Parliamentary Speeches

Mr. Speaker, I spoke at length earlier about the government mismanaging its legislative agenda. This bill was introduced back in December. The second reading was in February, it went to committee and was approved March 1, and it came back to the House in April at report stage. Not only members of the opposition, but also members of the Bloc had significant concerns about this piece of legislation coming out of committee that opened up debate, but subsequent to that we had four weeks off in this place. I know that the government is going to blame obstruction and obfuscation on the part of the opposition, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, on April 4, the government gave notice of time allocation and the reason it did not move it was because the NDP would not agree to it. Is that not correct?

Mr. Speaker, April is Parkinson's Awareness Month. Parkinson's is the fastest-growing neurological disease in the world. There are more than 100,000 people in Canada living with Parkinson's, and more than 30 Canadians are diagnosed with Parkinson's every day. This number is expected to increase to 50 new diagnoses per day in the next decade. There is no diagnostic test for this disease, no treatment to stop it from progressing and no cure. It is important to reduce the waiting time for patients to receive medications, movement therapies and deep brain stimulation. I would like to thank Parkinson Canada for committing to transforming the lives of people with Parkinson's. It is due to my friend and Barrie—Innisfil resident Greg McGinnis, who advocates for better diagnostics, treatments and a cure for Parkinson's, that this will be made possible. We need to raise awareness for Parkinson's so that we can all work together to find a cure. Every Canadian deserves a good quality of life.

Madam Speaker, this is the problem with passing that on to the farms and the legislation that started years ago under the Liberal government. There are many challenges within the agriculture sector that farmers are facing. I happen to come from a large agricultural area. The carbon tax is causing problems, especially for grain heaters. On fertilizer costs, I just spoke with one of our local farmers, Larry Kell, last week. There is an increase in fertilizer costs, the 35% surcharge, and they have already prepaid for a lot of this fertilizer, but there is a shortage of fertilizer right now. It is going to cause a major problem for the agricultural sector. There is a lot to be concerned about. There are three things that we need in this country: energy security, food security and biopharma security. Those are the things that we need to focus on, especially at this time, given the geopolitical crises happening around the world.

Madam Speaker, I am really pleased to get up this afternoon, on the first day back after a couple of weeks back in our ridings, to speak about the budget. It reminds me of that old adage that people of integrity expect to be believed, and when they are not, time will prove them right. Time is certainly proving us right on predictions that were made a year and a half to two years ago, when the money-printing machines were going at full force to provide the types of supports that were needed for COVID. There were predictions on this side at that time, and right across the spectrum economists were predicting that inflationary pressures would begin to increase. We are now seeing those inflationary pressures affecting Canadian families in a way that they have not for a generation. I have been in my riding for the last couple of weeks, as all members have, and received emails, phone calls and text messages from the people of Barrie—Innisfil, who are quite concerned about the inflationary pressures that are happening within my community and in communities across Canada. This morning I happened to be watching the finance committee, and the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, was on there. He was asked a point-blank question by our shadow minister of finance: “Can we still consider inflation as transitory?” His answer was no. We are entering into a period of permanent inflation, it seems, and we know, based on Statistics Canada, that last month it was at 6.7%. We can think of the impact that has on Canadian families and the families I represent in Barrie—Innisfil. The price of everything is skyrocketing. The prices of gas, home heating, consumables, groceries, commodities and the necessities of life are increasing dramatically right across this country, and the expectation, according to the Governor of the Bank of Canada, is that this inflationary period we are in is going to be lasting for a long time. This is going to further impact affordability for families, further erode their retirement savings and really dramatically impact their ability to pay for things, especially at a time when they can least afford them. We heard, even in the last couple of weeks, in some of the surveys that came out, about how Canadians are desperately clinging to affordability. In many circumstances, over half of Canadians do not have enough money at the end of the month to pay for the things they need, the necessities of life. This budget actually increases government spending. There are certain things that are sure in life, and the one thing we can count on is that this budget is going to pass. Because of the coalition between the NDP and the Liberals, the New Democrats have signalled that not only are they going to support this budget, but they are also going to support subsequent budgets. We can sit here and criticize, and I have some things that I want to bring up specifically with respect to the budget as it relates to local issues in my riding of Barrie—Innisfil, but when we want to get an assessment of what people think about this budget, we can go to the experts. People do not have to listen to us; they do not have to listen to the government or the other opposition parties. They can listen to what respected economists are saying about this budget and the impact it is going to have on Canadians. Don Drummond, who is a former senior Department of Finance official, former TD Bank chief economist and current Queen's professor, said this: If I were in the business world I’d be extremely depressed, because we are at some point going to have to turn to how we fund all this spending, and it would seem the go-to funding source is corporate income tax. It was the first seven words, “If I were in the business world”, that caught the eye of another expert, who said: The problem is, we are all “in the business world,” whether we like it or not—as workers, consumers, and taxpayers. Tax business, and you tax almost everything we consume and most of the services we depend on. Those services will be hardest hit as a result of this. We have spoken about this many times. The impact of this type of continued spending is that taxes go up and services get cut. It is that simple, especially entering into a period in which we have higher interest rates. Even the—

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleagues' passionate discourse on this and the fact that they were more or less agreeing with what I was saying. When the Liberals were out selling the budget and travelling around Canada contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, the Parliamentary Budget Officer issued a report on Friday that was quite troubling with respect to the budget. He flags several downside risks in the recent federal budget, the biggest being big-ticket campaign promises that have yet to make an appearance in the government's fiscal forecast. What they've forecasted is in the budget, but there are things that are not forecasted that are going to cause some significant costs later on. The PBO's largest concern is expenditures looming outside of the budget, including some of the Liberal campaign pledges and lobbying by provinces for big increases to health care transfers. On the spending side, he said there could be a significant delta. This is the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Yves Giroux. He went on to say some of those election promises were slated to start up in the current fiscal year, most notably the commitment to increase annual payments to seniors receiving the guaranteed income supplement. He said many of these costs, including a promised increase to Canadian mental health transfers, do not appear in the budget. Universal pharmacare, which is of course a large part of the NDP-Liberal alliance, could cost billions of dollars a year. The Liberals pulled up short of a commitment to a full-blown program during the campaign, but the agreement struck with the NDP last month says that the government will make continuing progress toward such a program. However, there is no forecasted cost to that. Those costs will come up later on. When the Parliamentary Budget Officer is warning about this particular budget, then I think all Canadians should heed those warnings. As I said earlier, I spent the last couple of weeks in the riding, and I heard from a lot of people. I know the Liberals' argument, because I have heard it a couple of times this morning, has to do with some of the geopolitical problems happening around the world being a cause of current inflation, whether it is supply chain issues or others. However, as I said at the onset, this was predicted to happen when the money printing presses were going at full steam a year and a half to two years ago. Even then, people were concerned about the cost of living. Some emails I received August 25, 2021, almost eight months ago, begged me to do something about this, if not for them, then for their future children. They say the government needs to fix this broken situation as it relates to housing. One from August 25 reads, “I'm not sure who I would send this letter to, but I wish to express my concern with current rental and housing shortages in Barrie and surrounding areas.” This is a serious issue and many people are struggling as a result. I know there are billions allocated toward housing, but there have been billions allocated in the past, and we have not seen any measurable increases. There are affordability projects right now that are waiting for approval from the government. I wrote a letter to the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion three or four months ago. Still, no decision has been made for an already existing project that is waiting to go through the rapid housing initiative. It is to be a joint partnership between Simcoe County and what we hope would be the province and the federal government, but we have not heard anything at this point. There are a lot of announcements, but the list is long. The emails and texts about the anxiety and the affordability crisis people are facing right now are long. Adding on billions and billions of dollars for more long-term, unsustainable programs, from the affordability standpoint, is awfully difficult for Canadians. The last thing I will speak to is my profound disappointment about Lake Simcoe. In 2019, Conservatives were promised $30 million for the re-establishment of the Lake Simcoe cleanup fund. Just two or three days before the election in the advance polls, the then deputy prime minister, the now finance minister, came to the shores of Lake Simcoe promising $40 million for the reinstatement of the Lake Simcoe fund. Just a couple of days after the election, my colleagues and I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister about it. In this budget, only $19.7 million was allocated, and it is not for direct funding for Lake Simcoe. It is to be spread across the country. There was $60 million spent to clean up Lake Simcoe. We saw measurable improvements. I am extremely disappointed that the commitment made in 2019 was not lived up to in this budget. We are going to continue to fight for Lake Simcoe.

Madam Speaker, it is an absolutely absurd assertion. Banks pay their fair share. Businesses pay their fair share. Individuals pay their fair share. I just did my taxes, and believe me, I am paying my fair share. The problem is the banks are simply going to pass that cost on to consumers. Let us be realistic about this. If the hon. member actually thinks the banks are going to pay any additional taxes charged by the government and not pass that on to consumers, adding to the existing burden consumers, taxpayers and people in my riding are already facing, then he is sadly naive. He is sadly mistaken if he does not think that is going to happen.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to call Motion No. P-1. That an order of the House do issue for a copy of all documents, signed or unsigned, related to the negotiation of the coalition agreement between the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party, or what the Prime Minister refers to as a "supply and confidence agreement", including any documents which record or demonstrate an understanding between the parties as to how the coalition commitments will be interpreted.

Madam Speaker, it may be April Fool's Day, but the tax hikes that went into effect less than 12 hours ago are no joke. This morning, Canadians woke up to higher taxes on everything from gas to groceries to home heating because of the 25% increase in the carbon tax. Everything moved by a truck will go up as producers and wholesales inevitably pass those costs on to the families and seniors who can least afford them. Why is punishing Canadians financially at a time when they can least afford it acceptable to the NDP-Liberal government?

Madam Speaker, that is not according to the PBO. A new Ipsos poll confirms how out of touch the NDP-Liberal government is with hard-working Canadians, and they applaud. We have an affordability crisis and, according to Ipsos, Canadians want a budget that addresses the cost-of-living crisis, not a radical, ideologically driven, activist, Leap Manifesto NDP-type budget that punishes families and seniors with higher costs just for eating, driving and heating their homes. There was a time in this country when a Liberal Party led by Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin governed in a fiscally responsible way. What happened to that Liberal Party?

Madam Speaker, no one ever imagined a time when a family or seniors would be punished financially for simply driving their car to earn a living or to visit their grandchildren, yet gas prices are up again today because of the 25% hike in the carbon tax. The Liberals have a choice in the budget next week. They can be fiscally responsible like the Chrétien–Martin Liberals were or they can continue to take their marching orders from their radical NDP partners and be completely out of touch with Canadians, according to Ipsos. What will it be: a Chrétien-Martin Liberal budget or an NDP-Liberal party budget?

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Calgary Centre. Far too often, it is easy for us to sit in this symbol of democracy and lose perspective on what is happening within our constituencies. The affordability factor is real right now. What many people were saying was a transitory inflation period has actually become a state of permanent inflation, and it is affecting everything from gasoline to home heating. The impact it is having on Canadians is very real, specifically in my constituency of Barrie—Innisfil. A little later I am going to be talking about some of the impacts that were told to me directly from people so that not only this place but Canadians can understand the real impacts inflation and the affordability crisis Canadians are facing today are having on my constituency. Canadians have been resilient for the past two years dealing with COVID. There have been many government programs that have been implemented. As a result of that, we have seen increases in debt and deficit. The latest figures I heard were $400 billion in deficit and $1.3 trillion in debt. What we are saying, through this motion, is that there needs to be some semblance of getting back to a fiscal framework where we are not seeing those levels of increase in debt and deficit through unsustainable government programs. There is no question some of these measures that were implemented needed to be implemented. They needed to be targeted. In many ways, Conservatives supported some of those measures, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. We are getting to a point right now where many Canadians, young Canadians, seniors and families, are losing hope that there is a prosperous future for them because of the fiscal situation they are in. This is a fiscal situation that has been exacerbated by government debt and deficit, which is leaving us vulnerable. We are starting to see increases in interest rates and the service level of that debt is going to have a profound effect on families with mortgages, lines of credit and credit cards. However, it is even going to have a more profound effect on government as this debt piles up and the cost of servicing that debt increases. I would argue there is an attack on many aspects of revenue in this country. We have seen certain sectors of our economy, like the natural resource sector, the fisheries over the last several weeks and other sectors, attacked through legislative and regulatory burdens. Traditional sectors that normally create revenue for the government have been attacked, and that is increasing the vulnerability of not just government revenues but the ability to pay for those increases in servicing costs. Canadians are struggling more than ever as a result of inflation, which is now at 5.7% and is the highest inflation in a generation. It is the highest inflation rate in over 30 years. Canadians are being burdened not just by the inflation but by the level of debt. We saw just recently a Statistics Canada report that showed $1.86 of every household income coming in is going toward servicing debt. Think about that. Just a year ago or two years ago we were at $1.70. That number is steadily increasing and it is causing a problem. The amount that households have added to their debt burden has amounted to $50 billion just over the last quarter. These are staggering numbers that really put at risk those working-class, middle-class and lower-class households in this country that have been struggling and will continue to struggle under this burden of debt. What we are talking about today is at least attempting to get this fiscal house in order. History in this country has shown that previous Liberal governments like the Martin and Chrétien governments were very good at fiscal responsibility and social Liberal tendencies. This is where I would classify my politics. I believe we need to be responsible in our finances, but we also need to look after the most vulnerable. It is the most vulnerable who are at the greatest risk as a result of this debt increase, this debt burden and this out-of-control government spending, debt and deficits. The social safety net programs that many Canadians rely on are at risk as a result of the servicing costs of debt. We really need to get to a point where we are focused on this fiscal framework and getting things aligned. It does not have to come from austerity and it does not have to come from cuts. I will speak about that in a couple of minutes. We know that the government's spending is certainly out of control. Two-thirds of Canadians say that inflation and an affordability crisis are their top economic concerns. Canadians are requiring real solutions to skyrocketing inflation and the cost of living. This is not just hitting households; it is hitting businesses. I just had a meeting with the Barrie Chamber of Commerce, and the increase of costs is a very a real and serious threat and concern to the economic recovery of businesses. A friend of mine who owns a local business just got his carbon tax bill, for example, and that bill alone was $1,384. Businesses with tight margins of, say, 10%, have to come up with 13,800 dollars' worth of sales just to pay for the carbon tax. Again, businesses are getting to a point right now where they are becoming uncompetitive. Gas price is another significant concern. It is up 30% since last year. The price of gas in Barrie today is 167.9¢. Tomorrow the carbon tax is going to see a 25% increase, which means that the price of fuel is going to go up by 11¢. This may not be a problem in downtown Toronto, downtown Montreal or downtown Vancouver, but it is a problem in Barrie—Innisfil, where there are a lot of people who drive to the GTA. They drive for an hour and are filling up their tanks for over $120. I have heard stories that it is costing $120, whereas a year ago it might have cost $65 or $70. This is how much of an impact it is having on affordability for families, and it is taking away from other things. There are seniors who are no longer driving to places for fear that they will have to put gas in their cars, so they are limiting their social interaction at a time when they should be increasing it after the COVID crisis. It is becoming a real problem. There is a story about the Innisfil Food Bank. It is seeing an increase in demand, but it is also seeing an increase in the costs of servicing that demand because of grocery prices. Here is what happens. When the prices increase and the carbon tax increases, the manufacturers and wholesalers pass that on and we end up paying a price for it at the grocery store. We are already seeing that day in and day out every time people go to the grocery store. The Innisfil Food Bank says that more donations will not be enough because as prices skyrocket, more people can no longer afford to buy groceries. Just a month ago, I took advantage of the resources available to me through the House. I sent out a householder to my residents and asked this question: “How concerned are you about the rising cost of groceries, gas and heating your home?” I will give a sample of some of the responses that I heard from Barrie—Innisfil. “I fear my children in their 20's will never be able to afford a home of their own. It's quite heartbreaking”, says Christine of Barrie. “The price of living makes things extremely hard to live. The amount of taxes we pay is ridiculous. If you don't save while you're young, by the time you retire how will you survive? You work for 30 years in a job and just have a Canada pension”, says John of Innisfil. In another one from Innisfil, Garry says, “$6.00 increases in OAS. It's time to get something for seniors. We are staving.” Robert from Barrie says it is “$1.50 per a litre of gas”. That was last month. It is $1.67 this morning. He says it is “$255.00 for 1 month's heating bill. Housing prices + rent [are] out of control.” Monica from Innisfil says she is “finding it difficult to advance and afford an adult life (kids) and keep up with bills even on a teacher's salary”. She is worried about inflation and says, “a recession will happen”. Those are examples of what I am hearing. How do we recover from this? We do not attack those sectors that produce. We make sure that it is about the power of businesses, the people who they employ and the products and services they produce in every sector and region of this country, and that Canada becomes competitive, not just domestically but internationally, so we have the confidence for domestic investment and foreign investment. Let us make sure that we are firing on all cylinders. We have focused on the expense side of the ledger for the last two years. It is time we focus on the revenue side of the ledger, have a budget that Canadians expect, with no wild, out-of-control spending, and make sure that we do things right in this country.

Madam Speaker, that is a great question and the answer lies in the report of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. While the Liberals say that 60% of Canadians will get more back in the carbon tax, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says that 80% will receive less than what they pay in carbon tax. This is a fallacy that is spread by members of the Liberal government. They stand up here in the House and tell people things that are not exact. The Parliamentary Budget Officer answered that question, and the people of Barrie—Innisfil are not getting back what they are paying in carbon tax. In fact, it is costing them more.

Madam Speaker, it is not going to be a surprise to the hon. member that an attack on our natural resource sector is not what I believe in. I think the natural resource sector has clean, Canadian, ethical oil that has the best environmental standards. Natural gas, as well, has the best environmental standards in the world, the best labour standards in the world and the best human rights standards in the world. I think we should be supplying the world with clean, Canadian, ethical oil and gas. We have the fifth-largest reserves in the world. At a time when we are dealing with geopolitical crises around the world, like the one happening in Ukraine and Europe, we have the ability to meet that supply and demand with clean, Canadian, ethical energy.

Madam Speaker, I do not happen to believe that earning a profit is a bad thing. I also do not happen to believe nor share the view of the NDP regarding businesses earning a profit. Whether it is a small-town business in Barrie—Innisfil or a large corporation, they pay their fair share of taxes. The NDP talks a lot about a 1% tax on the rich. That is going to generate about $7 billion a year in revenue, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. We have a debt right now—

Do not clap right now, because we have a deficit of $400 billion, and $400 billion minus $7 billion is $393 billion. Where are they going to get the rest of that money back? Where are they going to get the rest of the money to pay for that deficit? They are going to get it with an economy that is firing on all cylinders, not by picking and choosing winners, and by making sure that every sector in every region of this country is economically firing on all cylinders.

Mr. Speaker, obviously, it is a profound disappointment that the government is now moving time allocation on what is effectively a very substantive justice bill repealing, for example, mandatory minimums. Effectively, what it is doing is giving criminals a get-out-of -jail-free card at a cost to victims. I want to point out, too, that we have dealt with this issue since December of 2021 with only four days of debate on this substantive bill. I also want to point out that I am sure the left hand will be holding the left hand on this one. In the agreement between the NDP and the Liberals, it says that both parties agree that parliamentary debate is essential and they will identify the priority of bills to expedite them through the House of Commons, including expediting sitting hours to allow for additional speakers, so I do not quite understand why they are not allowing for additional speakers on this bill, especially as it is something so substantive. My question to the Minister of Justice is this. There has been an increase in gun crimes and domestic violence in this country since this bill was introduced. Why is the NDP-Liberal government proposing time allocation? Why is it putting the rights of criminals ahead of the rights of victims?

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to add to my point of order of last week concerning the coalition agreement between the Liberal and New Democratic parties. On Thursday, I asked whether the Chair would indicate whether it would be helpful, in approaching a ruling, to know whether there were any signed versions of the agreement or additional side deals. In this morning's edition of The Hill Times, it was reported that this backroom coalition deal is, despite public appearances otherwise, a signed agreement. Allow me to offer a selection of three quotations from the newspaper. One: The Liberals and the NDP stunned Canadians across the country last Tuesday by announcing they signed a confidence and supply agreement which will allow the Liberals to govern until...2025... Number two: [The Prime Minister's] decision to sign this agreement with the NDP came as a total surprise for caucus members. Number three: The [Liberal caucus] meeting lasted about 90 minutes, during which [the Prime Minister] informed MPs about his decision to sign the agreement. Earlier today, CTV reported that the leader of the NDP, the now moderate wing of the Liberal Party, said that he is confident that the Prime Minister will follow through on the deal because he “got it in writing”. The only thing worse than a backroom deal is a secret backroom deal. Last week, I called upon the government to come clean with the House and with all Canadians by tabling the signed agreement and any other side deals. I renew that call here and now. Canadians need to know the full truth. The Liberals' silence to date on my point of order in fact speaks volumes. I hope they are not just relying on friends in the wings to do their bidding. The government must come clean to the House and defend and explain this unprecedented arrangement. In closing, I ask for unanimous consent to table the Hill Times article published today entitled, “'No difference left between the Liberals and the NDP' after confidence and supply agreement, say some Liberal MPs.”

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. I am rising to add to my point of order of Tuesday afternoon and further to the intervention by the member for La Prairie yesterday concerning the coalition agreement between the Liberal and New Democratic parties. Firstly, a timely ruling is essential and today is the last day of the supply period, which means that a new one starts tomorrow. That means we need to know how the eight opposition days this spring will be distributed. Of course, we have question period every day where ministers now receive eight lob questions from two government parties, instead of the typical three lob questions daily. Then there is the matter of the Liberals' coalition partner being stationed in the opposition lobby behind me right in between the Conservative and Bloc sections. This all needs to be addressed, and I say that respectfully. The Speaker is recovering from surgery and I did hear from him today. It sounds like he is doing well and we are all thankful for that.

I know the House is unanimous in wishing him a complete and speedy recovery, but we cannot wait for his return for a ruling, nor would we wish to stress or tax him with these matters. Subsection 43(1) of the Parliament of Canada Act vests you, Mr. Speaker, with full and adequate authority to address this matter. It states: Whenever the House of Commons is informed of the unavoidable absence of the Speaker thereof by the Clerk at the table, the Chairman of Committees, if present, shall take the chair and perform the duties and exercise the authority of Speaker in relation to all the proceedings of the House, as Deputy Speaker Secondly, there is the matter of full disclosure of this agreement. My counterpart from the Bloc Québécois put it bluntly yesterday, saying, “The news releases bore the same titles and were identical.” Was it pure fluke and coincidence that both parties each managed to issue identical-looking press releases at the same time of day? We both know the answer to that, Mr. Speaker. It is obvious that there were a lot of emails, text messages and the like flying around about this agreement to coordinate that much. It would not shock me to hear that there may even be some emails or memos that demonstrate how both sides interpret and understand the terms of their backroom deal. Would you be able to indicate whether it would be helpful for you in approaching your ruling, Mr. Speaker, to know whether there are any signed versions of this agreement or additional side deals? I expect that you would and I expect that to be so. This was a government that claimed to believe in the principle of “open by default”. If ever there was a time to show that it means it, it is when it has entered into a unprecedented power grab arrangement to govern Canada. Transparency and openness used to be watchwords for the NDP. I hope that they still are. Therefore, in the interests of transparency and openness, I am calling upon the government to make full disclosure to the House and to all Canadians by tabling all relevant documents concerning the negotiation of this unprecedented agreement and, in the meantime and in closing, I would ask for unanimous consent to table, in both official languages, copies of the press releases issued Tuesday morning by the Prime Minister's Office and the New Democratic Party, so that you formally have before you, Mr. Speaker, the versions those parties have chosen to let Canadians see.

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order concerning the status of the New Democratic Party as an opposition party, following the announcement of a confidence and supply agreement with the Liberal government. To paraphrase Shakespeare, this NDP-Liberal government is a coalition by any other name. While many of our parliamentary procedures refer to recognized parties, others specifically refer to government and opposition parties. This reflects a key feature of constitutional parliamentary government in Canada as explained at page 4 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition. Our rules referring to opposition parties must be carefully interpreted in light of this backroom deal, which was not put before voters in last year's election. What does it mean, though, to be in opposition? The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, second edition, defines opposition as: 1. resistance, antagonism. 2. the state of being hostile or in conflict or disagreement. 3. contrast or antithesis. Respectfully, I would have said those definitions did not really describe the NDP yesterday, but they sure do not describe them today. Bosc and Gagnon, at page 35, describes how the House is generally organized. It reads, “Functionally, the House is divided into three groups: the Ministry and its Parliamentary Secretaries, Members who support the government, and Members who oppose the government.” The NDP members are in neither the first group nor in the last group. They are instead members who support the government, just like the Liberal backbenchers. Our well-respected, former clerks of the table go on, at page 35, to quote Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who said: “...it is indeed essential for the country that the shades of opinion which are represented on both sides of this House should be placed as far as possible on a footing of equality and that we should have a strong opposition to voice the views of those who do not think with the majority.” The NDP is now part of a parliamentary majority. I would therefore submit that, by agreeing to participate in the Prime Minister's power grab, the New Democrats have forfeited their rights as an opposition party in this Parliament. There are many procedural implications that arise as a result. Most immediately, it means that we cannot vote this afternoon on the motion moved by the member for Burnaby South that the House debated yesterday. Standing Order 81(13) is relevant here. It begins, “Opposition motions on allotted days may be moved only by Members in opposition to the government”. Put plainly, the member for Burnaby South is no longer a member of the opposition to the government. Therefore, we cannot vote on this so-called opposition motion. Several other rules referring to opposition parties will also require the Chair's interpretation. Paragraph 50(2)(b) of the Parliament of Canada Act provides seats on the Board of Internal Economy for each party with 12 MPs “in opposition to the government”. Therefore, it would seem that the member for New Westminster—Burnaby would no longer be a member of the board. It also seems that neither the member for Gatineau nor the member for Brampton North, who hold the balancing government seats on the board, would continue to be members. Standing Order 33, concerning ministerial statements, states, “A member from each of the parties in opposition to the government may comment briefly thereon.” Standing Order 106(2), concerning committee chairs and vice-chairs, provides that each committee's second vice-chair “shall be a member of an opposition party other than the official opposition”. By definition, that would now only be the members of the Bloc Québécois. Standing Order 81(4), concerning main estimates referred to committees of the whole, requires that the leader of the official opposition consult “with the leaders of the other opposition parties” on which departments are so referred. Does the government's coalition partner get a say? The list goes on. It also follows that we must revisit the uncodified practices of the House in light of these new arrangements. In particular, the allocation of oral questions heavily favours opposition parties. Are the NDP questions now to be treated as lobs, just like those three that Liberals get daily already? Also, should the NDP members be vacating the opposition lobby in the room behind me and joining their coalition partners over in the government lobby? There are also committee matters to consider, such as the modified quorum rules some committees adopt, sequences for committee witnesses, questioning, and even the seating arrangements at committee tables. These are very important interpretations that are required to allow our parliamentary system to function how it is intended to. There is very little precedent for the Speaker to rely on, because that is how unprecedented this situation is in federal politics. The closest parallel I could offer the Chair is the situation following the 1921 general election when the upstart Progressive Party captured the second-largest number of seats in the House. Many Progressives wanted to form a coalition government with Mackenzie King's Liberals, who fell short of a majority. Though in the end the Progressives did not join the cabinet, they were largely supportive of the government and, accordingly, declined the opportunity to form the official opposition since they frankly were not in opposition at all. Just as the 1921 election produced a comfortable arrangement for the Liberal minority government, so too did the election of 2021. We must be guided by the practical and pragmatic conclusion it offered that a party openly supportive of the government is simply not an opposition party. Therefore, I would ask that the Speaker interpret the rules of the House in a way that recognizes that the New Democratic Party has ceased to be an opposition party and that the House cannot vote today on the motion that was debated yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been discussions among the parties, and I hope if you ask, you will get unanimous consent for the following motion. I move that the House denounce foreign influence and Hollywood actors who unfairly target and misrepresent Canada's energy sector, including the position of many elected leaders from indigenous communities who support resource development projects, particularly at a time when efforts should be taken to displace Russian energy in Europe with clean Canadian energy.

Mr. Speaker, life under the Liberal government is quickly becoming unaffordable for Canadians. High inflation means that prices are going up twice as fast as wages. Middle-class Canadians are struggling to avoid falling into poverty. Seniors are also hurting. To make matters worse, the Prime Minister's tax hikes on everything from gasoline to home heating are scheduled to take effect on April 1. How about showing a little empathy and maybe a little compassion to the millions of Canadians who are struggling to make ends meet because people can no longer afford to pay their bills? Will the government cancel all of these tax hikes on April 1?

Mr. Speaker, that is cold comfort for Barrie—Innisfil residents, who this morning are paying 172.9¢ per litre for gasoline. Instead of helping Canadians, the Liberals are actually going to increase the carbon tax by 25%. Increasing taxes now means that out-of-control grocery prices will go higher. The Liberals claim they are concerned about inflation, but their policies are making the problem much, much worse. Why are the Liberals implementing policies and tax hikes that are punishing Canadians and seniors at a time when they can least afford it? Will they cancel the tax increases on April 1, yes or no?

Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of Agnes Macphail, I note that this is an absolutely wondrous place to be part of and to sit in. It is our symbol of democracy. I, for one, feel just as emotional every time I step into this place as she did. We are heading back to our constituencies for a couple of weeks to do the work that our constituents expect of us. We will be coming back on March 21. It is my honour to ask the government House leader what business we can expect at that time.

Mr. Speaker, 41 years ago in October, Ronald Reagan famously turned to then-president Jimmy Carter and said, “There you go again.” Well, here we go again. On the 39th sitting day of this Parliament, this is the fifth time the government has invoked closure on debate, on something as important as an oversight committee. The government decided to take extraordinary powers by invoking the Emergencies Act. The least they should expect is extraordinary scrutiny and oversight. Conservatives proposed a purpose-built committee to look after the legislative mandate of what the committee was required to do, and yet the government has turned this into a fiasco. What they are proposing in this motion is absurd. We came back with an amendment, and yet still the hammer falls. Canada's Conservatives will do everything we can to get to the bottom of this, including the purpose for the invocation of this act, what led up to it and why the government decided to do it. Why is the government covering this up? Why does the government not want to get to the bottom of this by having a committee that is structured similarly to other oversight committees in Parliament?

Mr. Speaker, one of the challenges we have been dealing with, all of us working on this committee, is the perception, real or otherwise, that the government is trying to stack the deck with this committee. The Conservatives, and I will be speaking about this momentarily, provided a reasonable proposal that would have used an already existing committee, which was purpose-built for this particular purpose. It would have provided a chair to the Conservative side on the members side but also a chair to the Senate side. I would like the hon. government House leader to explain to the House and Canadians why that committee could not work, given the fact that it is purpose-built, yet his committee, in his view, would.

Mr. Speaker, I am really looking forward to discussing this situation. Before I begin, I would certainly like to express my concern for the people of Ukraine and the current situation they are going through. All of us are watching very closely. We see the government acting and we are, as Conservatives and as Her Majesty's loyal opposition, in support of many of the government's actions. I note we will be engaged in a take-note debate. Through unanimous consent, we just recently extended the take-note debate to allow more speakers to discuss this current situation. On Saturday, there was a rally held in Barrie. There were roughly 150 concerned citizens, many of them born in Ukraine. They are Canadians of Ukrainian heritage. They expressed their concern about what was going on, particularly the illegal actions of Vladimir Putin. Yesterday, along with members of the government and the opposition, I attended the rally down at Toronto's Nathan Phillips Square. I do not know how big the crowd was; some estimated it at about 10,000 people. It was quite something. Everyone was united with the brave people of Ukraine. Our thoughts are with them. In the days and weeks ahead, I am sure we will see more significant action on the part of western nations and our allies. I look forward to being able to support those actions. The sad reality is that we are dealing with a government motion today when we should be dealing with and discussing many of the issues that are happening currently in Ukraine. We are here because we as Conservatives, and I know Canadians, are looking for some sense of trust in government. We are certainly looking for trust. In the invocation of the Emergencies Act, the government took upon itself extraordinary powers to deal with a situation. We can argue about whether those powers were needed or whether the emergency declaration in the province of Ontario or the emergency declaration in the city of Ottawa were sufficient in dealing with the situation, or whether these extraordinary actions the government took were able to deal with the situation. There was likely a lot of planning that went on before the invocation of the act on that Monday, February 14, so we really need to restore some level of trust in government through this committee. As the government gave itself extraordinary powers, it is incumbent upon us as members of Parliament to provide extraordinary scrutiny of the government, and not just of the decisions that led up to invoking the Emergencies Act but also of the actions the government took, which I think is what was envisioned in the act as it was crafted in 1988 and approved by this body. What reasons were there for what the government did? The government House leader spoke about sedition, which is a strong term, and other factors. It is incumbent upon the committee to find out whether the government's actions were justified and whether they met the threshold for declaring an emergency. This is a matter of trust in government. It is important that we as members of the opposition, and all other parties, make sure that we provide that trust to Canadians for the sake of our public institutions. I was listening intently as the government House leader was speaking earlier, and he talked about the actions of members of Parliament. Frankly, and I say this with all due respect to the government House leader, the government does not get to judge the actions of others as they relate to establishing a parliamentary committee. All of us in this place have taken an oath to ensure that we act in the best interests of Canadians, and this committee and the establishment of this committee should be no different than that of any other committee. In fact, I would say it is somewhat similar to what we see in other committees, particularly oversight committees, where members of the opposition are actually the chairs, as in the ethics committees, the government operations committees and the public accounts committee. Those are all oversight committees of Parliament. They have been long established. It should stand to reason that there should be a member of Her Majesty's official opposition as a chair of that committee. It is designed to provide extraordinary oversight. We can argue all we want about the protests. The protests are gone. Conservatives obviously believe in peaceful protests. For several weeks we were asking the protesters to go home because their voices had been heard. What we saw in Ottawa and across the country, whether it was at border crossings or at other demonstrations, even in my own community of Barrie—Innisfil, was a manifestation of years of frustration, anger and anxiety with dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our job as members of Parliament is to listen to our constituents and to Canadians, make sure that we understand their concerns and deal with those concerns. That is not just precluded to those we agree with. It includes people we do not agree with. I get lots of calls and emails in my office, as we all do, of varying opinions, ideologies and political ideals, but that does not mean we discount that. We have to listen to everybody. That is our job. Listening those who came to Ottawa was important, to hear their voices and their anxiety, to hear the frustration they were feeling. Last week, I was returning phone calls and emails and that same level of anger and frustration, over what we have been dealing with over the last two years, was being relayed to me while I was sitting in my constituency office. There were some people who were upset about the Emergencies Act being invoked. There were other people who were happy about the Emergencies Act being invoked. All of them felt the same way, that we need to understand what led up to the Emergencies Act invocation, what evidence was used and what decisions the government made in invoking the Emergencies Act. Was it political? Was it to protect the Prime Minister because he had been seen as not acting on this? Was it actually to suppress the seditionist forces that the government is speaking about, that the government House leader just mentioned? We have to get to the bottom of it. The only way that we can do that is to make sure that we have a committee that is reflective of the proportionality of parliamentarians in this place, not casting or judging what each member of Parliament is going to preclude on that committee, but basing our decision and our recommendations to Canadians and our findings to Canadians based on what we are hearing, what evidence is being provided by the government and other institutions, like law enforcement. I do not think that is an unreasonable request. What led up to the circumstances that have brought us to now dealing with two hours of debate, and I suspect several hours of further debate on another day, when we should be getting down to the work of the committee? As the government House leader said, and as prescribed in the act, there is a requirement for us, once the revocation order is made, to study the issue. That is really where we have tried to go on the formation of the committee, to find some sort of consensus. Then there will be an inquiry within 60 days. What led us to this point where the government has to drop the hammer of presenting a motion to Parliament to determine the establishment and composition of this committee? In our first discussions with the government House leader, Conservatives actually proposed that the scrutiny of regulations committee look into this action by the government. We felt, at the time, that it was purpose built, and if we look at the mandate of the scrutiny of regulations committee, a lot of what we are working on and intending on finding in relation to the government's action is there. It is actually mandated within the scrutiny of regulations committee. It is a joint committee of Parliament, with members from the Senate and the House of Commons. It has 16 members on it. It is chaired by a Conservative member of Parliament on the House side and by a senator on the Senate side. I do not think that, at this point, the scrutiny of regulations committee has met to constitute and formulate a chair because of COVID. We felt that was a reasonable proposal because the government had initially proposed, as the government House leader said, the medical assistance in dying committee, which became an ad hoc committee of Parliament. It had two co-chairs, not three as is currently proposed in this motion. We felt that was going to be a reasonable solution to this, a joint Senate and House committee that is purpose built and purpose driven for what this committee will be charged to do. We presented that. It was on Thursday before the vote, and then the Monday of the vote, the government House leader came to me and said that he had spoken to the third and fourth opposition parties and they had come up with a solution to the committee. There was no opportunity for me, as opposition House leader, to work or reflect on this. That is what led to this motion being proposed today. Members can imagine what I thought when I saw the composition of this committee. I looked and saw three co-chairs. There is not a parliamentary standing committee today that exists, even in the scrutiny of regulations committee, that has three co-chairs on it. This is proposing a co-chair of the third and fourth parties of the opposition, plus one from the Senate side as well. To us, that was a non-starter, despite the fact that the government House leader had already spoken to the other opposition parties about this. The challenge was that we were not going to agree with this, so we were effectively at a stalemate. What we thought was a reasonable proposal on this committee was rejected by the government, an already existing committee, for this new ad hoc committee. As the government House leader said, he did not trust the opposition parties, members of the opposition, to have good judgment on this committee. I think that is an absolutely ridiculous and absurd assertion. Failing any further agreement, we find ourselves in the position that we are in today, which is what I believe to be an absolutely absurd proposal of three co-chairs for this committee, one each from the third and fourth parties and a member of the Senate, and providing for two Conservative MPs, neither of whom are to be chairs. I take members back to my earlier statement when I said the oversight committees of Parliament, those standing committees, are always chaired by an opposition party. There is a reason for that. It is because they are designed to provide oversight. This committee is designed to provide oversight on the government. If the government is convinced that its actions both leading up to the invocation of the Emergencies Act and its actions subsequent to the invocation of the Emergencies Act is justified and defensible, then it should have no problem being held to the account that is required. The government should have no problem justifying to this committee, whether it is led by an opposition chair or not, and providing that information. The committee should have no problem, without prejudice, doing its work to hold the government to account and restore that trust in government that Canadians expect. As I mentioned earlier, part of the challenge is understanding how we got here and this manifestation of anger. There are a lot of Canadians right now who are upset. They are upset after two years of lockdowns and two years of restrictions. They see other G7 countries opening up. In fact, just today, the U.S. Congress announced that there would be no more mask mandates. Other countries are limiting their restrictions and eliminating the mandates, yet here in Canada, as provinces are lifting some of those mandates and restrictions, we are still seeing this level of control with regard to the federal government that is causing a lot of anxiety and a lot of confusion among Canadians. It was just a couple of weeks ago that we proposed, with the support of our Bloc colleagues, for the government to establish a plan by February 28 to move away from the restrictions and mandates so that we can provide Canadians with some sense that we were going to get back to normalcy in the country, yet the Liberals and their coalition partners in the NDP voted against that motion. They voted against the plan, despite the fact that their own chief public health official had talked about living with COVID, that this was going to be a normal occurrence and that we had to start thinking about living with COVID. That was all we were asking for. We did it while people were protesting here and in other parts of the country, so think of the message that was sent to Canadians who are desperate to get back to some sense of normalcy, to spend more time with their family in the United States and to not have to worry about some of the mandates and restrictions vis-à-vis flying and other things. We are at a 90% vaccination rate at this point, which is greater than some of the other G7 countries around the world. They are the ones that are limiting their mandates and reducing them and getting rid of them, yet here we are, still locked down. That anger is being manifested in what we saw with these protests. Instead of providing Canadians a bit of hope, they just beat them down again and fed into that anger and that anxiety. All we were trying to do was provide a little hope. Give us a plan, an exit strategy or something that we can go back to Canadians with and say that by this date, this will happen and by this date, that will happen. I know the government's talking point on this is that they follow science and evidence-based decision-making. I would suggest that they do that only when it agrees with their ideology. This is not about science any more. This is about political science. It is about the Prime Minister, his party and the NPD holding on, for some reason, to this complete control over Canadians. It has to stop. This started a long time ago. This did not just start now. As I said, this manifested itself, this anger and this anxiety, months and months ago, when, in May, the Prime Minister made a statement that he did not believe in mandatory vaccination, that this is not the kind of country we are in and that we do not do that in Canada. Then, all of a sudden, a day before the election, the Prime Minister stands up and says that we are going to have mandatory vaccination, creating a wedge issue during the election, an election that nobody wanted, that cost $660 million and was at the height of Afghanistan falling and western Canada burning. There were lots of things that were happening around the world, but it was the Prime Minister's intention to call an election and use the issue of mandatory vaccinations, despite the fact that at the time there might have been 75% or 80% of Canadians being vaccinated, as a wedge issue to further divide Canadians. We saw, through the course of the election, the Prime Minister of the country referring to Canadians who were not vaccinated as misogynists and extremists. He asked whether we had to tolerate these people. It is no wonder people became pissed off—

I apologize for that, Mr. Speaker. It is no wonder people were angered when the Prime Minister of the country referred to his own countrymen, his people, in those terms because he does not agree with them and they do not agree with him. It is not prime ministerial, and it really has affected a lot of people in more ways than perhaps the Prime Minister thinks. The challenge right now is that the anxiety and the anger are persisting, and are still manifesting themselves. The situation we find ourselves in is with respect to the level of trust. We are looking into our public institutions and making sure that they are functioning in a way that gives confidence to Canadians and that our democracy is functioning in a way that gives confidence to Canadians, because we have seen over the course of the last six years a pattern of systemic overreach by the government. I can cite this pattern. Whether it is the banking information of 500,000 Canadians that was being looked into by Stats Canada, the ethics breaches, the WE Charity scandal, the cellphone and mobility-data tracking of millions of Canadians, this pattern has shown itself to be an overreach. This is in addition to the contempt that the Liberals have shown with respect to the Winnipeg lab documents, with the Speaker making a ruling and the government not allowing that information. This is the erosion of confidence that makes it even more important for this committee to provide the confidence that Canadians need in order not just to get to the bottom of the invocation of the act, but also to make sure that the actions of the government were justified and met the threshold of the imposition of this act so that we can provide that for Canadians. The other thing I would like to address is the other pattern we have seen, particularly in this Parliament. It is inexplicable to me how an opposition party can be in lockstep with the government. I am speaking specifically about the New Democratic Party. It is in lockstep with the government in everything it does. We mentioned during the emergency debate that the foundations of that party were in being the working people's party. To see the New Democrats act in lockstep with the government on everything, even in the support of the invocation of the Emergencies Act, was quite frankly upsetting to many people. We saw the Prime Minister, last week, imply that a lack of support for the invocation of the act meant that it was going to be a confidence vote. In fact, I stood up just before the vote and I asked the government House leader about that. He said we should just get on with the vote. Convention around this place dictates that the government advise Parliament and the Speaker that a vote is in fact a confidence vote. However, the Prime Minister and the government not only browbeat the NDP and put its members into fear that we were going to call an election, which we all know the NDP does not want at this point, but the Liberals also browbeat many of their backbenchers, including two of the more vocal backbenchers: the member for Louis-Hébert and the member for Beaches—East York. They said last week that they did not agree with the invocation of the act and it did not meet the threshold that the government had purported, yet they were told that if they did not support it the Prime Minister was going to call an election. Can members imagine the Prime Minister threatening his own backbench and threatening the NDP into supporting the invocation of the act, if they did not support something that he wanted and that we do not know was justified, which is the purpose of this committee. Of course, by coincidence or not, two days later we saw the revocation of the act. All of a sudden, everything was fine in the land, so let us revoke the order. The Prime Minister obviously tried to justify this. As I said at the start, I believe this was done for political reasons, unless I see evidence otherwise, to justify the many criticisms the Prime Minister was receiving as a result of inaction on this. It was not surprising to me when the NDP supported the Liberals on this and continue to support them, as I suspect, on this motion as well. Why would they not? They would be getting a chair of a committee. Why would they not want to support the government on this? It is extraordinary, because it is not the third or fourth party that gets the chair of a committee. It is the official opposition that gets the chair of an oversight committee, not the third or fourth party. This would be breaking from convention, and this is why we have a problem. The other thing we proposed, and I know that this has been publicized and the government House leader has spoken about this, is that the way the act was written in 1988 prescribed that members of a recognized party with 12 members or more would form the committee. I brought this up in our initial House leaders meeting. This would mean the Liberals, the Conservatives, the NDP and the Bloc, as well as a recognized party in the Senate, which would mean the Conservative Party. That is what is prescribed in the act and is in the spirit of the act, as well. After we went back and forth, and this absurd proposal we are dealing with today came to me, it was my position that I would default back to the act. It is not my fault, nor is it the fault of our colleagues or of any of the opposition parties, that the government has not amended the Emergencies Act to reflect the current composition of the Senate. That is the government's problem. It has not done that to this point, and now the Liberals are saying they have to have those senators there, but it is not prescribed in the act. When we did not agree to this absurd proposal of the committee structure we are dealing with today, we said that we could go back to what the act says. It is not my fault the Prime Minister created the Senate in the manner in which he did, but has not done anything to reflect not just this act, but other acts that would need to be amended. If the government wants to reflect better what the current composition of the Senate is, it can certainly do that. In fact, over the weekend there was a story in the National Post that suggested the government was working on this, but then it called an election. The Liberals were working on it, but then they called an election. B.C. was burning, and they called an election. Afghanistan was falling, and they called an election. There were lots of consequences to the Prime Minister calling an election 18 months after the last one for his own vanity. There are several other points that can be made on this, but the main one I want to make is about establishing this trust in government. A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in the ethics committee. We had the Ethics Commissioner there, and I asked him about his perception of the level of trust in government. His response was that there had been a significant decline in the level of trust in government not just recently or with recent occurrences, but also over the course of the last six years since the Liberal government had taken over. Certainly in polling we have seen this. For me, this is a matter of principle. It is not a matter of politics. I am not looking at playing partisan political games. I am not looking at trying to undermine the work of the committee. We have already established committees in Parliament that are purpose-built for this type of scrutiny and oversight. On the Conservative side, I do not think it is unreasonable to ask that we maintain a structure similar to what we have instead of this ad hoc committee that the government is proposing. I think it is not an unreasonable request for us to do that. I just want to reiterate the threshold of what constitutes a national emergency and why this is important. It is defined in the act as: an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that (a) seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it, or (b) seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada, and that cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada. There is a strong argument to be made. I know that many people have weighed in on this. We had a fulsome weekend of debate about whether that threshold was in fact met. This is what the committee is going to be charged with. Was it for a political reason that the government invoked this act, to deal with the criticism of the Prime Minister when all of the other emergency powers were already in place, both provincially and municipally? What has been prescribed in legislation were incredible powers given to ministers of the Crown to deal with these types of situations. We saw situations in Emerson, Manitoba, and at the Ambassador Bridge. In Coutts, Alberta, police defused the situation. It was the same with Emerson and the Ambassador Bridge. Could those powers, which had already been enacted and given through regulatory and legislative authority to the ministers of the Crown, have been sufficient without pulling this nuclear option of the Emergencies Act? That is what this committee is going to be charged with. We have to make sure the oversight and scrutiny that this committee will provide, and the subsequent inquiry that will follow, do exactly that. This is a matter of trust, and it is up to the government to defend its actions. It is up to the government to justify its actions. It is up to opposition members, all of us in this place, to use the powers that we are given to provide this extraordinary scrutiny and oversight on the government so that Canadians can have confidence in their ability to understand what just happened, what happened during the crisis, and whether the government in fact did overreach or extend beyond what it needed to during the crisis. There is no doubt that the people of Ottawa dealt with a lot. There is no question about it, but we have to make sure that the spirit the Emergencies Act intended, and the thresholds the Emergencies Act calls for, were met. It is up to the government to justify that. In conclusion, I will move the following amendment. I move, seconded by the member for Kelowna—Lake Country: That the motion be amended: (a) in paragraph (b), by replacing the words “with three Chairs of which the two House Co-Chairs shall be from the Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party and the Senate Co-Chair shall be determined by the Senate;” with the words “with two Chairs of which one House Co-Chair shall be from the Liberal Party and the Senate Co-Chair shall be from the Conservative Party”; (b) in paragraph (1)(iii), by adding, after the words “election of the”, the words “Co-Chairs and”.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's point. As I said in the course of my speech, there is no other situation or committee that is structured in the manner the government is proposing, where there are three co-chairs and members of the third and fourth party. Typically, as I said, oversight committees are designed to provide oversight and justification of the government's actions. We have three committees right now relating to ethics, government operations and public accounts that have Conservative members as the chair. The government's opportunity in this committee is to provide justification for its actions. The committee's job is to provide oversight. In my opinion and in the opinion of our side, it should be consistent with what we see in other committees of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for my colleague. I have been working with him now for the better part of three weeks as the opposition House leader, and I respect what he does in that capacity. However, to characterize this in such a way that somehow we were not, as Conservatives, empathetic to the situation is a gross misstatement. Two or three weeks before action was taken by the police, our opposition leader said that the voices of protesters had been heard, that we were listening to them and that it was time for them to go home. That is precisely what she said. I will question the member too. When we had an opposition day motion that called on the government to create a plan and an exit strategy, why would he and his party vote against that given the anxiety, fear and the anguish of people who lost their jobs during the mental health crisis in this country? Why would he not have supported that as part of the strategy to exit this pandemic like other G7 countries are doing?

Mr. Speaker, it is the government's actions that should be held to account here. It is the government that decided to invoke the Emergencies Act. We need to find out what thresholds were met. We also need to understand, as I said, that there is a strong level of anger and anxiety that exists and that it has manifested across this country because of what people have been dealing with over the last two years. What we saw in Ottawa is the same thing we are seeing in Barrie—Innisfil and in other parts of the country. We need to look at not only the manifestation of what has gone on, but also the government's actions. It is the one that invoked the Emergencies Act. The government is the one that has to justify it and be accountable for this. That is where the focus should be, in my opinion.

Mr. Speaker, that is a great question. I made that point during my speech. I believe that the scrutiny of regulations committee is purpose built for many of the reasons the hon. member stated and many more within its mandate. It could have been constituted easily because it is already an existing committee of Parliament. There might have been some moving parts and pieces in terms of members. However, it could have been up to us or the government side to determine that. Why does the government not want the scrutiny of regulations committee? I think it is because it does not fit the narrative. It wants to vilify Conservatives as somehow being mean-spirited, and it wants to demonize us for our actions of simply listening to our constituents and listening to Canadians. It does not fit the government's narrative. Developing and creating a committee that undermines the purpose of this committee is, quite frankly, the purpose of what the government is proposing.

Mr. Speaker, let me start by saying that the Prime Minister did not even have the courtesy of introducing the Emergencies Act within our symbol of democracy, which again shows contempt for our institutions. We have seen this pattern of contempt continue throughout the six and a half years of the government. The other thing I would say is that what we are proposing in our amendment, to have a Liberal member from the House and a Conservative member from the Senate, is a reasonable proposal. It is just as reasonable as our scrutiny of regulations proposal was at the beginning of these discussions, which leads us to the hammer being dropped today.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague from the Bloc Québécois. We need to create this committee soon. I know there has been an issue of public and private information that becomes available to the committee, and how much should be public and how much should be private. I know the member has expertise in this field. I am interested to know, as we move forward, what sort of criteria he would be looking for on public information to made public and private information to be made private. I think it is a fair question.

Mr. Speaker, one thing that has come to light throughout the course of this whole thing is how important it is for the government to be held to account for its actions in invoking the Emergencies Act. However, the government and the NDP seem to be holding some opposition parties to a greater account. To the hon. member from the Bloc, how important is it for us to hold the government to account on this?

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Prime Minister for his words this evening. One of the things that Canadians are talking about a lot and we have been discussing throughout the course of today is the need for energy independence and energy security in this country, whether it is liquefied natural gas or natural resource production, making sure that this country, our Canada, is energy secure. Could the Prime Minister speak to the events that have happened in Russia and the need to secure energy in this country?

Mr. Chair, one of the conversations we are having as a result of this war crime by Vladimir Putin is around the issue of energy security in this country. Obviously, Europe is supplied with natural gas by Russia. Canada is the fifth-largest producer of natural gas. Clean Canadian energy can be exported around the world, not just used here at home. However, the issue of energy security is becoming critical, and I am wondering if the hon. member would comment on that.

Mr. Speaker, I think what the hon. member did today in his speech was actually to make a case for not continuing the invocation of the act. He did not provide us with any compelling reason for why it should stay. When the member talks about how we got here, the reality and the fact is, and this is not misinformation or disinformation, the Prime Minister marginalized, stigmatized, traumatized and divided Canadians by calling them racist, misogynist and extremists. How does that help the public discourse? How does that unite the country? That is my question to the hon. member.

Mr. Speaker, the eyes of the nation are upon us tonight. Earlier today, the Prime Minister signalled, as did a member of his back bench, that tonight's vote is a confidence vote. Convention requires the Prime Minister to publicly declare a confidence vote of this nature as such, following convention. My question for the government House leader is this: Is the vote tonight a confidence vote? If the vote is lost, will the Prime Minister plunge us into an election?