Parliamentary Speeches

Mr. Speaker, I know we are coming up to a break week, and I want to wish everyone well. I know there is still work to be done in our constituencies. It has been four weeks, and I am sure the work has piled up, so I wish everybody a great week, and a restful week as well, because we are heading into the final stretch before the summer break. Could the government House leader advise the House of the business when we get back on May 30 and, of course, the business of the remainder of the week?

Madam Chair, our interpreters are truly the glue that holds together our bilingual Parliament, and I will be asking the minister questions concerning parliamentary interpretation. Our bilingual Parliament is the product of a strong Conservative legacy. Sir John A. MacDonald and Sir George-Étienne Cartier made the use of both official languages an essential right in this Parliament when they negotiated Confederation; Richard Bennett established the translation bureau, which has ensured that unilingual parliamentarians have had access to the words of their colleagues; John Diefenbaker introduced the use of simultaneous interpretation into the proceedings of this House, permitting real-time comprehension for all MPs, and Brian Mulroney finally entrenched the right to parliamentary interpretation in the Official Languages Act. Sadly, the Liberal government has neglected the interpretation services for this House, which have regrettably atrophied and been overwhelmed. We live in the consequences every day now, and it is just another chapter in the Liberals' democratic decline. Does the minister agree with me that our interpreters are an absolutely essential feature of Parliament, and that we must do everything we can to support them?

Madam Chair, I am glad to hear the minister's commitment, but her department's record speaks to the contrary. The minister was a member of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in 2018 when it reported to the House that the “Translation Bureau...is mandated by statute to be the exclusive provider of translation and interpretation services...to Parliament.” Does she still stand by the view she helped write in the report?

Madam Chair, we have had committees tightly rationed with meeting time in the past few weeks, and we have seen many committee meetings, including very important meetings, cancelled because of a lack of interpretation services. Simply put, our committees cannot do the things they want, and they certainly cannot hold the government to account adequately. If her translation bureau is supposed to be the exclusive provider of services, is she not concerned about the lack of resources she is making available to support the proceedings of this House and its committees, and what is the minister doing to actually make sure Parliament has the resources necessary to hold the government to account?

Madam Chair, earlier I mentioned the great concerns the opposition parties are having in terms of our ability to hold the government to account, and it is at the mercy of the resources the government makes available for that purpose. Has the government been gaming the system to ensure the resources are unavailable for the committees it does not like, such as the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency and its motion to order the production of documents on the Liberals' increasingly flimsy invocation of the Emergencies Act?

Madam Chair, that was no answer. Knowing the role hybrid Parliament has had in skyrocketing workplace injury reports among the ever-dwindling ranks of interpreters, which are, again, facts, has the minister informed the government House leader that the single biggest step we can take to avert this looming catastrophe would be the end of hybrid Parliament and the return to regular parliamentary business?

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I remind the Chair that yesterday I rose on a similar point of order related to Motion No. 11, which says: a minister of the Crown may, with the agreement of the House leader of another recognized party, rise from his or her seat at any time during a sitting, but no later than 6:30 p.m., and request that the ordinary hour of daily adjournment for the current sitting or a subsequent sitting be 12 a.m. The government House leader did that. Would he please indicate to the House which other House leader agreed to this? I ask because it was not me.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for rising on this, because she quite rightly said that Motion No. 11 says “agreement” among the parties; it does not say “consultation” among the parties. The House certainly has the right and privilege to know with whom the agreement was made, or which other leader of the House of a recognized party made it, as Motion No. 11 states. I ask for some clarity on this. It is quite clear in Motion No. 11 that agreement must be had. There was no agreement by me. Certainly the hon. member from the Bloc said there was no agreement from him. I think we need it stated clearly where that agreement came from, as Motion No. 11 dictates. It does not say “consultation”. A consultation according to the party opposite is simply sending an email around. There has to be clear agreement. Who made that agreement?

Madam Speaker, obviously I rise disappointed in the government's action. It is only a small thing like amending the Constitution, so why would we have fulsome debate on that and allow members to speak? I think at this point we have only had 10 speakers speak to the bill, but I have no doubt that we will hear indignation from the government House leader and, of course, his partner in the NDP, and about obstruction. We will hear that the Conservatives are obstructing the House. We are actually fulfilling our constitutional obligation of holding the government to account, and for that we are not going to apologize. Motion No. 11 allowed for the government to extend hours not just to have fulsome debate, but to make sure issues that are important to Her Majesty's loyal opposition, and indeed other opposition parties, are debated in the House. Spare me if I cry crocodile tears for what the government is about to talk about and certainly what its partners in the NDP will be talking about. This is all about democracy in decline. I was very pleased to hear the Minister of Infrastructure agree with that fact. The other thing I want to point out is that as these extended hours are happening, committees get cancelled, which we saw tonight with regard to the Emergencies Act committee. The whitewashing and the undermining of getting to the bottom of this continue to happen with the cancellation of these committees, and certainly the NDP is a party to it. We are not going to be lapdogs like the NDP is to the government. We are going to continue to push. We are going to continue to make sure that we hold the government to account and make sure that we are not just an audience, as the Prime Minister and certainly the government House leader would like us to be. We are going to be an effective and loyal opposition to Her Majesty. That is all I have to say. Here comes the indignation. It is going to be good. Hang on to your seat, Madam Speaker. Go ahead.

moved: That it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Finance that, during its consideration of Bill C-19, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022 and other measures, the committee be granted the power to divide the bill into two pieces of legislation: (i) Bill C-19A, An Act to amend the Civil Lunar Gateway Agreement Implementation Act, Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Criminal Code, the Judges Act, the Federal Courts Act and the Tax Court of Canada Act, containing divisions 18, 19, 21 and 22 of Part 5 of the bill, (ii) Bill C-19B, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022 and other measures, containing all the remaining provisions of the bill. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on this and to advise you that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, a beautiful part of the country. Of course, the predecessor of the hon. member was a good friend of all of us, Gord Brown, who passed away tragically. He was an hon. member of Parliament and conducted himself with great integrity, at one point as the opposition whip, and he is greatly missed in this place. The reason why I rise today is to discuss a curious part of the bill, the budget implementation act, which, of course, as we are aware of, is an omnibus bill, a bill that includes many provisions in it. It totals, roughly, well over 400 pages, and it is a difficult bill to comprehend, in the sense of the volume of the bill and the amount of information that is in it. There is one curious issue about this bill that I think requires further consideration by the committee. That is why I stand here today to propose splitting this bill, to really give the committee an opportunity to look much deeper into this aspect of the BIA, an act to enact the civil lunar gateway agreement implementation act and amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Criminal Code, the Judges Act, the Federal Courts Act and the Tax Court of Canada Act, containing certain divisions. Effectively, what this means is that what the government is proposing on this, and this is why it is curious and why it needs to have further study at committee, including the potential for further witnesses to talk about the consequences of this bill, relates to travel to the moon. We are assuming that, obviously, astronauts are going to the moon. I do not think, and I stand to be corrected, that there has been a situation where a Canadian astronaut has been to the moon, but of course we have had several who have been on the space shuttle and have circumnavigated the earth, and we are very proud. One is in the House right now and I congratulate the hon. member for that. I will note, Mr. Speaker, that you pointed him out, not I, but we are all proud of Canada's involvement in the space program. The hon. member conducted himself very distinguishedly and proudly as an astronaut, and there have been several others before and certainly after. In fact, I recall that, just a couple of weeks ago, the hon. member rose and paid tribute to a fellow astronaut who was part of the space program. When we lose that legacy, it is difficult. Curiously, I am not aware of any plans. I know there are plans to go to Mars, for example. This part of the budget implementation act did not address the part about Mars, but I am not aware of any plans for lunar landings. I am not aware of any plans that there are going to be any bases on the moon to which these provisions, not just of the Criminal Code but of the tax act, would apply. I assume that if astronauts do land on the moon and they are paid, they will have to pay tax on it. We are just not sure of that and what impact this would have. I think this speaks to a broader problem, as I speak to the budget implementation act. I am not even sure what the tax rates on the moon will be. I suspect that maybe they would be higher than they are currently. The only good thing is that there may not necessarily be an affordability crisis on the moon that I am aware of. Of course, if the government is still in power when astronauts do land or live on the moon, I suspect it will be looking at ways to increase levels of affordability on the moon. We are trying to give the committee, seriously, an opportunity to take this part of the bill and look at it in more depth. As I said earlier, the budget implementation act is an omnibus bill. Despite the fact that the Prime Minister said in 2015 that he would end omnibus bills and there would be no more omnibus bills, there are hundreds of provisions in this bill, which does constitute and classify it as an omnibus bill. What the Prime Minister did in 2015, as he has done many times over the course of the last several years, was break another promise. This is another broken promise not to have any more omnibus bills, yet we have an omnibus bill with this type of provision in it, and it is difficult to understand what the impact of that is going to be. Therefore, having the committee analyze the bill and extract it from the budget implementation act, basically separate it out to be able to study it a bit further, is important, and it is important to understand what its implications are. As I said, we are not aware of any lunar plans for Canadians to either land or cohabitate on the moon. However, if they are going to be paying taxes and doing some of the other things that this part of the budget calls for, then I think we need to have a better understanding of that. I want to speak as well to the types of actions by the government. We see an omnibus bill when the government ran on saying it would not be implementing omnibus bills. We are seeing some other things happening, for example Motion No. 11, which we have talked about in this House previously. This all adds to a further decline in democracy and really speaks to the trust in our democratic institutions. Recently, and I have said this previously in the House, the Ethics Commissioner came to the procedure and House affairs committee and I asked him about the decline in democracy and the decline in the faith that Canadians have in their institutions, all institutions. When we see these types of motions, like Motion No. 11, and promises not being kept with respect to acts like the budget implementation act, which is clearly an omnibus bill, it further adds to that decline in democracy, and I think all Canadians and certainly all parliamentarians are concerned that we are heading in that direction. Therefore, we should give the committee an opportunity to look at this part of the bill, and there are many other parts of the budget implementation act that in my opinion should be separated and pulled out from the entire act so that the committee can do its job. On the subject of the debate we have had, perhaps we could have been talking, debating and asking questions of the government as to what this particular part of the budget implementation act means, but the reality is that we were given very little time to discuss the BIA. The government imposed time allocation. I believe there were only five hours of debate on a 400-plus-page omnibus bill and 11 speakers who had an opportunity to speak to it. If not on this, then perhaps on other parts of this budget implementation act we could have asked the government what it means and perhaps debated it and offered suggestions. What I am trying to do is make sure the committee is able to do its work and look at this particular part, and there are many parts of this bill. I hope it does, for the sake of the faith in our institutions and certainly the faith in our committees. We see other committees that are doing very important work right now, for example the foreign affairs committee, which is studying Ukraine and what is going on in the South China Sea and how Canada can be better prepared for those things. We see games being played by the government, which is adding to this further erosion in the trust and confidence Canadians have in our institutions, and it is certainly adding to a decline in what we are seeing in many western democracies around the world. We are going to continue to make sure that Canadians have answers. In terms of the level of importance, I would say it is probably not at the top, but there are questions that need to be answered with respect to this part of the budget implementation act, which is why I stand today to ask that we separate this part of the BIA.

Madam Speaker, the hon. member referenced the electoral reform committee and the study that was done. I know that the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands was on that committee. The hon. member was not here, but there was a consensus among opposition parties to bring proportional representation to the House, with the caveat that a referendum be put to Canadians with an understanding, of course, that it is not parliamentarians who own the voting system in this country; it is Canadians. It was a reasonable proposal on the part of the opposition members, yet the Liberal government voted against it at the time because ranked ballots were not its preferred choice. I am wondering if the member could comment on his disappointment, which we all had, that we did not get to that point because of the government.

Madam Speaker, if I could, I would certainly want to use a unanimous consent motion to give the member more time to speak to this because he was so riveting. I know that you, Madam Speaker, were paying great attention. We want to ensure that the committee's work is recognized in this House on an important issue, especially with all of the geopolitical issues going on around the world, not the least of which is what is happening in Ukraine, but also the sabre-rattling that is going on in the South China Sea basin as it relates to Taiwan, recognizing the importance of Taiwan and its inclusion in the World Health Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization. That is what the committee came back with and that is what we are concurring on today. If that is not important, I do not know what is. Also, we are hearing a lot from the Liberals about the issue of obstruction. The House hours were extended until midnight tonight. As it stands right now, there are zero Liberal members scheduled to speak tonight to the government legislation. So far on Bill C-14, there have only been three. The prediction that I made in this House on Motion No. 11 is that, in effect, we could have opposition members solely speaking to government legislation and the government not trying to convince Canadians why it is important for these pieces of legislation to pass. I am wondering if the hon. member has comments as to why there are no scheduled Liberal speakers tonight on an important piece of legislation like Bill C-14.

Mr. Speaker, I just turned 58, so I was not that young, but I remember watching the hon. member and feeling that sense of Canadian pride, and seeing that patch on his shoulder as he flew into space on the space shuttle. It was a terrific moment, a very proud moment as a Canadian to see the hon. member and his colleagues, many of whom have followed in his footsteps. The Artemis program is probably years away. There are some curious questions in here, as I said, around the amount of tax that astronauts are going to be paying if they are living on the moon, and the relation to the tax court and the Criminal Code and how that applies. These are the kinds of questions that I think we could have had a fulsome debate on in this House, if the government had not moved time allocation and restricted debate on all parliamentarians.

Mr. Speaker, that is a great question. I want to thank the hon. member. I am not going to thank the government for imposing Motion No. 11 on us, which extends hours to midnight so that we could debate very important topics that Canadians are seized with. If the hon. member wants to spend time debating these, if he wants to extend sittings to midnight, Conservatives, and I said this the very day we debated Motion No. 11, will be here every single night, as the government requires, to debate those issues that are important to Canadians. We are also going to be debating government legislation tonight, right up until midnight, Bill C-14. When I rose earlier, how many speakers from the government side were willing to debate that? None. Just as we predicted, it will be the opposition debating government legislation. It will be the opposition asking the opposition questions on government legislation. The government put us in this position to debate these issues that are important to Canadians, just like taxes on the moon and the Criminal Code on the moon, and we are going to be here to debate them as long as we need to.

Mr. Speaker, I hope when it does get to committee we are going to be able to deal with that. I know there has already been a programming motion put forward at committee, but again, this is a government that said it would not implement an omnibus bill. It has done it now consecutively for I do not know how many years in a row, but that is what we get when we have omnibus bills: the difficulty of dealing with these particular issues when they need to be dealt with. There are many others.

Madam Speaker, I rise on an important point of order. I will refer members to Motion No. 11. Section (a) of Motion No. 11 refers to: ...a minister of the Crown may, with the agreement of the House leader of another recognized party, rise from his or her seat at any time during a sitting, but no later than 6:30 p.m., and request that the ordinary hour of daily adjournment for the current sitting or a subsequent sitting be 12:00 a.m. Earlier this evening, the Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance rose to announce extended sittings for tomorrow night. I assume that he had the permission of another recognized party's House leader. I know that it did not come from me. I spoke to my hon. friend from the Bloc Québécois and it did not come from him. There should be an expectation, at a minimum, that when a minister rises and says that he has the approval of another recognized party's House leader, the party's House leader should be named. That was not done in this case, and I am asking for clarification on that. At a minimum, the House needs to understand which other recognized party House leader agreed to extend its sittings, as called for in the motion.

Madam Speaker, I really enjoy working with the hon. member in the time that we have been here, since 2015. I want to pick up on a point that the hon. member made. I recall when the electoral reform committee was constituted, there was a tremendous amount of work that went into it. The member for Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston was on that committee. There were recommendations that all of the opposition parties agreed to, not the least of which was to recommend the idea of proportional representation, but again, bring it to Canadians in a referendum. There can be an argument made as to where we go. I understand that the NDP is in favour of a citizens' assembly, but would she not agree with me and reaffirm that a promise was not kept by the Prime Minister? He did not get his preferred choice of voting, which would have been a ranked system, but more so, the issue of proportional representation, bringing it to Canadians and letting them decide on what type of voting system should be enacted is important.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, a 17-year-old was shot in the Liberal-held riding of Don Valley East, in the parking lot of Victoria Park Collegiate. Instead of dealing with the real problem infesting the streets of Liberal-held ridings, which is gang and criminal illegal handgun use, these Liberals would rather engage in cheap political stunts by attacking duck and deer hunters to make it look like they are doing something. In fact, they are solving nothing. Why will Liberal MPs not act as emboldened as the gangs and the criminals in their ridings, and go after those who are shooting up their streets with illegal handguns?

Mr. Speaker, this week a shooting happened in the Liberal-held riding of St. Catharines during a jewellery store robbery. The pattern of gun crime in Liberal ridings has nothing to do with farmers, hunters, sport shooters or collectors, or with scary military assault weapons. It has to do with gangs, criminals and illegal handguns. Even with clear evidence of illegal handgun shootings in their ridings, Liberals, including the MP for St. Catharines, spread disinformation on what the real cause of gun crime is in this country. Why are Liberals spreading disinformation when it comes to the real cause of gun crime in Canada and, worse yet, why are they doing nothing to solve the problem?

Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. I want to thank the hon. member for bringing to your attention exactly what happened. We, as Conservatives, experienced the same situation. The information that was received by us in the lobby was not complete, so it would obviously call into question whether we received the accurate information. As the hon. member said, it is a 440-page omnibus bill, despite the fact that the government said it would never introduce an omnibus bill. We have and share the exact same concerns, not the least of which is its contents, whether in fact we have received the proper contents and whether we are able to disseminate those contents in our work at committee and in the House as well. I will speak to the broader issue, which is that this is a pattern on the government side of not having the ability, for some reason, to manage providing this type of information in an appropriate way to the opposition. I would add as well that, in spite of the information we received, which we deem as incomplete, and as the hon. member argued, we were only allowed five hours of debate in this place on Bill C-19, which amounted to a total of 11 speakers. Obviously, the privileges of the members in the House are paramount and we should be receiving exactly identical information, particularly on an important piece of legislation such as the budget implementation act, which is 440 pages. Several of those pages were missing from what the opposition parties received, and it was therefore incomplete. I ask that you look at this judiciously, and come back with what I would expect to be a favourable ruling on the hon. member's point of order.

Mr. Speaker, in Liberal-held ridings across the country, gun and gang violence is escalating, and it is not escalating because of law-abiding firearms owners. Last Saturday, around three in the morning, there was a deadly shooting on Sheppard Avenue in Scarborough. On Tuesday, police arrested the suspect who had been arrested 48 hours earlier for an unrelated robbery. There have been 137 shootings in Toronto in 2022. Instead of wasting time going after law-abiding firearms owners, why is the minister not protecting public safety by going after the gangsters shooting up his streets in Toronto?

Mr. Speaker, violent crime is not limited to the GTA. Monday night, there was a drive-by shooting not far from the Prime Minister's office in his riding of Papineau. That shooting came less than two days after another drive-by in Laval, a Liberal-held riding, where a family was shot at while driving back from a birthday party. Instead of targeting criminals, the Liberals prefer to punish law-abiding hunters, collectors and sport shooters. Can someone explain to me why the Prime Minister is more interested in protecting violent criminals and gangs in his community than the families in his community?

Excuse me, Madam Speaker. I listened to the member's speech. He has the same name as some of my relatives who live near Montreal: my uncle Gaston, who recently passed away, my aunt Cédia and my cousins Diane and Francine. The member spoke about the need to offer support to the francophone community in Quebec. For me, it is very important to do so across the country. There is a francophone community in my riding of Barrie—Innisfil. When I speak to students, I talk to them about the importance of French. There are many opportunities in French, not just in Canada and Ontario, but around the world. Could the member speak about the importance of French for the youth of our country?

Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the fact that we are engaged in time allocation on what is a very important bill on censorship, the irony is not lost on me that the government is censoring members of Parliament from speaking to this bill. I look forward to this going to committee, because the witnesses we are going to get, I suspect, will speak mainly against this bill, including Dr. Michael Geist, who is the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa. He said: Indeed, for all the talk that user generated content is out, the truth is that everything from podcasts to TikTok videos fit neatly into the new exception that gives the CRTC the power to regulate such content as a “program”. I know the member for Perth—Wellington spoke about what guidelines the CRTC is going to receive. Why is the government not tabling those guidelines to Parliament so that we can understand and, in fact, Canadians can understand better what the direction of the CRTC will be from the government after this bill is passed, which is ridiculous?

Madam Speaker, let me begin by sharing my concern for the residents of the hon. member's riding. I know they are in good hands and he is going to work extremely hard on their behalf to ensure that the situation is rectified for the safety of all the residents he represents. This was once a place of informed debate. The concern with this bill, specifically as it relates to the CRTC and the policy directive to the CRTC happening after the bill is passed, causes me and, I am sure, many Canadians great concern. I am wondering if the hon. member can reflect on what the consequences of that may be as it relates to the online content of Canadians.

Madam Speaker, one of the most concerning parts about Bill C-11 is that the government does not have to release the policy directive to the CRTC on user-generated content, and it does not have to do it while we are debating the bill. In fact, the expectation is that, once the bill is passed, the policy directive will be shared with the CRTC. In the absence of any knowledge of what that directive may look like, does it not concern the Bloc that this bill does not reflect what that policy directive is as we debate the bill? We are effectively debating something that we are not sure of, in terms of what is going to happen. Is that not a concern to my hon. colleague?

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to once again rise in the House to speak on behalf of my constituents in Barrie—Innisfil. I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent. Today is an opposition day, which means that one of the opposition parties gets to decide the topic of conversation here in the House. This is one of two Bloc opposition days this spring, when we get to discuss some matters that are important to the Bloc and I expect to the people of Quebec. With great respect to my colleagues, and I mean that sincerely, we should be discussing issues that are having a profound impact on Canadians and Quebeckers, such as affordability, the RCMP investigation into the fraud of the Prime Minister and his lucky break with regard to that, the Liberals' conduct on foreign relations and government mismanagement with regard to accountability. We have a passport crisis, a fiasco, that is happening in this country that should be discussed. There is also the increasingly sketchy justification shown by the government for invoking the Emergencies Act. That is just to name a few. This country has never been more divided than it has been in the last six and a half years, along regional, racial, ethnic and faith lines. The division we have seen in the last six and a half years is a result of the Prime Minister wedging, stigmatizing and dividing Canadians. We have been hearing a lot of disinformation in the House from the government side, and it is, quite frankly, disturbing. It relates to the invocation of the Emergencies Act. Talking today about Standing Order 30 will not, I suspect, gather much attention across this country, perhaps with the exception of the House. I do not know about anyone else, but when I was in my riding this weekend, as I am every weekend, not a single person came up to me and asked what my position was on Standing Order 30. What is Standing Order 30? In short, it directs the Speaker to read a prayer at the start of the day's sitting before the TV cameras are turned on. No one sees this. It is a private moment of reflection for the 338 of us who sit in the House. That is why the Speaker always follows the moment of reflection with “Let the doors be opened”. The doors are opened and the public comes in. Only on the rarest of occasions has the public ever actually been privy to it. My staff told me, and some staff have been here for more than 40 years, a long time, that the last occasion the prayer was read in public was October 23, 2014. That is the day after the terrorist attack at Centre Block and the National War Memorial. That was the day that Kevin Vickers, the Sergeant-at-Arms who downed the armed gunman in the Hall of Honour, led the Speaker's parade into the House. Mr. Vickers was rightly greeted with a sustained three-minute standing ovation by a packed chamber that morning. The prayer was read, and I can say that I understand the moment and the incidents of that week really put into perspective the prayer's call to “give thanks for the great blessings which have been bestowed on Canada and its citizens, including the gifts of freedom, opportunity and peace that we enjoy.” After the prayer, the House erupted into a very emotional and heartfelt rendition of O Canada. Mr. Vickers, the true hero he was, did not gloat in arrogance or beam with pride. Rather, he struggled valiantly to keep his tears to a minimum, much as we might expect any genuine Canadian hero to be: modest in demeanour and deeply humbled by displays of gratitude. All of that was visible to Canadians that day because the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, who was then the Speaker, made the executive decision to allow Canadians into the galleries and for the TV cameras to be turned on so we could witness it. The House needed it and the nation needed it, especially after a very distressing day in Ottawa, when no one really quite knew what or how much was happening. The video of that morning of raw emotions when the prayer was open to the public can still send chills down one's spine. That procedure of a prayer normally read in private is rooted, as I mentioned, in Standing Order 30, which traces its origins to 1927, when our rule book went through a significant update driven by a special committee chaired by the Speaker. That amendment was a simple codification of a practice that began in the 1870s after the adoption of a recommendation from another special committee. The current prayer read daily was developed by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in 1994 under the chairmanship of Peter Milliken, with a view to having a short prayer reflecting the diversity of religions embraced by Canadians. Do we see a pattern here? It is that committees and consensus drove these decisions. Canada's Conservatives have long held and long observed the importance and necessity of amending our internal rules and procedures through consensus. It is an important point when we are talking about the rules that regulate the balance between governments and oppositions, especially when we consider the fact that Canadians ask Conservatives and Liberals to swap sides of this chamber every few years. Another switch, I am sure, is coming pretty soon. The approach is just as relevant when it comes to matters of conscience such as prayer. On top of that, we are required by our own rules to conduct a review of our procedures after every election. The motion would have been a natural suggestion to raise then. Standing Order 51 requires the House to hold a day-long discussion sometime between the 60th and 90th sitting day of the Parliament. The results of that conversation are then referred to the procedure and House affairs committee to consider. Today is the 68th day the House has sat since the election. Based on our calendar, the 90th sitting day will be on June 16. Quite literally, we are going to be holding a comprehensive discussion about changes to our procedures sometime within the next five weeks. A member of the Bloc could have used a few minutes of his or her 10-minute speaking slot to make the suggestion and then seen where the committee goes with that idea. Perhaps a consensus would form around the proposal in today's Bloc motion. Maybe the consensus would back the status quo, or possibly even recommend some third approach we have not thought of yet. That speaks to the power of parliamentary committees and of consensus-based rule-making, and it should be happening in this case, as well. Therefore, I will be voting against the Bloc motion, because I sincerely believe that permanent changes to our procedural rules, and especially on a subject matter like this, really ought to come from a Standing Order review process, be deliberated upon by a committee and be implemented as the result of a consensus-based recommendation coming from that committee of MPs, as they always have been.

Madam Speaker, I am not sure if the motion he is referring to was about national oil day, or whether it spoke to the importance of energy independence in this country and not relying on despot nations such as Russia for dependence on oil, or on Venezuela or Saudi Arabia. I guess there is a fundamental difference in perhaps, and I say this respectfully, what the Bloc feels is important. This, to me, is not necessarily an important issue when it comes to the orders of this place. It is done, as I said, in private. There is a moment for quiet reflection, and oftentimes in that quiet reflection I pray for a change of government. I pray for a return to normalcy in this country, where Canadians are united once again and not divided. Those are some of the things I focus on in my time of quiet of reflection in private, in this chamber at the start of every session.

Madam Speaker, I think the hon. member knows the answer to the question. Absolutely, as I referred to in my speech today, there is a long-standing process for us to change the Standing Orders. I am looking forward to that discussion. I am sure that all members on all sides of the House will have suggestions on how we can improve the Standing Orders, not the least of which, and I hope there is all-party consensus for this, is that we end this fiasco of virtual sittings and get back to some sense of normalcy, where all members come back in this place, as other legislatures have done in G7 countries around the world and other provinces in this country. It is time we get back to normal, and I hope that the Standing Orders will reflect that.

Madam Speaker, I hope that I did not diminish, in any way. I really tried to show respect to the Bloc's motion on this. It is the party's right, in the supply period, to have these types of opposition day motions. They get two, as I mentioned. There was a notice of two motions that were put on the order paper on Friday. We knew that one of those two was a possibility, and we prepared for the eventuality that this may be the motion. Again, I go back to the Standing Orders being the appropriate venue to change the Standing Orders based on consensus, based on the involvement of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and based on deliberation through that process. This is a long-standing tradition and process that we should continue to engage in, and not use opposition day motions to change the Standing Orders.

Madam Speaker, I am not quite surprised by this. The only thing surprising me is that the motion was not seconded by the NDP House leader. This is just amazing to me. This is a government that argued with its coalition partners in the NDP about Motion No. 11. What Motion No. 11 was going to do was expand the time, give more opportunities for members to speak by expanding the hours, and yet, with just two and a half days of debate, the government moved time allocation on an important piece of legislation, doing the exact opposite of what it argued Motion No. 11 was going to do. Before the Liberals spare us the false indignation of obstruction, in fact what the government is doing is utilizing this motion to obstruct members of Parliament from doing their job, which is providing oversight and scrutiny on important pieces of legislation. Therefore, it is not surprising to me that we are at this point. I know the opposition House leader is going to go on about Friday and about the movement of a motion to committee, splitting up a bill. We called a vote. There was no reason for Bill C-19 not to be debated, except the filibuster by the government. My question is a simple one. Is it not true that the government House leader and the Prime Minister, in fact, because of this tag-team partnership with the NDP, actually have exactly what they want and need in this Parliament, and that is an audience, not an opposition?

Madam Speaker, it does not give me any pleasure, but I am a rising on a question of privilege concerning an occurrence of misconduct that happened in the House of Commons late Friday afternoon by a member of the Liberal Party. As it would happen, I had just left the chamber about 10 minutes prior, as I had to hit the road to make an important engagement in Barrie—Innisfil on Friday evening, so I am raising this at my earliest opportunity. The facts are these: The hon. member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake rose on a point of order to inquire whether the Liberal member for Brampton Centre was participating virtually from an inappropriate location. A brief discussion arose, and at its conclusion the Assistant Deputy Speaker confirmed this to the House, which is documented at page 4931 of the Debates, when she said, “I have confirmation from the Table that a page has confirmed that there was a member who appeared to be in the washroom.” I have subsequently been informed that those who witnessed the events saw quite clearly the Liberal MP enter what appeared to be a toilet stall in one of the men's washrooms located on this very floor of this building. The visible stonework, the wooden door, the stainless steel door hinges and the coat hook on the back of the door, which is part of the long side of the stall, looked quite familiar to all, I am told. Based on the angle, I am informed that it appeared that the camera was mounted on the ledge or ridge on the wall just above the back of the toilet. The member of Parliament was literally using the washroom while participating in a sitting of the House of Commons, the cathedral of Canadian democracy. I cannot believe I actually just said those words. You might think that this is an unprecedented situation, but sadly and unbelievably, it is not. In fact, there is a recent precedent that is practically identical. The former member for Pontiac Will Amos also used the washroom on camera during a sitting of the House just last May. In his case, he urinated into a coffee cup for all to see. The Chair ruled on June 7, 2021, at page 8034 of the Debates, that this was a prima facie contempt and invited my colleague, the hon. member for Elgin—Middlesex—London, to move a motion to refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The committee did not have the opportunity to take up the matter and report its reflections on what was then an unprecedented situation during the two sitting weeks between the ruling and the dissolution of Parliament. In light of Mr. Amos's subsequent retirement, the matter was not pursued further in the current Parliament. The Chair's words in making last spring's ruling are, I think, equally pertinent today. He said: The Chair has on many occasions reminded members that virtual sessions are an extension of the proceedings of the House and that their conduct must respect our rules and practices, even if they are participating remotely. I want to reiterate, yet again, the importance of everyone adjusting to the temporary measures put in place in response to the pandemic and exercising continued vigilance to prevent such incidents from recurring. As soon as a member connects to a virtual sitting and opens their camera, they are considered to be, for all intents and purposes, in the House. There is no dispute about the facts in question, and they constitute a serious breach of the rules of decorum and an affront against the dignity of the House. House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, states, at page 60, “Any conduct which offends the authority or dignity of the House...is referred to as a contempt of the House.” Frankly, we have now had two years of Zoom meetings in a hybrid Parliament. Surely to God we have figured out when and where to turn our cameras on and off. It is the Liberal Party, the party that keeps shoving hybrid procedures down our throats, that cannot seem to get its act together. On Friday, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader did not react with the shock and contrition that one might naturally expect in this situation. Instead, he tried to present this as a positive thing when he said: When people are in their offices, working virtually, sometimes it can be very easy to shy away from the camera to do something else, much like we might shift over a couple of seats. I believe the most important thing is that members have the camera on and are in the room. I cannot believe that. The most important thing is that the member for Brampton Centre's camera was on and he was in the shot. The room in question was a toilet stall, for crying out loud. The Liberals simply do not get it. If you ask me, given the blatant disrespect the Liberals have shown Parliament over the past couple of years, from playing games with the resources available for committees to posing grave health risks for our dwindling ranks of simultaneous interpreters, to quite literally urinating in the House, the answer here is to shut down the hybrid parliament and end this remote participation. It is time we all get back here, in our places in this chamber. On top of the disrespect shown to the House, there is also the matter of the potential consequential effects here on Parliament Hill. Under the Canada Labour Code, each of us is required to have an occupational health and safety officer. My health and safety officer has impressed upon me some very legitimate concerns that, when entering any given washroom in the West Block, parliamentary staff now have to wonder whether any of the MPs they may encounter, Liberal in this case, are carrying an active video camera connected to a live, televised broadcast. Government Motion No. 11 has already put enough burdens and strain on all the staff of this place, who support the functions of the House. The last thing we need is now to add the stress that their privacy might be compromised by some Liberal MP desperate not to incur the wrath of the chief government whip by not contributing to quorum, at least until 6:30 when Motion No. 11 lets them go have patio drinks down on Sparks Street with their coalition partners in the NDP, while the rest of us are here carrying on the nation's business. In conclusion, just like last year, there is no dispute about the facts in question. They were, as I said, confirmed by the chair occupant, the Assistant Deputy Speaker, on Friday afternoon. A clearly relevant, precisely on point and well-remembered precedent is on our books. This case, I believe, is open and shut. Therefore, if you agree that this incident amounts to a prima facie contempt, I am prepared to move the following motion, “That the prima facie contempt concerning the misconduct of the member for Brampton Centre committed in the presence of the House be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.” That motion is, in fact, identical to the one the Speaker allowed on June 7, 2021, with, of course, the substitution of the riding name for the offending Liberal member of Parliament. On the strength of undisputed facts and a clear precedent, I invite you to rule now from the chair, so that the House may pronounce itself on the disappointing and contemptuous conduct of yet another Liberal MP.

Here are the facts, Madam Speaker. Two concurrence motions have been moved: one on fisheries and one on ethics. There was an important issue with respect to fisheries coming out of committee and, of course, important issues as they relate to the scandalous behaviour of the government on ethics. Bill C-8 was introduced December 16, and we had 10 weeks when the House was not sitting. What did the Liberals expect for the fall economic statement, when we are not going to have debate on this? The other thing we are seeing is that before the coalition agreement with the NDP, the NDP sided with the government 89% of the time on votes. Since that coalition agreement, it has sided with the government 95% of the time. It is not surprising to me that I am hearing the NDP House leader parroting the talking points of the government. The fact is that we are seeing a decline in democracy. This is the government's attempt to seize complete control over this place on important legislation, such as Bill C-19, when members have the right to speak and members have the right to move motions. We have those rights because these are important issues to Canadians. Will the government House leader just admit that he is contributing to a further decline in democracy in this country, and that Canadians did not vote for a coalition agreement between the NDP and the Liberals? They actually voted for an effective opposition, including the Conservative Party, which, by the way, is the official opposition: Her Majesty's loyal opposition. We will continue to do our job, despite the fact that the government does not want us to do it.

Madam Speaker, gas is 194.9¢ per litre in Barrie today. Enbridge Line 5 provides more than 50% of the fuel to eastern Canada. An application was filed in the U.S. federal court to shut down this pipeline, and so far the Liberals have done nothing to oppose this U.S. court action. If Line 5 is shut down, there will surely be gas shortages and spikes in the price of gas that will cause an already unaffordable situation for families and businesses to get much worse. Are the Liberals going to fight this or are they just going to roll over on Line 5 like they did with Keystone XL?

Madam Speaker, the passport situation in this country is so bad that people are actually camping out overnight outside of Canadian government passport offices just to receive service. It is a complete failure on the part of the Liberals, not our public service, to plan for a surge of renewals that everyone knew was coming. Canadians are angry and they are anxious, having to cancel long-anticipated trips to see loved ones or vacations because of the government's failure to deliver the most basic of services. There are no excuses. When can Canadians expect a return to normal processing times?