Parliamentary Speeches

Madam Speaker, let us be honest. This whole mess and the inability to provide even the most basic government service like a passport renewal are entirely on the minister and the Liberals, not the public service. Everyone knew people would want to travel coming out of COVID. Everyone knew that the 10-year passports were expiring. Everyone knew, it seems, except the government, and here we are with long lineups around government buildings and phones not being answered. Maybe it is time to get people back to their workplaces and rehire those who have been fired because of vaccine mandates to fix this. Would the minister not agree with me on that?

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Prime Minister would be proud of this member for his intervention today. The Prime Minister refers to spreading disinformation quite a bit. Let us go back to what actually happened here. The member for St. Albert—Edmonton, who is a member of the justice committee, proposed the motion during Routine Proceedings to split Bill C-5 at committee to allow the committee to effectively do its work. I then stood up and said that we want to put the question, which means we want to put it to a vote. That vote would have happened on Monday. There would have been no need for debate. There would have been no need for the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader to stand up and do this filibuster, and I suspect there are going to be others as well. They could have easily gone to Bill C-19 to debate it. I am guessing that maybe either the whip of the Liberal Party or the House leader has called the House leader of the NDP to prepare him to speak to this just to filibuster this. Let us be very clear about what happened. We put the question. We could have voted on this on Monday and we could have gone to Bill C-19. This is not a question, but more of a comment. I am curious as to why the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has decided to filibuster his own piece of legislation to delay time so that we cannot get to Bill C-19. It just does not make any sense.

Madam Speaker, I really respect and honour the hon. member's intervention on a debate that we, quite frankly, really should not be having. The hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton, as is his right as a member of Parliament, proposed in routine proceedings, in a motion, to split the bill. I asked that the question be put, which meant that we would have voted for it on Monday and, as is the hon. member's right, he could have simply stood up with the NDP and voted against it, if he chose to, or voted for it, depending on what his views are on splitting the bill and sending it back to committee to allow the committee to do the work. What I do not understand is why the government is continuing to filibuster on this issue when the question could have been put. We could have been avoiding all of this discussion. I do not understand. If one does not agree with it, vote against it on Monday. If one does agree with it, vote for it. That is the issue we are dealing with, not just standing up here and filibustering. We want to get to government business, and we could have gotten to government business.

Madam Speaker, I noticed at the onset of his intervention that the hon. member spoke about coming from a policing family. Of course, he said his father was a homicide detective. One of the things in the bill that is disturbing, and should be disturbing for all Canadians, is the reduction of mandatory minimums for gun-related criminal offences, gang-related offences and the use of a firearm in the commission of an offence. I am just wondering how he can reconcile that part of this piece of legislation with an understanding of that policing background he has. I know that most police officers I have spoken to feel reducing those mandatory minimums would do nothing to deter gun crime in this country and, in fact, would embolden criminals.

Madam Speaker, in the short time that I have, I will just remind the House that all of today could have been avoided had the question been put. We would have had a vote on Monday. We could have resumed the government legislation and debated Bill C-19, but instead, in a shockingly funny situation, the government moved time allocation on itself. I know that the member for New Westminster—Burnaby showed his complete indignation to the fact that petitions have not been read. The member supported the government moving to orders of the day all week. That is why they were not. I am seeking unanimous consent, and I hope that the others will agree, to move that the House proceed to presenting petitions today.

moved that the third report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, presented on Thursday, March 31, 2022, be concurred in. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise this morning to speak to the third report of the committee, and I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot. All of us can recall the summer of 2020 when news was emerging about the WE Charity scandal and how impactful that was to the debate in this country. Of course, Canada was at the height of a pandemic, and we were seeing all kinds of programs being announced. The WE Charity scandal came to light as a result of media reports that spoke specifically of sole-source contracts to WE Charity for the implementation of a program that the government in some way felt was going to benefit young people. However, what it was benefiting was the Liberals' friends at WE Charity, the Kielburgers. All of us were seized, through the summer of 2020, with the committee reports and the committee proceedings. The Prime Minister testified. Other very serious allegations were made. People testifying before the committee talked about the impact this was having on Canada in general and about the fact that the $900 million given to the charity for a program was a direct financial benefit to that organization. Canadians were definitely seized with this, but again, this was a pattern throughout the hundreds of billions of dollars that were being spent. The deficit at the time was $400 billion, and we saw an increase of $1.3 billion. Many programs were being put out to help support Canadians, and the Conservatives initially supported many of those programs at the onset. However, then we started seeing a pattern develop. It is a historical pattern with the Liberal Party whereby its members start taking care of their friends and family, the connected and corrupted insiders who were benefiting directly as a result of this. There are numerous examples of this that have been publicized, not the least of which is former Liberal MP Frank Baylis receiving $237 million for ventilators that were never delivered. There was the $150 million provided to SNC-Lavalin for mobile hospital beds. I am still waiting for a response to a letter I wrote to the Auditor General about what happened to that money. However, nothing came to the attention of Canadians more than the WE Charity scandal, and the opposition party at the time was really trying to get to the bottom of what was going on. Of course, subsequently we heard concerns about fraud within the organization. I remember that a witness from the United States, Reed, whose full name I forget, was talking about the money that he had given to the WE Charity thinking it was purposefully being used for good. However, we saw exposés on television shows about how the WE Charity was recycling announcements about money and people were calling into question where that money was going. Our job is not to provide an indictment of the WE Charity. It is to provide oversight, despite the fact that I think the government does not want us to do this. As the official opposition, it is our constitutional obligation to hold the government to account, verify, account for and provide transparency so we know where this money was going. As the committee studied this issue, numerous reports were produced, not the least of which was the third report of the ethics committee on this issue. There were serious concerns about the minister at the time possibly providing false information to the committee. There was contempt. Despite the will of Parliament, there was contempt on the part of three connected members of the Prime Minister's Office and the government. They did not show up and were told to obstruct the work of the committee by not showing up. Within this timeline, numerous questions of privilege and points of order have been raised on this. However, at the end of the day, what ultimately happened was the government used procedural tactics to avoid any and all accountability related to the WE scandal. When things got really hot for the government, members will recall that the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament. In 2015, when he ran, he said that he was never going to use prorogation as a tool to dodge accountability and transparency. However, things really started heating up, and it was a political firestorm at that time in 2020, when not just the official opposition party but all parties, including the Bloc Québécois and the NDP, were forcefully trying to get to the bottom of the WE Charity scandal. We believe there are unanswered questions. We believe there is still work the ethics committee can do with respect to the issues that I brought forward about ministerial accountability and about the accountability of the individuals who were directly involved in this scandal. They should come before committee and answer the questions that need to be answered to get to the bottom of the involvement of those particular individuals as it relates to the WE Charity scandal. As I said, in 2020, the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament. He reset and had a throne speech, and everything that was on the Order Paper and on the table was basically off the table at that point because that is what prorogation does. The committee reports and committee studies that were being done were basically ended at that point. However, that did not end this issue, because there were still questions that needed to be answered. As Parliament resumed again, which was well in advance of this coalition agreement that has now come to light between the NDP and the Liberals, the NDP was forceful. I remember watching those committee hearings and listening to the member for Timmins—James Bay and the member for New Westminster—Burnaby. They were forceful in getting to the bottom of the WE Charity scandal. However, what we are hearing now is relative silence from those members; they do not want to talk about it anymore. Of course, the Prime Minister went to an election just last year, and any of the work that was continuing fell off the table again because the Prime Minister decided to use an election to hide all of the issues. The reason these types of scandals are so profoundly scandalous is that there are well-connected insiders who are benefiting as a result of this pandemic. I rise today to propose an offer to the government House leader. The offer is that we move through this debate for the next couple of hours and then have a vote on it. We can find out exactly how all members intend to vote. With a recorded division, members will have to stand up, including NDP members. If we get to that point, I will make the offer to the government House leader that we extend the sitting this evening to do the work that Motion No. 11 calls for and debate what the government deems as important pieces of legislation. I apologize, but we are giving enough notice to extend the sitting into tonight. We have to get to the bottom of this. We have to be able to vote on this motion to refer it back to committee so that the committee can continue the work and pick it up. I am hopeful that despite the Liberal-NDP coalition, the NDP will do the right thing, vote on the motion and get this back to committee so that we can get to the bottom of it.

Mr. Speaker, maybe the hon. member missed what I proposed. What I proposed was that we get to a vote on this, that we move concurrence on this, get it back to committee and extend the hours so that we can do the work on Bill C-19. Conservatives are willing to work. We are willing to work, and that is why I put that proposal. Only a Liberal would think that accountability and transparency are a character assassination or a personal attack. We are responsible, all of us on all sides, to Canadians for the way money is spent in this place. If money is spent in an inappropriate manner, then the Liberals, for the sake of all Canadians, should want to get to the bottom of this as much as we do, as well as any member of the NDP and the Bloc. I encourage the government to accept the proposal. Let us move to a vote on concurrence. We will stay late till midnight tonight to debate Bill C-19.

Mr. Speaker, it is not lost on any of us that the NDP House leader is parroting the Liberal government's talking points, since they are now connected at the hip and have been connected since the start of this Parliament. Subsequent to the coalition agreement, the NDP has supported the government on 95% of the legislation. Before that, from the time Parliament resumed up until the point of the coalition, they supported the government on 89% of the legislation. There is a consistent pattern there, and the House leader parroting government talking points is not a surprise to me. We did offer to extend the hours to midnight, and I am wondering why the NDP does not want to work.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to get up on the Thursday question today. There are just a couple of points I want to make. This morning, in case the government House leader was not aware, I did offer to extend hours for this evening so that we could have three extra hours of debate on government business if we had a concurrence motion. I made that offer to the deputy House leader. Unfortunately, they did not allow that to occur. However, there are two particular questions in addition to the House schedule. First, what is the schedule order for the House? Second, on the committee of the whole, could the government House leader indicate whether both ministers we requested will be here in person in the House? Lastly, there is no indication on the calendar that I have received, so perhaps the government House leader, for the sake of the employees around this place, so that they can be prepared, can indicate when late-night sittings are going to happen.

Mr. Speaker, the main pillar of our justice system is that all Canadians must be treated equally under the law. When new evidence of fraud comes to light, law enforcement has a duty to investigate, regardless of how powerful or privileged any individual who committed the fraud may be. The Attorney General has an obligation to make sure this applies to everyone, including a sitting prime minister. Does the Attorney General believe that individuals who commit criminal offences, regardless of how powerful or privileged they are, or what positions they hold, should be charged?

Mr. Speaker, Canadians do care that they are treated equally under the same laws that apply to the powerful and privileged in this country. The criminal brief released by the RCMP made it clear that, if this were a civil servant or any other Canadian, they would be facing serious criminal charges in this case. There are new known facts that warrant a full investigation. Does the Attorney General believe that the law should be applied equally to all Canadians, including a sitting prime minister, if they commit a criminal offence?

Mr. Speaker, obviously I stand with profound disappointment, for two reasons. The first is that we are even in a position where Motion No. 11 is needed by the government. The second is the fact that the Liberals have invoked closure after just two hours of debate. This is an admission by the government. What makes it worse is the fact that I suspect that the NDP is complicit in the government's action. This is a mismanagement of the government's House time on the part of the government House leader and the government. There has been a decline in democracy in this country, and it is a pattern that has existed with the current government. We saw it with Motion No. 6 in previous Parliaments. In fact, when COVID first hit, there was an introduction of a bill that would have given the government complete taxing power and power over Parliament. This pattern of disdain and contempt for this Parliament is consistent with the current government. Now that the Liberals have the NDP in their hip pocket, while this is outside the scope of the supply and confidence agreement, I suspect that we are going to see this pass. Given the circumstances and the confidence that Canadians have with respect to their public institutions and with respect to the way this place operates, how can the minister expect that this is going to create any greater confidence in the face of the decline in our democracy, when the Liberals are pulling stunts like this?

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I want to give the justice minister an opportunity, because I believe he did misspeak. Perhaps he did not understand that there is a constitutional obligation for quorum to be held in this place. He said that this has happened before, but it only happens in take-note debates. It also happens in emergency debates when no vote on government legislation is held. In fact, this has never been held before. I would give the justice minister an opportunity to correct himself and not mislead the House.

Madam Speaker, what is baffling is having the justice minister actually stand in this place and talk in the way he is. Bill C-8 was not introduced until December 15, so he is playing around a bit with the facts here. It went to committee February 1 and came back from committee on March 1. After December 16, the House was not sitting for six weeks, so there was no obstruction going on. Nobody on this side of the House is afraid to work. These are multi-billion dollar bills that the government for some reason expects the official opposition and the third party just to simply rubber-stamp without questioning, without proposing and without amending. How can the Liberals contribute to the further decline in our democracy? People in this country are looking at this place as its symbol, yet the government continues to contribute to the decline in democracy. I do not understand how the justice minister can stand here and defend this action by his government.

Mr. Speaker, once again, it gives me pleasure to rise and speak to government Motion No. 11. However, before I get into the specifics of it, let me just address a couple of issues that came up during the closure debate earlier. It was a very vigorous debate. I want to address one issue. There were several claims, both from the government side and the NDP side, which is the same side, about members of the opposition not wanting or being willing to work. Let me state unequivocally that Conservatives are here to do the business of the nation. We want to work. I have no problem with extending the hours. I really do not. My profound concern, and I stated this in my interaction on Friday, is about the staff. We have seen, over the course of the last couple of years, that staff have been tested. The measure of the staff has been certainly tested around this place. We have heard about the interpreters, about the health challenges that have gone on. We have seen an increase in occupational injury risk for the interpreters. We are concerned about that work-life balance. For two parties that espouse and say they are for the working class, they are not showing any empathy or compassion for what families are going to have to deal with, with respect to this motion, specifically the timeline for the extension of those sitting hours. It is causing me, as I said the other day, tremendous concern that with just one minute's notice, the government can come, with the NDP's help, and say they want to extend the hours. What is that going to mean for the staffing around this place? What is that going to mean to committees, when we start transferring resources to deal with some of these late-night sittings? My staff in the House leader's office just informed me before I got up to speak that two committees already today are going to be cancelled: the Afghanistan committee and the medical assistance in dying committee. The meetings that were scheduled for today are going to be cancelled because they are going to have to allocate or transfer resources from those committees to the extension of the House sitting hours. The government has said, and I heard the justice minister say, that this happens all the time. This happens, actually, once the agreed schedule is applied. All of the House leaders get together and we discuss. In fact, we are in the process of discussing the schedule for next year. Within the last two weeks, there are asterisks in the schedule. Those asterisks indicate there will be an extension of hours. It is agreed to. It is understood. However, what this does is basically give the government last-minute appeal. It can impose late sittings when it wants to. We saw some news coverage over the weekend of the government saying that this was not what it was going to do and that it was going to give enough notice. If it is going to give enough notice, why would it put it specifically in this motion that it could do it up until 6:30 p.m. of any given day? I would suggest that this is the intent of what the government is going to do. Cynically, I can think of only one reason this would happen: to keep the opposition parties, both the Conservatives and the Bloc, on their toes. This means that every day and every night, we are going to have to carry debate. We are prepared to do that. This is not a rubber stamp factory where multiple billions of dollars and pieces of legislation are debated and proposed, and where amendments are proposed at committee. We are already seeing the committee work being affected, but this is not a rubber stamp factory. There is a constitutional obligation on the part of the opposition to hold the government to account. That is our constitutional obligation. With this motion, the Liberal Party and its Prime Minister are getting exactly what they have always wanted, with the help of the NDP. I will talk about the NDP in a second. With the help of the NDP, the government and the Prime Minister are going to get an audience, not an opposition. That is what he has been hoping for over the past six and a half years, and now with the NDP in the government's hip pocket, they have it. Going back to the debate before, I just cannot believe the hypocrisy of the House leader of the NDP. For six and a half years, I have sat in this place and we have all sat in this place, those members who were elected in 2015, and how many times did the opposition House leader of the NDP talk about the fact that the Prime Minister was worse than Stephen Harper when it came to time allocation? He said it many times, and yet, the hypocrisy is that he stands here today and blames Conservatives for obstructing. Nothing could be further from the truth. They talk about Bill C-8 as their benchmark piece of legislation that they look at. Bill C-8 was introduced on December 15. The House rose shortly thereafter. We sat in our constituencies and worked there for six weeks. We did not come back until January 29. It received second reading on March 1, went to committee and came back on April 1. There was a time allocation motion that was put in on April 4, and the NDP refused to support the government on time allocation. For them to sit here and blame Conservatives for obstructing that bill is disingenuous and, I would suggest, misleading the House, because maybe someone should hold the NDP House leader to account as to why he did not agree to that. Here is the problem. When we look at the motion and we look at all the things that are in the motion, as I said earlier, it gives the Prime Minister exactly what he wants: an audience, not an opposition. I appreciate the ruling of the Speaker this morning, but the reality is that, in previous circumstances, the issue of quorum was let go for non-votable matters. It was agreed to by the House leaders. Anything to do with take-note debates or emergency debates, we would allow quorum not to be called as part of an agreement. What the government is doing with this is basically imposing a sledgehammer to say that the Liberals are not even required to show up. The NDP is not even required to show up. In theory, what we could have is opposition-side members debating themselves on pieces of legislation that the government is proposing, asking ourselves questions and comments when the Liberals are not even required to be here. As I said the other day in question period, they can effectively be sitting at home in their PJs and their fuzzy slippers watching reruns of This Is Us and those socialist documentaries that they covet so much. That is what they could effectively be doing without the constitutional obligation of having a quorum call in the House. Who does not want to show up to work? Why are they putting that in this motion? Conservatives will be here; I can guarantee that. With this motion and no quorum call, it means that the government and the NDP do not even have to show up to debate their own legislation. How ridiculous is that? I talked about the “without notice...to adjourn the House”. This is egregious, in the sense that what the government is proposing with this particular part of this motion is that it can prorogue Parliament without proroguing. I will take us back, as I said earlier, to the WE Charity scandal. When the heat got really hot on the Prime Minister, he did the very thing he said he was not going to do in 2015, and that was to prorogue Parliament. Let us picture this scenario. There is a situation where we have a scandal brewing. We have the RCMP potentially deciding to investigate the Prime Minister on whether he granted himself permission for that vacation to that luxurious island that cost over $200,000. What if, with regard to the Winnipeg lab document scandal, we were able, through committee or some other means, to have those documents produced and they show that the government did something? What if we had another SNC-Lavalin scandal or any other scandal that gets too hot for the Prime Minister to handle? One minister of the Crown, just one, can decide to shut this place down. Can members imagine that? It is stunts like these that cause further erosion in Canadians' respect for our democratic institutions and the faith they have in our democratic institutions. When a government of the day, with a fourth party in its hip pocket, can decide that it is going to seize control of this place and do whatever it wants, how can Canadians not be cynical of the institution? How can they not be cynical of our Parliament? How can they not be cynical when they are witnessing right in front of them, as we all are, a decline in our democracy? There are measurements used that determine that decline. We have seen that over the course of the last six and a half years, and we are further seeing an erosion in the decline of our democracy as a result of stunts like this by the government. It can shut it down with one minister of the Crown proposing it. Yes, it will come to a vote. Surprise, surprise: I wonder what that vote will be when it has the NDP in its hip pocket. There is a lot to be concerned about in this. What we are seeing, and perhaps Motion No. 11 is further evidence of this, is the shady, backroom deals that are going on here. The government House leader does not even give me the courtesy, nor does he give the Bloc Québécois House leader the courtesy, of saying what is going on. What do the Liberals do now? They do not go to the official opposition or the third party in this place. They do an end-around to the fourth party, say what they are going to do and ask if it will support them. There are shady, backroom deals: exactly the thing that further diminishes the confidence that Canadians have in our democracy. As far as the standing order changes, I am really appreciative of the ruling that the Speaker made earlier in having a separate vote for that. What the government was doing, with the help of its NDP partner, again led to this cynicism and further erosion. The Liberals were putting a poison pill in the motion to force the opposition to vote against it. I stood here the other day and said very clearly that Conservatives unequivocally supported call to action 80 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to make sure that we had a stand-alone day for truth and reconciliation. I was very glad for the Speaker's wisdom in that decision. The Speaker saw right through what the government was trying to do: putting in this poison pill, probably under the suggestion of its partner in the NDP, to force the Conservative Party to vote against it as an omnibus procedural motion. I am glad the Speaker did that, because we will be supporting that particular part of the motion when it is carved out of this omnibus motion and will vote in favour of national day for truth and reconciliation. Of course we all know the history of the Prime Minister on this one. Last year, what did he do? He did not get involved. He went surfing in Tofino. The schedule for the Prime Minister even said he was having private meetings. It did not give a true indication of what was happening. What was happening was that, on the most important day in this nation, he went surfing in Tofino. How dare the Liberals use this poison pill for political purposes to further wedge, further stigmatize and further divide Canadians, especially those who supported the Conservative Party in the last election and who understand the importance of truth and reconciliation, because it was Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper who started that commission from which those recommendations came. I am obviously profoundly disappointed. I am really concerned about where this place goes from here. I really am. The government was elected with a minority. The NDP was the fourth party in the last election and now, between the two of them, they are going to be able to control every aspect of this place. What about those voices who elected a minority government? What about those people who said they wanted the government to be held in check? They wanted the government to be held to account, they wanted transparency from the government, they wanted to make sure that multi-billion dollar bills that the government proposes, these big-money appropriation bills, deserve the level of scrutiny that they should. What about those voices? That is not going to happen anymore because of this alliance, this coalition, between the NDP and the Liberals. I said earlier the impact this was going to have on committees. What about the finance committee? What about the ethics committee? What about other committees, such as important committees on Afghanistan and the invocation of the Emergency Measures Act? How are they going to be impacted? The resources of the House will now go towards evening sessions, further putting in jeopardy the ability not just of those committees but of parliamentarians on the opposition side and Canadians in general to get to the bottom of what they are looking for. When I go back to the invocation of the Emergencies Act, we have already seen that the government is not going to allow cabinet confidentiality. What other documents are not going to be available to the committee because the committee is not going to be able to sit? This is a government that ran in 2015 on the principle of being accountable and transparent by default. How times have fallen. The hypocrisy of those words is being shown by the government. This is a government that is anything but transparent and accountable. This is a government that has undermined the very role of this institution of Parliament: the constitutional obligation of the opposition parties to hold the government to account, not to basically ram legislation through when it sees fit. This is not a rubber stamp factory. This is a place for vigorous debate. It is a place where the government is held to account. It is not a place where, as much as the Prime Minister wants it to be, he gets an audience. This is a place where he gets an opposition. Conservatives will work as long and as tirelessly as we need to in order to hold the government to account. We are going to expose this coalition unholy alliance, and these backroom shady deals that are being made by the NDP-Liberal government. We are going to work as hard as we can to make sure it is held to account, that there is transparency and there is accountability on behalf of every single Canadian who did not vote for them, but voted for a minority government in this Parliament. With the little time I have left, the opposition party is proposing what we consider to be reasonable amendments. Again, I thank you, Mr. Speaker for your judicious, intelligent ruling this morning to carve out those pieces that are poison pills meant to obstruct the opposition and in fact make the opposition vote against something that none of us would ever consider voting for. I do appreciate that. I am going to move the following amendments. I move: That the motion be amended (a) in paragraph (a), (i) by replacing the words “a minister of the Crown may, with the agreement of the House leader of another recognized party” with the words “a House leader of a recognized party may, with the agreement of the House leaders of two other recognized parties”, (ii) by replacing the words “but no later than 6:30 p.m., and request that the ordinary hour of daily adjournment for the current sitting or” with the words “request, with at least two sitting days' notice, that the ordinary hour of daily adjournment for”, (iii) by adding, after the words “a subsequent sitting”, the words “, other than a Friday,”, and (iv) by adding, after the words “a day when a debate pursuant to Standing Order 52 or 53.1 is to take place”, the words “or a day appointed for the consideration of business under Standing Order 81(4)(a)”; (b) in paragraph (b), (i) by deleting subparagraph (i), (ii) by deleting, in subparagraph (ii), the words “quorum calls or”, and (iii) by deleting, in subparagraph (iii), all the words after the word “Crown”; and (c) in paragraph (c), (i) by replacing, in subparagraph (ii), the word “35th” with the word “15th”, and (ii) by deleting subparagraph (iv). He said: Mr. Speaker, I am hopeful for these reasonable amendments I am proposing, which take into account not just how this place functions and how properly it should function but also take into account, as I said at the onset, the concern that we have for the lives of the people who work here, and how they are going to be impacted. I am not specifically referring to members of Parliament, but to the work-life balance of the staff who make this place operate, whether it is the clerks, the administration, the bus drivers, the security officers, the food services branch or any others, and not least the translators, who have seen tremendous injury and impact. I do not understand why the government would want to expose them to that.

Mr. Speaker, that is an important question. Those were appropriation bills. If members recall, at one point we were very close to seeing the government fall. It was 4:30 in the morning and it was very close to actually falling. These are legislative bills and a failure on the part of the government to propose its legislative agenda. It is actually a massive failure on the Liberals' part. We have only had 19 pieces of legislation, and within that time only eight have passed. The government's inability or failure to push through its legislative agenda is not our fault, nor is it the fault of the people who work here. There is no need to expand beyond the normal course of business. That is already addressed in the Standing Orders for the last two weeks of June. It was agreed to by all parties. Most importantly, what this motion does is it creates a trap: It gives the government the ability to basically shut down this place if there is a scandal or if and when it decides to do that. We are here to work on behalf of Canadians and will continue to work despite the assertions from the other side.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague. The four House leaders jointly proposed extending the committee until June 23. We actually did that. As I hope the hon. member understands, this is another example of a failure of the legislative agenda. That committee was supposed to legislatively report back in May. It was not until the end of March that we actually started talking about it. We agreed with the May deadline, but we proposed to extend it until June 23, which we did. Now the government is going to put that off until October 17, and I understand there are very important issues around that. We just heard, in advance of my taking the floor today, that the medical assistance in dying committee is going to be cancelled today because of the government's plans to prolong or extend hours of debate. The Liberals cannot manage anything, and that is why we are in this situation we are in. We now have to deal with the government's failure to push forward a legislative agenda to manage the time of the House, and it is Canadians and all of us who are going to be paying the price for the mismanagement of their legislative agenda.

Mr. Speaker, time and time again, as we have heard, the problem specifically with regard to the interpreters, which I suspect affects other parts of the operation of the House of Commons, is the issue of hybrid Parliament. Let us stop this. Let us stop hybrid Parliament and let us get back to normal. Let us do what other legislatures around the country are doing and return to being here in person. The interpreters have paid a dear price for this hybrid Parliament, and anybody who has read the reports understands that. We cannot just manufacture interpreters. There is a shortage, and a pool of resources is unavailable to us. My suggestion is that we get rid of hybrid Parliament, come back, deal with this and make it easier on the interpreters. We can make it easy on all the staff who work so hard to support this place. Let us do what other legislatures are doing. Let us get back to normal and not hide behind masks like the other parties are doing.

Madam Speaker, we have already agreed to a schedule, which all of the parties agreed to last year. The last two weeks of June were proposed for extended sittings. The hon. member is quite right. This has never happened before. What Canadians need to ask themselves, and certainly what the NDP members need to ask themselves, is why. Why are we doing this at the beginning of May? It is because the government has failed in its legislative agenda? The second reason is that it has the NDP in its hip pocket, so it can do whatever it wants now.

Madam Speaker, I know there has been a lot of discussion on Bill C-8 and the accusations of obstruction and obfuscation of the bill. On April 4, the government put a notice of time allocation on Bill C-8. When I asked the government House leader why he did not move that notice of time allocation, he said it was because the NDP House leader said no and that they were waiting to see what was in the budget. The budget, of course, happened April 7, and then we all went home two weeks later. Can the NDP House leader explain to Canadians why he decided not to use time allocation, or agree with the government at the time when they wanted to use it, when they could have moved this bill much further and much faster down the line? Maybe he can explain to Canadians why he said no to the government House leader in a telephone conversation, and maybe he can explain to teachers and farmers why they delayed this bill.

Madam Speaker, what a week it has been. It is a week that has seen a further decline in Canadian democracy. Yesterday, with the support from their NDP partners, the Liberals introduced Motion No. 11, which gives the NDP-Liberal coalition complete control over Parliament until June 23. With the NDP's help, the Prime Minister now has exactly what he has always been looking for, which is an audience, not an opposition. Do these Liberals not understand that these types of tactics contribute to declining public confidence in our institutions and to a further decline in our democracy, or do they simply not care?

Madam Speaker, this is what Motion No. 11 does. The NDP-Liberal coalition is scrapping the constitutional requirement of quorum in the House of Commons. That means that NDP and Liberal members do not even have to show up to work. They can sit at home in their PJs and their fuzzy slippers watching reruns of This Is Us or socialist documentaries. It also gives the power to the Prime Minister to shut down Parliament at any point if one of his many scandals gets too hot, like the RCMP investigation, for example. Therefore, I ask this again: Do the Liberals and the NDP not understand that they are contributing to the decline of democracy in Canada, or do they simply not care?

Mr. Speaker, thank you for this opportunity. I am rising on a point of order related to government Motion No. 11, which is scheduled for debate later this morning. By rising today, I am asking that you divide the motion for debating and voting purposes. Recognizing that you will require time to consider the matter, I am rising now, as soon as the House opened today. The procedure that I am seeking to invoke is not referenced in any specific standing order. Rather, it falls under the general structures of Standing Order 1, which states: In all cases not provided for hereinafter, or by other Order of the House, procedural questions shall be decided by the Speaker or Chair of Committees of the Whole, whose decisions shall be based on the usages, forms, customs and precedents of the House of Commons of Canada.... As to those customs and precedents, I would refer the Chair to page 570 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, which states: When a complicated motion comes before the House (for example, a motion containing two or more parts each capable of standing on its own), the Speaker has the authority to modify it in order to facilitate decision making in the House. When any Member objects to a motion containing two or more distinct propositions, he or she may request that the motion be divided and that each proposition be debated and voted on separately. Government Motion No. 11 is an omnibus motion that, in the words of Bosc and Gagnon, contains “two or more parts each capable of standing on its own”. Looking at the motion on the Order Paper, it could, I think, be divided into at least seven separate questions. First, we have paragraphs (a) and (b) and subparagraph (c)(ii), which concern extending sitting hours and consequential arrangements. Second, we have subparagraph (c)(i), which contains voting on the main estimates and supplementary estimates in the current supply period. Third, we have subparagraph (c)(iii), which would waive the one-sitting-day waiting period between the report stage and third reading stage. Fourth, we have subparagraph (c)(iv), which would allow the Prime Minister, with the votes of his coalition partners in the NDP, to shut down the House for the summer whenever the political heat gets to be too much for him. Fifth, we have paragraph (d), which would make provisions for voting on government business on June 22 and June 23, if the House is even still sitting then. Sixth, we have paragraph (e), which would change the mandate of the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying. Seventh, we have the final paragraph, which would permanently amend the Standing Orders to include the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation among the named holidays when the House would not sit. The final part of government Motion No. 11 is the most jaded and cynical part of the entire package. Every party and every member of the House understands and believes in the importance of reconciliation with indigenous peoples. To try to stitch the House's own internal act of recognition and implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's call to action number 80 to a procedural motion with such a crassly partisan motivation to be able to ram bills through the House and then shutter our elected legislature is a nakedly cynical manoeuvre. Is there any wonder why reconciliation efforts continue to stumble and stall under the Liberal government? It is because of political tactics and stunts like this. If ever there was a reason to draw upon this special practice among the House procedure, it is for exactly this particular situation. As Mr. Speaker Macnaughton explained on June 15, 1964, at page 428 of the Journals, this practice can be traced to the April 19, 1888, ruling given by the United Kingdom's Mr. Speaker Peel: “It may be for the convenience of the House that the honourable gentleman's two propositions should be put together, but if any honourable gentleman objects to their being taken together, they will be put separately.” Indeed, there are very few cases to rely upon, but they are catalogued by Bosc and Gagnon at pages 570 and 571. One of the Speaker's predecessors, the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, observed the following on October 17, 2013, at page 65 of the Debates: In adjudicating cases of this kind, the Chair must always be mindful to approach each new case with a fresh eye, taking into account the particular circumstances of the situation at hand. Often, there is little in the way of guidance for the speaker and a strict compliance with precedent is not always appropriate. I would observe that, in point of fact, most of the situations where the Chair did undertake an intervention of some variety occurred on procedural types of motions not dissimilar to the one that will come before the House today. In 1991, a motion to make a series of amendments to the Standing Orders was divided for voting purposes. In 2002, a motion concerning government bills, the business of a special committee and the modification of the finance committee's pre-budget consultations was divided for debating purposes and then further divided for voting purposes. In 2013, a motion concerning the reinstatement of government bills and committee business, along with the temporary management of the House and committee business, was divided for voting purposes. Of these precedent cases, today's motion comes closest, I believe, to the situation the House faced 20 years ago. I will admit there are some parts of government Motion No. 11 that might be convenient to group together for a common debate. Take, for example, the provisions on extended sitting hours and on votes demanded on June 22 and 23. However, there are other portions that are simply stitched together for apparent efficiency by a government that continues to mismanage its parliamentary agenda and the House's time. We have, on the one part, temporary measures to structure the rest of the spring sitting. Then there is the extension of the special joint committee's work through the summer and autumn. Finally, as I discussed earlier, there is a permanent standing order amendment as part of the reconciliation process. Procedurally, distinct debates and votes are justifiable for these matters, I would submit. Morally, the proposal for the House to discuss and acknowledge reconciliation with indigenous peoples should be kept far away from the political controversy baked into the other components of government Motion No. 11. Reconciliation between the House of Commons and indigenous peoples should be acknowledged in a mature manner, appropriate to the gravity of the issue and the common cause, which I hope all hon. members can unite behind. The Liberal government, however, along with its new New Democrat coalition partners, wants to wedge and divide Canadians time and again. This time, it is to try to leverage deeply objectionable proposals to ram a divisive legislative agenda through Parliament as an opportunity to claim that some members of the House oppose reconciliation. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, the only thing that should be divided is government Motion No. 11. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I ask you to do the right thing and exercise the authority vested in you by Standing Order 1 and the precedents of the House to divide government Motion No. 11 for debating and voting purposes along the lines that I have laid out to you.

Mr. Speaker, I grew up in a space where people are either accountable or they justify. I heard very little in the way of accountability with the member's speech, and a lot of justification. I want to make a couple of points. He spoke specifically about Bill C-8. The bill was first introduced on December 15, 2021. It got approval at second reading on February 10, went to committee and got committee approval on March 1, and now it is at report stage. We have had four weeks off in that time, yet the government suggests that somehow the opposition is obstructing. The other thing is that on April 4, the government put on notice a motion of time allocation. It was the NDP that refused to support that notice of time allocation. In fact, the government has mismanaged its legislative agenda, and that is why we are seeing the hammer fall as it is with Motion No. 11. The member spoke about specific examples of other governments. The Standing Orders are very clear that there is a specific timeline in which we can extend debate. Those are in the Standing Orders, and the schedule was agreed to by all of the parties. Can the member give examples, specifically, of where other levels of government, as he says, actually did this: extending hours at this point in time? I would be very curious and interested to hear about that.

Mr. Speaker, you are doing good work in the chair today. Thanks again. Here we go again. I honestly do not know what to say after hearing the parliamentary secretary to the leader of the government in this chamber. As I said in my question to him, what I heard was a lot of justification with little accountability on why the Liberals are introducing what I would deem a draconian motion, Motion No. 11, today, when there really is no need to do so. There is nothing under this coalition with the NDP, even up to the point and in advance of the coalition being announced, that the Liberals have not been able to put forward as part of their legislative agenda. So far, of the 18 bills that have been introduced, eight have received royal assent. There is no question that there may be some other outstanding pieces of legislation that the government wants to put forward, but there is no reason why it cannot do that in the time specified in the Standing Orders and the schedule that was agreed to by my predecessor and the other House leaders last year. The Standing Orders talk about the possibility of extending hours. We have seen that. I have been here for six and a half years, certainly not as long as my hon. colleague from Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, who has been here for 21 years and I believe is the dean of our caucus. She has seen it all, through government and now through opposition. There has never been an example like this, at least in the history of this Parliament, and I suspect in the history of legislatures across the country in all of the provinces and territories, where on April 28 we are debating a motion that gives the government ultimate power to extend hours at this particular point of this parliamentary session. I am going to talk later on about the consequences of that, because I think there are significant consequences to the administration of this place, to the lives and the health, mental and physical health, of those who work in this place, but what I want to focus on initially is why we are at this point, a point that I believe we certainly do not need to be at. I have heard from the government House leader and the parliamentary secretary that they are focusing on Bill C-8 as one of the reasons why they are proposing this ham-fisted Motion No. 11. The reality on Bill C-8 is that, as I said earlier, it was only introduced on December 15. It received second reading in February, went to committee in March and came back to the House at report stage. There were some other issues of debate that were required as a result of its coming out of committee. In fact, I recall having a conversation with you, Mr. Speaker, about Bill C-8 at report stage and that you expressed some concerns, not in your current role as Speaker, but in your role as a member of the Bloc Québécois. Those concerns were certainly moving through the process. Within that timeline specifically on Bill C-8, there are some important measures, measures that have already been implemented, such as purchasing rapid tests. The government has the authorities, when it issues a ways and means motion, to accelerate the spending within the piece of legislation. When we look back, we have had four weeks where we have been off. I am sure we all agree to that timeline. This is effectively a mismanagement of the legislative agenda as to why Bill C-8 has not been put forward. As I said in my question to the parliamentary secretary, and this is important to understand because Liberals have been accusing us, the opposition, of obstructing this piece of legislation, it was on April 4 that the government put a notice of time allocation on the Notice Paper. That was the week of the budget. The budget was introduced on April 7. The motion was not moved. When I asked the government House leader why he did not move the motion, the reason he gave me was that the NDP did not want to move that motion. How are we obstructing that? If the Liberals' coalition partners did not want to move a notice of time allocation, then their issue on Bill C-8 is not with the opposition but with their coalition partners, because they did not want to move the motion. If the parliamentary secretary wants to, he can confirm that with the government House leader. Hopefully he gets the truth, but that was the basis of the conversation that we had. In fact, it was brought up at the House leaders' meeting the next day. The government suggests, specifically on Bill C-8, that somehow we are obstructing the passage of that piece of legislation. Yes, we had some people who wanted to speak to it when it came out of committee, because there were important issues. However, I would suggest, respectfully, that it was the Liberals' coalition partners who prevented the notice of time allocation from being moved, which, as I said, was introduced on April 4. We could have been dealing with this at third stage even back before the budget in that first week. We certainly share those concerns, particularly from an agriculture standpoint as it relates to the carbon tax rebate and taxes. I know there are teachers who are waiting for that bill. It is not lost on me, and it should not be lost on anybody in the House, that it is the Liberals and their NDP coalition partners who are stopping this. The other thing that is concerning, and I know the member brought this up as well, is the issue of medical assistance in dying and the extension within this motion on medical assistance in dying, which would push it to October 17. There was a requirement for a legislative review to be held on this bill. We went to an election in September. We were reconvened around November. However, it was not until the end of March, in the timeline that is required for this legislative review, that the government even started talking about the Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying and the requirement for this legislative review. In fact, this review was required to be done legislatively by May, so we had discussions. I understand my colleague from the Bloc and I understand as well that there are very serious issues with medical assistance in dying that are required to be looked at, but with regard to the legislative review that was to be done in May, we actually agreed, as the opposition, to extend the timeline by another six weeks. It was not our fault that the government delayed the legislative review. It pushed it off until March, and then we agreed to go beyond the extension. Initially, I was a little concerned about it, but we do not control the legislative agenda in this place. It is not the opposition's job to sit here and determine what is going to happen in this place. It is the government's job. When we were in government, we determined the legislative agenda that was to occur in this place. The Liberals' failure, not just on Bill C-8 but on medical assistance in dying and the required legislative review and the timeline related to that, is their fault. It is completely on them, and that is why we agreed. I respected the concern of the Bloc House leader, and I know there are very deep and personal issues within the Bloc caucus on the issue of medical assistance in dying. That is why we agreed to extend the timeline by another six weeks and to provide the committee with what we believe was an appropriate amount of time, six weeks extra, to deal with this. We actually also committed to having the committee sit more than what was regularly scheduled. That would have required moving resources from other committees to this committee, but we were committed to allowing that extended timeline to June 23, which all of us, including me and our party, agreed to. Again, that is the government's prerogative. We do not control the administration of this place. We do not control committees. We do not control virtual sittings. We do not control translation. We do not control the administrative staff, nor do we control the clerks. It is all the government. We committed, in extending that deadline, to work and to be available during that timeline if extra sittings of the committee on medical assistance in dying were required. We committed to get the job done, yet here we are. We are seeing now in this motion an extension to October 17. There had been discussions among the parties to extend it, and on behalf of our party, I said “no”. There had to have been unanimous consent, because we had already agreed to extend it by six weeks to June 23. Again, the government wasted time putting the committee in place. It took from the time we started sitting in November to the time it finally got around to talking about it in March, which it did so it would meet the requirements of the legislative timeline. The other thing the government did was call an election last September. The House could have still been sitting. We were only 18 months into that session of Parliament. We could have still kept going. The Liberals could have dealt with medical assistance in dying, or they could have dealt with other bills, such as Bill C-8, within that timeline, but they chose not to. How is that our fault? How are we obstructing Parliament? How are we stepping in the way of the government's legislative agenda, when its members, time and time again, fail to implement whatever is on their legislative agenda and fail to use the time and resources of the House in a manner that would allow them to get their job done? That was the issue with medical assistance in dying. That is what happened, in case anyone is wondering why we are seeing that timeline in this motion. I understand, as I said earlier, that it was important to my colleague, the House leader of the Bloc, and to those within the Bloc, to see the October 17 deadline extended beyond what we had all agreed to. Although I am disappointed by that, I certainly understand, based on my discussions with my colleague in the Bloc, why that is important to them. I do not think we have to put it in an omnibus motion in order to do that. We could have had further discussions, but I guess this was a way of handing some sort of opportunity to the Bloc to understand this motion, and that is okay. I get that those things happen, because as I said, I realize how important this issue is to the Bloc. I know the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons wanted an explanation, and I just gave him one. We had all agreed to extend that deadline, and we did not see the reason, especially given the fact that we were willing to work with the committee to extend the hours. There was some talk that, during the break in May, that week after Victoria Day, we would have eight-hour sittings. I spoke to our shadow minister about that, and it was an impossibility. It would have been eight hours a day sitting in committee dealing with medical assistance in dying when many of those resources could have been moved from other sources to deal with the medical assistance dying committee while the House is sitting. That could have been done, but we thought that eight hours a day of sitting in that break week in May was an unreasonable request, and I think it was, because there were members on our side who had made plans with their families during that week, and because it is Victoria Day weekend here in Ontario, so some plans were already made. We certainly could have worked together, but we are actually seeing a pattern of this type of activity happen. Members will recall Motion No. 6, which the government introduced at one point. This is very different than that, because at the time there was strong consensus, agreement and alignment among the opposition parties. The Conservative Party, the Bloc and the NDP were in opposition to Motion No. 6, and we fought that vigorously. However, because there was that alignment, the government eventually did back down from that motion, at least some of the more destructive pieces of that motion. This is different. Motion No. 11 is different because I suspect the Liberals have the support of the NDP. Of course, the government has thrown a few nuggets to the NDP. We have seen that all that is required for NDP's support in this unholy alliance and collusion, is just need to be thrown a few little nuggets and they will leap, because the Liberal Party effectively has the NDP in its hip pocket, to implement these types of motions. It is quite concerning. There are extremely concerning aspects of this that really play into a pattern of what I would call a democratic decline in this country. We have seen this pattern over and over. We saw it with Motion No. 6, as I said earlier. In fact, one of the first pieces of legislation introduced after the COVID crisis hit in March 2020 was an absolutely draconian piece of legislation from the government, and I am glad all oppositions fought it. Even the NDP fought it at that time because they had not yet formed this unholy alliance, but it fought this draconian piece of legislation, which would have given the government massive powers and massive overreach to suspend the activities of Parliament and tax Canadians without the approval of Parliament. Can members imagine a government thinking it could take that on and actually affect that within a democracy like Canada. When I speak about this democratic decline, there are numerous examples over the course of not just during COVID but also prior to that, even with Motion No. 6, where we have seen the government really overreach and overextend its powers and controls over this place, diminishing not just democracy but also our institutions. It is diminishing faith in our institutions and the respect that people have for our institutions, separating our institutions in a way that keeps them away from government politicization and government influence, yet the government continues to do that. The government is certainly doing this with Motion No. 11. I want to go through and talk about some of the more concerning parts of the motion. It does not just concern me as a parliamentarian seeing this diminishing of democracy happen in this country. There are examples, much like in some of the countries in eastern Europe where we are seeing it on a scale that is being measured, of the decline of democracy in this country. There are measurements, and I will speak about that in a few minutes. I would suggest that Motion No. 11 adds to that decline in democracy. When we go through the motion, we see some of the things that the government has proposed. The motion reads: On the day of the adoption of this order, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be 12 a.m., that until Thursday, June 23, 2022, 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.... Now let us think about what that means. A minister of the Crown, and it does not have to be the House leader, although the House leader is classified as a minister, but a minister could go to another party at 6:29 p.m. and say, “We want to extend the hours, will you agree with us?” They need just one party, one recognized House leader, to agree. I wonder who that would be. I know that the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader said that I could agree to that, but there are certain provisions in this motion that I could never agree to, so why would I agree at 6:29 p.m. to extend the sitting of the House. The government House leader or a minister of the Crown will walk over to his coalition buddy in the NDP and say, “Look, we are not moving forward on things quick enough.” It would not be up for open, vigorous debate, or for oversight or scrutiny, which is what this place is designed to do. Instead, we can sit here, and they can walk over and talk to their NDP buddy to say “Look, we want to extend the hours until midnight.” I will tell members what is most concerning about that, but the least of it is the impact the lack of planning would have on families in this place. Here is the scenario: The House is set to adjourn at 6:30 p.m. At 6:29 p.m., the two of them are in cahoots, and they say that they want to extend the sitting until midnight. What does that do to families? What does that do to MPs who perhaps have plans? It is one thing to do it during the normal, set schedule in the Standing Orders, but it is another thing to start doing it on April 28, which is today, because this would take effect if this motion passes. What does it do to the administration of this place? What does it do to the clerks? They work hard, and they know they have to work hard, but one minute before the House is set to rise, the government and its buddies in the NDP can say that they want to keep everybody here. They would want to keep the clerks here, the administration here and the pages here. Have people not been through enough throughout the course of this crisis? We have had to go through the extensions of the long hours in this place, the uncertainty and the impact on mental health, on families and on people's lives, yet one minute before the House is scheduled to rise, they can suddenly extend it until midnight, and they can do that every single night if they want to. How is that fair? How is that fair to a mom who works here who has kids at home who she needs to get home to, or to a father who works here who has kids at home who he needs to get home to? How about a husband and wife who work together, the partners and spouses who work in this place, having to work those long hours because the government is mismanaging its agenda and is not using its time effectively in this House? What about the mental health impacts this would have? What about the drivers? What about the security guards? They will effectively be given a one-minute notice that they have to stick around this place. Come on. How ridiculous is that? The government can do it, as I said earlier, from the point this motion passes right through until June 23, or earlier if they decide that they are going to adjourn the House. Of course, another part of the motion is talking about proceedings on any opposition motion. So, when it is government business, it is okay, we will extend the House, but not on opposition motion days. These are very valuable supply days that we get. The official opposition gets five days in the supply period, the Bloc Québécois gets one and the NDP, I believe, gets one as well. However, on those days, we would rise at the appropriate time. There would not be any opportunity for us to extend beyond the normal sitting time, but there would be for government legislation. Perhaps we have an issue that is important to Canadians. Perhaps it is a geopolitical issue, financial issue or an issue affecting the health of Canadians that we want to bring forward and get consensus on in the House. We would not have an opportunity to extend beyond the normal sitting time, but the government, with a one-minute notice and the help of its coalition buddies in the NDP, could extend the sitting time of the House every single day, including Friday. On Friday, we do the business of this place for this country and the House adjourns at 2:30 p.m. However, at 2:29 p.m., the two parties can get together and say that we will be extending until midnight. We can talk about the impact that this can have on families and the family unit, and the impact on the mental health and physical health of those who work to support this place. This includes MPs, many of whom make travel plans on Fridays so they can go home to their constituencies. When they go home to their constituencies, they are going out to events on Saturday and sometimes on Sunday, then working their way back here to Parliament by getting back on an airplane. Now the Liberals are suggesting that members of Parliament have to cancel their travel plans on a whim because they are not good at dealing with their legislative agenda and the schedule of the House, and they are going to keep us here until midnight on Friday. I have sat here for six and a half years and have heard the NDP talk about a family-friendly environment in this place, about attracting more women to Parliament and about making sure that the lives of the people who work here and the lives of MPs are balanced so they can spend time with their families and can spend time in their constituencies. However, if this motion passes today, the Liberals will push to extend the timelines to midnight every single day that the House is sitting with a one-minute notice, just one minute, including on Fridays. I have no problem working Fridays. It is part of my job as the opposition House leader to be here on Fridays. However, I think it is absolutely unreasonable for anyone to expect, with one-minute notice, all of the administration, all of the support staff and the interpreters who work in this place to be here until midnight every single day, when the House starts at 10 o'clock in the morning, because the government mismanages its legislative agenda. I have not even touched on the interpreters. At the Board of Internal Economy, we have been hearing about the impact that these virtual or hybrid sittings are having on our interpreters. We have seen an increase in injuries. Reports have been published that note a marked increase in the physical injury impact that this hybrid setting has been having on our interpreters. I have also talked about some of the other people who are going to be impacted by this. If the government is that concerned about the health and wellness of the people who work here, including the interpreters, why would it even suggest extending until midnight every single day? It is because of its failure to impose its legislative agenda within the timelines that have been prescribed in the Standing Orders. This is also going to have an impact on committees, which I am going to touch on a bit later. This will have an impact on the ability of the committees to do their work because of the shuffling of resources that will be required. It stands to reason that if we are going to go to midnight, we will have to take something away from somewhere, and the important work that is being done by committees will suffer. Maybe that is the intent. Maybe that is what the government wants. Maybe it wants to take that work away from committees so it can further avoid accountability and transparency and we can further see the democratic decline that is happening in this country. This is a beauty. As I said earlier, after 6:30 p.m., with one minute to spare because the House normally adjourns at 6:30 p.m., a member or minister of the government can go to the NDP and say, “We are going to extend.” Here is the impact of that, and it is a joke. It has to be a joke; there is no other way to explain it. The motion states: the Speaker shall not receive any quorum calls or dilatory motions, and shall only accept a request for unanimous consent after receiving a notice from the House leaders or whips of all recognized parties That is just on unanimous consent. At least they have included the House leaders of recognized parties on some sort of unanimous consent motion that can be passed. However, what is interesting here is the constitutional obligation to have quorum in this place. What Liberals are saying in this motion is that after 6:30 p.m. there will not be a requirement for quorum.

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader just said to me that this has never been done before. It has never been done in a circumstance like this, and it has always been done with the agreement of all recognized parties through unanimous consent. This is a motion the Liberals are ramming through Parliament, so yes, this has never been done before without the expressed unanimous consent of all the House leaders. This does not take that into account; it imposes that on us. Let us think about how ridiculous this is. There is no quorum call, and members of the opposition take their responsibility and role as members of Parliament very seriously. Just as it is a constitutional right to have quorum in this place, it is still a constitutional obligation on the part of the opposition to hold the government to account. We take that role very seriously. The fact they are not allowing for quorum in this place means, effectively, that we can be here as an opposition and the Bloc can be here as an opposition to ask questions and debate government legislation, but government members do not have to be here. They can literally be sitting at home doing nothing, watching This Is Us or the Blue Jays, while we and our colleagues in the Bloc, as opposition, are sitting here debating government legislation. The way this reads right now, when questions and comments come up we could be the only ones asking questions of ourselves on government legislation. This gives an indication of the programming of this place as a result of the motion. It means, as we know because of the agreement we have all seen that the NDP and the Liberals have signed, that things are already programmed in this place. Government members do not want an opposition; they want an audience, and they are going to get it because they do not have to be here. They could be sitting at home in their pyjamas watching CPAC while we are here doing the work of the country and debating their pieces of legislation. That is what this part of the motion means. With no quorum calls, there is no obligation for the government or the NDP to show up. I suspect the only two parties that will be showing up are the official opposition and the third party, the Bloc, because we are the ones who want to work. I am looking at my colleagues in the Bloc. Am I the only who thinks it is ridiculous that the government and the NDP can be sitting at home while we are debating their legislation and, in questions and comments, asking ourselves the questions the government should be asking in debate? How ridiculous is that? That is what the motion calls for.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member just asked if I am trying to con them to support us. I think Bloc members are actually smart and see how ridiculous this motion is. I think they do. I have dealt with the member for La Prairie and he is a pretty smart guy. He understands exactly what government members are doing, as we do. They do not want an opposition; they want an audience. That is what they want. We have seen this pattern over the six and a half years that I have been here, since 2015, and I have highlighted some of that stuff, whether it was Motion No. 6 or the first bill that came through Parliament after the COVID situation. The government members seem to think they can ram anything through. We did have an election in September and the Liberals formed a minority government. At the time, I believe the Prime Minister thought two things were going to happen. Number one, he thought people were going to throw rose petals at his feet for the way he handled COVID. That did not happen, obviously, by the results. Second, the Liberals knew very well what was going to happen in this country. They knew the economic crisis was looming. They knew the affordability crisis was looming, and the only way they could find cover from that was to hope for a majority government in September. How else can we explain the fact that 18 months into his term, the Prime Minister was willing to call a $600-million election? Of course, they were trying to provide cover for themselves, a cover that only a majority government would provide. It did not take long for them to find that majority government, did it? By throwing a few little crumbs to the NDP, giving them this and that to get support for at least the next four budgets, they have found that cover. I have stood up here before on this, and I cannot express my profound disappointment in our friends in the NDP for giving the government the cover it sought in September during the election. I just cannot believe it. I sit here in question period and hear some of the questions coming from NDP members and just shake my head. How can they realistically say they are holding the government to account when they are supporting every aspect of what it does? A climate change report that came out the other day called the government's efforts on climate change a sham. It was the environment commissioner who said that, yet NDP members, who talk about being the guardians of climate, are sitting here criticizing the very people they are in cahoots with, the very government they are aligned with. It does not make any sense, unless the only thing they can buy is a few little crumbs, which apparently is the case. I have talked about quorum and dilatory motions. The motion also reads: (iii) motions to proceed to the orders of the day, and to adjourn the debate or the House may be moved after 6:30 p.m. by a minister of the Crown, including on a point of order, and such motions be deemed adopted, (iv) the time provided for Government Orders shall not be extended pursuant to Standing Orders 33(2), 45(7.1) or 67.1(2) Again, the fact that the Liberals are mismanaging the legislative agenda in the House is the reason they have decided to take a fly off everyone's forehead with an axe using this piece of legislation. The motion goes on: (i) during consideration of the estimates on the last allotted day, pursuant to Standing Order 81(18), when the Speaker interrupts the proceedings for the purpose of putting forthwith all questions necessary to dispose of the estimates, (A) all remaining motions to concur in the votes for which a notice of opposition was filed shall be deemed to have been moved and seconded, the questions deemed put and recorded divisions deemed requested Again, this is just to accelerate or fast-track pieces of legislation. Much of that is power the government already has, but it is certainly more prescriptive in this motion to make that happen. The motion continues: (B) the Speaker shall have the power to combine the said motions for voting purposes, provided that, in exercising this power, the Speaker be guided by the same principles and practices used at report stage That is fairly self-explanatory. Then, of course, this is quite interesting: (ii) when debate on a motion for concurrence in committee reports is adjourned or interrupted, including on the day of the adoption of this order, the debate shall again be considered on a day designated by the government, after consultation with the House leaders of the other recognized parties, but in any case not later than the 35th sitting day after the interruption Reports that come out of committee come to the House for concurrence. As I said in a recent article that I was interviewed for, there are wide eyes on this place. There are people who watch the House of Commons who normally may not be engaged in committee processes or other processes. A perfect example of that was this morning, when we moved a concurrence motion on the WE Charity scandal. The member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman moved a motion that it be referred back to committee, so the witnesses who had been deemed in contempt of the committee and a minister could come back to the committee, because that is what we want. We want to get down to the bottom of the WE scandal and not obstruct, but make sure we are putting the government in a position of being accountable and transparent. The Liberals are actually moving that part of the procedural process into the 35th sitting day after interruption, which effectively means that we would not be able to move any of our concurrence reports on committee recommendations until after September. On the issue of accountability and transparency, again we see the government providing itself with cover. Certainly its coalition partners in the NDP, by supporting this motion, are helping it to obstruct not just the work of committees, but also the work of Parliament, which again is seeing a further democratic decline in Canada. We are seeing it again, so again there is this pattern. The other thing the motion says is: “a motion for third reading of a government bill may be made in the same sitting during which the said bill has been concurred in at report stage”. As ridiculous as some of the other stuff is, this is the icing on the cake: “a minister of the Crown may move, without notice, a motion to adjourn the House until Monday, September 19, 2022, provided that the House shall be adjourned pursuant to Standing Order 28 and that the said motion shall be decided immediately without debate or amendment”. What does that mean? It means that if things heat up for the Liberals, and they are, because there are brewing scandals out there, not the least of which is the RCMP investigation into the Prime Minister's admission that he did not give himself permission to accept an over $200,000 vacation to a private island, they can simply pull the plug on Parliament. They can do this at any point from the day that this motion is adopted. It could be next week if things really start heating up. I look back at some of the scandals that the government has been involved in, particularly the Prime Minister, and by extension and by involvement everybody on that side who has provided cover and has continued to support the Prime Minister on all of these scandals, whether it was SNC-Lavalin, the WE Charity scandal or the invocation of the Emergencies Act. It effectively means that if the committee gets to a point where there is no justification or rationalization for the government to impose the Emergencies Act, if things get too hot, the government can simply say “we're done, we're going to go home”. It could happen the day that this motion is adopted. What it does is allow the government to prorogue Parliament without implementing prorogation. That is what it does. Let us suppose the RCMP decides that it is going to investigate the Prime Minister. I think it should, because the missing piece of its initial investigation was admitted by the Prime Minister in this place the other day: he did not grant himself approval, as the head of government, to take that trip. What if the RCMP decides that it is going to investigate? What if, speculation, on May 15 we get a report from the RCMP, or furthermore the Prime Minister is charged with fraud? Think of the political heat of that issue. It may be something else. There are other things that I know are brewing, with respect to the government and the potential for scandal. As I have said many times in this place, when they get $567 billion in spending and $1.3 trillion in debt, among many of those zeroes, we know, as has been documented but we know there are more, there are many Liberal-connected insiders and cronies who have benefited as a direct result of this pandemic. Members know that. I can say that there are many people who are looking for those connections. What if a scandal like that hits? What if there is another WE Charity scandal? The invocation of the Emergencies Act is a perfect example. The Liberals are very good at couching things. As a former prosecutor, the Minister of Public Safety is very good at using his words. However, the government has already indicated that under the Emergencies Act, both at committee and through the judicial review that is legislated, the Liberals are going to sit there and are not going to allow cabinet confidentiality to be moved. They are not going to allow those documents to be viewed. What if there is a brewing scandal with that? Then there is the Winnipeg lab scandal. What happened there? It was kind of funny yesterday that I got a call from the government House leader. There was no indication from him that he was going to do what he said he was going to do. We found out last night that, with or without the Conservatives and with or without the Bloc, the government was going to have the Liberals and the NDP form a committee to look at the documents from the Winnipeg lab scandal and determine whether anything was untoward in that. It is like having the wolves looking after the hen house. They are already in cahoots. They are working together. The government House leader called me yesterday and I said to him to let me circle back, because I was not the House leader at the time that this happened. I said, “Let me talk to my group about this.” From the time that conversation happened, which was after caucus yesterday, until three o'clock, I found out that the Liberals had already made this announcement and that it was embargoed in the media. There was no discussion. There was no opportunity for us to work together to try to come up with some solution. The government House leader referred to a situation back in January, which I was being briefed on at the time that I found out this agreement had been made between the NDP and the Liberals, the wolves looking after the sheep, on this document. I found out at that time that this was already a fait accompli. It was going to happen anyway, whether we agreed to it or not. The Liberals accuse us of the very thing that they engage in. That is obstructing the constitutional obligation of the official opposition party on the Winnipeg lab document. The point is that, at any point from the time that this motion is introduced, the government can pull the plug on this place if things start getting bad or if it starts feeling the heat. If there is a political reason for the government not to allow Parliament to function, to not allow the opposition parties, and there are two of us that are holding the government to account, to do their constitutional obligation to hold the government to account, the Liberals can end that at any point if it gets too hot for them. If that does not cause a concern or a problem, it is prorogation without prorogation. Members recall what the government did back during the WE Charity scandal. Things were getting close. Things were getting tight. The Liberals were feeling it. What did the Prime Minister do? He did the very thing he promised in 2015 he would never do, and that was to prorogue Parliament. He did it. Everything died at that point: all of the work of the committee and all of the reports. That is why the concurrence motion this morning is so important. We have already asked, through a question of privilege, whether we can reintroduce the issues of contempt from the Prime Minister's Office staff and, at that time, a minister of the Crown. We asked if we could reintroduce that, and through a point of privilege you ruled that it was not appropriate. I respect the Chair, and I respect the rulings. That is fine. What other course of action do we have to hold this government to account? We tried this morning, through a concurrence motion of a committee report, to bring those people back to the committee, and why not? What is wrong with being accountable and transparent? To the Liberal government, there is a lot wrong with it. This is why we are seeing this Motion No. 11. The heat starts to occur as things start ramping up, and they typically do when Parliament is sitting. I will say that the issue of Public Health Canada using mobility data to determine process and health issues of Canadians without their knowledge happened during the Christmas break, but it is very rare in this place that during a two-week break period we are going to start seeing scandals. It is only when we start getting down to the business of the House, when we are getting Order Paper questions back or we are getting access to information papers back, as is the case with the RCMP investigation. It was only because of the ATIP that we found out what the missing part, or the missing link, of the RCMP investigation was not to charge the Prime Minister with fraud over his multi-hundred-thousand dollar, illegal luxury vacation. It was only after we got that ATIP back that we realized there was one missing element to the RCMP investigation, and that was whether the Prime Minister deemed himself the head of government, and whether he, as the head of government, gave himself permission to go on that trip. As the Leader of the Opposition, in her line of questioning the other day, determined in a pointed question to the Prime Minister, he said “No.” That was the only missing link to this. Now, we have requested that the RCMP reopen the investigation, because it now has a piece of the puzzle that was missing at the time this was investigated. I know, because I sat here yesterday and I listened to the Prime Minister talk about these personal attacks. It is never about being accountable. It is always about justification with this Prime Minister. There is no statute of limitations on fraud charges. If the Prime Minister committed fraud, with this new piece of the puzzle that has been found, then it is up to the RCMP to determine whether in fact those fraud charges should be laid against the Prime Minister for his illegal vacation, which the Ethics Commissioner already found and deemed to be against the Conflict of Interest Code. That will be up to the RCMP. That is done because the House is sitting. It is not done because the Liberal Party and their coalition partners are sitting at home, because there is no quorum call. They are not even participating in the role of Parliament, and not even debating their own pieces of legislation. They are letting the opposition carry the water on all of this stuff. It is effectively a war of attrition: That is what this motion is all about. That happens when this place is functioning, when democracy is functioning and when we are not seeing a decline in our democracy, which is the pattern we have seen over the course of the last six and a half years. That is what causes me some great concern, when “without notice, a motion to adjourn the House until Monday, September 19”, which is when we are regularly scheduled to come back after the summer break, could occur. If things get really hot and the government is feeling a lot of pressure, it could prorogue without prorogation. I know what the Prime Minister is going to say and I know what his cabinet would say. They would be out there saying, “We did not prorogue.” They made that promise in 2015, despite the fact that they broke it. The reality is that this is giving them exclusive and unnecessary power to basically take this place and shut Parliament down. There are a lot of issues, there is no question about it. There are a lot of issues that we are dealing with, not the least of which, as I mentioned earlier, is the affordability crisis. There are some geopolitical issues going on around the world. There are issues related to our economy, inflation pressures, the housing crisis and the opioid crisis. All of those things are important issues to Canadians. We should not give the government the power to be able, if it feels the political heat, to shut this place down. We have a schedule that has already been approved by the parties, although I am finding out around this place, in my short time as House leader, that agreements with some of the other opposition House leaders are not even worth the ink they are written in. Because of the agreement, they just do whatever they want to do now. They give us a call as a courtesy call. Why do they call us? They call just so that they can say they called us, but the decision has already been made by this unholy alliance between the Liberals and the NDP and that is not the way it should be. That is not the way this place should operate. In a functioning democracy that is not in decline, a government should not put itself in a position in which it is dropping the hammer and effectively making the opposition an audience, not an opposition. Again, on the motion, notwithstanding the order adopted on Thursday, November 25, 2021, and Standing Order 45(6), no recorded division requested after 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 23, 2022, shall be deferred, except for any recorded division requested in regard to a Private Members’ Business item for which That is a procedural thing. Notwithstanding paragraph (j) of the order made Wednesday, March 30, 2022, the deadline for the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying to submit to Parliament a final report of its review, including a statement of any recommended changes, be no later than Monday, October 17, 2022, provided that an interim report on mental illness as a sole underlying condition be presented to the House no later than Thursday, June 23, 2022 I spoke earlier, at length, on this particular provision and the extension. Just to recap, as I said, the government had a legislated timeline on which it was to provide this review. That was to happen in May. It was not until the end of March that discussions officially started on this. Seeing the reasonableness of the request, particularly from my colleague, the House leader of the Bloc and the member for La Prairie, we all agreed to extend that deadline to June 23, six more weeks, in order to do this job. The government understood that this legislated timeline was to occur. It was the government that held off on this happening until the end of March, until discussions even started taking place, so I am not going to apologize for not agreeing to this particular provision to extend that deadline to October 17. I think there is enough time from now until June 23. As I said earlier, we asked that the government allocate resources so that there could be extended sittings of the committee to do this important work, because it is important work. There are many Canadians right now who are concerned about the process of medical assistance in dying, and they want to have their voices heard. I understand that. I just do not think that extending it to October 17 should happen. Given the reasonableness of what was agreed to initially and the government's mismanagement of the timelines on this, I think we should be able to do the work by June 23, as we all agreed to. The other part of this, and I talked about this a little this morning in the point of order I made, is about separating what is effectively an omnibus motion. That relates to the issue of Standing Order 28, that: The House shall not meet on New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, the day fixed for the celebration of the birthday of the Sovereign, St. John the Baptist Day, Canada Day, Labour Day, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Thanksgiving Day, Remembrance Day and Christmas Day. When St. John the Baptist Day, Canada Day or the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation fall on a Tuesday, the House shall not meet the preceding day; when those days fall on a Thursday, the House shall not meet the following day. There is one critical element to this particular part of the motion and one that I suggest would be important to traditionalists but is not as critical. That is the change of reference from “Dominion Day” to “Canada Day”. We all acknowledge that July 1 is now Canada Day. The traditionalists would like to keep the term “Dominion Day”, but that is less important than the issue of the day recognizing truth and reconciliation. I spoke about that this morning in the point of order that I brought up, and I asked for the Speaker to consider carving out at least seven parts of this omnibus motion, not the least of which is the issue of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. By putting it in this motion, which is effectively a procedural motion, the government is doing two things. The first is taking away, in my view, the paramount importance of what that day will mean to reconciliation with indigenous people in this country. I would like to think that there are more than enough speakers in this House who would like that to be carved out, so that they can talk about the importance of that day and about what reconciliation means as one of the many recommendations that came out of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. To put this in an omnibus procedural motion like this causes in me, and I hope in many Canadians and indigenous Canadians as well, a sense of cynicism in the sense that it would be put into a procedural motion. I suspect, with the give and take negotiations with the NPD, maybe that is the reason this is in there, but I think it is important to carve this out and have it as a stand-alone motion or piece of legislation. We have passed pieces of legislation in this place that deal with truth and reconciliation. We have done that, so I am not sure why the government feels like it should put it in here, when it is important for parliamentarians and Canadians to have their say on this. If this is put into a piece of legislation, I would find it awfully difficult not to support, but I would like to see it go through the normal process rather than being put in an omnibus, because I think it deserves, at a minimum, the attention it requires. At a minimum, it requires the attention of Parliament, separately from this. It requires the attention of committee. It requires respect in having indigenous leaders and communities come in and speak to committee about how important this day is toward reconciliation, yet it is almost like the government put it in an omnibus motion so that we could vote against it. I am not happy with this motion. I think I have spelled out many of the reasons, but on this particular issue, if the cynical intent is to have the opposition not support the motion and in effect not support the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation as a national holiday, nothing could be further from the truth. We would support it if it was carved out of this and dealt with separately. The Liberals are going to force us to vote against this motion to further wedge, to further stigmatize and to further divide. Worse yet, they will use this as a political wedge against the Conservative Party. I will remind members that it was former prime minister Stephen Harper who started the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. They are going to use this omnibus motion to wedge us politically and go to indigenous communities and say that the Conservatives did not support this. I think I can speak on behalf of every one of our members when I say that we support the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, so there is only one reason the government would put that in this motion. Therefore, I hope that in my point of order from this morning, for the sake of the reasons I have given now and that I gave this morning, you will carve out this particular part so we can deal with it with the respect, honour and dignity it deserves. I want to now focus on some of the other things that have come up during the course of this debate. Obviously, the work of committees is going to be severely impacted as a result of this motion, as we take those resources away and apply them to the extended sittings. However, I had a little fun as I was researching this issue of the government's imposing what is effectively a sledgehammer on Parliament to do the things it is failing at. There have been lots of times—

Mr. Speaker, I really want to thank the hon. member for bringing up that point, because it gave me an opportunity to take a drink of water. I certainly do not wear it as a badge of honour that I have spoken longer than the member, but I hope members have found that I have something substantive to say and not just ramble on. I did some research, as I said. The hon. member for Winnipeg North, who rose and rises often on his points of indignation, was once sitting on the opposition benches, and it is sincerely our hope that soon he will be sitting up in the corner. If there are only one or two seats, he can sit up there. That is sincerely our hope. It is funny how, when the Liberals get in government, all of a sudden this righteous indignation that they have shown in opposition suddenly becomes a supportive view and they are arguing to justify their position rather than be accountable. In 2013, the member for Winnipeg North, who is the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, talked about the extra cost of extended hours. I have not even touched on that. I have touched on the mental health aspects of our staff, the clerks, the administration and everybody who is associated. I have talked about the translators, but not the extra cost. Of course, the government does not worry about costs. It has not found a problem it cannot fix by throwing billions of dollars at it, so why should this be any different? On extended hours, here is what the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader said on May 21, 2013: I want to raise a specific issue. It was during the 39th Parliament that the previous clerk of the House of Commons told the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs that the budget for Parliament can handle two weeks of extended sitting hours in June. However, if the extended hours were to continue for additional weeks, the government would likely have to seek Parliament's approval for more money. I notice that the supplementary estimates (A) do not include a request to make any of the payments that will be generated by things such as overtime for House of Commons staff. I would argue that the government House leader seems to be responding to a Conservative crisis from last week and is getting anxious to leave a little early as opposed to going through the normal process. That is the very thing I spoke about before. When he is in opposition, he is opposed to it, but when he is in government, there is no problem. The day this motion is approved, we will run the potential of extending hours, addressing the very issues that the member brought forward in 2013, but it is not a concern for him now. Why? It is because he is in government.

Mr. Speaker, I have some stuff that Peter said. I may get to them. I have six minutes. I hope the member is keeping time. I will move to the former House leader of the NDP. This is part of this unholy alliance and the fact that they are working together on this. Nathan Cullen, the former NDP House leader, said this on extra cost, on the same day as the member for Winnipeg North: “The fact that they have not actually accounted for the money required to run Parliament for these extra hours for an extended time—a month, in this case—shows two things. One is that they do not really care all that much if they have to blow more money.” We are looking at two months. Is it not ironic that the NDP and the Liberals likely are going to support this motion to extend the time, not just for a month but for two months, and all of a sudden money is not a problem? Worse yet, I would suggest, the mental and physical health of the family unit and the people who work here, not least the translators, is going be impacted by this. I have some more nuggets. The member for Winnipeg North stood again on May 22, 2013, and said, “The government House leader, possibly and most likely, after serious discussions with the Prime Minister's Office, came to the conclusion that what we need to do is lose a little bit of focus on what is happening in the Prime Minister's Office and to try to maybe change the channel.” That sounds familiar. It was a problem back then, but it is not a problem right now. They are facing numerous investigations, numerous things that they are going to have to deal with, not the least of which is the Winnipeg lab documents and the RCMP situation, which I mentioned before. They will give themselves the ability to shut this place down: shut it down, and let us all go home. Proroguing without proroguing, that is what they want to do with this motion. I have another one. On time allocation in the House, on March 12, 2015, when the member for Winnipeg North was still sitting in the corner over there, where he is going to be soon, he said, “Never before in the history of our country have we seen a government abuse the rule of time allocation on legislation that Canadians are concerned about.” It is okay when he is in opposition, but when he gets in government the hypocrisy is palpable. This is what they do. I agree it is selective, but I picked some good nuggets here, and I have more. The member for Winnipeg North spent a lot of time talking about the government on June 3. He said, “The government, by once again relying on a time allocation motion to get its agenda passed, speaks of incompetence.” I have spent the last hour and 20 minutes talking about the government's incompetence in moving forward its legislative agenda, and these are words that the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has obviously said before, which is just perfect. He said, “It speaks of a genuine lack of respect for parliamentary procedure and ultimately for Canadians.” How ironic that the member from the government side now was saying exactly the same thing. Talk about hypocrisy. He sits here and he defends and justifies the government action to implement this strong-arm, sledgehammer approach in this place. It is laughable to think about it. Do members want to hear another one? Now I know why I woke up at 6:30 this morning, so I could look at this stuff. On April 1, the member for Winnipeg North said, “The bottom line is that the government has failed to properly manage the legislative agenda of the House of Commons and as a direct result has become completely dependent on time allocation. That is not healthy for a democracy in Canada.” That is what he said. I would suggest that what the Liberals are doing is not healthy for democracy. The reason why they are moving in this direction is that the NDP does not like time allocation. By extending and suspending debate, they are appeasing the NDP, but the other thing they are doing is putting themselves in a position, without a quorum call, where they can be at home in their PJs and their slippers watching the Blue Jays all summer and not have to worry about coming to work. The opposition party will continue to work. Our colleagues, and I have spoken to the member for La Prairie and the Bloc, will be here as well, even if the Liberals and the NDP do not want to come here and be held accountable, to be able to justify, to be transparent and to work in this place to ensure that our democracy is not in decline. What Motion No. 11 does is cause a continuation and a further decline in our democracy, and we will continue to fight that.