanimous decision of Canadians to support this move to gender equality, and so on. For example, Professor Margot Young, a University of British Columbia law professor, speaking before the government operations committee on Bill C-24, had some comments to make.

Salaries Act  Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague. I welcome him to the House. He has been a great colleague. He represents his people very well. Earlier he quoted his grandmother from British Columbia. I congratulate him for that, but I would like to bring another British Columbian's perspective to this issue.

Access to Information Act  Madam Speaker, many times in the House today we have heard increased rhetoric about more accountability, often referencing the mandate letters. I had an opportunity on a number of occasions to refer to the Minister of Finance's mandate letter, dated November 12, 2015. The very first bullet point of the letter the Prime Minister delivered to the finance minister says, “In particular, I will expect you to work with your colleagues and through established legislative, regulatory, and Cabinet processes, including our first Budget, to deliver on your top priorities:” The very first priority was to “Ensure that our fiscal plan is sustainable by meeting our fiscal anchors of balancing the budget in 2019/20 and continuing to reduce the federal debt-to-GDP ratio throughout our mandate.”

Access to Information Act  Madam Speaker, I made a comment in my remarks about the fact that any department or minister can simply refuse to answer an access to information request on the basis of the request being vexatious, but there are two different criteria that allow them not to answer the request.

Access to Information Act  Madam Speaker, that question is very easy to answer. Yes, I do believe that this bill would make it less possible for Canadians to access the information they want. The mandate letters have been referred to multiple times today in the House. I would ask my colleague, what about the mandate letters on electoral reform or door-to-door delivery?