Offshore Health and Safety Act  Mr. Speaker, through you, the member for St. John's East made a very eloquent statement about the nature of the work at committee on this matter and the fact that the government rejected the notion of a five-year review. Having worked on committees in which that five-year process

Northern Gateway Pipeline  Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, over 500 people crammed into an auditorium in Victoria to say no to the Enbridge northern gateway pipeline project. They stood united with the vast majority of British Columbians. They oppose this project because, unlike the Conservative government, the

An Act to amend the Access to Information Act (transparency and duty to document)  Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise today to speak in strong and enthusiastic support for the private member's bill introduced by my friend from Winnipeg Centre. I am a little concerned. I thought this bill would have found unanimous support in the House. I say that because I kn

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, in the answer by the parliamentary secretary he appears to have avoided the question before us, the issue of privilege, and spoke instead about vouching. I would like to speak to that and ask his views on it, and then ask his views on the merit of the substance of wh

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my friend from Welland for his thoughtful remarks and for putting this controversy into the broader perspective and reminding Canadians why they sometimes do not have the highest regard for politicians who misspeak. I think “misspeak” is

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, I understand that the statement made by the member that is at issue was something like, “I personally witnessed certain things”. That was repeated, and then some 19 days later was at least partially retracted. The member has referred to parliamentary traditions in o

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, whether one characterizes the conduct as lying or misleading or prima facie contempt, really the question for the member is, if a member knowingly misstates something, with the intention to mislead, and then comes back in a subsequent sitting of Parliament to correct

National Lyme Disease Strategy Act  Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise and speak to Bill C-442, an act respecting a national Lyme disease strategy at this second reading stage. Again, I would like to acknowledge the work of my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands in bringing forward this very important initiativ

National Lyme Disease Strategy Act  Mr. Speaker, I congratulate and thank my friend and neighbour from Saanich—Gulf Islands for her excellent presentation and for her hard work on the bill. During her speech, she alluded to certain amendments that might be brought forward at committee stage, and I wonder if she co

The Budget  Mr. Speaker, I know that Canadians watching would much rather talk about the reality of this budget than about who was at fault in the past for what happened. On this side of the House, we are going to talk about this budget for the afternoon, if we can. I want to ask a question

The Budget  Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my friend's discourse just moments ago. I note that there was a 400-page document in which the words “climate change” did not appear. There were five pages dealing with national parks, but they dealt mostly with the repaving of highw

The Budget  Mr. Speaker, speaking of the environment, I noticed that the words “climate change” do not even exist in the budget document. I notice that the Conservatives have spent millions on the National Energy Board to help us get fossil fuels to market more efficiently. I notice that the

Northwest Territories Devolution Act  Mr. Speaker, as I indicated earlier, one of the first nations, the Gwich'in, went so far as to drop a lawsuit that might have held up the deal, showing that it wanted to get on with this but that nothing was happening. Therefore, why we would have a bill that would create a board

Northwest Territories Devolution Act  Mr. Speaker, I do not understand the following. Consultation is not a “would be nice to have” thing, but it a “must-have” thing. The Supreme Court has made that abundantly clear. In many cases involving the north, and recently involving the Yukon self-government and the constitut

Northwest Territories Devolution Act  Mr. Speaker, I hope I was clear in my introductory remarks when I congratulated the parliamentary secretary for that initiative. I thought I was being clear when I agreed with him that economic development was crucial for the north and that the devolution part of the bill would g