//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1515)[English]MotionMr. Speaker, in relation to the consideration of Government Business No. 30, I move:That the debate not be further adjourned.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059520575952058GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Candice Bergen (Portage—Lisgar, CPC): (1520)[English]Mr. Speaker, I am really disappointed. We have had such a short amount of time to debate this motion, and it is very disappointing to see a motion like this to extend the hours. Even though we have already indicated that we have some understanding of it, some of the other parts of the motion are disturbing. We have not had solid answers to some of our questions. It is disappointing to see this debate being shut down.I would therefore like to ask the hon. government House leader if she could please assure us that she will adopt our amendments and, as we only have two supply days left as Conservatives, that she would allow those supply days to continue into the evening sitting. I think that would be fair and reasonable, and it would show that there would be some co-operation, as opposed to just giving us a very short day and not allowing the opposition to do our job, which is to hold the government to account.I understand that the hon. government House leader is ramming this through, but could she give us assurances that she will not shorten our ability to hold the Liberals to account?ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 30595206159520625952063GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1520)[English]Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opposition House leader's acknowledging the importance of extending hours so that we can discuss important legislation that actually benefits the lives of Canadians. Most of the motion is exactly, word for word, the motion that has been submitted in previous parliaments. Within the extension of hours motion, members who will not be running again will be provided time to make a speech, because it is important that they do so.When it comes to the opposition days the member is referring to, within the Standing Orders, a portion of those days can be allotted to Wednesdays and Fridays. My intention will always be to provide them on longer days. As long as we can advance government legislation, I will ensure that we are able to find a collaborative way forward. If that is not the desire of the opposition, then I am restricted to limited tools and limited days to provide those days. I encourage the opposition House leader, as well as her colleagues, to let us know how much time is needed so that bills such as Bill C-81 can be returned to the Senate. There is no reason we cannot have that finished today so that it can receive royal assent.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 3059520645952065CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarPeterJulianNew Westminster—Burnaby//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/16399PeterJulianPeter-JulianNew Westminster—BurnabyNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/JulianPeter_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP): (1520)[English]Mr. Speaker, I am saddened by this. As I mentioned in the speech I was not even able to complete on this motion that strips the opposition of any of the rights and tools we use to hold the government to account, previous times this had been raised four weeks prior to our adjourning, the Liberals and Conservatives, combined, skipped over 200 opportunities to speak on behalf of their constituents.In other words, there was a speaking order. When it came to the Liberals, they simply had nobody standing up at all to speak on behalf of their constituents, on behalf of Canadians. We have always been in favour of working hard, but the NDP historically has been the only party that actually shows up to work during these midnight sessions.Last time, there were 200 times the Conservatives or Liberals did not show up for their speaking spots. The New Democrats did not miss a single speaking spot. Every single time we were assigned the ability to speak, we spoke out on behalf of our constituents. Given the precedent, can the government House leader assure us that the Liberals will actually show up to work this time?ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952066595206759520685952069BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1520)[English]Yes, Mr. Speaker, we will not be debating this motion after today, but I have good news for the NDP House leader. He actually gets to continue his speech, so he will receive 20 minutes like any other member would. He will also be entitled to his 10-minute question and answer period. I know that my parliamentary secretary is looking forward to asking him at least one or two great questions. I do not want him to be misled in believing that he would not have that opportunity. That opportunity will be provided to him. What I do know is that we have debated this motion. It is a motion that has been seen in this chamber before. It is important that we get to government legislation that would benefit and impact, for the better, the lives of Canadians.When it comes to the member's reference to members speaking up for their constituents, of course all members of Parliament want to speak on behalf of their constituents. That is what we were elected to do. We will always be part of the debate, but sometimes what happens, especially when it comes to the NDP on legislation such as the CUSMA, which we will see coming forward at some point, is that the New Democrats will not want to see it advance, so they will want to keep talking about it. For the government to see it advance, we share our time with members of the NDP so that every single one of its members is able to speak. The New Democrats could choose to allow legislation to be called to a vote so that we could advance to the next stage and see more legislation advance so that we are benefiting more Canadians. Unfortunately, the New Democrats have taken a page from the Conservatives' handbook. Rather than actually serve Canadians, they would rather play partisan politics.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952070595207159520725952073PeterJulianNew Westminster—BurnabyGarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89226GarnettGenuisGarnett-GenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GenuisGarnett_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC): (1525)[English]Mr. Speaker, the current government has shown a great deal of disrespect for the opposition. In particular, we see the regular scheduling of opposition days on Wednesdays, when, because we have caucus meetings in the morning, we have very little time to actually debate the proposals coming from the opposition. A simple, reasonable aspect of this motion would have been to allow those opposition day debates to continue into evening sittings so that even if they tried to schedule an opposition day for us to have something like two hours of debate, at least we would be able to take advantage of the evenings as well, given that the evenings would be available for government orders. The Liberals do not have the minimal respect for the opposition to allow that to happen either.It is clear, and has been clear for the last three and a half years, that the current government does not believe in the role of the opposition. It simply wants an audience. Will the government House leader see some reason here, recognize the important role the opposition plays in our democracy, and allow the extension of hours to be available for opposition days as well as for government orders?ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059520745952075BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1525)[English]Mr. Speaker, I have had to say this to a Conservative member in the past. The Conservatives do not speak for me as an individual. I am on the record, not only in this House but outside this chamber, talking about the importance of our democracy and the role the official opposition plays, as well as the third party and independent members within the chamber, including the members of the Green Party. I recognize that all members are elected to represent their constituents, and I have said that in this chamber as well as outside the chamber. The member, frankly, should apologize for putting words in my mouth, because that is totally untrue and is not a fair representation of my position.The Conservatives have never let the facts get in the way, so let me share some facts. In the last Parliament, 11 opposition days were provided on Wednesdays, and five were provided on Fridays, out of 88 opposition days. In this Parliament, there have so far been 79 opposition days. To prove that the member has totally misled Canadians, none of them have been on Wednesdays, and two have been on Fridays. Those are the numbers, and the member should check them out.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059520765952077GarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanDanielBlaikieElmwood—Transcona//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89032DanielBlaikieDaniel-BlaikieElmwood—TransconaNew Democratic Party CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BlaikieDaniel_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP): (1525)[English]Mr. Speaker, we just had a vote in this place, which is the first step on the road to ratifying the new NAFTA. The NDP has rightly expressed some real concerns about the nature of that deal, as we have expressed concerns about a number of other trade deals the Liberals and Conservatives together have negotiated over the span of a number of governments. The reason that is relevant to this debate about extending the sitting hours is that the government, once again, seems to be in a major rush to make a big mistake, which is to ratify this agreement prior to the issues with the agreement being resolved in neighbouring countries. We do not actually know what the final agreement is going to look like, yet simply because the Vice-President of the United States is coming on Thursday, the government is in a hurry to ratify, just as it was in a hurry to ratify CETA, even though we know that Britain is still working out whether it is going to be part of the European Union. Canada was ratifying CETA long before Europe and long before it resolved whether one of our major trading partners was even going to be part of that block. This insane rush to get ink on deals, without any regard for the real content, has been a problem for Canadians, who have lost employment to these kinds of deals over the last decades. I am not prepared to support a motion that is going to help the Liberals ram through ratification of a deal we do not even know the details of.While the reasons the New Democrats have opposed some of these measures in the past stand, we have a particular reason this time to be opposed to longer sitting hours, and that is because the government is trying to create an opportunity, with the Conservatives being complicit in ramming this through Parliament, invoking a special kind of closure that only works when two parties agree to it, to make a big mistake faster, and that is something I simply do not support.I want to know why the government is concerned about extending sitting hours to accomplish something that would rush a deal, the details of which we do not even know. I would like to hear what the House leader has to say about that, frankly.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952078595207959520805952081BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1530)[English]First, Mr. Speaker, our question and answer session right now is with regard to the extension of hours so that we can sit longer and have more time for debate. What the member has just confirmed is that there is no trade deal the NDP will ever support. New Democrats do not seem to understand that Canada is a trading nation. Canada has 36 million people. We have a huge land mass, but we are very small when it comes to the number of people. Our companies have not only great solutions for Canadians, they have great solutions for the whole world. When it comes to the CETA legislation, that legislation has actually helped small businesses expand into international markets and has created jobs in my riding of Waterloo, has—ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595208259520835952084DanielBlaikieElmwood—TransconaGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1530)[English]Mr. Speaker, the member for Avalon was getting excited, because companies in his riding have also benefited from this trade deal. Members from different parts of the country, especially from the east coast, have had challenging times when it comes to the economy. When we sign deals that allow those businesses to grow through innovation and trade, and they create jobs at home, members get excited, as they should. I would hope that the member for Elmwood—Transcona would take some time to learn about the companies in his riding that are benefiting from that trade deal. If they are not, we should definitely connect them with the Trade Commissioner Service so that they can continue to create more jobs, as Canadians have been doing from coast to coast to coast. Over a million jobs have been created by Canadians for Canadians since our government took office. These trade deals are working.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952087GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestDanAlbasCentral Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/72029DanAlbasDan-AlbasCentral Okanagan—Similkameen—NicolaConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/AlbasDan_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Dan Albas (Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC): (1530)[English]Mr. Speaker, the government House leader obviously has a lot on her plate. I can see why the minister got quite angry at one of the previous Conservative speakers, because the government has not been in control of its own agenda. It has constantly found ways to stall legislation. It constantly has mismanaged the House's schedule. Unfortunately, we are at a point where, before we even hit June, the government is seeking to extend the sitting hours.The Conservative House leader has made a very reasonable request of the government, because the House leader for the Liberal government has asked to extend sitting hours early, before we are even in June. It is very important for the government to show respect not just for this House but for Parliament, and when a reasonable request is made, we would hope that the government would be reasonable and allow our voices to be heard on our own opposition motions.Will the House leader offer extended sitting hours for opposition days?ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595208859520895952090BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1530)[English]Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments. I will say that we have endeavoured to manage the House's time by working collaboratively with opposition parties. There are examples of where we were able to succeed, and there were opportunities which, unfortunately, the opposition did not want to take us up on, but that is the opposition's prerogative. I have the utmost respect for this chamber. I have the utmost respect for all members of Parliament and all responsibilities within the chamber. Any good government should have a strong opposition. It is important that a government be held to account, but it is also important that we debate legislation and be able to call legislation to a vote.I agree that we do need a lot more regard and respect in this chamber. I know there have been many times and many occasions where it was not felt that such regard and respect were in this chamber. I recall budget day not too long ago. Canadians from coast to coast to coast sent emails to my office about the fact that because the opposition members were so busy banging on their desks, they could not hear the Minister of Finance deliver a budget that was going to benefit them. Mr. Speaker, you were not able to get any order in this chamber because of the lack of regard and respect, which is unfortunate. When it comes to regard and respect, it is a two-way street. I will do my best to respect all roles. I will do my best to find better ways forward. The extension of sitting hours is another way to ensure that members can speak to legislation to advance the concerns of their constituents.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952091595209259520935952094DanAlbasCentral Okanagan—Similkameen—NicolaElizabethMaySaanich—Gulf Islands//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/2897ElizabethMayElizabeth-MaySaanich—Gulf IslandsGreen Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/MayElizabeth_GP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMs. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP): (1530)[English]Mr. Speaker, in dealing with this process, I would like to ask the hon. government House leader this. This is the eighth year in which I have had the honour to serve the constituents of Saanich—Gulf Islands. We had only one June in that period when we did not sit until midnight. It was June 2016. Oh, that glorious month of June 2016.In any case, I do not recall a single other time when the motion to extend the sitting hours has been put through with time allocation on the debate to go to extended sitting hours. I do not have any recollection of any other time when we have had this process that we are experiencing today. We have never actually started extended sitting hours before the month of June, to my recollection. I wonder if the government House leader can explain what has gone wrong in the process. What we know to expect from government at the point when we are about to rise for the summer is that things get jammed up and we sit until midnight. I am wondering how it happened this time that we have time allocation on the motion to sit until midnight.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595209559520965952097BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1535)[English]Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the leader of the Green Party actually has a seat that is now closer to you so that she can hear a lot of what is taking place here. I know she stood up on numerous occasions referencing Standing Orders because it gets so loud in this chamber.I am not going to speculate as to what is taking place but it has definitely been a challenge advancing important legislation. I know it has been a challenge on multiple occasions but I will endeavour to keep an open door policy so that we can find a way forward.I do appreciate the member rising and sharing some of her history within this chamber. I am not sure that I remember it the same way. I was not a sitting member, but as an observer of the House, I know that the former Conservative House leader, Peter Van Loan, was notorious for using these tools. I recognize that sometimes there are challenging times. I have tried to take a different approach, but when that approach does not work, I seem to mimic some of his actions. It seems that the Conservatives are quite appreciative of that. That is why it is important that we extend these hours.I will just say really quickly that the leader of the Green Party on occasion has not been able to speak to legislation but she shares a really important perspective and represents many Canadians. I have always tried to extend some time to ensure that she can get her comments on the record. She was the only member of her caucus but now it has doubled, which is amazing. We hope to still keep hearing from her because she does excellent work and represents really important concerns and comments on behalf of Canadians. We need to hear more of that.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952098595209959521005952101ElizabethMaySaanich—Gulf IslandsMarkStrahlChilliwack—Hope//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/71986MarkStrahlMark-StrahlChilliwack—HopeConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/StrahlMark_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Mark Strahl (Chilliwack—Hope, CPC): (1535)[English]Mr. Speaker, the member just referenced the record, if we want to call it that, of Peter Van Loan with regard to time allocation or closure. The Liberals campaigned against it. Their platform stated how differently they were going to govern and how they would never use time allocation or closure. This is the sixth time they have used closure, which means that nothing else happens and the debate is over. It is the most draconian method of time allocation.The Liberals have invoked time allocation and limited debate 59 times. The member can talk about how she wants to hear from the leader of the Green Party or how she wants a better House of Commons for all of us, but for most of this Parliament, she is the one who has been cutting off debate. With 18 days left, now she is going to keep an open mind about the future and how she will operate in the future.I want to correct the record. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan made some excellent points about cutting short the supply days, and the government House leader very indignantly told us that she had never scheduled an opposition day on a Wednesday in the entire time of this Parliament. In the last six opposition days alone, three of them were on a Wednesday and one on a Friday: Wednesday, March 20; Wednesday, May 1; Wednesday, May 15 and Friday, April 5. That is just in the last period. Maybe the member will get up and apologize for breaking her campaign promise to Canadians and for misleading the House on the last number of opposition days.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952102595210359521045952105BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1535)[English]Mr. Speaker, when our Prime Minister says that in Canada diversity is our strength, he is not only talking about the shells we occupy but he is also talking about the diversity of opinions, regions and experiences, and the list goes in. There is definitely a diversity of interpretations right here, because what we said in the campaign was that we were against the improper use of omnibus legislation and the improper use of time allocation.Under the previous government there was no desire to consult and ask. We were told how many days would be given, and that was it. If we did not comply with the hon. Peter Van Loan, then he would use his tools. I have tried to ask how much time is needed for debate. Sometimes I have received answers and sometimes I have not. Members can see clearly that there are times we receive answers and there are times we do not.When it comes to Bill C-81, I publicly state that we have received amendments from the Senate. The minister has now stated that we will be accepting all those amendments. There is no reason we should have to use time allocation, yet we are not getting commitment from the official opposition that it will let that legislation go. The legislation has been scrutinized. It has been to committee, returned to this chamber and been through all stages in the Senate. It has come with amendments, which we have accepted, yet the Conservatives will not let that legislation go. Therefore, there is no way for us to get that legislation to a vote if I do not use those tools. The members opposite need to take partial responsibility and understand why those tools are being used. We could advance, and if they do not want to, it is their prerogative and the choice they are making. However, I will ensure that the government advances the mandate that Canadians gave us. When it comes to Bill C-81, we are talking about a more accessible Canada. Who could be against that?ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059521065952107595210859521095952110MarkStrahlChilliwack—HopeAlistairMacGregorCowichan—Malahat—Langford//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89269AlistairMacGregorAlistair-MacGregorCowichan—Malahat—LangfordNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/MacGregorAllistair_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP): (1540)[English]Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the government House leader likes to talk about her government's mandate, but I would like to remind her that her government was elected by a plurality. In fact, she would do well to remember that 61% of Canadians voted for MPs who sit on this side of the House. We have rights, as opposition members, to hold the government to account and to identify legislation when it has problems. This motion is in effect going to strip away our rights to hold the government to account, so I have big problems with that.It is quite obvious that these extended sitting hours are because the government is rushing headlong into trying to get the ratification agreement for the new NAFTA put through before we recess for the summer. What is the government going to do if Democrats in the United States delay ratification in Congress or stop it all together? What is the government's position going to be in that eventuality? I do not think it has thought that eventuality through, and I would like an explanation from the government House leader of what the government is going to do if that scenario plays out.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059521115952112BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1540)[English]Mr. Speaker, first of all, it is important to note that the NDP House leader stated that we are giving too much of our time to NDP members and that they have had to speak so much to represent their constituents. Now another NDP member is reminding me that the NDP received a plurality of votes and should be able to represent its constituents.I have said from day one that all members of Parliament should be able to represent their constituents. It is important that we are able to have meaningful debate so that we can listen to what Canadians are saying.When it comes to improving legislation, the government, under the Prime Minister, has accepted more amendments than any government before it, because we want to ensure that we advance good legislation that works. In addition, not only have we accepted amendments through the committee process within the House of Commons, but we have accepted amendments from the Senate. We recognize that when the Senate scrutinizes legislation, it can benefit more Canadians.We are seeing results because parliamentarians are being empowered to do the work they are here to do. We have increased resources to committees because we know it is important that they be able to scrutinize legislation and bring in witnesses.When it comes to the NAFTA or CUSMA legislation the member is referring to, this question and answer period is not necessarily for that legislation. I encourage him to talk to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on this.I can also let him know that we have considered all eventualities. The minister has been quite clear that since the steel tariffs have now been lifted, we will be introducing legislation. Today's ways and means motion has provided a way for us to do that.We have already said that we will be closely watching what the United States and Mexico are doing, because this is a deal that impacts all three countries and we are looking for a win-win-win. However, it is really important that the NDP understands that Canada is a trading nation and it is okay to support trade deals.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952113595211459521155952116595211759521185952119AlistairMacGregorCowichan—Malahat—LangfordKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1540)[English]Mr. Speaker, my question relates to the number of sitting days. We have 19 days left, and it is really important to recognize that Canadians have an expectation that governments work consistently from the day they are elected up until the next election. There is an expectation that when the House is sitting, we continue to move forward on positive public policy.Could the member provide her thoughts with respect to how important it is that we work hard right to the very end? If that means we have to sit additional hours that last into the evening, as previous governments have also done, members on the government side of the House are prepared to do so.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059521205952121BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1545)[English]Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the member for Winnipeg North for his excellent work within the chamber and in his riding. He works really hard to ensure that the voices of his constituents are heard, and he has spoken to many pieces of legislation. He is quite informed, as he spends time reading legislation; he recognizes the history of a lot of the bills we are putting forward and how Canadians can benefit from them.I believe we need to work really hard all the way to the end. I know Canadians work really hard day in, day out, and there is no reason we cannot do the same.I recognize that extended hours are quite straining, not only for members of Parliament but also for our teams, as well as for the pages and the administration that helps the House of Commons function. I thank them for their great work.At the end of the month, we will be returning to our ridings to speak directly with Canadians so that we can ensure they are being represented. There are really important pieces of legislation that need to be advanced, and if we can find a better way to advance them and in less time, then it would be great for us to do so.I can promise members that my door is open, and I look forward to hearing from the opposition. If its members have better ideas regarding how to get out of here earlier, I welcome any constructive feedback.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059521225952123595212459521255952126KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthCelinaCaesar-ChavannesWhitby//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/86786CelinaCaesar-ChavannesCelina-Caesar-ChavannesWhitbyIndependentOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/CaesarChavannesCelina_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMrs. Celina Caesar-Chavannes (Whitby, Ind.): (1545)[English]Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up where the hon. government House leader left off with respect to the resources used when we extend the hours in this place. I note the pages, the staff and others have to be here for that particular period of time.There are a couple of pieces of legislation that I know concern constituents in Whitby. I have received emails about them. One is Bill C-81. During debate earlier today, we heard an assurance that this piece of legislation will be passed.If we are going to be extending House hours and using more resources, I would like reassurance from the government House leader that the pieces of legislation that are important to Canadians, which we have been sent here to debate and discuss, are going to be passed in a timely manner before the House rises.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595212759521285952129BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1545)[English]Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the member for Whitby is hearing from constituents when it comes to Bill C-81 and other pieces of legislation. We will be debating that legislation tonight and we will have extended hours. If the member has not had an opportunity to speak to that legislation, I look forward to working with her to ensure that she is provided the opportunity to represent the voices of her constituents.I want to see Bill C-81 receive royal assent. This is an important week when it comes to persons with disabilities. It is the third year that we have celebrated National AccessAbility Week, and I know there are good people on the Hill who came to see the Minister of Accessibility speak to this legislation. I want to see it advance, and when it comes to other pieces of legislation, if I cannot find a way forward through working with the opposition parties to be able to advance that legislation, I will use the limited tools I have available. Every time I use those tools, I can assure members that I use them with regret. I do hope we are able to find a better way forward.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595213059521315952132CelinaCaesar-ChavannesWhitbyCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1545)[English]Mr. Speaker, what we really are seeing is a scandal-ridden government that is in its final days and has mismanaged the House entirely. Bill C-81 is another example: The government's response to the Senate amendments only came to us on a Thursday before we rose for the one-week break. We came back after the constituency break, and we have not had a chance as caucus to look at the government's response. What did the government members do at the last minute? They brought the legislation here today. This is an important piece of legislation, and the government has done virtually nothing to help persons with disabilities. In fact, it has done everything it can to hurt them. We all remember what the government has done to people with diabetes, and we know what it has done to individuals who were working at Library and Archives. This is the problem with mismanagement. I know that my hon. colleague, the government House leader, is well staffed, and maybe this is why we are getting short opposition days. She is maybe experiencing Wednesdays differently from the way we experience Wednesdays. However, of the last six opposition days, three were on a Wednesday and one was on a Friday: Wednesday, March 20 was an opposition day; Wednesday, May 1 was an opposition day; Wednesday, May 15 was an opposition day, as was Friday, April 5. I would like the member to correct the record and admit that she has consistently given the opposition short days so that we cannot do the job we need to do, which is holding the Liberals to account.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952133595213459521355952136BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1550)[English]Mr. Speaker, the opposition House leader definitely experiences things very differently. When it comes to Bill C-81, I encourage her to talk to people from the communities that are going to benefit from that legislation. I know there are people on Parliament Hill right now who just heard her comments. She seems to be a little confused as to what she is referring to. This is historic legislation, and the amendments that came from the Senate were probably given. It is true that the Conservatives never would have accepted amendments from the Senate. The difference is that we accept them quite often, because we know they improve legislation. Where the Conservatives would have said no really quickly, we actually pondered the legislation. When it comes to Bill C-81, people seem to know that the Conservatives support the legislation but will not let it come to a vote, because the Conservatives will put partisan politics ahead of Canadians every single time. ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059521375952138CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersInterventionThe Speaker: (1630)[English]Motion agreed toI declare the motion carried.ClosureDecisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952151AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/16399PeterJulianPeter-JulianNew Westminster—BurnabyNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/JulianPeter_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP): (1630)[English]Mr. Speaker, I would again like to say hello to the deaf community, the people who have been here all day listening to the debates. We welcome them.I would love to be able to say that we will be sitting to midnight until the third week of June because the Liberals have suddenly realized that they actually have to put into action the democratic reforms they promised back in 2015, that they actually have to have proportional representation, as the Prime Minister said in 2015 when indicating that that election would be last one under first past the post. If the government were saying, “Gosh, we forgot that promise and want to come back to sit until midnight” we would be overjoyed. We would be saying it was great.If the Liberals said that we have to sit to midnight until June 21 because they suddenly realized there is an affordable-housing crisis in this country and that there are literally hundreds of thousands of families who are struggling to keep a roof over their heads, tens of thousands of families out on the streets, and the government wants to resolve it and build housing now and put a roof over everybody's heads, the New Democrats would be overjoyed to sit until midnight. That would the case if the government said so, but it has not. If the Liberals said about pharmacare, “Gosh, there are millions of Canadians who cannot afford their medication and are struggling to take the medication their doctors have prescribed to them, so we are going to keep a promise and bring pharmacare in now,” we in the NDP would say, “Yes, absolutely, we are prepared to sit to midnight until June 21 to bring in pharmacare.”None of those things are on the docket. There is some important legislation, all of which could have been improved if the Liberals actually listened. All of it could have been improved if the Liberals accepted amendments from the opposition.We were just talking about the accessibility act earlier today. The disability community put forward very strong recommendations for changes and amendments, as did the NDP, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh in particular, all of which were ignored and left on the table. The government has simply refused to improve any of the legislation before the House and is refusing to take any of the actions it committed to back in 2015.I mentioned democratic reform just a few moments ago. We remember the solemn promise at the time that it would be the last election under first past the post. If so, we would now be dealing with an election in which every vote would count, and coming out of that election we would have a parliament that was actually representative of Canadians' views. My colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford mentioned earlier today in the House that 62% of Canadians did not even vote for the current government, and yet the government has 100% of the power. That is why the government can impose its closure motion, and now this motion that strips the opposition of all of its rights.For what reason is the government doing that when it has failed on so many counts? I cannot even begin to talk about the whole issue of the climate emergency. The NDP offered a very substantive motion just two weeks ago. In offering that motion, the member for Burnaby South was very eloquent. There was a whole series of measures that needed to be taken. It was a climate emergency. It needed to be done and accomplished immediately, and those measures were set out very carefully by the NDP. The government voted against it. Then the Liberals brought forward a climate emergency motion that is basically a narrative of what Canadians know to be true, but does not in any way address the fundamental problems that Canada will be facing if we do not contend with climate change.I mentioned in the House a couple of weeks ago what we have seen in just our lifetime in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. The month of August used to be a time of sunny skies and blue skies, but for the last few years has been choked with smoke from the hundreds of wildfires that erupt on Vancouver Island and in the interior of British Columbia.(1635)In the last three years, elderly people have had to stay indoors. I was with a youth group just two weeks ago. Its members talked about how some people in their 18, 19, 20-year age group were forced to wear gas masks because of the intensity of the smoke. They talked about the inability of people to even go outside. That is happening in our lifetime. This is why we offered the climate emergency motion, which was substantive and would have changed the way the government acts. It stated that instead of building pipelines, the government needed to invest immediately in renewable energy, yet the Liberal government voted against it. It voted against all those aspects. It wants to go ahead full bore on a pipeline that British Columbians do not want and that will accelerate climate change. The government postures and says that it will and put a price on carbon, but all the large emitters are exempt. Coming back to the motion, it is the posturing that is the most disturbing about all of this. The government is saying that we need to sit until midnight right through until June 21. There are some valid pieces of legislation that we are happy to facilitate through. However, for the most part, the government wants to work hard on making the government look good as opposed to doing the right thing. That is the fundamental problem. I guess that is the difference between the NDP caucus and the direction the Liberal government has taken. We offered a substantive motion on climate emergency that would force the government to act and seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, the government voted that down and offered something that was simply a statement of the situation as all Canadians know it to be. Canadians know we are in a climate emergency, because they have seen first-hand the record level of floods. They have seen first-hand the forest fires that have choked various parts of the country, including my region of New Westminster—Burnaby in the Lower Mainland. People now have to stay indoors for much of the best part of the year. The summer months, which used to be glorious in my region, are now fraught with almost killer air quality. It is not an easy situation at all for people with health problems to go out and deal with that smoke.Last August, we saw the killer heatwave that killed dozens of people in Montreal and southern Quebec. The Toronto Star did what I thought was an important article on the number of heat-related deaths that would have occurred in southern Ontario. Because statistics are kept differently, it is quite possible the death toll was very high in southern Ontario as well. The reality is very clear. There is a need to act on the climate emergency. I spoke earlier about the housing crisis we were living through. The government needs to act. The housing crisis is striking many regions of the country. I have spoken before about Heather, who is struggling to find affordable housing for her family. Hers is just one of the many families that are finding it almost impossible to keep a roof over their heads. We are in a crisis when it comes to affordable housing and the government should be acting.When we talk about pharmacare, it is indeed a crisis. I have spoken many times about Jim, who is right outside the Chateau Laurier, begging for money so he can get the $580 a month he needs for the medication that keeps him alive for his family. The government does not see that as an emergency either.That is the fundamental difference. The government is rushing through a motion that binds the opposition. It takes away the opposition's rights and the ability to hold the government to account. The government has offered a couple of substantive pieces of legislation, which would have been supported by all members of the House anyway. However, for the most part, the emergency of ensuring we have medication for all in the country, the emergency of ensuring people have a roof over their head, the emergency that comes with climate change and the emergency that comes from the appalling state of indigenous communities not being supported by the government are all left aside. The government is saying that we are going to sit until midnight for the government's sake, not for the sake of Canadians. Canadians will be able to judge the Liberals on October 21.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595215459521555952156595215759521585952159595216059521615952162595216359521645952165595216659521675952168595216959521705952171595217259521735952174GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.): (1640)[English]Mr. Speaker, there are many aspects of the member's speech both now and prior to question period to which I take exception. One is with respect to responsibility even for opposition members. I am going to get the opportunity to expand on that. Could my colleague across the way give the NDP's perspective as to what it believes its responsibility is in supporting legislation and getting it through in a timely fashion?. Is there any responsibility from his or his party's perspective to assist in the passing of government legislation? Does he feel there is any obligation there at all?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059521755952176PeterJulianNew Westminster—BurnabyPeterJulianNew Westminster—Burnaby//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/16399PeterJulianPeter-JulianNew Westminster—BurnabyNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/JulianPeter_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Peter Julian: (1640)[English]Mr. Speaker, our role in the House has always been to take our responsibility seriously and to make legislation better. That has been our role historically since the very foundation of our movement.As the member well knows, the NDP has made a difference in a whole range of areas. The NDP was the first party in the House to raise the issues of pensions and unemployment insurance. Tommy Douglas, our founding leader, brought medicare to Canadians. Our role is to push the government to be better. What I have found frustrating over the last four years is the government's refusal to be better when we offer amendments to legislation. Many amendments to improve legislation have been thoughtfully provided by the NDP, most often because we have listened carefully to witnesses who have come to committee at report stage. We incorporate their ideas into making legislation better. Each time over the last four years, the Liberal government, acting like the Conservative government before it, has refused to entertain amendments from the opposition.That does not make government better. That does not make legislation better. That puts us right back in the realm of dark partisan politics, which is unfortunate. Canadians do not want to see that. Canadians want to see better legislation, legislation that is improved, and parties working together. We have not seen that from the Liberal government and that is a direct contradiction to what the Prime Minister promised.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952177595217859521795952180KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthColinCarrieOshawa//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25486ColinCarrieColin-CarrieOshawaConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/CarrieColin_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Colin Carrie (Oshawa, CPC): (1645)[English]Mr. Speaker, my colleague has been here quite some time. We were both elected in 2004. He quite rightly pointed out some important pieces of legislation. I have a feeling of frustration on this side of the House because the role of opposition is to work to make legislation better, but also to have time to debate it. This is all about that. We can go back and forth.During our mandate, 97 bills received royal assent. With the present Liberal government, something like 60 bills have received royal assent. It has been the worst functioning government since the 1930s. There is some really important legislation and we are now stuck with only a few days left in the House to get them put forward and debated properly. Even with the increased time for sitting, does my colleague think we have enough time left to properly debate these bills? Does he think Canadians are starting to pay attention? The Liberal government is obsessed with selfies and its image, but it is not doing the work that Canadians expect it to do? Could my colleague please comment on that? Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059521815952182595218359521845952185PeterJulianNew Westminster—BurnabyPeterJulianNew Westminster—Burnaby//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/16399PeterJulianPeter-JulianNew Westminster—BurnabyNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/JulianPeter_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Peter Julian: (1645)[English]Mr. Speaker, I would like to wish my colleague a happy anniversary. June 28 will be his 15th year in the House. I have often enjoyed our differences and sometimes our similarities when speaking to issues. However, he is right on the account that the government is such a pale imitation of what it purported to be back in 2015. I remember, as all Canadians do, the government and the Prime Minister talking about a new era in Canadian politics. They said that there would be collaboration on the floor of the House of Commons, that there would be democratic reform, that there would be housing for people dealing with housing issues, that there would be pharmacare and that the government would attack climate change. Instead it is giving all the big emitters a get out of jail free card when it comes to climate change emissions. The government made all kinds of commitments that it has sadly failed to meet.The most egregious is the refusal to work with the opposition. Every member of the NDP caucus takes his or her work seriously. In every case, when a bill has come before the House, the NDP has offered very thoughtful amendments to improve legislation. I could give a 14-hour filibuster on all the improvements suggested by NDP members. We did the work, gave it to the government and recommended it be incorporated in legislation. Witnesses agreed. The said to take the NDP amendments to make the legislation better so it would do what it purported to do. After four years, it has been a complete and abject failure. The government refuses opposition amendments; it is just what it does. The Conservative government before it did the same thing. A dozen times legislation was rejected by the courts because the Conservatives refused the NDP amendments. Now we have bad legislation pushed through like a bulldozer by the Liberals again, without taking the amendments that would have made that legislation more sound, better and actually do what it purported it would do. It is sad. It is a sad commentary on the government. However, as I mentioned before, on October 21, Canadians will judge it on that record.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059521865952187595218859521895952190ColinCarrieOshawaAlistairMacGregorCowichan—Malahat—Langford//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89269AlistairMacGregorAlistair-MacGregorCowichan—Malahat—LangfordNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/MacGregorAllistair_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP): (1650)[English]Mr. Speaker, I also find it a bit rich when we hear the Liberals talking about the opposition delaying bills. I will provide a concrete example. When the House was debating Bill C-69, our colleague from Edmonton Strathcona, who worked so diligently at committee on that bill, proposed many amendments seeking to bring that environmental review legislation in line with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These amendments were moved at committee only days after the Liberals had voted in favour of Bill C-262. It is wrong for us to be accused of holding up the legislation. We were doing the hard work of listening to witnesses at committee and bringing forward amendments to make the bill more in line with indigenous rights, for which the government had already signalled its support.For my friend from New Westminster—Burnaby, that is just another example of where we have tried our best. We listened to those witnesses at committee. Time and again we tried to insert those amendments that were directly attributable to concrete evidence heard at committee only to see it fail both at the committee stage and when the bill was reported to the House.Could my colleague comment a bit further on our efforts through this 42nd Parliament to improve those bills that have been backed up by solid witness testimony every step of the way?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059521915952192595219359521945952195PeterJulianNew Westminster—BurnabyPeterJulianNew Westminster—Burnaby//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/16399PeterJulianPeter-JulianNew Westminster—BurnabyNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/JulianPeter_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Peter Julian: (1650)[English]Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford for his terrific work in the House of Commons. This is his first term, but we would not know it from the depth of the work he has done and the substance he has offered on the floor of the House of Commons. One would think he is a member of Parliament who has been re-elected numerous times. I thank him for his terrific work.He is absolutely right when he says that with respect to any area in any bill, the NDP members have offered honest and thoughtful suggestions to improve a bill and make it do what the title purports it would do. Often, the government puts forward legislation and when we look at the title, we think it is going to make a big difference, but when we read the bill, it is, sadly, a real letdown because the legislation does not back up the intent of the title. Over this particular four-year period, the job of New Democrats has been to improve legislation through the hundreds, if not thousands, of amendments we have brought forward for each bill, each one of them thoughtfully considered and carefully drafted, always with the support of witnesses, experts and Canadians who believe that the legislation should be better as well. However, these amendments have been systematically rejected over four years.The member for Burnaby South understands and if he is elected prime minister on October 21, we will see a different approach in the House of Commons. We are going to encourage amendments from opposition members and actually consider their merits. That is going to be a sea change in Canadian politics, I think a welcome one, because it will make for better legislation and better government in this country.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595219659521975952198AlistairMacGregorCowichan—Malahat—LangfordKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1650)[English]Mr. Speaker, before I get under way with my comments, I want to reflect on the previous speaker's comments and address many aspects of them during my speech.If we look at what has transpired over the last number of years, we have seen a great deal of change in committees. I sat in opposition when Stephen Harper was the prime minister, and I understand very clearly that when he was the prime minister, opposition members' amendments were never passed at committee. It just did not happen, unless one were a government member. Opposition members did not have their amendments passed during the time I was here under a majority Stephen Harper government. However, to try to give the impression that this government has behaved in the same fashion is just wrong, because it is just not true. This government, on multiple pieces of legislation, has not only approached standing committees in a different fashion from the previous Stephen Harper government, but also, members will find that the current government has accepted numerous amendments to our legislation, whether they be from New Democrats, Conservatives or even the Green Party. That is something we did not witness under Stephen Harper, but something that we have seen here. Also, in response to the opposition's effort to claim there has been no change, we can just look at the parliamentary secretaries. When I had sat on the procedure and House affairs committee, the Conservative parliamentary secretary was there and led the committee. As the parliamentary secretary related in regard to that particular committee today, I do not even attend that committee. There is a substantial difference between this Prime Minister and Stephen Harper. There is a lot more transparency and accountability with this Prime Minister than the former prime minister on a number of different fronts.However, for those who might be following, we are having this debate because the government has decided, as previous governments have done in the past, including Stephen Harper's, that as we get into June, there will at times be a need to have extended sitting hours. There is nothing new in that. As I said, Stephen Harper did so, and prime ministers before him have also done so. We have extended hours because, like Canadians, we believe that we should continue to work every day that we sit, and if we have to put in extra hours to pass more legislation, why not? It is interesting listening to the Conservatives talk about last-minute legislation. What do they expect? We are now at the end of May. Do they just want the government to shut the doors and stop debate on all legislation? Maybe the NDP and Conservatives would like to operate that way, but we as a government are committed to working hard for Canadians every day, and members will see that with the different types of initiatives we have taken, whether it be legislative action, budget actions or just trying to build consensus. Today is an excellent example, because we saw a lot of games being played by the opposition parties. They ask why we bring in time allocation or closure, and they challenge us, especially me when I stand to talk about the benefits of using time allocation. However, so that those listening can understand what is actually taking place, they need to recognize that there is legislation the government has introduced that the NDP will never, ever support, unless we delete the entire bill by way of an amendment. That is an absolute guarantee: there is legislation the NDP will never, ever support.(1655)The trade agreement is a good example. We have had a number of trade agreements from this government, and every time, the NDP members vote against them. If it were up to them, agreements would never be allowed to go to a vote. Equally, there is legislation here that we have introduced that the Conservatives would never, ever support and have voted against. They will go out of their way to prevent the legislation from passing.We could have the Conservatives saying no to legislation, with the NDP, the Greens and the government saying yes, but if the Conservatives wanted to, they could prevent the legislation from passing. All they have to do is to speak to the legislation, propose an amendment and speak endlessly. We had a good example of that today. We are talking about disabilities and Bill C-81. What are the principles of the bill? The main principles are inherent dignity, equality, opportunity, barrier-free government, autonomy, inclusive design and meaningful involvement. This is legislation that every member in the chamber, I believe, will vote in favour of. No one is going to dispute it.Then we had the first Conservative speaking to the legislation, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, who spoke for 95 minutes—An hon. member: Hear, hear!Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: And the Conservatives say hear, hear, Mr. Speaker.I am not new to a political chamber. I have been doing this for close to 30 years. I know what a filibuster is. The Conservative Party of Canada did not want to pass that legislation this morning, and that is really what the debate was about. The member stood because his party did not want to see that legislation pass this morning. We know that the House has the potential to pass things through—Some hon. members: Oh, oh!Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059521995952200595220159522025952203595220459522055952206595220759522085952209595221059522115952212595221359522145952215PeterJulianNew Westminster—BurnabyAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1700)[English]Mr. Speaker, we had a very good example this morning with the member across the way. Contrast that to another example where we had legislation which members of the New Democratic Party recognized that they actually liked. I think it was Bill C-37. I could be wrong on that but if members did a quick check of Hansard, they would be able to find out when members of the NDP supported time allocation. They wanted us to pass that legislation. They recognized the value and importance of that legislation. That is not the only time they did that. The NDP members on a couple of occasions have recognized that they like the legislation and want it to pass and have therefore supported our bringing in time allocation.What we know is that all parties in this House actually support the concept of time allocation, if it is deemed necessary. Even when I sat in opposition, Peter Van Loan would bring in time allocation, and I remember standing in my place and supporting it, because if one is not getting the support and co-operation from opposition parties in particular and from the government at times, one may need to use time allocation. A lot depends on what is happening in the opposition benches.I know the government House leader continues to want to work with opposition members. If the government House leader asks how many speakers a party would like to put forward on something or how quickly might we be able to get a piece of legislation through, it is not some sort of trap for the opposition parties. It is to allow for more debate on issues which the opposition members would like to have more debate on.There are bills that are relatively non-controversial, like Bill C-81, which is historical legislation. I am not going to say that members should not be debating the bill, but based on my 30 years of parliamentary experience, when the will is there to see a bill pass, it passes really quickly as opposed to there being a filibuster. Maybe it would have been better to allow Bill C-81 to actually pass today. I would argue that would have been the right thing to do. I listened very closely to the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan across the way. All he would say is that it will pass in due time and before the next election it will be passed. He indicated his support for it on behalf of the Conservative Party. The member is playing a game and he knows it. If the Conservative Party really wanted to, that bill could have passed and we could have been debating something else right now. We needed to get an indication to help facilitate debate inside the House. There are many issues that I would like to debate and, in good part, I have been fortunate to have been afforded the opportunity to do that. The NDP House leader talked about an issue which I am very passionate about: pharmacare. That is not an NDP issue, although the NDP tries to claim it as one. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is an issue today because we have a Prime Minister who is committed to ensuring that we expand our health care system. That is the reason the NDP is talking about it today. It was years ago, when we first came in as government, through a standing committee that the idea started to really flourish.I participate in a caucus and I have many discussions with my colleagues. We understand the value of it. We understand that we have to work with many different stakeholders. Then the NDP members catch wind of it and all of a sudden they say that they to get out in front of the Liberals on it. That is balderdash.(1705)The NDP does not get credit for something of this nature. If anyone should get the credit, it is Canadians. It is Canadians who have been communicating, whether through the Prime Minister or through members of our caucus, about the importance of pharmacare. That is the reason we have prioritized it. We are looking forward to the report we will be getting toward the end of June.NDP members talk about housing as if they are leading the file. Who are they kidding? I enjoy listening to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development. He is one of the most able-minded individuals I know, and he understands the issues of housing in Canada.In the last federal election, the commitment the NDP made with regard to housing pales in comparison to what this government has put into place. I find it somewhat humorous that the NDP has attempted to stake claim to an area in which this government has moved forward.From day one, whether in regard to budgetary measures or legislative measures, this government and the Prime Minister have been focused on Canada's middle class. Let us talk about our first piece of legislation. Bill C-2 provided a tax cut to Canada's middle class. Hundreds of millions of dollars are going into the pockets of Canadians. At the same time, the legislation allowed for a special increase in tax for Canada's wealthiest 1%. By the way, the Conservatives and the NDP voted against that. That was a legislative measure. In our very first budget, we committed to a tax-free Canada child benefit program. Again, this is putting hundreds of millions of dollars into the pockets of almost nine out of 10 families, although I could not tell members the actual percentage. That initiative literally lifted hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty, and the Conservatives and NDP voted against it.That is why I say that from day one, this government, whether through budgetary measures or legislative measures, has been very active at ensuring we continue to move forward. However, in virtually every initiative we have undertaken, and Bill C-81 is more of an exception, opposition parties have fought us.Let us recall the last federal budget. Before I comment on some of the content of it, do members remember the day of the federal budget? It was not a good day for parliamentarians. The Minister of Finance wanted to address the House and Canada. All sorts of stakeholders were waiting to hear about the budget. Do members remember the behaviour of members of the official opposition? They were yelling and slamming their desks. They did not want the Minister of Finance to be heard. In my 30 years of parliamentary experience, I had never witnessed that sort of inappropriate behaviour coming from the official opposition. It was embarrassing.The Conservatives are very focused on trying to discredit the person of the Prime Minister. We can hear it in their speeches. It is the personal attacks, whether directed at the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance. That is fine. It is the Stephen Harper type of politics, with more and more of Doug Ford's style getting into their caucus and in their policies. It is scary stuff.One member opposite said that he is going to join our caucus. I believe that could happen sometime soon. If I were to speculate on the Conservative leadership at the end of the year or in 2020, I am thinking it could be Doug Ford, Jason Kenney, maybe the opposition House leader, and I do not know who else.(1710)The bottom line is the Conservatives are so focused on character assassination instead of being a constructive opposition party. That is okay, because as they focus on that negativity, we will continue to focus on Canadians. The results are really showing in a tangible way.I made reference to the hundreds of thousands of children, and there are also hundreds of thousands of seniors who have been lifted out of poverty as a direct result of this government's actions. In the last three and a half years, we have seen one million new jobs created by working with Canadians. We have seen incredible investments in infrastructure. In the last budget alone, there is a commitment to municipalities. In Winnipeg, I believe it is about 35 million additional dollars. If members were to drive around some of our streets, they would get a better appreciation of why that is such an important investment.I started off talking about the historical legislation of Bill C-81. We have indigenous legislation that is before the House on language and foster care. These are critically important issues. It is historic legislation. These are two pieces of legislation that we still need to pass. That is why I am here standing in my place saying that we still have 19 days to go. Unlike the Conservatives and the New Democrats, we are prepared to work until the very last day. We are prepared to work late. We have a legislative agenda and we are committed to passing that legislation. We know that this government works for Canadians in every region of our country every day.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059522175952218595221959522205952221595222259522235952224595222559522265952227595222859522295952230595223159522325952233595223459522355952236AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingGarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89226GarnettGenuisGarnett-GenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GenuisGarnett_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC): (1710)[English]Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, my friend's comments were even more ridiculous than usual.When the government insists on debasing our institutions through its corruption, we will hold it to account, whether it is budget day or any other day. That is exactly what we did and what we will continue to do. Canadians expect us to defend the integrity of their institutions, whatever the issue of the day is.I want to respond to some of the things the member said about Bill C-81. I think he should know better than to present misleading information about what actually took place with this bill. The government waited until very late in the life of this Parliament to bring this bill forward. It rejected multiple opposition amendments at committee that would have strengthened this bill. The government therefore sent a flawed bill to the Senate, which necessitated amendments to be proposed by the Senate, which meant that after amendments were proposed, the bill would have to come back to the House. Still, when the bill came back to the House, the government did not bring the bill forward at the earliest opportunity. It could have been brought forward last week. The government could have used Standing Order 53 to try to expedite it. I suspect there would have been interest in doing that from this side of the House. However, to expedite the debate beginning, because the debate has to take place, the government chose, after all these mistakes, to bring this bill forward for the first time this morning. Absolutely, the opposition is prepared to debate and highlight the areas in which the government has fallen short, and ultimately to support the bill's passage. That is a certainty.The member accused me of filibustering, but I think he knows that if I was trying to filibuster something, I would still be talking on it right now. I gave a speech. I delivered important points about the government's failures on the bill. Why is the government so upset? It did not want the bill to be criticized.We support the bill but there are things that the stakeholder community believes needed to be included in it that were not included. The importance of the topic is precisely why these points have to be made. If it was not an important topic, we would not need to talk about it. However, given the critical importance of the topic, we needed to talk about it.Could the member tell us why the government failed to bring forward this bill yesterday or last week? Why did it fail to bring forward the bill at the earliest opportunity it could?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595223759522385952239595224059522415952242595224359522445952245KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1715)[English]Mr. Speaker, I have been a parliamentarian for almost 30 years. Most of those years were in opposition. I can tell the member that I know how to recognize a filibuster when I see a filibuster.At the end of the day, the member will have to reconcile within his House leadership team why the Conservative Party chose not to pass Bill C-81 this morning. To try to imply that there are endless members who want to speak to it or that it was necessary to prolong the process, I would welcome a debate where we could both go into a community and have that endless debate. I feel very comfortable with the experience I have. He would have to justify it within his own House leadership.For me, personally, I look at the behaviour of the official opposition. Let us keep in mind that the official opposition, on several occasions, has become tired of sitting and has attempted to adjourn the House. The opposition will cause the bells to ring to prevent debating bills or will attempt to adjourn for the day. They would adjourn debate on other pieces of legislation. These are all tools that are used to prevent legislation from passing.I will give the Conservatives this much. They are very good at being the opposition and I hope they are going to stay in opposition for many years to come.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952246595224759522485952249GarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanGuyCaronRimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/23915GuyCaronGuy-CaronRimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les BasquesNew Democratic Party CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/CaronGuy_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Guy Caron (Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, NDP): (1715)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a quote from a debate that occurred in the House not too long ago.It is a government that since it acquired a majority has had a different attitude in the House of Commons. It is one where it feels it does not need to consult with people, that it can just walk over some very basic democratic principles. It is one that does not understand the need for diligence. It is one that does not understand the need for working with people or working with members of Parliament. In dealing with important legislation...the government has failed on so many counts.The government, by once again relying on a time allocation motion to get its agenda passed, speaks of incompetence. It speaks of a genuine lack of respect for parliamentary procedure and ultimately for Canadians. It continues to try to prevent members of Parliament from being engaged and representing their constituents on the floor of the House of Commons.Who said that? The member for Winnipeg North. He said it on June 3, 2015, when his party was in opposition, shortly before the election. Regardless of what he says now, it is clear that he is talking out of both sides of his mouth, saying one thing when he is in opposition and the opposite when he is in government.That is not all. They did the same thing with omnibus budget bills. When the government was in opposition, in June 2015, it promised to do things differently from the Conservatives.I am sorry if I take the member's comments with a grain of salt, but, time and again in this House, the member has completely contradicted what he called for when he was an opposition member.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595225059522515952252595225359522545952255KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1715)[English]Mr. Speaker, the NDP research bureau needs to be a little more transparent and accountable for the information it is providing to the member. What it is not telling the member is that, when I sat in opposition, on several occasions I said that at times there is a need to use time allocation. That is when I was in opposition. I said that because I witnessed the opposition, which happened to be the official opposition at the time, behaving in such a fashion that the legislation would never pass, just like New Democrats today. In the last four years, they have supported time allocation. They supported time allocation when they wanted legislation passed. The government has a lot of priority legislation. Some of that legislation New Democrats do not want to pass, some of that legislation the Conservatives do not want to pass, and if the opposition buckles down on its position, then the legislation will not pass unless time allocation is brought in. That is the reason time allocation is a useful tool to use at times. I have said it on this side of the House, and I said it when I was in opposition. There is no change.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059522565952257GuyCaronRimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les BasquesLindaLapointeRivière-des-Mille-Îles//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88601LindaLapointeLinda-LapointeRivière-des-Mille-ÎlesLiberal CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/LapointeLinda_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMs. Linda Lapointe (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, Lib.): (1720)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.Could he tell me how many bills were passed in the 42nd Parliament? I would also like to know how many bills are currently being studied in committee and how many are in the Senate.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059522585952259KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1720)[English]Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question. We have seen dozens of pieces of legislation pass through the House. We have three bills currently in committee and a dozen bills in the Senate. There are a number of substantial pieces of legislation. I referenced a couple of them myself that will have a profoundly positive impact in my own riding of Winnipeg North. I am speaking particularly of the foster care legislation and the indigenous languages legislation.When we look at the total legislative package of this government and take a holistic approach, we have done a fabulous job of bringing forward legislation that is very progressive in its nature, complemented by a budget that supports the legislation. Overall, we have seen the benefits by looking at factors such as reducing poverty, a million jobs and so forth.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059522605952261LindaLapointeRivière-des-Mille-ÎlesColinCarrieOshawa//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25486ColinCarrieColin-CarrieOshawaConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/CarrieColin_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Colin Carrie (Oshawa, CPC): (1720)[English]Mr. Speaker, my colleague pointed out that there are legitimate tools the government needs to use in order to pass legislation. He has talked about time allocation, extending the hours and things like this, but the frustration on the opposition side is that, if we count them, there are 20 bills the government wants to move forward and there are only 20 days remaining. He brought up the example this morning of Bill C-81 regarding accessibility, saying there has been some obstruction on this side. I was in the House earlier today and would have liked an opportunity to speak to the bill. As many people in the House know, I have a son who has been diagnosed on the spectrum, and it is a very important bill. Sixty amendments were put forward at committee, and the government chose to include only three. Our job is to make it a better bill, and if we can do that, all of us win. I commend the government for bringing this legislation forward, because it is important legislation, and I will be supporting it. If it is not a perfect bill, it is a start, and we can move forward with that.There are 20 days remaining, and there are 20 bills. Does my colleague really think there is enough time to properly debate these 20 bills in the next 20 days? Does he not think the government should have had better organizational skills to get these important bills passed?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595226259522635952264KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1720)[English]Mr. Speaker, I suspect that if members were to review Hansard, they would find that legislation can pass very fast in the House. It can pass from second reading to committee stage to third reading virtually in one day, if it is deemed to be supported by both sides of the House through unanimous consent.I am very sensitive to the Bill C-81 issue. If every member of the House were to speak for one minute, that would be 338 minutes. In terms of speaking, it is just not practical. That is the reason why we have caucuses and why we go to committee. There are plenty of opportunities. I believe that those who want to get engaged could bring it to their House leadership, and even the independents are always afforded the opportunity if they go through the House leadership teams. It does not mean they have to go through the House leadership teams, but if it is something important, that is one of the things I would recommend. However, it is not compulsory. Everyone has the opportunity to stand and address the House when the floor is vacant.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595226559522665952267ColinCarrieOshawaAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88404AlupaClarkeAlupa-ClarkeBeauport—LimoilouConservative CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/ClarkeAlupa_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Alupa Clarke (Beauport—Limoilou, CPC): (1725)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House. I would like to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable. I would also like to acknowledge the many residents of Beauport—Limoilou who are watching this afternoon's proceedings as usual. I would like to thank them for a wonderful riding week last week. I met with several hundred of my constituents, many of whom attended the 17th Beauport business network breakfast. The network is doing very well. We will soon be holding a local press conference to announce that the network is going to have its own independent board of directors. That will give Beauport's business people a strong voice for dialogue with their elected representatives. Back home, I often joke that I am getting my own opposition up and running. All joking aside, following the three “Alupa à l'écoute” public consultations that I held, I want to tell those watching us today that I will hold a press conference in a few weeks to announce the public policy that I am going to introduce with my leader when we form the government in October. This policy will help seniors return to the labour market, if they so wish, and alleviate the labour shortage.This evening we are debating the motion moved barely 24 hours ago by the government, which would have us sit until midnight every evening from Monday to Thursday, starting next Monday. The government feels compelled to make up for its complacency over the past few months. It was caught up in several scandals that made the headlines, such as the SNC-Lavalin scandal. It is waking up and realizing that time is passing and it only has 20 days to complete its legislative agenda. There is a sense of panic. Above all, when the session comes to an end, they do not want to be known as the government with the poor legislative track record.I would like to quickly talk about the government's bills. My colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles talked about the number of bills the government has passed so far. This time three and a half years ago, in the final weeks of the Conservative term under Mr. Harper, we had more than 82 bills that received royal assent, and five or six other bills on the Order Paper. So far, the Liberals have passed only 48 government bills that have received royal assent, and 17 are still on the agenda. They do not have very many bills on their legislative record. For three and a half years we have heard their grand patriotic speeches and all the rhetoric that entails. During the election campaign, their slogan was “Real change”, but with so few bills on their legislative record, their slogan rings hollow. What is more, their bills are flawed. Every time their bills are referred to committee, the government has to propose dozens of amendments through its own members, something that is rarely done for government bills.Next, let us talk about electoral partisanship. The Liberals made big promises to minority groups in Canada. Three and a half years ago, the Prime Minister boasted about wanting to advance reconciliation with indigenous peoples. However, the Liberals waited until just a month before the end of the 42nd Parliament to introduce Bill C-91, an act respecting indigenous languages, in the House. Even though the Liberals are always saying that the government's most important relationship is the one it has with first nations, they waited over three and a half years before introducing a government bill on the protection of indigenous languages. I would like to remind members that there are over 77 indigenous languages in Canada. Once again, we see that the Liberals are in a rush and stressed out. They want to placate all of the interest groups that believe in them before October.What about the leadership of the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons? From the start, three and a half years ago, she said that her approach was the exact opposite of the previous government's, which she claimed was harmful. Nevertheless, she forced sixty-some time allocation motions on us. When it came to reforming the rules and procedures, she wanted to significantly reduce the opposition's power.(1730)We want to stand before Canadians and ask questions and bring to light the reason why debates will go until midnight. The reason is that the Liberals were unable to properly complete their legislative agenda and move forward as they should have.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30Partisanship595227059522715952272595227359522745952275595227659522775952278AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88541LucBertholdLuc-BertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableConservative CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BertholdLuc_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Luc Berthold (Mégantic—L'Érable, CPC): (1930)[Translation]Madam Speaker, moving a motion to extend the sitting hours of the House is not a great way to close out the last session of the 42nd Parliament of Canada. We are not opposed to working late every evening. We want to work and make progress on files.Once again, we take issue with the means the government is using to get all members to work a little harder because the session is ending and these are the last days of this Parliament. The other items in the motion do not concern the extension of sitting hours. We take issue with the government's approach, which prevents the opposition from doing its job properly. It is handcuffing the opposition and moving the government's agenda along as quickly as possible, not based on what parliamentarians may have to say, but on what the government wants.This is not new to us, given how the government has handled the legislative process throughout its mandate. The government has been unable to advance a decent legislative agenda. I am the opposition agriculture and agri-food critic. I spoke to my predecessors, and we have been waiting for the Minister of Agriculture to introduce a bill to improve the lives of Canadian farmers since my appointment two years ago.When I look at all the agriculture documents and bills this government has introduced since it was elected in 2015, it is clear to me that the government has achieved nothing. Absolutely no legislation was proposed to improve the lives of Canadian farmers.However, numerous bills were introduced. Now, the government is saying that the situation is urgent and that we must move quickly and pass this legislation. A number of bills were not passed by the government, and now time is of the essence.Of all of the bills that were not passed, some never even moved forward. We have, for example, Bill C-5, introduced on February 5, 2016; Bill C-12, introduced on March 24, 2016; Bill C-27, introduced on October 19, 2016; Bill C-28, introduced on October 21, 2016; Bill C-32, introduced on November 15, 2016; and Bill C-33, introduced on November 24, 2016. The Liberals have had four years to move these bills forward.All of a sudden, the government claims that these bills need to be passed urgently. After the vote this evening we will debate Bill C-81, which was introduced on June 20, 2018. It has been nearly a year. We are being told that this bill is urgent and must absolutely be passed, but the government was unable to bring it forward earlier.If this is so urgent, why did the government not bring up this bill more regularly in the House? Why did we not talk about it on a regular basis? All of a sudden, we need to pass it quickly because the Liberals have realized that they are going to run out of time. The government was unable to manage the House. It was unable to give parliamentarians an opportunity to do their work and to speak about important bills. The Liberals have realized at the last minute that they have forgotten this and that. There is an election coming up in the fall and now parliamentarians have to do the work to pass this or that bill. The government chose to impose late sittings on the House for 18 days while also moving a time allocation motion, which means that we will not even have the chance to talk about it for long. If we refer to the Standing Orders, the government could have extended sitting hours for the last 10 days of the session, as provided for in our normal parliamentary calendar. That is what it could have done, and it would have been entirely doable.I would like to talk about one of the Standing Orders. Even though the standing order that governs the extension of sitting hours in June has been in effect since 1982, it is not used every year. In some cases, special orders were proposed and adopted instead, usually by unanimous consent.(1935)Parliamentarians are here to represent the people in their ridings. According to the Standing Orders, anyone who wants to change the rules to move things along has to seek the unanimous consent of the House.Unfortunately, this government does not really seem to care about unanimous consent. It does not really seem to care what the opposition thinks or has to say even though, just like MPs on government benches, we represent all the people of our ridings. The least the government could do, out of respect for Canadian voters, is respect people in opposition. We have a role to play.Unfortunately, our role is not to agree all the time and say the government is doing a good job. On the contrary, our role is to try to point out its failings so it can improve. Basically, the opposition's role is to make the government better by pointing out its mistakes and bad decisions so the government can reflect on that and find better solutions for all Canadians. However, the government does not seem willing to take that into account.On top of that, there are two opposition days left. I mentioned the negative effects of the motion. The government is proposing to extend the hours in the House, but what it failed to mention is that it is going to deny the opposition the opportunity to have two full opposition days to address situations that are very troubling to Canadians.For instance, during a normal opposition day during which we might hear from a number of stakeholders, we could have talked about the canola crisis, which is affecting thousands of canola producers across Canada. This crisis, which involves China, is costing Canadian canola producers billions of dollars. For all members who have canola farmers among their constituents, it would have been an opportunity to express the concerns of their fellow citizens and farmers in their regions. Perhaps we could have convinced the government to take action, such as filing a complaint through the World Trade Organization to condemn China's actions or appointing an ambassador, for example. As peculiar as it may seem, Canada currently has no representative in China to speak with Chinese authorities.We could have had such a debate here in the House.The one thing that the members across the aisle seem to have forgotten is that members of the House are not the government. The government is the ministers, the cabinet members. In this chamber, people have the right to speak their minds in the hope of swaying the government. It is true that the government is formed by the party with the most members elected to the House, but it is also up to backbench members of the ruling party to try to persuade their government and speak for the people they represent, such as the farmers in their ridings. Sadly, the members on that side of the House seem to be divorced from reality. They seem to be blind to the government's desire to crush Parliament, to crush the MPs who are trying to do a good job of representing the constituents of every riding. I think that is a real shame. We have absolutely nothing against extending the sitting hours of the House, but if it is intended to cover up the government's mistakes and its inability to properly organize the work of the House, then I think that is disgraceful. The government is using this kind of motion to not only make us work more, which, as I mentioned, we agree with, but also deprive us of our last remaining tools, like the voting marathons everyone remembers. We held those voting marathons to make the government realize it cannot do whatever it wants in the House of Commons. The House of Commons is not the tool of the government. This motion to extend the sitting hours also prevents us from using that tool, which was a powerful means for us to send the government a message. After making such grand promises of transparency and openness, this government has failed spectacularly to deliver. Sadly, its latest motion on the rules of the House just proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it has no respect for the work of the House. It saddens me to see a government ending its term on such a sour note. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595255959525605952561595256259525635952564595256559525665952567595256859525695952570595257159525725952573595257459525755952576595257759525785952579CarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingLindaLapointeRivière-des-Mille-Îles//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88601LindaLapointeLinda-LapointeRivière-des-Mille-ÎlesLiberal CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/LapointeLinda_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMs. Linda Lapointe (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, Lib.): (1940)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I always listen very carefully to my colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable.He spoke about unanimous consent a little earlier, but I do not really agree with him. He said that we do not have to agree, and so I agree that I do not agree with him. He spoke about extended sitting hours. Is he aware that, in the 41st Parliament, the previous government, which was a Conservative government, adopted a motion to extend sitting hours on three occasions? We had extended hours from June 11 to 21, 2012, from May 22 to June 19, 2013, and from May 27 to June 20, 2014. Could my hon. colleague from the Conservative Party explain why the Conservatives used this measure at the time?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595258059525815952582LucBertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableLucBertholdMégantic—L'Érable//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88541LucBertholdLuc-BertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableConservative CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BertholdLuc_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Luc Berthold: (1940)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, as I already stated very clearly, we have nothing against extending the sitting hours of the House in order to do more work and improve the lives of Canadians.The problem is that the government wants to extend sitting hours because it was incapable of properly managing the work of the House. That is the problem.I must also say that on those three occasions, we never limited the duration of opposition days. That never happened. They should perhaps take a closer look and go over things a little more.We also did not prevent opposition members from using the tools they need to have their voices heard. They are not just extending hours, they are suppressing the opposition's right to speak. That is what my colleague should realize when she looks at the analyses, instead of simply reading the lines she is provided.We respect the work of Parliament.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059525835952584595258559525865952587LindaLapointeRivière-des-Mille-ÎlesRobertAubinTrois-Rivières//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/71560RobertAubinRobert-AubinTrois-RivièresNew Democratic Party CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/AubinRobert_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Robert Aubin (Trois-Rivières, NDP): (1945)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, while I have the utmost respect for what my colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable has to say, I cannot help but smile as I watch the Liberals and Conservatives bickering over procedure, when both parties are beating the record for time allocation and extension of sitting hours.However, I agree with the hon. member on some aspects, including the Liberal government's inability to advance a proper legislative agenda.My question for the hon. member has more to do with political acumen. Normally, this is part of the process in the House. It usually covers the last two sitting weeks of the House, during which it is possible to extend the sitting hours to try to get through as many bills as possible. The government is proposing twice as much time. The word “propose” is a euphemism. The government is imposing twice as many weeks.Does the hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable really believe that the Liberals need twice as much time to advance a rather light legislative agenda, or does he think they want to end the Parliamentary session two weeks early?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952588595258959525905952591LucBertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableLucBertholdMégantic—L'Érable//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88541LucBertholdLuc-BertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableConservative CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BertholdLuc_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Luc Berthold: (1945)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Trois-Rivières. I appreciate that he agreed with me on some points.I also understand that, unfortunately, in this type of debate, we will never know whether the NDP would use time allocation because it will never form government. I can understand, then, why he is a bit jealous of our exchanges.My colleague from Trois-Rivières does seem to have a knack for guessing the government's intentions. Listening to the Prime Minister answer questions day after day, it becomes clear just how much he is looking forward to a vacation. He seems tired of answering questions. He must be tired of hearing the questions, but we never get answers.Every day and every week since January, the opposition parties have been scoring points while the Liberals have been losing them. We are winning every week in the House. I think the Liberals are looking forward to a vacation. Personally, I am looking forward to October 21, when we can give them an extended vacation.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952592595259359525945952595RobertAubinTrois-RivièresLindaLapointeRivière-des-Mille-Îles//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88601LindaLapointeLinda-LapointeRivière-des-Mille-ÎlesLiberal CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/LapointeLinda_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMs. Linda Lapointe (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, Lib.): (1945)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak this evening. I am always proud to speak on behalf of my constituents in Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, whom I am proud to represent.I would like to tell my colleagues who are here this evening that I am proud to represent Rivière-des-Mille-Îles and also Deux-Montagnes, Saint-Eustache, Boisbriand and Rosemère. We have been dealing with flooding again this year, but we are working hard for our fellow citizens.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059525965952597LucBertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableLindaLapointeRivière-des-Mille-Îles//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88601LindaLapointeLinda-LapointeRivière-des-Mille-ÎlesLiberal CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/LapointeLinda_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMme Linda Lapointe: (1945)[Translation]Today I am debating Motion No. 30, which is very important. This motion is about how the House will operate from now until we adjourn for the summer. This is important because it will allow us to make progress on files that are important to Canadians, including the people of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles. These issues are the reason Canadians elected us.Motion No. 30 will enable the House to act on the excellent work our committees have already done. I want to emphasize that this work is not carried out solely by committee members from this side of the House. This work is carried out by all parties and all individuals on committees so that proposed legislation can come back to the House and be voted on before we rise for the summer. This is very important. There has been a lot of talk during today's debate about how the government's legislative measures have reflected only what the government wanted to do. My participation in committee activities and the work I have been able to accomplish there have taught me that, most of the time, committee members work well together. They collaborate, they set partisanship aside to some degree and, more often than not, they are able to compromise. At least, that was the case in the committees I belonged to.I had the opportunity to sit on the Standing Committee on International Trade for two and a half years. We always agreed with members from across the aisle on free trade agreements, whether with Europe or Asia or NAFTA 2.0, on which we worked very hard. There is only one party we never agree with when it comes to such deals. I was also a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages for two and a half years. It is a non-partisan committee whose goal is to ensure that official language minority communities are properly represented. I can assure the House that there was no partisanship. In my new role as deputy whip, I am now a member of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, where there is a little more partisanship. Let us speak plainly.If we do not adopt this motion, if we do not extend the sitting hours of the House, we will end up in a situation where all the work we have done will basically be lost before the fall election. That is why it is so important that we adopt Motion No. 30.I want to highlight some of the important work done by the committees. I want to point out that during the 2015 election, the Liberal Party, of which I am a proud member, promised to strengthen parliamentary committees. We promised to have more respect for the fundamental role that parliamentarians play on committees in order to hold the government to account.That commitment, included in the mandate letter of the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, means that parliamentary committees are freer and better equipped to study legislation. Among the many changes that were made, committee chairs are now freely elected by the committee members. They are not appointed by the government. Voting is now done by secret ballot to allow members to vote freely for their selection for chair. Now parliamentary secretaries also sit on committees, but as non-voting members. They can contribute to the discussions if necessary. They are present, enabling them to stay abreast of the committee's work. Since they do not have the right to vote, no one can accuse cabinet of interfering in the work of the committees. The standing orders that made these changes official were passed in June 2017. I believe, and I think most members would agree, that committees can now act more openly, more transparently and more freely.I would like to briefly go over some of the major bills currently before Parliament that might not be voted on and passed by the end of the session if this motion is not adopted.(1950)I will start with Bill C-92, an act respecting first nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families. This bill sets out the legislative framework and the principles needed to guide work among first nations, Inuit and Métis nations, provincial and territorial partners, and the Government of Canada to achieve truly meaningful reform in child and family services. The purpose of this bill is twofold. First, it affirms the rights and jurisdiction of indigenous peoples in relation to child and family services. Second, it sets out principles applicable, on a national level, to the provision of child and family services in relation to indigenous children, such as the best interests of the child, cultural continuity and substantive equality.Bill C-92 is a milestone piece of legislation that would have significant impacts on the lives of indigenous youth, their families and their communities. It is an important step in advancing meaningful reconciliation and in implementing the vital recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.The second example that I would like to give is, in my opinion, the most important bill for Canadians, and that is Bill C-97, budget implementation act, 2019, no. 1. This bill will affect Canadians across the country. It seeks to respond to Canadians' most pressing needs. For example, buying a house or condo is probably the most important investment most Canadians will make in their lifetimes. However, many Canadians are not able to enter the market. That is why, through budget 2019 and with Bill C-97, the government will build on Canada's national housing strategy and take action to improve the affordability of housing, especially for first-time homebuyers.Our government also wants to make sure that Canada's seniors have more money in their pockets when they retire. That is why, with Bill C-97, the government is proposing to enhance the guaranteed income supplement earnings exemption by providing a full or partial exemption on up to $15,000 and extending it to self-employment income.This proposal was very well received by seniors in my riding. We have a labour shortage and we have seniors with incredible expertise. If seniors are able to work one day a week because of this measure, so much the better. Our society as a whole will reap the benefits. These seniors will pass on their knowledge to everyone around them and will have the opportunity to work if they so desire. It is a way for them to meet people, network and maintain friendships.This is a very important measure for me. It will put more money in the pockets of eligible seniors who work. I want to reiterate that this measure was very well received by seniors in Rivière-des-Mille-Îles.Another measure concerns electric vehicles. We want to electrify transportation. The $5,000 federal subsidy has made a huge difference in my riding. The Quebec government already gives an $8,000 subsidy, and when you add the $5,000 from the federal government, it is incredible. That will considerably reduce greenhouse gas emissions.All of that can be found in Bill C-97. It is absolutely crucial that we pass Motion No. 30 today so we have enough time to pass all this fantastic legislation. It is worth reiterating that this budget implementation bill is entirely consistent with the current government's agenda, which differs significantly from the previous government's agenda. We are steering Canada in a direction that will truly reduce inequality. We always talk about the middle class, but we have created one million jobs and have lifted 300,000 children out of poverty, not to mention the adults. We are the ones who have reduced inequality. We have the strongest economy, and the unemployment rate is at its lowest in over 40 years.(1955) The previous government had very little interest in this important societal objective, namely reducing inequality in this country. On the contrary, during the Harper decade, inequality in Canada actually increased. The two examples of bills to be implemented, and also of budget items, will help us go even further. These are two bills among others that we would like to pass before adjourning. For all these reasons, it is truly important that we pass the motion now to let us sit longer and ensure that we complete the work entrusted to us by Canadians. I would also like to take a few minutes to speak about the amendments to the motion that were moved yesterday. I know that there has been a lot of discussion about the amount of time spent on government business compared to that spent on opposition motions and days. This is not about who gets what; the goal is to ensure that we can place more items on the agenda. That is why it is important to ensure that we sit longer into the evenings so we can do more.The items I am talking about are the ones that all members from all parties in the House collaborated on in committee. This is why I personally cannot support the amendment. I do not think the amendment is particularly positive, because it does not address what we need to do, which is to examine more bills. Instead, it would proportionally increase the time available to each political party, which unfortunately reflects the partisan nature of this debate.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059525985952599595260059526015952602595260359526045952605595260659526075952608595260959526105952611595261259526135952614595261559526165952617595261859526195952620LindaLapointeRivière-des-Mille-ÎlesAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersInterventionThe Speaker: (2040)[English]Amendment negativedI declare the amendment defeated.Amendments and subamendmentsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952638AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersInterventionThe Speaker: (2050)[Translation]Motion agreed toI declare the motion carried.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305952649GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestCarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Bardish Chagger (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)(1200)Motion moved:That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, commencing upon the adoption of this Order and concluding on Friday, June 21, 2019:(a) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be 12:00 a.m., except that it shall be 10:00 p.m. on a day when a debate, pursuant to Standing Order 52 or 53.1, is to take place;(b) subject to paragraph (e), when a recorded division is requested in respect of a debatable motion, including any division arising as a consequence of the application of Standing Order 61(2) or Standing Order 78, but not including any division in relation to the Business of Supply or arising as a consequence of an order made pursuant to Standing Order 57, (i) before 2:00 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of Oral Questions at that day’s sitting, or (ii) after 2:00 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or at any time on a Friday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of Oral Questions at the next sitting day that is not a Friday, provided that, if a recorded division on the previous question is deferred and the motion is subsequently adopted, the recorded division on the original question shall not be deferred;(c) notwithstanding Standing Order 45(6) and paragraph (b) of this Order, no recorded division in relation to any government order requested after 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 20, 2019, or at any time on Friday, June 21, 2019, shall be deferred;(d) the time provided for Government Orders shall not be extended pursuant to Standing Order 45(7.1) or Standing Order 67.1(2);(e) when a recorded division, which would have ordinarily been deemed deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on a Wednesday governed by this Order, is requested, the said division is deemed to have been deferred until the conclusion of Oral Questions on the same Wednesday;(f) any recorded division which, at the time of the adoption of this Order, stands deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on the Wednesday immediately following the adoption of this Order shall be deemed to stand deferred to the conclusion of Oral Questions on the same Wednesday;(g) a recorded division requested in respect of a motion to concur in a government bill at the report stage pursuant to Standing Order 76.1(9), where the bill has neither been amended nor debated at the report stage, shall be deferred in the manner prescribed by paragraph (b);(h) for greater certainty, this Order shall not limit the application of Standing Order 45(7);(i) when one or several deferred recorded divisions occur on a bill at report stage, a motion, “That the Bill be now read a third time and do pass”, may be made in the same sitting;(j) no dilatory motion may be proposed after 6:30 p.m., except by a Minister of the Crown;(k) notwithstanding Standing Orders 81(16)(b) and (c) and 81(18)(c), proceedings on any opposition motion shall conclude no later than 5:30 p.m. on the sitting day that is designated for that purpose, except on a Monday when they shall conclude at 6:30 p.m. or on a Friday when they shall conclude at 1:30 p.m.;(l) 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, (i) 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 question deemed put and recorded divisions deemed requested, (ii) the Speaker shall have the power to combine the said motions for voting purposes, provided that, in exercising this power, the Speaker will be guided by the same principles and practices used at report stage;(m) when debate on a motion for the concurrence in a report from a standing, standing joint or special committee is adjourned or interrupted, the debate shall again be considered on a day designated by the government, after consultation with the House Leaders of the other parties, but in any case not later than the 31st sitting day after the interruption; and(n) Members not seeking re-election to the 43rd Parliament may be permitted to make statements, on Tuesday, June 4, and Wednesday, June 5, 2019, at the expiry of the time provided for Private Members’ Business for not more than three hours, and that, for the duration of the statements, (i) no member shall speak for longer than ten minutes and the speeches not be subject to a question and comment period, (ii) after three hours or when no Member rises to speak, whichever comes first, the House shall return to Government Orders.(1205)She said: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Motion No. 30, which allows for the extension of the sitting hours of the House until we rise for the summer adjournment.There is a clear and recent precedent for this extension of hours to give the House more time to do its important work. It occurred last year at this time and also the year before that. As well, in the previous Parliament, the hours of the House were extended in June 2014. Four years ago, our government came forward with an ambitious mandate that promised real change. Under the leadership of our Prime Minister, our government has introduced legislation that has improved the lives of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. However, we have more work to do.So far in this Parliament, the House has passed 82 government bills, and 65 of those have received royal assent. The facts are clear. This Parliament has been productive. We have a strong record of accomplishment. It is a long list, so I will cite just a few of our accomplishments.Bill C-2 made good on our promise to lower taxes on middle-class Canadians by increasing taxes on the wealthiest 1% of Canadians. There are nine million Canadians who have benefited from this middle-class tax cut. This tax cut has been good for Canadians and their families. It has been good for the economy and good for Canada, and its results have been better than advertised. On our side, we are proud of this legislation. We have always said that we were on the side of hard-working, middle-class Canadians, and this legislation is proof of exactly that.As well, thanks to our budgetary legislation, low-income families with children are better off today. We introduced the biggest social policy innovation in more than a generation through the creation of the tax-free Canada child benefit. The CCB puts cash into the pockets of nine out of 10 families and has lifted nearly 300,000 Canadian children out of poverty.Early in this Parliament, in response to the Supreme Court of Canada, we passed medical assistance in dying legislation, which carefully balanced the rights of those seeking medical assistance in dying while ensuring protection of the most vulnerable in our society.Also of note, we repealed the previous government's law that allowed citizenship to be revoked from dual citizens. We also restored the rights of Canadians abroad to vote in Canadian elections.(1210)We added gender identity as a prohibited ground for discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act. Also, passing Bill C-65 has helped make workplaces in federally regulated industries and on Parliament Hill free from harassment and sexual violence.We promised to give the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer the powers, resources and independence to properly do its job. We delivered on that commitment through legislation, and the PBO now rigorously examines the country's finances in an independent and non-partisan manner.Through Bill C-45, we ended the failed approach to cannabis by legalizing it and strictly regulating and restricting access to cannabis, as part of our plan to keep cannabis out of the hands of youth and profits out of the pockets of organized crime. Along with that, Bill C-46 has strengthened laws to deter and punish people who drive while impaired, both from alcohol and/or drugs.These are just some examples of the work we have accomplished on behalf of Canadians.We are now heading into the final weeks of this session of Parliament, and there is more work to do. Four years ago, Canadians sent us here with a responsibility to work hard on their behalf, to discuss important matters of public policy, to debate legislation and to vote on that legislation.The motion to allow for the extension of sitting hours of the House is timely, and clearly it is necessary. We have an important legislative agenda before us, and we are determined to work hard to make even more progress.Passage of this motion would give all members exactly what they often ask for: more time for debate. I know every member wants to deliver for their communities and this motion will help with exactly that. We have much to accomplish in the coming weeks and we have the opportunity to add time to get more done.I would like to highlight a few of the bills that our government will seek to advance.I will start with Bill C-97, which would implement budget 2017. This budget implementation act is about making sure that all Canadians feel the benefits of a growing economy. That means helping more Canadians find an affordable home, and get training so that they have the skills necessary to obtain good, well-paying jobs. It is also about making it easier for seniors to retire with confidence.Another important bill is Bill C-92, which would affirm and recognize the rights of first nations, Inuit and Métis children and families. The bill would require all providers of indigenous child and family services to adhere to certain principles, namely the best interests of the child, family unity and cultural continuity. This co-drafted legislation would transfer the jurisdiction of child and family services delivery to indigenous communities. This is historic legislation that is long overdue.We have another important opportunity for us as parliamentarians, which is to pass Bill C-93, the act that deals with pardons as they relate to simple possession of cannabis. As I mentioned, last year we upheld our commitment to legalize, strictly regulate and restrict access to cannabis. It is time to give people who were convicted of simple possession a straightforward way to clear their names. We know it is mostly young people from the poorest of communities who have been targeted and hence are being left behind. This bill would create an expedited pardon process, with no application fee or waiting period, for people convicted only of simple possession of cannabis. Canadians who have held criminal records in the past for simple possession of cannabis should be able to meaningfully participate in their communities, get good and stable jobs and become the contributing members of our society that they endeavour to be.Meanwhile, there is another important bill before the House that we believe needs progress. Bill C-88 is an act to amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act. This legislation only impacts the Northwest Territories, and its territorial government is asking us to act. This legislation protects Canada's natural environment, respects the rights of indigenous people and supports a strong natural resources sector. This bill will move the country ahead with a process that promotes reconciliation with indigenous peoples and creates certainty for investments in the Mackenzie Valley and the Arctic.Earlier this month, our government introduced Bill C-98, an act to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act and the Canada Border Services Agency Act. This bill would create civilian oversight of the Canada Border Services Agency. It would provide citizens with an independent review body to address complaints about the CBSA, just as they now have complaint mechanisms in place for the RCMP. Let me remind members that it was our government that brought forward Bill C-22 that established the national security intelligence committee of parliamentarians, which has tabled its first annual report to Parliament. We are committed to ensuring that our country's border services are worthy of the trust of Canadians, and Bill C-98 is a significant step towards strengthening that accountability.We have taken a new approach. We, as a government, have consulted with Canadians when it comes to our legislation. We have seen committees call witnesses and suggest amendments that often times improve legislation, and we, as a government, have accepted those changes. We were able to accomplish this work because we gave the committees more resources and we encouraged Liberal members to do their work.Likewise, currently there are two bills that have returned to the House with amendments from the Senate. I look forward to members turning their attention to these bills as well. One of those bills is Bill C-81, an act to ensure a barrier-free Canada. Our goal is to make accessibility both a reality and a priority across federal jurisdictions so that all people, regardless of their abilities or disabilities, can participate and be included in society as contributing members. Bill C-81 would help us to reach that goal by taking a proactive approach to getting ahead of systemic discrimination. The purpose of this bill is to make Canada barrier free, starting in areas under federal jurisdiction. This bill, if passed by Parliament, will represent the most significant legislation for the rights of persons with disabilities in over 30 years, and for once it will focus on their abilities.The other bill we have received from the Senate is Bill C-58, which would make the first significant reforms to the Access to Information Act since it was enacted in 1982. With this bill, our government is raising the bar on openness and transparency by revitalizing access to information. The bill would give more power to the Information Commissioner and would provide for proactive disclosure of information.There are also a number of other bills before the Senate. We have respect for the upper chamber. It is becoming less partisan thanks to the changes our Prime Minister has made to the appointment process, and we respect the work that senators do in reviewing legislation as a complementary chamber.Already the Senate has proposed amendments to many bills, and the House has in many instances agreed with many of those changes. As we look toward the final few weeks, it is wise to give the House greater flexibility, and that is exactly why supporting this motion makes sense. This extension motion will help to provide the House with the time it needs to consider these matters. There are now just 20 days left in the parliamentary calendar before the summer adjournment, and I would like to thank all MPs and their teams for their contributions to the House over the past four years. Members in the House have advanced legislation that has had a greater impact for the betterment of Canadians. That is why over 800,000 Canadians are better off today than they were three years ago when we took office. We saw that with the lowering of the small business tax rate to 9%, small businesses have been able to grow through innovation and trade. We see that Canadians have created over one million jobs, the majority of which are full-time, good-paying jobs that Canadians deserve. These are jobs that were created by Canadians for Canadians.That is why I would also like to stress that while it is necessary for us to have honest and vibrant deliberations on the motion, Canadians are looking for us all to work collaboratively and constructively in their best interests. That is exactly why extending the hours will provide the opportunity for more members to be part of the debates that represent the voices of their constituents in this place, so that we continue to advance good legislation that benefits even more Canadians.It has been great to do the work that we have been doing, but we look forward to doing even more.C-2, An Act to amend the Income Tax ActC-22, An Act to establish the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and to make consequential amendments to certain ActsC-45, An Act respecting cannabis and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code and other ActsC-46, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (offences relating to conveyances) and to make consequential amendments to other ActsC-58, An Act to amend the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act and to make consequential amendments to other ActsC-65, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (harassment and violence), the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act and the Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1C-81, An Act to ensure a barrier-free CanadaC-88, An Act to amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act and to make consequential amendments to other ActsC-92, An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and familiesC-93, An Act to provide no-cost, expedited record suspensions for simple possession of cannabisC-97, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2019 and other measuresC-98, An Act to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act and the Canada Border Services Agency Act and to make consequential amendments to other ActsDaily ProgramDeferred divisionsDilatory motionsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of debateExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment billsGovernment Business No. 30Government ordersMotion for concurrence in committee reportsOpposition motionsPrevious questionRecorded divisionsReport stageRules of debate5949795594979659497975949798594979959498005949801594980259498035949804594980559498065949807594980859498095949810594981159498125949813594981459498155949816594981759498185949819594982059498215949822594982359498245949825594982659498275949828594982959498305949831594983259498335949834594983559498365949837594983859498395949840BruceStantonSimcoe NorthCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen (Portage—Lisgar, CPC): (1215)[English]Mr. Speaker, I have a number of questions, although I understand in some ways why the government is extending hours. I know we did it as well when we were in government. However, what I have noticed is that the government is consistently endeavouring to take away the tools that the opposition has to hold it to account. I have noticed in the motion that there are some tools that the Liberals are trying to limit and take away, which I have concerns with.I would like to ask specifically about supply days. We do not have our supply day allotted as yet, but I am hoping that the member will not give us yet another short day. Supply days are very important for the opposition. We only have two of them left before the next election, and the government has said in the motion that it will not be giving our supply days that extended period to be able to take them into the evening. We already know that we will not have the benefit of being able to have a truly full day with the extended hours.I am wondering if the government House leader could assure me, and I would very much appreciate it being in good faith, that the two supply days we have left will be generous days, not short days like a Wednesday or a Friday.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30594984159498425949843BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1220)[English]Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the understanding of the opposition House leader that it is important to extend the hours in the House so that we can have more debate, and I would take that as a signal that perhaps she will be encouraging her colleagues in the Conservative Party to support the motion.When it comes to opposition days, I have been in this role of government House leader now for almost three years, and the Conservatives and New Democrats know very well that they have on numerous occasions, the majority of times, had longer days. With some of the tactics that the opposition members have chosen to deploy, they have been receiving shortened days because we are not able to advance government legislation, and that will always be the priority.The point I would like to make, as the opposition leader has alluded to, is that in this place we have long days and short days, but when it comes to the work that Canadians are doing, every day is a long day. Canadians work very hard every single day, and there is no reason that we cannot do the same in this place.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30594984459498455949846CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarPeterJulianNew Westminster—Burnaby//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/16399PeterJulianPeter-JulianNew Westminster—BurnabyNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/JulianPeter_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP): (1220)[English]Mr. Speaker, on that last point, a few years ago we actually took statistics on the evening sessions in the month June. New Democrats, because we come from a very hard-working background and the people who sent us here are hard-working as well, did not miss a single speaking spot, a single shift, to speak on behalf of our constituents. As members will recall, the Liberals and Conservatives between them missed over 200 spots in that same period, which means that over 200 times that a Conservative or Liberal was called to speak in those midnight sessions, not a single Liberal or Conservative member actually got up to speak. We are no strangers to working hard, and we expect the Liberals to actually show up this time and speak on behalf of their constituents, albeit that has not been their record.My question for my colleague is quite simple. The mandate letter from the Prime Minister suggested two important things: that parliamentarians must have the freedom to do their most important job, which is to represent their constituents and hold the government to account; and that they work with opposition House leaders to examine ways to make the House of Commons more family friendly for members of Parliament. However, the motion before us would strip away the tools that opposition members have to keep the government accountable. Why is the government House leader repudiating her mandate letter?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30594984759498485949849BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1220)[English]Mr. Speaker, first of all, on the point regarding debating legislation, as a government, we advance legislation that we have been mandated to do by Canadians. These are platform commitments that we committed to deliver. Canadians elected us as government and we would like to advance that legislation.What often happens is that opposition members feel they do not have enough time to speak. Therefore, yes, on multiple occasions I have asked colleagues to perhaps shorten their speeches, just as my speech was shorter than 20 minutes today, so that other people could utilize that time. Yes, on occasion, we have shared our time with the NDP as well as Conservative members. We have shared our time with the leader of the Green Party, as well as independent members, to ensure that they also have an opportunity to speak on behalf of their constituents.Something we learn early in life is that sharing is caring. It important to ensure that people who want to speak on legislation are able to. It is unfortunate that the NDP does not recognize the importance of allowing and sharing our time so that more members will be able to share on behalf of their constituents and so that we can continue delivering the results we have seen. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30594985059498515949852PeterJulianNew Westminster—BurnabyCelinaCaesar-ChavannesWhitby//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/86786CelinaCaesar-ChavannesCelina-Caesar-ChavannesWhitbyIndependentOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/CaesarChavannesCelina_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMrs. Celina Caesar-Chavannes (Whitby, Ind.): (1225)[English]Mr. Speaker, there are two pieces of legislation the member mentioned that are particularly important to the most vulnerable individuals in our community, and thus I do not mind extending the hours. She mentioned Bill C-81, which would identify, remove and prevent accessibility barriers and level the playing field especially for those with various disabilities. She also mentioned Bill C-93, the expedited record suspension, and, of course, we know that when it comes to simple possession of cannabis it negatively impacts indigenous individuals and people of colour disproportionally. If we extend the hours, what is the likelihood we will get these pieces of legislation passed before the House rises?C-81, An Act to ensure a barrier-free CanadaC-93, An Act to provide no-cost, expedited record suspensions for simple possession of cannabisExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059498535949854BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1225)[English]Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Whitby for that question, especially when it comes to actually dealing with pieces of legislation that are going to impact people's lives for the better. I would like to assure the member that I will use every tool necessary to ensure that we advance this legislation. However, it would be great if opposition members would share the time needed for debate on those pieces of legislation so that we can ensure that everyone who wants to speak on it is able to. There is definitely a difference between members of Parliament standing up and speaking on behalf of their constituents and members of Parliament speaking to advance their party's line. Unfortunately, when we are advancing the party's narrative, we take away from the work we are doing in our constituencies. I would agree that Bill C-81 is historic legislation. It has gone to the Senate and we have seen it return with amendments. The minister has considered those amendments, because they would improve the legislation. Therefore, there is no reason that we cannot see this proposed legislation move along quickly. Members will see that the government wants to see it move quickly, and Canadians will be able to see who will block that legislation from happening. Also, when it comes to Bill C-83, once again, we would like to see this proposed legislation move along quickly, and Canadians will also be able to see clearly who blocks that from happening. It is clear that the government wants to advance legislation that works for Canadians, but the opposition would rather get in the way of government's advancing legislation at the expense of Canadians, and that is really unfortunate.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305949855594985659498575949858CelinaCaesar-ChavannesWhitbyKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1225)[English]Mr. Speaker, the minister made reference to there being 20 sitting days left. Could she provide her thoughts regarding these 20 important days that Canadians expect we will work on while we are here in Ottawa?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305949859BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1225)[English]Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. I know the member is in the House quite a bit debating every piece of legislation, fighting for his constituents in Winnipeg and all surrounding areas. I know that people in Waterloo often comment on that member's remarks, and they realize that our communities, though diverse and different, are very similar. When we are advancing legislation, we are seeing greater impacts on our families. That is exactly what we want to continue doing, making sure that our communities are better off. We are seeing from the historic infrastructure investments we are making that communities are able to grow and create opportunities. We know that with our tax-free Canada child benefit, more and more children are being lifted out of poverty because we are giving the most to the families with children who need the most by asking the wealthiest 1% of Canadians to give a bit more. Though that was challenging at first, we are hearing from Canadians that as a result of people around the wealthiest Canadians being better off, they too are better off. Their communities are flourishing. Their provinces are flourishing. The country is flourishing. That is exactly why Canadians have been able to create a million jobs.In April, we saw the job numbers come out. Many people thought that the economy was going to flatline and there was no way there could be more growth. However, the numbers came out and Canadians created over 106,000 jobs. It was amazing to see. The majority of the jobs were full-time, well-paying jobs, which means that Canadians are better off.The work is not done. We need to keep working hard and that is why supporting this motion is very important.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059498605949861594986259498635949864KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen (Portage—Lisgar, CPC): (1225)[English]Mr. Speaker, I stand today to speak to the government motion that would, among other things, extend the hours we would be sitting in this place until we have completed this Parliament on June 21. It would also take away a lot of the tools we have as the opposition to hold the government to account. As we listened to some of the answers by the government House leader, it is no surprise that in the dying days of the scandal ridden, promise breaking, tax raising and very severely ethically challenged disaster of a Liberal government, we are seeing Liberals use disrespectful, draconian and bully-like mannerisms to get their agenda accomplished. It was quite interesting and telling when the government House leader was answering questions and referring to a couple of things. First of all, when I asked her about our opposition day and whether she was going to make those days short, she stood and said to my colleague, the House leader for the NDP, as well as to me, that somehow our behaviour earlier in this Parliament was the reason she was going to punish us with shorter days. That speaks volumes, and not in a positive way, to the utter lack of respect the Liberals, under the leadership of the Prime Minister and the government House leader, have for the work we do in the opposition. We are not doing anything on this side of the House outside of the rules. We are using the rules, mechanisms and the tools we have to hold the government to account. What is the answer from the government to that? It is going to punish the opposition because it can. It is going to punish the opposition by giving us a very short day and not extend our hours of opposition. That answer was very indicative of the attitude of the Liberal government and the Liberal Party in general to this House of Commons and Parliament.Secondly, when the government House leader was giving answers about debate, she talked about members of Parliament repeating themselves or speaking about partisan issues. She felt that that was when she should tell her members not to speak quite as long and that they should shut down their comments. Are we now in a new day and age when the Liberal House leader will tell duly elected members of Parliament that they should not use all of their time, and that she is going to shut down the opposition as well because she thinks that what we are saying is not relevant and that we are repeating ourselves?When the Prime Minister appointed the House leader to her position three years ago, a lot of us had concerns because she was a very newly elected MP. She had not been in the House as a backbencher or sat on committees. She had been in her role for I think 70 days or so. She has really done a commendable job in that time with the hand she has been dealt. However, I do believe that with her comments that I mentioned, it is clear that is the message she is getting from the top. That is what she is hearing from the Prime Minister and the people at the top who direct her. She has been told by them to shut the backbenchers down. If members are talking too much on our side, she is to shut them down, as well as do whatever she can to shut down the opposition. At the end of the day, the Liberals are in charge and are the bosses, so they are going to tell people what to think and members of Parliament what they can and cannot say. If they are talk too much or for too long, or the Liberals think their remarks are repetitive or partisan, because God forbid, Conservatives act like Conservatives and New Democrats act like NDP, they must be shut down. The Liberals are clearly partisan, but the Liberal belief is that if something does not align with what they think, then it must be dismissed and shut down. We have seen that on a number of occasions.Sadly, the House leader's comments in the last few minutes regarding opposition days and that she is going to punish us, as well as telling her own members not to speak because it would be repetitive, are absolutely unbelievable and a very sad reflection of what we have seen over the last four years.Now here we are. We have all returned from another May constituency week to another Liberal motion to extend our sitting hours. I have already acknowledged, and will say for the record, that our previous Conservative government did the same thing in 2013 and 2014. (1230)In the last election year, 2015, however, we did not have to extend our sitting hours, because we managed the House in an efficient, respectful way. Stephen Harper's government had a well-managed parliamentary agenda. His House leader, my former colleague, the very well-respected Peter Van Loan, would often remind the House of the ambition to have a hard-working, orderly and productive Parliament. That is what Canadians enjoyed up until the 2015 election.Since then, things have changed, and they have changed drastically. That change is where the seeds for today's motion were planted. In came a new Prime Minister in late 2015, heavy on charm and light on substance, as it would turn out. One government, ours, with a track record of delivering, was replaced by a government obsessed with something called “deliverology”. Do members remember those days? I think my colleagues opposite were also kind of interested in what deliverology meant and where it was going to take us. Deliverology was like a lot of things from the government. There are a lot of buzzwords. No matter how many buzzwords the failed Liberal government has repeated, it has conjured up pretty well zero results.Let us go through some of those buzzwords, because they really are interesting to reflect on. Let us look at what was presented to Canadians, what was advertised and what was actually delivered, which was not as advertised. Let us begin with the buzzwords “hope” and “hard work”. I am afraid the Liberals put way too much emphasis on a lot of hope and very little emphasis on hard work.There were some things they worked hard on. The Liberals worked very hard on mastering government by Instagram and Twitter. They worked hard on posturing and, unfortunately, on dividing Canadians. The Liberals worked hard on finding ways to run endless deficits, to the point where it would take decades for the budget to balance itself, as our Prime Minister said. The Liberals have also worked hard on virtue signalling. In fact, they have that one down to an art form.What about actual hard work and actual accomplishments here in the House of Commons? So far in this Parliament, 48 government bills, other than routine appropriation bills approving spending, have received royal assent, with 17 more passed by the House. Some of these bills were simply matters initiated by us, the previous Conservative government, such as a number of the bills related to the border. Those were bills we initially brought forward. There were also free trade agreements, such as with the European Union and the Trans Pacific Partnership, as well as bills on victims' rights in the military justice system. Obviously, we agreed with those bills. We basically brought the government to the one yard line, and it took it across the finish line. The Conservatives know that we did the heavy lifting, but we were in agreement with those bills. Those are among the bills the government passed.These numbers are also in spite of the government regularly using time allocation and relying on omnibus bills, even though that flies in the face of all the sanctimony the Liberals have thrown our way. Let us remember that. Let us remember that during the 2015 election, the Conservatives were preached at by the then-Liberal candidate, soon to be the Prime Minister, about how Parliament was going to be respected. He was not going to use time allocation. The Liberals would not be using omnibus bills, and they would allow parliamentarians to have their say. Let us remember the sanctimony.By comparison, when the 41st Parliament drew to a close, a total of 95 government bills, other than appropriation bills, had received royal assent. That was under the Conservative government. The contrast gets no better for the Liberals when it comes to private members' bills. Since the 2105 election, 20 private members' bills have received royal assent. At the close of the previous Parliament, 41 private members' bills had become law. That is why the previous Conservative government was able to claim that it had posted the strongest legislative results in a generation. No matter how many midnight sittings the Liberals plan, they simply will not be able to match our record.(1235)I think of all the time the Liberal government has wasted. I think back to a year and a half ago when the Liberal government tried to bring forward changes to the Standing Orders. Those changes would have given us a four-day work week, when the rest of Canadians work all week long. The Liberals wanted us to get Fridays off. The Liberals wanted to make changes so that the Prime Minister would not have to come and answer questions in this place. The Liberals wanted to make a number of massive changes, and they fought tooth and nail for them. Thankfully, between the NDP and the Conservatives, we were able to put a halt to that. With the small tools we had that they had not tried to take away, we were able to stop that. We have seen, again, the lack of hard work on matters of substance that needed to be completed in the House of Commons on the legislative agenda. It never really happened. That is one buzzword we heard.Here is another buzzword we were all really interested in. That was “Canada is back”. Do members remember that one? Boy oh boy. That one has not turned out well at all. Right now, under the present Prime Minister, Canada has probably fewer friends than ever. The Prime Minister has managed to tick off and offend just about every one of our major friends and allies. It has been shameful to watch. We know that we will have our work cut out for us when the Conservatives win government in October. We will once again restore respectful, principles-based foreign policy on the world stage so that countries around the world know that they can respect us. They will know that we are not just lecturing them. We will have a relationship with our trusted allies, and we will build on those relationships.The Liberals first talked a big game on peacekeeping, then they stalled and dithered. Then, when the rubber had to hit the road, they put forward a token effort, limited in time and scale, yet quite dangerous and misaligned with Canada's national interests.In the NAFTA talks, the Prime Minister capitulated and failed to get Canada a better deal. Instead of negotiating, the Liberals focused on opportunistic leaks, photo ops and sound bites. The Liberal leader, in the presence of the Japanese Prime Minister, twice mistook him as a representative of China. Do members remember that? That was only a few weeks ago. I am still shocked by that.Then there was the strident, knee-jerk virtual signalling tweet sparking a diplomatic standoff with Saudi Arabia, with ramifications in a range of areas, including front-line health care in Canada.Speaking of social media, the Prime Minister's infamous “Welcome to Canada” tweet sparked a massive, unprecedented surge in illegal border crossings into Canada.In foreign relations, we were told what wonderful doors would open in China for Canada with the arrival of the new Liberal government. Tell that today to canola farmers. Tell that to our pork farmers. Tell that to any number of Canadian businesses, large or small, trying to do business in China. Tell that to individual Canadians who have been harassed by the Chinese government, denied visas, detained and arrested on political grounds.Of course, there was the Prime Minister's unforgettable trip to India. It was a seven-day trip with half a day of government meetings. Each outfit was more colourful than the last; each development was more embarrassing than the previous one. The Prime Minister spent tens of thousands of dollars flying in a celebrity chef to cook supper, a celebrity chef who happens to be on his hand-picked Senate selection panel. However, that was hardly the worst. The Prime Minister invited a convicted attempted murderer to hobnob with him at two receptions, and when that was discovered, the fingers started pointing. Wow. Of all the things that happened in the Liberal government, when we look back at the India trip, it was probably one of the most embarrassing for Canadians, not only because of what their Prime Minister did in India but because of the aftermath and the blame that was levelled. It started with it being a backbencher's fault. The Prime Minister threw one of his own backbenchers under the bus. He does that quite often.(1240)Then it was an Indian government plot, then maybe it was someone else. In the end, Daniel Jean announced his retirement. In no circumstance would the Prime Minister fess up and acknowledge that he had blown it and that his office had blown it with a bad decision and bad judgment. God forbid that the Prime Minister would actually apologize for something he did. He will apologize for all kinds of things, but there have been so many opportunities, as we have seen in the last four years, when he has done things that are wrong, when he has done things that are unethical and when he has done things that are on the borderline of illegal. That remains to be seen. He has fired people. He has treated people disrespectfully. He has done things that have shocked and appalled us. The India trip was one of those where the Prime Minister could have stood up and said, “I am sorry. I made a mistake. I have issues with bad judgment. I'm trying to learn from my mistakes. All of you are paying for it, but I am human. I err a lot." He should have said that, but no, he did not. Everyone else got the blame.Saying “Canada is back” really has not panned out very well, has it? It certainly did not help the Liberals advance their agenda here in Parliament.Let just try another one on for size. How about “Sunny ways, my friends. Sunny ways”? Do members remember that one?To start with, I think this is one of the things that has disturbed Canadians across the board, even those who voted for the Prime Minister. There were a lot of people, obviously millions of Canadians, who voted for the Prime Minister, believing him, believing his promises, believing that he was a fresh face who was going to do things differently. One of the things that is so frustrating and disappointing is his lack of ability to really embrace diversity. People may wonder how I can say that, because the Prime Minister always says that diversity is our strength. Just like everything with the Prime Minister, he says one thing with his words, but his actions are completely different.The Prime Minister has very little tolerance for diversity of thought and different opinions. He wants to embrace diversity when it is easy for him and when it might help him score some political points. However, if an individual dares to disagree with him, that is when his real character seems to be exposed.One of those items became very clear when illegal border crossers started crossing into Canada. There were a lot of concerns. A lot of Canadians, including in my riding, have been doing a wonderful job helping refugees who are coming into this country who need solace, who need protection and who need to be able to be in a country where they can live, worship and raise their families. Canada is welcoming them. We have so many private sponsors and Canadians across the country who are helping them, but there have been concerns raised about people coming across the border illegally. However, the minute these concerns were expressed, the Prime Minister, Prime Minister “Sunny Ways”, began the reckless name-calling, calling people racist, or, as his minister said, “un-Canadian”. It is un-Canadian if someone dares to ask questions of the government.We will remember the Canada summer jobs attestation, where if one disagreed with the government on matters of conscience, one would not be allowed to have government funding. So much for diversity, again.We should have seen this from the very early days and early months of this Parliament, when the Prime Minister almost lost a vote, and certainly lost his temper. Everyone will remember, after his legislation to help his friends at Air Canada squeaked through on the Speaker casting a vote, the Liberals proceeded with the draconian and outrageous Motion No. 6. Does everyone remember Motion No. 6? I think we all remember Motion No. 6, an outrageous and scandalous power play to silence the opposition and sideline critics.(1245)In the midst of the uproar over Motion No. 6, the Prime Minister, as everyone will recall, stormed across the floor of the House, jostled some MPs who were slowing down his day and fiercely elbowed one of my colleagues. It was clear then that this was a prime minister who would have his way when he wanted it. We understood those words just recently with respect to the SNC-Lavalin scandal and how the Prime Minister would ensure he would get his way. We saw this tactic coming, foreshadowed by Motion No. 6.Then, a year later, the government House leader released the so-called discussion paper, which I alluded to earlier, about standing order changes. It was a naked power grab that her colleagues on the procedure and House affairs committee were keen to rush through. I also remember the government noting that committees were free to do what they wanted to do. That has become the biggest punchline around this place. Committees are not free to do what they want to do. They are completely directed by the Prime Minister. We saw that at the procedure and House affairs committee regarding the Standing Orders.This would have eliminated 20% of question periods, would have the Prime Minister show up once a week, would have silenced the opposition at committees and would have created a new time allocation on steroid procedure. Thanks to the efforts of the opposition, the Liberals would back down some six week later on the worst parts of their proposal. That did not represent a very sunny ways type of government.With respect to name-calling, I want to mention something particularly disturbing. We heard the finance minister call our deputy leader a “neanderthal” because she dared challenge him on some of the policies he was bringing forward. Then the Prime Minister called her an “ambulance chaser”. I think that was during the time when we were asking why in the world Terri-Lynne McClintic was being moved to a healing lodge. At around that time, the Prime Minister called the Conservatives ambulance chasers.Not only are the Liberals trying to shut us down in what we do in the House of Commons, but they are trying to shut down Canadians through this name-calling. We have been specifically called names by the Prime Minister, again, with no apologies at all. I think the former attorney general has also been victim to the same kind of thing. She has been accused of things, called names, maligned and has not been able to defend herself. She not only has not received an apology from the Prime Minister, but has not been able to defend herself.This brings to mind somebody else who needs an apology from the Prime Minister. In all honesty, this man more than anybody deserves an apology from the Prime Minister, and it is Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.All of us on this side are used to these kinds of attacks from the Liberals and the Prime Minister, but not Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, who has served his country with such distinction. Before any charges were even brought against him, the Prime Minister was already saying the issue would go before a court. It looked as if the Prime Minister and the PMO tried to bankrupt him. They accused him of things and put him and his family through such an emotional ordeal. I am sure it affected his family's physical health, financial, mental health and reputation. It is absolutely disgusting to see what the Prime Minister and his minions did to Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.I do not like that the Conservatives were called neanderthals and ambulance chasers and that Canadians were called racists and un-Canadian, but above anyone, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman deserves an apology from the Prime Minister. All of us, including those on this side, need to remind the Prime Minister that before he writes up any more apologies to anybody else, for whatever reason he thinks might do him well politically, he needs to apologize to that man, this honourable Canadian. He needs to show the courage that he should have as a prime minister and apologize to Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.The actions and this attitude reflected in the Liberals' relationship with Parliament have only served the paralyze the House, not facilitate the passage of an agenda. As I said, so much for sunny ways.(1250)I have given a few examples of all these empty gestures and slogans, but I want to highlight a few of them.The next one is, “Better is always possible”. That was another one from the government. After watching how the Liberal government has approached the criminal justice system, I cannot help but think this. After the Liberals leave office, things will get better for Canadians on a lot of fronts. Better will definitely be possible.For example, the Prime Minister sees the criminal justice system as a toy. We saw the Prime Minister weigh in and condemn a unanimous jury verdict that he did not like in Saskatchewan. However, that was just small potatoes, as we would learn later. As I said, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman would be charged with the breach of trust. That was his interference in that case. The charge was not a surprise, of course. The Prime Minister had been musing for months, a year actually, that Mark Norman would end up before the courts. How could he have known that? He had demanded an investigation into an embarrassing leak that some members in the Liberal cabinet were looking to do the bidding of well-connected friends. The RCMP had clear signals from the very top that something must be done. Therefore, once before the courts, the government denied the vice-admiral access to the material he needed to defend himself. He was not even allowed access to his own emails. Things kept getting worse and worse for the Liberals. Finally, a well-respected MP, the Prime Minister's former chief whip, announced he would testify against the government. Days later, the charges were withdrawn. I refer back to that case because I want to link it to the SNC-Lavalin affair. Even though a lot has been said, again it very much shows the disrespect of the Prime Minister. In short, the Prime Minister wanted yet another friendly corporation to enjoy the blessings of its well-groomed Liberal connections. Amendments to the Criminal Code, as members will recall, to let SNC-Lavalin off the hook from a trial for foreign corruption and a ban on government contracts were shoved into a mammoth omnibus budget bill, the very thing Liberals swore off, and whisked through Parliament last spring. However, the Liberals were stumped, even though they got this bill passed. The director of public prosecutions was simply not going to do what the Liberals expected her to do. Therefore, the Prime Minister set all kinds of pressure from various angles upon the former attorney general to get her to overrule the Public Prosecution Service, but she was not going to do it. She said no to the Prime Minister. How dare she, but she did. She said no not only to the Prime Minister, she told the finance minister that he and his staff needed to back off. She told the Prime Minister, his chief of staff and the clerk of the Privy Council, as we all heard on that tape, to back off, that they were interfering. However, let us remember that the Prime Minister is used to having his way all the time. Some people who feel they are entitled and have never had to go through a hardship in their life and have a lot of privilege are used to getting their way. Clearly, the Prime Minister is one of those. When the former attorney general stood up to him and stood by her respect for the rule of law in Canada, she stood up to political interference in the criminal justice system. For that, she got fired. Sadly, we have not been able to hear her full story because the Prime Minister has not waived that privilege, but we have seen enough that we can connect the dots. We can see that when she was fired as attorney general and moved to Veterans Affairs, that was the reason why.Thankfully, courageously, all of this has been exposed. Although we still do not have the full truth of what the Prime Minister has done, again it has shown Canadians that the Prime Minister is not at all as advertised. So much for hope and hard work, so much for sunny ways, so much for diversity, so much for tolerance, all of that is a sham under the Prime Minister.We do hope the Prime Minister will one day lift the gag order. If he will not, the next prime minister probably will, and I think there will be an opportunity for that to happen. Canadians will hear the truth at one point or another.What happened? Both the former attorney general and the former president of the Treasury Board stood up to the Prime Minister. and not only did they get fired and resign from their positions, they got kicked out of the Liberal caucus in violation of the Reform Act, again in violation of the law. That is a day in the life of the Prime Minister.(1255)How many laws did he break with respect to conflict of interest and ethics? Four. He is the first Prime Minister in the history of Canada to break those laws. Then he broke the rules and the law regarding the Reform Act. That entire episode gripped this entire House and paralyzed the government. It was in chaos. I think it had 10 cabinet shuffles in three weeks. The government was in absolute chaos. While there were all kinds of issues going on across the country, the Liberal government and the Prime Minister could only focus on one thing. It lost the clerk of the Privy Council. The principal adviser, Mr. Butts, resigned. It lost a number of cabinet ministers. It was in absolute chaos and shambles. We were gripped with this in the House of Commons as well.In fact, it is the continuing mismanagement by the government that has brought the need for it to propose government Motion No. 30, which we are debating right now. It is the mismanagement that comes from the very top. The Prime Minister is so infatuated with his own image and so focused on being a celebrity that he overlooks the substance and hard work of leading a government. That is a very sad reflection of the government and where we are in the country today. This is a prime minister who does not understand that being a prime minister is not a ceremonial role, not something just for a celebrity, but the top job in the country. It is governing not only the people of the country but the budget, the economy and foreign affairs. All of these aspects of a country like Canada should be at the forefront in the mind of the Prime Minister. Instead, he is focused on his celebrity status and getting on the pages of Vanity Fair or Vogue. Perhaps it is GQ, People or TigerBeat, if it is still a magazine. Imagine Donny Osmond and the Prime Minister on the cover of TigerBeat. He is sadly overlooking the substance and hard work of leading a government.I have been here for almost 11 years and it really has been quite a privilege. I started as a backbencher. Backbenchers are underrated. They do such tremendous work. I was on a committee for a number of years and learned so much about how committees worked. I was then privileged to chair a committee. That also helped me understand the rules of this place. I chaired a committee during a minority parliament. Even more so, when chairing the committee, I had to ensure I was impartial and applied the rules equally to both sides, the government members as well as the opposition, which at that point was a smaller Liberal opposition, the NDP and the Bloc. It was such a privilege to learn and work with colleagues. Then I was privileged to be a parliamentary secretary. In 2013, a number of years later, I became a minister. I believe that experience really helped me become a good minister, and now the opposition House leader. Many of us on both sides have worked our way up from being backbench MPs to maybe working on committees and into other offices.As I watched, I was inspired by the example set by our former prime minister, Stephen Harper, an exact opposite of the current Prime Minister. Stephen Harper knew every file backward and forward. He was not concerned about celebrity status. He wanted to connect with Canadians to know what their concerns were and to govern in a responsible way. He was an example of tireless devotion and hard work on behalf of Canadians. The current Prime Minister has not helped his case by building a PMO where everything is reportedly bottlenecked through just one or two staff. We are hearing a lot about that. Even current Liberal MPs are very concerned with what is going on in the PMO and how decisions are being made there. As the House leader just confirmed, she tells her backbenchers whether they should shorten or lengthen their speeches.(1300)Another example, and I already mentioned that, is the government House leader's early appointment. As I said, the hon. member for Waterloo had been here 70-some days when she was appointed as the government House leader. I felt that it sent a message. This is with respect to the House leader. She and I work well together. We certainly disagree, and I am certainly not happy that she is giving us more short opposition days, but as I said earlier, I think she has done the best she could with the hand that was dealt to her.When the Prime Minister appoints as a House leader an individual who has been here only for 75 days, it tells all of us that he really is not very serious about getting things done. Maybe he thinks her position is just a ceremonial role as well. We certainly have seen her have to carry a lot of very difficult answers and non-answers to questions for the government. She has been put in a position where unfortunately she has lost a lot of credibility. While the Prime Minister is sitting there silently or signing autographs, she is having to defend his trip to billionaire island. While he is sitting in question period staring off into space or thinking about things, she is the one who is standing and answering or not answering very difficult questions. It is sad because I feel that the Prime Minister set her up to fail, and it is very disappointing to see that he has done that. I did give a longer speech about this point previously. It was a speech around the Prime Minister's so-called approach to feminism, which I find to be fake. It is a lot of signalling and not true respect for the equality of women, and for us as women in this place being able to be where we are based on merit, based on our ability and our strength, being able to speak truth to power, being able to stand in this place knowing that we got here absolutely on our merit. When the Prime Minister appoints people just because they are women and then does not even respect them and listen to them, as he did with the former attorney general, we have seen time and time again that his approach to feminism is a lot of words and no action.I am going back to the power of the PMO. I imagine the House leader has had a lot of struggles with the PMO behind the scenes trying to line up a legislative agenda and trying to get departments to hustle and bring their long-overdue proposals to the cabinet table and convert them into bills, and trying to get her colleagues to meet what a coordinated plan requires of them. However, it sounds like she is basically just telling her colleagues what to do. News flash for them, that is not the way it happens. In the previous government, not only did we pass many private members' bills, but we had more government MPs vote against the government's position. We had more free votes than any other government. It was really quite remarkable.I would never betray caucus confidentiality, but I will say this. I think this is a departure for the Liberals and it might be a good thing for them to think about when they are the third party again or maybe opposition after the next election, which remains to be seen, but they may want to allow their caucus members to speak their minds freely and not have to set their agenda ahead of time or allow the Prime Minister and his minions to tell them if they can speak. It is wonderful in caucus to be able to stand and not get permission, but be able to speak to the leader freely. He or she listens, and sometimes decisions are changed. That actually happened in our previous government, and it is wonderful to be able to speak freely in our caucus to each other and to our leader. That would be a nice thing. Maybe those who have served under previous leaders like Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin or Michael Ignatieff were able to speak freely, but it does not appear that they are able to do that with the current government. (1305)It is the Prime Minister's way, or they are out. Unfortunately, we are seeing more and more members of Parliament who were Liberals and who, under various circumstances, were disrespected and did not feel welcome anymore in the Liberal caucus. That is very sad to see.Let us get to the next mess that the Prime Minister has made, and that is in the Senate. It is quite something to see what is happening in the Senate. The Prime Minister has a leader of the government in the Senate whom he tries to disavow. The Prime Minister has, however, done an excellent job appointing ideological fellow travellers to the Senate, though he likes to call them “independent”. At the end of the day, though, when something comes to a vote, the Prime Minister has always been able to count on his so-called independent senators' votes. However, getting there has not always been very pretty. I have to say it is a bit entertaining to watch on this side.The real litmus test for his so-called independent Senate will be whether it heeds Liberal political imperatives in an election year, follows the spirit of Motion No. 30 and passes all of the Prime Minister's bills in the way that he wants. I guess time will tell.In the meantime, it means that we have seen a number of Senate amendments to current legislation. Of course, at the end of the day, the Senate has backed down to the government's opinion every single time. It is quite interesting. While there is something generally reassuring about an elected House, even under the thumb of a majority government carrying the day, it has nonetheless meant that the House spends an extra two days or more on every government bill that gets bounced back from the Senate. It is also a reflection of the government's lack of consultation with Canadians over many of its pieces of legislation. Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and Bill C-71 are all bills where, had the government just taken a little time to listen to Canadians, had it admitted that maybe it made some mistakes and had it made those adjustments, it might not be seeing the problems it is seeing with the current legislation in the Senate. However, that is what the government is getting.The Prime Minister's mismanagement of the Senate has directly contributed to the mismanagement of the House of Commons, hence the need for government Motion No. 30. Here is the present scene: a scandal-ridden, disastrous Liberal government flailing about in the dying days of this Parliament in a rush to just do something, to get something done, something other than making pot legal. That is about the only thing the government has done, and it has actually done that pretty poorly. The legalization of cannabis is really the only notable accomplishment of the government to date. Even with that, it turned out to be a disaster.What does the government have left to do, which it is in such a hurry to achieve? The government has horribly failed in meeting any of its lofty commitments to indigenous peoples. Now it is in a panic to rush through Bill C-91 and Bill C-92, the indigenous languages and indigenous family services legislation, so that it can say, “Look, we have done something.”There is, of course, yet another omnibus budget bill that it is ramming through the House at this moment. The government will no doubt want to see that piece of legislation and all of its provisions to implement another promise-breaking, deficit budget through Parliament. Rumours have also started to fly that the government will seek to implement, before the election, the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement, the new NAFTA, where the Liberals capitulated to the American administration on replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement.On the NAFTA negotiations, the Prime Minister wasted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a better deal. However, Conservatives worked hard to get tariffs removed, and we recognize how important free trade with the United States is. We will be voting to ratify the deal in Parliament, but the Liberals cannot take this as a licence to abuse Parliament. We are already well into the 11th hour for this Parliament. I can confidently predict that the House will not be a happy place if the implementation legislation is brought forward at the very last minute and then we are called to rush through the bill with little or no scrutiny to make fundamental changes to the world's most important bilateral economic relationship. Again, we need the government, at this very late hour, to show some responsibility and let Canadians know, let members know, what it is planning to do with this agreement and with the ratification.(1310)Turning to other priorities the government will seek to advance this spring, we see other economic legislation that is really hurting our economy. The government is the proud owner of a $4.5-billion pipeline, which has not even started to be built. Government members are scrambling to shore up the support of environmental activists, whose votes they heavily courted in 2015 but clearly are losing. Today we are going to be seeing the welcoming of a new member of Parliament from the Green Party. I think when the Liberals talk about an emergency, that is an emergency they are very much seized with, the emergency of their losing their so-called environmentalist vote. However, there is some legislation that is really problematic, such as Bill C-88, which is a bill that would restrict pipeline and resource development in Canada's north. Bill C-68 would make negative changes to fisheries laws, which would result in economic activity being hampered. Bill C-48, and it is quite interesting to see what is happening in the Senate with that one, is a symbolic gesture; well, it is more than a gesture, as this bill would ban tanker traffic from part of the B.C. coast, which is where many first nations are calling for greater pipeline development and economic opportunity. At the same time, there is no proposed tanker ban on the east coast, where Saudi Arabian and Venezuelan oil is coming to Canada. Of course, there is Bill C-69, the no-more-pipelines bill, which would absolutely stop any energy infrastructure development in Canada. We have heard from experts, stakeholders, provinces and first nation groups that Bill C-69 is an absolute disaster for this country. We would not have any more pipelines built. They will be built in other countries. Canada will miss this window of opportunity. Again, the government does not seem to understand the consequences of its actions. However, I understand there have been many amendments by the Senate, up to 200 amendments, so it will be interesting to see if those are overturned by the Liberals, who are hoping to regain their environmentalist votes. In Canada, majority government policies are usually assured of being put into place. Therefore, the shadow cast by these bills has, unfortunately, already done a huge amount of damage in our resource sector and in other parts of our country, putting a chill on investment and development long ahead of these bills becoming law. Adding to that is the sad, sorry spectacle of the duelling climate emergency motions before the House this month, which is another interesting thing to watch. Before Victoria Day, the New Democrats put forward an opposition day motion declaring a climate emergency, and the Liberals defeated it. Lo and behold, the very next day, the Liberals brought forward their own climate emergency motion, which we debated for just a few hours. Then, the day after, they were on to something else, and the Prime Minister was flying somewhere in his jet. Can members imagine that there is a climate emergency and the Prime Minister gets on his jet and flies away? It is pretty unbelievable. I call that a high-carbon hypocrite. Here we are this morning, back from our constituency break. Where is the emergency debate? I do not see it. The government's emergency is worrying about what is happening on its left flank, worrying about the senators and worrying about getting legislation through. However, this morning we have this debate, which is something different still. This afternoon, the Liberals are going to squeeze in another two or three hours on their climate emergency, hoping that some of their environmentalists are listening and they can fool them into thinking they care about the environment, when in fact the only plan the Liberals have for the environment is a tax plan. Who knows? The motion goes back into the parliamentary ether under the who-knows-when category. I think this is just a political emergency. As I mentioned, the Green Party won a by-election on Vancouver Island, with the Liberal candidate running fourth, which is really quite something. I think the Liberals are very worried. They have to be worried about what is going on in B.C. The Prime Minister, as I said, scrambled and stuck something in the window to look like he was doing something. It is sort of fun to watch them do this.(1315)I know what the Liberals are going to do. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change actually mentioned it on the weekend. Their approach, according to the minister, is that if they stand in the House and say it loud enough, as well as yell it in question period, Canadians will just believe it. Now we know why the Prime Minister and that minister stand and yell. It is sad to say, but they believe that if they say it loud enough and yell it enough times in this place that Canadians will believe it. That is horrible. It is cynical, disrespectful and shameful. I certainly hope that maybe at their next caucus meeting, some of those Liberals will have the courage to speak up to their boss, the Prime Minister, and maybe a few of their ministers, and tell them that it is about time they respect this place and respect Canadians.Here we are debating government Motion No. 30, because the Liberals claim they are working hard to pass legislation. Then we will turn to a virtue signalling motion that will not change one law or do one thing. It is really interesting to see what the Liberal government is doing.Let us go back to Motion No. 30. Those were my opening remarks, and now I am getting into the real substance of my speech. I appreciate the encouragement. Motion No. 30 before us today calls us to sit until midnight on four days a week, as well as for most votes to take place after question period. These are understandable. We were in government and understand it, but we did not have to do it in 2015. We were able to manage things so efficiently under Peter Van Loan and Stephen Harper that we did not extend into night sittings in the summer of 2015. However, for all the reasons I have pointed out, the Liberals had to.Some of these measures can be understood by us, as Conservatives, as they are things we have asked the House to do. There is one addition to the motion that is truly a nice one, and I am going to compliment the government on it. There is a provision in this motion to have a couple of evenings that are dedicated to statements by retiring members from all sides. We will have the opportunity to set aside partisanship for a short period of time to hear the farewell speeches by our departing colleagues. That is something we do not always get to enjoy when we have one-off statements made in the midst of one political battle or another. I am really glad to see that provision. There are members on every side of the House who are retiring and not running again for various reasons. In the last Parliament, we set aside a couple of evenings for those members, who could invite their families, friends and staff members. It is a really good thing and I am grateful. I thank the government for putting that provision into this motion.However, the motion is not perfect. This is where I am going to discuss the parts of the motion that we do not like and believe are a greedy approach on behalf of the Liberals. I have already talked about 2017 and 2018 when the government motion proposed reducing opposition days to opposition half days. We objected then, and we object again. This year's motion is very aggressive in some other ways also. The rules normally require report stage votes and third reading debate to occur on separate days. Under government Motion No. 30, that waiting period would be eliminated. Again, this is another way that the government can rush through legislation.With regard to the way that the previous motion on extended hours worked, there was a one-day delay between a vote on the previous question and a vote on the main motion. That would be eliminated under government Motion No. 30. In previous years, all dilatory motions were banned after 6:30 p.m., but now ministers would be allowed to propose them. The government wants us to sit late every night, yet wants to keep for itself the power to send us home early. (1320)On the last opposition day in each supply period, we vote on the estimates. That is when we go through the government spending plan line by line and approve the items. Unfortunately for the current government, these have often fallen at times when the government was being particularly arrogant, like in March when the Liberals were insisting on preventing the members for Vancouver Granville and Markham—Stouffville from speaking. Therefore, we did have to hold the government's feet to the fire and we triggered marathon voting, which is one of the very few devices left for us to make our disagreements felt.Now, government Motion No. 30 would create a backdoor procedural trick to group and apply these votes. That is in an effort to spare the Liberals from standing and voting for their spending proposals, and that is if a voting marathon even happens this spring. Again, this is one of the small tools we have to hold the government to account and draw attention to what the government is doing. The Liberals have taken that away as well. It is shameful. The takeaway from this is that while the Liberals are setting long hours, they want to make light work. Again, it is a lot of hope but very little hard work. There is also one small curious difference between this motion and those from the previous years. Normally, when a concurrence debate is interrupted, the government has 10 sitting days to reschedule the conclusion of that debate. Under past motions for extended hours, whether Liberal or Conservative, that 10 days has been increased to 20 days to avoid further extending some House sittings from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. Instead, the government motion proposes 31 sitting sitting days, not 20. It is an interesting little change, nuance, in this motion. Since there are only 20 scheduled sittings days left, that tells me one thing: The Liberal government now recognizes it has mismanaged its agenda so badly that it could be preparing for the House to have a summer sitting. I am wondering if all the Liberal members were aware of that little nugget. Again, it is going to be a matter of our watching this space to see what happens.Finally, something that is not in the motion also has us concerned. That is the prospect of amendments to the Standing Orders getting rammed through this spring under the cover of midnight sittings. On one hand, there is a private member's motion, Motion No. 231, sponsored by the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard. It did not come through this morning, but many of us have had a chance to look at that private member's motion and have to wonder if it is not under the direction or the support of the Liberals. The Liberal government did—C-48, An Act respecting the regulation of vessels that transport crude oil or persistent oil to or from ports or marine installations located along British Columbia's north coastC-68, An Act to amend the Fisheries Act and other Acts in consequenceC-69, An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other ActsC-71, An Act to amend certain Acts and Regulations in relation to firearmsC-88, An Act to amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act and to make consequential amendments to other ActsC-91, An Act respecting Indigenous languagesC-92, An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and familiesExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305949865594986659498675949868594986959498705949871594987259498735949874594987559498765949877594987859498795949880594988159498825949883594988459498855949886594988759498885949889594989059498915949892594989359498945949895594989659498975949898594989959499005949901594990259499035949904594990559499065949907594990859499095949910594991159499125949913594991459499155949916594991759499185949919594992059499215949922594992359499245949925594992659499275949928594992959499305949931594993259499335949934594993559499365949937594993859499395949940594994159499425949943594994459499455949946594994759499485949949594995059499515949952594995359499545949955594995659499575949958594995959499605949961594996259499635949964594996559499665949967594996859499695949970594997159499725949973BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooMelArnoldNorth Okanagan—Shuswap//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89294MelArnoldMel-ArnoldNorth Okanagan—ShuswapConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ArnoldMel_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Mel Arnold: (1325)[English]Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, there is getting to be quite a rumble. I am sitting quite close to our House leader and trying to listen very closely. This motion is very important. There is getting to be quite a rumble in the surrounding halls here. Could we possibly ask you, Mr. Speaker, to quiet things down?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30Noise/conversations/heckling, interrupting Member speakingPoints of order59499745949975CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1325)[English]I appreciate that, Mr. Speaker. We hear a lot of noise in this beautiful new place, and that is one of the pitfalls. It is great having people being active in the parliamentary precinct, but it does get to be a little loud. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The noise was not heckling from members on the government benches. I say that in case any of the good folks listening to this speech thought that government members were heckling me. They were not. They were listening intently, and I very much appreciate their interest in my speech.There has been some concern around this private member's bill, and that may be because of the way that the government was going to ram through some of the changes. That will remain to be seen. One of the other things we are concerned about is ministerial accountability and the lack thereof. My colleague, the hon. member for Edmonton West, has established quite a track record for spotting problems and errors between the budget, the estimates and related tables. This is a result of some of the new Liberal processes. The Liberals brought in changes a year ago, and we at that point indicated concern. However, those concerns were not heeded and we are seeing some of the fallout from that. Thankfully, we have very hard-working members on this side. I said that the member for Edmonton West can do the work. I do not know how many hundreds of bureaucrats are in the Department of Finance, and yet one of our members can do the work of one hundred of them when it comes to catching mistakes and errors. We are proud of him and grateful for what he has done.The Parliamentary Budget Officer, in his review of the 2019 estimates, explained the situation quite well when he said that the government's new approach, which is one of the changes to the Standing Orders: does not fully address the issues raised regarding the changes in the Estimates process. Parliamentarians will still be required to vote on Budget measures which have not gone through the [Treasury Board] submission process prior to the Main Estimates being tabled in the House of Commons. As noted in previous PBO reports, there are often significant differences between the money announced in the Budget versus what is ultimately approved by Treasury Board and presented to Parliament for its review. It is ultimately up to parliamentarians to decide whether these improvements are sufficient to outweigh the drawbacks of incomplete information in order to help the Government expedite the implementation of Budget measures. As highlighted in previous PBO reports, a significant part of Budget implementation delays stem from the Government's own internal processes. Were these to be streamlined, the Government would be able to spend money more quickly without the need for Parliament to forego information. It is unclear what the Government intended to do to address this issue.Last year, a single committee was entrusted with studying all new spending measures announced in the budget, but the Liberal majority shut down any effort to have anything resembling meaningful scrutiny. That committee, the government operations committee, has itself not given the green light to continuing the government's bad experiment. Let me quote from page 27 of its 16th report, which was tabled in January: Since the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates has a mandate to study the process for considering the estimates and supply and the format and content of all estimates documents, among other things, it is best suited to study changes made to the estimates process. The Committee therefore believes that it should study the impact of the new timeline for the tabling of the main estimates before the changes to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons are made permanent That is probably the most polite way that one could expect a group of Liberal backbenchers to tell the government publicly to back down from any hasty plans. I would agree with them. The government's experiment on aligning the budget and the estimates requires thorough review. It appears clear to me and to many of us that the experiment has not only failed, but it has made things worse and more complicated.Members should not be surprised to see a minister sauntering down to the House in the next few weeks urging us to celebrate the government's changes and to make this nonsense permanent. I hope that does not happen.(1330)In conclusion, I want to say that we are very happy to work hard and long hours. We know that is what it takes to get things done for Canadians. However, we are not impressed that we are being asked to join the Liberals' desperate scramble to be able to claim that they have accomplished something, rather than having squandered four years in office while surfing on a sense of entitlement, thinking things would just happen for them because, “By goodness, we are so good-looking and we are Liberals”, though, by the way, some Conservatives are good-looking too. It takes more than good looks and well wishes.I am trying to get a little smile out of them, but I think I have just hit them too hard. I see the member for Winnipeg North smiling.We certainly do not agree with a bunch of temporary and permanent procedural changes being slipped in under the guise of a motion calling for longer working hours that would tip the scale in favour of the government going back to possibly changing the Standing Orders.I will be proposing some changes to government Motion No. 30. If the Liberals will agree to our amendments, we will agree to their motion. It is very simple. I am not overly optimistic. I am looking at the faces of my colleagues across the way, and they are not looking too committed. Am I getting a few nods? No one is committing, but maybe I will read the amendment.An hon. member: Give it a shot.Hon. Candice Bergen: That is what I will do, Mr. Speaker. I will read it first, because it is kind of like how the Liberals have governed for four years, with decisions, favours, policies and grants for Liberals and their well-connected insider friends, with all of the advantages going to themselves. Beyond that, the Liberal government is one that will be remembered for hollow buzzwords, empty symbolism and broken promises. The good news for Canadians is that it will not last forever. There are just 20 sitting days left for this Parliament and, if the voters agree, just 20 sitting days left for this failed government.AmendmentIn closing, I move, seconded by the member for Barrie—Innisfil, that the motion be amended as follows: (a) in paragraph (b), by deleting all the words after the words “provided that” and substituting the following: “any recorded division demanded in respect of a motion to amend the Standing Orders or to make changes to the usual practices of the House shall stand deferred to the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on Wednesday, October 23, 2019”; (b) in paragraph (e), by adding the following: “provided that any recorded division demanded in respect of a motion to amend the Standing Orders or to make changes to the usual practices of the House shall stand deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members' Business on Wednesday, October 23, 2019”; (c) by deleting paragraphs (i), (k) and (l); and (d) in paragraph (m), by deleting the word “31st” and substituting the following: “20th”. Amendments and subamendmentsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305949977594997859499795949980594998159499825949983594998459499855949986594998759499885949989594999059499915949992594999359499945949995594999659499975949998BruceStantonSimcoe NorthKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1335)[English]Mr. Speaker, in listening to my colleague across the way, at times I could not help but think she is often far from the reality of what has actually taken place in the last number of years. I would say that the Conservative Party is still led by Stephen Harper in many ways, and I must say that it has been heavily influenced by Mr. Ford in Ontario lately. Nothing has really changed. From day one, the Conservative Party has made things personal. Its members attack the Prime Minister. It does not matter what the issues are. Whether it is legislation to cut taxes for Canada's middle class or progressive measures, such as the Canada child benefit, it does not matter. The Conservative Party's simple agenda is to attack the Prime Minister.My question for the member opposite is related to legislation. We have 20 more sitting days. Canadians want us to work hard. This government will work hard to the very last hour. Would the member opposite not recognize that in order to pass legislation, we need a sense of responsibility from the opposition benches? If we do not, we have to resort to using other tools. The Conservatives, over the last three and a half years, have demonstrated that not only do they want to attack the Prime Minister, they also want to prevent us from passing—Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059499995950000CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1340)[English]Mr. Speaker, I am sure that my Manitoba colleague is very troubled by the fact that most of the attention has been on his leader, the Prime Minister. Since the Liberals were elected, we have seen over the last four years that it has been #teamprimeminister. That is what the Liberals have run on. It was the Prime Minister who ran on balancing the budget, electoral reform, and having the most open and transparent government and of being a feminist and open to diversity. These are all things that the Prime Minister said. Guess who had to stand behind him, back him and cheer him all of that time? It was these Liberals, who are now very worried I am sure. They are going into their ridings, knocking on doors and their constituents are saying they are tired of the current Prime Minister, that he has failed and his failures are costing them. They saw what Kathleen Wynne did in Ontario. They do not want that from the current Prime Minister. Therefore, I am not surprised the member is worried.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305950002BruceStantonSimcoe NorthPeterJulianNew Westminster—Burnaby//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/16399PeterJulianPeter-JulianNew Westminster—BurnabyNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/JulianPeter_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP): (1340)[English]Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the member's speech. It went on a little longer than I expected, but it was all on interesting points. I have two questions for the opposition House leader.First, the mandate letter given to the government House leader talked about working collaboratively with opposition parties to make the House of Commons more family friendly. Does the opposition House leader feel this is really a repudiation of all of those intents the Prime Minister talked about a few years ago? He talked about how he and the government House leader would work to make this a better and more collaborative place. Does she not feel this is a repudiation of those commitments?Second, the sad story of the current Liberal government is that despite the fact it talked about working collaboratively and cutting back on the number of closure and bulldozer motions that simply push things through Parliament without proper scrutiny, it is now close to the Harper government's record in terms of the number of closure motions. Does it worry her that the Liberals are now as bad as the former Harper government was?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595000359500045950005CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1340)[English]Mr. Speaker, that is a trick question. I am not going to fall for it.I appreciate my hon. colleague's other comments and will quickly address them.The Prime Minister's initial action, when he stormed across the aisle in the House when he did not get his way, I think, set the tone for his caucus and House leader to bulldoze their way through anything. It has been very disappointing when the House leader has stated, on many occasions, that members of Parliament here might be repeating themselves, so that it is her and the Liberals' job to shut them down, including her own members. I think that shows disrespect. Certainly, we have tried to work collaboratively with her as House leaders, but her attitude that if we do not do what she wants us to do, she is going to punish us is very condescending, patronizing and disrespectful. That attitude has come from the very top. It has come from the Prime Minister. When he talks about being family friendly, it may be family friendly for him and maybe he does not feel he has to be here all the time, but there are many of us who feel very committed that when this place is open, we need to be here at work and we recognize that it does take a lot of people away from their families.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595000659500075950008PeterJulianNew Westminster—BurnabyTomLukiwskiMoose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25520TomLukiwskiTom-LukiwskiMoose Jaw—Lake Centre—LaniganConservative CaucusSaskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/LukiwskiTom_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Tom Lukiwski (Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, CPC): (1340)[English]Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague, the hon. opposition House leader, regarding the parliamentary calendar and, more specifically, the government's handling of it. As she would know, as every member of Parliament who has been in this place even for a few days would recognize, when we look at the parliamentary calendar that is issued yearly, we see that the last two weeks of each session have asterisks beside the dates. That does not mean we might be able to get out of here early. What it means is that the government, if it chooses to, could extend the sitting hours so that we could have further debate and pass legislation.Back in 2015, we never used extended sitting hours, because our government of the day was able to pass legislation in a timely manner, getting it through before we rose for the summer. This is the first time I can remember that we will have extended sitting hours for four weeks, not just the two weeks that are the norm, but four weeks. In my view, that is because the government is failing in its handling of the parliamentary calendar. More specifically, the government's incompetence has not allowed it to bring forward legislation in a timely fashion, and now it has to rush and play catch-up. Was it the SNC-Lavalin scandal that threw the government off its game? I do not know, but this is certainly the fault of the government.Could my hon. colleague, my friend, the hon. opposition House leader, expand further upon that?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 305950009595001059500115950012CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1345)[English]Mr. Speaker, the government has delivered a lot of broken promises and empty symbolism to Canadians. What we are seeing today with this motion is a culmination of that. It is certainly anticipating massive problems from the Senate in response to much of its legislation, because its so-called promise of listening to Canadians is empty and broken. It has mismanaged the House. The member articulated very well how the calendar is set up and the fact that under our previous Conservative government, we managed things effectively. When in government, sometimes time allocation does have to be used, and we did. However, we want to highlight the hypocrisy of the Liberal government and its members standing up and sanctimoniously preaching at us the Conservatives and everybody before us who used time allocation, despite the Prime Minister saying he would use neither it nor omnibus bills. He has. He has used draconian measures, and is doing so even now. Even at that, the Prime Minister is having so many problems getting legislation through.It is kind of like his foreign policy, and this is the problem. How did Margaret Thatcher put it? She said that “Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.” The Prime Minister, even in enacting legislation, could have said that despite his government being a majority one, it would sometimes use time allocation, and here is the agenda and what we are going to do, and the opposition can use its tools. Sure, we would have been going back and forth, but it is the hypocrisy I'm referring to. It is the Prime Minister standing up and saying that he is better than everyone else, that he is sunny ways, that he is tolerant and that he believes in Parliament and he is going to respect backbenchers. It was all fraudulent. None of it was true.This motion today is clear. It is as clear as the nose on all of our faces. The government is not doing what it said it would do. It is about broken promises, empty rhetoric and empty symbolism.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 3059500135950014595001559500165950017TomLukiwskiMoose Jaw—Lake Centre—LaniganKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1345)[English]Mr. Speaker, again, the member opposite is quite far from reality.To try to give the impression that the Harper government did not use similar measures to what we are using today is just wrong. It did. The Harper government used these measures to pass legislation.The Liberal government is focused on Canadians. The Conservative Party is not prepared to work late on the last 20 days of the government. It does not want work late for Canadians.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595001859500195950020CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1345)[English]Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader just made my point.The Prime Minister came in, trying to shame us and say that we were a terrible government because we used the tools available. The Liberals are doing exactly what they said they were not going to do, and they are doing it even more, using time allocation and draconian measures. At least the former Conservative government allowed private members to have a say and to have free votes.Not only are the Liberals using time allocation, and here I guess the Liberals talked to the previous government about how to do it, they are also shutting down debate for members of Parliament and are controlling committees, which we did not do. The former Conservative government did not fire our attorney general because he would not interfere in a criminal case. Who fired its attorney general because she did not interfere in a criminal case? It was the Liberal government.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595002159500225950023KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthPeterJulianNew Westminster—Burnaby//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/16399PeterJulianPeter-JulianNew Westminster—BurnabyNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/JulianPeter_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP): (1345)[English]Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by congratulating the member for Vancouver Granville and the member for Markham—Stouffville, who have announced they will be running as independents in the federal election to be held this fall. They stood up to the Prime Minister and for judicial independence and they paid a terrible political price, being banished from the Liberal Party. Both of them are putting the future and the final decision in the hands of the voters of Vancouver Granville and Markham—Stouffville, which is as it should be.I would like to mention the last time we sat for four weeks in night sessions. The New Democrats are no strangers to hard work. We believe our job is to be here and fight as hard as we can on behalf of our constituents and all Canadians. Statistics were kept of the last time we sat for four weeks until midnight. Canadians know there is a rotation. The Liberals get a chance to speak, then the Conservatives, then the New Democrats. Then independents and non-recognized parties occasionally will have their opportunity as well.The last time we sat late for four weeks, I am proud to say that not a single speaking spot was missed by the New Democrats. Every time it came to the NDP, and that was frequently, the New Democrats rose in the House and spoke on behalf of their constituents and of Canadians.Sadly, that is not the case with the Liberals and the Conservatives. The last time we sat for four weeks of midnight sittings, the Liberals and the Conservatives failed to show up over 200 times. A Liberal speaker would be called and not a single member of the Liberal caucus rose to speak on behalf of his or her constituents or on behalf of anybody.I find it a bit rich when the government House leader talks about the Liberals wanting to work harder. The opposition House leader said the same thing, all be it more eloquently. The reality is that this happened 200 times over 20 days. Over that period, or 10 times a day, the Conservatives and the Liberals failed to stand and speak on behalf of their constituents. The New Democrats have a record of wanting to work hard and we believe all members of the House of Commons should work equally hard on behalf of their constituents. Therefore, our problem is not the midnight sittings. To the contrary, we have proven over the years that the New Democrats are here to work and work hard, and we will continue to do that.The problem with the motion is that it strips away all the tools that opposition members can use to hold the government to account, and this is no small matter. When we look at the mandate letter the Prime Minister provided to the government House leader in 2016, it speaks very clearly to what the government told Canadians it wanted to bring as far as a new spirit in the House of Commons.The Prime Minister wrote in the mandate letter: I made a personal commitment to bring new leadership and a new tone to Ottawa. We made a commitment to Canadians to pursue our goals with a renewed sense of collaboration. He said further in his mandate letter, which directs the government House leader on how to work with members of the opposition in the House of Commons:As Minister, you will be held accountable for our commitment to bring a different style of leadership to government. This will include: close collaboration with your colleagues; meaningful engagement with Opposition Members of Parliament....He went on to say:Parliamentarians must have the information and the freedom to do their most important jobs: represent their constituents and hold the government to account. It is your job to help empower all Members of Parliament to fulfill these essential responsibilities.The Prime Minister went on to say that the government House leader should be changing the House of Commons Standing Orders to end the improper use of omnibus bills. We have seen some of the most egregious examples of omnibus legislation in our history as a country and our history as a Parliament under the Liberal government, the most recent being the incredibly inappropriate use of trying to gut immigration legislation through the use of an omnibus budget bill.(1350)My colleague, the member for Vancouver East, has spoken eloquently, as have dozens of organizations across the country, about the cutting off the ability of refugees to apply for refugee status in Canada, something that has been applauded by white supremacists and has been derided, quite legitimately, by organizations that are very concerned by the government's incredible shift to the right on this. This should never have been put into omnibus legislation, given that the Prime Minister committed to ending the improper use of omnibus bills. It is just another commitment that has been left by the wayside.The Prime Minister asked and directed the government House leader, in her mandate letter, to “Work with Opposition House Leaders to examine ways to make the House of Commons more family-friendly for Members of Parliament.” Nothing in the mandate letter that was given to the government House leader is reflected at all in the motion the government has brought forward, which strips the opposition of rights and imposes on the government no obligation whatsoever with respect to how it runs through the next few weeks of Parliament.We know from history, as I cited earlier with my sad example, that on over 200 occasions, the Liberals and the Conservatives failed to show up to work in the evening up until midnight. Shift workers, nurses, firefighters and police officers show up to work. People who work in plants, as I did on the shop floor, work 12-hour shifts, from midnight to noon. We showed up to work. Canadians show up to work, yet it is sadly the case that more than 200 times, in only 20 sitting days, the Liberals and the Conservatives failed to show up to speak on behalf of their constituents.In the motion, which strips the opposition of all its rights, there is no obligation at all on the government side to do anything in particular. There is no obligation for the government to accept the many amendments that NDP members and other opposition members provide to improve legislation.As we saw in the Harper years, on almost a dozen occasions, legislation that was passed after being railroaded through the House of Commons was rejected by the courts. Parliament exists to ensure we get legislation right the first time, not to have to rely on the court system to override egregiously bad legislation that has been pushed through the House of Commons.However, this is what the Liberal government has done. In complete repudiation of its commitment to be a different government and in complete repudiation of the mandate letter I just cited, the Liberals have rammed through bad legislation that is now moving to the courts as well. Under the Harper government, legislation was rejected a dozen times.It is a bad practice, yet there is nothing in the motion that obliges the government to listen to witnesses in committee. There is nothing in the motion that obliges the government to entertain the amendments that help to make legislation better. There is nothing that actually improves parliamentary procedure in this place.That is the fundamental problem and that is why tomorrow, when I have a chance to speak a little more to the motion, I will speak about what the government should have done and how it should have been approaching this, doing so in that spirit of collaboration, which now seems so remote and removed.Four years later, all of the promises of sunny ways that we heard from the Liberals belong on the trash heap of history. We have had a very mean-spirited government that has tried to railroad the rights of Parliament repeatedly. Ultimately, I think the Liberals will pay a price for this on October 21.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30595002459500255950026595002759500285950029595003059500315950032595003359500345950035595003659500375950038595003959500405950041595004259500435950044595004559500465950047CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Notice of Closure Motion]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1815)[Translation] Mr. Speaker, with respect to the consideration of Government Business No. 30, I wish to give notice that at the next sitting of the House a minister of the Crown shall move, pursuant to Standing Order 57, that debate not be further adjourned.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 30Notice of motion5950928KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthJulieDzerowiczDavenport//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgPoints of Order [Proceedings on Government Motion No. 22—Speaker's Ruling]InterventionThe Speaker: (1000)[English]I am now prepared to rule on two points of order raised yesterday by the hon. opposition House leader regarding government Motion No. 22. I would like to thank the hon. opposition House leader for having raised these matters, as well as the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons for his comments.[Translation] On the first matter, the hon. opposition House leader argued that since in her view no debate had taken place on the motion on Friday, May 25, the Journals for that day were inaccurate as they state, and I quote, “Debate arose thereon.” She asked that the Journals be revised accordingly.(1005)[English]As recognized by the opposition House leader herself, this is a point of order for which I have already ruled on last Friday. At that time, members questioned whether, due to issues with simultaneous interpretation and disorder in the chamber, the motion was properly before the House. I indicated that the motion was, in fact, properly before the House and that interpreters had successfully interpreted the reading of the motion into the record. I also indicated that the wording of the motion was available for examination in the Order Paper in both official languages. I have not changed my view on that question; consequently, the Journals accurately reflect the proceedings of last Friday.[Translation]House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, states the following at page 564, with respect to what is considered debate: A Member initiates the process of debate in the Chamber by moving (i.e., proposing) a motion.It also adds at page 566:If the motion is found to be in order, and has been moved and seconded, the Speaker proposes it to the House. Once the Speaker has read the motion in the words of its mover, it is considered to be before the House....After a motion has been proposed to the House, the Speaker recognizes the mover as the first to speak in debate. If the mover chooses not to speak, he or she is nonetheless deemed to have spoken (by nodding, the Member is considered to have said “I move” and this is taken as the equivalent of speech in the debate).[English]I also refer members to a ruling by the Acting Speaker on March 19, 1992, which can be found at pages 8479 and 8480 of the Debates, which provides clarification as to whether a mover of a motion should be counted as forming part of the debate on a motion. The Acting Speaker said: Since the minister presented the motion, even if he did not speak, according to the Standing Orders his speaking time is deemed to have expired. He later said: The first speaker was for the government and is deemed to have spoken, even if he did not actually do so. The government presented a motion to table [a] bill. So that was the first speaker.... These citations confirm that the motion, having been read out by the Chair and the mover having been recognized to speak to it, initiated debate on the item.In a ruling by Speaker Fraser on April 3, 1990, that can be found at pages 10155 and 10156 of the Debates, on a point of order that questioned whether debate had properly begun on a bill, which in turn could invalidate a notice to curtail debate on a bill, he confirmed that, despite the mover not having the opportunity to rise to speak to the item, debate had started, and the matter was properly before the House: It is true that the hon. member for Gloucester was not on his feet on debate, but I think I would be stretching things a very long way indeed if I should rule today that the House was not seized of the Order of the Day.Similarly, it is clear to the Chair that, as I stated on Friday, government Motion No. 22 was properly before the House, and debate on it had commenced.I would now like to address the second point of order raised by the hon. opposition House leader immediately following the point of order by the government House leader, whereby she gave notice of closure with respect to proceedings on government Motion No. 22.In her arguments, the opposition House leader questioned the validity of the notice on the basis that, in her view, it had yet to be determined that debate on the motion had commenced. Essentially, she contended that until the Speaker had ruled on the first point of order, notice of closure could not be given.In his intervention, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons reiterated that page 19675 of Hansard clearly indicated that debate had commenced, and therefore the notice of closure was appropriately given.[Translation] At that point, the chair occupant indicated that:...until such time as the Speaker has given a ruling on this question of whether the debate has begun on Motion No. 22 or not, we will reserve whether the motion for closure on Motion No. 22 is in fact in order. It is not at the moment. We will wait until such time as a decision on the previous point of order earlier today is rendered, at which point, depending on that outcome, the government House leader may then proceed accordingly.[English]As I have just now confirmed that debate had indeed commenced, it follows that the notice of closure, as given by the government House leader yesterday, was indeed valid.I thank all members for their attention in this matter.ClosureDaily ProgramDecisions of the SpeakerExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Government ordersHouse of Commons JournalsNotice of motionPoints of orderSimultaneous interpretation and sound reinforcement5441253GeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism, Lib.): (1530)[English] Mr. Speaker, in relation to the consideration of Government Business No. 22, I move:MotionThat the debate not be further adjourned.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254420805442081GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionThe Speaker: (1530)[Translation] Pursuant to Standing Order 67.1, there will now be a 30-minute question period. I invite hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise in their places so the Chair has some idea of the number of members who wish to participate in this question period.The hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentQuestions and comments period54420825442083BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooLucBertholdMégantic—L'Érable//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88541LucBertholdLuc-BertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableConservative CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BertholdLuc_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Luc Berthold (Mégantic—L'Érable, CPC): (1530)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I have a very simple question.I would like the government House leader to explain the reason for this motion and why it is being moved at this time.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254420845442085GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1530)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. We want to work for Canadians. There are a lot of bills to debate and, since we know that the opposition members want to participate in those debates, we are going to extend the sitting hours so that everyone can participate and work harder for Canadians.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 225442086LucBertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableMatthewDubéBeloeil—Chambly//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/71368MatthewDubéMatthew-DubéBeloeil—ChamblyNew Democratic Party CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/DubéMatthew_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Matthew Dubé (Beloeil—Chambly, NDP): (1530)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, let us be clear. The NDP is prepared to spend as much time as necessary working in Parliament, and I imagine all the other parties feel the same way. That being said, I would like to ask the government House leader a question.The government introduced an electoral reform bill at the last minute and a national security bill two years after it took office, and that is not to mention all the other bills that it put on a shelf saying that it needed to hold consultations. What is more, the government did not even listen to the Canadians it consulted. After taking so long to act and imposing its agenda, why is the government now deciding at the very last minute to impose closure on the motion to extend sitting hours?We are prepared to work hard, but let us be clear. When they talk about work-life balance and respect for Parliament, waiting until the last minute and imposing all this on parliamentarians is not helpful and will get us nowhere.Can the government House leader justify her actions here today?ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 225442087544208854420895442090BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1530)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I want to assure all hon. members that I am doing my best to work with them. I have asked many times how many people want to take part in the debate. The opposition members told me on several occasions that they wanted more debates. This is an opportunity for everyone to take part in the debates.We know that the bill mentioned by the hon. member is very important. The minister talked about it and we want the committee to do its work. However, we see that the hon. members across the way want to play games in the House and in committee. It is their choice, but we want to work very hard for Canadians. That is our way of doing things.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254420915442092MatthewDubéBeloeil—ChamblyErinO'TooleHon.Durham//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/72773ErinO'TooleHon.Erin-O-TooleDurhamConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/OTooleErin_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Erin O'Toole (Durham, CPC): (1530)[English]Mr. Speaker, this is truly an unparalleled day in Canadian parliamentary history. On a day that the Government of Canada has paid a Texas company $4.5 billion to leave Canada and to stop investing in our resource sector, we also have the government House leader bringing to the House for the 34th or 35th time a time allocation motion on a motion that has not yet been debated. This is truly unparalleled. The member was not here in the last Parliament, but I would like to remind her of the wisdom of her deputy, the member for Winnipeg North, who used to call such tactics “assaults on democracy”. There are so many times he said that. In fact, he went further to talk about the use of time allocation on omnibus bills before the House. He said they are “an affront to democracy and the functionality of Parliament.”Why do the Liberals fear debate? Why do they fear Canadians knowing what is happening? Why are they using omnibus bills for budget implementation, and for Bill C-75 and Bill C-59? What about the openness and transparency they promised?ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544209354420945442095BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1535)[English]Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to respond to the obviously more experienced member's question. That is what he just said. On Thursday of last week I telegraphed that we would be bringing forward a motion, and what did the opposition members choose to do? They chose to ensure that the government could do no business. The member asked about fear of debate. Members on this side do not fear debate; we welcome debate. That is exactly why we brought forward a motion to say, let us debate more, let us extend the hours so that more members can be part of the debate and represent their constituents in this place. We committed to Canadians that we would work hard for them. We committed to Canadians that their voices would be heard in this place, and this is just another way to ensure that every member of Parliament who wants to debate the important legislation this government is advancing has an opportunity to do so. I look forward to hearing—ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544209654420975442098ErinO'TooleHon.DurhamBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/86786CelinaCaesar-ChavannesCelina-Caesar-ChavannesWhitbyIndependentOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/CaesarChavannesCelina_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMrs. Celina Caesar-Chavannes (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development, Lib.): (1535)[English]Mr. Speaker, I want to draw upon the earlier comments by the House leader. We come to this place to be able to debate legislation and have an opportunity to bring the voices of our constituents here and to do the good work that Canadians have elected us for.One of the members talked about family obligations. I do have family obligations as well, and I try to balance these as much as possible while I am here, but we also know that while we are here, there is opportunity for us to engage not only with our own members, but also with members of the opposition who ask good questions, to hear debate and to be able to challenge each other. I would like the House leader to further explain to Canadians why this motion in particular is so important.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544210054421015442102BruceStantonSimcoe NorthBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1535)[English]Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by commending the member and the level of discourse she brings to this place. I have seen her on numerous occasions represent the voices of her constituents. When it comes to the depth of policy knowledge she brings to this place, it has raised the level of debate. I encourage more members to study the bills that we are putting forward so they can ensure that their constituents' voices are heard here. That is exactly why we would like to extend the hours. We know that at this time of the year most governments have extended hours so that members can do more to represent Canadians and advance good bills. This will provide an opportunity for more members to be part of an important debate to ensure that the voices of their constituents are heard right here, because it is the House of the people.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254421035442104CelinaCaesar-ChavannesWhitbySylvieBoucherBeauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35320SylvieBoucherSylvie-BoucherBeauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—CharlevoixConservative CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/BoucherSylvie_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMrs. Sylvie Boucher (Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix, CPC): (1535)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague, I would like her to elaborate. We have had many opportunities to ask for more debate and have always been turned down. Today, she is asking us to take part in debates, and we will take part in them because on this side of the House, the opposition side, we like to have our say on behalf of our constituents.Is this charade the government's way of muzzling us on bills that should have been passed a long time ago? ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254421055442106BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1540)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, on the contrary. This is an opportunity to have more hours of debate in order to allow a greater number of hon. members to participate.[English]If we want to talk about this place and being cute, let us talk about last week.We returned to this House on Tuesday after the constituency week. What did the opposition members do? They started by moving concurrence. What did they do all week long? They moved concurrence rather than debate the legislation before the House.The opposition members talk about the importance of knowing what is taking place. This government committed to openness and transparency. I have been telegraphing what the business of the days will be so that members can be part of meaningful debate. What have the opposition members chosen to do? They have chosen to play games. They have chosen to use tactics rather than be here representing the voices of their constituents. They have chosen to put the voice of their party before the voices of Canadians.On this side of the House, we will put Canadians first.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254421075442108544210954421105442111SylvieBoucherBeauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—CharlevoixBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35724BruceStantonBruce-StantonSimcoe NorthConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/StantonBruce_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionThe Deputy Speaker: (1540)[English]Just as a reminder to all hon. members, and in this case the hon. government House leader, in this 30-minute period for questions, the questions are generally reserved for opposition members. We will have time for the two other members of the government side who are standing. We will get those two in, and probably not much more than that.Going to questions now, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentSpeaking order54421125442113BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooDanielBlaikieElmwood—Transcona//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89032DanielBlaikieDaniel-BlaikieElmwood—TransconaNew Democratic Party CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BlaikieDaniel_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP): (1540)[English]Mr. Speaker, I will start with a brief remark. I have to say that I do take exception to the implication by the government House leader that there is something wrong with the House's debating and voting concurrence on committee reports. That is in fact why committees report back to the House, so that those reports can be considered. If the House decides it wants to concur in a report by a committee, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Therefore, for her to somehow suggest that there is something untoward going on, that there is something wrong in principle, or that it is a bad thing for members to be concerned about the good work they do in committee that has come before the House to be discussed at large and then voted on by the House is just ridiculous. It would be nice to have a government House leader who actually understood this place well enough to know that there is nothing wrong with moving concurrence in a committee report.I will digress from that point and move to my main point. The government moved time allocation on Bill C-76. My colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley proposed to the minister a way forward that would include the right amount of debate and consultation with Canadians. The minister said no and moved time allocation. Therefore, the demand for extra sitting time is odd coming from a government that is refusing to respond to proposals by the opposition on how to effectively study bills.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254421145442115BruceStantonSimcoe NorthBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1540)[English]Mr. Speaker, we do not talk about committee business in this place. However, now that the member opposite has welcomed the opportunity, I do so as well. I believe that my colleagues on this side, including the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Democratic Institutions, has more than welcomed opportunities. However, rather than debate the important legislation that would allow more Canadians to vote in the next election, what are the opposition members doing? They are currently in committee right now filibustering rather than getting to important government legislation. That legislation is Bill C-76, which brings forward 85% of the recommendations of the Chief Electoral Officer. It is the right thing to do for Canadians after what the previous government did to vandalize the opportunities for Canadians to vote. We are changing that so that many Canadians can vote. The NDP, rather than stand for Canadians, is today standing with the Conservatives to take away the right of Canadians to vote. That is disappointing—ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254421165442117DanielBlaikieElmwood—TransconaBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35724BruceStantonBruce-StantonSimcoe NorthConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/StantonBruce_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionThe Deputy Speaker: (1540)[English]I would ask all hon. members to keep their interventions to around one minute.The hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournment54421185442119BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooDavidAndersonCypress Hills—Grasslands//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1795DavidAndersonDavid-AndersonCypress Hills—GrasslandsConservative CaucusSaskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/AndersonDavid_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. David Anderson (Cypress Hills—Grasslands, CPC): (1540)[English]Mr. Speaker, there is certainly a lot of arrogance in the implication that the opposition members are just a problem here. I want to point out that the Liberals claim they want debate. We are here today and are talking about a pipeline purchase by the government. However, the government will not give us the information on how much it will pay for it and what it will cost in the future. We have asked questions about the carbon tax. The government will not give us any information on those issues as well. Therefore, on many of these issues, we're left without any information at all, yet the government tells us that it wants us to come here to debate these issues. When is the government going to open up and be a lot more transparent with Canadians and us? The Liberals claim they are representing Canadians. However, they are not doing that, but representing themselves. We need more information and more accountability. When is the government going to open up and give us the information we need to do our job here as well?ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544212054421215442122BruceStantonSimcoe NorthBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1540)[English]Mr. Speaker, whether in or outside this House, I have stated that every member of Parliament, regardless of the side they sit, serves a very important purpose. For months we have seen this place able to function when we work together. We are able to advance legislation. Members are able to represent their constituents, or their parties, as the Conservatives choose to do, and advance and vote on legislation as they choose. What is important is that the voices of Canadians be heard in this place. For a few months now, we have demonstrated that we can work together to ensure that we know how much time is needed for debate, and we can continue advancing legislation through the process, including in the other place. What has transpired all of a sudden is that when we returned from the constituency week, the official opposition definitely chose not to continue with that gesture of good will. I continue to keep my door open and hope that we can return to the days when we were all able to work for and represent our constituents.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254421235442124DavidAndersonCypress Hills—GrasslandsRobert-FalconOuelletteWinnipeg Centre//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89466Robert-FalconOuelletteRobert-Falcon-OuelletteWinnipeg CentreLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/OuelletteRobertFalcon_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Robert-Falcon Ouellette (Winnipeg Centre, Lib.): (1545)[English]Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to come to the House and have the opportunity to debate. I enjoyed hearing that we are going to have extended hours, because I think it is extremely important that people from Winnipeg Centre ensure that their representative does have the opportunity to speak. I know that sometimes debate does not go long enough, and there are more members than there were. Before, there were only 308 members of Parliament, and now there are 338 in the House of Commons. I appreciate the opportunity. I believe the opposition should take this opportunity to debate longer into the future, until 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. even. We should run this place 24 hours a day so that every member who wishes to speak has that opportunity. I am prepared to stay here, and I hope the opposition is, as well.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 225442125544212654421275442128BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1545)[English]Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his commitment to represent Canadians in this place, and I agree.A point that does not get raised often is that there are more members of Parliament in this place. Many members of Parliament have issues of concern, whether to them personally or to their constituents, ridings, or regions, and they want to be part of a meaningful debate. That is the way to advance good legislation for all Canadians. We need to hear the diversity of views. When the Prime Minister says that diversity is our strength, he is not talking only about the shells that we occupy; he is talking about the diversity of regions, genders, experiences, and perspectives. We need to hear all of them, and this motion would allow us to debate more, to have more voices heard, and to continue advancing important legislation that will benefit Canadians.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544212954421305442131Robert-FalconOuelletteWinnipeg CentreEdFastHon.Abbotsford//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35904EdFastHon.Ed-FastAbbotsfordConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/FastEd_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): (1545)[English]Mr. Speaker, please do not accept those soothing words from the government House leader at face value. When we look at the actions of the Liberal government, it is very clear that it has no intention of allowing free and open debate in the House.Members may recall that when the Prime Minister was first elected, he provided mandate letters to all of his ministers. Every one of them received a letter. In it, the Prime Minister said the following:I made a personal commitment to bring new leadership and a new tone to Ottawa. We made a commitment to Canadians to pursue our goals with a renewed sense of collaboration. The letter went on with all these promises about doing things differently, allowing open debate, and collaborating with colleagues in the House. However, nothing of the like has happened. In fact, it has gotten worse and worse: invoking closure on a regular basis, interfering at committees, and cutting off debate at committees. There were 100 amendments in our own committee that went through without debate because the government House leader instructed the Liberal chair of that committee to cut off debate. This is a shameful performance on the part of the Liberal government, which promised to do things differently but is actually much worse than any government we have seen before.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254421325442133544213454421355442136BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1545)[English]Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the member for Abbotsford would stand up in this place, because he was at the committee when it was debating Bill C-57, and he chose to advance an amendment that members on this side of the House worked hard to find a way to support. They actually fought for that amendment. Not only did they fight for that amendment, but they supported it. When that legislation returned to the House, the very same member, the member for Abbotsford, who moved the amendment and got support from the Liberal government at committee, chose to come to this place and exactly undo that amendment.My parents always told me when I was growing up that one has to look at where it is coming from. When I hear comments from that member, I am reminded of the Harper government and the nonsense the Conservatives played in the House to take away from democracy. We will not take lessons from the Conservatives.C-57, An Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development ActClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544213754421385442139EdFastHon.AbbotsfordJennyKwanVancouver East//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89346JennyKwanJenny-KwanVancouver EastNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/KwanJenny_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMs. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP): (1545)[English]Mr. Speaker, as the government House leader just said, we have to look at where the issue is coming from. It was not so long ago that the Liberals formed a majority government in this place and said they would do things differently. They promised Canadians that they would not bring in closure on the Elections Act. However, this is what they are doing. They are doing exactly the opposite of what they said they would do. I think every single member in the House deserves the opportunity to have full debate on this, because it matters. Democracy matters to Canadians, and how we do this matters. Following up on one's word and commitment matters. In politics, there is only one thing for all of us that defines who we are, and that is our word. When the government continues to do what it does, and the House leader gets up to defend the government breaking its promise to Canadians, I would ask whether this is how she wants to be defined. ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 225442140544214154421425442143BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1550)[English]Mr. Speaker, as all of us know, on Thursdays the government House leader is able to put forward the business of the House for the rest of that week and the week after. On Thursday, we telegraphed that we would be bringing forward this motion, and that is part of our commitment to openness and transparency.I listened to the words of the member, and I really feel that she should be supporting this motion, because obviously she would like more time to debate. That is what we are trying to say: Let us extend the hours and have more time to debate so that more members can have their voices heard and we can advance more legislation. It sounds like a win-win-win situation.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254421445442145JennyKwanVancouver EastMarkWarawaLangley—Aldergrove//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25467MarkWarawaMark-WarawaLangley—AldergroveConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/WarawaMark_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Mark Warawa (Langley—Aldergrove, CPC): (1550)[English]Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the comments made by my colleague from Abbotsford. The common theme that we are hearing from all members on the opposition side is that the government is not listening. It is playing games, bringing in closure, and passing motions and bills in committee, ignoring the input from the opposition. The government promised that this would not happen. It promised to work with the opposition, but that is not happening. The same thing happened in the HUMA committee, where ministers came to answer questions on the main estimates and we were forbidden to ask any questions of any minister. The government brought in closure after the ministers made their speeches.The government has no trouble bringing forward wonderful statements with lots of confetti, but it does not listen and it does not work. The government talks the talk but does not walk the walk. Why is that a common theme with the Liberal government?ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 225442146544214754421485442149BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1550)[English]Mr. Speaker, I believe the member is projecting. He is reminded of a time when a previous government was in this place for 10 years. I would like to give him some good news and remind him that a new government has come. We have been here for two and a half years. Our government has been listening, engaging, and consulting with Canadians, not only with party members, as the Conservatives did. We are engaging with Canadians. Members of our communities, whether they have been engaged with government or not, are being welcomed to the table. We want to hear from them. We want to ensure that legislation works for them.Under this government, we have seen more witnesses appear at committee. Under this government, we have seen more resources for committees to do the important work they do. Under this government, we have seen more amendments accepted at committee than we surely did under the Harper Conservatives.The member is mistaken. He needs to come into the 21st century. He needs to see that there is a new government in town, a government that not only talks about the importance of openness and transparency but is acting on it. The member can continue to project, but it is important that he open his eyes and embrace the new ways, because it will benefit all Canadians.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544215054421515442152MarkWarawaLangley—AldergroveMarkGerretsenKingston and the Islands//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88802MarkGerretsenMark-GerretsenKingston and the IslandsLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GerretsenMark_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.): (1550)[English]Mr. Speaker, I would like to go back to the comment made by the member for Langley—Aldergrove about the Liberals being open to ideas that come forward in committee. I would like to share an idea with him.When I was on the environment committee, the member for Abbotsford brought forward a motion. All committee members had the opportunity to review the motion in good faith, and we came to the conclusion that his recommendation, his amendment, was a good idea. We voted unanimously in favour of it and sent it back to the House. Guess what happened when it got to the House. The member for Abbotsford stood up and basically put forward an amendment to delete it.The whole objective of the opposition is to put roadblocks in front of the government to stop it from getting its work done. Would the government House leader not agree with that?ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544215354421545442155BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1550)[English]Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to commend the member for the great work he has been doing. The level of discourse he has been bringing to debate in this place on behalf of his constituents has been overwhelming. He does such a fabulous job.I would entirely agree with the member that the tactics the Harper Conservatives used on the government benches, and the reason why they were put on the opposition benches, are the same tactics they are using today. Instead of encouraging the government to get work done, they will do anything they can to obstruct democracy. We saw it in their legislation. We see it in their actions. Day after day they continue to do just that.Today, the Conservatives actually have an opportunity, as does the NDP, to support a motion that would extend the hours, provide more hours for debate, and provide for more legislation to get through that would benefit Canadians. They should continue voting however they think is important, but what we know is that the system works and they should support it.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544215654421575442158MarkGerretsenKingston and the IslandsDavidAndersonCypress Hills—Grasslands//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1795DavidAndersonDavid-AndersonCypress Hills—GrasslandsConservative CaucusSaskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/AndersonDavid_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. David Anderson (Cypress Hills—Grasslands, CPC): (1555)[English]Mr. Speaker, my colleague across the way speaks a lot, but I do not think she is speaking with sincerity. She spent half her time attacking my colleague on her government's motion to extend the hours here.I want to point out one other thing that does not seem to be apparent to Canadians, and that the Liberals are not telling them. The government has set this thing up so that nobody can make any change or do anything that would impact any legislation or activity in the House for most of the evening. The House goes on autopilot, which is just another way for cabinet ministers to go home and watch TV all evening while opposition members are required to be in the House to keep the debate going.If Canadians watch closely enough, they will see who is here in the evenings, keeping the debate going, and who is not here. They should make note of that when it comes to the next election.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544215954421605442161BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1555)[English]Mr. Speaker, the member of the opposition talks about somebody being attacked and then does quite the attack himself. We always have to look at where it is coming from. That is advice I received when I was little. It is advice I will continue to move forward with.In the House, I have seen two committees of the whole in the last week. I saw the number of members on this side of the House, and I am sure there were not many other members. Perhaps they were doing other work. Work for all members continues, whether in this place, in their offices, or at different meetings and so forth. I think it is important that we note how many members will be here. We are the government. We know that we need to advance important legislation. What we also recognize is the important work of the opposition. This motion does exactly that. It extends the hours and permits more time for debate for all members, on both sides of the House, which would benefit all Canadians.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544216254421635442164DavidAndersonCypress Hills—GrasslandsMatthewDubéBeloeil—Chambly//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/71368MatthewDubéMatthew-DubéBeloeil—ChamblyNew Democratic Party CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/DubéMatthew_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Matthew Dubé: (1555)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, the House leader knows full well how this place works, so it is important that she not get mixed up. She keeps talking about the motion to extend our sitting hours and the hours of the House of Commons. However, the motion we are asking questions about right now is a closure motion. The leader says it is fine because the opposition members are going to get more time, yet just one day ago, she gave three time allocation notices, or maybe more. This happens so often that I have lost count. I would like the leader to explain something to me. We are debating a closure motion one day after the Liberals tabled multiple time allocation notices. Is there any conclusion we can draw other than that we should just be calling them Stephen Harper's Liberals? ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 225442165544216654421675442168BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1555)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I want to assure my colleague across the aisle that I understand full well. I saw the games that the opposition decided to play last week. We on this side of the House want to work together better so we can have more debates.[English]This motion would extend the hours and allow more time for debate. There have been occasions when I have provided notice of time allocation, but I do not need to move time allocation. I would encourage members of the opposition to share with us how much time is needed for debate. In that way, we can move forward.Something that was clear from Canadians is that they want us to work better together. I hope the member opposite understands that there is a difference between giving notice of time allocation and moving time allocation.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544216954421705442171MatthewDubéBeloeil—ChamblyEdFastHon.Abbotsford//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35904EdFastHon.Ed-FastAbbotsfordConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/FastEd_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Ed Fast: (1555)[English]Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to stand up in the House again to respond to the government House leader.Members may recall that when the Liberals were elected, their leader, the Prime Minister, promised that he was going to usher in a new era of openness and transparency. Do members remember that promise? It was one of hundreds of promises he made that he has now broken.Now we see this playing out at committee. The government House leader tried to suggest that somehow we move motions at committee to improve legislation, to make it better for Canadians, and then, when that legislation comes to the House, we vote it down.Here is what happens. The Liberals will cherry-pick one of our motions to improve legislation at the committee and vote in favour of it, but there are many others that are required to improve the legislation to a point where the opposition in the House can actually approve it.What do the Liberals do? They slam the door shut. They cut down debate at committee. With over 100 amendments left to go on Bill C-69, they said, “That is it. We are simply going to vote on them without any debate or any input from government officials.” That is the way the government conducts its business.It is a sham. It is a farce.C-69, An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other ActsClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544217254421735442174544217554421765442177BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1600)[English]Mr. Speaker, I thought that the opposition member was going to stand up and perhaps realize that he moved an amendment in the House to undo the amendment he had moved at committee. I guess that was not the case.It is important for the member to know that we do believe in a new approach. It will take everyone wanting to work better together. I will continue keeping my door open.The member talks about the government's track record, so let us talk about it quickly. We lowered taxes for middle-class Canadians by increasing them for the wealthiest 1% of Canadians. What did the Conservatives do? They voted against it.We gave more money to families with children that needed it the most, by asking better-off Canadians to take a little less. What did the Conservatives do? They voted against it.We reduced taxes on small businesses to 9%. What did the Conservatives do? They voted against it.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544217854421795442180544218154421825442183EdFastHon.AbbotsfordMatthewDubéBeloeil—Chambly//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/71368MatthewDubéMatthew-DubéBeloeil—ChamblyNew Democratic Party CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/DubéMatthew_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Matthew Dubé: (1600)[English]Mr. Speaker, the leader has done me the great favour, after seven years in this place, of trying to explain to me what the difference is between a notice of motion and the actual motion being before us. I appreciate that, and I understand the difference.In the previous parliament, the member for Winnipeg North would wax on in these types of debates about how it was proof that the government House leader had given up working with opposition parties. I ask the hon. House leader this, if the member for Winnipeg North could cease heckling me. Does the fact that she feels the need to bring forward notices of motions of time allocation not represent bad faith in the very negotiations she purports to care so much about?ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544218454421855442186BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1600)[English]Mr. Speaker, as the member probably knows, many conversations take place among parties. Every part of government, opposition or whatever the case, has important work to do in this place. I have said both in the House as well as outside the House that I very much respect the work of the opposition. It is important the government of the day be held to account, that the government be more open and transparent, and that is what we will continue to do. That is why we are saying to let us have more time for debate, let us have more opportunity to do so. On numerous occasions, there are times when I have asked how much time is needed. When I do not receive any information, I have limited tools. Therefore, I would like to reassure the member that I take this as a last and final step. It has never been the easiest decision. Every time I use those tools, I use them with regret because I wish there was a better way forward. I would need the opposition to help to make that way forward. ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544218754421885442189MatthewDubéBeloeil—ChamblyBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersInterventionThe Speaker: (1640)[Translation]I declare the motion carried. Motion agreed toClosureDaily ProgramDecisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 225442202BruceStantonSimcoe NorthGarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89226GarnettGenuisGarnett-GenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GenuisGarnett_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC): (1640)[English]Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate the opportunity to rise in this House, although it is on a sombre note today, given the motion that we are debating. With Motion No. 22 again we see the government trying to do everything it can to restructure the rules of the game to compensate for its own significant failures. The opposition is frustrated and Canadians are frustrated at the many abuses we see of the parliamentary process and in the dissonance between the commitments that were made around transparency and respect for this institution and the reality we see, which is a total and unprecedented lack of respect for this place, for this institution, and for democracy itself.I just have a few notes about where we are on this particular motion, Motion No. 22, which proposes to dramatically extend the hours of debate every day. It is an attempt by the government to try to ram through more of its legislative agenda. The Liberals brought in closure on this motion before it had even been debated. There was no debate on this motion, and the government wanted to immediately propose to bring about an end to that debate. I am actually the first person speaking to the motion. The government put forward the motion, but the government House leader cannot even be bothered to defend the approach the Liberals are taking, so debate then falls to the opposition. This shows how much respect the government has for the important debate that happens in this sacred place, the people's House. Even in the process by which the Liberals bring forward this motion, we see a lack of respect for this institution and for democracy that underlines the opposition's frustration.I want to highlight a number of the principal grievances we have with the way the government is operating in this respect. I would appreciate it, Mr. Speaker, if you would give me a signal when I have one minute left, because at that time I will be moving an amendment as well.We have this whole issue of the government shutting down debate before it has even begun. There are important issues to be debated with respect to the structure of the motion. We do not oppose in principle any extension of the hours, but we are going to be moving an amendment, adding the idea that if the government extends hours for government orders, then a fair corollary is that we have a similar extension of hours with respect to opposition motions. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. However, the government has put forward a motion that says opposition days will remain with the limited hours that they have, while government orders will have the extended period that has been proposed with the motion. We see again a pattern from the current government, which is always setting up the rules to its advantage. We saw this pattern with the Liberals' approach to electoral reform. They wanted to change the electoral system to their advantage, and when it became clear that it was not going to work, they said, “Let's scrap the whole exercise.” We saw it with respect to changes they wanted to make to the Standing Orders. They wanted to change the Standing Orders to weaken the role of the opposition, to make time allocation automatic and take away various important powers that the opposition has. We resisted that. We engaged public concern on that and eventually forced the government to back down.We see Bill C-76, government legislation that is trying to make changes to the rules governing elections to the Liberals' own advantage, and we see changes with respect to the way in which the extension of hours is happening. Again, the Liberal Party is trying to change the rules to its own political advantage. We have the government shutting down debate before it started.In this session of Parliament as well, we have expected of the government some basic level of transparency. The Liberals promised in the last election that they would go above and beyond with respect to transparency and sharing vital information with Canadians, yet we see a complete lack of transparency from the government. The most egregious case of the lack of transparency we see from the current government certainly is the carbon tax cover-up. (1645)As the opposition, we have asked the government to give basic information about the impact its policies will have on Canadians. Here is how it works. The government has said that it wants every Canadian to have to pay a carbon tax. Wherever someone lives, it thinks that person should have to pay higher taxes, and it will not let any provincial government get away with not charging those higher taxes.The government has said that if a province does not set up its own carbon tax, the federal government will impose a carbon tax. It has defended that as consistent with the philosophy it has, which is the government taking more money. From its perspective, a bigger government is the solution to every problem. We have said that this is not the solution to the environmental challenges we face, that there are many different ways, such as the binding sector-by-sector regulatory approach and other kinds of incentives we can use and have used in the past, to bring about environmental improvement.The government does not think that is the right way to go. Instead, it thinks that imposing higher taxes on Canadians is the way to go. We disagree with that and we have tried to have debate about it. We have challenged the government to defend its position. It has not really defended its position, except to suggest that perhaps its plan is the only possible plan, even though its carbon tax is not even connected with specific targets. It knows it should understand that the very nature of the carbon tax as an instrument is to impose a tax but is not to set a particular total cap on emissions.We see this policy from the government and we disagree with it. We can can have some discussion about it, but at the end of the day the government will not even release the information that would allow Canadians to understand what the impact of that carbon tax will be. The information it has released about the impact the carbon tax would have on ordinary Canadians has all the critical information blacked out. This is an issue of the taxes Canadians pay and is an issue of the impact this policy would have on hard-working families in terms of the affordability of basic needs like home heating and transportation. Absolutely, on behalf of Canadian taxpayers and families in my riding and other parts of the country who are looking for real affordability, we raise these concerns about the affordability of the carbon tax.However, this is also an issue of respect for this institution. We have a government that does not respect this institution and is covering up key information about how much the carbon tax would cost Canadians. We have repeatedly asked the government to show the numbers and defend its policy. If it thinks a carbon tax is the right way to go, then it should release the numbers, tell Canadians how much the carbon tax is going to cost them, and make the case to Canadians about whether they think that is a good idea. Then we can have that debate. By the way, when these questions are asked, it is very interesting. The finance minister will talk about the specific structures in place in some provinces, but then when asked about the federal carbon tax that would be imposed in jurisdictions where a province is unwilling to give in to the bullying of the government, we are not told how much individual Canadians would pay. By the way, we know how much it would cost the Canadian economy. It is a massive cost to the Canadian economy, but the government is covering up the information about how much it would cost individuals.In shutting down debate before it has even begun, in trying to constantly change the rules to its advantage, and in covering up key information about the policy decisions it is making, the Liberal government displays the profound disrespect it has for our democracy and for our institutions in general.Now, in the same vein, I would like to speak as well to what is happening right now with the government's attempt to ram forward the bill dealing with changes to the Canada Elections Act, Bill C-76. We are very concerned about how this legislation would not protect Canada from foreign interference in our elections and how this legislation would create certain advantages for the government over the opposition. We have repeatedly raised these concerns, but the government has shut down debate.Not only that: we have a situation in which the Chief Electoral Officer, on the instruction of the government, is actually already in the process of creating the mechanisms for the operation of an election on the basis of legislation that has not even passed Parliament.(1650)The Prime Minister tells us that the government is open to amendment, but how plausible is it that the government is really open to substantial amendments when it has already asked the Chief Electoral Officer to begin the process of preparing for the implementation of the original unamended bill? We know that when the government proposed this legislation, we were getting close to the time of the next federal election, but rather than proposing legislation earlier so that there could have been opportunities for discussion and building consensus among parties, the Liberals waited until this later stage and then pushed the Chief Electoral Officer to begin the process of quasi-implementation before the proposed legislation has even passed, which makes it very clear that they are not serious when it comes to the issue of receiving feedback from experts and receiving amendments.I sat in on the environment committee when over 100 amendments were proposed, many of them by government members. It clearly shows that the committee process can reveal problems, even from the viewpoint of government members with government legislation. However, what happened at the environment committee is again an interesting example in terms of the way the government operates when it comes to democracy. There was a motion in place that meant that there was absolutely no discussion on many of the amendments that came forward. There were many amendments from all corners of the House, and the movers of the amendments in each case did not even have an opportunity to make their case with respect to their amendment. It was simply a matter of “Here is the amendment and here is the vote.” This is how the government wants to operate. It wants to ram through legislation. Already we see with these electoral changes the government forcing the process of implementation through before the legislation has passed the House.What is so concerning about Bill C-76? Well, Canadians I have talked to are very concerned about the possibility of foreign interference in our elections. Yes, the way the legislation is structured would prevent foreign entities from directly and explicitly campaigning under their own name during a Canadian election; however, there are absolutely no rules to prevent the transfer of funds from a foreign entity to a Canadian entity prior to that election period, and that money could then be used during the election for the advantage of that group and no doubt for the advantage of the foreign entity. Let us take a purely hypothetical example. Let us suppose there was an organization called Vladimir Putin Incorporated and that it was interested in influencing the Canadian election. It transferred $5 million to a Canadian organization called Canadians Against NATO Membership, and that was mingled with $50 million raised locally. The $5 million and the $50 million were mingled, so it was totally indistinguishable as to which money came externally and which was raised by Canadian donors. That money could then be used in a Canadian election. There would be caps on the advertising that this third party could do, but it could still be doing a significant amount of activism and mobilization work under the radar. Canadians should be very concerned about that. This is an example that could happen, and it could in fact fully conform with the law as it is written. We think, as Conservatives, that strong measures are needed to prevent foreign interference in Canadian elections, but for whatever reason, the Liberals, although they spend some time talking about this situation in certain cases, have not brought forward legislation that would actually address it. However, again, they have now asked the Chief Electoral Officer to begin implementing proposed legislation that has not even passed the House. There are many other issues in Bill C-76 that we could talk about in terms of ID requirements and so forth, and there is an important discussion to be had there. However, I will specifically address the artificial advantage created by the government. (1655)The government has done this. Right now we have a writ period. It has said that it does not want the writ period to be too long. On the other hand, it has created this formalized pre-writ period, which some might argue effectively increases the writ period. We have the pre-writ period and the defined writ period, which together we might see as really forming something like what the writ period used to be. In any event, that pre-writ period has restrictions on political party advertising, which will hit opposition parties very hard. They do not have the same resources the government has when it chooses to engage in advertising itself. The government has all the resources of being in office, of continuing to be in office, and it can continue to proceed with government advertising, as it would be able to outside of a writ period. Therefore, we have this problem where the pre-writ period is kind of a quasi half writ period and half not. It is like the writ period insofar as there are restrictions on political parties. In particular, the impact is hardest on what opposition parties can do, but we do not have the same restrictions that would normally exist during the actual writ period with respect to the activities of government. Therefore, we have the tilting of the scales through this bill in a way that works to the advantage of the government and foreign entities that would want to potentially influence Canadian elections and, at the same time, works to the disadvantage of the opposition. This is the consistent pattern we see from the government with respect to this issue. It is a consistent disrespect for Parliament and democracy, a consistent effort to tip the scales in the government's favour.At the same time, I am conscious that, as we resist these efforts in Parliament, in committees, and elsewhere, Canadians will also see the importance of what we are doing and will not succumb to these attempts by the Liberals to tip the scales. They will observe the way in which the actions in Parliament do not match the high-minded rhetoric of the last election. I think Canadians believe, when they see the way the current government acts, that “better is possible”, to coin a phrase. Better is always possible, and it is particularly possible now, when we have measures like Motion No. 22, which is again shutting down debate before it has even started.I was going to make some comments on the pipeline issue, but I am running relatively short on time. However, briefly, it is a source of great frustration to me and my constituents that we had a government before that did not actually build four pipelines but created the conditions for the private sector to build four pipelines, which is an important difference. Now we have a government that on the one hand has created conditions that make it very difficult for private sector investors to want to proceed with pipelines. On the other hand, it has said that it will pour a whole bunch of public money into buying an existing pipeline and hopes to build onto that pipeline, undertaking the expansion. It is perverse that before the government took office we had the private sector eager to build a pipeline. The approval of the northern gateway pipeline, energy east, and the Trans Mountain pipeline were there in process. The Conservatives approved every pipeline that was proposed, which included the construction of four pipelines. We now have a government that has made it so difficult for the private sector to build pipelines that it requires this massive multi-billion dollar bailout. Again, I think Canadians will see through the government. Something that could have been done by the private sector is being done by the public sector. With that in mind, I move:AmendmentThat the motion be amended by:(a) adding to paragraph (b) the following: “and if a recorded division is demanded in respect of a motion moved pursuant to Standing Orders 78 or 57 in relation to any bill dealing with the Canada Elections Act or the Parliament of Canada Act, it shall stand deferred to December 5, 2018, at the expiry of the time provided for oral questions; and(b) deleting all the words in paragraph (j).AdvertisingAmendments and subamendmentsC-76, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make certain consequential amendmentsDaily ProgramElection expensesElectoral systemExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneForeign countriesFundraising and fundraisersGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 22NationalizationParliamentary democracyPolitical partiesPre-election periodTrans Mountain pipelineVoter identification544220454422055442206544220754422085442209544221054422115442212544221354422145442215544221654422175442218544221954422205442221544222254422235442224544222554422265442227544222854422295442230544223154422325442233544223454422355442236544223754422385442239544224054422415442242GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestRodgerCuznerCape Breton—Canso//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1804RodgerCuznerRodger-CuznerCape Breton—CansoLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/CuznerRodger_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Rodger Cuzner (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, Lib.): (1705)[English]Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in this debate. As much as partisan posturing goes on, every now and then something is said in the chamber that triggers a reaction to some MPs. Certainly the member's comment about how Canadians can see through it is the one that has triggered the comments I want to share with the House now.Canadians can see through that last 10 minutes of agony, listening to that speech. I was here in the chamber when Stephen Harper and his gang prorogued the House twice, once after six weeks of government. I was in the House when one of the Conservative members, speaking on electoral reform, said he had witnessed first-hand voter fraud, people picking voter cards out of the garbage and using them. That member had to come back and purposefully apologize to the House, telling the House he had misled it. When we tried to send that issue to the PROC committee, the Conservatives shut down debate. They called closure. They put the run on it. We will take no lessons from the member on how to operate the House. Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 2254422445442245544224654422475442248GarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanGarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89226GarnettGenuisGarnett-GenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GenuisGarnett_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Garnett Genuis: (1705)[English]Mr. Speaker, my friend from Cape Breton—Canso has a long but selective memory.To start with, the member described my speech as 10 minutes of agony. My speech was actually 20 minutes, so at least he liked the first 10 minutes. At least he was half-right, which is more often not the case with my friend from Cape Breton—Canso.By the way, while we are talking about a fundamental disrespect for democracy, I am sure the member would like me to highlight the work he has done on the Canada summer jobs program, which now says that organizations, be they faith-based or not, can no longer access the Canada summer jobs program unless they check a box. I wonder if the member is prepared to apologize for that, which is clearly a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedom in respect for conscience and religion.In response to what the member said, the Liberals had never heard of prorogation, it seems, until the last 10 years. It has never been used in our history, at all, it seems. It is a normal part of the parliamentary procedure, which was used quite frequently. If the member would rather have seen the coalition under Michael Ignatieff take power, we could talk about that too.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 225442249544225054422515442252RodgerCuznerCape Breton—CansoMatthewDubéBeloeil—Chambly//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/71368MatthewDubéMatthew-DubéBeloeil—ChamblyNew Democratic Party CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/DubéMatthew_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Matthew Dubé (Beloeil—Chambly, NDP): (1705)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. One thing we agree on is that the people across the aisle have a very short memory. It is funny to see how fast they fell into the old habits they used to condemn so loudly in the last Parliament. What I want to focus on is the claim that the government is trying to give opposition members more time. Yesterday, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons gave notice of time allocation three times. Today, she says she also wants us to sit until midnight to give the opposition members time to debate. I would like to hear what my colleague thinks. Does he agree with me that there is a contradiction in the government's approach? Does he not think the government is trying to convince the public that the blame lies with the opposition tactics, when the government is really the one at fault for mismanaging its own agenda?Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Political programs5442253544225454422555442256GarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanGarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89226GarnettGenuisGarnett-GenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GenuisGarnett_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Garnett Genuis: (1710)[English]Mr. Speaker, let us be clear about what brings us here. The government is now trying to impose repeatedly time allocation and changing the rules to its advantage. It is reflective of a reality that it has not been very successful at getting its bills passed. There are many reasons for this that are not within our control. For example, we regularly have the Senate raising problems with bills, more than has historically been the case. The Senate effectively has a Liberal majority. It is raising concerns with bills and sending them back to the House. That involves time of course and it is an important part of the process. The government has been far less efficient with respect to proposing and passing bills. I think we have seen 30 government bills, other than routine appropriations, that have received royal assent. By this time, under the previous government, we had 50 government bills. Therefore, we were able to actually show more respect for the House. People may disagree with particular decisions here and there, but by ending debate before it starts, we are seeing the Liberals go further than has ever been done in the past. Also, the Liberals are totally unable to manage their own legislative agenda, and that is what has gotten them to this point. If they are going to pass this motion, at least support the opposition amendment that treats the opposition fairly in that context as well. Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 225442257544225854422595442260MatthewDubéBeloeil—ChamblyBernadetteJordanSouth Shore—St. Margarets//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88340BernadetteJordanBernadette-JordanSouth Shore—St. MargaretsLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/JordanBernadette_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMrs. Bernadette Jordan (South Shore—St. Margarets, Lib.): (1710)[English]Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague kept talking about the disrespect being shown to the House. I was here on Friday, on House duty. The disrespect shown in the House when for one hour solid the members opposite slammed their desks and would not listen to the Speaker when he called for order was total disrespect.Second, today, during question period, when the minister got up to answer questions, I could not hear the answer in my earpiece because of the screaming from the other side of the House. I really would like to know what my hon. colleague's definition of disrespect is. Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Opposition parties54422615442262GarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanGarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89226GarnettGenuisGarnett-GenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GenuisGarnett_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Garnett Genuis: (1710)[English]Mr. Speaker, I think Canadians believe the opposition has an important role, and that role involves challenging the government. Therefore, when we have a situation in question period, when we ask repeated serious questions of the government about providing basic information, as a Canadian, about ending the carbon tax cover-up and the minister simply ignores the question and makes a statement that has no relationship to the question, that situation, as the Speaker has said, perhaps provokes a legitimate frustration and response from members.We should have good, substantive debate in the House. Ministers who refuse to answer questions should then be called out by opposition members. This is part of the dialogue that needs to take place. If the government showed more respect for the substantive debate that happens in this place, then the opposition would have less need for using tactics that we are now required to use in defence of our democracy.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Opposition parties54422635442264BernadetteJordanSouth Shore—St. MargaretsDanAlbasCentral Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/72029DanAlbasDan-AlbasCentral Okanagan—Similkameen—NicolaConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/AlbasDan_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Dan Albas (Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC): (1710)[English]Mr. Speaker, the member is an eloquent speaker, and he spoke to a number of different things. I would like to ask the member a simple question. To me, the biggest issue the government has is its failure to be accountable for its own actions. The Liberals continually try to spin the blame on previous Parliaments and previous governments, and they will not take responsibility for their own decisions. Does he agree that is the biggest issue with this Liberal government?Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 225442265GarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanGarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89226GarnettGenuisGarnett-GenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GenuisGarnett_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Garnett Genuis: (1710)[English]Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments and for his excellent and always eloquent interventions in the House. He is absolutely right. We see the government taking actions that are really beyond the pale. Any time there are legitimate questions about it, they ignore the questions and sometimes say that it is all about the previous government. I remember a great intervention by former president Barack Obama during his press gallery dinner speech. He said that people accused him of always blaming the previous administration, but that was a practice that began under George W. Bush. This is precisely the approach the government takes and it is worth underlining. Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 2254422665442267DanAlbasCentral Okanagan—Similkameen—NicolaMarkGerretsenKingston and the Islands//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88802MarkGerretsenMark-GerretsenKingston and the IslandsLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GerretsenMark_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.): (1715)[English]Mr. Speaker, we heard in response to a question by a Liberal colleague of mine a few minutes ago that if opposition members do not get the answers they want, they are going to resort to banging on their desks. Those members have essentially reduced themselves to that. The reality of the situation is that the opposition tries to use tactics all the time, and that is the only reason closure is required. Opposition members do not want the government to get its legislation through, so they are using every tactic at their disposal. We are now saying that we will extend the hours of debate so they will have more time to debate these issues, and for some reason they are against that too.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Opposition parties544226854422695442270GarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanGarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89226GarnettGenuisGarnett-GenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GenuisGarnett_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Garnett Genuis: (1715)[English]Mr. Speaker, part of respecting this institution is listening to what a speaker is saying before posing a question, and maybe to think about what that speaker has already said before ascribing a view to him or her, even on something as fundamental as our position on this motion. We said that we are willing to support the principle of extending the hours if the amendment we proposed passed, which would ensure that the opposition is treated fairly. The member missed that. He missed the fundamental rhetorical thrust of the speech. He has suggested that it is disrespectful to be calling across the way, yet he is calling across the way to me during my response to his question.The Liberals have absolutely no sense of irony or shame.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Opposition parties544227154422725442273MarkGerretsenKingston and the IslandsBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89032DanielBlaikieDaniel-BlaikieElmwood—TransconaNew Democratic Party CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BlaikieDaniel_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP): (1715)[English]Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise to speak to the motion before the House. Of course, the essence of this motion has to do with the government's treatment of its own business and its capacity to move legislation through the House of Commons. It has certainly been the case in the past that various governments have decided to extend sittings to try to accomplish some of the business they were not able to accomplish throughout the year. However, I think that my hon. colleague who just spoke and moved an amendment raises an excellent and fair point. His amendment is a good one in addressing one of the issues of equity in the House. We know that it is the job of the Speaker and the House to balance the needs of the minority against the majority. The amendment recognizes the fact that some people in this place have more power by virtue of the number of MPs within the governing party, and that others do not. I think that point is very well taken in the Conservative amendment. It really is just about making sure that in the government's attempt to create more time to pass more bills in the lead-up to summer that the business and the issues that matter to the opposition are given their equal due. Of course, some members of this House will know, and certainly you, Mr. Speaker, will know, that supply days originated for the airing of grievances before the crown, before Parliament approves funding. That is why they are kind of archaically called “supply days”. We most often refer to them as “opposition days”, but they are an acknowledgement of the importance of non-government members being able to bring forward important issues for consideration by the House as part of the process of the government's hearing those concerns before Parliament grants it the authority to spend money. Supply days are not just some sort of trivial part of the process. They are not just some sort of tangent. They are certainly not a favour that the government grants the opposition and they are not something the government gets to do what it wants with willy-nilly, as it were.The proposed amendment simply tries to give that equal weight and value to the issues being brought forward by the opposition, as well as to the government. I think that is perfectly reasonable and it is something we will be supporting.In the absence of having that fair treatment and the right balancing between the needs of the government and the legitimate needs and purposes of opposition members of the House, it does make it really hard to support the main motion, because in that case we would fail to find that right balance, as it would somehow be implied that simply by virtue of the fact that the government is bringing certain issues forward, those issues are more important and more deserving of time in the House when I think the Standing Orders are very clear that the opposition is entitled to a certain proportion of the time in the House to bring forward the issues that matter, not just to it as the opposition but also to many Canadians whose view the opposition brings to this House and who are not represented within the government. It is a good amendment. It is one that we will support, and I think in the absence of that amendment's going through, it would be very hard to say this is a fair and balanced motion. It is therefore hard to support.One of the reasons we are in this predicament, of course, is that there is a lot of government legislation that has yet to be passed. One only has to look at the Order Paper and the number of bills on it, with a little bit of an understanding of where some of those bills come from, to know that the government, remarkably, has not been very ambitious with its legislative agenda. There are bills like Bill C-76, for instance, that have just rolled in other bills. While one could point to the bill number and look at all the bills that have been before Parliament, the fact is that a number of them are simply routine appropriation bills having to do with the business of supply. There are also a number of bills on public service labour issues to repeal some of the nefarious legislation of the Harper government with respect to public servants that, for all the announcements and talk about those bills for years now, have not actually gone anywhere. (1720)One bill gets presented, it gets talked about for awhile, and then a new bill gets that does something a little differently gets presented, and that one gets rolled under, and then there is some talk by government at various events about how there is a new bill before the House and so on. For a government that has not brought a considerable amount of legislation before the House, it is somewhat surprising that the Liberals are having to resort to extraordinary measures to try to get more legislation passed before summer. It is particularly surprising, notwithstanding some of the comments by the government House leader during the closure debate, because the fact is that our party on an important bill with a deadline, Bill C-76, which makes a large number of modifications to the elections regime in Canada, did make a proposal to government via my colleague, the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, to move forward with that bill in an expeditious way. By that, I mean not just in a way that allows more members to speak to it, but one that would allow a whole bunch of Canadians in their home communities to speak to the bill and the changes it proposes.My hon. colleague presented the Minister of Democratic Institutions with a proposal for how to go out across the country, and central to that proposal was ensuring that the bill gets passed by the end of the summer. For the government to say that it sure would be nice if the opposition worked with it, I note that we have been quite willing to work with the government to get legislation passed. When my hon. colleague sent that proposal to the minister, she did not even dignify it with a response. It is hard to hear from the government that it wants to work with opposition members when it does not even bother to respond to proposals by the opposition on how to work together to get a bill passed. It is a bill that has to be passed on a timeline because the government did not act and bring that legislation forward.Apropos to my point about bills being rolled into each other, Bill C-33 was an act to make a bunch of substantive changes to the Elections Canada Act and other acts that go together in order to, according to the government, improve our elections process. That bill sat on the Order Paper for 18 months and went nowhere. Now we are being told there is a big rush and that we have to get this bill through. The NDP would like to see that bill passed, but it is a little cheeky of the government to wait so long to bring a bill forward to make those important changes when it knew all along, as did everyone else, that Elections Canada had been very clear about when those changes needed to be introduced and passed by Parliament to be implemented in time for the next election. The Liberals did not meet that deadline and now they are crying foul, saying that opposition parties are being obstructionist despite the fact we sent them a proposal on how to do it more quickly. We wish to goodness that they had just bothered to move it forward 18 months ago when they had a bill on the Order Paper.None of this is rocket science. There is no black magic here. There is no opposition making unreasonable demands. It is just an opposition disappointed that the Liberals had 18 months to move forward with changes to the elections act after they tabled their own proposals. We wish they had moved forward with them. However, we did not get that opportunity, as we do not say which bills get debated during government orders. While that was going on and we were not debating Bill C-33, we were debating some bills like Bill C-24, which was a complete and utter waste of time. I will refer members to my comments on Bill C-24. All that bill did was affirm what the government was already doing and what was clearly within its legal mandate to do. If it were not, then the government should tell us, because then it would be an issue of its acting outside its legal mandate and illegally paying ministers of state more. However, it did not seem to be doing that, so presumably we did not need a change in the law. All the while we debated that bill, the other bill, Bill C-33, was sitting on the table. It could have been taken up and we could have been working on that and meeting the Elections Canada deadline. The government did not need to be in a panic as it is now to get that legislation passed. We could have spent time scrutinizing that legislation and trying to make it better, not just here in Parliament but also by travelling across the country to make sure that Canadians had an opportunity to weigh in on it in their home communities. (1725) However, that was an opportunity they squandered for reasons that remain unclear. I will say that part of it has to do generally with what has become a theme of the government in terms of a serious lack of respect for Parliament. I know the Liberals will say otherwise. We hear a lot about the great respect they have for the work that is done in committees, but let us consider the fact that many committee recommendations are never taken up. We have certainly had instances where committees have amended legislation, only to see the government come in with a heavy hand at report stage and wipe out the amendments that were passed by its own members at committee. That does not make one feel that the Liberals are talking in good faith when they talk about the so-called good work of committees. Who could forget the Special Committee on Electoral Reform, where the government did not have a majority and a number of parties came together in order to propose a way forward for the government to meet its own election commitment? Who could forget how the Liberals took that work and threw it in the garbage? The day the report was tabled, I remember the minister, with great fanfare, disrespected the work of the committee, because apparently the government thought it would fail and it did not.Earlier today, we heard the government's own House leader get up and insinuate that concurrence debates were just a waste of time and there was no way an opposition party could move concurrence in a committee report seriously because it actually cared about what the committee said and wanted the House to pronounce on the recommendations of the committee. Of course, that is the whole reason committees do reports and report them back to the House. The current government really does not understand Parliament's place in the system and does not have a lot of respect for it. I will come back to this theme after private members' business.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 22Government policyOpposition partiesPolitical power5442276544227754422785442279544228054422815442282544228354422845442285544228654422875442288544228954422905442291544229254422935442294BruceStantonSimcoe NorthAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89032DanielBlaikieDaniel-BlaikieElmwood—TransconaNew Democratic Party CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BlaikieDaniel_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP): (1830)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to resume my speech on Motion No. 22.Part of my speech was deferred until later in the day so that we could debate a very important private member's bill, Bill C-262. The theme of my speech was the government's lack of respect for Parliament. I said that was evidenced by its approach to the committees' recommendations and the government House leader's attitude to debates on committee reports and recommendations. Take, for example, Motion No. 6, which allowed the government to avoid addressing Parliament if it did not want to. The government was looking for ways around the Standing Orders of the House of Commons instead of learning how things work here and doing things in accordance with the procedures of the House.I also spoke about the Special Committee on Electoral Reform and all of the work it accomplished. In the end, the government did not respect this committee's work either. I think that this year, vote 40 under Treasury Board in budgetary expenditures is another example of the schemes this government comes up with to avoid scrutiny.Given all of this, I also said that we understand that the government's agenda is moving at a snail's pace and that it wants to make some progress by the end of June. We were and are prepared to consider a notice to extend the sitting hours, provided that opposition days and opposition motions get treated the same as government business. That is not the case in the motion as drafted. A Conservative colleague moved an amendment. I think it is a good amendment, but it contains a clause that may not be acceptable to the government, because it has nothing to do with opposition days. Consequently, in the spirit of co-operation, and in the hope of making an offer that will be acceptable to the government, we suggest that this other aspect, which is not related to opposition days, be deleted from the amendment so that the government can support it. We could all support the main motion then, once it becomes a fair motion that gives equal treatment to government business and opposition business.Amendment to amendmentIt is in that spirit that I move, seconded by the member for Berthier—Maskinongé:That the amendment be amended by deleting paragraph (a).Amendments and subamendmentsDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 22Government policyOpposition parties54424525442453544245454424555442456544245754424585442459AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1835)[English]Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat disappointed in my New Democratic friends. I would have figured that they would see the benefits of having active debate in the legislature on important pieces of legislation. Rather, what I have witnessed, which I will have the opportunity to expand upon, is a variation of different games being played.I have spent over 20 years in opposition and I am aware of many different types of games. Having said that, I would argue that the types of legislation we are talking about are in democracy's best interest. When we talk about Bill C-76 and when we talk about other pieces of legislation, we are talking about really good stuff for Canada's middle class in many different ways, yet time and time again New Democrats and Conservatives have one objective: to not let anything pass. They work together. It is that unholy alliance. Nothing is good; prevent everything from passing.Does the member not realize that being a constructive opposition means that at times he might have to work a few extra hours? That is really what this motion is all about. All governments of all political stripes have moved this motion in the past. Why does the NDP not want to put in those extra hours in order to pass some good legislation that Canadians will benefit from?Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Opposition parties544246054424615442462DanielBlaikieElmwood—TransconaDanielBlaikieElmwood—Transcona//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89032DanielBlaikieDaniel-BlaikieElmwood—TransconaNew Democratic Party CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BlaikieDaniel_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Daniel Blaikie: (1835)[English]Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North very often makes it difficult to dignify his comments with a response, but I am going to make an exception in this case and respond to what he said, because I just think it is factually way off base.First of all, I do not think he even realized that I moved an amendment initially, but if he did and had he been listening to what I was saying, he would know that the amendment is actually trying to establish an offer to the government to make the amendment by the Conservatives more palatable to the government. That is a negotiation. I am not saying that there are not good ideas coming from various places in this debate, but the idea of moving the amendment was to actually try to make an offer so that we could all come to an agreement on the later sittings. The principle of that offer is simple. It is just to say the business that comes from the opposition should not be accorded any less importance or value than the business coming from the government. That is not unreasonable.The member will recall that many times throughout this session the NDP has proposed unanimous consent motions to move bills through many stages at once in an effort to help expedite the passage of legislation by the government. If the member, who apparently spends a lot of time in the House but not necessarily paying attention, would go back and consult the Debates, he would see that the NDP has been making many attempts on various pieces of legislation to try to expedite the passage of the government's legislation. In fact, in some cases we are more responsible for the success of the government's legislation than the government itself.I would repeat again in this House the fact that the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley made an offer to the Minister of Democratic Institutions on how to move forward with Bill C-76 in a fair and timely way and allow Canadians to contribute to that conversation, but the offer was not even dignified with a response from the minister. The Liberals say they want to work with us, but when we write to them with a proposal on how to work together, they do not even get back to us.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 225442463544246454424655442466544246754424685442469KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthGarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89226GarnettGenuisGarnett-GenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GenuisGarnett_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC): (1840)[English]Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary for the government has complaints about the content of the speech by my friend in the NDP. He did not even notice when he moved an amendment. I gather it is unparliamentary to refer to the physical presence or absence of members in this House, but we can still draw attention to their mental absence from the House in spite of their physical presence.I want to ask the member to share his thoughts on our amendment and on the whole issue of an equality between the government and opposition in terms of how the extension of hours works. By the way, we have seen today that the government seems to want to use that time not to have more debate on bills but to move more time allocation motions and to fit more of those into one day. However, that aside, we take the view—and I think the member would agree—that if there is going to be an extension of time spent debating government legislation and if we are going to have that extra time for discussion of government initiatives, surely the same courtesy should be afforded to the opposition. As well, surely we should not trust the government to be some kind of neutral arbiter of the rules of the House when clearly it is instead always trying to tilt the playing field to its advantage. Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Parliamentary democracy544247054424715442472DanielBlaikieElmwood—TransconaDanielBlaikieElmwood—Transcona//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89032DanielBlaikieDaniel-BlaikieElmwood—TransconaNew Democratic Party CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BlaikieDaniel_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Daniel Blaikie: (1840)[English]Mr. Speaker, really, that is the main substance of what the NDP agrees with.On the Conservative amendment, it is not just about whether we support midnight sittings or whether we are willing to stay later or not. I think we are all willing to put in that work, and the work needs to be done. However, there is an important principle in this place, and it is out of that principle that we get opposition days—or supply days, as they are referred to. The principle is that for Parliament to approve funding for the crown, the government has to hear about issues from not just ridings that are represented by members of the governing party but from people all over the country and the various views that exist within Canada. That is part of the function of an opposition day. Extending the sitting hours does not diminish the importance of those other issues being heard in the right proportion, but if we extend the sitting hours as the original motion proposes to do, which is to treat only government business during those extended hours, then we have a situation in which the government is getting not just more House time, but proportionally more House time, and that is part of what is at issue in these amendments.I do not think this is partisan or unreasonable. It is just asking the government to observe, in the extension of the hours, the same principles that govern the normal sitting hours. Nor is this debate unreasonable or partisan. Sometimes there has been some kind of allusion that maybe this debate is somehow a filibuster in and of itself, but this is business that the government brought before the House, and members are debating it. They are moving amendments and they are even trying to find compromises. This, to me, looks like an appropriate parliamentary debate about how we are going to get business accomplished with some give and take. I wish the government would acknowledge that this is what is happening on the floor of the House instead of pretending that members are being obstructionist. Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Parliamentary democracy54424735442474544247554424765442477GarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanKarineTrudelJonquière//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88488KarineTrudelKarine-TrudelJonquièreNew Democratic Party CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/TrudelKarine_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMs. Karine Trudel (Jonquière, NDP): (1845)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I want to start by commending my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona for his courage and his impeccable French. I really enjoyed hearing him speak in French. I would like to hear him say a little more. I would like him to explain the importance of the amendment he just moved. We feel like the government wants to move all its bills forward right now. We have no problem with that. Someone in the House mentioned democracy earlier. Is there anything democratic about cutting opposition days and limiting opposition members' time to speak and to represent the people of our ridings?I would like the member to tell us more about his amendment.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Government policyParliamentary democracy544247854424795442480DanielBlaikieElmwood—TransconaDanielBlaikieElmwood—Transcona//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89032DanielBlaikieDaniel-BlaikieElmwood—TransconaNew Democratic Party CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BlaikieDaniel_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Daniel Blaikie: (1845)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague for complimenting my French. I will try to live up to her compliment in my response.I think that the very important principle at the heart of opposition days is that many members of Parliament who are not part of the government have important business in their ridings that they want to be able to discuss in the House of Commons. Opposition days exist for this reason, and there is a certain proportion of days allocated to government business and to opposition business. The government is not respecting this ratio when it extends the sitting hours of the House of Commons but limits those additional hours to just government business. The point of the amendment is to ensure that this proportion is maintained even when we are sitting extended hours.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Opposition partiesParliamentary democracy54424815442482KarineTrudelJonquièreHedyFryHon.Vancouver Centre//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1589HedyFryHon.Hedy-FryVancouver CentreLiberal CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/FryHedy_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.): (1845)[English]Mr. Speaker, I have been listening with interest to the discussion and debate in the House on this particular motion, Motion No. 22, and I am rising to support the motion.I have been in this place for a very long time and I have watched political gamesmanship come and go. I have watched, when we were in opposition, all these little games being played occasionally. However, I think what we are talking about right now is that there are still some important government bills that need to be finished. Let us just pick one.Let us look at Bill C-74, the Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1. I understand and I heard very clearly the debate from the hon. member that this is not going to be fair, that the government had a long time, and that it could have done a lot of things. This may or may not be true; that is not the issue. The point is that there are some things in our budget implementation bill that must come to pass in a certain period of time. Let us look, for instance, at the Canada child benefit, which is being indexed starting in July this summer, and what will happen if we do not finish the debate on it or if we do not get it passed. If we do not get that done, middle-class families will not get the benefit of the indexation.There is the workers benefit plan. If we do not get this debate done, workers will not be able to take advantage of that extra $500 that they may get, especially if they are making $15,000 a year. That could help them out over the rest of the time.One could argue about how many angels dance on the head of a pin, who said what, when they said it, and what this is all going to mean if it is or is not fair. At the end of the day, who is it supposed to be fair to? It is supposed to be fair to our constituents. It is supposed to be fair to Canadians. Canadians need to get the benefit of some of the things that are happening in these bills. Let us look at the issue of pollution. In this House today, we are talking a lot about the environment and pollution, etc. The indexing of carbon needs to start. It needs to move forward. There are 67 nations in the world that have a carbon price, so let us get moving on this. Let us start getting money in and money out, and getting that money back into provinces so that they can start moving. Then we could get the greenhouse gas emissions down, and some other things could come about from the indexing of carbon.Let us look at Norway. For me, this is the finest example of what a carbon tax could do. Norway started a carbon tax way back, with their former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. All of the oil companies decided that they hated it, but they paid it, and that moved them forward to start doing technology and changing to clean technology in terms of oil and bringing down their greenhouse gases. I think they are the fifth-largest oil producer in the world, but they are number one in terms of environmental sustainability and they are no longer paying a tax. I hear sometimes from across the way, especially from the hon. members of the official opposition, that this measure is going to kill the economy. Norway has the highest per capita income in the world. All of the Norwegians are enjoying the benefits. The money is going into social programs. It is going into making sure that Norway is a better place for quality of life. When we look at some of these things, we see that we have to get moving. British Columbia has had a carbon tax, I think for about 10 or 12 or 15 years. Now British Columbia is the number one performing economy in Canada. British Columbia is actually creating more jobs, and we are seeing better employment in British Columbia than in anywhere else across the country. Let us get moving on some of these things.The point is that we need to move forward with the initiatives that we need to finish before we rise. We all want to go back to our ridings and enjoy the summer, spending time with our families and our constituents. Our constituents need us to roll up our sleeves and get moving here. Let us forget whatever gamesmanship we want to play and who said what and where and when, and who is right or wrong, and let us just get this done for Canadians.Let us just move forward and do it. I do not understand why this is so difficult to comprehend. When we look at all the people who are waiting for these bills to move forward, we see it is really time to start talking about how to do things to change it.(1850)Let us talk about, for instance, Bill C-65, which addresses harassment and violence in the workplace. Let us get this done, get it moving, so that we can diminish the amount of harassment and violence in the workplace. We know that this is important. If we do not get this done before we rise, and we wait until we come back in the fall, what will happen is that it will continue for an extra three months. We passed Bill C-66, on which all of us came together. That was a shining example, in my opinion, of how well we can work when we care and when we put Canadians first. Let us look at the expunging of the records of LGBTQ2+ Canadians who were convicted of offences involving consensual sexual activity. The bill was introduced on the same day the Prime Minister delivered his apology. Everyone in this House came together. We moved forward, and those affected are going to be able to get compensation. We can do things when we want to.Sometimes I think the politics get in the way of getting the work done. Let us all agree that we need to get this done. Working later hours means that we can get to some of these important pieces of legislation that must be passed for the benefit of Canadians. This is what I am getting to. If we have these extended sittings, one can actually discuss and debate the bills and do what we need to do with these bills. The motion would give us time for that extra debate on those bills. At least before we rise for the summer, we would be able to say to Canadians that we worked hard; some of us did not like it or think it was fair or the right thing to do, but we were putting them first. I think we sometimes forget to do that in this place. We forget who we are serving and why we should be serving them in a very efficient and effective manner. Tricks and tactics are cute. Everyone gets a “gotcha” and “my strategy is better than yours”, but sometimes we have to put that aside for the benefit of the people who elected us. Let us think of what we need to get going on and agree on in terms of British Columbia and New Brunswick, which are facing flooding. We know that in British Columbia, there are chances of fires over this very hot summer, which may be another thing we have to deal with. Therefore, let us put in place some kind of process so we can move forward and get help to them.On Bill C-74, the budget implementation bill, we have seen amendments come from the standing committee. Let us deal with those amendments. Let us look at this and talk about how we get going. We are talking about the Canada child benefit, which is the biggest one I can think of for the middle class. I know that families are waiting for this to give them the extra money they need to help their children. Time is of the essence when we are looking at putting money in people's pockets. Not only that, but once we index it with this bill, it is going to assist indigenous communities. Many do not know that they are eligible or that they need to apply. They need to know how to apply for this money, and it is important for them. As I said, the new workers benefit, the CWB, will allow Canadians to take home more money while they work, and it will encourage Canadians to enter the labour market. Some of the other pieces in the budget implementation bill will help to create a work-life balance for people in this House and women and men who are working and trying to bring up their children. They are worried that they do not have the time for anything, that they are neither fish nor fowl, they are neither workers nor parents. Let us move forward and be generous with our time in terms of helping Canadians. We can look at some of the work to do in this House that will not only help middle-class Canadians but also move the economy forward, get people working, and get more jobs going in the summer. I am not being condescending, but we all know that sometimes, for our constituents, a month, two months, or a year is what they need to get moving to live the quality of life they want. Let us get moving on some of these things.We can look at the Minister of Democratic Reform. I do not necessarily agree or disagree with any of the arguments that have been made, but at the end of the day, we need time to move forward, with the election coming up. (1855) I know that some members have said that we did not do it, and so now what? Who are we punishing when we do not do it and say we could have done it and should have done it, and now we are running late? At the end of the day, getting work done is not about saying “woulda, coulda, shoulda” and that we have a timeline. Let us just put aside some of the scoring of points we try to do in this place. It would really help Canadians in feeling that they can trust their politicians, that politicians sometimes care about them more than about scoring points and creating tactics and “gotcha” moments in the House.We can look at tax reform in Bill C-74, for instance. We are talking about the fact that small and medium-sized businesses can use the corporate tax savings to help themselves get about $7,500 a year so they can expand their businesses. In so doing, they can create more jobs. It would help people come summer and moving on into the fall. They can bring new capital investments. Those are some of the things we are talking about.We also know there are loopholes for large private corporations and that they use the loopholes to avoid paying taxes. Let us fix that. Let us get some of these things moving. It may be the unintended tax advantage they are looking for. Let us fix it. Let us move on and get some of these things done.I will go back to carbon pricing. Right now, everyone is debating carbon pricing and what is happening with carbon, greenhouse gas emissions, and the Paris agreement. Let us get it moving. Every time we delay things here in the House, we are making Canadians lag behind. We are putting things on hold, when we know that time is of the essence. Again, I am not necessarily disagreeing with people who say that we had an opportunity to do it but we did not and that we are not giving the opposition enough time to get their pieces on the table.Right now we have legislation on the table that has to be passed for the benefit of Canadians. I will reiterate. Let us put aside all the tactics we are employing in the House, all the gamesmanship, and come together, as we have shown we can. We did it with the LGBTQ2+ issue. Let us show that we can come together for the benefit of Canadians, because that is what we were elected to do.There will always be enough time for gamesmanship and pointing fingers. However, the environment, the economy, and jobs are very important things. Look at the changes we are proposing in terms of making Parliament more open and transparent. We have promised to give the Canadian public a bigger say when looking at projects and when planning, and so on. We can get better input from them. Let us get that going. The summer gives Canadians an opportunity to start thinking about these things and having input.Let us talk about parliamentary committees. I remember being in opposition when the parliamentary committee system was run by the parliamentary secretary, and we had to do what the parliamentary secretary said. They got the agenda going and nobody listened to anyone. We said we were going to change it. We came in, and we did. Parliamentary secretaries sit on committees, because they need to hear what is going on so they can go back to the minister and say what people are debating. However, they have no vote. They cannot run the show anymore. It is now far more democratic in parliamentary committees.Having chaired a committee myself, I can say that now everyone is busy debating the issues and people are agreeing on so many things. I look to my seatmate here, who is chair of the finance committee. The finance committee is doing yeoman's work. It is changing things and making amendments that are making a difference, and it is all because Parliament is working a whole lot better.I could go on, but I am not going to. I just want to make a plea. We have made our points in the debate in the House that the government is dragging its feet or not dragging its feet. Members have made their points. Let us now get on with the work. Let us roll up our sleeves and work the extra hours. Let Canadians see that we are committed to them, to the work we need to do, and to the reason we were elected, and let us just get things done.Carbon pricingCarbon taxDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 22Government policyParliamentary democracyPublic administrationPublic consultation544248354424845442485544248654424875442488544248954424905442491544249254424935442494544249554424965442497544249854424995442500544250154425025442503544250454425055442506544250754425085442509544251054425115442512DanielBlaikieElmwood—TransconaGarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89226GarnettGenuisGarnett-GenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GenuisGarnett_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC): (1900)[English]Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague, I think that was a speech pointedly lacking in self-awareness about what we are debating and what the government has done.She told the House that we should support this motion, which would give the government an extended ability to pass legislation, without affording the same basic opportunity to the opposition. She is proposing supporting this motion, and opposing the amendment, to give the government advantages the opposition will not have. Why should we do this? The member tells us that it is because they are good bills. She thinks the government legislation is good and should be passed. With all due respect, the point of a Parliament is that some people think these are good bills, and some people do not think these are good bills. We have sufficient time and mechanisms for debate and discussion about them but should afford opportunities to the opposition to also put forward ideas, in the context of opposition days, and to have the same opportunities the government has.We have signalled that we would support the motion if the amendment passes. It is simply not good enough for the member to say that the government has legislation it likes, and therefore it should have extra advantages passing its legislation, but it thinks the opposition proposals are bad, and therefore it should be disadvantaged, at a procedural level, in putting them forward. Clearly, that is unreasonable.I want to ask the member a very specific question about her speech and what she said. She praised the idea of a carbon tax, and she said the carbon tax in B.C. was a great thing. I want to ask the member about the peak price people pay in her riding for gas. Should people in her riding be paying more for gas, less for gas, or the same amount? What would she like to see people in her riding pay for gas? Would she like to see them pay more, less, or the same amount? I would love to hear that from the member.Carbon pricingCarbon taxDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Parliamentary democracy54425135442514544251554425165442517HedyFryHon.Vancouver CentreHedyFryHon.Vancouver Centre//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1589HedyFryHon.Hedy-FryVancouver CentreLiberal CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/FryHedy_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Hedy Fry: (1900)[English]Mr. Speaker, we are back again to this sort of hedging and arguing about things. The hon. member asked me a question with a yes or no answer. Most things do not have a yes or no answer. Most things have more factors involved in them. I cannot say yes or no. That may not be what happens when we implement a carbon tax.In British Columbia, the carbon tax has created a strong economy for British Columbians and a large number of jobs. British Columbia has the best performing economy in the country. Tell me we are not. We are. Is there a problem? Does the member have a problem with that?Is the member saying that he does not like that we want to index the child benefit? Is the member saying that I, alone, like it or that only the government likes it? Does the member not care about that? Does the member not care about the CWB for workers who are making $15,000 and who could get an extra $5,000 a year? Is the member opposed to that? Is that a bad thing we are asking to have passed in this House? I just do not understand the member's argument. We are back again to spurious arguments. They are not about people and helping people to do things. If the member disagrees with the CWB and the middle class getting more money because of the indexing of the child benefit, the member should say so. That is all we are saying. Let us get some of those things done.Carbon pricingCarbon taxDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Government policyPublic administration5442518544251954425205442521GarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanMurrayRankinVictoria//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/60078MurrayRankinMurray-RankinVictoriaNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/RankinMurray_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Murray Rankin (Victoria, NDP): (1905)[English]Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking my hon. friend and colleague from British Columbia for her strong endorsement of the NDP's management of that economy, which she correctly states is the strongest economy in the country and for which I am grateful.However, I thought we were here to talk about Motion No. 22. As a consequence, I feel compelled to bring the member back to the question my hon. colleague from Elmwood—Transcona put on the table. I think he fairly and properly characterized his motion as a compromise in an effort to get from the opposition agreement with the government that we extend the sitting hours of this place.They would be prepared to do that, I think he said very clearly, if they would treat non-government business the same as government business and let matters involving supply from the opposition, sometimes called opposition day motions, be treated in the same fashion. I am sure my colleague would agree that all members are equal in this place. That is a fundamental principle of Parliament. I wonder, therefore, in the spirit of compromise offered by my colleague, if she would be willing to accept that as a way to move forward to do the important work she described.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 225442522544252354425245442525HedyFryHon.Vancouver CentreHedyFryHon.Vancouver Centre//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1589HedyFryHon.Hedy-FryVancouver CentreLiberal CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/FryHedy_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Hedy Fry: (1905)[English]Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's comment about his particular government in the province of British Columbia having done so well, but we know that the economy was up and jobs were being created four or five years before the NDP came into power. It has been in power only for a short time. You are asking whether, when we have only a short period of time and we are looking at extending the hours to fit the work we have to do, it is important to say that work that is not as urgent as some of the things we have to get done before we rise should be ignored and we should just fill the space with other things. That would be a nice thing to think about if we were talking about this in March, but we are talking about this with just a few weeks left in the House, and we still have some of the important things that I talked about, such as the child benefit and bringing back protection to fisheries and marine habitats. As a coastal MP, I know that this is very important. That should be happening now. We need to get done the work that needs to be done. If there is time left, we could discuss some of these other things, but should we not get done the work that we started? We should finish that, and then we can talk about any other kinds of compromises on other things.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544252654425275442528MurrayRankinVictoriaAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25452AnthonyRotaAnthony-RotaNipissing—TimiskamingLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/RotaAnthony_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionThe Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mr. Anthony Rota): (1905)[English]I want to remind hon. members to make their statements and their questions through the Chair, not directly to each other. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentRemarks addressed to the Chair54425295442530HedyFryHon.Vancouver CentreMarkGerretsenKingston and the Islands//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88802MarkGerretsenMark-GerretsenKingston and the IslandsLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GerretsenMark_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.): (1905)[English]Mr. Speaker, what my colleague was talking about really got to the core of what this is about. This is about advancing not just the legislation that has been originally introduced in the House by the government, but also the work the committees have done along the way to shape, mould, and bring forward amendments to that work, and to see it eventually come back to the House so it can be deliberated and voted on prior to the end of the session we are in now. Would my colleague not agree that this is not about a proportion of time spent for each party? This is about working and bringing forward the legislation and committee work that all parties have been contributing to in order to get to the point where the legislation comes back to the House to be voted on. Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254425315442532AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingHedyFryHon.Vancouver Centre//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1589HedyFryHon.Hedy-FryVancouver CentreLiberal CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/FryHedy_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Hedy Fry: (1910)[English]Mr. Speaker, I could not have put it better myself. My hon. colleague put it in a nutshell. That is exactly what we are talking about. There is essential work that is already on the table and that has already been done by committees and by the House, which we need to finish. Let us finish that work. That is all I am saying. Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 225442533MarkGerretsenKingston and the IslandsMarkWarawaLangley—Aldergrove//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25467MarkWarawaMark-WarawaLangley—AldergroveConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/WarawaMark_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Mark Warawa (Langley—Aldergrove, CPC): (1910)[English]Mr. Speaker, it was unfortunate that my colleague did not answer a previous question about how high the carbon tax would have to be and how high she would like the price of gas to go, but perhaps she could answer a simpler question. How much will the carbon tax cost the average Canadian citizen? Carbon pricingCarbon taxDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 225442534HedyFryHon.Vancouver CentreHedyFryHon.Vancouver Centre//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1589HedyFryHon.Hedy-FryVancouver CentreLiberal CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/FryHedy_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Hedy Fry: (1910)[English]Mr. Speaker, that is an interesting question, because we are still dealing with the provinces on how they want to see the price on carbon move forward. We are not saying that every province wants a carbon tax. British Columbia did want it, and it worked well. I mentioned the fact that Norway now has the highest income per capita in the world. Its people are enjoying an extraordinary quality of life. Looking at the evidence, I would suggest that this is not a negative. It is a positive. I am looking at the evidence here at home with British Columbia, in Norway, and in 67 other countries around the world that have decided to put a price on carbon. It is of benefit. The evidence tells us that. One can, again, start asking those kinds of questions, but, really, they are not simple; they are simplistic. Carbon pricingCarbon taxDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254425355442536MarkWarawaLangley—AldergroveCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen (Portage—Lisgar, CPC): (1910)[English]Mr. Speaker, here we go again: another spring, another motion from the Liberal government to sit until midnight. In fact, it is exactly the same motion for midnight sittings that the Liberals used last year. It also has the same flaws that last year's motion contained, and quite frankly, the issues dominating debate in the House are pretty much the same.Last spring, the Prime Minister was under an ethics investigation. This spring, now that the Ethics Commissioner has found the Prime Minister guilty in four different ways, it is the Prime Minister's friend, the fisheries minister, who is embroiled in what has become known as “clamscam”. Of course, the finance minister is under investigation as well. Boy oh boy, round and round we go.Last spring, the Liberals were getting ready to ram through the House major changes to the way Parliament works, all to their benefit, of course, because the Liberals never do anything unless it is going to benefit them. Conservatives fought tooth and nail when the Liberals tried to ram through those changes that would erode our democracy. Well, this spring it is the very rules about electing members of Parliament to the House that the Liberals are trying to rig, and to rush those changes through Parliament as we speak.We see this time and time again. When the Liberals are failing at something, they try to change the rules to benefit themselves. Last spring, the Liberals tabled a budget with a runaway deficit and no balanced budget in sight for decades. This spring, another whopping deficit and still no plan to bring the budget back to balance. Today, they made an announcement of another $4.5 billion to buy a 60-year-old pipeline, which did not need government money as we already had a private investor who was putting billions into it and creating jobs. However, now the federal government is giving them $4.5 billion to take down to Houston. Who knows what the costs will be to build this pipeline. Let us remember that the federal government is not that good at building much of anything. We can look at its records on ships, planes, and the Phoenix system. I do not really trust the government to build anything. I digress. My point is that more and more billions of taxpayers' dollars are being spent by the Liberal drunken sailor government. We see questionable ethics and self-serving rule rigging, taxing, and spending. The more things change, the more they stay the same.Now let me turn to the principle of government Motion No. 22. Let me be clear. Conservatives believe in hard work. We believe in doing hard work rather than just talking about it. We do not have a problem at all with working a little extra in the spring. In fact, it is something of an annual ritual around here. We usually work harder in the spring as we gear up for the summer. The last Conservative government also asked the House of Commons to put in some extra hours in the spring, but one thing we never did in government was to steal time for government business on opposition days. The current government did this last year and is proposing to do it again. It is probably going to ram it through again this year.Let me just explain once again, for our constituents who are watching, what this means. Paragraph (j) of Motion No. 22 would shortchange the opposition, both the Conservatives and the New Democratic Party, on the only four opposition days remaining this spring. Let me just offer a quick explanation. Over the course of one year, the rules of the House of Commons require the government to set aside 22 sitting days for discussion of topics of the opposition's choosing. That is 22 days in total for the NDP and the Conservatives to talk about issues they believe are important.We get to discuss the opposition topic all day. Regardless of whether it is a short sitting day, such as a Wednesday, when we have our caucus meeting, or a longer day, such as a Tuesday, we debate the opposition topic all day. That is why we call them “opposition days”. It simply does not matter how long the day is. We get to debate our opposition topic from the beginning of the day to the end of the day. We have brought forward some very important topics during our opposition days, topics such as support for Kinder Morgan. Interestingly, the government voted against that topic when we brought it forward, but it is now buying the pipeline. That is quite something. (1915)We have brought forward very important topics, such as helping Yazidi girls and women who were victims of ISIS terrorists. We have brought forward motions supporting Israel. There are a number of topics that we have brought forward on opposition days. As I said, it does not matter how long that day it is; it is our day. If the government is asking the opposition to work longer days, we are fine with that. It only makes sense and it is only fair for the government to also be willing to discuss the opposition topics on those longer days as well, but it is not willing to do that. We have two opposition days left, and I believe the NDP has two as well. Even though we are going to be sitting longer hours, according to Motion No. 22, on opposition days the government is going to stop us earlier from talking about the issue that we have brought forward, probably at 5:30 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. The government will then continue with its business for the rest of the day, but we, the opposition, will not be able to talk about the topic we have brought forward. We do not have a lot of days to do it, and those days are important. Again, let me remind everyone that when we were in government we did not do that. We might have sat a little longer in the spring, but opposition days also went longer in the spring. It is unbelievable that the Prime Minister, who was elected promising to respect parliamentarians, disrespects the job that we do here so much that he will not even let opposition topics be debated on these longer sitting days.Wait, did the Prime Minister not recently fly down to New York and encourage people to listen to those who disagree with them? I think I remember that news coverage. There was our Prime Minister, standing at second base in Yankee Stadium with hand on heart, which we have come to learn is the Prime Minister's telltale sign that sanctimony and hypocrisy will soon be following. Nonetheless, there he was, telling university graduates about the importance of tolerating and listening to other people's views. However, our “do as I say, not as I do” Prime Minister has a different attitude when he comes back to his own country and our House of Commons.Let us not forget that the Liberal Prime Minister, who claims to believe in tolerating other people's views, has imposed a values test on Canadians and organizations looking for help to hire summer students. Those views he does not want to listen to. Their views he is not going to tolerate. Their views have to be shut down because the Prime Minister does not think they are worthy of listening to. He will go to the U.S. and lecture people in the United States about listening to other people's views, but when he comes back to Canada he does the exact opposite. It is unbelievable. The same Liberal Prime Minister surely did not seem to have tolerance for opposing views when he fired the former chair of the fisheries committee, the hon. member for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, because he disagreed with the Prime Minister over the summer jobs values test.The same Prime Minister kicked the hon. member for Saint John—Rothesay off the committee as punishment for disagreeing with the Prime Minister about his dangerous and reckless plan for small business tax changes. Do members remember all that? Do they remember the feminist Prime Minister? This one was particularly galling for me. He ordered his MPs to veto the election of the hon. member for Lethbridge, who was duly elected to the House of Commons, as chair of the status of women committee, a role which was filled by nomination of the official opposition, because he did not agree with her views on an issue of personal conscience. He was telling an elected member of Parliament what she can think, what she can believe, and what she can hold dear to her heart. It is utter hypocrisy.Sadly, this sort of behaviour is not limited to just the Prime Minister. Let me be very clear. I do not think that all Liberal MPs are like this, but, sadly, a lot of them are seeing their leader do it, and they think it gives them permission to do the same thing.Leadership starts at the top. This is not just a cliché; it is true. An organization's culture is often shaped and moulded, and the signal is sent by the boss. That fact of life is no different with the government. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change was on national television a few weekends ago, saying she has no time for politicians who disagree with her.(1920)Earlier this spring, the Minister of Finance called our deputy leader, the hon. member for Milton, a neanderthal because she did not agree with him. There was no apology, no outrage. They will say one thing and do something completely different. Now we have the government House leader bringing forward a motion that cuts off debate on opposition motions. No longer will they be opposition days, but opposition half days. The Prime Minister apparently cannot stomach having to listen to opposition ideas for a few extra hours. Maybe the Prime Minister should not have flown off to New York City to give a sermon on tolerance of different opinions. Maybe he should be reflecting on his own words, and at next week's cabinet meeting, maybe he should lay his hand on his heart and give the same speech to all of his colleagues. Certainly the disrespect the Liberals have been showing for ideas is matched by the disrespect they have for Parliament. However, it is not just weeks of legislation that the Liberals have decided to hinder Parliament with, but also that we have not talked about recently that is incredibly important. Parliament has not been consulted on ordering Canadian troops into harms way as part of a United Nations mission in the west African nation of Mali. In a breach of tradition and practice, the Prime Minister is refusing to consult Parliament on this deployment. The seriousness of this deployment of our soldiers into an active war zone, which is widely considered to be the most dangerous UN mission in the world today, warrants a debate and a vote here in the House of Commons. Again, the Prime Minister does not want to hear any voices that might disagree with him, that might challenge him, or that might ask him questions that he has no answer for. The Prime Minister, instead of doing what a leader does and taking the heat that comes with leadership, refuses to show the respect that this House, but mostly that our soldiers and their families, deserve. On the security front, indeed, all Canadians have a vivid memory of the fiasco the was the Prime Minister's journey to India in February. The fumbling and flailing around that we saw from the government and the Prime Minister in the days that followed led to a full-blown diplomatic incident with our ally India, the largest democracy in the world. Conservatives wanted the national security advisor, Daniel Jean, to appear before a parliamentary committee to explain how those conspiracy theories came to be and his comments to the media. Members will recall that for weeks and weeks, because we had seen media reports about Daniel Jean telling the media that India had been part of this so-called conspiracy, we had wanted to talk to him. We wanted him to explain what was going on when a man convicted of attempted murder of a former Indian minister was invited to pal with and hang around with the Liberals at swanky parties in India. By the way, we have a question on the Order Paper on that. The government will not tell us how much it cost. It is saying that there are just so many departments that it has to look into to find out. How much did all of those parties cost? I am pretty sure they cost a whole lot of money. We are not going to give up on getting those answers, because taxpayers deserve to know. However, the Prime Minister was going to have nothing to do with that kind of exercise and accountability. Members will remember the Liberal convention in Halifax last month, where the party's outgoing president, the same Anna Gainey who joined the Prime Minister on his illegal vacation on the billionaire's private Caribbean island, told delegates that “now more than ever, we need to have his back”, referring to the Prime Minister. Well, just a few weeks before that, the Liberal caucus got a taste of having the Prime Minister's back. The Liberal whip told those on the Liberal backbench that they needed to have the Prime Minister's back and would have to be voting for close to 40 hours. They would have to have his back by voting down the opposition day motion to have the national security advisor appear at committee. They would have to have his back by voting for potentially up to 40 hours. That was quite something. They were not going to give in. At the end of all of that, “Oh captain our captain”, they were cheering on the Prime Minister.(1925)Then a week later they realized they had better make sure the national security advisor appeared. He appeared, lo and behold, miraculously. I just want to know how good it felt for the Liberal back bench to have the Prime Minister's back. After all that was said and done, after the extreme pressure laid on by our amazing Conservative team, the government relented. The national security advisor appeared at the public safety committee. It must be so fulfilling, so rewarding to be part of the Liberal caucus, when things like that happen. It must make them proud to go home and tell their constituents what they were doing.The Liberals wanted to change the way the government asks for spending permission and the way the House of Commons studies these spending proposals. That is what has brought us to where the main estimates have changed. This year the main estimates include a single $7 billion lump sum under the buzz phrase “budget implementation”. The government claimed it would be focused on initiatives announced in this year's budget. The wording provides no assurance.Again, the Liberals are ramming this through. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, a dedicated public servant who has had a long career here on Parliament Hill, told the Senate committee he had never seen anything like it. His office stated: While the Government has included a new Budget Implementation Vote for $7.0 billion, the initiatives to be funded through this vote are not reflected in the Departmental Plans. Hence, there remains a lack of alignment between the Budget initiatives and planned results.Let me summarize that: Liberal slush fund. That is what the $7 billion amounts to.There are so many more things I could go on talking about. Last year the government tried to ram through changes to the Standing Orders. It wanted to eliminate Friday sittings. The Prime Minister did not want to be here to answer questions. Of course, the list goes on.Is there a pattern here? Yes, there is. When the chips are down for the Liberal government, its go-to move is to change the game, to rig the rules, to tilt the scales in its favour, always to regain and have its own advantage. We have seen a pattern.I will close with this, in Bill C-76, the so-called elections modernization act, here is what is happening. The Prime Minister is having a hard time raising money, even with his cash for access. His policies are so bad, people who have supported the Liberal Party for generations cannot support it anymore. Today, I think Kinder Morgan is going to be another example for these lifelong Liberals. Liberal policy is so bad, so destructive of our competitiveness, and so destructive of our foreign relations that longtime Liberals are done writing cheques to the party. The Prime Minister cannot raise money anymore.What is he going to do? He is changing the election rules in Bill C-76 so that third party funding can flow before the election and help him, but he is limiting the ability of parties that have raised money, who have had people donate willingly to their party. Those parties, like the Conservatives, actually have had a lot of people, hundreds of thousands of people, support them through financial donations. The Prime Minister says that he does not like that, because he cannot raise money, because he is doing such a terrible job and is such a failure that nobody wants to donate to his party. However, the Leader of the Opposition, our leader, is doing well and the Conservatives are doing well. We have good ideas, stable, strong ideas that are getting donations from supporters right across the country.The Prime Minister says he is going to change the rules so that the party cannot spend it. The Prime Minister has not learned that he cannot get away with it. I know he does not respect Parliament, but we do respect Parliament. I believe that members of Parliament who have been duly elected, in the end, will also respect Parliament and will follow through and do the right thing.I hope that the government accepts our amendment. All we are asking for is that on opposition, days we have the same ability to to bring our issues forward, even if it is uncomfortable for the government. It is called democracy. Even if the Prime Minister will not respect democracy, I sincerely ask my colleagues on the other side of the House to respect democracy, support our amendment, and then we can finish the work that we are doing here in the House of Commons.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 22Opposition partiesParliamentary democracy5442537544253854425395442540544254154425425442543544254454425455442546544254754425485442549544255054425515442552544255354425545442555544255654425575442558544255954425605442561544256254425635442564544256554425665442567544256854425695442570544257154425725442573544257454425755442576HedyFryHon.Vancouver CentreCelinaCaesar-ChavannesWhitby//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/86786CelinaCaesar-ChavannesCelina-Caesar-ChavannesWhitbyIndependentOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/CaesarChavannesCelina_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMrs. Celina Caesar-Chavannes (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development, Lib.): (1930)[English]Mr. Speaker, this is a classic case where the Conservatives say one thing and do another.I will speak to this because the member brought it up, namely the 40-hour voting spree we had and her talk about our supporting the Prime Minister's back. I certainly do have his back. In our government we support each other here. She spoke about the motions she brought forward on the women survivors of Daesh. When it came to voting for funding to support those survivors of Daesh, the Conservatives voted against it. What else did they vote against? They voted against ensuring that we reimburse first nations for emergency management. They voted against funding for youth employment. She talked about our defence and our military. They voted against funding to support Canada's defence policy. When we talk about saying one thing and doing another, of actions probably speaking louder than words, the Conservatives have the market corned on actions and how very void they are when it comes to actually supporting the things they talk about. Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 225442577544257854425795442580CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1930)[English]Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague addressed a couple of issues there. I will begin with the first one, and that is on the marathon voting that went on here. What happened, just so I can remind her and everyone else, is that we were simply asking for Daniel Jean to come to the public safety committee to testify. It was not unreasonable. It was not a brand new request. It was something we asked for. We said we were going to show the government that we were serious and that there would be a whole lot of votes. There are very few tools we have in opposition. One of the tools we have is that we can have extended votes. We think that is something we have to be able to do to show the government we are serious. The Prime Minister slept wonderfully that night on his feather bed. He did come in at about 8 in the morning after we had all been here and were exhausted. He came in eight hours later. He looked refreshed. He was energized. Apparently he brought donuts, someone said. My point on that marathon voting was that in the end, Daniel Jean came to committee. Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Opposition partiesParliamentary democracy54425815442582CelinaCaesar-ChavannesWhitbyAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25452AnthonyRotaAnthony-RotaNipissing—TimiskamingLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/RotaAnthony_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionThe Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mr. Anthony Rota): (1930)[English]I just want to remind hon. members of two things. One, we are not to speak of someone's presence in the House, whether they are here or not. Two, another hon. member, I do not want to name him, should know that if he is sitting next to a microphone and it is on and the person who is speaking is trying to get a message across, it makes it hard for the rest of us to understand what she is saying, and I am very interested in hearing what the hon. member has to say.The hon. member for Portage—Lisgar.Absence or presence of membersExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentNoise/conversations/heckling, interrupting Member speaking544258354425845442585CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1935)[English]Mr. Speaker, it is like being a singer. Sometimes a backup singer does help. I do not mind if the hon. member wants to be my backup singer.My point to the hon. member is that most of the Liberal members sat here. I saw them toiling away hour after hour, and in the end the government gave in. This is something that the Liberals will have to make decisions on in the future. If their Prime Minister and the government is going to be giving into what Canadians are asking for, they need to rethink how much they have his back. On the issue about voting on different measures, we can recall how sanctimonious the Liberals were during the 2015 election when they said they would never, ever use omnibus bills. Then, of course, they immediately started using omnibus bills, not only on public safety and justice legislation, but also on the budget. They threw everything but the kitchen sink into the budget so that they could say that we, the opposition, did not vote for this measure or that measure. It is an old trick. It is an old party; the old party with the old tricks. Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 22544258654425875442588AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingKarineTrudelJonquière//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88488KarineTrudelKarine-TrudelJonquièreNew Democratic Party CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/TrudelKarine_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMs. Karine Trudel (Jonquière, NDP): (1935)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I would refer to the NDP's proposed amendment concerning a compromise on extended sitting hours for opposition days. There has been a lot of talk about democracy, and democracy means allowing opposition members to express themselves and represent their ridings.What does my colleague think of the amendment the NDP proposed to the House?Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254425895442590CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1935)[English]Mr. Speaker, I fully agree with my hon. colleague. Part of what makes our democracy so vibrant is the opposition. I talk a lot with my constituents about the role we we play. For example, on the small business tax changes, the government was going to ram those through, penalizing so many of our hard-working men and women across the country, professionals as well as small business owners and farmers.People will recall that those individuals and their voices were loud, but it was the voice of the opposition in this place that was able to amplify that day in and day out. In fact, we used things like opposition days. We used every tool we had to ensure the government knew it could not ram those small business changes through. The problem is this. When the government starts to erode the fundamentals of our democracy, it become a slippery slope. We have seen the Liberals try to do it with people's fundamental right to beliefs and conscience. We see it in the House when they try to erode our ability as opposition to do our job. It is about the government recognizing that the role we play, although it might be difficult for the government and for the Prime Minister, is a vital role. It is what makes our democracy vibrant.Many times, there are opposition motions that the New Democrats bring forward on which the Conservatives might not agree. Then when the vote comes, that is when we have the chance to express that. We have the time to express that during questions and answers during debates. That is when the Liberals can express their displeasure with our opposition day motions. In fact, they can defeat them every time, but we should have the ability to bring them forward and ensure they are talked about. If these days are cut short, it is disrespectful to opposition, whether Conservative, NDP, or other opposition members.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Parliamentary democracy5442591544259254425935442594KarineTrudelJonquièreSylvieBoucherBeauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35320SylvieBoucherSylvie-BoucherBeauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—CharlevoixConservative CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/BoucherSylvie_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMrs. Sylvie Boucher (Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix, CPC): (1935)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that magnificent speech. Here is an excerpt from the Liberals' 2015 platform on prorogation and omnibus bills: We will not resort to legislative tricks to avoid scrutiny.That is funnier now than ever. I have reread that sentence several times since the Liberals were elected because I am interested and to see how that has played out, seeing as today's Prime Minister of Canada promised us he would be more transparent and cooler. Sure, everyone knows he is cooler. He takes so many photos that everyone knows that.Anyway, does my colleague think today's Parliament is as transparent as the Prime Minister of Canada promised it would be?Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 225442595544259654425975442598CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1940)[English]Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague has been doing such an amazing job, working for her constituents and doing a great job in the House. She is bang on. She sees something I think so many Canadians see. People who voted for the Liberal government, thinking they could trust what the Prime Minister said, wanting to give him a chance, are realizing that he has failed to keep his word on so many issues, not just the issue around respecting parliament, not just the issue around using his majority to ram things through the House and not allow for debate. On issues of balancing the budget, Canadians are seized with the impact of his reckless spending. On issues around ethics and transparency, as I mentioned earlier in my speech, we have a Prime Minister who, for the first time in history, has been found guilty of breaking four parts of the Conflict of Interest Act. On fiscal responsibility, we see the government taxing Canadians. Canadians are paying more for everything because of the government. There is electoral reform. The Prime Minister has betrayed veterans. On every front, everything the Prime Minister touches seems to fail. Everything the Prime Minister says he is going to do fails. He may have thought he was going to try hard. He may have thought that if he put his hand on his heart and was very sincere, it would work, but it has failed. This is a failure as well.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 225442599544260054426015442602SylvieBoucherBeauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—CharlevoixMarkGerretsenKingston and the Islands//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88802MarkGerretsenMark-GerretsenKingston and the IslandsLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GerretsenMark_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.): (1940)[English]Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to contribute to the debate on government Motion No. 22, which is an important motion. It addresses the manner in which the House will continue to work between now and when we eventually reach the summer break. It is important because it will allow us to make additional progress in advancing the agenda that Canadians have elected us to do in this place. Motion No. 22 will also position the House to build on the good work that has already been accomplished by the committees and the work that the committees have put forward. I want to highlight that this is not just work that government members on the committees are doing; this is work that all parties and individuals on committees have been contributing to in order to get the legislation back to this place so it can be voted on before the summer break. That is really important.A lot of the debate today has focused around government legislation, that it is only about what the government wants. Through my participation at committees and the work I have been able to do, I have seen that quite often committees have the ability to work really well together, to collaborate together, to work on a less hyper-partisan level than we seem to experience in this place, and quite often do come to compromises. I know that happens for me and my colleagues at the defence committee. We should all take great pride in that. The problem is that if we do not have this motion, if we do not extend the sitting hours, we will be put into a situation where all the work we have done basically gets put on the table until the fall. That is why it is so important to do this.I would like to highlight some of that important work the committees have done. Before I get to that, it is important to stress the fact that during the 2015 election, the governing party now, the Liberal Party at the time, of which I am a part of, made a commitment to strengthen parliamentary committees. In doing so, we were committing a new government's respect for the fundamental roles that parliamentarians played on committees in order to hold government to account.This commitment included in the mandate letter of the government House leader that under the government, the parliamentary committees would be be freer and better equipped with legislation. One of the things out of a whole host of things that committees do differently now is the chairs are elected freely by the members. They are not appointed by the government. It is done with a secret ballot that allows members to freely express who they are putting forward as their selection for chair.One of the other changes to committee recently was with respect to the addition of putting parliamentary secretaries on committees, but not in a voting capacity, in a capacity that they could be there to contribute when necessary. On the defence committee, parliamentary secretaries do not play a very active role, but they are there so they can stay informed about what the committee is doing. By not having a vote, it removes any potential interference that one might see coming from the minister's office into the committee.The Standing Orders that enabled all this were passed in June 2017. In my opinion, and I think in the opinion of the majority of the people in the House, they have given committees the ability to genuinely act in a more open, transparent, and free manner.I would like to quickly highlight some of the important legislation that is currently before Parliament that runs the risk of not being voted on and to be completed and enacted before the end of this session.The first one I would like to speak to is Bill C-59, which was before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. The bill, the national security act, 2017, began in November 2017 and extended to clause-by-clause review in April 2018. This committee literally spent five or six months working on this legislation.(1945)For anybody to suggest that the government somehow does not want committees to have full participation and input is absolutely ridiculous, when we consider the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security spent up to six months on the legislation. Bill C-59 fulfill's the government's commitment to keep Canadians safe, while safeguarding the rights and freedoms of Canadians.Members might remember the bill that was introduced by the previous government, Bill C-51, which ended up with massive public outcry and complaints about its infringement upon the rights and freedoms of individuals. During the election, a commitment was made to ensure new legislation would come forward. Now we have seen upward of five to six months of committee deliberation on that work. It is important to note that the committee adopted over 40 amendments to bring greater clarity, transparency, and accountability to the bill.Another bill before the same committee is Bill C-71, an act to amend certain acts and regulations in relation to firearms. We know this is another thing about which Canadians are extremely concerned. Bill C-71 would enhance background checks on those seeking to obtain firearms. It would make background checks in the existing licensing system more effective. It would also standardize best practices among retailers to maintain adequate inventory and sales records that would be accessible to police officers.Bill C-71 would also ensure that a classification of firearms would be done in an impartial, professional, and accurate manner, consisting of resorting to a system in which Parliament would define the classes of authorities, but leave would it to experts within the RCMP to determine firearms classification specifically. The most important part of that would be leaving the political influence out of it. As we can see, Bill C-71 is an important bill that would contribute to public safety. That is why it is so critical to ensure it has an opportunity to come back to the House to be voted on before we break for the summer.The biggest bill, and in my opinion the most important bill that would do the most for Canadians, is Bill C-74, the budget implementation act. This bill would affect every Canadian from coast to coast. It would increase the opportunities for people to have a fair chance at success, in particular those who are struggling. The budget implementation act would specifically introduce things like a Canada workers benefit to assist low-income workers. It would index the Canada child benefit to help nine out of 10 Canadian families. It would lower the taxes on small business. It would put in better supports for veterans. It is absolutely critical to have the bill work its way through the finance committee and the deliberations it has with Canadians throughout the country, so it can come back to the House and we can vote on it in a timely fashion.I have so many more examples of other legislation before committee right now. However, for all of these reasons, it is so important we pass the motion now to allow us to sit later into the evenings so we can ensure we complete the work Canadians have put us here to do.I want to take two more minutes to speak specifically to the amendments that have come forward today. I know there has been a lot of discussion about the proportion of time being spent on government business versus the proportion of time being spent on opposition motions and opposition days. This is not about proportioning of government versus opposition. This is about ensuring we can put more items on the agenda. That is why it is important to ensure we sit later into the evenings so we can do exactly that. The items I am speaking about are ones that have been collaborated on in committees by all members of all parties of the House.(1950)That is why I personally cannot support the amendments. I do not think that they are particularly good amendments, because they are not going after what we need to do, which is to examine more pieces of legislation, as opposed to proportionally growing the amount of time that each political party gets, which is unfortunately the partisan nature that this debate has been put into.With that, I see that we are approaching the end of the debate on this matter. I would like to leave an opportunity for people to ask questions. I am happy to entertain those at this time.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 22Government policyParliamentary democracy5442603544260454426055442606544260754426085442609544261054426115442612544261354426145442615544261654426175442618544261954426205442621544262254426235442624CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarCelinaCaesar-ChavannesWhitby//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/86786CelinaCaesar-ChavannesCelina-Caesar-ChavannesWhitbyIndependentOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/CaesarChavannesCelina_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMrs. Celina Caesar-Chavannes (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development, Lib.): (1950)[English]Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for a very engaging speech, and one that really outlined, I think quite eloquently, the need to have this extra time to debate pretty important legislation that we are trying to advance. Of course, we are here to do the work that Canadians have brought us here to do, and advancing legislation is particularly important.The member spoke in particular about the budget implementation act and the various initiatives in that legislation that would allow Canadians, such as people in my riding of Whitby, to do a lot better in their lives. I wonder if he can speak a little more about how that particular piece of legislation will impact people in his riding.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Government policyPublic administration54426255442626MarkGerretsenKingston and the IslandsMarkGerretsenKingston and the Islands//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88802MarkGerretsenMark-GerretsenKingston and the IslandsLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GerretsenMark_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Mark Gerretsen: (1950)[English]Mr. Speaker, this is one of the most progressive budgets that has ever been before the House, in my opinion. The items within this budget, whether changes to the Canada child benefit or the workers compensation benefit or a whole host of other things that are within the budget, are going to have real impacts on the lives of Canadians and, to her question, to many members in my community.One of the most basic fundamental functions of government, in my opinion, is to make sure that people have the opportunities to succeed, that they have the opportunities before them so that if they choose to chase after their passions and their dreams, they can fulfill them. That is what a budget like this does, whether it is about child care or about giving equal opportunities to women or changing the way in which we look at policies. That is exactly what this budget does. I am extremely proud to be standing in support of it. I look forward to having the opportunity to do that when we vote on the budget.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Government policyPublic administration54426275442628CelinaCaesar-ChavannesWhitbyEdFastHon.Abbotsford//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35904EdFastHon.Ed-FastAbbotsfordConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/FastEd_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): (1955)[English]Mr. Speaker, I was out in the lobby listening carefully to the speech by my friend, the member for Kingston and the Islands. He used to be a member of the environment committee and he did good work there. I enjoyed having him there. We miss him. However, he did suggest in his speech that there are remarkable reforms in the committee system and that the committees are independent. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that the Prime Minister's Office controls every single committee. There are officials from the PMO at those meetings, directing the members on how they should vote. How do I know that? At the environment committee, we were just recently considering Bill C-65, and as we were going through these different—An hon. member: It was Bill C-69.Hon. Ed Fast: Yes, Bill C-69. Thank you.As we were going through all of these amendments, with each one it was funny to see the rep from the Prime Minister's Office running up behind the Liberals and telling them how they should be voting, telling them how they should be dealing with the issue. They had been told that with 100 amendments yet to be considered and debated at committee, they were going to cut off debate and vote on those amendments without any further debate. It was to be just up-and-down votes on each one, without our being able to share our views on them. I would throw that back to the member, whom I do respect and who has had a taste of the environment committee. How can he say that there has been this tremendous reform of our committee system when nothing could be further from the truth?Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Parliamentary democracyPolitical parties544262954426305442631544263254426335442634MarkGerretsenKingston and the IslandsMarkGerretsenKingston and the Islands//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88802MarkGerretsenMark-GerretsenKingston and the IslandsLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GerretsenMark_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Mark Gerretsen: (1955)[English]Let me get this straight, Mr. Speaker. If I understand this correctly, the rep from the PMO needed to run up behind the Liberal members to tell them how to vote on every vote when they were voting in favour of every single one. That is the problem with the discussion and the discourse that is going on in here. The member for Abbotsford is making an assertion, and the very least he could do is at least say “in my opinion”, but he does not even do that. It was no different from when the House leader spoke before I did and said that the Prime Minister himself directed the members of the status of women committee to not vote in a particular chair. How on earth does she know for a fact that is what happened? At the very least, why would she not at least say “in my opinion”? To that end, I was on committee with that member. We had the opportunity to collaborate. The member should know that I, of all people on that committee, was willing to say at certain times, “I disagree with my members. I agree with what the member for Abbotsford said.” The member knows that I did that.For him to ask me that question is extremely rich.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Parliamentary democracyPolitical parties54426355442636544263754426385442639EdFastHon.AbbotsfordChrisBittleSt. Catharines//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88934ChrisBittleChris-BittleSt. CatharinesLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BittleChris_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Chris Bittle (St. Catharines, Lib.): (1955)[English]Mr. Speaker, the member for Kingston and the Islands does a good job.This comes down to hard work. Constituents send us here to do hard work to get the job done. Opposition members must be heard. That is their right. Disagreement is welcome and vigorous debate is encouraged, but at the end of the day we are legislators and we have to arrive at decisions.I would like to ask the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands what his thoughts are. What would our constituents think about the opposition to putting in a few extra hours to get the job done? Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544264054426415442642MarkGerretsenKingston and the IslandsMarkGerretsenKingston and the Islands//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88802MarkGerretsenMark-GerretsenKingston and the IslandsLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GerretsenMark_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Mark Gerretsen: (1955)[English]Mr. Speaker, I should point out that the member for St. Catharines does incredibly hard work for his constituents too. In all seriousness, I have absolutely no problem explaining to my constituents what is going on here. The irony is that until one gets to this place, there is this preconceived notion that things actually happen in the appropriate way, but when one actually gets here and witnesses the antics, it is something else. Opposition members did not get what they wanted on Friday, so they spent 30 minutes banging on their desks. I would not even expect that from my two-year-old. I will digress from that. I really appreciate the opportunity provided by the member for St. Catharines to express that.Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22544264354426445442645ChrisBittleSt. CatharinesBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersInterventionThe Speaker: (2040)[English]I declare the amendment to the amendment defeated.Amendment to the amendment negatived[Translation]The next question is on the amendment.Amendments and subamendmentsDaily ProgramDecisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254426585442659BruceStantonSimcoe NorthGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersInterventionThe Speaker: (2050)[Translation]I declare the amendment defeated.Amendment negativedAmendments and subamendmentsDaily ProgramDecisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 225442661GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersInterventionThe Speaker: (2055)[English]Motion agreed toI declare the motion carried.Daily ProgramDecisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 225442672GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Notice of Closure Motion]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism, Lib.): (1745)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I give notice that, with respect to consideration of Government Business No. 22, at the next sitting, a minister of the crown shall move, pursuant to Standing Order 57, that debate be not further adjourned.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Notice of motionPoints of order5440406BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Notice of Closure Motion]InterventionHon. Candice Bergen (Portage—Lisgar, CPC): (1745)[English]Mr. Speaker, I am rising to challenge the notice that was given by the government House leader of a closure motion concerning government Motion No. 22. It is my view that her notice was premature and therefore is out of order.I raised a point of order earlier today disputing the correctness of House records concerning debate on government Motion No. 22, and we are still awaiting a ruling on that point of order.Standing Order 57, which governs closure, reads, in part:Immediately before the Order of the Day for resuming an adjourned debate is called, or if the House be in Committee of the Whole, any Minister of the Crown who, standing in his or her place, shall have given notice at a previous sitting of his or her intention so to do, may move that the debate shall not be further adjourned....Page 663 of Bosc and Gagnon puts this into plain English. It states:Regardless, debate on the item which is the subject of the notice must have begun before notice of closure may be given.The related footnote points to a ruling by Speaker Fraser in December 1988 during debate on the Canada-United States free trade agreement. Members with a passion for politics will recall that this was the immediate wake of that autumn's general election, sparked by the resistance of Liberal senators to a previous Conservative government's free trade agreement with the U.S. After the election, Parliament met quickly in order to pass the free trade agreement before a New Year's Eve deadline.To aid the bill's passage, the government proposed a series of temporary procedural rules, not unlike the intention of government Motion No. 22. When the 1988 procedural motion was called, Liberals and New Democrats rose to challenge every fibre of it, because at that point they were still fighting against the free trade agreement with the United States. To make a long story short, those procedural arguments continued throughout the day.In any event, the then government House leader gave notice of a closure motion. That notice, too, was challenged, which brings me back to Speaker Fraser's ruling. On December 15, 1988, at page 78 of Debates, the Chair said: From a careful reading of this Standing Order, it is clear that the closure motion may only be moved “immediately before the Order of the Day for resuming an adjourned debate is called”. In addition, this may only be done if notice of the intention to move closure has been given orally in the House by a Minister of the Crown at a previous sitting. While the Standing Orders specify when the motion can be moved, and how notice is to be given, they are silent on when notice may be given. The Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier argued yesterday that notice could only be given after debate had begun. Standing Order 57 does not specify this. However, a search of numerous previous instances where notice of closure was given—going back to 1913 when the rule was first introduced—has failed to reveal an occurrence where notice was given prior to debate having begun. It can be argued that merely because this has not happened previously that does not prevent it from being allowed in this instance; that the Standing Order does not specifically prohibit this and therefore it should be allowed. After a very careful consideration of this point, I am more persuaded by the weight of precedent and practice. Taking into consideration the gravity of the measure to be invoked and the necessity of protecting the rights of the minority, it is my feeling and decision that the intention of the Standing Order as drafted and as it has been applied is to allow a majority to impose closure only after debate on the question has begun. This is to ensure that such debate is not unfairly or prematurely curtailed. In this instance, debate on the motion had clearly not begun when the Hon. Minister served notice. In resumé therefore I find that the motion standing on the Order Paper in the name of the Hon. Minister of State is in order and may be moved and debated. However, I cannot accept the notice of closure on that motion as proposed by the same Hon. Minister yesterday. Such notice can only be given once debate on the motion has commenced. Next, let me anticipate a counter-argument from the government pointing to time allocation proceedings concerning report stage consideration of Bill C-62, the GST bill, in April 1990. It is critical to distinguish between the two rules that govern time allocation and closure.(1750)Earlier, I quoted Standing Order 57 with its reference to an adjourned debate. Time allocation, on the other hand, is regulated by Standing Order 78. Section 3 of that Standing Order, which applies to most time allocation motions, reads: A Minister of the Crown who from his or her place in the House, at a previous sitting, has stated that an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of sections (1) or (2) of this Standing Order in respect of proceedings at the stage at which a public bill was then under consideration....We have a critical difference here between “adjourned debate” for closure, and “under consideration” for time allocation.Because a lengthy and complex ruling on the grouping and voting of report stage motions on the GST bill had been delivered and the various motions themselves had been proposed from the Chair, it could be clearly said that Bill C-62 had been under consideration when notice was given of a time allocation motion. A critical maxim, applied judicially in statutory interpretation cases would be instructive here. It is that "Parliament does not speak in vain". That touchstone is elaborated upon in various entries in Sullivan on the Construction of Statutes, the leading Canadian authority on the interpretation of laws. I will simply offer two short quotes from the sixth edition. First is paragraph 8.14, which says: Although ordinary speakers or writers require much co-operative guesswork from their audience, a legislature is an idealized speaker. Unlike the rest of us, legislatures are presumed to always say what they mean and mean what they say. They do not make mistakes.Then there is paragraph 8.32, which reads: It is presumed that the legislature uses language carefully and consistently so that within a statute or other legislative instrument the same words have the same meaning and different words have different meanings. Another way of understanding this presumption is to say that the legislature is presumed to avoid stylistic variation. Once a particular way of expressing a meaning has been adopted, it is used each time that meaning is intended. Given this practice, it follows that where a different form of expression is used, a different meaning is intended. In summary, “adjourned debate” and “under consideration” are two different expressions and, as a result, carry different meanings. The use of closure requires an item to have been debated, not simply to have been proposed or otherwise placed under consideration. Government Motion No. 22 has not been debated and, therefore, closure on Government Motion No. 22 is premature and out of order.ClosureDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Government ordersNotice of motionPoints of order5440407544040854404095440410544041154404125440413544041454404155440416544041754404185440419544042054404215440422544042354404245440425544042654404275440428544042954404305440431BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Notice of Closure Motion]InterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1750)[English]If I may, on the same point of order.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Government ordersNotice of motionPoints of order5440434BruceStantonSimcoe NorthBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Notice of Closure Motion]InterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1750)[English]Mr. Speaker, I had an opportunity earlier today and would like to reinforce some of the statements I made then about what the member can find in Hansard. The opposition House leader's arguments are based on her assertion that the debate on government Motion No. 22 has not yet begun. As I stated earlier in response to another point of order, the Hansard of Friday, May 25, 2018 has a clear transcription of the government House leader debating government Motion No. 22.The Speaker read the motion and the minister debated it. It is all there in black and white on page 19675 of Hansard, which clearly shows that the debate had actually begun. As such, the notice is indeed in order.I am prepared to table the document.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Government ordersNotice of motionPoints of order544043754404385440439BruceStantonSimcoe NorthBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35724BruceStantonBruce-StantonSimcoe NorthConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/StantonBruce_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Notice of Closure Motion]InterventionThe Deputy Speaker: (1755)[English]I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for his additional comments on the matter. I am certainly aware that the question of whether the debate on Motion No. 22 has begun or not, as the members have expressed in their arguments, is already the subject of a point of order from earlier today, for which the Speaker has not yet given his decision. I therefore suggest that the notice pertaining to the time allocations as presented by the government House leader are in order, but for the time being, until such time as the Speaker has given a ruling on this question of whether the debate has begun on Motion No. 22 or not, we will reserve whether the motion for closure on Motion No. 22 is in fact in order. It is not at the moment. We will wait until such time as a decision on the previous point of order earlier today is rendered, at which point, depending on that outcome, the government House leader may then proceed accordingly.ClosureDecisions of the SpeakerExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Notice of motionPoints of order54404405440441KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthRalphGoodaleHon.Regina—Wascana//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Bardish Chagger (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism, Lib.)(1030)[English]Motion moved:That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, commencing upon the adoption of this Order and concluding on Friday, June 22, 2018: (a) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be 12:00 a.m., except that it shall be 10:00 p.m. on a day when a debate, pursuant to Standing Order 52 or 53.1, is to take place;(b) subject to paragraph (e), when a recorded division is requested in respect of a debatable motion, including any division arising as a consequence of the application of Standing Order 61(2) or Standing Order 78, but not including any division in relation to the Business of Supply or arising as a consequence of an order made pursuant to Standing Order 57, (i) before 2:00 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of Oral Questions at that day’s sitting, or (ii) after 2:00 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or at any time on a Friday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of Oral Questions at the next sitting day that is not a Friday; (c) notwithstanding Standing Order 45(6) and paragraph (b) of this Order, no recorded division requested after 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 21, 2018, or at any time on Friday, June 22, 2018, shall be deferred, except for any recorded division which, under the Standing Orders, would be deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on Wednesday, September 19, 2018; (d) the time provided for Government Orders shall not be extended pursuant to Standing Order 45(7.1) or Standing Order 67.1(2); (e) when a recorded division, which would have ordinarily been deemed deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on a Wednesday governed by this Order, is requested, the said division is deemed to have been deferred until the conclusion of Oral Questions on the same Wednesday; (f) any recorded division which, at the time of the adoption of this Order, stands deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on the Wednesday immediately following the adoption of this Order shall be deemed to stand deferred to the conclusion of Oral Questions on the same Wednesday; (g) a recorded division requested in respect of a motion to concur in a government bill at the report stage pursuant to Standing Order 76.1(9), where the bill has neither been amended nor debated at the report stage, shall be deferred in the manner prescribed by paragraph (b); (h) for greater certainty, this Order shall not limit the application of Standing Order 45(7); (i) no dilatory motion may be proposed after 6:30 p.m.; (j) notwithstanding Standing Orders 81(16)(b) and (c) and 81(18)(c), proceedings on any opposition motion shall conclude no later than 5:30 p.m. on the sitting day that is designated for that purpose, except on a Monday when they shall conclude at 6:30 p.m. or on a Friday when they shall conclude at 1:30 p.m.; and (k) when debate on a motion for the concurrence in a report from a standing, standing joint or special committee is adjourned or interrupted, the debate shall again be considered on a day designated by the government, after consultation with the House Leaders of the other parties, but in any case not later than the 20th sitting day after the interruption. Deferred divisionsDilatory motionsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of debateExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment billsGovernment Business No. 22Government ordersMotion for concurrence in committee reportsOpposition motionsReport stageRules of debate5434213543421454342155434216543421754342185434219543422054342215434222543422354342245434225GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Bardish Chagger (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism, Lib.): (1035)[English]She said: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Motion No. 22. The motion would extend the sitting hours of the House until we rise for the summer adjournment.We are now heading into the final weeks of this current session of Parliament. We have an important legislative agenda before us, and we are determined to work hard to make significant progress. This motion to extend the sitting hours of the House is timely and, clearly, it is necessary. Members opposite will have more time for debate. The motion would do exactly that.So far in this Parliament, the House has passed 54 government bills, and 44 of those have been given royal assent. We have more work to do. We have many important bills to make progress on before we adjourn for the summer recess and we return to our ridings.Here are some examples of the important legislation that we would like to see make progress in the House of Commons: Bill C-74, the budget implementation act, 2018, No. 1, which includes measures to ensure every Canadian has a real and fair chance at success, including a new Canada workers benefit to assist low-income workers; an indexed Canada child benefit that will help nine out of 10 Canadian families; a lower tax for small businesses, and I am sure we can agree that the backbone of the Canadian economy deserves lower taxes; and better support for Canada's veterans.Some hon. members: Oh, oh!C-74, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measuresExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 2254342265434227543422854342295434230BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25524PierrePoilievreHon.Pierre-PoilievreCarletonConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/PoilievrePierre_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Pierre Poilievre: (1035)[English]Mr. Speaker, it would have been a lot briefer if I had been allowed to finish it the first time.Earlier today, the member was rising on a point of order with respect to the procedures of the government in its presentation of the estimates. Those estimates are currently before the House. In your multiple interruptions of his point, Mr. Speaker, you stated that the matter was not—Budget processExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentMain estimates 2018-2019Points of orderTreasury Board SecretariatVotes in estimates54342335434234GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25524PierrePoilievreHon.Pierre-PoilievreCarletonConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/PoilievrePierre_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Pierre Poilievre: (1040)[English]Mr. Speaker, you indicated that the matter was not before the House. The matter is before a parliamentary committee, the government operations committee, which is a creature of the House of Commons. The matter has been presented. The estimates were literally tabled in the House of Commons, right here across from me, by the President of the Treasury Board. In other words, the matter is very much live, and it is very much appropriate for the member to raise a point of order with respect of it.I know that member probably has some policy objections to items in those estimates, but I did not hear him make any of those objections. He was focused exclusively on the procedural element and on the Standing Orders and the traditions and conventions that date back hundreds of years when he was making his case. Therefore, it is not accurate to suggest that he was engaging in debate. There was no debate whatsoever about the policy substance of the estimates. His point was exclusively about whether those estimates provided enough information for Parliament to carry out its legitimate duty in executing the power of the purse.The most fundamental rule of public finance in our parliamentary system is that the government cannot spend what Parliament does not approve. The member was making a point of order specifically on whether the presentation of the estimates, which gives authorization for any non-statutory spending, was done in the proper form. That is very much a point of order.We are talking about the expenditure of $7 billion. The hon. member chose a quiet Friday, out of respect for the work of Parliament, to raise this issue. It seems to me that he has taken the least disruptive possible approach to making his procedural case on this point. He was in the process of making that case prior to the Chair entering Parliament into orders of the day. We, as parliamentarians, should hear this argument, and we should hear it in its entirety.It is not reasonable to expect he could make that—Budget processExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentMain estimates 2018-2019Points of orderTreasury Board SecretariatVotes in estimates543423754342385434239543424054342415434242GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1040)[English]Mr. Speaker, I will to continue. Bill C-76, the elections modernization act, would strengthen—Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 225434248GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89032DanielBlaikieDaniel-BlaikieElmwood—TransconaNew Democratic Party CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BlaikieDaniel_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Daniel Blaikie: (1040)[English]Mr. Speaker, this point of order is with respect to the timing of raising points of order about the estimates. You rightly have presented some arguments about general points of order, but I would like to put on the record another passage from a previous Speaker who addressed the issue—Budget processExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentMain estimates 2018-2019Points of orderTreasury Board SecretariatVotes in estimates5434250GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1045)[English]Mr. Speaker, we do need some clarification on this in that we had not gone to orders of the day. We were dealing with the member for Elmwood—Transcona's point of order, which you cut him off. Then I brought in my intervention. Then the member for Carleton rose on a separate point of order. You did not recognize him, for whatever reason, and then you moved to orders of the day. Then clearly you came back and stopped orders of the day and went back to the member for Carleton's point of order, which should have actually been heard before orders of the day.I understand there was a lot happening here, but procedurally we do need some clarification on how he should have been recognized and been allowed to speak before we went to orders of the day. Instead. Mr. Speaker, you went to orders of the day, and now we have a bit of a situation on our hands that will need to be rectified.Budget processExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentMain estimates 2018-2019Points of orderTreasury Board SecretariatVotes in estimates54342615434262GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25524PierrePoilievreHon.Pierre-PoilievreCarletonConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/PoilievrePierre_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Pierre Poilievre: (1045)[English]Mr. Speaker, the topic of the point of order is the points of order of members of Parliament. In fact, there were many of them made in rapid succession about 10 minutes ago, immediately before we appeared to have accidentally and perhaps erroneously fallen into orders of the day. There were about 15 members who were seeking to make those points of order. I ask that they be allowed to be recognized. It is the custom that whenever a member makes a point of order, that point is recognized by the Chair.In fairness to the Chair, there was a lot of sound at the time, and it is understandable that it might not have been clear exactly which members at which moments were making their points. However, now that I have brought the matter to the Speaker's attention, I ask that he give the other members who had been making points of order at that time the opportunity to make those points, because if they are not given the opportunity, there may well be procedural matters that were not brought to the Speaker's attention that could only be brought to his attention if the members making them were given the floor and recognized, as is their right as members of Parliament.No one could expect any Speaker to be cognizant of everything that goes on in a chamber this size, with 300-plus individuals in it. As a result, it is perfectly reasonable that the Speaker rely on members of the House to bring procedural challenges to the attention of the Speaker. That is why, when members raise points of order throughout debate, as they have done for decades or centuries, it has not been seen as an insult to the Speaker; far from it. It is merely a recognition that it is impossible for any one Speaker to see every single procedural difficulty that might have occurred. Therefore, I am asking the Speaker to allow the members who were clearly observant to problems of procedure and order to rise now and raise those points with the Speaker, and that he have the opportunity to rule on each of those points of order so that the House can dispense with all of the concerns that members of Parliament have brought to the Speaker's attention. Moments ago, we had a discussion that the New Democratic member for Elmwood—Transcona was raising a point of order on one subject and then felt compelled to raise points of order on other subjects. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, we respect your decision that you do not want to hear more at this moment about the issue of vote 40, but I do believe that the member for Elmwood—Transcona had other concerns, other points of order, that he attempted to bring to your attention. Again, it was very loud in the House at that moment, so it is possible that the Speaker did not hear the member making those points of order, but he did so about 25 times, to my inexact count, and it would be appropriate to allow him to rise on his separate points of order in order to raise them, and that other members who raised points of order at the exact same time be given the opportunity to raise them with you, Mr. Speaker, as well.Budget processExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentMain estimates 2018-2019Points of orderTreasury Board SecretariatVotes in estimates54342685434269543427054342715434272GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestHélèneLaverdièreLaurier—Sainte-Marie//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/71434HélèneLaverdièreHélène-LaverdièreLaurier—Sainte-MarieNew Democratic Party CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/LaverdièreHélène_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMs. Hélène Laverdière: (1050)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order. If I heard you correctly, you read the motion that we will shortly be discussing in English only. There was no French interpretation at that time. I think it is the right of all the francophone members of the House to be able to hear the text of the motion they are going to debate in their own language. I would like to know how you intend to rectify this situation.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Government ordersPoints of orderSimultaneous interpretation and sound reinforcement5434273PierrePoilievreHon.CarletonGregFergusHull—Aylmer//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88478GregFergusGreg-FergusHull—AylmerLiberal CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/FergusGreg_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Greg Fergus: (1050)[English]Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, as an effort to improve my French, I always keep my translation either on “floor” or on “French”. This morning I had it on “French”. I can confirm that I did not notice a time when there was not French translation. I will say that it was quite loud in here and I could understand why the hon. member might not have heard it, but as far as I was concerned from this side of things, I certainly heard it on translation.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Government ordersPoints of orderSimultaneous interpretation and sound reinforcement5434274HélèneLaverdièreLaurier—Sainte-MarieGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35607HaroldAlbrechtHarold-AlbrechtKitchener—ConestogaConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/AlbrechtHarold_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Harold Albrecht: (1055)[English]Mr. Speaker, on this particular point of order, it was impossible to hear what was being said. In fact, I heard clearly in my earpiece the interpreter saying “inaudible”, indicating that they were not hearing, and so how could they possibly have interpreted for the rest of us?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Government ordersPoints of orderSimultaneous interpretation and sound reinforcement5434278GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestPierrePoilievreHon.Carleton//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25524PierrePoilievreHon.Pierre-PoilievreCarletonConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/PoilievrePierre_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Pierre Poilievre: (1055)[English]Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I heard the intervention from my hon. colleague from the NDP. The member for Hull—Aylmer did concede in his comments that he could understand how certain members would not have been able to hear the original reading of orders of the day. Even members on the government side are acknowledging that some people might not have heard. He acknowledges that this is the case—Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Government ordersPoints of orderSimultaneous interpretation and sound reinforcement54342795434280HaroldAlbrechtKitchener—ConestogaGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88535GérardDeltellGérard-DeltellLouis-Saint-LaurentConservative CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/DeltellGérard_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Gérard Deltell: (1055)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, regarding the point raised by the NDP member for Hochelaga and the member for Hull—Aylmer, I put on my earpiece during the point of order to try listening to the simultaneous interpretation, and I heard absolutely nothing. This matter is worth looking into. We should take a few moments to find out whether the simultaneous interpretation was actually available.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 22Government ordersPoints of orderSimultaneous interpretation and sound reinforcement5434283GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism, Lib.): (1525)[English]Mr. Speaker, I move:MotionThat in relation to the consideration of Government Business No. 14, the debate be not further adjourned.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449205484920549BruceStantonSimcoe NorthBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Candice Bergen (Portage—Lisgar, CPC): (1525)[English]Mr. Speaker, I guess it is not a surprise to see the government, yet again, and I think we are starting to lose count, stop members of Parliament from speaking about important issues. We have really come to expect that. I would say on this motion that we on this side have no problem working later hours. We represent Conservatives across the country, people across the country who work hard and who many times work late hours.We have some issues with this motion. Does the House leader think it is right to extend the day so that the government can continue with its business, but not on the days the opposition has one day to bring forward an opposition day motion? That day cannot be extended. That day is only a half day. We are not asking for anything extra. We are just asking that there be a proportional amount of time given to the opposition parties on our opposition day as the government is asking for to conduct its business. It is not unreasonable. It is not the wrong thing to ask, just like when we were are asking for collaboration on changing the Standing Orders. These are very reasonable things, but the government is being heavy-handed.Can the House leader please tell me why the government will not support and cannot support that change to this motion?ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920552492055349205544920555BruceStantonSimcoe NorthBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism, Lib.): (1530)[English]Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to respond to that question. It is a member I work closely with. I agree that collaboration is the best approach to take when we are representing Canadians, something the members opposite continue to do as they represent Conservatives. When they were in the government benches, that is exactly what they did. They represented Conservatives.On this side, we represent Canadians, and that is the approach we are taking. That is why we want the constructive conversations to ensure that we are representing the best interests of all Canadians. That is why we are talking about inclusive growth.When it comes to this specific motion, what we are talking about is extending the hours so we can advance the mandate Canadians have given us, so we can have the important debate, and so members of Parliament can represent their constituents.When it comes to the opposition days, they will have the exact same hours they have always had. What we have done on this side is ensure that the opposition parties have full days. The previous government used to give us the shorter days. That is not the best approach. We know we can work better—ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449205564920557492055849205594920560CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/60078MurrayRankinMurray-RankinVictoriaNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/RankinMurray_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Murray Rankin (Victoria, NDP): (1530)[English]Mr. Speaker, I just heard something I never thought I would hear the House leader say, which was that they alone on that side represent Canadians, as if somehow to minimize those on this side who also represent Canadians. Maybe I should remind her that her side got 39.5% of the popular vote. That means that 61% did not vote for them. Where is the mandate they claim to have to work unilaterally to change the rules of this place? In what way is this motion congruous with the family-friendly agenda I thought the government claimed to have?ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920562BruceStantonSimcoe NorthBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1530)[English]Mr. Speaker, I did not mean any offence to the member or any of our colleagues. I can assure him that I was responding to the House leader of the official opposition and was referring to the previous Conservative government. It is a comment I made, and if I did offend the member, that was not my intention, and I have no problem retracting that comment.When it comes to the motion before us, it is about extending the hours so we can advance and do the important work Canadians elected us to do. All members represent their constituencies. It is important that we hear their voices. It is important that we debate the legislation. It is important that we have the time to have a fruitful and meaningful debate. That is why we are suggesting a few more hours four days a week so we can advance the important work Canadians elected us to do. It is important legislation we will be discussing. I have no doubt that members would like to share the views of their constituents, and we would like to hear them.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449205634920564MurrayRankinVictoriaBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89226GarnettGenuisGarnett-GenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GenuisGarnett_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC): (1530)[English]Mr. Speaker, the minister says that the Liberals need extra time to keep their promises. They have already broken so many. I think they could follow their promises if they actually proposed legislation that accorded with them. One of the bills the Liberals want to rush through is actually a bill to increase the pay of cabinet ministers, and they are doing it under the guise of gender equality.I asked the minister a question earlier this week, and she did not answer. I want to ask it again. Under Bill C-24, are junior ministers, who that minister says are equal, empowered to bring memorandums to cabinet, yes or no.C-24, An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration ActClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449205684920569BruceStantonSimcoe NorthBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1530)[English]Mr. Speaker, there are many pieces of legislation that we know are important and that we would like to debate.In response to the member's question, this is important legislation we would like to have sent to committee so that the committee can study it. They can scrutinize it. They can do clause by clause. For me, a minister is a minister. That is exactly what the Prime Minister has said. We know that the Minister of Democratic Institutions, the Minister of Science, and the Minister of Status of Women are equal ministers. We know how important that work is to Canadians. We will continue working hard for Canadians.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492057049205714920572GarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanMarilynGladuSarnia—Lambton//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88938MarilynGladuMarilyn-GladuSarnia—LambtonConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GladuMarilyn_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMs. Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia—Lambton, CPC): (1530)[English]Mr. Speaker, the point has already been made that we are very willing to work as late as we need to, but I have a question for the government House leader on the pathetic record of passing legislation, 19 bills in 18 months, compared to the previous government's record of 52 bills. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. What is the government going to do differently? Will the government House leader recognize that she has destroyed trust with the other opposition House leaders and step down?ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449205734920574BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1535)[English]Mr. Speaker, it is important that we get to work. What this government has done differently is that we have meaningful debate to really encourage members of Parliament to share the views of their constituents and to be okay with having a diversity of opinions.When we talk about diversity being our strength in Canada, we are not just talking about diversity of the selves we occupy. We are talking about diversity of opinion, experience, and knowledge. That is why debate is so important. That is why the work committees do is so important. They can hear from witnesses. They can hear from stakeholders. They can study and scrutinize legislation clause by clause. These are all important steps in the process we undergo, something the previous government did not understand. We recognize the important work committees do. That is why we will continue to let them do the good work they do. That is why we have increased resources for them as well.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492057549205764920577MarilynGladuSarnia—LambtonToddDohertyCariboo—Prince George//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89249ToddDohertyTodd-DohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/DohertyTodd_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Todd Doherty (Cariboo—Prince George, CPC): (1535)[English]Mr. Speaker, now that the hon. government House leader has retracted her comments about the important work the government is doing and that the opposition is doing, I will ask a simple question.In the spirit of truth and transparent ways and real change, will the Liberals not recognize the importance of opposition supply days and extend the hours on those opposition supply days so that they are similar to the hours on the normal days of business the government wishes to extend?Why not see the opposition supply days as having the same level of importance Canadians already see and the opposition parties already see? Will the government House leader see the same level of importance placed on the supply days for opposition members?ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492057849205794920580BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1535)[English]Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the member's question.What we are saying is that sitting a few extra hours for four days a week, for the last few weeks of this session, will allow us to debate more legislation.When it comes to the opposition supply days the member is referring to, they will have the exact same hours they have always had. Something that is different from the previous government, and that the member might not know, is that with this government, what I have tried to do consciously is ensure that the opposition has full days, the long days. There are days we sit in this House that are half days, shorter days, and there are days that are longer days.When we choose supply days for the opposition parties, we always provide for a long day, something Mr. Harper and the previous government never did. They often provided for a half day, because they did not think the opposition's work was that important. We recognize the important points the opposition brings. We appreciate the constructive feedback. We want to hear from all constituents. We want to represent all Canadians.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920581492058249205834920584ToddDohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeJohnNaterPerth—Wellington//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88917JohnNaterJohn-NaterPerth—WellingtonConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/NaterJohn_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. John Nater (Perth—Wellington, CPC): (1535)[English]Mr. Speaker, perhaps the government House leader should talk to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard about when he allocated Friday as an opposition day during the previous session.On this side of the House, we are happy, eager, and willing to debate the important issues Canadians elected us to debate. However, time after time, when we debate the issues in the House, the members on that side simply do not debate. The member for Winnipeg North is the only one standing up, the only one standing up to debate and the only one standing up to ask questions and make comments.My question is simple. If we extend the hours of the House, will other Liberal backbenchers be unmuzzled so they can actually speak in debate in this House?ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492058549205864920587BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1535)[English]Mr. Speaker, when we ran in the last election we made a commitment to Canadians for an open and transparent government. We encourage members of Parliament to represent the voices of their constituents, to ensure that when we are advancing legislation, all of those opinions have been heard. We know that when we work better together we can improve legislation so it is good legislation for Canadians. That is who we are all here to serve. When it comes to respecting the time in this place, we know there are many members on the opposition often saying they do not have enough—Some hon. members: Oh, oh!ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492058849205894920590JohnNaterPerth—WellingtonAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1535)[English]Mr. Speaker, we on this side try really hard to ensure that we respect this place. I am sure members on both sides do the same.When it comes to making sure that all members have an opportunity to share the views of their constituents, we will always ensure that the members opposite have their time. If that means that we need to share our time, we always do that. That is why I believe we can work better together. We can collaborate to ensure that all voices are heard. ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449205934920594AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingToddDohertyCariboo—Prince George//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89249ToddDohertyTodd-DohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/DohertyTodd_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Todd Doherty: (1540)[English]Mr. Speaker, every single opposition member is willing to work overtime. We are willing to come in for whatever time frame the government House leader wants to put us in, whatever hours. That is what Canadians expect. Canadians from all across Canada expect us to work whatever hours it takes to make sure we are standing up for Canadians, being the voice of our electors. Let me remind my hon. colleague that this is not the Liberals' House. It is Canadians' House, and we will work as long as we have to. We are all agreeing on this side of the House that we will work as long as it takes. We have all of the opposition members in agreement. I will ask again. Will the House leader agree to extend the opposition supply days?ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449205954920596BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1540)[English]Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member confirming for the record that all members work hard in this place and that this place belongs to Canadians. That is exactly who we are here to represent. That is exactly the commitment we made to Canadians. That is why we encourage meaningful debate, and that is why we encourage all members to share the views of their constituents so that we can ensure it is good legislation that is advancing.In the previous Parliament, when the government decided to extend sittings in June 2014, Liberal members supported that motion. None of us are strangers to hard work. We know that Canadians work hard, and we need to work hard for them. Let us talk really quickly about some of the important pieces of legislation that we will be advancing by extending hours. We are talking about Bill C-44, which implements our budget 2017. The bill is about creating good middle-class jobs today while preparing Canadians for the jobs of tomorrow. I am sure the member will agree that is important work we all need to do together. There is Bill C-25, which encourages federally regulated companies to promote gender parity on boards of directors and to publicly report on the gender balance on boards, and Bill C-24, which was referred to earlier and seeks to formalize equal status among the ministerial team and level the playing field to ensure a one-tier ministry, that a minister is a minister, recognizing the important work they do.The list goes on, but I will respect that other members have questions to which I look forward to responding. C-24, An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration ActC-25, An Act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act, the Canada Cooperatives Act, the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act, and the Competition ActC-44, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2017 and other measuresClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449205974920598492059949206004920601ToddDohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeDanAlbasCentral Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/72029DanAlbasDan-AlbasCentral Okanagan—Similkameen—NicolaConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/AlbasDan_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Dan Albas (Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC): (1540)[English]Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the House leader's availability here. She mentioned Bill C-44, the budget implementation act. That just came off the finance committee. Liberal members did not even defend their own legislation as amendments were put up by opposition members. She said that we are all here to represent our communities. We are actually all here to hold the government to account, and if we are not members of the executive of the government, then it is our job to come in and talk about the issues of the day. By not allowing opposition days, the ability for us to hear from their backbench on what they think the issue is, she is actually not just demoting the opposition's ability to raise issues; she is actually diminishing the ability of her own members. Does she not recognize that by giving us less time than government business she is actually hurting her own members' ability to stand up and talk about a record that she may or may not have? Does she agree that by not allowing an equal amount of debate, she is not allowing her own members of Parliament to stand up in this place and enter debate?C-44, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2017 and other measuresClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492060249206034920604BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1540)[English]Mr. Speaker, I am not exactly positive what the member is trying to say. Of course, we want all members of Parliament to share the views of their constituents. We recognize that the government has an important job to do, which is to advance the mandate that Canadians have given us. We recognize that the members in the opposition hold the government to account, but we are brought to this place by Canadians. They elect us. We represent our constituents. Oftentimes we wear many different hats and it is important to do so. Oftentimes we hear opinions that we might not appreciate or might not share, but it is important that we listen to them because that diversity of thought is important so that we can advance legislation that works for all Canadians in the best interests of Canadians. That is part of the commitment I made to my constituents of Waterloo. I will continue working hard for them. As the Minister of Small Business and Tourism, I represent stakeholders that are small businesses, I recognize the importance of the tourism industry, and I recognize their importance as economic drivers. With my hat of the government House leader I recognize the importance of advancing legislation through this place as well as ensuring that there is meaningful debate.There are many hats that we wear. Outside of this place we are sisters and mothers and aunts and friends. We have to balance all of those, and it is important work that we do in the commitments that we make to Canadians. We will ensure we provide the opportunities for those opinions and those thoughts to be shared, and I look forward to hearing them. This is not about less or more. This is about all members doing the good work that they do, and that is why we will continue to work together and to encourage the opposition to work closely with the government to ensure that all views are heard.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920605492060649206074920608DanAlbasCentral Okanagan—Similkameen—NicolaGérardDeltellLouis-Saint-Laurent//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88535GérardDeltellGérard-DeltellLouis-Saint-LaurentConservative CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/DeltellGérard_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Gérard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): (1545)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, it is passing strange to hear the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons talk about the fine principles that she does not apply. When the leader of the government says we are here to represent all Canadians, I agree, of course. However, we do, precisely, represent all Canadians, those who voted for the government and those who voted for the official opposition, for the second parliamentary opposition group, for my good friends in the Bloc Québécois, and for the Green Party. We represent all the textures of the Canadian fabric.Why, then, when it comes time to debate questions raised by the opposition on opposition days, do the exceptional rules become blunted with time? We want to allow the government to extend speaking time and sitting days; we are not in disagreement on that, since we know the legislative agenda is a full one. However, the matters that are raised by the official opposition, duly elected by Canadians, are pushed aside. [English]This is the House of Commons, and the House of Commons represents every Canadian. Those who voted for the Liberals, those who voted for the opposition parties, this is a place for everybody. This is the House of Commons of Canada. Shall the government respect it for once?ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449206094920610492061149206124920613BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1545)[English]Mr. Speaker, I am a proud Canadian and I respect my country and the people who work hard for it every single day. I will continue to do that. I am not exactly sure what the member is referring to. I agree it is the House of Commons. I agree we are all elected to this place by Canadians. I agree that every opinion matters, and that is why we encourage meaningful debate. That was not the case under the previous government, but it is the case under this government because that is the commitment we made.[Translation] We have a lot of things to get done over the next few weeks. Our government has an ambitious legislative agenda on which we need to make as much progress as possible so we are able to honour the commitments we made to Canadians in the last election. I hope that before we go back to our ridings, in four weeks’ time, we will be able to have open and honest debates about the government’s priorities, and we will be able to work together to achieve progress on the agenda for which Canadians sent us here.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920614492061549206164920617GérardDeltellLouis-Saint-LaurentMarilynGladuSarnia—Lambton//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88938MarilynGladuMarilyn-GladuSarnia—LambtonConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GladuMarilyn_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMs. Marilyn Gladu: (1545)[English]Mr. Speaker, I agree with what the parliamentary secretary to the House leader said the other day when he said that many of us work these kinds of hours anyway, but I thought the government was trying to make Parliament more family friendly. Using this tactic to keep people sitting late, I just wondered if the government House leader could comment on whether she thinks that is a family-friendly initiative. ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449206184920619BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1545)[English]Mr. Speaker, I think the member is mistaken. What we are providing for is an opportunity to debate important legislation to ensure that members of Parliament can actually advance and share the concerns and views of their constituents. Members want to debate legislation. We are providing the opportunity to debate that legislation. Under the previous government there was a similar motion. Liberal members supported it because we know the importance of debating legislation in this place. We are sent here to do that work.When it came to modernizing this place and having the conversation the member referred to, it was clear that the members of the Conservative Party had no desire, no appetite to have that conversation. I released a discussion paper. There was no desire from the members opposite to discuss that or to share that conversation, and there might be concerns that we shared it with the public. This place belongs to the people of Canada. That is who we are here to represent, and we want to ensure that their voices are heard. That is why it was an open and transparent discussion paper, shared with members of Parliament, shared with the public, because that is who this place belongs to.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492062049206214920623MarilynGladuSarnia—LambtonAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89136TomKmiecTom-KmiecCalgary ShepardConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/KmiecTom_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, CPC): (1545)[English]Mr. Speaker, the government House leader has been ducking the question so far. The issue is time allocation and the Liberals use of it again. I looked up the word “hypocrisy” on DuckDuckGo. It said, “An act or instance of such falseness” and “The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.”That side of the House ran on the promise of doing things better, the sunny ways, improving the decorum in the House, a better way of managing the House business. So far, we just do not see that. Instead the Liberals have resorted to what in the HR world we call “wing flaps”. It is just a couple of things they have done here and there and no actual achievements at the end of the day. Why are they moving on this? Why is the member continuing to duck the simple question? Why is there a lack of democracy on that side of the House?ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449206264920627AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1550)[English]Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised that there would be a member of the Conservative Party that would pass blame just to one side. Every single one of us is elected to this place. Every single one of us has a responsibility to work better together. That is the attempt that I have been making and I will continue to make that attempt. Every single time we try to advance a desire to collaborate, there are some members who do try, but there are other members who do not have the desire or the appetite. I will continue to endeavour to make this place a place that represents all Canadians because we know that all voices need to be heard.We had an attempt with the discussion paper to modernize this place to bring in more stability so that members would have a more predictable schedule, so that they could do their important work in the House as well as for their constituents. There was no desire from the members opposite to have that conversation. I shared a letter with my colleagues on the opposite side, the House leaders in the opposition, to say that if there is no desire to have that conversation, then there are only so many tools that we have in the government benches, which is no different from the fact that there are limited tools in the opposition benches. What we know is that we can modernize this place. There is no desire to do so. We understand that and when the desire is there from the opposition benches, my door will remain open as it always has, and I welcome the opportunity to work better together.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492062849206294920630TomKmiecCalgary ShepardHaroldAlbrechtKitchener—Conestoga//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35607HaroldAlbrechtHarold-AlbrechtKitchener—ConestogaConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/AlbrechtHarold_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMr. Harold Albrecht (Kitchener—Conestoga, CPC): (1550)[English]Mr. Speaker, in response to an earlier question from my colleagues as to why the Liberals would not allow the Conservatives when they had an opposition day motion to have extended hours, my colleague responded that they always give us the longer days as opposed to giving us one of the shortened days of Friday or Monday. On May 13, 2016, a Monday, the government gave the opposition a shortened day. I would like my hon. colleague to retract her comments and correct the record. She indicated many times today that the House is for Canadians. Could she explain to Canadians why the opposition day motions are not important enough for us to have a longer time to debate them, the same as for the government legislation?ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449206314920632BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1550)[English]Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the words we choose and the opinions that we have are different and that is the beauty of this place, the diversity of opinions. Monday is actually referred to as a long day in the House of Commons. This is why in the discussion paper I said that most Canadians start their day at 9 a.m. or earlier, so why can this place not function at 9 a.m. or earlier? There was no desire from the opposition benches to have that conversation, but I will once again say that my door is open and I look forward to those conversations because we know that Canadians work hard and that we work hard. When it comes to the word “always”, I apologize if the word was disheartening to the member. I am saying that there was a theme under the previous government where oftentimes it was the shortened days that were provided to the opposition benches when it came to discussing opposition motions, “supply days” as they are referred to. We know that those supply days are important days. We know that the conversations, the discussions, the advancement of things that Canadians want to talk about are being brought forward by the opposition and are important. That is why we tend to always want to give them long days, because we want to hear those opinions. We are talking about inclusive growth. We want the whole country to succeed from coast to coast to coast. We are talking about inclusive growth, not just urban areas but rural and remote as well. That is why we are making the investments we are talking about. That is why for the important legislation that we want to advance, we are saying, let us sit a couple more hours every day for four days for four more weeks. Let us debate this legislation and advance the important work that Canadians sent us here to do.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920633492063449206354920636HaroldAlbrechtKitchener—ConestogaElizabethMaySaanich—Gulf Islands//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/2897ElizabethMayElizabeth-MaySaanich—Gulf IslandsGreen Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/MayElizabeth_GP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionMs. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP): (1550)[English]Mr. Speaker, I rise to object to the motion but, at the same time, in a very non-partisan spirit, understand what has happened here. I am not part of one of the so-called recognized parties. It exists only in the Canadian parliamentary tradition that there are two classes of MPs, which does not happen in any other commonwealth nation. However, it means I am excluded from the discussion among House leaders.As someone who served in the 41st Parliament, it was obvious to me that the attitude of the opposition benches were divided and very rarely formed any kind of unified opposition to the Conservatives in power. The House leaders on the opposition benches of the recognized parties in the 42nd Parliament have operated hand in glove to obstruct very frequently, with dilatory motions that the member now be heard or that the House do now adjourn. I could see the time slipping away in an hourglass in front of me as clear as day and I was afraid this would be the inevitable result. I stand lamenting all of it. It means that as the sole member of Parliament for the Green Party, I will be here every night until midnight, working very hard to do those things that still need to be done. I urge the government House leader not to adopt the tactics that the other opposition House leaders wish to push her to do. The more the Liberals adopt Harper tactics, the more painful it will be for all of us and, ultimately, for the Liberals themselves. We must not allow the use of late sittings, closure of debate, or reducing the scope of individual MPs to become the norm even when it looks like we are running out of time.In a very non-partisan spirit, this is lamentable but I understand what has just happened.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449206374920638492063949206404920641BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Motion that debate be not further adjourned]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1555)[English]Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the words the hon. member has shared. We have had conversations. I have tried to strengthen and encourage my team to work better with all parties in this place, whether officially recognized or not, because I know every member does important work in this place and there are perspectives we need to hear. Once again, it is important we look for opinions and bring them to the table.One thing I often do is look around the table to see whose voices have not been heard and ensure we listen to them so we can better represent our entire country. When we hear those perspectives and celebrate the diversity of our country and diversity of thought, we will have better legislation that works better for all Canadians. I will continue to endeavour to make this a better place for all of us to work better together. We have an ambitious agenda that we need to advance. Canadians sent us here to do important work and that is the agenda I would like for us to debate. I do not want to take opportunities away from opposition members. That is why some of the dilatory tactics have been played. We have continued to be supportive and allowed members to do so because they have that right in this place. I believe members brought us here to debate legislation. We will continue to provide as much information as we can so we can debate the important bills before us. We would like to see certain pieces of legislation referred to committees so they can bring in witnesses, stakeholders, and really scrutinize the legislation. I used the word “allow”, but that is not what I meant, though I am sure one member is definitely upset by it. At the same time, we became aware of it and let it be because every member has important work to do. We recognize that every member has a role to play and we really do appreciate the work all members do.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449206424920643492064449206454920646ElizabethMaySaanich—Gulf IslandsAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35724BruceStantonBruce-StantonSimcoe NorthConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/StantonBruce_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersInterventionThe Deputy Speaker: (1635)[English]Motion agreed toI declare the motion carried.ClosureDecisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920659AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1635)[English]Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to address what I just witnessed. I am a little disappointed in the official opposition. Under its new leadership, I hoped we would see a new direction along with that. I was also disappointed with the New Democratic Party. One of the things I have really appreciated over the years is that there is a time when—Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920663BruceStantonSimcoe NorthBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1640)[English]As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, I have been a parliamentarian for a good number of years. I must say I am disappointed in the opposition for not recognizing that the motion before us is not meant to be a surprise in any fashion. Stephen Harper brought forward similar motions. In fact, this particular motion is almost identical to the motion that the Conservatives raised when they felt it was necessary to have extended hours so that they could get the job done. When I was in opposition we debated a similar motion. I voted, as did my Liberal caucus colleagues, in favour of that motion. Why? It was because we respect the fact that Canadians expect us to sit even if that means we have to put in a bit of overtime. I do not know why the Conservatives and New Democrats do not recognize the importance of getting the job done. Many Canadians in all regions of our country recognize that, and they at times have to put in a little extra effort in order to get the job done. On this side of the House, the Government of Canada is committed to getting the job done.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492066549206664920667BruceStantonSimcoe NorthAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1640)[English]Mr. Speaker, it is not easy having to raise my voice in order to be heard at times. We have a Prime Minister, a government, and at least one caucus within the chamber that understand the importance of having an ambitious agenda and a productive chamber. That is what we have voted for today, recognizing that there is a need at times to put in a few extra hours. That is what Canadians expect. I believe Canadians would be disappointed with both the official opposition and the New Democrats for their behaviour in voting against having the extended sitting time. It is an aggressive agenda, and this is nothing new. Whether it is in a provincial legislature or here on Parliament Hill, often parliamentarians are asked to extend sitting hours in the month of June in order to get the job done. What I have seen this afternoon from opposition members is disappointing, but that is okay because when I am back at home I will reaffirm to my constituents the significant amount of effort and work we have been able to accomplish even though the opposition did not want to sit those extended hours. We will continue, because at the end of the day we recognize the importance.In terms of an aggressive agenda, let me highlight a couple of reasons why we need to extend the sitting hours. A legislative agenda deals in two parts, from my perspective. One is budgetary matters. The other is legislative matters. There is a full agenda on both accounts. When we look at budgetary measures and what the government has been able to achieve in a relatively short period of time, I believe Canadians would welcome the type of productivity we have seen from the Government of Canada. We can start off by listing a few of those items that started just 14 or 15 months ago when we had a budget that saw the largest single decrease to middle-class income tax in recent history. Hundreds of millions of dollars were put back in the form of tax cuts to Canada's middle class and those aspiring to be a part of it. We saw a special increase in tax for Canada's wealthiest. On the tax break for the middle class, the Conservatives voted against it. On the tax increase on Canada's wealthiest, the NDP voted against it. One has to wonder what they are thinking. Going further into the budget, we have the Canada child benefit program, which I have talked about on numerous occasions. It is lifting tens of thousands of children out of poverty. Do I need to remind the House how the Conservatives and NDP voted? Once again, they voted together saying they did not want to see that happen. We had the guaranteed income supplement increase for seniors, again lifting thousands of seniors out of poverty in different regions of our country. Once again, the opposition voted against that. Then we have one of the most significant investments in Canada's infrastructure that we have ever seen. It has been very interesting. The opposition we are getting from that does not make sense. Canadians understand. They want a government that is going to invest in our infrastructure. By investing in our infrastructure, we are creating opportunities for jobs and for communities to be developed and move forward. We see day after day the Conservatives and NDP taking exception and criticizing the types of expenditures. These are historic levels of infrastructure dollars being spent. I sit behind the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities and I am so proud of the way he is handling the issue of the infrastructure bank that is a part of budget 2017. We need to put into perspective that we are investing more in infrastructure than any other government. At the same time, we are putting aside additional money for the creation of an infrastructure bank. That is over and above, and that is something I believe Canadians would welcome. (1645)There are some municipalities and provinces that will be able to take advantage of that. When those municipalities and provinces are able to do that, we will see more money being created for some of our smaller communities, as the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities talked about in regard to the $2 billion delegated to rural municipalities. Again, this is something that is completely new, something that Stephen Harper never thought of. We did not see that commitment. I believe in the last week or so we have had more infrastructure projects approved than the previous Conservative government did in four years. This is a government that is committed to action, because we believe in Canada's middle class. We understand that to support our middle class and those aspiring to be a part of it, we have to invest in Canadians, we have to invest in the infrastructure. That is something this government is prepared to do.We have legislation on which I look forward to hearing debate. Today, for example, we are talking about the legalization of marijuana. I heard the naysayers in the Conservative Party demonstrating just how out of touch they are with Canadians. I am glad and grateful that the NDP members seem to be offside with the Conservatives on this, and it would appear they will support us in having the bill go to committee. I applaud them on breaking their voting patterns with the Conservatives, and I look forward to having some ongoing support on this particular issue. Let there be no doubt that, when we talk about that one piece of legislation—and I am looking forward to the debate—it is time we recognized that something needs to be done. Today we have more young people engaged with cannabis than any other country in the developed world. The status quo has been a total and absolute failure, and yet we have the Conservative Party asking what is wrong with that and who cares if we have the worst record in the developed countries. They are not prepared to do anything on the issue. We in government are saying that is not good enough. We have faith in our young people and we believe that the time for change is now. After all, we have talked about real change, and this is a government that will deliver real change. We have seen that on numerous pieces of legislation. That is not to mention the air passenger bill that is being proposed and so much other legislation that we want to debate, and I look forward to seeing that debate in the coming weeks.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449206694920670492067149206724920673492067449206754920676492067749206784920679492068049206814920682AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingToddDohertyCariboo—Prince George//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89249ToddDohertyTodd-DohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/DohertyTodd_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Todd Doherty (Cariboo—Prince George, CPC): (1650)[English]Mr. Speaker, our colleague across the way has been in the House for much longer than I have. He knows that we do not have to raise our voice to be heard, but he tends to scream a lot. He feels that the louder his voice is, the more we will believe him. Perhaps we should talk to the Canadians who are tuning in and those who may be in the gallery. The reality is, with regard to what we voted down or tried to vote down, that the opposition parties' stance on this was that supply day motions, for which the opposition was trying to get extended hours, are important too. Supply day motions or supply days for opposition are opportunities for us to talk about important issues, such as the Liberal government's mismanagement of the softwood lumber file, where Canadians from coast to coast to coast are losing their jobs because there is not a softwood lumber agreement in place. A supply day opportunity for the opposition would allow us an extended period of time to discuss this. There are 184 seats across the way that the government has, and this member continues to be the only one who stands up. All we are asking is to have the same importance placed on the opposition supply days so that not only the opposition, but indeed the members of Parliament, the backbencher members of Parliament who do not get a say, could talk about how valuable things such as a negotiated new softwood lumber agreement would be so that they are not losing jobs in their ridings. In the same spirit of debate and loudness, does the hon. member not see that the importance and the value of placing the importance on an opposition supply day should be the same as what he is talking with extending the hours of the normal days of business for the government?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449206834920684492068549206864920687KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1650)[English] Mr. Speaker, I will not give the definition of “hypocrisy”, but what I will tell the member is that when Stephen Harper was the prime minister, he introduced virtually the very same motion. I would challenge members to come across the way and tell me the difference between Stephen Harper's motion and the motion that we will be voting on. In that motion, did he give any time? Did those 100-plus Conservative MPs say, “Look, we want more opposition days”? No. When I was sitting in opposition, did I say, “We want more opposition days”? No. Why? It was because we recognize that when it comes to June, often parliamentarians are expected to put in some overtime.What is wrong with putting in some overtime? Canadians do that all the time. We can do the same thing.The members asked about these wonderful, beautiful oppositions days. I am a big fan of them. The government House leader is a big fan of them. In fact, we have our opposition days on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Stephen Harper had some on Wednesdays and Fridays, known as the “short days”.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14Unparliamentary language4920688492068949206904920691ToddDohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeBrianMasseWindsor West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/9137BrianMasseBrian-MasseWindsor WestNew Democratic Party CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/MasseBrian_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Brian Masse (Windsor West, NDP): (1650)[English]Mr. Speaker, this is a comment. The ethical bar has reached such a level that the Liberals have espoused Stephen Harper as their object to meet, which says something about them on many levels, from climate change action to the things that take place here in this House. Congratulations to the Liberals on measuring themselves to the ethical bar of Stephen Harper.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492069249206934920694KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1650)[English] Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be able to provide some comments. I take it that it is kind of open-ended. I listened to campaigns, as the member across the way has listened to campaigns in the past. We also have the opportunity to provide places for the NDP to provide all sorts of feedback. One of the things I have always found interesting as part of their campaign platform the idea of a balanced budget. I think that brought the Conservatives and the NDP together. In fact, the Conservatives and the NDP vote together more often than not.At the end of the day, if the member is trying to say that we are no different from the Harper government, I would argue that he is dead wrong. All members need to do is take a look at our commitment to Canada's middle class, including the middle-class tax break, as I pointed out; the increase to Canada's taxes on our wealthiest; the child benefit program; the GIS, the tax-free portion that has been offered; housing programs; and infrastructure. There is so much in there that is very progressive. Unfortunately, the NDP, the party that claims to be progressive, the same party that said it was going to balance budgets at all costs, continues to vote against these progressive policy announcements.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920695492069649206974920698BrianMasseWindsor WestJoëlLightboundLouis-Hébert//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88532JoëlLightboundJoël-LightboundLouis-HébertLiberal CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LightboundJoël_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Joël Lightbound (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, Lib.): (1655)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary has referred several times to the government’s ambitious plan for Canada. Indeed, we all acknowledge that this ambition for Canada was sorely lacking during the 10 years under the Harper government. Job creation rates hit their lowest point since the Second World War, with GDP growth among the lowest in the G7 and G8. We can see that with the progressive policies the government has put forward, 250,000 full-time jobs have been created in recent months. We now have an unemployment rate among the lowest in recent years, and not only that, but we have also lifted 300,000 children out of poverty through the Canada child benefit. The parliamentary secretary talked about infrastructure. Does he not think that the reason our colleagues on the other side of the House do not want to sit as long and do not want us to put forward this ambitious agenda, which is working, is precisely that they do not want our government to achieve these results, that Canadians sorely need, and what they voted for in the last election? Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492069949207004920701KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1655)[English] Mr. Speaker, I truly appreciate the question, because it allows me to highlight just how successful this government has been.We, in a relatively short time period, have been able to generate literally hundreds of thousands of jobs. It is the trends that are really of concern, and the trend is very encouraging for Canada today. I would argue that it is because we have a government that is prepared to invest in our country and invest in education and things of that nature.Just the other day I was talking with the minister responsible for businesses, the government House leader. There has been an 11% increase in tourism from 2016 over 2015. More international visas are being issued. Canada is growing. We are going in the right direction. Time does not allow me to be able to talk about all the wonderful things that have taken place in a relatively short time span. One of my constituents said to me, and I made reference to this in the past, that he truly believes that this government has achieved more success in a relatively short time than Stephen Harper did in 10 years in government. Who am I to argue with my constituent? I believe he is correct.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920702492070349207044920705JoëlLightboundLouis-HébertHaroldAlbrechtKitchener—Conestoga//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35607HaroldAlbrechtHarold-AlbrechtKitchener—ConestogaConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/AlbrechtHarold_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Harold Albrecht (Kitchener—Conestoga, CPC): (1655)[English]Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary earlier made some rather disparaging remarks about the idea of balanced budgets. In my riding and in most Canadian households, people operate on the principle of balanced budgets, as do most businesses. If they do not, they are not around very long.I would like to correct a statement I made earlier in the House today. I indicated that on May 13, 2016, the government allotted the official opposition an opposition day, and I said it was a Monday. I was incorrect. It was a Friday, so we actually had two and a quarter hours on an opposition day, in spite of the House leader's comment that they “always” provide longer days on opposition days. I would like my colleague to comment on the idea of allowing the opposition day to have equal time when it comes to discussing issues that are important for all Canadians.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449207064920707KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1655)[English]Mr. Speaker, the member across the way has to understand that he was one of the members in the government that moved the very same motion. Today he voted against the motion that he voted in favour of when Stephen Harper was the prime minister. The member did not stand in his place back then and argue that the opposition should have additional days. As I said, I will not give the definition of hypocrisy. In regard to the issue of deficits, the Liberal government does not have to take any advice from the Conservatives. Stephen Harper inherited a multi-billion-dollar surplus, and before the recession was even under way, he turned it into a multi-billion-dollar deficit. The Conservatives ran a deficit from then on, despite trying to give the impression of a balanced budget. At the end of the day, that was not necessarily true either. We do not need—Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492070849207094920710HaroldAlbrechtKitchener—ConestogaAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88917JohnNaterJohn-NaterPerth—WellingtonConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/NaterJohn_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. John Nater: (1700)[English]Mr. Speaker, if you review the ruling of Mr. Speaker Parent on December 1, 1998, the word “hypocrisy” is considered unparliamentary language. I think the member should withdraw it.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14Points of orderUnparliamentary language4920712AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1700)[English]Mr. Speaker, if we look at Beauchesne's, we see that everything depends on the context in which a word is used. That is my understanding of it. I am sure you will find that at times the word “hypocrisy” has been stated in the House. I was very gentle to my Conservative friends in using it.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14Points of orderUnparliamentary language4920713JohnNaterPerth—WellingtonAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88541LucBertholdLuc-BertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableConservative CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BertholdLuc_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Luc Berthold (Mégantic—L'Érable, CPC): (1700)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton and I look forward to hearing what she has to say.I will talk about something that no one wants to talk about. When a party is elected on a promise of real change, and then the time comes to move a motion to extend the sitting hours, when its only defence is that another party did the same thing, well, that is completely ridiculous.I did not expect to hear such a thing from the parliamentary secretary. That member always has a lot to say, and it is almost always him who deals with issues related to the rules and motions. I will have the pleasure of quoting the parliamentary secretary extensively for the next few minutes, because some of his past statements have been rather surprising.I listened carefully and with great interest to the parliamentary secretary. As difficult as that may be, I actually did. I made a of point of listening. I found myself tapping my fingers a few times. I heard something that really surprised me. He seemed to say that we on this side of the House did not want to work. He seemed to say that we would be voting against the motion so as not to extend the sitting hours. That is not at all true. We want to work hard and we are willing to work until midnight. We want to roll up our sleeves and get to work passing bills. We want to ensure that our voice is heard on every botched bill this government has introduced. On the contrary, the longer we have to do this, the happier we will be. We can work until midnight, or until two or three in the morning. That is no problem.There is a problem when the government decides that it is not important to hear what opposition members have to say about issues they care about, such as autism and Canada's position on softwood lumber. That is the problem. Why make that distinction?The Liberals want to extend the sitting hours, make their case, and show that they have good bills that are worthwhile passing. In that case, why does the government not let the opposition make good suggestions and prove it would be worthwhile spending more time debating certain files? For example, on the whole autism spectrum disorder issue, the Liberal members did not have enough time. They did not hear our message or that of Canadians and families living with autism. That is why this afternoon the Liberals voted against the opposition motion to help people and families living with autism. They needed more time.Unfortunately, paragraph (j) of Motion No. 14 states: ...proceedings on any opposition motion shall conclude no later than 5:30 p.m. on the sitting day that is designated for that purpose, except on a Monday when they shall conclude at 6:30 p.m. or on a Friday when they shall conclude at 1:30 p.m.; They are very willing to talk about their bills, but they are not interested in what opposition members have to say. That is the problem.Some hon. members: Oh, oh!Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920716492071749207184920719492072049207214920722492072349207244920725AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88541LucBertholdLuc-BertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableConservative CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BertholdLuc_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Luc Berthold: (1700)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I invite the parliamentary secretary to listen to the rest, as it is very interesting. I would add that I was hanging on his every word throughout his speech, As I was saying, when we want to voice our points of view, on the opposition side, it does not work. The Liberals do not want to hear them, and as a result, they make serious mistakes, like the one they made this afternoon when they voted against the autism motion. It would be very much to the government’s advantage to demonstrate good will and allow the opposition the time it needs during these long, hard sittings we will be starting shortly. This evening, I am going to talk about Bill C-46, after motion No. 14 is passed. I have things to say to the government about what has been done badly in the bill. I am pleased to have the time to do it and to stay here late tonight to voice my disagreement on several aspects of Bill C-46. However, I would also have liked the government to acknowledge, with just as much enthusiasm, that when we have something to say, it may be equally interesting. I understand why the government is in a hurry and absolutely wants to extend sitting times. It is because few government bills have received royal assent since the start of the session. By contrast, in the first 18 months of the Harper government, more than twice as many government bills had received royal assent. In short, the Liberals are in a bit of trouble, because the bills they present to the House are slipshod and do not really reflect what Canadians expect. Canadians expect that the government will prepare good bills. This is not because of a shortage of consultation, however, since the Liberals have done nothing else since the beginning. They consult a group on the left before making a decision, then they go and consult another group to find out whether the decision is satisfactory. Then they raise the subject in the House and we discuss it. For some time, however, they have been preventing the opposition from talking about it. They pass a closure motion, and they send the bill to the Senate. That is where the big problems start for the government, because its bills come back with amendments. That is the new way that things are done. They wanted to elect independent senators. They told them that they would be able to state their opinions and their wisdom would be used to improve bills, but what happens when there are amendments to the bills? Everyone is up in arms, the government sends them back, telling them that this was not their job and it does not accept their changes. The result is that the government is unable to get its bills passed. If the goal was to embark on an ambitious agenda to speed up the passage of crucial programs for Canadians, then why not? However, that is not happening. They are being asked to attend to urgent matters. For example, this afternoon, the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities had a discussion about the defunct Bill C-30, which is set to expire in August. The government addressed this very recently through the Minister of Transport's Bill C-49, an omnibus bill that changes just about every transportation-related law imaginable. Then the government realized that part of the bill absolutely had to go through before August or western grain producers would run into problems, so the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities was told there had been a little mistake and it would have to speed up its study of the whole bill in order to pass this one little measure. We moved a motion to split the bill so the government could get the job done faster, achieve its goals, and deal with grain producers' concerns. I am looking forward to its response. We have come up with some good, reasonable proposals to move this country's legislation and files forward, but nothing the opposition suggests is good enough for the government. That is the problem. The government wants our trust, but that is hard. Remember Motion No. 6 and the attempts to change the rules of the House, not to mention the consultations that never happened on partisan appointments as in the case of Mrs. Meilleur? The government wants our trust and says it is going to work hard, but it is making no promises not to take full advantage of this extraordinary measure to change the rules of the House. That brings me to our other condition: the government must pledge not to move a motion to change the rules of the House. Maybe then it will have the people's support.(1705) In short, we are ready to work. To conclude, I am going to quote the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, who told the Hill Times, in an article published on May 29, that their goal was to feel productive inside the House of Commons. Giving the impression of being productive does not produce anything. It simply gives the impression of work. What we want is some real work. We want to work late, and we are prepared to do that and to collaborate with the government, but we are asking it for two little things. If the government really wants us to recommend its bills and if it really wants us to help it move its agenda forward, which is not as ambitious as all that, I would note in passing, then let it give us, too, the opportunity to make our motions and to present our concerns as they relate to Canadians. The government will then certainly have the support of our party and the official opposition. This is an invitation to collaborate that I know will go nowhere.C-46, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (offences relating to conveyances) and to make consequential amendments to other ActsC-49, An Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act and other Acts respecting transportation and to make related and consequential amendments to other ActsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492072949207304920731492073249207334920734492073549207364920737492073849207394920740AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingStevenMacKinnonGatineau//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88468StevenMacKinnonSteven-MacKinnonGatineauLiberal CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/MacKinnonSteven_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Steven MacKinnon (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement, Lib.): (1710)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech. It is sad to see that this party, which prorogued the House and was accused of contempt of Parliament, is now calling for a debate on bills. In addition, the member’s party spent seven days debating a question of privilege instead of focusing on legislation and the tangible things that we do here in the House to improve the fates and lives of middle-class Canadians. I would ask my hon. colleague whether he could clarify the approach he intends to take, now that we are probably going to be sitting for extended hours here. Will his party commit to having a somewhat more constructive attitude toward debate, to participating, and to offering real alternatives to this government to improve the lives of the middle class?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492074149207424920743LucBertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableLucBertholdMégantic—L'Érable//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88541LucBertholdLuc-BertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableConservative CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BertholdLuc_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Luc Berthold: (1710)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I will commit to one thing: every time I rise to speak in the House, I will speak for taxpayers, the people whose grandchildren are going to have to pay the enormous deficits the Liberals will be leaving us over the next few years. That is a commitment I can make.The other commitment I can make is to get my colleague to understand that the role of the official opposition is not to always agree with what the government says or to agree with how it does things. Its role is to make the voices of Canadians who do not think like them heard. My colleague from Sarnia—Lambton, all my colleagues here present, and I, personally, make that commitment before the House. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492074449207454920746StevenMacKinnonGatineauMarkWarawaLangley—Aldergrove//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25467MarkWarawaMark-WarawaLangley—AldergroveConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/WarawaMark_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Mark Warawa (Langley—Aldergrove, CPC): (1710)[English]Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague intently, and he made a number of very good points.I would like to ask him to elaborate a little on the consultation process the government has been using. We have heard time and time again, on whatever piece of legislation, that there has been intensive consultation and discussions. However, what is the government hears through this consultation is not reflected in the legislation. For example, the Canadian Medical Association says that marijuana should not be made available to youth until at least age 21 and that it still poses a risk up to the age of 25. However, the consultation was not reflected in Bill C-46. That is just one example.I have yet to see the consultation process the government uses show up in actual legislation. Is the member concerned that the consultation may be just smoke and mirrors?C-46, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (offences relating to conveyances) and to make consequential amendments to other ActsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920747492074849207494920750LucBertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableLucBertholdMégantic—L'Érable//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88541LucBertholdLuc-BertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableConservative CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BertholdLuc_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Luc Berthold: (1710)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that question. The government talks about consultations. Rather, I think it is trying to conduct validation exercises. It seems like the government is omniscient and omnipotent. That is certainly how it seems to feel, in any case.The Liberals say that they are going to meet with Canadians and tell them that they should think like them and that if they think like them, they will agree and if they do not think like them, they will reject the consultation conclusions that do not fit with their plan. However, this government does not hesitate for a second to throw out its election promises and commitments, particularly when it comes to the deficit and electoral reform.A consultation is a public relations exercise for the Liberal government. It is not really about listening to Canadians.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920751492075249207534920754MarkWarawaLangley—AldergroveMarilynGladuSarnia—Lambton//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88938MarilynGladuMarilyn-GladuSarnia—LambtonConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GladuMarilyn_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMs. Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia—Lambton, CPC): (1715)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, the debate concerning motion No. 14 is not about having a problem with working until midnight each evening—except, obviously, on topics raised by the opposition. I agree with what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons said in the House yesterday, that most of us are already working every day on a similar schedule.In my previous career, I was already used to long hours. When I ran a global business, my European colleagues began calling me at 4 a.m., and my days would often stretch until midnight. This was necessary so I could meet with my employees and people in the plants and businesses in the Pacific region I was responsible for.As the head of a North American refining and petrochemical company, I realized that maintaining customer relations and meeting deadlines to submit applications made for very long days. The Liberal government said it wanted to make Parliament more family friendly in order to encourage women to get into politics. I support encouraging more women to get into politics, but I do not believe that many women would choose to work until midnight each evening, away from their kids. Now, why did this government introduce such a motion, when theoretically it should oppose it?[English]As I have said, I am not opposed to working long hours. I said earlier today, and will say it again, Einstein was quoted as saying that the definition of insanity was repeating the same action hoping for a different result. The government has not accomplished a lot in the way of legislation. If we think about the 19 bills that have passed versus 52 in the same time frame when the Conservatives were in power, really not much has been accomplished. There is no prioritization of what is coming forward.I want to take a moment to talk about what has already passed because it shows something important. So far in Parliament the transparency for first nations has been removed with Bill C-1. Bill C-2 gave back to the middle class $932 a year in taxes and then Bill C-26 increased their CPP payments by $1,100 a year, with no benefit. Bill C-10 gave Air Canada a deal to get maintenance jobs out of Canada and escape a lawsuit. Bill C-14, medically assisted dying, was passed without protecting the rights of conscience. Bill C-17 addressed environmental items for Yukon. Bill C-18 was environmental change for Rouge Park in Toronto. Bill C-30 was a CETA deal that now has to be renegotiated with Brexit happening. Bill C-31 was the trade deal with Ukraine. The rest were all maintenance budget items that needed to be done. That is all we have accomplished in 18 months of the Liberal government's agenda. Everything else is lost in process, being amended in the Senate, and not coming forward.What is the government going to achieve by making us sit every night until midnight, which, as I said, I am fully willing to do? I really do not think it is getting anywhere. Why is it not getting anywhere? Because it does not listen to the opposition's points of view. The job of the opposition is to bring reasoned and intelligent arguments on why a government proposal is not good for Canada and to make helpful suggestions about what would make it better. When bills are sent to committee, the committee's job is to make helpful suggestions and amendments that would make them something all Canadians could embrace. That is really what is happening. The government is not accepting amendments, not listening when the opposition talks, and again and again, when things go to the Senate, the Senate comes up with the same amendments and spends more time studying them, doing exactly the same thing that committees of the House are supposed to do. That is one problem.Another problem is that there has to be trust when parties work together.(1720) I am going to compare the antics that I see happening here with what I see in the business world. In the business world, people work together. People have to be able to trust one another when they make deals. They have to be able to follow up on things as they said they would. From what I have seen, the opposition House leaders are trying to work with the government House leader but she is not keeping up her end of what she has agreed to. Every day I watch her stand in the House and misrepresent to Canadians that she just has a discussion paper, when really a motion has been rammed through PROC. I have seen her avoid answering questions that she is accountable to answer.I would suggest that there has been a huge erosion of trust in the government House leader and sometimes that cannot be fixed in order to restore the ability to work together. The government should really consider changing up that position and coming back to a place where we can work together and trust that agreements that are made, amendments that are suggested, and motions that are brought forward are as agreed. That is really important.There is another point that I would like to make that has not been discussed much here. I have listened to the debate on Motion No. 14 and I have heard a lot about the blame game. I hear from the Liberals that when Stephen Harper's government was in place, it did this bad thing or that bad thing, or whatever. Honestly, two-thirds of the Parliament are new. Some of us were not here in the previous Parliament. We have an opportunity to do things differently now. If we think something was previously done wrong, we have the opportunity to do it differently in the future.When items come up in the business climate, not everything needs the same amount of time to be talked about. I have sat in the House and heard Liberal members stand up and say they support such and such a bill and I have heard Conservative members and NDP members stand up and say they do too, and then we talk about it for days. This is not the way we should be spending our time. If the government had not squandered all of the time in that way, we would have more time and we would not have to sit late. In the same way, there are things that need to be discussed longer that cannot be rammed through, things such as the budget bill that has been combined with the infrastructure bank. When comments come forward, the government needs to lead. It needs to separate those things out so that the things that can be quickly passed get passed on. When I say passed on, I am saying that if we all agree on a bill at first reading and we do not need to change anything, then the legislation should be sent right away to the Senate. Why are we spending time doing second and third reading and committee and everything else? We need to be able to update some of the processes here.I am not about just criticizing without providing recommendations for how I think we could make this better. Here are my recommendations, which I think the government could use to change some of the things that it is doing and which would result in getting legislation passed through in a better way.When it comes to the rules of the House, I see an opportunity to modernize those rules but a change would need to honour the tradition of Parliament and have all-party consensus or at least the consensus of a majority of members to change things, because those things influence our democracy and they are important. Doing some of those things would, as the suggestions I have made about passing things we all agree on and everything else, clear the legislative agenda in a way that would move things forward more positively.I also would reiterate that you have to have someone working with the opposition leaders who can be trusted, and I think that trust is broken.The other point I would make is about amendments that are brought forward and are agreed to by the opposition members. It is not often that the NDP and the Conservatives play on the same team and sing from the same song sheet. That does not usually happen but lately it has happened a lot. When that happens, it should be a signal to government that this is an amendment that Canadians want to see.The government needs to say what it is going to do and then it needs to own up to it. Some of the credibility loss that has happened has happened because the government said it was going to do something and then it did not. The government maintained it was going to be open and transparent and then facts have been hidden or things have not been well represented. The government said it was going to be accountable but then every day when we stand up and ask questions we get the shell game. It does not answer our questions, and this would not be acceptable in the business world.These are some of the things that would help to get the legislative agenda flowing through. As a member of the opposition, I want to see the right things happen for Canada and I am willing to work with the government to see that happen.C-10, An Act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measuresC-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)C-17, An Act to amend the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act and to make a consequential amendment to another ActC-18, An Act to amend the Rouge National Urban Park Act, the Parks Canada Agency Act and the Canada National Parks ActC-2, An Act to amend the Income Tax ActC-26, An Act to amend the Canada Pension Plan, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act and the Income Tax ActC-30, An Act to implement the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union and its Member States and to provide for certain other measuresC-31, An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and UkraineExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492075549207564920757492075849207594920760492076149207624920763492076449207654920766492076749207684920769492077049207714920772492077349207744920775492077649207774920778LucBertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableLucBertholdMégantic—L'Érable//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88541LucBertholdLuc-BertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableConservative CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BertholdLuc_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Luc Berthold (Mégantic—L'Érable, CPC): (1725)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, as I expected, the member for Sarnia—Lambton gave an eloquent speech on the ways of doing things in the House and on trust. I think she put her finger on something that concerns me a lot. I am also a new member elected in October 2015, and we constantly hear about the actions of the previous government. It hurts to say this, but Canadians passed judgment on some of the actions of the official opposition. We are here to learn and to listen to Canadians, and I think we are learning pretty quickly. I would like my colleague to comment on the importance for members to listen to Canadians, and then to take action.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492077949207804920781MarilynGladuSarnia—LambtonMarilynGladuSarnia—Lambton//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88938MarilynGladuMarilyn-GladuSarnia—LambtonConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GladuMarilyn_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMs. Marilyn Gladu: (1725)[English]Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the issue of trust and Canadians, being new to Parliament I was surprised to find that we cannot imply that someone lied in the House. That is something that is not allowed under parliamentary procedure. When I sit and listen to the partial facts and sometimes very wrong facts that are quoted on both sides of the House, I am very disturbed for Joe Public, the people who are working hard every day who do not have time to read all the dossiers and files, sort through all the media, and sort through who is really telling the truth in this place. I sometimes see part of the story here and part of the story there, and it seems to me that Canadians have put us in this place to speak on their behalf, and we should be speaking honestly. There should be some way of calling people to account when, clearly, Canadians are being misled. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449207824920783LucBertholdMégantic—L'ÉrableAdamVaughanSpadina—Fort York//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/54434AdamVaughanAdam-VaughanSpadina—Fort YorkLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/VaughanAdam_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMr. Adam Vaughan (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development (Housing and Urban Affairs), Lib.): (1725)[English]Mr. Speaker, I had to jump up quickly to prevent my colleagues across the way from complaining once again that somehow some of us are silenced by the extraordinary efforts of my colleague from Winnipeg North. We like listening to him. That is a difference that separates many of us from the opposition.One of the things that has been front and centre in this session is Fridays. One of the reasons is that Friday is being looked at as a day to try to get people to our constituencies, where we do important work, talking to stakeholders and constituents, managing case files, and looking at where improvements to federal services or investments could make our communities better. Getting people into the communities more often on a more regular basis is the goal. It is not about taking time off work. No one is really honestly suggesting that. I do not know any MP that does not work seven days a week. It is also about some MPs from remote areas, from Yukon, Northwest Territories, and parts of remote British Columbia. Often, in the winter they have to travel hours upon hours, not just to get back and forth to airports but to get all over their ridings, some of which are the size of countries in Europe. The goal here is to make sure that MPs are in front of their constituents as often as we are in front of each other. That is the triangulated dialogue that needs to happen.In light of the fact that the debate about Friday has been distorted into some party wanting to take Fridays off, and again, I know of no MP who has ever been re-elected who took Fridays off, there is a legitimate question here to explore. I would like to hear the member opposite's views on taking Fridays off to accomplish more time with constituents, more time with stakeholders, and safer travel for remote MPs, who we know need to get back and forth to family events, let alone political events. Is there any space to have that conversation in a rational way, without pointing fingers back and forth saying that it is about one party being lazy and the other wanting to work harder, which we know is not true? Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920784492078549207864920787MarilynGladuSarnia—LambtonMarilynGladuSarnia—Lambton//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88938MarilynGladuMarilyn-GladuSarnia—LambtonConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GladuMarilyn_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersResuming debateInterventionMs. Marilyn Gladu: (1725)[English]Mr. Speaker, I would refer the member to my speech on the day we talked about changes to the Standing Orders. Personally, I think it is ridiculous that at any given time here in the House of Commons when debate is going on we have one-fifth of the members actually hearing the debate. Then things go to committee, and a lot of times committee members have not even heard the debate that is going on. My suggestion was that all day on Tuesdays, all members should be sitting here listening to the discussion so that the committees can take advantage of that. Thursday would be a great day for opposition days and private members' bills. Wednesdays would be a great day for us to actually interface with the ministers and get the money and support we need for our ridings. That would allow travel opportunities for those people who have long distances to go. It would be much more family friendly. It would be much more efficient in terms of achieving Parliament. That is my two cents on that. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449207884920789AdamVaughanSpadina—Fort YorkAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/54434AdamVaughanAdam-VaughanSpadina—Fort YorkLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/VaughanAdam_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Adam Vaughan (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development (Housing and Urban Affairs), Lib.): (1830)[English] Madam Speaker, I am sad to see some people shifting seats now. I was hoping to get questions from them. We shall see where they sit up and take note. I find this debate about extending the hours to finish the spring business and the concern that the opposition has expressed to be mind-boggling, quite frankly. I have been watching this particular session and I was here for the end of the previous one, and I have never seen this level of obstruction. It is the opposition's right to obstruct. It is its job to get in the way of government. I have no problem with that. However, the degree to which it has wasted time is quite remarkable. I am going to go through some of the examples that I think really show who is working hard and who is trying to work hard not to work hard.The most popular form of obstruction right now is really ironic, considering the opposition members keep talking about how we want to take Fridays off. They have tried to effectively shut down debate more than a dozen times by moving motions of closure and by moving motions of adjournment. My favourite one was when the Conservatives could not decide which one of their backbenchers should talk, so they asked the rest of the House to come back from wherever they have been and make a decision for them, cancelling the important work that committees were doing. Sometimes up to five or six committees have had their work stopped for the entire afternoon while these games are played, yet what they want to talk about now is efficiency and working hard for Canadians inside Parliament.The reality is that they have done everything they can to adjourn debate this session. Then the irony is that they complain about closure being moved. They move to adjourn debate and not have any debate, and then get mad when government says, “Okay, let's vote on the issue and put it to rest.” They say, “No, we wanted to debate. We were just moving motions of adjournment to show you we weren't happy.” Talk about sheer hypocrisy.On March 21, there was a motion to have the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands now be heard. Even though he had spoken just moments before and spoke moments afterward, he needed to speak one more time in between. It was urgent, urgent enough to stop the work of 338 members of Parliament so that he could get a third shot at saying the same thing three times.On March 22, there was a motion to return to orders of the day, again, to upend the government process and to stop the process moving through. I get it. Their job is to not let us do anything. However, the reality is that we have a responsibility to deliver government processes and deliver on the budget and deliver on a whole series of things, including sending critical legislation, sometimes even private members' legislation, to the committee so that the committee can deal with it.We just had unanimous consent to pass a private member's motion, something which I did not see once in the previous Parliament for an opposition motion. The Conservative government voted against every single private member's motion, regardless of what it was. The Conservatives were militant about it and proud about it. We have seen unprecedented co-operation in this House, yet somehow we are labelled with this notion that Parliament is not working. I did not see a single private member's bill, save for the one on feminine hygiene products, pass in the last session of Parliament.When opposition members bring forward legitimate motions trying to accomplish things where there is consensus, we have seen parliamentary secretaries like myself, backbenchers from across the country, given total freedom to support them, even when cabinet stands in opposition. This is parliamentary form at its finest, yet the opposition continues to see a problem in this kind of dialogue and, quite frankly, productivity.On March 22, we had to return to orders of the day. Then, on March 23, we had a number of different motions where nine different committee meetings were interrupted by procedural shenanigans. There was a motion that was moved that yet another Conservative member be heard again. For folks who are listening in the larger part of this country who are wondering what all the procedural ringing of bells and votes are all about, it is really about shutting down debate, slowing down Parliament. It is the opposition members' right to oppose what the government is proposing, but they do not even want Parliament to consider it, as a way of thwarting the changes we are trying to make. Again, I respect their opposition. I understand it comes from a position of ideological, parliamentary, or even electoral promises they have made, but the reality is that this is what has slowed Parliament down, not the government's ambition to get more pieces of legislation through.Then after they move to adjourn the debate, when we move closure, they get upset that somehow we are truncating the parliamentary process and we are the ones abridging parliamentary rights. What do they think a motion to adjourn would accomplish? It would do exactly the same thing, but with no result at the end. That, to me is sheer hypocrisy.(1835)Then, on March 23, we had another motion moved to adjourn the debate. There was a 40-minute debate after each one of these motions. They had a 40-minute motion to adjourn debate and then when we moved closure, they get upset that they wasted their 40 minutes and did not get a chance to debate the issue properly. In fact in total, I added it up and there have been almost 24 hours of debate on adjournment. Instead of debating legislation, instead of putting the views of their constituents forward for us to consider as a government, what they have been debating is their right to end debate so that they could protest the fact that the debate is ending. It is absurd.The next thing that happened was the concurrence motions. These have enormous length of debate. There is sometimes up to three hours of debate when a concurrence motion is moved, and it is moved, as I said, not to actually deal with the legislation but to try to not deal with the legislation. Again, that is the opposition stalling tactic. On April 5, we did not sit. On April 6, we came back and what happened? Another motion to adjourn, another 40-minute debate about the value of not talking about things as the opposition pretends to defend the value of talking about things. Again, a lot of these had to do with and circulated around the question of privilege that was raised around the budget process. One went for about 36 hours. That is almost two weeks of debate. We debated whether somebody was on a bus or not on a bus, capable of walking or not walking to vote, in comfortable shoes or not in comfortable shoes. We debated effectively a red herring. Instead of dealing with the opioid crisis, instead of talking about transit, instead of dealing with the fisheries, instead of dealing with softwood lumber, all these lofty goals that this government is hard at work trying to achieve, what we had was effectively a unanimous vote on a question of privilege.We all understand the critical importance of getting to the House, being allowed to vote, representing the views of our constituents. None of us disagree with the question of privilege that was raised. We all agreed that if anything impeded a member, they had the solemn right, a fundamental duty and privilege, to be in the House. We all agreed with that, but we debated it for 36 hours anyway. Then it turned out that the story that was delivered to the House about the interrupted vote was not necessarily the way it was initially presented. There was no motorcade blocking somebody on a bus to get here. The facts of the matter were completely different. What we had was a filibuster, and I get it. It was a filibuster because we were trying to change the rules to make this place more efficient. The opposition thinks there should be unanimous consent to that. We disagree, and we will try to find a way to get forward on that issue and find ways to modernize this Parliament.I understand that the opposition has a fundamental duty and rights and privileges in that conversation, and we will get to some point of future amendments to the House procedures that modernize this place, but the processes and the delays and the tactics and the sanctimony in which the opposition often wraps itself is just not founded. What do we end up with? A wasted number of days, hours, and weeks debating something that actually did not happen, all over some fantasy of a point of principle that quite frankly is about whether or not the government has the right to limit debate, and the government does have the right to limit debate in order to make its presentation of legislation and its passage of legislation more efficient. We have a majority rule Parliament, and Parliament's will sometimes is to move on to the conclusion of the debate rather than to sustain debate until all 338 members are heard. That is part of our tradition here, and the previous government was criticized for it, by myself sometimes on critical issues where quite clearly there was a need for more debate, but on other issues, we understood the efficiency and we went along. In this Parliament it has been different, but let us get back again to what happens when the party opposite pretends it wants to have a debate. In fact, again, on April 10, because one of our members wanted to speak and a Conservative stood up and said that they should have the chance to speak, we had to vote on that issue. There was a 40-minute debate on April 10 as to which MP should be allowed to speak, even though it was a Liberal turn. That was the priority for the Conservative Party, which one of its MPs got to interrupt a Liberal. The fundamental priority was not softwood lumber, not what would happen on international trade deals, not the situation in the Middle East with Daesh, not the issue of the opioid crisis and safe injection sites and how we protect the lives of Canadians who have that medical condition, not the provision of more affordable housing, not the establishment of the infrastructure bank to deliver the infrastructure this country needs for the next century. None of those things were priorities, but what had to be sorted out was which Conservative got to speak next. For that 40 minutes, the time of 338 parliamentarians was held up while we waited for everyone to come in and cast their ballots. People who travelled across the country to present their views to parliamentarians in committee were told to go home and not even talk to parliamentarians about it. That money was completely wasted, and what happened? The Liberal whose right it was to speak was allowed to continue to speak.Members may think that is protective. They may think it is good politics. They may think it is good opposition. I understand that from the opposition's perspective, anything they can do to stop things is good politics, but it is bad parliamentary procedure and it needs to be fixed and modernized.(1840)We have to get to that question and deal with those issues, but at the same time we have to get to that other list I just referenced. We have to deal with this budget. We have to deal with the delivery of infrastructure dollars to the cities. We have to deal with a move to legalize marijuana so that we can start to regulate this country's situation with good, strong legislation, and not simply talk about it in Parliament forever. It is time to move on some of these issues.The Canadian system we work within has delivered us a majority to allow us to do that as an elected body. We have to do it with Parliament and we have to do it with the opposition in as respectful a way as possible, but at the end of the day, our responsibility is not just to make Parliament work but to make the country move forward as we make decisions here in Parliament. That is a responsibility that we take just as seriously as the opposition's opportunity to obstruct us.On April 10, immediately following the 40-minute debate over who should talk next, even though the Conservatives wanted to talk, apparently, they brought a motion for adjournment. Therefore, we had a Liberal member standing up who wanted to talk, and the Conservatives said that they wanted to talk, and as soon as the Liberal member had the floor, someone stood up and said, “Let's adjourn the whole debate because we're really upset about closure and the fact that we don't have a chance to talk. If we can't talk, nobody should talk. Let's shut the whole thing down.” Again, that had nothing to do with the issue on the floor. It had nothing to do with the serious issues confronting us on an economic, international, or domestic level. It had nothing to do about the quality of life in any one of their constituencies. It was simply a move to stop the process of Parliament moving forward. I think that most Canadians watching this, and looking at it on a point-by-point factual basis, will understand that this is obstruction and complaint for the sake of complaint, and though it is opposition that may be loyal, at the end of the day it is not really accomplishing anything.Later that day, as soon as we got back from that debate and as soon as five committees were once again disrupted, what did we do? We had another 40-minute debate on adjournment. As if the decision of the House a half an hour earlier was not good enough, the Liberals had to go back and reprosecute the question of adjournment. That was two adjournment motions in one day debating whether or not Parliament should be allowed to close quickly when we had legislation to pass. Therefore, the party that claims it wants to work hard keeps trying to go home continuously, almost on a daily basis, while the party that is trying to govern is sitting here methodically, carefully, moving forward with its agenda. I understand that the opposition will criticize it. I understand they will vote against it. It is the opposition's prerogative to play politics the way they are playing politics, but in reality, what they are accomplishing is simply delay and more delay. That is fine. If that is what they want to be defined by, if that is their contribution to this Parliament, that is fine. It is motions of adjournment, and that is that.On April 11, we again get into a very important debate on the status of women. We have great work being done by this committee, an all-parliamentary committee, with some extraordinary work coming out from the NDP around pay equity, and pushing us to make sure that gender-based analysis actually changes the outcomes of women's lives in this country and moves us forward toward a more equitable society. We are engaged in that debate, the NDP is engaged in that debate, but there is one party that is absolutely upset that anything like that might happen, so what happens? A motion for adjournment of the debate is once again introduced by the Conservatives, not because they are trying to force a decision on the issues raised by the member of the NDP, not because they are actually trying to change the lives and the yardsticks on this issue, but because they want to go home again. They need to leave. They need to protest the lack of debate by having no debate. My mother used to say to me at times that lots of people are accused of cutting their noses off to spite their faces, but we rarely see someone without a nose. In this case, I am beginning to think that the nose may be coming off the bloom.This is another fascinating one. After we get through that 40-minute debate, a motion is moved to tell the human resources committee effectively how to do its work on a maternity benefits bill, a bill that will allow women in dangerous occupations to get support so that they can continue to earn income while they deliver their child and start their family, a bill that has unanimous consent in committee. What happens? They move to stop all of the debate, and move a motion to instruct the committee to do something the committee is already doing and that the members at the committee had already consented to do. In other words, it was a redundant motion, but it was felt that it had to happen. That was another 50 minutes of debating something the committee had already agreed to do. The person who moved this was a member of that committee, so they knew that the committee had already said yes. Then they came back here to say, “Could you make sure the committee says yes? We would like to debate telling the committee to say yes, even thought the committee has already agreed to say yes. This is our idea of efficiency and progress.” That is the party opposite.(1845)It is their prerogative to try to oppose us. They sit here and say that they did not get time to debate the budget bill or did not get time to debate the important legislation in this House and represent the views of their constituents. If they had not wasted 15 minutes at a time day by day, week by week, trying to help us help them decide which one of them should talk next, they could have actually debated the issues of the day that have been tabled as legislation in this House. Instead, they chose not to do that, and that, to me, is the fallacy of the whole argument they present to us. They want to talk about the issues—Some hon. members: Oh, oh!Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449209324920933492093449209354920936492093749209384920939492094049209414920942492094349209444920945492094649209474920948492094949209504920951492095249209534920954492095549209564920957492095849209594920960492096149209624920963492096449209654920966CarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingCarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/54434AdamVaughanAdam-VaughanSpadina—Fort YorkLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/VaughanAdam_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Adam Vaughan: (1845)[English]Madam Speaker, on April 13, we got yet another amendment to debate the question of privilege, which was about not whether someone actually was blocked, because we now find out that this might not have been the case, but whether walking or taking the bus is a choice that should be available to a member of Parliament and whether a privilege was apprehended, even though there was no motorcade involved in any of the situations. What we got then, again, was another three hours and 15 minutes of talking about absolutely nothing, with the complaints being that if we do not get to the more important issues of the day, we do not get to represent our constituents and all our work here will be for naught. The reality is that all the members are talking about is talking about what they are talking about, which in the end is just about adjourning the debate and moving on to absolutely nothing. They are not representing anyone's views but their own selfish approach in wanting to tell each other how to talk. Figure that out in your caucus room. Get your House leader to make a decision. You have a new leader now. I hope it ends. I hope the new leader can now decide which order you—Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492096949209704920971CarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingCarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/54434AdamVaughanAdam-VaughanSpadina—Fort YorkLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/VaughanAdam_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Adam Vaughan: (1845)[English] Madam Speaker, we take a break—Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920973CarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingRodgerCuznerCape Breton—Canso//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1804RodgerCuznerRodger-CuznerCape Breton—CansoLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/CuznerRodger_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Rodger Cuzner: (1845)[English]Resign.Some hon. members: Shame.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449209744920975AdamVaughanSpadina—Fort YorkAdamVaughanSpadina—Fort York//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/54434AdamVaughanAdam-VaughanSpadina—Fort YorkLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/VaughanAdam_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Adam Vaughan: (1845)[English]You wanted a different MP, you have one.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920976RodgerCuznerCape Breton—CansoCarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/54434AdamVaughanAdam-VaughanSpadina—Fort YorkLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/VaughanAdam_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Adam Vaughan: (1845)[English]Madam Speaker, between May 3 and May 10, there was a constituency week, or as the Conservatives call it, taking time off not to do any work, because apparently, on Fridays, if we are not in the House, not sitting in this seat right now, we are not working. A call to a constituency is not work. A call to a minister's office to get a problem fixed in our riding is not work. Meeting with stakeholders, that is not work. Unless we are sitting in our chair, we are not fulfilling the obligation of our salary. That is the position opposite, that if we take Friday off to travel to see our constituents, that is not work. If we meet constituents on a Friday, that is not work. Apparently, the members of the party opposite think that if we are not in Parliament, we are on holiday. That is their perception. I disagree with that fundamentally. I work seven days a week, as do most of my colleagues. It is one of the reasons we beat them so easily in the last election.The issue that then came up was on May 10. They came back and immediately there was a movement to concur in another report. This was the third time in the last three weeks they have done this. It had nothing to do with the actual fundamentals of the report that was being referred back to a committee and agreed to in Parliament. What it was, effectively, was another vote. What do we do? We spend another 40 minutes debating whether a committee should do work. We know that committees are doing work. The only reason they are not doing work is that every time the bells ring, they have to stop.Right after that, we had “that a member be now heard” for an additional 40 minutes. We had, right after that, the same member of Parliament moving adjournment, because I guess the member they wanted to have heard was not going to be heard, so they thought they would shut down all of the debate. Again, the debate was to not talk about things they do not want to talk about, so they adjourned the debate, because they did not want to talk about something. The most categorically ridiculous strategy I have ever seen to complain about not being able to talk is to start moving motions of adjournment so nobody can talk, but that is the passive-aggressive behaviour of the opposite party. We then had another five committees disrupted as a result of those bells ringing, and Canadians who travelled across this country—in my committee all the way from Iqaluit down to Ottawa to talk to us about poverty in the north—were sent back without ever being able to talk to the committee they were brought here for, because one of the Conservatives could not figure out if it was his turn next or her turn next. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. In the end, what we ended up with in this entire spot was 36 hours, six weeks of wasted time. We are moving forward with a motion tonight that will get us to the end of the legislative calendar on some critical legislation. I have no problem supporting closure, and we are—Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492097949209804920981492098249209834920984CarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingCarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/71902MichelleRempelHon.Michelle-RempelCalgary Nose HillConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/RempelMichelle_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Michelle Rempel (Calgary Nose Hill, CPC): (1850)[English]Madam Speaker, earlier this year, the Liberals put forward what was affectionately referred as a discussion paper, which was not a discussion paper. It was a manifesto. It was the second time they had done this. It was to fundamentally change the rules of Canadian democracy through things like ensuring that the Prime Minister was only going to come to question period once a week, shutting down Parliament on Fridays, and permanently curtailing debate on certain bills.The member opposite has put forward a great deal of frustration about his government's inability to move its legislative agenda forward. I am just going to be frank. Contrary to the member's belief, this place does not belong to him or the Liberal government. It belongs to the people of Canada. The people of Canada also voted for an opposition to oppose the government. For us to raise motions in the House of Commons in protest of these changes, as many Canadians want us to do, should not be an affront to his timetable. It is actually part of the function of Parliament.The member talked about concurrence in the report this morning. Will the member vote in favour of concurring in the report from the electoral reform committee?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492098649209874920988CarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingAdamVaughanSpadina—Fort York//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/54434AdamVaughanAdam-VaughanSpadina—Fort YorkLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/VaughanAdam_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Adam Vaughan: (1850)[English]Madam Speaker, it is the right of the opposition to oppose. No one is questioning that. No one is putting the opposition in a situation where that is not being facilitated.I am just going to quickly address the list of misinformation that was presented. When the proposition was put forward for the Prime Minister to attend question period for one day, it was for him to take all the questions in one of the question periods one day a week. It did not excuse him from attending the other sessions.On this deliberate misunderstanding of the proposition, I guess the opposition is entitled to mislead themselves. However, the reality is that what the Prime Minister said was that he would answer all the questions on one specific day so that backbenchers could ask the Prime Minister questions and not just party leaders.On the issue of Fridays off, I have been explicitly clear about this. It is not about taking time off. The Conservatives may not do any work when they are not in the House. I do not know. That may be the way they view the schedule. However, I can assure the House that the goal here was to compress the time we sit in the House to get work done, to compress the time we have with our constituents to get our work done, and to try to find a better balance around that. That may mean some hours are chopped from one day and added to another day.On the final issue of whether we could frame the work of committees to be more productive, yes, that is what we are trying to do. We would like to have that conversation.Finally, on the issue of concurrence around electoral reform, I have been just as crystal clear with my constituents. We have priorities in this House on housing, the opioid crisis, transit, and infrastructure investments that now have a shortened time as a result of all the ridiculous hijinks. We have other priorities, and we are getting to those. I will be supporting our government's position on this.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492098949209904920991492099249209934920994MichelleRempelHon.Calgary Nose HillSheilaMalcolmsonNanaimo—Ladysmith//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89486SheilaMalcolmsonSheila-MalcolmsonNanaimo—LadysmithNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/MalcolmsonSheila_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMs. Sheila Malcolmson (Nanaimo—Ladysmith, NDP): (1850)[English]Madam Speaker, the member opposite is accusing us on the opposition side of not working hard, which is rich, given that the average number of new bills a new government brings to the House in its first year is 45, yet the Liberal government brought in 14. That is 14 in its first year of work.Tonight we are debating the government's motion to extend hours to work until midnight, which we are all happy to do. However, the problem tonight is that the fact of the motion being on the floor has actually cancelled my ability to have a long-scheduled debate on the long-standing issue of abandoned vessels.This is an environmental crisis on the west coast and on the east coast. We have had local governments calling, for over 15 years, for federal leadership. The government keeps saying that it is going to take that leadership, but it has been about 14 months now that they have been saying that the legislation is coming in the coming weeks. I have quotes from almost every minister on the file saying that they are working on it. I have asked the government to consider supporting my bill, Bill C-352, instead.Does the member opposite not see the irony in the government's motion tonight, which is actually decreasing transparency?C-352, An Act to amend the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 and to provide for the development of a national strategy (abandonment of vessels)Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144920995492099649209974920998AdamVaughanSpadina—Fort YorkAdamVaughanSpadina—Fort York//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/54434AdamVaughanAdam-VaughanSpadina—Fort YorkLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/VaughanAdam_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Adam Vaughan: (1855)[English]Madam Speaker, I am not sure how a public motion decreases transparency.On the issue the member raised, I would be happy to debate the issue of derelict vessels. I think it is a critical issue. If my comments reflected back to the NDP, I assure the member that they were directed straight at the Conservatives. The NDP have been a little more productive and co-operative and focused than the loyal opposition.On this issue, if her house Leader would like to concur in the extension of the hours, I am sure we would not have to have this debate. The trouble is that there was one party that simply wanted to debate this and did not want to simply agree with us and move forward with a unanimous verbal vote.On the issue of the amount of legislation, one of the criticisms I have of the NDP is that when the government moves without consulting, it says the government went too fast, and when the government moves with consulting, the NDP says it is not going quickly enough. I appreciate that its job is to just provide criticism to us at times, but the reality is that “no” is the easiest word in politics. They can say “no” to something because it is too fast or too slow. The reality is that it is the quality of the legislation that matters.We are going to get the legislation on derelict vessels right, along with an ocean protection plan. We are engaged on those issues and will hopefully provide a suitable answer—Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449209994921000492100149210024921003SheilaMalcolmsonNanaimo—LadysmithCarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89226GarnettGenuisGarnett-GenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GenuisGarnett_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC): (1855)[English]Madam Speaker, I have a serious question for the member. He knows, I think, that the government tried to make unilateral changes to the Standing Orders through the procedure and House affairs committee. Of greatest concern to us was the fact that they wanted to make time allocation on legislation automatic. The government would, through so-called programming, automatically allocate time in advance. We said that would be fundamentally injurious to a democratic institution. Yes, we used every single tool available to us to fight against the designs of the government, including dilatory motions, and we were right to do so. There was a groundswell of public support from Canadians, which was in part driven by the tactics we used in the House. Yes, there were dilatory motions, and we were right to use them, because that brought this issue to the fore. We successfully forced the government to back down from its anti-democratic designs. We can be very proud, and the interim leader deserves a lot of credit for the incredible work she did and that all of us did on that issue. We saved the House from the direction the government wanted to go. Now the member wants to list those dilatory motions. I am very proud of what we did there. Will the member acknowledge that the government was wrong to try to unilaterally ram through these changes? He knows that as soon as they backed down and agreed with the opposition position, all of those tactics stopped. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492100549210064921007CarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingAdamVaughanSpadina—Fort York//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/54434AdamVaughanAdam-VaughanSpadina—Fort YorkLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/VaughanAdam_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Adam Vaughan: (1855)[English]Madam Speaker, we brought a discussion paper to a committee. We asked the committee to consider these ideas. We had no final decision or final goal enunciated, beyond the fact that these were the subject areas we wanted to talk about. If members and the public want to go back and read that letter, what they will see is sometimes contradictory ideas in the same letter, saying do this or do that and let us discuss which option might be better. The opportunity for the committee to put even a third option forward was there. Parliament can sometimes, in its collective wisdom, find a way forward. What we talked about was how to get more efficient and effective debate on issues. How do we make sure the votes happen in a scheduled way so we do not interrupt committee work? How do we frame the work so that it is both fair and effective but also productive and efficient? That is the conversation we want to have. If they do not want to have that conversation, and they play their games afterward to pretend it is really about that instead of just about shutting down our legislative agenda, that is their prerogative. I can explain it differently to my constituents. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449210084921009GarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanCarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1804RodgerCuznerRodger-CuznerCape Breton—CansoLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/CuznerRodger_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Rodger Cuzner (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, Lib.): (1855)[English]Madam Speaker, anyone watching the debate at home would see that the parliamentary secretary laid out a very logical and truthful analogy of how this place has been running to date. When I wake up in the morning, I think to myself, “What can I do today to help the Conservatives and the NDP?” I get seized with that question. I just want to share with the new members that this does not play well back home. We had an opportunity to bring Bill C-4 forward in the House, but the NDP stood up and split the vote on whether the member should be now heard. We know that the CLC conference was going on in Toronto, and the NDP members were seen as being part and party to delaying Bill C-4 coming to the House. It is very important to organized labour, and they were taken to the woodshed. I would like to ask the member—C-4, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code, the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Income Tax ActExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144921011492101249210134921014CarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingCarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/54434AdamVaughanAdam-VaughanSpadina—Fort YorkLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/VaughanAdam_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Adam Vaughan: (1900)[English]Madam Speaker, I am pretty sure I can see where he was going. Sometimes the NDP surprises us and moves with us, as on the opioid crisis, and gives us consent. It is welcome. When we see that, Parliament is working. Other times, it obstructs for the sake of obstruction. There is a saying in Toronto. It is Dippers, Tories, same old story. The opposition, based on ideology, is so automatic and predictable it is quite frankly funny to see how parallel their voting records are. They may be motivated by different goals, but the same--Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449210174921018CarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingCarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89136TomKmiecTom-KmiecCalgary ShepardConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/KmiecTom_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, CPC): (1900)[English]Madam Speaker, I have listened to some of the things that were said in the previous debate, but I did not get a chance to ask a question or make a comment, so I will just say this.Many of the points mentioned by the parliamentary secretary are just ducky. The opposition does not need to submit anything to get permission from the government to oppose anything, or how we oppose it, or when we oppose it. We will likely get an opportunity to oppose this right into late evening if the motion passes.I will also say that a breach of privilege is not a red herring. It is a matter that is taken up by the entire House. Every member who wants to rise should be allowed to rise. No member on this side of the House is ever stopped from speaking to a motion, such as Motion No. 14, and no member on this side is ever told what to say. A concurrence report debate allows the opposition to highlight important issues of the day in the amount of time that is allocated for that type of debate.The will of Parliament is tested at times by the opposition, by the government, by the third party, and even by individual members. We should never take it for granted that Parliament thinks one thing or another, including on Motion No. 14. Perhaps members of the government caucus will decide to dissent once more, saying they do not wish to sit late into the evenings. I have no problem working overtime. I have no problem working extra. I have no problem debating into the late evening, because I have done so already at the procedure and House affairs committee, participating in the debate. I know there were other members there with me. I remember spending the entire day, almost 10 straight hours of debate. We have a responsibility to oppose legislation. It is clear why we are opposed to parts of Motion No. 14. We are not opposed to the entire motion. We do agree with the principles of it. We just want to see minor amendments. I always worry whenever I hear the word modernization, because modernization in the context of what the government is proposing means ramming through any changes that it wishes at any time. I am worried about passing many parts of Motion No. 14. I am worried that we will not have an opportunity, if the government chooses to advance changes to the Standing Orders of the House, to oppose those changes in the future. One member mentioned programming. Other members mentioned other things that might happen. Modernization does not include changing this place into a slot machine, where we simply drop in a law, pull the lever, and out pops a law at the other end in a fixed amount of time. That is not the point of this place. The point of this place is to debate, and I am happy to debate late into the evening. I have no problem whatsoever doing that.I will be sharing my time with the member for Cariboo—Prince George, who I am sure will have more amazing comments to make than I could ever make. He is one of the bright, new, shining members of the House, a great new rookie who has joined this side.I really think that Motion No. 14 highlights the incompetence of the Government House Leader. Her complete inability to move legislation through shows a lack of planning and a lack of foresight. The government has barely passed any bills. These days are being extended to allow more time for members who wish to partake in a debate. I still feel that the government will likely squander this extra time.As I said, I am happy to do overtime. I have done lots of overtime in the private sector, both working in human resources at the chamber of commerce and also as an exempt staffer working for ministers where overtime and working weekends was simply a given.I am also happy to clean up the mess left by the government House leader in her legislative agenda, the one that the government has obviously failed to push forward. Now the government needs late sittings into June in order to clean up the mess that the House leader has gifted to the House. The House now has to respond and sit late into the evening.I urge the government to take this time to get its legislation right the first time around. I urge it not to rush legislation through the House in late sittings just to send it to the Senate, where it will be amended and come back here once more. I urge the government to do it right the first time, listen to committees, and listen to the opposition. Members of the Conservative Party and members of the New Democratic Party have proposed amendments that are worth consideration. The government should not send legislation to the Senate where it will be amended once more to point out errors that the government has made. Rushing legislation through now will only result in even more delays. The Senate might sit through the entire summer and bring back legislation in the fall. Where is the gain in that? Are we going to have late sittings into December as well? Will this become a normal practice of the House, simply squandering three months and then rushing things through in the final months before a session ends? That is what I am worried about.(1905)The opposition members on this side of the House have been fixing errors, rewording poorly written sections of legislation, and we are making a stand on principle as well as drawing attention to evidence that contradicts the government's position, as is our right, as is our responsibility both to Her Majesty the Queen and to the Constitution of Canada.For too long the government House leader has been trying to basically—now I will use a Yiddish proverb because I know many members know my great love for Yiddish proverbs: trying to outsmart everybody is the greatest folly. We saw previously at the procedure and House affairs committee attempts to outsmart everybody in this House by trying to push through changes to the Standing Orders. On a Friday is when the discussion paper was dropped. The motion notice to the committee was also on that Friday, and I am concerned that if we have these late sittings, will the government commit to not moving any changes to the Standing Orders in a late sitting? Can we agree then to have it in a regular session of the House in the fall? Can the Liberals schedule it six months ahead of time? Can they also agree to only pass it with unanimous consent of the House? That is what we asked at committee. I remember being there till 3 a.m. one time asking exactly the same thing: a simple request to the government caucus members and to members of the executive, the cabinet members. Taking the summer to get it right and drafting legislation that opposition parties can support, that all of us can support, that the Senate will not amend, and that committees will not amend is a really reasonable thing to do. Take the time. We are not rushing the Liberals in any way. We have not been rushing them so far. The parliamentary secretary who spoke before mentioned dilatory motions. They were the motions that slowed down the House. Adjourning debate in the House moves on to another piece of debate that the government controls. The government controls the entire agenda. It is up to the Liberals to decide what comes forward for debate. The opposition rarely gets an opportunity to do that. That is why one of the things we would like is an opportunity to see opposition days go into the late evening as well. If we are extending the hours for government business, with which the government House leader desperately needs help, obviously, why not do the same for opposition days? Why not have the opportunity to have another four, five, or six hours of debate on an opposition day, or what is called a supply day? I am sure that, if we had an extra five hours, we could have perhaps debated the Canadian autism partnership to the point where we could have convinced members of the government caucus, those who are not in cabinet but are working so hard to join the cabinet, to perhaps vote for the autism initiative brought forward by the member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin. I think that would have been more than reasonable. We could have had a debate late into the evening. Sometimes they are quite productive. I learned quite a lot of things being on a committee that sat into the late evening. I learned lots about the views of Liberal members of the backbench, both on the main motion and about the Standing Orders and how the House worked or did not work.The government has basically moved to cut off debate before it even got started. The Liberals cannot say or pretend that we are obstructing. Oftentimes I have heard them say—“them” being both members of the cabinet and the government caucus—that we are obstructing when we are simply debating. Members are simply rising in their seats to offer 10 minutes or 20 minutes of their thoughts, commentary, sometimes from constituents, sometimes their own based on experience, based on judgment, based on principle. I do not think it is obstruction to allow every member who wishes to rise an opportunity to speak. An effective opposition can indeed slow down government business, but as I said, this is not a slot machine. At the end of the day, we cannot just drop in a law, pull the lever, as I mentioned before, and out comes a law and the government wins. That is simply not the way it works.My concern is that the government will use the late sitting hours again, as I said, to ram through those changes to the Standing Orders. It does not help anyone. It will not help members of the opposition. It will not help members of the government backbench, the caucus members, so not members of the government. I know that is confused oftentimes. Our requests or demands on the opposition side are reasonable. Any changes to the Standing Orders must be unanimous. I really think that this motion is more about the government being half as productive as the previous Conservative government, and we know that the previous Conservative government was far more productive in the shorter amount of time it had. It is a failure of leadership on behalf of the government House leader, and this is why we have been brought to this point today where we are debating Motion No. 14 and late sittings. I, on this side, speak for myself. I have no problems working overtime in sittings late into the evening, but I do want to see an opportunity for opposition days to be considered the same as government business.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449210214921022492102349210244921025492102649210274921028492102949210304921031492103249210334921034492103549210364921037492103849210394921040492104149210424921043CarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1910)[English]First and foremost, Madam Speaker, I do not believe for a moment that Stephen Harper's first few years were anywhere near as productive as the first 18 months of this particular government.The member talked about dilatory motions and said that the government has control and it can actually say what is going to be coming next. It is important that the Conservatives in opposition have moved that the House do now be adjourned, as an example. That means that if the Conservatives get what they propose, the House comes to an end; there is no more continuation for that day. We sit the following day, so we do lose time. We never see the opposition moving that on an opposition day, but only on government days. The opposition members use dilatory motions to prevent government legislation from passing. Would the member not at least acknowledge the fact that when they move that the House adjourn for the day, the House business comes to an end?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449210444921045TomKmiecCalgary ShepardTomKmiecCalgary Shepard//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89136TomKmiecTom-KmiecCalgary ShepardConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/KmiecTom_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Tom Kmiec: (1910)[English]Madam Speaker, I have heard from that member quite often in this House, and he makes a contribution to his caucus, most definitely. What I will say is this. The opposition—Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, official opposition, and the New Democrats and the Bloc and the single member of the Green Party—does not need to get the permission of the government for us to oppose and for how we choose to oppose. At the time that the Liberals were trying to rush changes to the Standing Orders of the House through the committee, and in the manner and the way they did it and their complete, sheer, reckless unwillingness to compromise, they deserved the response they got from the opposition. We will defend this Parliament. We will defend the rights of every single member to oppose in the way that he or she chooses to.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144921046KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthErinWeirRegina—Lewvan//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/31796ErinWeirErin-WeirRegina—LewvanCo-operative Commonwealth Federation CaucusSaskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/WeirErin_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Erin Weir (Regina—Lewvan, NDP): (1910)[English]Madam Speaker, I am glad that the member for Calgary Shepard mentioned the Senate in his speech, because I believe that one of the main motivations for sitting until midnight is to give the government enough time to clean up the mess that its new model Senate has created. By appointing supposedly independent senators, the government has emboldened the other place not only to review legislation passed by the House for things that might have been missed but to actually disagree with policy decisions made by elected MPs in this chamber.I would be very curious to hear from the member for Calgary Shepard what he thinks about the Liberal government's approach to Senate reform and its spending of $1 million per year on a committee to appoint supposedly independent senators.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449210474921048TomKmiecCalgary ShepardTomKmiecCalgary Shepard//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89136TomKmiecTom-KmiecCalgary ShepardConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/KmiecTom_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Tom Kmiec: (1910)[English]Madam Speaker, it will probably come as no surprise to that member that I support an elected Senate. I always have and I always will. I will also say there are many elected senators, great Conservative senators who were elected from the province of Alberta, and I hope that would be adopted throughout all of Canada. In terms of this model Senate—that is great terminology from the member, a model Senate—at this point the changes they are trying to ram through to how the official opposition can do its work there is reckless to the extreme. It will not do justice to Parliament, and it will not do justice to Canadians when the business of the House has ground to a halt because the Senate is busy fixing the errors of the Government of Canada.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144921049ErinWeirRegina—LewvanColinCarrieOshawa//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25486ColinCarrieColin-CarrieOshawaConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/CarrieColin_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Colin Carrie (Oshawa, CPC): (1910)[English]Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's speech because it highlights what we are hearing on the ground. I know in Oshawa, we are hearing about the laziness of the current government, the incompetence, how basically nothing is getting done, and when the Liberals do want to get something done they are just pushing it through. They do not want debate. The Prime Minister does not want to show up. The Liberals do not want to show up.The Prime Minister actually said he admires the basic dictatorship of China. Would the member please kind of put that into perspective and let us understand what that means today with the government trying to force these things through?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449210504921051TomKmiecCalgary ShepardCarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89136TomKmiecTom-KmiecCalgary ShepardConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/KmiecTom_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Tom Kmiec: (1915)[English]Madam Speaker, thank you for the 40 seconds that you have given me to answer. I could use 40 minutes, probably, to answer this one. In brief, we saw it with Motion No. 6. We saw it with the behaviour of the Prime Minister in the House in the previous breach of privilege. I think it was called the molestation of the member, to use the really complicated parliamentary term for it. We saw the behaviour in the House, how they treat the House, and how they treat parliamentarians. It is the treatment that members of the cabinet give to the House and members of the government caucus give to the House. It comes also with a lot of them being new to this place, and it is a process of learning. Over time, I would hope that the Liberals would pick up the respect that this Parliament deserves.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144921053CarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingToddDohertyCariboo—Prince George//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89249ToddDohertyTodd-DohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/DohertyTodd_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Todd Doherty (Cariboo—Prince George, CPC): (1915)[English]Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague pre-empted my speech by talking about how riveting he thinks this one is going to be. I will offer this: I am not as articulate as my hon. colleague and I will keep this simple. Canadians from coast to coast to coast are watching this, and sometimes in Ottawa we get carried away with language that perhaps Canadians may not understand. Let us keep it plain and simple. Yesterday I congratulated the member for Spadina—Fort York for his maiden speech and I will now congratulate him on his second speech in this session. It was interesting. He waxed on about all of the dates, the dilatory motions, and how the opposition is wasting time. I want to remind him of something, through you, Madam Speaker. If I step out of line, I am sure you will keep me in order, because it has been a while since I have stood in the House, unlike my hon. colleague the hon. parliamentary secretary, who seems to be the only who stands and actually speaks. There are 184 members of Parliament across the way, and he seems to be the only one, time and time again, although the member for Spadina—Fort York stood today, for the second time this session. That is great, and I applaud him for that. He talked about all of the dilatory motions and the opposition dragging its feet. That brings me back to my days in school and Newton's third law: that for every action, there is a reaction. That was exactly what the government saw on March 10 when the government House leader tabled this discussion paper about new ways to modernize Parliament. She felt that this discussion paper was going to revolutionize Parliament and released it to the media. It was not a discussion paper with parliamentarians. She thought that by releasing it to the media, she would get a favourable response. In fact, she saw quite the opposite. The media's response was quite negative. A couple of comments were that Liberals will always do what Liberals do and that they showed one thing, which was that they cannot be trusted.When they stand in the House, they have it almost to an art. Perhaps that is because the Prime Minister is a former grammar teacher. Maybe he has coached them about talking with sincerity. When they stand in the House, they say this is for the best interests of Canadians. They say they want to debate the things that matter most. They say the opposition is dragging its feet and really making things hard. That is our job. Our job is to stand up for Canadians and those who put us in the House. I remind people that this House does not belong to the Prime Minister or to the government; it belongs to all Canadians, the electors, those who put us in the House. I will get to that a bit later.On March 10, the discussion paper was tabled, if we can call it a discussion paper, and I want to talk about that quickly. I have been a member of Parliament for about 19 months now, and far be it from me to be bold enough to put forward a discussion paper about how I suggest we modernize Parliament. I believe the House leader is a newly elected member of Parliament as well, a rookie MP, as am I. She said it was her discussion paper. This is what she has seen throughout the course of her being a member of Parliament and sitting through the debate. She feels there are things we could do better. There are always things we could do better, but I can say that I would never be so bold as to put forward a document such as that, a document that would fundamentally change the way democracy and this House operate, without all-party or unanimous support. (1920)I believe her comments were that they were elected on a campaign promise of making Parliament more effective, and she would not bow down to the Conservatives or give the Conservatives a veto. Essentially, what she is saying is that those who elected the Conservatives and those who elected the opposition do not really have a say and really do not matter, but those are the electors that the House belongs to.The dilatory motions that took place from March 10 to just a short while ago at all committees, and some of the actions that took place in the House, occurred because we were standing up for Canadians. We were defending democracy. We were making sure that opposition voices and the voices of those who elected us were not muzzled. All we are asking for is an amendment to Motion No. 14. We agree. We agree to work longer hours. Bring it. I said it earlier this week. I am okay working until midnight. I work until midnight anyway. I will be in my office anyway. That is what Canadians expect us to do. One of the things we are asking for with this amendment, and the opposition was unanimous in this request, is opposition supply days. There are very few times we get an opportunity to debate matters that are not on the government's agenda. I brought this up earlier. Whether it is softwood lumber or pipeline approval or the plight of the Yazidi women, these are examples of opposition supply day motions that we have debated or would be able to debate. All we are asking for with Motion No. 14 is that the government, in a most sincere way, see its way to allowing opposition supply days to be extended as well. We are not saying we do not want to work longer; what we are asking for is the same opportunity, the same value weighting, on the government's legislative agenda so that the opposition supply days are weighted the same and we have the opportunity to bring forth the voices of our electors. It is not just the voices of the opposition during supply day motions. We see backbench MPs from the government speak and voice their views and their opinions and their constituents' opinions on things that matter most for everyday Canadians. The Liberals like to say that we are again dragging our feet and delaying progress on their legislative duty. They say that the government is trying everything to work hard for Canadians, that it is just the opposition that is dragging its heels and causing all the grief. Well, I offer this: for 19 months now, the government has done nothing. We have seen one side do nothing but point fingers and blame others and never take credit for the mismanagement of its legislative process or its budget or the softwood lumber file. It has blamed others. It is not going to accept any blame. It is disappointing. I came here as a new member of Parliament who was willing to work collaboratively and try to build relationships. Indeed, we have done that on certain issues, but I am also a small business owner and I believe there is a time when one has to take charge and lead. How does one lead and build trust? It is by being honest, taking responsibility, and admitting it when one is wrong. I have not even brought up May 17 of last year, when Motion No. 6 was brought forth, because I wanted to keep it relevant here, but if the government wants to know why trust has been broken and why we have been doing the dilatory motions and the opposition has been standing forth, it is because the government has broken trust and faith with Canadians and those who elected all of us in opposition in the House. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492105449210554921056492105749210584921059492106049210614921062492106349210644921065492106649210674921068492106949210704921071TomKmiecCalgary ShepardAdamVaughanSpadina—Fort York//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/54434AdamVaughanAdam-VaughanSpadina—Fort YorkLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/VaughanAdam_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Adam Vaughan (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development (Housing and Urban Affairs), Lib.): (1925)[English]Madam Speaker, I have now heard a member of the Conservative Party stand to say that they agree with extra sitting hours and earlier I heard a member of the New Democratic Party stand to say the same thing. They agree with the additional hours we are adding to the June calendar and the additional days that we have proposed.I guess I am kind of curious. If both sides agree, why, when it came forward for a vote, did we not just say yes and get on with the business of the House? Instead what we get is a debate in which everyone agrees with the outcome, but the opposition would rather debate who is working and when and why we are working than actually resolve the issue.On the issue that the member raised about the number of supply days for the opposition, at the start of the session we asked how many they wanted, they said how many they wanted, and we gave them to them. Now they want more. I am not sure why. Maybe what we should do is give them one, move an adjournment motion, and pay them back.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492107249210734921074ToddDohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeToddDohertyCariboo—Prince George//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89249ToddDohertyTodd-DohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/DohertyTodd_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Todd Doherty: (1925)[English]Madam Speaker, we are not asking for more supply days. If we are extending the days for government business, then why can we not extend the hours for the opposition supply days? We are willing to do that. We are willing to work hard to try to do whatever it is that the government is trying to do and pass that legislative agenda that it is trying to put forth. We all agree that we should be working hard and doing what we have to do. We should be working around the clock if that is what we need to do. I am willing to do it and I am here, so let us do it.We disagreed because again the government said it would like to work with the opposition parties and consider the amendments, but it is not considering simple common sense amendments to just allow the opposition supply days to be longer in extended sittings, the same as government business.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492107549210764921077AdamVaughanSpadina—Fort YorkSheilaMalcolmsonNanaimo—Ladysmith//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89486SheilaMalcolmsonSheila-MalcolmsonNanaimo—LadysmithNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/MalcolmsonSheila_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMs. Sheila Malcolmson (Nanaimo—Ladysmith, NDP): (1925)[English]Madam Speaker, I certainly agree with my colleague's characterization of the reason we are having this debate at all. The need to extend hours is a result of the Liberal House leader not managing the file well and not working co-operatively with the opposition to bring matters of public interest forward.However, this is just a funny time, because this very same tactic was used by the Harper Conservative government as well. I understand, although I was not in that Parliament, that often the Conservative government did not even show up for the debate at night. It was just an extension of time and it was frustrating for all of us to watch.The NDP moved amendments at that time, trying to protect the opposition's powers in those extended hours, but the Conservatives opposed that motion.How does the member feel about the irony of this debate?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144921078492107949210804921081ToddDohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeToddDohertyCariboo—Prince George//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89249ToddDohertyTodd-DohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/DohertyTodd_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Todd Doherty: (1925)[English]Madam Speaker, I wish I had been here in the last Parliament. I wish I had had the privilege of being able to see what the amendments were. She is asking me to comment on something I have not seen. I was not part of that Parliament.However, I would like to again talk about the government pointing fingers at the opposition for dragging its feet and moving dilatory motions. I would offer to my colleague from the NDP that at this point we seem to be some of the last voices standing up for Canadians. Pointing fingers and bringing up things that happened in the past is what we have heard the government doing. The Liberals are blaming the Conservatives for what was done when we were in power, so they think it is okay for them to do it. I think that is the wrong thing to do.We should be looking forward. The Liberals are in power now. For true leadership, it is their responsibility to do whatever they can to give voices to Canadians and to make sure they are protecting the voices of Canadians.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492108249210834921084SheilaMalcolmsonNanaimo—LadysmithPatFinniganMiramichi—Grand Lake//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88360PatFinniganPat-FinniganMiramichi—Grand LakeLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/FinniganPat_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Pat Finnigan (Miramichi—Grand Lake, Lib.): (1930)[English]Madam Speaker, when considering whether to allocate additional time in the House for debate, it is important to consider the significance of the legislation being debated. Bill C-45 is important legislation that proposes to legalize, strictly regulate, and restrict access to cannabis. Despite decades of criminal prohibition, Canadians continue to use cannabis. In fact, Canadians have some of the highest rates in the world.Currently, cannabis is grown and sold illegally, generating profits for criminals and organized crime with no concern for public health or safety. The current approach to cannabis is not working. Scientific evidence shows greater risks associated with cannabis use for youth than for adults. Moreover, risks are greater the younger a person starts using cannabis and the more often they use it.The objective of the legislation is intended to delay the first use of cannabis and reduce the frequency of use. A sustained education and information campaign is also part of the approach. The bill would also impose serious criminal penalties for providing cannabis to young people or enlisting them in committing cannabis-related offences.The bill is also about creating a legal and regulated market for cannabis, taking profits out of the hands of criminals and protecting public health through strict product requirements for safety and quality. The key components of our government's approach are first, protect youth; second, education and public awareness; third, product safety and quality controls; and fourth, goals and responsibility and implementation.Let us begin with protecting youth. We know that too many youth have easy access to cannabis. In fact, during the task force on cannabis legalization and regulation consultations nation-wide, a trend became clear: how easy it was for young people to obtain cannabis.[Translation]Young people are at the heart of the government's strategy to regulate cannabis and restrict access to it for three reasons.First, there are risks associated with the use of cannabis. Even though some people use it for medical purposes, it can still be harmful to a person's health.Second, young people are particularly vulnerable to the effects of cannabis on the development of the brain and brain function because their brains are still developing.C-45, An Act respecting cannabis and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code and other ActsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144921085492108649210874921088492108949210904921091492109249210934921094ToddDohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/71368MatthewDubéMatthew-DubéBeloeil—ChamblyNew Democratic Party CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/DubéMatthew_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Matthew Dubé: (1930)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's enthusiasm on this subject. However, if I am not mistaken, he is talking about Bill C-45, which is on the agenda for later this evening. Right now, we are talking about Motion No. 14.C-45, An Act respecting cannabis and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code and other ActsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14Points of orderRelevancy4921096AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88360PatFinniganPat-FinniganMiramichi—Grand LakeLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/FinniganPat_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Pat Finnigan: (1935)[English]Mr. Speaker, this is exactly why we want to extend the hours, so we can pass the bills that are urgently needed to push our agenda forward.[Translation]At the same time, adults must have access to clear and objective information in order to make informed decisions about their consumption.[English]Therefore, the legislation would permit only information-type promotion. This means it would allow factual, accurate information about cannabis products, such as the ingredients and THC levels. Information allowing consumers to differentiate brands would also be permitted, provided it could not be seen by youth. Penalties for violating these prohibitions would include a fine of up to $5 million, or three years in jail, or both. When it comes to enforcement, the bill seeks to avoid criminalizing youth and subjecting them to the lifelong consequence of criminal records. To this end, I should note three points. First, individuals under the age of 18 would not face criminal prosecution for possessing or sharing very small amounts of cannabis, up to five grams. Second, violation of the proposed legislation by youth would be subject to the Youth Criminal Justice Act and addressed in the youth justice system. Third, provinces and territories would have the flexibility to prohibit the possession of any amount of cannabis by youth, thereby permitting police to seize any cannabis youth have in their possession.[Translation] I will move on to education and public awareness. We know that Canadians need information about cannabis. We have to talk about it with our children, make informed and responsible decisions, and ensure that our roads are safe. That was the very clear message that our government heard thanks to the working group's consultations. We have a plan to address the situation.[English]In budget 2017, our government committed $9.6 million to a public education and awareness campaign to inform Canadians, particularly young people, of the risks of cannabis use and for health surveillance activities. This campaign has begun and will continue over the next five years. In collaboration with the provinces and territories, the campaign will raise public awareness about the risks associated with cannabis use and monitor the impacts of providing strictly controlled access. To do this, we have launched the Canadian cannabis survey. This annual survey includes detailed questions on how often and how much Canadians use cannabis, how they acquire it, and whether they consume it with other substances before driving.[Translation] I will now talk about product safety and quality requirements. [English]Adults would also be able to legally access cannabis through one of three mechanisms. They could purchase it from a provincially licensed retailer, they could share legally grown or purchased cannabis with another adult, or they could grow it themselves at home. The sharing of cannabis would be limited to no more than 30 grams of dried cannabis, or its equivalent, and personal cultivation—Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144921102492110349211044921105492110649211074921108492111049211114921112492111349211144921115AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingGlenMotzMedicine Hat—Cardston—Warner//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88360PatFinniganPat-FinniganMiramichi—Grand LakeLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/FinniganPat_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Pat Finnigan: (1940)[English]Mr. Speaker, I can certainly expand my speech. We can talk about the budget implementation bill. We can talk about the tax break that has been announced, and all the infrastructure projects we have. This is along with all the economic opportunities this will create.I am certainly happy to expand on those fronts. This legislation is not only about the right thing to do, but it is about the business of it and our budget, which will help to deliver the promises we have made to all Canadians.Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Historic investments.Mr. Pat Finnigan: Absolutely, Mr. Speaker.[Translation]We will be using the authorized production system in place as the plan of action to control cannabis production under the proposed cannabis legislation.[English]Over the coming weeks, Health Canada will introduce changes to its program overseeing the medical cannabis industry to accelerate the licensing of—Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492112049211214921122492112349211244921125AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingJamieSchmaleHaliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88360PatFinniganPat-FinniganMiramichi—Grand LakeLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/FinniganPat_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Pat Finnigan: (1940)[English]Mr. Speaker, again, this is more than just about the cannabis speech. It is about our budget. It is about passing legislation that needs to be passed to move along our agenda. This is part of it.Over the coming weeks, Health Canada will introduce changes to its program overseeing the medical cannabis industry to accelerate the licensing of producers and enable the industry to meet an increased demand for cannabis. This is a great economic generator. We have two examples in my home province. A lot of businesses are excited about this. It is about taking money out of the hands of criminals and putting it into the government's coffers. It will help with the budget.The existing rules surrounding product safety, good production practices, and restrictions on which pesticides may be used will remain in place. Health Canada will continue to inspect producers and enforce the regime. I can talk about that because I am a producer myself, not of cannabis but of other crops. Being a certified grower, we want to ensure that no pesticides or foreign substances enter the product. The example of organic production is certainly applicable with this bill.[Translation]As I already mentioned, the proposed cannabis law would establish a rigorous national framework to limit the production, distribution, sale, and possession of cannabis in Canada.[English]All levels of government in Canada would be able to—Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449211294921130492113149211324921133AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingMatthewDubéBeloeil—Chambly//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88360PatFinniganPat-FinniganMiramichi—Grand LakeLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/FinniganPat_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Pat Finnigan: (1945)[English]Mr. Speaker, I will certainly conclude at this time, but this is an example of what we need to discuss. This is an important topic for all Canadians. We will get back to it of course, but I am anxious to have the members opposite give their views. This is why we need to extend the hours: to pass the important legislation that Canadians want us to pass. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144921136AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingJohnNaterPerth—Wellington//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88917JohnNaterJohn-NaterPerth—WellingtonConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/NaterJohn_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. John Nater (Perth—Wellington, CPC): (1945)[English]Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member's speech. It seemed to be on Bill C-45, the marijuana bill. He talked a little about the budget implementation bill, but I thought we were debating the extension of sitting hours. Perhaps I will ask a question on that since that seems to be what we are debating.My question is fairly simple. Why is it that the Liberal Party is so intent on all of a sudden ramming legislation through the House after having such a lax legislative agenda thus far, sending it off to the other place where they amend it and send it back our way? Why do we not just take the due diligence here and actually accept opposition amendments, rather than sending it to the other place and having them amend it and send it back here?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449211374921138PatFinniganMiramichi—Grand LakePatFinniganMiramichi—Grand Lake//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88360PatFinniganPat-FinniganMiramichi—Grand LakeLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/FinniganPat_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Pat Finnigan: (1945)[English]Mr. Speaker, we do have an aggressive agenda. We want to pass this legislation. My colleague just expressed why we are having to extend the hours. It is because of all the delays we have experienced over the past couple of months.Canadians want us to get to work. We want to work until we have this legislation passed. I hope the other side will also sit with us and pass this important legislation. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449211394921140JohnNaterPerth—WellingtonSheilaMalcolmsonNanaimo—Ladysmith//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89486SheilaMalcolmsonSheila-MalcolmsonNanaimo—LadysmithNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/MalcolmsonSheila_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMs. Sheila Malcolmson (Nanaimo—Ladysmith, NDP): (1945)[English]Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member on Motion No. 14, which is the motion to extend sitting hours until midnight until the end of June. I note the government House leader's mandate letter from the Prime Minister last fall reads, “Work with Opposition House Leaders to examine ways to make the House of Commons more family-friendly for Members of Parliament.”Also, on the New Democrat side, we are concerned that this workplace on the Hill be family friendly for staffers as well. Therefore, my question is this: how does the member feel that extending sitting hours for four weeks to midnight is family friendly for either members of Parliament or staffers with young families?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449211414921142PatFinniganMiramichi—Grand LakePatFinniganMiramichi—Grand Lake//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88360PatFinniganPat-FinniganMiramichi—Grand LakeLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/FinniganPat_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Pat Finnigan: (1945)[English]Mr. Speaker, I would remind the hon. member that not so long ago, last year, we had the exact same thing in Parliament. We had extended hours. This is not new. I agree that it is not family friendly, but that is also part of what we want to do. We want to make this place more productive and family friendly. That is why we are here today having to extend the hours to pass legislation that Canadians are counting on us to pass. It is something to get our country moving again. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144921143SheilaMalcolmsonNanaimo—LadysmithKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1945)[English]Mr. Speaker, I really believe that the member has hit the nail on the head. He is right on. We need to have extended hours. We within the Liberal caucus are not scared to put in some overtime. I look forward to how my colleagues across the way will ultimately vote. If they were listening on that side of the House perhaps they will vote in favour of what the government House leader has put forward.My colleague made reference to and put a lot of emphasis on the cannabis legislation. He also referenced the budget legislation. There are a number of pieces of legislation. We have a fairly aggressive legislative agenda, which includes both legislation dealing with budgetary and non-budgetary issues. I wonder if my colleague would not agree, and possibly provide some further comment, that Canadians have an expectation that when we come to Ottawa we will be productive and look at ways we can improve our communities as a whole. One of the best things we can do is to work a little extra. Stephen Harper did the same thing. In the last 10 years we have seen it happen seven times. There is nothing new here. Why would the opposition not vote in favour of this extension? Let us work a little harder and be a little more productive. Would the member not agree? Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492114449211454921146PatFinniganMiramichi—Grand LakePatFinniganMiramichi—Grand Lake//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88360PatFinniganPat-FinniganMiramichi—Grand LakeLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/FinniganPat_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Pat Finnigan: (1950)[English]Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. I certainly want to finish this session by going back to my riding and telling Canadians that we have moved this agenda, that we have passed legislation, and that we have passed good measures for Canadians.What better way to celebrate Canada Day than to go back and say that we have been productive, even with all the difficulties we have had? I respect the opposition's right to question, but we have to make it serious. We have to make sure that what we are working on is for the benefit of the whole country. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449211474921148KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthJohnNaterPerth—Wellington//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88917JohnNaterJohn-NaterPerth—WellingtonConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/NaterJohn_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. John Nater: (1950)[English]Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member opposite might agree that the reason we have seen such a paralysis in the legislative process is due to the conduct of the government House leader and the House leadership team. I want to share a quick quote from that notorious Conservative right-wing newspaper, the Toronto Star. Robin Sears writes: The Liberals have installed one incompetent house leader after another, inflicting serious wounds on their own credibility. Perhaps a seasoned veteran will remind the newbies that exceptionally deft and silk smooth house management was always part of the Liberal DNA. From Alan MacEachern, through Herb Gray, to [the member for Regina—Wascana], and Don Boudria, Liberal house leaders were the gold standard. Those veterans must wince at the mess [the government House leader] has made for this government of parliamentary reform, let alone any cross-bench goodwill. Would the member agree that the incompetence and the mismanagement by his own party's House leadership team has put us in the state we are now, where we are seeing a trickle of government legislation actually being passed through this place and sent to the other place and then having it sent back here again?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449211494921150492115149211524921153PatFinniganMiramichi—Grand LakePatFinniganMiramichi—Grand Lake//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88360PatFinniganPat-FinniganMiramichi—Grand LakeLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/FinniganPat_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Pat Finnigan: (1950)[English]Mr. Speaker, I have nothing but respect for our House leader. She has worked tremendously hard to work with the other side. We have seen all kinds of delay tactics. We have seen guests from all over the country being denied the right to speak at committee. Even with that, we are sitting here today with the potential to pass very productive legislation, including the bill that I partially described and I am hoping will come back again. I have nothing but respect and I think we have a very good House leader. I, for one, am ready to work until this session is ended in order to have a productive record to bring back to my riding. I hope everyone on the other side feels the same.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449211544921155JohnNaterPerth—WellingtonErinWeirRegina—Lewvan//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/31796ErinWeirErin-WeirRegina—LewvanCo-operative Commonwealth Federation CaucusSaskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/WeirErin_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Erin Weir (Regina—Lewvan, NDP): (1950)[English]Mr. Speaker, one of the key questions in this debate is whether extending sitting hours until midnight is the best way to facilitate a focused and attentive discussion on legislation before the House. I wonder if my colleague across the way is concerned that it might instead result in members becoming fatigued and reading the wrong speech by mistake.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144921156PatFinniganMiramichi—Grand LakePatFinniganMiramichi—Grand Lake//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88360PatFinniganPat-FinniganMiramichi—Grand LakeLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/FinniganPat_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Pat Finnigan: (1950)[English]Mr. Speaker, if the member wishes, I can finish the speech right now. It is the speech that I intended to read. I do agree that working until midnight is going to be very tough and very tiring, but I am ready to do it. We are in this situation because of the delay tactics that happened over the session. I will drink 10 cups of coffee if I have to, but I am ready to work and tell my constituents that I have worked hard and we have moved this agenda forward.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144921157ErinWeirRegina—LewvanElizabethMaySaanich—Gulf Islands//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/2897ElizabethMayElizabeth-MaySaanich—Gulf IslandsGreen Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/MayElizabeth_GP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMs. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP): (1950)[English]Mr. Speaker, I recently had the great privilege to work with members on all sides of the House on a book called Turning Parliament Inside Out, about how we could improve decorum in this place. One of the problems that we now see ourselves facing, and it is very much in front of us, is the prospect of sitting until midnight through every day of June. It is one thing to work hard, but I have been through this before. Every June of the 41st Parliament we sat until midnight every night, and unlike other members who had parties where they could trade on and off, I sat until midnight every night. I can swear to members it was not all that productive. I am not allowed to speak of the absence of members, but let us say there was lots of room in here.The difficulty we face is that it is absolutely right, as the member for Miramichi—Grand Lake says, that the House leaders on the opposition side decided to run a campaign of dilatory motions, that this House now adjourn, that this member now be heard, that we lost lots of time, and it is as if the punishment for that is sitting until midnight until we get through an agenda. I do not know the solution, but I can say that I can identify the problem. The problem is allowing backroom political strategists to decide what we do in this place for the benefit of the next election instead of, as members of Parliament, standing in our places on our own two feet and deciding what we should do for our constituents to make them proud. It is a sad moment when one side of the House decides to monkeywrench and the other side of the House decides to punish. It is not what our constituents want to see. It is not productive. It is not the best solution, but I do understand how the government House leader feels forced into this by the loss of time through the tactics of the last few weeks. I do not support any side in this. I just think it is a bloody shame that we cannot work together more effectively and more collaboratively.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144921158492115949211604921161PatFinniganMiramichi—Grand LakePatFinniganMiramichi—Grand Lake//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88360PatFinniganPat-FinniganMiramichi—Grand LakeLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/FinniganPat_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Pat Finnigan: (1955)[English]Mr. Speaker, I want to say that I have lots of respect for my colleague, the leader of the Green Party, because at times I cannot even hear, and I know my hearing is going down. I have a lot of respect for her stand on how to make the House work better and more efficiently. If we had done that, we probably would not have to sit until midnight. However, I am ready to work. I am hoping that everyone else is.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449211624921163ElizabethMaySaanich—Gulf IslandsKateYoungLondon West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88832KateYoungKate-YoungLondon WestLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/YoungKate_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMs. Kate Young (Parliamentary Secretary for Science, Lib.): (1955)[English]Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on the motion to extend the sitting hours in the House. Our government believes that good, corporate governance is one of the mechanisms that help support economic efficiency and growth. We recognize that our country is at its most prosperous when everyone has a fair chance at success. That is why, in September 2016, we introduced Bill C-25, enhancing business frameworks and promoting inclusive economic growth. Bill C-25 makes important adjustments to the framework laws that govern the Canadian marketplace. It would increase shareholder democracy and participation, increase women's representation, as well as diversity, on corporate boards and in senior management, improve corporate transparency, reduce regulatory burden, and increase business certainty.Both official opposition parties have expressed support for this legislation, as have many stakeholder groups. However, the bill has been stuck at report stage since early April. I would like to take this opportunity to share with the House some of the key elements of this important piece of legislation. Specifically, I would like to focus on competitiveness in our economy.Bill C-25 makes a number of targeted amendments to our economic framework laws in an effort to bring them up to date for our modern economy. Keeping our laws relevant is beneficial in a number of ways. It allows us to embrace best practices, remove ambiguity and minimize regulatory burden, just to name a few. Competitiveness is a word that we hear a lot when discussing the economy, but it is also one of those words whose meaning may change a fair amount, depending on the context. When Red Wilson's competition policy review panel undertook an examination of Canada's competition and investment policies in 2007 and 2008, it set out to provide recommendations to the government on how to enhance Canadian product—C-25, An Act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act, the Canada Cooperatives Act, the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act, and the Competition ActExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14492116449211654921166492116749211684921169PatFinniganMiramichi—Grand LakeAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88832KateYoungKate-YoungLondon WestLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/YoungKate_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMs. Kate Young: (2000)[English]Mr. Speaker, yes, this is the topic at hand. I mentioned that Bill C-25 has been stuck at report stage since early April. That is the point. We want to continue to make sure that we get through our agenda. The fact of the matter is that we have not been able to do so because of the opposition's tactics, so in fact we are here. It is eight o'clock, and I am quite proud to be here and will continue to be here until midnight tonight, and again midnight tomorrow night if necessary, because I agree that it is important to continue to talk about the government's agenda and what we have to accomplish.Of course, the budget is so important. There is so much that we have to get through so that we can, in fact, do what Canadians voted us in to do. It is so important that we continue the amount of work that we have. We have talked about the budget. We have talked about tax fairness and historic investments in infrastructure that we must move forward. If we do not, we will not be able to complete our agenda. That is what Canadians expect of us and that is what we will continue to do.In fact, I will continue to read this. I know it is a speech that has been prepared, but it has important information that I think we all need to hear. I will pick up from where I left off, talking about Red Wilson's competition policy review panel.I could possibly continue on, if you would like me to, Mr. Speaker.C-25, An Act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act, the Canada Cooperatives Act, the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act, and the Competition ActExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449211774921178492117949211804921181AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingDavidAndersonCypress Hills—Grasslands//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88832KateYoungKate-YoungLondon WestLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/YoungKate_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMs. Kate Young: (2000)[English]Mr. Speaker, it does make for a long evening—I understand that—but we are all here for the right reasons. Certainly, this whole notion of extended hours is something that we are forced to deal with. It is important that all of us have a chance to talk about it and have a say in whether extended hours are necessary. I certainly believe they are.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144921185AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35724BruceStantonBruce-StantonSimcoe NorthConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/StantonBruce_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersInterventionThe Deputy Speaker: (2045)[English]Amendment negativedI declare the amendment defeated.The next question is on the main motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion]? Some hon. members: Agreed. Some hon. members: No. The Deputy Speaker: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea. Some hon. members: Yea. The Deputy Speaker: All those opposed will please say nay. Some hon. members: Nay. The Deputy Speaker: In my opinion the yeas have it. And five or more members having risen:Amendments and subamendmentsDecisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144921198AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35724BruceStantonBruce-StantonSimcoe NorthConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/StantonBruce_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersInterventionThe Deputy Speaker: (2055)[Translation]Motion agreed toI declare the motion carried.Decisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144921209BruceStantonSimcoe NorthMarcoMendicinoEglinton—Lawrence//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Bardish Chagger (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism, Lib.)(1205)[English] moved:MotionThat, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, commencing upon the adoption of this Order and concluding on Friday, June 23, 2017:(a) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be 12:00 a.m., except that it shall be 10:00 p.m. on a day when a debate, pursuant to Standing Order 52 or 53.1, is to take place;(b) subject to paragraph (e), when a recorded division is demanded in respect of a debatable motion, including any division arising as a consequence of the application of Standing Order 61(2) or Standing Order 78, but not including any division in relation to the Business of Supply or arising as a consequence of an order made pursuant to Standing Order 57, (i) before 2:00 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of oral questions at that day’s sitting, or (ii) after 2:00 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or at any time on a Friday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of oral questions at the next sitting day that is not a Friday;(c) notwithstanding Standing Order 45(6) and paragraph (b) of this Order, no recorded division requested after 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 22, 2017, or at any time on Friday, June 23, 2017, shall be deferred, except for any recorded division which, under the Standing Orders, would be deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on Wednesday, September 20, 2017;(d) the time provided for Government Orders shall not be extended pursuant to Standing Order 45(7.1) or Standing Order 67.1(2);(e) when a recorded division, which would have ordinarily been deemed deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on a Wednesday governed by this Order, is demanded, the said division is deemed to have been deferred until the conclusion of oral questions on the same Wednesday;(f) any recorded division which, at the time of the adoption of this Order, stands deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on the Wednesday immediately following the adoption of this Order shall be deemed to stand deferred to the conclusion of oral questions on the same Wednesday;(g) a recorded division demanded in respect of a motion to concur in a government bill at the report stage pursuant to Standing Order 76.1(9), where the bill has neither been amended nor debated at the report stage, shall be deferred in the manner prescribed by paragraph (b);(h) for greater certainty, this Order shall not limit the application of Standing Order 45(7);(i) no dilatory motion may be proposed after 6:30 p.m.;(j) notwithstanding Standing Orders 81(16)(b) and (c) and 81 (18)(c), proceedings on any opposition motion shall conclude no later than 5:30 p.m. on the sitting day that is designated for that purpose, except on a Monday when they shall conclude at 6:30 p.m. or on a Friday when they shall conclude at 1:30 p.m.; and(k) when debate on a motion for the concurrence in a report from a standing, standing joint or special committee is adjourned or interrupted, the debate shall again be considered on a day designated by the government, after consultation with the House Leaders of the other parties, but in any case not later than the twentieth sitting day after the interruption.She said: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to government Motion No. 14. For the benefit of members, the motion would extend the sitting of the House until we rise for the summer adjournment. We have much to accomplish in the coming weeks. Our government has an ambitious legislative agenda that we would like to advance in order to deliver on the commitments we made to Canadians in the last election. Let me reflect on our recent legislative achievements before I turn to the important work that lies before us over the next four weeks. In our last sitting week, the House and Senate were able to reach agreement on securing passage of Bill C-37, which would put in place important measures to fight the opioid crisis in Canada. I would like to thank members of the House for the thoughtful debate on this bill and for not playing politics with such an important piece of legislation. In particular, I would like to thank members of the New Democratic Party for co-operating with the government to advance this bill when it was in the House and for helping us dispense with amendments from the Senate. This was a high watermark for the House and I hope that we can take this professional and courteous approach forward. I would also like to thank senators for their important contributions to this bill.(1210)[Translation]I would also like to point out the passage of two crucial bills related to trade. The first, Bill C-30, would implement an historic trade agreement with the European Union. The second, Bill C-31, would implement a trade agreement with Ukraine, a country that is dear to many members.I am proud that our government continues to open the doors to trade and potential investment in Canada to grow our economy and help build a strong middle class.[English]In looking forward to the next four sitting weeks, I would like to highlight a few priority bills that our government will seek to advance. I will start with Bill C-44, which would implement budget 2017. This bill is about creating good middle-class jobs today while preparing Canadians for the jobs of tomorrow. I will provide some examples of the initiatives that will contribute to building a strong middle class. The budget makes smart investments to help adult workers retain or upgrade their skills to adapt to changes in the new economy and to help young people get the skills and work experience they need to start their careers.[Translation]The budget also provides for investments in the well-being of Canadians, with the emphasis on mental health, home care, and health care for indigenous peoples. Bill C-44 would provide financing to the provinces for home care and mental health care. It would also create leave for those who wish to care for a critically ill adult or child in their family. These initiatives help build stronger communities.[English]I would also like to point to initiatives in the budget that deal with gender equality. The first-ever gender statement will serve as a basis for ongoing, open, and transparent discussions about the role gender plays in policy development. Our government has other initiatives that aim to strengthen gender equality. For example, Bill C-25 encourages federally regulated companies to promote gender parity on boards of directors and to publicly report on the gender balance on these boards. Another bill, which I will discuss in greater detail later in my remarks, is Bill C-24, a bill that would level the playing field to ensure a one-tier ministry. The bill has a simple premise. It recognizes that a minister is a minister, no matter what portfolio he or she holds. Our government has committed to legalizing and strictly regulating the production, distribution, sale, and possession of cannabis. I look forward to the debate on this important bill tomorrow. I will note that the bill would provide strong safeguards and deterrents to protect young people from enticements to use or access cannabis.The government has taken a responsible approach in seeking to legalize cannabis by ensuring that law enforcement agencies have approved methods to test the sobriety of drivers to guard against cannabis use while operating a motorized vehicle. This afternoon, the House will continue to debate this bill, which, I will happily note, has support from all opposition parties in the House. I hope that we can agree to send this bill to committee on Wednesday.Now I would like to return to our government's commitment to improving gender equality. Bill C-24, which stands in my name, seeks to formalize the equal status of the ministerial team. This bill is very straightforward in its nature. It is fundamentally about the equality of all ministers. We strongly believe that the Minister of Status of Women should be a full minister. We believe that the Minister of Science and the Minister of Democratic Institutions should be full ministers.I am disappointed that the Conservatives do not share this fundamental belief in equality. I think we should send this bill to committee for a detailed study of what the bill actually does.(1215)[Translation]I would like to draw members' attention to another piece of legislation, Bill C-23, regarding an agreement with the United States on the preclearance of persons and goods between our two countries.This bill is currently being studied by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. The principle of the bill is simple. It is about ensuring a more efficient and secure border by expanding preclearance operations for all modes of transportation. This will increase the number of trips and the volume of trade, which will strengthen both of our economies.As members may know, preclearance operations currently take place at eight Canadian airports, and immigration pre-inspection is also conducted at multiple locations in British Columbia in the rail and marine modes.Once that bill comes back from committee, I hope that we can work together to send it to the other place.[English]In our last sitting week, our government introduced comprehensive modernization of our transportation systems. A strong transportation system is fundamental to Canada's economic performance and competitiveness. Bill C-49 does just that. The bill would enhance the utility, efficiency, and fluidity of our rail system so that it works for all participants in the system. Freight rail is the backbone of the Canadian economy. It moves everything from grain and potash to oil and coal, to the cars we drive, the clothes we wear, and the food we eat.I would also like to draw to the attention of members provisions in Bill C-49 that would strengthen Canada's air passenger rights. While the precise details of the air passenger rights scheme will be set out in regulations, the objective is that rights should be clear, consistent, transparent, and fair for passengers and air carriers.Finally, our government committed to creating a national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians. Bill C-22 seeks to accomplish two interrelated goals, ensuring that our security intelligence agencies are effective in keeping Canadians safe, while at the same time safeguarding our values, rights and freedoms, and the open, generous, inclusive nature of our country.I appreciate the work that was done in the House committee to improve the bill. The bill is currently before the Senate national security committee, and I look forward to appearing before that committee with my colleague, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.Sitting a few extra hours for four days per week will also give the House greater flexibility in dealing with unexpected events. While it is expected that the Senate will amend bills, it is not always clear which bills and the number of bills that could be amended by the Senate. As we have come to know, the consideration of Senate amendments in the House takes time. This is, in part, why we need to sit extra hours. I know that members work extremely hard balancing their House duties and other political duties. I expect that extending the hours will add to the already significant workload.I wish to thank members for their co-operation in these coming weeks. As I reflect upon my time as government House leader, there were examples where members of the House came together, despite their political differences, and advanced initiatives that touched directly upon the interests of all Canadians. I hope that over the four remaining sitting weeks before we head back to work in our ridings, we can have honest and frank deliberations on the government's priorities and work collaboratively to advance the agenda that Canadians sent us here to implement.In the previous Parliament, when the government decided to extend the sittings in June of 2014, Liberal members supported that motion. We knew then, as we know now, that our role as legislators is a privilege, and we discharge our parliamentary functions in support of our constituents. There will be initiatives that the government will bring forward over the coming weeks that will enjoy the support of all members, and there will be issues on which parties will not agree. Our comportment during this time will demonstrate to Canadians that we are all in this together, despite our differences, for the good of this great country. Let us not lose sight of that.I believe the motion before the House is reasonable. I hope opposition members can support sitting a few extra hours for four days a week for the next few weeks to consider important legislation for Canadians.Deferred divisionsDilatory motionsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of debateExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment billsGovernment Business No. 14Government ordersMotion for concurrence in committee reportsOpposition motionsReport stageRules of debate49173714917372491737349173744917375491737649173774917378491737949173804917381491738249173834917384491738549173864917387491738849173894917390491739149173924917393491739449173954917396491739749173984917399491740049174014917402491740349174044917405491740649174074917408491740949174104917411AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingGarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89226GarnettGenuisGarnett-GenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GenuisGarnett_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC): (1220)[English]Mr. Speaker, unfortunately it is going to take more than extended hours to get the current government to keep its promises, since it has broken so many of them already. If the minister is seeking partisan co-operation, she did not really start on a strong note by completely misstating the opposition's position on Bill C-24. Bill C-24 is about the government wanting to pay its junior ministers more. It has nothing to do with gender equality. The minister claimed it is about gender equality. The Prime Minister happened to choose to appoint women to junior ministerial portfolios. That was a choice he made, not a choice anyone else made.I want to ask a really simple question for the minister about Bill C-24. Under that bill, are these junior ministers now empowered to bring a memorandum to cabinet? That is an important part of the powers of senior ministers. If we have real ministerial equality, then they would have that power. Would Bill C-24 empower junior ministers to bring memoranda to cabinet, yes or no?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14491741249174134917414BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1220)[English]Mr. Speaker, this is fundamentally about equality. This government believes that the Minister of Science, the Minister of Democratic Institutions, and the Minister of Status of Women are full ministers. Mr. Garnett Genuis: Then answer the question.Hon. Bardish Chagger: The work they do is important work, and that is why we believe that all ministers should be treated like ministers. Let us co-operate. Mr. Daniel Blaikie: Is that a yes or a no? What is the answer to the question? Hon. Bardish Chagger: We know we can work better in this place, and that is why it is important that ministers be able to make important decisions. Let us advance this legislation. Let us let the committee do its important work so it can study the bill. We look forward to continuing to deliver to Canadians.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449174154917416491741749174184917419GarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanToddDohertyCariboo—Prince George//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89249ToddDohertyTodd-DohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/DohertyTodd_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionThe Acting Speaker (Mr. Todd Doherty): (1220)[English]The hon. colleagues are putting me in a difficult spot. We have asked the question and we will wait for the answer and respond accordingly.With that, questions and comments, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneNoise/conversations/heckling, interrupting Member speaking49174204917421BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooDanielBlaikieElmwood—Transcona//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89032DanielBlaikieDaniel-BlaikieElmwood—TransconaNew Democratic Party CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BlaikieDaniel_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP): (1220)[English]Mr. Speaker, if we thought we might take some liberties while you are in the chair, it is only because we know you are so capable and can handle it so well.I am going to resist the temptation to get into substantive debate on the bills that the House leader mentioned in her speech and instead ask about the motion. We know that the government has some legislation that it has not passed yet. It actually does not have very much legislation at all, but it wants to get the balance of the legislation passed before summer. Part of that is because of the government's ineptitude. It is because the Liberals refused to honour a long-standing parliamentary tradition of seeking all-party consensus before making changes to the Standing Orders. Their failure to honour that principle cost them a lot of time in the House, but that was their decision, not ours. They had another problem, interestingly, on a bill that had to do with preventing genetic discrimination, which was that they had over 40 members of their caucus vote against them. It created a bit of a disciplinary problem, because they can maybe kick one person out of their caucus, but they cannot kick over 40 out of their caucus.This motion is not just going to put increased strain on opposition members; it is also going to make the Liberal backbench pay for the ineptitude of cabinet, who, by refusing to acknowledge that simple principle of parliamentary tradition, wasted time in the House and did not get the Liberals' legislation through, and now they are asking their backbench to modify their schedules to spend more time away from their family when the government has professed a commitment to a family-friendly Parliament. Could the minister tell us if this is really the Liberals trying to kill two birds with one stone? Are they trying to get legislation through that earlier they could not, because they were refusing a long-standing parliamentary principle, and also trying to punish over 40 members of their caucus for not toeing the line on other bills? The seals are going to clap anyway, and the ones who are going to be really disappointed and frustrated are the 40 members who voted against that bill.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449174224917423491742449174254917426ToddDohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1220)[English]Mr. Speaker, members of the Liberal caucus are my colleagues, just like members on the opposite benches are my colleagues, and no member in the House will refer to my colleagues as seals, first of all. Second, we are people. We are here to represent Canadians, and that is what we will do. Regardless of political stripe, we know that we represent Canadians to make tough decisions. We work in the House every single day. Let us sit a few more hours so that we can have meaningful debate. The member might be a stranger to having debate and might not be aware of what free votes look like. We committed to free votes. We made a commitment to Canadians about an open and transparent government in which members of Parliament could represent their constituents. This is something I have been looking forward to. We have not seen it in over a decade from the previous government. Obviously the member has forgotten when he was in the opposition benches, but we are okay with Canadians representing Canadians. We are okay with members of Parliament representing their constituents. If that means we cannot always vote together, that is okay, because we want diversity of thought and we want those perspectives to be represented. That is part of our democracy, and that is why Canada has one of the strongest democracies. Let us work a couple more hours for Canadians. That is what the motion is about. Let us get the agenda that Canadians sent us here to deliver on. Let us advance it for them so that they can have the opportunities they deserve and that we owe them. I am just saying we should work a little harder together and co-operate a little bit more. I know we can do it. As our Prime Minister said, better is always possible, and each of us has a responsibility to our constituents.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14491742749174284917429491743049174314917432DanielBlaikieElmwood—TransconaFilomenaTassiHamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88784FilomenaTassiFilomena-TassiHamilton West—Ancaster—DundasLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/TassiFilomena_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMs. Filomena Tassi (Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, Lib.): (1225)[English]Mr. Speaker, the hon. House leader mentioned she would like to see certain bills moved from the House to committee. The two that I referred to were Bill C-24 and Bill C-46, which do deal with fundamental principles of gender equality and impaired driving. Could the member explain to the House why she feels it is important to get these bills to committee for study?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449174334917434BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1225)[English]Mr. Speaker, that is a fabulous question, and it is part of the work that we do in this place. It is important in the debates that we have in this chamber that members of Parliament be able to represent their constituents, to have the tough conversations that Canadians sent us here to have, but what is important about the committee process is that committees can hear from experts. They can bring in witnesses, hear from stakeholders, and scrutinize legislation in a way that is not possible in this place. That is why we are saying to send it to committee. Let us let the committee do the important work they do. Part of the commitment we made to Canadians was to empower committees to do that important work. That is why we increased resources to committees. Let us send this important legislation that affects everyday Canadians to committee to scrutinize the legislation. Then let us bring it back here to ensure that it is in its best form.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449174354917436FilomenaTassiHamilton West—Ancaster—DundasToddDohertyCariboo—Prince George//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89249ToddDohertyTodd-DohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/DohertyTodd_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Todd Doherty (Cariboo—Prince George, CPC): (1225)[English]Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House we say, “Bring it.” We are the party of hard-working Canadians. Canadians do not work nine to five. Many constituents work beyond normal hours, so we welcome this motion coming forth. However, as was said earlier, there are some questions about squandered time. Opposition supply days give us a voice to argue things that are important to all of Canada, but they will now be seen as half-days, half supply days. We will not get the full time to argue those comments and those issues that are important to the opposition.My question, then, is why do we get extended time to debate the issues the Liberals feel are important, but not so much the extended time to debate the issues that the opposition members and those who elected the opposition members feel are important?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14Opposition motions4917437491743849174394917440BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooBardishChaggerHon.Waterloo//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Bardish Chagger: (1225)[English]Mr. Speaker, I know that the previous government referred to itself as a Conservative government and felt that it represented only Conservatives. This government is the government of Canada. We represent all Canadians. That is why we are having the tough conversations we committed to. When it comes to the member's question, we appreciate opposition days because they bring important issues to this place, and the member will have the same number of hours that the member would normally have had for opposition days.Let us extend sitting hours so that we can advance important legislation that Canadians sent us here to debate, which is the mandate that Canadians gave this government, a mandate that every single member in this Parliament, in this House of Commons, knows is important to everyday middle-class Canadians. Let us talk about this important legislation, have meaningful debate, and work in the best interests of all Canadians. I know we can work better together. That is the underlying principle of this motion.When the previous Conservative government brought forward a very similar motion in 2014, Liberal members recognized the importance of working hard at that time. We work hard. Every member of Parliament and every Canadian works hard. This is not a competition about who works harder. Whether I am here in this place or in my riding where my constituents elected me, I work hard every single day, and I am confident that every single one of my colleagues does the same thing. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14Opposition motions4917441491744249174434917444ToddDohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen (Portage—Lisgar, CPC): (1230)[English]Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to rise today in my capacity as opposition House leader to speak to the Liberal government motion, Motion No. 14. The motion before us essentially proposes to do one thing, the end result of which is to extend the sitting hours in the House of Commons until midnight Monday to Thursday until the end of the parliamentary sittings in June.I would say on the face of it that with respect to working longer hours, the Conservatives absolutely support working as hard, as long, and as much as we need to. As one of my colleagues has already mentioned, we are the party of hard-working taxpayers. The people who support us in every election are the people who work shift work, in factories; who work on farms, planting, harvesting, building; who drive trucks, which haul the great things that we manufacture and grow here in Canada. We understand that there are Canadians who work long hours. For some, it is shift work, but for others it is working 12 to 16 hours a day, many times away from their families, and many times making huge sacrifices. We have men and women in the military who are away from their families for months at a time, and who make that sacrifice for Canadians because they have made a commitment to do a certain job. On this side of the House, as Conservatives, that is what we ascribe to, and it is why we believe we are representing our constituents so well. We have no problem being here. People talk about being family friendly. Sure, we would all love to be with our families every day. However, when we decided to run for this position, our families and those people who love and support us knew what the price would be. Therefore, I think that whatever an individual does, we have to take the costs into consideration and then go forward positively, without complaining about how hard we have to work or how we have to be away from our families. That can be difficult, but what an honour and privilege it is to work here every day. I think our families, on every side of the House, are proud of what we do. They have many opportunities that the families of those who are not working as members of Parliament do not get. Therefore, as much as I support doing things so that we can be together with our families, I believe that our job here is to represent Canadians and to work as hard and as long for them as need be.Our issue with Motion No. 14 is not about the extended hours, as we are okay to work and we will be here. In fact, I need to mention that it was this party that rose on a multitude of occasions over the last few months to ask for emergency debates to sit longer, to be able to talk about some important things, such as the jobs crisis in Alberta, or things going on in other parts of the country. I know there have been a number of issues that have been requested as topics for emergency debate, many of which were denied. However, it is not we, as Conservatives, who do not want to work late. We like to be here debating. That issue in and of itself is something we understand.The problem is that the Liberals have squandered an amazing opportunity that they had. They came into government with a majority, and with a House leader at that time who was working with the House leader at this time. It was a big opportunity that was squandered. I will talk about that in a few moments. Members will recall it as Motion No. 6. However, we pressed the reset button and a new House leader was put in place. This new House leader was supposed to be coming with a new tone and a mandate to respect Parliament and the work we do here. Unfortunately, the goodwill that we had been working together very well on was squandered when the Liberals decided to push ahead and change the Standings Orders unilaterally, and I will talk a little more about that. However, they have squandered an opportunity, which was the desire to work here to do things.We all understand that when legislation is put forward by the government, it believes it has a mandate to fulfill that. We are using all the tools available to argue against that legislation and to bring our perspective forward. However, as we have seen, day in and day out, week in and week out, the Liberals have the majority, so at the end of the day when a vote happens, we lose the vote, and they get their legislation through.(1235)Even with that, they have blown and made a mess of a whole bunch of opportunities that we have had, and I will give an example. Our Conservative government under Stephen Harper had an aggressive legislative agenda, and we worked very hard to get it done. We recognize that as government there is an agenda and we have to work to get it done. The Liberals on the other hand, though, since they have come into government, seem to care more about the perks of being a government rather than getting things done through the passage of legislation. The Liberals have a lot of time for travel. The Prime Minister has lots of time to travel abroad. Many, many holidays are required, lots of photographs needed, lots of staged photographs needed, and then more staged photographs. It is actually a bit embarrassing to watch when we have so many—An hon. member: It's working well so far. It's got you where you are today.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144917445491744649174474917448491744949174504917451491745249174534917454BardishChaggerHon.WaterlooCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1235)[English]Can you stop the heckling, Mr. Speaker? He is heckling me.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentNoise/conversations/heckling, interrupting Member speaking4917455CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25452AnthonyRotaAnthony-RotaNipissing—TimiskamingLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/RotaAnthony_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionThe Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mr. Anthony Rota): (1235)[English]I believe there was heckling on both sides, but I would ask the whole House to maybe show some respect for people who are speaking. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentNoise/conversations/heckling, interrupting Member speaking4917456CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1235)[English]Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, it seems that the Liberals and the Prime Minister have a lot of time for staged selfies and office renovations. The minute that the Liberals were elected, there were millions of dollars spent on office renovations. I think one television set was $15,000. That was one television set for a very important minister, I am sure, who really needed a very expensive television. The Minister of Infrastructure spent $800,000 on massive renovations to his office. The Minister of Status of Women spent another million dollars. There were Snapchat filters, more photo ops, and a lot of work trying to get Fridays off. That was another big priority for the Liberals. Instead of working on legislation and getting things passed, the Liberals had and continue to have other priorities. That seems to be the perks and fun of being in government, as opposed to the hard work of debating and getting legislation through.To highlight this, one only needs to compare our Conservative government record against the current Liberal record. Our 2006 Conservative minority government, compared to the current Liberal record with a majority government, in the same amount of time, managed to pass more than twice as many bills. Lest anyone say it was because we used time allocation, the Liberals have used time allocation on virtually every single one of the bills that they did manage to get passed. The fact is, we were more serious about governing. Members of Parliament sit here day after day and see only one member get up to ask questions. There are other members who participate in actually giving a speech, but when it comes to questions and answers, we do not see the Liberal members on the other side getting up and asking questions. I guess they are busy doing other work. The Liberals do not seem to understand what it means to be in government. When we were in government, the entire team was up asking questions, debating, and listening. That was our job. We could not just come in here and ponder other things going on in our lives. We asked questions, and we certainly did not let one member dominate day in and day out. Therefore, I challenge my Liberal colleagues on the other side. It is time that they start standing up and asking questions and not letting the member for Winnipeg North take all of their glory and, more importantly, abdicating their jobs to him. They are good at what they do. They need to stand up and participate. They need to stand up before the member for Winnipeg North. We need to hear questions from everyone on that side of the House. That is not in my notes. That is just a bit of free advice for the members opposite. I am very proud that we managed to pass twice as many bills in the same amount of time, and in a minority Parliament no less. It is a striking difference, and it speaks volumes about how little the Liberal government is focused on results. It is also interesting that last year the Liberals did not extend the hours at the end of the session. One can only guess that perhaps it was because they were not getting as much media coverage and some pressure in regard to the lack of legislation they have passed.While we are more than ready, willing, and able to work extended hours, we do have some concerns with Motion No. 14. Therefore, I want to take a few minutes to talk about those concerns.The motion would primarily extend the sitting hours, but it is interesting to see what is not included in the motion. Opposition days remain exactly the same. The government wants to have more time to debate its legislation. It feels it needs more time, and it wants to give us more time. I understand that. We are willing to be here and to do that. However, if that logic holds true, then the opposition also needs that extended time to counter and debate and talk about issues that the opposition has to talk about. It is only logical that if the government needs a certain amount of time and needs extended time, then the one day we have set aside for opposition day, we should also have, in relative terms, that same extension. That is not asking for anything unreasonable. That is a very reasonable and logical request. Supply motions are categorized as government business and play an important role in our system of government. That is important to note. It is actually part of government business; it is part of how Parliament works. (1240)We do not believe that opposition motions should be exempt from extended debates, making for opposition half-days, about which my hon. colleague talked. The opposition should not be punished for the government's mismanagement of its own agenda. O'Brien and Bosc, at page 850, states:The setting aside of a specified number of sitting days on which the opposition chooses the subject of debate derives from the tradition which holds that Parliament does not grant supply until the opposition has had an opportunity to demonstrate why it should be refused.It stands to reason that if the time allotted to the government is extended, then the time allotted to the opposition to perform its important role to scrutinize the government should also be extended. There are 128 sitting days in this calendar year. Just 22 of those days are allotted to the opposition, and there are two oppositions. That leaves 106 days to the government. The length of these sitting days is the same for both government and the opposition. Motion No. 14 distorts this balance and is keeping with the government's agenda, unfortunately, of proposing changes to the rules that offer less, and less, and less time for the opposition to do its job and scrutinize the government. If the government feels it needs more time to consider its agenda, then obviously the opposition needs more time to scrutinize what the government is doing.The hon. House leader for the government just spoke moments ago and said that Canadians elected the government to do something, that Canadians elected the Liberal government. Well, Canadians elected each one of us on this side of the House as well. Canadians elected us to do a job. Although the Liberals may want an audience and not an opposition, Canadians have asked us to be the opposition. We take that job seriously, and we will do that job. It really bares the motives behind the Liberals cutting off all the tools we have, even with extending sitting days, not allowing us to have our extended opposition days. That is a big problem with the motion, and one that we seriously ask the government to reconsider; that it would allow us an opposition day to go to until midnight as well. It only makes sense.Another issue we have some problems with stems from the government's previously stated threat to systemically use closure to shut down all debates from now until the end of June, when the House adjourns for the summer.The threat of shutting down debate on all government business is particularly egregious, given that this would presumably include shutting down debate on any debates regarding changes to the Standing Orders, which the government House leader has previously stated she intends on doing by passing a motion to implement changes to the Standing Orders before we adjourn in June. We have a problem with this. Let me explain why.The government continues to offer up the threat of making changes to the Standing Orders and it does with the threat that it is going to do it unilaterally. These changes are tailored to benefit only one side of the parliamentary equation.Someone once said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. If the government House leader does indeed proceed with her threat to propose a unilateral motion changing the Standing Orders, she will be repeating the mistake her government made just a month or two ago at the procedure and House affairs committee.For everyone's benefit, let me briefly review how all of this started and how all of this bad faith and all of this poison entered the House just a few months ago.The Liberal House leader published proposals that would undermine the opposition, but she published them in a so-called discussion paper. Within hours of the discussion paper coming out, the Liberal member of the Standing Committee of Procedure and House Affairs submitted a closure motion, proposing an end to all discussion on the discussion paper. We have heard over and over again that it was a discussion paper, that we were supposed to have a conversation, that we were supposed to have a dialogue, that it would open and transparent, mom and apple pie. Except it was none of that because no discussion would be happening at that committee. Now we are hearing from the House leader that there will be no discussion happening in the House of Commons.(1245)Let us remember exactly what the Liberals want to change. We know they want Fridays off and we know it is a big deal to them. They do not want to be working Fridays. They do not realize that Canadians work five days a week, and many times it is more than five days a week.Then, and I think this all boils down to the Prime Minister, he only wants to be here to answer questions for 45 minutes, one day a week. Last Wednesday, nothing was answered. The Wednesday before that, nothing was actually answered again. We we asked the same question 19 times, and it was a very simple question. How many times has the Prime Minister met with the Ethics Commissioner? As members know, the Prime Minister is under investigation by the Ethics Commission for his ethical lapses and for breaking the rules around travelling in private aircraft.The Prime Minister was supposedly here for 45 minutes to answer questions. We asked him a really simple question. He could have said that he would not answer that, that he thought it should be private between him and the Ethics Commissioner. That is one option. We might not have liked it, but it would have been an answer. He could have said that he had met with her once. If that was true, that would have been wonderful. He could have said that he had met with her three times. If that was true, that would have been refreshing. He could have said that he had not met with her, but he planned to.There were a lot of options. The Prime Minister had 19 times to formulate an answer, but he did not answer. The fact that he only wants to be here 45 minutes, one day a week, to give us that kind of a performance, to slap Canadians in the face by not answering a very simple question is something we absolutely cannot accept on this side of the House. However, it is key to the reforms and the changes the Liberals want to ram through.The Liberals also want to ram through changes on omnibus bills and proroguing. Again, it is so ironic. We just saw time allocation on an omnibus bill that they just rammed through. We cannot make it up. It is hilarious, but it is actually very sad to see. It is so disingenuous.When this first happened and the government House leader said the government was going to ram these changes through, there was filibustering at the committee. We were intent on not letting that happen. When that happened, we sat down and wrote a letter. When I say “we”, it was the House leader of the NDP, as well as Conservatives. Together, we sat down and offered a better way. We wanted to offer a solution. We are still open to a solution and finding ways to fix this.I want to talk a little about some great examples of the way Standing Orders rules can be changed so everybody agrees. I want to quickly explain why it is so important that everybody agrees. When we change the Standing Orders, we change the way we operate here. However, it does not just affect us now, it will affect all governments and all oppositions. Therefore, when we come together on these changes through consensus, that means each side has to explain that the change it is proposing is not just for its own benefit. Each side needs to make the argument. For example, as an opposition member, I need to make the argument to my colleagues in government that the change I have proposed is not just to benefit our party but it is to benefit all of Parliament and all democracy. Just like when the government wants to make changes or feels it needs to make changes, it needs to make the argument to all of us that it is a rational thing to do and that in the in the future all of those changes are for the greater good. That is why a consensus had been primarily reached in the past and really why we wanted to reach a consensus.I want to go through some really good examples from both Liberals and Conservatives, with some great input from NDP members, who in the past have talked about this type of thing. On May 31, 1982, the Lefebvre committee was created. The committee recommended several changes in the Standing Orders on a trial basis, such as the automatic referral of departmental and crown corporations annual reports to committees and the requirement for a government response to these reports within 120 days. The prime minister at the time was Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and the reforms were adopted unanimously.(1250)Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's government created the McGrath committee on December 5, 1984. The principal goal of that committee was to find ways to give private members a meaningful role in the development of public policy and in doing so, to restore the House of Commons to its rightful place in the Canadian political process. The committee went on to table three reports, all of which were adopted unanimously. McGrath and Lefebvre proposed ideas that enhanced private members' business, strengthened the powers of committees, and enfranchised members.Is everybody okay over there?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14Opposition motionsParliamentary reformStanding Orders of the House of Commons49174574917458491745949174604917461491746249174634917464491746549174664917467491746849174694917470491747149174724917473491747449174754917476491747749174784917479491748049174814917482491748349174844917485491748649174874917488491748949174904917491491749249174934917494AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1250)[English]Mr. Speaker, the committee went on to table three reports, all unanimously. McGrath and Lefebvre proposed ideas that enhanced private members' business, strengthened the powers of committees, and enfranchised members with the selection of our Speaker by secret ballot, to name just a few.The Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections recommended in a report tabled on December 6, 1990, important amendments that transformed private members' business. These rule changes were again adopted unanimously.Under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, and this was the specific one that we recommended, a Special Committee on the Modernization and Improvement of the Procedures of the House of Commons was created and chaired by then Deputy Speaker Bob Kilger. One of the rules of the committee was “That the committee shall not adopt any report without the unanimous agreement of all the Members of the committee”. This unanimity requirement did not deter the special committee. It tabled six reports to the House and the House adopted five of them. The committee made significant changes, such as allowing all items on the order of precedence of private members' business to be votable.The Stephen Harper government also followed the tradition of the unanimity approach, bringing in reforms to improve private members' business and broadcasting rules for committees. I would be remiss if I did not point out that not 100% of all changes were unanimous. Some required a vote. However, since the very beginning of Parliament these incidents were rare, and whenever more broad-based changes to the Standing Orders were adopted, the time-honoured practice of this place was to do so through unanimous consent.That being said, there exists a very small and exclusive club, if one wants to be a part of it, of forgotten House leaders who rammed through changes, such as the closure motion in 1913, time allocation in 1969, and Standing Order 56(1) in 1991. I am at a loss to understand why the government House leader would rather join this group than be associated with the likes of McGrath, Lefebvre, and Bob Kilger, but I suppose that would not be inconsistent with her government's track record.Members will recall that we had an electoral reform issue, the efforts of another minister, who turned that reform exercise into a fiasco that led to a full retreat and the firing of that minister from her post. Then there was Motion No. 6. The minister who gave us that doozy has disappeared from that job as well. Let me take a few minutes just to remind the House of what Motion No. 6 was. Simply put, Motion No. 6 proposed to legislate by exhaustion. It offered unstructured, open-ended debate, potentially sitting 24 hours around the clock all summer long. The motion targeted the opposition and would have hamstrung its ability to hold the government to account. Essentially, it violated one of the fundamental principles of Parliament, a principle described in Beauchesne's, sixth edition, citation 3, “More tentative are such traditional features as respect for the rights of the minority, which precludes a Government from using to excess the extensive powers that it has to limit debate or to proceed in what the public and the Opposition might interpret as unorthodox ways.” That is what Motion No. 6 was and we know what the outcome was of that.I want to speak briefly about another change that has not been talked about extensively in the House, but it is one of the changes to the Standing Orders that the Liberals are trying to ram through. It is an idea that has been proposed by the President of the Treasury Board in regard to the estimates.Page 12 of the document says, “For parliamentary committees, the proposed approach trades off the longer period of time now available to study an incomplete Main Estimates...for a shorter time to study a complete Main Estimates”. That all sounds good. It sounds like there is going to be shorter time to study complete, thorough, and accurate estimates rather than having a longer time but with inaccurate estimates. The President of the Treasury Board should know that the House will always insist on full and accurate information and will never attach any such conditions to that right.In its role in the supply process, Parliament would be foolish to voluntarily clawback two months of its ability to hold a ministry to account in exchange for flawed, unenforceable promises. Even though the paper says it would be accurate information, there is nothing incumbent on the government to provide that accurate information, which is why it is so important that the opposition has as much time as possible to look at those estimates and to scrutinize them.(1255)Let me explain this by first putting forward this historical context. On page 114 of Josef Redlich's The Procedure of the House of Commons: A Study of its History and Present Form, it says:The whole law of finance, and consequently the whole British constitution, is grounded upon one fundamental principle, laid down at the very outset of English parliamentary history and secured by three hundred years of mingled conflict with the Crown and peaceful growth. All taxes and public burdens imposed upon the nation for purposes of state, whatsoever their nature, must be granted by the representatives of the citizens and taxpayers, i.e., by Parliament.Pages 404 and 405 of the fourth edition of Bourinot's Parliamentary Procedure and Practice, published in 1916, state: The cardinal principle, which underlies all parliamentary rules and constitutional provisions with respect to money grants and public taxes is this—when burthens are to be imposed on the people, every opportunity must be given for free and frequent discussion...[and] whenever the government finds it necessary to incur a public expenditure...there should be full consideration of the matter in committee and in the house, so that no member may be forced to come to a hasty decision, but that every one may have abundant opportunities afforded him of stating his reasons for supporting or opposing the proposed grant.... With respect to delaying the main estimates, I will quote from the parliamentary budget officer's most recent report, “Considerations for Parliament in Reforming the Business of Supply”. It states, “With respect to delaying the main estimates, the Government indicates that the core impediment in aligning the budget and estimates arises from the Government’s own sclerotic internal administrative processes, rather than parliamentary timelines.” It says right there that it is about administrative processes, not parliamentary timelines. The report goes on to state:PBO notes that the Government’s Supplementary Estimates B, tabled on 3 November, contained 51 measures that were originally proposed almost seven months earlier in Budget 2016. This example shows that it is unlikely that delaying the release of the main estimates by eight weeks would provide full alignment with the budget.That was in the PBO's report. This is a lot of “inside Ottawa” and really diving deep into the estimates. However, the bottom line is that Parliament needs to be able to look at the government's estimates and should not have its time shortened. The President of the Treasury Board cannot ask us to trust that the government's estimates will be more accurate and that we will have a third of the time to study them. That is wrong. It is one of the issues that has not been talked about a lot, but is creating a lot of problems. As former PBO Kevin Page said, “This legislation creates the facade of independence…but on the other hand it completely takes it away.” The other change the Liberals want to make and have done it in the omnibus bill, which is indicative of what they do, is to take away the power of the parliamentary budget officer. The former PBO stated:The Government asserts that Parliament does not play a meaningful role in financial scrutiny. PBO disagrees with this view....We note that notwithstanding the Government's performance information of admittedly poor quality, and their inability to reconcile the Government's spending proposals, parliamentarians have performed a commendable job of asking pertinent questions in standing committee hearings, Question Period and Committee of the Whole.We know that even the parliamentary budget officer would disagree with those changes and has questions on them. We know the Liberals are currently trying to make changes to the ability of the PBO in Bill C-44, and on that he said: The proposed amendments impose significant restrictions on the way the PBO can set its work plan and access information. Those restrictions will undermine PBO’s functional independence and its effectiveness in supporting parliamentarians to scrutinize government spending and hold the government to account.In her remarks to you, Mr. Speaker, after your election to the office of Speaker, the then leader of the opposition and member for Sturgeon River—Parkland, the former interim Conservative leader, talked of the interrupted history of the office of Speaker, which began in 1376 when Sir Peter de la Mare presided over what is known as the “Good Parliament”. She pointed out that the title of “Good Parliament” was not due to the performance of the administration of the day but a reflection on the efforts of the members of that parliament to keep the government in check.(1300)There was a significant principle developing in that parliament, a principle that should apply to this and to all parliaments. In Philip Laundy's book on the office of the Speaker, published in 1984, he had this to say about the Good Parliament: Parliament was greatly concerned at the abuses in the administration which were threatening the welfare of the realm— That sounds familiar. —and encouraged by the support of the Black Prince it set itself to the task of correcting them. Which is what the opposition wants to do. He continued: After lengthy debates...the Lords and Commons again assembled in the Painted Chamber before John of Gaunt to give answer to the financial demands which had been made of them. Speaking on behalf of the Commons Sir Peter de la Mare boldly refused to grant supplies until the nation's grievances were redressed. That was over 600 years ago, but it is still one of the cornerstones of our proud parliamentary democracy. We have made improvements in our approach over the years, but diminishing principles of accountability is the farthest thing from modernizing the procedures of the House. The Liberals keep saying they want to modernize the House, but all they want to do is take away the time-honoured and proven ways that we can hold governments to account. One day very soon, when we are back in government, the opposition is going to want us to be held to account, and the Liberals need to think about this.During the remarks addressed in the Speaker's election, the member for Sturgeon River—Parkland referenced the “Bad Parliament”, but she did not get into the details of why that parliament's style was bad. We were at that point beginning the era of sunny ways, and who were we to spoil the mood? We were hoping it would be sunny ways. As members know, as soon as that slogan was out of the box, it collapsed under the weight of dark clouds of arrogance and entitlement, and now serves to give a modern context to the story of the Bad Parliament that sat in England between January 27 and March 2, 1377. The Bad Parliament undid the work done by the Good Parliament, which brought in measures to reduce corruption in the royal council. The Bad Parliament approved reversals of the Good Parliament's impeachment of a number of royal courtiers. It also introduced a new form of royal taxation. That sounds familiar too, does it not? In addition, the Bad Parliament was forced to accede to the fact that the King could renege on political promises. Unfortunately, that does sound away too familiar to what is playing out in this Parliament.I have one more parliament to reference. An even earlier parliament to the Good and Bad Parliaments was the “Mad Parliament” that met in Oxford on June 11, 1258. In Philip Laundy's book at page 11, he suggested that the Mad Parliament set itself against the tyranny of the court and owes its derogatory designation to those whose abuses it sought to check. If the government uses its majority to force through the changes proposed by the government House leader, the official opposition will be fighting its own form of tyranny. I assure members that the language used to describe the 42nd Parliament will be much stronger than just “mad”.On a more positive note, though, I would like to reference a few distinguished parliamentarians, coming from all sides of the political spectrum. The Right Hon. John Diefenbaker, in an address to the Empire Club in 1949, had this to say, “If Parliament is to be preserved as a living institution His Majesty's Loyal Opposition must fearlessly perform its functions.... The reading of history proves that freedom always dies when criticism ends.”In an address to the Canadian Club of Ottawa, January 27, 1959, Lester B. Pearson said: In national politics during the years when I was in the government, I watched the Opposition perform their duty vigorously and industriously, with courage and determination. They rightly insisted on their right to oppose, attack and criticize, to engage in that cut and thrust of debate, so often and so strongly recommended by those concerned with the vigour and health of Parliament and the health of democracy.In an address on March 21, 1957, New Democrat Stanley Knowles said: The opposition has only the rules for its protection, hence the authorities on parliamentary procedure emphasize the greater importance to the opposition of the only protection it has, the protection of the rules. Only by according such rights to the opposition is it possible to achieve anything even approaching equality of strength between the two sides.... (1305)Finally, I would like to make reference to a more recent elder statesman, and I use the word in a very positive way. A respected senior member of this House, the hon. Liberal member for Malpeque, said on April 11, 2017:However, this place is called the House of Commons for a reason. It is not the House of cabinet or the House of PMO. Protecting the rights of members in this place, whether it is the opposition members in terms of the stance they are taking, is also protecting the rights of the other members here who are not members of cabinet or the government. We talk about government as if this whole side is the government. The government is the executive branch. We do need to protect these rights.I think those are very wise words, and we would like the government, the backbenchers to think about that in terms of this motion. We are fine sitting later hours. We know it will be long days for all of us, but let us do it. As my hon. colleague says, let us do the good work that Canadians have asked us to do. However, we ask two things: allow us to have fuller opposition days, just like the Liberals are having full government days, and do not shut down the debate on the Standing Orders. Mr. Speaker, I believe there have been consultations. I hope you will find unanimous consent of the House to propose an amendment. The amendment would restrict the use of closure on any motion proposing to change the Standing Orders during the period outlined in Motion No. 14, and would propose to treat opposition motions on allotted days the same as other government business.Therefore, I seek the consent of the House to amend Motion No. 14 accordingly. I move that Motion No. 14 be amended by deleting all the words in paragraph (j) and substituting the following: “A motion pursuant to Standing Order 57 shall not be admissible for any motion dealing with amendments to the Standing Orders or changes to the practices of the House.”ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14Leave to propose a motionMotionsOpposition motionsParliamentary Budget OfficerParliamentary reformStanding Orders of the House of Commons49174964917497491749849174994917500491750149175024917503491750449175054917506491750749175084917509491751049175114917512491751349175144917515491751649175174917518491751949175204917521491752249175234917524491752549175264917527491752849175294917530491753149175324917533491753449175354917536491753749175384917539491754049175414917542491754349175444917545AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25452AnthonyRotaAnthony-RotaNipissing—TimiskamingLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/RotaAnthony_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionThe Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mr. Anthony Rota): (1305)[English]Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?Some hon. members: Agreed.Some hon. members: No.ClosureDecisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14Leave to propose a motionOpposition motions491754649175474917548CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1310)[English]Mr. Speaker, we will go to plan B.MotionI move:That the motion be amended (a) by adding to paragraph (b) the following: “and if a recorded division is demanded in respect of a motion moved pursuant to Standing Order 57 in relation to any motion dealing with amendments to the Standing Orders or changes to the practices of the House, it shall stand deferred to December 5, 2017 at the conclusion of Oral Questions; ”; and (b) by deleting all the words in paragraph “(j)”. Amendments and subamendmentsClosureDeferred divisionsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14Opposition motions49175494917550491755149175524917553AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25452AnthonyRotaAnthony-RotaNipissing—TimiskamingLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/RotaAnthony_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionThe Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mr. Anthony Rota): (1310)[English]The motion is in order. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Spadina—Fort York.Admissibility of an amendmentDecisions of the SpeakerExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144917554CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarAdamVaughanSpadina—Fort York//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/54434AdamVaughanAdam-VaughanSpadina—Fort YorkLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/VaughanAdam_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Adam Vaughan (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development (Housing and Urban Affairs), Lib.): (1310)[English]Mr. Speaker, I will just address some of the points that were raised. Putting aside the sheer foolishness of having the opposition decide which Liberal should or should not talk at any given point, let me just assure the members opposite that one Liberal could take on 99. It does not matter which one of us it is. One can deal with it. It is sheer audacity to call the budget bill an omnibus bill. Our bill is 400 pages long. There was never a budget bill passed by the Conservatives that was less than 600 pages. It is sheer audacity to refer to an omnibus bill. I await a budget presented one clause at a time. I do not think it will ever happen in my lifetime. Then putting aside the sheer nonsense about the Prime Minister, when asked the same question, giving the same answer—Some hon. members: Oh, oh!Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449175564917557491755849175594917560AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25452AnthonyRotaAnthony-RotaNipissing—TimiskamingLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/RotaAnthony_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionThe Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mr. Anthony Rota): (1310)[English]Order. I believe the hon. member for Portage—Lisgar asked for people to be quiet, and she got what she asked for. I would imagine that we owe the same respect to the questions she is getting as well.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentNoise/conversations/heckling, interrupting Member speaking4919304AdamVaughanSpadina—Fort YorkAdamVaughanSpadina—Fort York//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/54434AdamVaughanAdam-VaughanSpadina—Fort YorkLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/VaughanAdam_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Adam Vaughan: (1310)[English]Mr. Speaker, then there is the sheer nonsense of asking the Prime Minister to provide a different answer to the same question. The same question will get the same answer. That is unlike the former prime minister, Mr. Harper, who when asked about the Wright and Duffy scandal changed the answer every time the question was asked. Every time the question was changed, the answer was different, even without the involvement of the party.Let me also talk about the absolute sheer lunacy of a party that says it does not want to work on Fridays, knowing that we work in our constituencies on Fridays. That is a party that tries to adjourn the debate in every single term. I do not think there has been a bill in this Parliament that has not had at least two motions of adjournment whereby the Tories try to skip off work and go home early. That is what the motion of adjournment is all about. Then they complain that we move closure, when they tried to adjourn three times. What is adjournment? Adjournment is the opposition's method for closure.Putting aside that sheer lunacy, there is the waste of time of having the House decide which one of the members opposite gets to speak. The number of votes we have had deciding whether Tory A or Tory B should speak has wasted hours of time. If they had a leader who was anything more than a sheer rookie, perhaps they would end up in a situation where they could choose their own speakers.Since we are going to extend speaking hours and sitting hours through the month of June, can we have an agreement from the opposite side that members will not try to adjourn three, four, five, and six times a day and will actually pledge to show up and work and debate the issues of the day? Otherwise, will they adjourn at every opportunity to get home early for summer vacation because they are members of the party that does not seem to want to work?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449175624917563491756449175654917566AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1310)[English]Mr. Speaker, first of all, I welcome all members. It is wonderful to see the backbenchers. At this point in a Parliament, we should know every single one of the members by name. We should know which one has a topic he or she thinks is important. We should know which one can expound passionately. We should know the ones who are a little calmer. However, we do not know anything about any of them, because the only one who gets to speak is the parliamentary secretary for the House leader, so it is very nice to see the member for Vaughan stand. We know his style and we would love to see the style and the gifts of some of the other Liberal members, including the ones who are sitting on this side. We want to see their gifts and their speaking ability. It is a wonderful opportunity to hone those abilities. I encourage them to keep standing up and not let one guy hog the show over there, because he has done it enough.To answer the other part of the question, we will continue to move to adjourn debate on some of the terrible bills that the government is bringing forward. If the Liberals think that what they saw us doing when they were trying to ram through the changes at the committee was bad, let them wait until they try to bring it to the House of Commons. They are laughing, and that is good. We have to do everything that we can. They have taken away most of our tools already. We are going to keep using every tool available so that the Prime Minister has to show up and tell Canadians how many times he has met with the Ethics Commissioner.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144917567491756849175694917570AdamVaughanSpadina—Fort YorkAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25452AnthonyRotaAnthony-RotaNipissing—TimiskamingLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/RotaAnthony_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionThe Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mr. Anthony Rota): (1315)[English]Before we go on to the next question, I want to remind hon. members to refer to other members in the House by their riding and not by their name.The hon. member for Victoria.Designation of Members by the name of their constituency or titleExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournment49175714917572CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarMurrayRankinVictoria//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/60078MurrayRankinMurray-RankinVictoriaNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/RankinMurray_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Murray Rankin (Victoria, NDP): (1315)[English]Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the opposition House leader for making this so interesting. Who would have thought that a procedural motion replete with references to history and so forth could be so passionate at this time of day? However, here we are, about to start on a path of four weeks when we will be sitting four days a week until midnight. A while ago, the House leaders all were new, all three of us, and we ended up working together in a positive spirit. Then something happened. The government thought it could unilaterally change the rules of democracy and started to treat this place as if it were simply an inconvenience rather than the cornerstone of our democracy.I would like to ask the opposition House leader for her views on how we came into this mess. Was it the fact that the discussion paper was put forward as if it were just a discussion paper, but then unilaterally moved through the House as if the opposition was simply a rubber stamp? Is it because of the mismanagement of that file that we ended up in this uncharacteristic situation of having four weeks of sitting four days a week until midnight? Is that how this happened, and can we get back to a more collegial spirit?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144917573491757449175754917576AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1315)[English]Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for noticing the passion and excitement in that speech. As a party, we have just finished an exciting and amazing weekend electing our new leader. This is a culmination of a leadership race whereby our party has raised almost $10 million to the Liberals' barely $2 million. Our party has 260,000 paid memberships. We have just elected a new leader, a young man who has five children, drives a minivan, and is completely different from the current Prime Minister. He understands the needs of middle-class Canadians because he is a middle-class Canadian. I am pretty excited to be here today looking forward to our new leader's first showing here at question period as our leader. As to what my honourable colleague from the NDP talked about, he is right that there really had been goodwill. We had been working well together. We had been having good debates, but votes would happen and the government was able to move its legislation through. However, when we say to somebody that they are to do what we want and we have a gun to their head, that does not make for good conversation. That is what has happened with the Liberals. They are forcing changes through, and it is always for their benefit. It is always to make life easier for them. It is always to make life easier for the Prime Minister, easier so that members of Parliament might not have to be here on a Friday. Frankly, when the House is not sitting and we are in our ridings, I understand that, absolutely. However, when we are here, we should be open for business five days a week. When the House is sitting, we need to be here five days a week. We know the Liberals really have an aversion to that, but we are not going to stop fighting this idea. We would like to get back to a place where we can keep working together and keep doing the work of the House, but the Liberals do need to make some changes if that is going to happen. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14491757749175784917579491758049175814917582MurrayRankinVictoriaToddDohertyCariboo—Prince George//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89249ToddDohertyTodd-DohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/DohertyTodd_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Todd Doherty (Cariboo—Prince George, CPC): (1320)[English]Mr. Speaker, it might have been the first time for my honourable colleague from Spadina—Fort York to stand in the House to speak. On his maiden speech, I would like to congratulate him on that. I have a couple questions for the hon. House leader of the official opposition. With these extended hours, does she believe that we will finally see the Prime Minister more in the House? As well, will we finally have the answer to the question of how many times the Prime Minister has met with the Ethics Commissioner?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14491758349175844917585CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarCandiceBergenHon.Portage—Lisgar//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/59110CandiceBergenHon.Candice-BergenPortage—LisgarConservative CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BergenCandice_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionHon. Candice Bergen: (1320)[English]Mr. Speaker, I do not hold out hope that we will get any answers. As we will recall, the Prime Minister said he was going to start being here to answer all questions on a Wednesday. I hesitate to refer to the presence or absence of anybody in the House and I will not do that, but I will say that last Wednesday there was not one question answered by the Prime Minister, and in the week before that, we had that silly charade when he would not answer a typical and very easy question. I would even be happy with the following. If the Prime Minister is not here every day debating but wants to get out and meet with Canadians, when is he going to head up north and meet with some northen Canadians? I know maybe it is not a fancy place to go and it is not Europe or Italy or Broadway shows, but when is he going to go to some rural communities in Canada? When is he going to head up to northwestern Ontario or the Arctic? When is he going to talk about our north and first nations that do not just want to be a park, but want to be creating jobs and opportunities?If the Prime Minister is going to be getting out and meeting the people, let him go where the Canadian people are, not in New York and not meeting with billionaires in the U.S. or on a private island. Let him get back home and get some work done for Canadians. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449175864917587491758849175894917590ToddDohertyCariboo—Prince GeorgeMurrayRankinVictoria//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/60078MurrayRankinMurray-RankinVictoriaNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/RankinMurray_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Murray Rankin (Victoria, NDP): (1320)[English]Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.The motion before us goes beyond the traditional use of Standing Order 27 to extend sitting hours in the final days of the session. At one level, I can see why the government felt that the traditional period of late sitting was insufficient. I understand the government's desire to enliven the glacial pace of its legislative agenda. After all, believe it or not, in its first 18 months, the government has passed fewer bills than one per month. That is the slowest rate of any government in decades. Today there are still more bills awaiting second reading than have received royal assent. All told, 30 government bills are at various stages of study and debate in the House. Therefore, I can understand the government's desire to get its legislative engine, sputtering as it is, into gear. However, the motion before us is not without serious drawbacks, and those deserve careful consideration in the House. Broadly speaking, what the motion accomplishes is clear. It streamlines the passage of the government's agenda by limiting the tools and rights of both opposition and backbench government members. It forces members of Parliament who want to engage in debates on behalf of their communities to be in the House until midnight each night, with no consideration for family life, despite the government's pledge to make the House more family friendly. Also, while it does not repeat some of the very worst proposals in previous government motions to similar effect, it does affirm a pattern of behaviour such that the government treats Parliament as an inconvenience rather than the very keystone of our democracy. That is a pattern set by the previous Harper government. It is a pattern the government opposed when in opposition and now seeks to simply perpetuate when in power. The tools and rights of opposition members of Parliament, and indeed backbench government members, are not luxuries to be tossed aside in the name of expediency. Without them, Parliament cannot do the job Canadians expect of us.Our scrutiny of legislation should not fluctuate with the seasons. We should not give cursory examination to an issue of importance to Canadians merely because it falls in the final weeks of a particular session. There are 30 government bills at various stages of study and debate in the House today, and each proposes meaningful changes for Canadians. These changes all deserve the consideration and refinement our legislative machinery was designed for and that Canadians expect us to provide. When similar changes to the rules were proposed by the Conservative government under Prime Minister Harper in 2014, New Democrats moved to find a middle ground: retaining the powers of opposition MPs while allowing more time for the consideration of government bills. Sadly, this compromise was opposed at the time by both the Liberals and the Conservatives. I find it disappointing that, once again, a new government is going down an old road of tolerating Parliamentary accountability when it is convenient and casting it aside the moment it becomes inconvenient. That is not how our Parliament should function. We owe it to Canadians to not lightly accept any measure that infringes on the ability of Parliament to scrutinize the government's agenda and hold it accountable to Canadians. That is our job. As the hon. government House leader said in her remarks, we have had moments of collaboration and co-operation in the House, and that is what I urge the government to remember today, because the imposition of the motion is not about parliamentarians coming together. It is about strengthening the power of cabinet at the expense of opposition members. Let there be no doubt about that. Once again, it is about the government turning its back on genuine negotiation with the other parties when the going gets tough and instead relying on heavy-handed and unilateral action to push through its agenda.(1325)If the government had not rejected co-operation and resorted to strong-arm tactics, first with Motion No. 6 and later with the Standing Orders debacle, perhaps it would not require such extraordinary measures now.Last, of course, it is disappointing for members of all parties who have young children and families to care for at home to be expected to work night shifts four days a week just to do the job Canadians sent us here to do. It is especially disappointing when the government committed, at least in its early days, to making this chamber more modern and more family friendly as a workplace.Members of all parties work hard, and they want to. However, it is disappointing to see the government resorting to last-minute rule changes that make life harder for those members and easier for cabinet members.In conclusion, it is important for Canadians to understand what these types of motions by the government are all about. Despite what the speech writers for cabinet ministers might say, this is not about whether parliamentarians roll up their sleeves and work for a few more hours each day. Members on all sides of this House already work hard each and every day.What this is about is tilting the balance of power away from the opposition parties and toward the government. It is about making work easier for cabinet ministers and harder for opposition members. The reason such extraordinary measures are necessary, the reason the government needs twice as many extended hours as previous governments have, is that it has consistently chosen to reject co-operation and has relied on heavy-handed, unilateral action.The debacle surrounding the discussion paper is an illustration of that reality. So far, that strategy has failed. It has resulted in the government passing its agenda at the slowest rate of any new government in modern history, barely a bill a month, as I said.I urge the government to consider that record and to return to the pledges it once made to this House to be more family friendly, more co-operative, and more collaborative. Do members remember those pledges? I can promise all members on the government benches that if they want to restore that spirit of co-operation, they will always find willing partners in the New Democratic Party.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14491759149175924917593491759449175954917596491759749175984917599491760049176014917602491760349176044917605CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarNickWhalenSt. John's East//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88296NickWhalenNick-WhalenSt. John's EastLiberal CaucusNewfoundland and Labrador//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/WhalenNick_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Nick Whalen (St. John's East, Lib.): (1330)[English]Mr. Speaker, I will go to the last point the member made regarding co-operation in the House and the length of time it takes to pass bills. It should be observed that with now 338 members in the House, there are 10% more members with the opportunity to speak and participate and have their voices heard in the House, which lends naturally to crowding out the time available in the House for debate.One of the opportunities to correct this problem put forward by the government was to investigate programming. Programming of the debate schedule in the House would allow for more efficient functioning of this place. It would allow members to be heard in an appropriate, timely, and efficient fashion, and it would allow us to engage in business and hear more bills. These were the types of things that were proposed to address the very issue the member brought forward.If the member is interested in co-operating in all aspects with the government to see bills passed in an appropriate fashion, will the member commit to co-operating with us to bring programming into the House so that our business can be done more effectively and efficiently?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14491760649176074917608MurrayRankinVictoriaMurrayRankinVictoria//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/60078MurrayRankinMurray-RankinVictoriaNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/RankinMurray_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Murray Rankin: (1330)[English]Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments about the fact that there are more MPs and government backbenchers. There is no doubt about it. What there is doubt about is when they stand up. One rarely sees them in action. Although the arithmetic is correct, the reality has proven true, because so many of them never stand in this place anyway. It is hard to believe that it is a critical reality.In terms of investigating programming, as the member talked about, that was part of the unilateral discussion paper, which I think the government has chosen not to proceed with. At least, that was the last draft. Who knows where the government is on that now? It fell by the wayside with the Friday sittings being dropped and so forth. I thought that was part of the initiative the government did not want to proceed with.I grant that in England and other parliamentary systems, that kind of programming can be valuable, but it cannot simply be dropped on Parliament without the benefit of discussion and collaboration among members of Parliament, something the former Liberal government thought was valuable but that this government seems to think is merely an inconvenience.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14491760949176104917611NickWhalenSt. John's EastDanielBlaikieElmwood—Transcona//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89032DanielBlaikieDaniel-BlaikieElmwood—TransconaNew Democratic Party CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BlaikieDaniel_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP): (1330)[English] Mr. Speaker, one aspect of the issue my hon. colleague did not have an opportunity to speak to in his speech but that was mentioned by the government House leader is that the new arrangement of the Senate has also caused delay in the passage of bills. Of course, that did not happen spontaneously. It was a reform dreamt up by the Prime Minister.I wonder if my colleague would like to offer some remarks as to the new arrangement in the Senate and the consequences for this place.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449176124917613MurrayRankinVictoriaMurrayRankinVictoria//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/60078MurrayRankinMurray-RankinVictoriaNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/RankinMurray_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Murray Rankin: (1330)[English] Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Elmwood—Transcona for pointing that out. The fact is that we have a Senate that actually is sending bills back now. The problem with that is that it will propose amendments, as we saw with a couple of initiatives lately that were passed in this House and studied by committee, and those amendments were explicitly rejected by the elected members of this place, only to come back, and then we have to say, “No, we really meant it, Senate. We really wanted it to be that way. Please don't throw stuff back at us that we have already rejected.”The government is having an awfully hard time managing the Senate. In its speeches, it blames the opposition for stopping this legislative machine the government wants to put forward, blaming us for motions and obstruction and so forth and never reminding Canadians that the Senate reforms it brought forward have allowed the government to delay the work of this place by sending back amendments we have already rejected. We have seen that a couple of times so far. I suspect we will see it again.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449176144917615DanielBlaikieElmwood—TransconaMarilynGladuSarnia—Lambton//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88938MarilynGladuMarilyn-GladuSarnia—LambtonConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GladuMarilyn_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMs. Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia—Lambton, CPC): (1330)[English] Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member from the NDP about the hypocrisy of the government when it comes to the fact that it is claiming that we need to sit long hours, which I am very willing to do. However, at committee, when we try to bring amendments, it does not listen to what we are saying anyway. How can more hours of debate that is not being listened to be meaningful in any way?Would the member comment?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449176164917617MurrayRankinVictoriaMurrayRankinVictoria//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/60078MurrayRankinMurray-RankinVictoriaNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/RankinMurray_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Murray Rankin: (1330)[English] Mr. Speaker, I thought it was something that only the Conservatives did, serving on committees and having it entirely rejected. Any good ideas must come from the government side, be they at committee or be they private member's bills. If they are not from the red side of the chamber, they are just not counted. I really do not understand how that change is going to make any difference.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144917618MarilynGladuSarnia—LambtonDanielBlaikieElmwood—Transcona//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89032DanielBlaikieDaniel-BlaikieElmwood—TransconaNew Democratic Party CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BlaikieDaniel_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP): (1335)[English]Mr. Speaker, I will begin my contribution to this debate by reiterating what we have heard from a few members. I do not think the issue is that members mind sitting longer to accomplish important work. We were sent here to do that work. If there are things that need to get passed and we feel they are of value to Canadians, we are willing to do the work to get it passed. The issue is that sitting longer does come with real consequences both in terms of costs to the House by not just having MPs here, but all the staff that make debate in this place possible and that support this work. Having them come in to work overtime has a real cost. There is a productivity cost that may be incurred for some of us who stay up past midnight and then get up for eight o'clock meetings that will not get pushed back. That is fine, and it can be a reasonable choice to make. Sometimes we just have to get things done, which means staying later. Putting in some overtime is not a problem. However, the question is why we are in a situation that we have to do that. It is important to understand how we got here. I do not think anyone would disagree with the claim that this is not ideally how one would run things around here. To ask MPs, or staff on the Hill, on relatively short notice, to stay until midnight, and then be back again every morning is not the ideal way to run the House of Commons. That is why it is exceptional and not usually done. I have not heard anyone today suggest it should.Part of how we got here is simply. The government has been inept for a number of months. That ineptitude manifested itself when the government brought what it called a discussion paper to change the Standing Orders. It then, at the procedure and House affairs committee, where that would properly be dealt with before coming to this place, decided to move to close down that conversation. The opposition parties rightly reacted for a number of reasons. One was that it did not seem to be a good faith discussion when the government had said it wanted to have that and then moved to close it down. Therefore, it did not feel like the government was acting in good faith on that. However, the opposition members also rightly objected because all they were asking for, in order to embark on that conversation in good faith, was that the government would agree in advance to seek all-party agreement before moving ahead with changes to the Standing Orders. This was not some cockamamie scheme that the opposition parties of this Parliament came up with. It is a long-standing parliamentary tradition, which has worked to bring in significant parliamentary reform.I grew up hearing stories of the McGrath committee at the dinner table. My father sat on that committee. It brought forth changes for the Speaker to be elected by secret ballot. That was a huge change. It also made private members' business votable, not in the way it is currently. It was the beginning of ensuring that at least some private members' business would be voted on. These were just some of the substantial reforms that were made in the House via all-party agreement. Therefore, the idea that somehow we would never get all-party agreement, and it was just a pipe dream, is completely false. There are ample examples of that. The hon. official opposition House leader has outlined a number more, in fact, some dating back to the 14th century in Britain. Certainly, there are a number of cases where we have seen good reform come out of all-party work.Therefore, the opposition said it did not think it acceptable for a government to unilaterally change the rules of this place. This place is meant to serve Canadians, not the government, and the interests of the government are not always the same as the interests of Canadians. Not wanting to depart too much from debate on the motion, the creation of the infrastructure bank is a good example of where the interests of the government do not align with the interests of Canadians. However, I will not get into that.The filibuster that happened and some the time that was spent in the House, and there was a lot, was spent rightly. People were standing up to a government that thought Parliament was here to simply do whatever it wanted. We have seen that in Winnipeg with the call for an inquiry into the building of the new police headquarters. Because that project got out of hand and went way over budget, there are questions about whether the CAO of the city and the former mayor were involved or accepting money. Those questions are out there, and people are asking for an investigation. What people are rightly asking is whose hand was on the wheel, who was overseeing this and if it was not the job of backbenchers and opposition politicians to provide appropriate scrutiny. (1340)That is what these tools of Parliament allow us to do. Standing up for those tools is part of that job. The “just trust us” attitude of the government is not sufficient. The government is not only saying “just trust us, we are doing a good job”, but it is talking about changing the rules of Parliament so we have no choice but to just trust it.If the proposals in the discussion paper did not do that automatically, that was certainly the thrust and direction of them. The Liberals' way of doing it would set the principle and the precedent that a majority government could unilaterally change the rules of the House.It is not our job to just trust the government. It is not our job to just help the government get legislation through the House. It is the government's job to get legislation through the House. By refusing to honour a long-standing parliamentary tradition of seeking all-party consensus, the government was at the root of the delay that happened in the House. As a result, it could not get its legislative agenda through. It is not even a very big legislative agenda, and that speaks to the magnitude of the Liberals failure as a government to work collaboratively with opposition parties. As my colleague rightly pointed out, that was something the Liberals committed to doing. They made it a cornerstone of what they wanted to do. They said they wanted to work collaboratively and take the work of committees seriously. How is the government taking the work of committees seriously when it presents a discussion paper on changes to the Standing Orders then moves to shut down the debate? How was it a sign of respect for the work of committees when the special committee on electoral reform came out with a proposal on how to advance the government's own election commitment? Even in the face of challenge and even though we said that we on this side of the House disagreed substantially on how we should or should not change our electoral system but nevertheless here was a path forward that we we could at least agree on, a general outline of what the process would look like, the government threw it back.When we hear the government House leader today say that the government wants committees to do their great work and it wants more debate in the House, as if somehow we are to believe that this is really the motivation of the government, it is a challenge. It is a challenge on this side to take the Liberals at their word on those things because of what happened at PROC, because of what happened with Motion No. 6, because of what happened on democratic reform, and now with what is happening with this motion. The government, essentially after botching its job, which is to guide legislation through the House and to work with other parties to do that, is now asking its backbench to make up for the mistakes, instead of looking at its cabinet, asking what has gone wrong, why has it been unable to advance its legislation through the House and what is that saying about the quality of the government's leadership. These are questions the Liberals should be asking instead of asking all of us to put in extra time at the last minute to help them get through an agenda that they say is going to be positive for Canadians. That is fine. I do not believe that for a minute. Getting Bill C-44 through the House is not an important priority. I would love to see the committee get to work on the infrastructure bank. When we proposed to separate that from the omnibus bill, the Liberals said no. They then had the audacity to stand here and say that they valued the work of parliamentarians and committees. Why not let a committee study that? The government House leader even went so far as to say that the government had the power to call witnesses and do an in-depth study. That was our point about the infrastructure bank, and the Liberals shut it down. For the Liberals to ask us to take their word that this is being done in good faith is a little much. There are other aspects of this that would be useful to get into, but we are pushing up against the clock, not the least of which is the reforms that the Prime Minister has made within the Senate. We have a chamber full of unelected people who are accountable to no one and it is sending bills like Bill C-4 back to the House. This is after two-thirds of Canadians voted for parties that said they wanted to see the anti-labour legislation of the last Parliament repealed. People who are accountable to no one have sent the bill back and have refused to pass it. That has to get done. It should have been done a long time ago. It speaks volumes to the ineptitude of the Liberal Party that it has not already been done. It is a straight up repeal. It was a matter of getting it through the House and then getting it through the Senate. The Liberals failed to do that in a timely way. It is just an indication of how broken the Liberals are as a government that they cannot get such a fundamental piece of legislation passed. Granted it does not enjoy consensus because there is one party in th House that does not support legislation, but every other party in the House does, even the unofficial parties.(1345)Four out of the five parties that won seats in the last election support the legislation, and the government still cannot get it passed. It does not even do anything new. It just restores labour law to what it was in 2012.I will defer to questions and answers.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14491761949176204917621491762249176234917624491762549176264917627491762849176294917630491763149176324917633491763449176354917636491763749176384917639MurrayRankinVictoriaMarilynGladuSarnia—Lambton//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88938MarilynGladuMarilyn-GladuSarnia—LambtonConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/GladuMarilyn_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMs. Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia—Lambton, CPC): (1345)[English]Mr. Speaker, I enjoy my colleague's speeches because he always tells it like it is.It appears that the government, which is supposed to be in charge of the legislative agenda, has really squandered the time it has spent by doing these dictatorial moves, like trying to ram changes through committee. The fact that the government cannot even get its own budget bill passed with a majority is just symptomatic of that. Would the member agree?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449176404917641DanielBlaikieElmwood—TransconaDanielBlaikieElmwood—Transcona//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89032DanielBlaikieDaniel-BlaikieElmwood—TransconaNew Democratic Party CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BlaikieDaniel_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Daniel Blaikie: (1345)[English]Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are really hooked on the horn of a dilemma. This is their meagre attempt at some sort of solution.On the one hand, if we take the Liberals at their word about wanting to work collaboratively with other parties, getting things through Parliament, improving the Senate and making it better, and having better legislation, then they are just inept and are terrible managers. They have not managed to do that. If we take the Liberals at their word, that is what they are doing, they have done a terrible job of it. It is not working, and that is too bad.However, on the other hand, maybe there is another reason why the Liberals have not gotten that through. Maybe we do not take them at their word when they say they want to treat Parliament with respect but actually treat Parliament like it is an inconvenience, and there is a lot of evidence in their behaviour for that point of view, and that maybe the proper way is to just ram things through. Well, frankly, they are still inept. The Liberals have been doing a lot of ramming and a lot of jamming. PROC was all about that. They were going to shut down the conversation and were not willing to agree to have all-party consensus. They are not even able to make the tough-handed approach work.If the Liberals are serious about taking a collaborative approach, they are failing on that score. They have clearly tried the heavy-handed approach, and they are failing on that score. What management strategy are the Liberals competent enough to use to actually get their agenda through? The answer seems to be that there is not one.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144917642491764349176444917645MarilynGladuSarnia—LambtonMurrayRankinVictoria//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/60078MurrayRankinMurray-RankinVictoriaNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/RankinMurray_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Murray Rankin (Victoria, NDP): (1345)[English]Mr. Speaker, my colleague's speech was colourful. The ramming and jamming and the like certainly got my attention. I also loved what he had to say about the unelected, unaccountable, and often under investigation senators and their role in this drama, which the government seems to be in denial about.I would like to go to a much more specific aspect of what the motion would do. As members know, we have opposition days available to the Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party. One of the things the government is trying to do is to jam legislation through up until midnight, but not allowing those opposition days available to the opposition to be available for a full day.Could the member comment on that proposed change?Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14491764649176474917648DanielBlaikieElmwood—TransconaDanielBlaikieElmwood—Transcona//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89032DanielBlaikieDaniel-BlaikieElmwood—TransconaNew Democratic Party CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/BlaikieDaniel_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Daniel Blaikie: (1345)[English]Mr. Speaker, again, this speaks to the different ways of thinking about Parliament.If opposition days were just a day for the opposition to get the whining off their chest, have their little whine time in the House, and then we would move on and get back to doing what the Liberals get to do because they have a majority of the seats, even though they got less than 40% of the vote in the House, then we would not see any value in extending the opposition days. The thought might be that the opposition members just want time to whine about whatever and they got to whine, so let us move on.That seems to be the attitude of the government in this motion. However, if the rationale for the supply days, or opposition days as they are more commonly known, was that the opposition deserved to have a certain proportion of the time to address concerns that may be embarrassing to the government or that the government did not want to spend time on, then we would adopt it. As members would imagine, I do not support the former interpretation. However, it is quite reasonable to also extend the time for those opposition days. This time is for that. It is the time for the opposition to bring forward those issues that the government does not want to discuss.For the benefit of the House, the opposition day motion we had was to separate out the infrastructure bank, or the government's privatization scheme, from the omnibus budget bill. It was also an NDP opposition day motion that created the special committee for democratic reform. As I said, it came up with a proactive proposal to help the government meet its election commitments, that it then reneged on.That is productive work. The idea of the supply days is that a certain proportion of the House time is dedicated to that work. Part of the problem is that this motion undercuts that fair proportion of established time. We heard earlier from members who were concerned that this was really about the government, not the Liberal backbenchers but the cabinet, infringing on the time that Parliament had to conduct business that was not necessarily what the government would have us be talk about. That is sad for the government, but it is important for our work.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 1449176494917650491765149176524917653MurrayRankinVictoriaAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1350)[English]Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the comments from speakers this morning and afternoon in regard to the government motion. To begin, it was not that long ago, a couple of years, that I sat in the opposition benches, not far from the member who just spoke. At that time, then Prime Minister Stephen Harper recognized the need to bring in the almost identical motion that we are debating today. I can recall standing up in my place and even saying that this was a good thing. At times, the government needs to be able to extend the hours of sitting in order to achieve more debate on very serious issues facing Canadians. I, like my colleagues, am not scared to work overtime, if that is what they want to call it. Many of us work well into the evening every night of the week anyway. It is important that we recognize right from the get-go, and everyone in the House should recognize it, that there is a time when the House needs to extend its hours. Conservative governments have recognized it. Even when I was in opposition, I recognized that.I suggest that my colleagues across the way read the motion and compare it to the motion that Prime Minister Stephen Harper brought in. If they can find a difference, I ask them to please tell me where those differences are. Stephen Harper was right back then. That is why we supported—Some hon. members: Hear, hear!Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Yes, Mr. Speaker, they should applaud. He was not right that often. That is one of the reasons I voted for what he was attempting to do. Fast forward to today. Members and Canadians know that our Prime Minister has a very aggressive legislative and budgetary agenda. I will provide some comment on that. We are at a stage, getting closer and closer to that two-year mark as legislation has been proceeding along, where we have to recognize there is a need for the House to have extended hours. That is nothing new. That should not be a news flash for anyone sitting in the chamber. I have been a parliamentarian for 25 years, whether here in Ottawa or in the Manitoba legislature, and we have quite often had extended hours of sitting to encourage more debate. In fact, in the last 10 years in Ottawa, we have seen it six or seven times. What we are debating today is nothing new. It is something that is important. The member for Elmwood—Transcona said something that really tweaked. There were a lot of things said, and I want to pick up on a couple of points that I heard today. One of them was that a proportion of time should be allocated towards opposition days. I should remind the New Democrats, before they get too cozy with the Conservatives on that particular issue, that the Conservative government House leader brought it up. I should let the member know, because he was not here when Stephen Harper was the prime minister, that Stephen Harper had opposition days on Wednesdays and Fridays. Wednesdays and Fridays are short days, as all members know, so where is this argument about proportion of time? Is the memory of Conservatives that short that they have forgotten it? Some hon. members: Oh, oh!Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 144917655491765649176574917658491765949176604917661491766249176634917664AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25452AnthonyRotaAnthony-RotaNipissing—TimiskamingLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/RotaAnthony_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionThe Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mr. Anthony Rota): (1355)[English]Order, please. I want to remind hon. members that someone is speaking, and shouting across is not parliamentary procedure. I want to especially remind those who are sitting close to the Chair that I can hear them. I do not want to name them so that the people back home would be ashamed of them or wonder why they are screaming in the House. The hon. parliamentary secretary.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentNoise/conversations/heckling, interrupting Member speaking49176654917666KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1355)[English]Mr. Speaker, the point is that within the motion, again, there is no difference. We did not see Stephen Harper say, “Oh, gee whiz, we're going to have opposition days going to midnight too.” That did not happen. This should be no surprise. If there is a surprise, the surprise is that with this government, we have not put opposition days on Wednesdays and Fridays, unlike the former prime minister. That is a good thing, I would argue. That is the reason why I advise my New Democratic friends that they should think it through before they jump onside with the Conservatives. The spin by the Conservatives on this will not go very far, I am afraid.However, it is not alone. I have heard a great deal of talk about the Standing Orders. In fact, they raised the issue of Fridays once again. I can assure the residents of Winnipeg North that Liberal members of Parliament, and I would like to think all members of Parliament, work seven days a week. I know that I do. The issue is whether I am working in Ottawa or working in Winnipeg.Having said that, the idea of the particular proposal that was a part of the discussion paper was not that we want Fridays off, it was that we only work half Fridays in Ottawa. Why not work more of a full day by starting at 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday or Thursday? Most Canadians do that. The hours we make up by doing that would then allow us to maybe do some things in the riding. For example, June is going to be a busy month. There are going to be all sorts of graduation ceremonies. I know that I am very proud of all of my graduates in Winnipeg North. I suspect that there is a huge demand for us to be in our constituencies.At the end of the day, no one on this side of the House is suggesting that we want more time off. In fact, if people were to judge us based on what we have been able to do to date, they would see there is only one party that has persistently pushed to have this chamber working in a much more productive fashion. I do not know how many motions we have had for adjournment being proposed by the opposition and how many times we have had to vote that down so we would be able to continue. Members want to talk about the need for debate. We debated a matter of privilege for seven days. I did not hear any opposition members say, “Well, because it's seven days and it's going to be on government business days, gee whiz, why don't we give the government some of our opposition days in order to compensate?” No.Now, fast forward to where are we today, and we have an aggressive agenda. We are going to need that time. Canadians want us to work hard, and this government is prepared to work hard in order to deliver.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14491766749176684917669491767049176714917672AnthonyRotaNipissing—TimiskamingAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89000BardishChaggerHon.Bardish-ChaggerWaterlooLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChaggerBardish_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersExtension of Sitting Hours [Notice of Closure Motion]InterventionHon. Bardish Chagger (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism, Lib.): (1810)[English]Mr. Speaker, with respect to Government Business No. 14, I wish to give notice that at the next sitting of the House a Minister of the crown shall move, pursuant to Standing Order 57, that debate be not further adjourned.ClosureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 14Notice of motion4918430MarkWarawaLangley—AldergroveTedFalkProvencher//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88504David de BurghGrahamDaviddeBurgh-GrahamLaurentides—LabelleLiberal CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/GrahamDavid_Lib.jpgOrders of the DayStanding Orders and ProcedureInterventionMr. David de Burgh Graham (Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.): (1555)[English]Mr. Speaker, the curiously introspective S. O. 51 requires us to contemplate the Standing Orders here today. With apologies to interpretation services, I have a lot to say about them.As a member of PROC, and as a perennial procedure geek who started watching CPAC when I started high school, I am following this debate with even more interest than my normal enthusiastic self.I want to go over some of the changes that were already proposed by PROC in our recently tabled interim report on moving toward a modern, efficient, inclusive, and family-friendly Parliament and then discuss some other ideas.A good deal of what we discussed in our report does not affect the Standing Orders directly. I encourage anyone interested in the workings of this place and the impact on their families and personal lives to take the time to read through the report and perhaps provide guidance to their friendly local PROC member on what direction that study should take going forward.In PROC's 11th report, we made a number of recommendations and had a number of discussion points. Three of those recommendations and three of those discussion points are directly relevant to the Standing Orders. The first two recommendations are related to the standardization of vote times to ensure predictability and efficiency. They state: That House Leaders continue, whenever possible, the informal practice of holding deferred recorded divisions immediately following Question Period. That House Leaders, whenever possible, refrain from holding recorded divisions any later on Thursdays than immediately following Question Period. The third recommendation states: That the Speaker table the House calendar each year prior to the House's summer adjournment. That is not always easy, but it is an aspirational goal worth pursuing.As a committee, we also felt that it was important to look at ways of limiting the number of consecutive sitting weeks. We all know from our pleasant experiences this spring that four-plus sitting weeks in a row really sours the mood around here, especially when we are here until midnight every night. However, there is a lot of work to be done, and we are a remarkable Parliament for our inefficiency in getting through legislation. Those are not the kind of accolades I believe we are looking for on the world stage. To get there, one of the key items we discussed at length, but did not really get anywhere with, is the concept used in other Westminster parliaments of a parallel chamber, that is, a voteless chamber where items can be pre-debated. Our upcoming move to West Block and our subsequent move back to Centre Block certainly creates an interesting opportunity to retain two fully functional chambers.The fate of Friday sittings is also a contentious debate, and one I would like to see my colleagues soul-search on as to how we make this place more efficient so that we may spend more time in our constituencies. The last item, of course, is decorum. While we did not come to any conclusions, I personally find the new tone of question period, with the government side, at least, generally keeping calm and constructive, to be positive, and I would invite the opposition members to follow suit, at least experimentally for a while, to see if it improves the overall tone here. I cannot be the only parliamentary enthusiast who always found question period the least, not most, enjoyable part of the day's proceedings, regardless of who was in power. Decorum is a cultural, not a regulatory, issue that is up to us to fix. There are few of us who have ever actually read the Standing Orders from cover to cover. I have, on more than one occasion, and I find them fascinating. I may not fully grok them, but I am certainly trying to. Standing Order 4 does not have a mechanism to deal with the acclamation of a Speaker, for example. When Bill Blaikie was dean of the House, he presided over the unprecedented acclamation of Peter Milliken. I remember watching it on television. He observed that there was no process to deal with this but that the House could do many things with unanimous consent. However, what would have happened if a disgruntled member had denied that consent? For that matter, there are several instances when unanimous consent is required for absolutely routine things that should not need to go to a question. Standing Order 7(1.1) has some curious wording on the assumed election, but not really, of the Deputy Speaker. Standing Order 7(2) has contorted wording designed to ensure that the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker, between them, speak the two official languages, and 7(3) requires a Deputy Speaker to be elected to replace one who leaves during his or her term but is inconsistent with how that person got there in the first place. Standing Order 11 permits you, Mr. Speaker, to punt someone from this room. I would encourage you to be unshy to use that power or to become blind to disruptive members, as Speaker Milliken did, regardless of party. Those powers should perhaps be expanded on. What value is there in kicking someone out of this room into a press scrum? What more tangible recourse could perhaps be available? Standing Order 17 requires us to speak only from our own seats. I would personally like to see, for purely practical reasons, the members of the House leadership team of each recognized party be permitted to be recognized from any seat allocated to their party during regular debate. Standing Order 23 declares bribery a high crime to be dealt with with the utmost severity, without providing for any type of process to do so.Standing Order 28(1) says we cannot sit on Dominion Day. Dominion Day was replaced with Canada Day back in 1982, when I was one year old. Standing Order 37(1) permits a Speaker to punt a question deemed not urgent to the Order Paper. However, in all of my years of watching, I have never seen that actually happen.(1600) Chapter VI of the Standing Orders deals with the process of debate. I think it is worth considering changing the structure of 10- and 20-minute speaking slots, with questions and comments, to 15- or 30-minute speaking slots. Up to 10 or 20 minutes would be used for speaking, and the totality of the unused portion would be left for questions and comments.For example, if I only speak six minutes out of my 10, which for me happens more often than not, I would have up to nine minutes of questions rather than only five. This will lead to shorter and more candid speeches and better debate afterward.Standing Order 68(3) has an ironic quirk of old English. It states that bills may not be tabled in “imperfect” form, in English, but that they may not be tabled in “incomplete” form, in French.Standing Order 71 also has a typo, in English, stating that every bill shall receive “three several readings”, rather than “three separate readings”, or just “three readings”, as it says in French.Standing 87 deals with private members' bills. When a member of Parliament has been here for several elections and has never had a chance to bring a PMB forward, and another member comes and has a PMB on the Order Paper before figuring out where the washrooms in Centre Block are, the system may be somewhat broken.I propose for discussion that the PMB lottery be rethought to become fairer. At the start of every Parliament, all re-elected MPs should retain their place on the order of precedence. Those returning MPs not on the list because of being ministers, parliamentary secretaries, or Speaker would come next. New MPs would then be added to the order of precedence in the current manner. MPs from the previous Parliament who had had an opportunity to take their bills through the process would be added to the end of the list, again, in the same process. Finally, all MPs should be able to trade with all other MPs anywhere on that list. All MPs, then, would have an equal chance to propose a private member's bill, without the peculiar bias against people who just cannot seem to win a lottery and without throwing a new MP into a situation of having to write and table a bill before learning how this place works.I would also like to revisit the issue of royal recommendations at some point.Standing Order 128 allows the House to be called back at 1 p.m. on a Wednesday to deal with a report from the Standing Joint Committee on Regulations, to which I say, really?Standing Orders 129 to 147 deal with private bills. That used to be how to get a divorce in this country. While the Senate still uses them, on the Commons side there has not been a private bill for many Parliaments. Could we not drop this altogether?Finally, Standing Order 158 permits the Sergeant-at-Arms to detain strangers for their behaviour in the chamber or gallery and may not release them without an order from the House. I do not know if this building contains a jail, but this is certainly an interesting legacy item. What is the real world impact of this?Getting off Standing Orders, per se, why must bills die in the Senate when the House is dissolved? Could the Senate not continue dealing with bills already before it and simply send the version it has passed back to the new Parliament for concurrence? Private members' bills, especially, would be far less prone to an untimely death.On other topics, I believe it should be inappropriate for any member to refer to the official language spoken by another member in the House of Commons, in the same way it is inappropriate for a member to refer to the presence or absence of another in this House.Chapter XIII already guarantees that all members can speak in either official language, but I would go further and make it against the rules to refer to the language another member actually chose.There are quirks in procedure and practice that are not necessarily in the Standing Orders, such as the entertaining, “When shall this bill be read a second time? At the next sitting of the House”, amid catcalls of, “Now” and “Never”. This is an artifact from a change more than 20 years ago, and there are no doubt several of these bugs where not all consequential changes were properly made.I suspect the need for the agreement of the House for Order Paper questions to be allowed to stand is another such artifact, and there are surely more.I would also like to see the clock in this chamber replaced with synchronized digital clocks that can be controlled by the table and that reflect the apparent time in the House as well as the actual time so that when we “see the clock”, the clock agrees.In fact, until we have integrated information systems in our desks, which is another long-term point we should at least discuss, I might go so far as to suggest four clocks be visible to all members in the chamber. They would show the time, the perceived time, the remaining speaking time for the current speaker, and the actual time the House is expected to rise today.While we are at it, why do some events prolong the day and others do not? Is there any rhyme or reason to it? Could we perhaps revisit what does and does not make the day end at, say, 6:48 p.m.?Of course, I would like to see seats in the chamber that do not tear our pockets, which happened to me again last night.Let me also take this opportunity, as a former staffer, to call for the return of the one-stop shop, which provided for a different kind of Standing Order.Yesterday a group of around 20 people visited me from their retirement residence in Mont-Laurier. At 3 p.m., security kicked them out of the group visitors gallery above you.As a fundamental principle, I do not believe that behaving members of the public should ever be asked to leave the gallery during a sitting. If anything, the public should be encouraged to watch our debates, rather than question period, to participate more meaningfully in our legislative process.Standing Order 51 provides us this wonderful opportunity to get into the weeds on the Standing Orders and to remove relics, artifacts, and cruft that no longer need to be there.I look forward to continuing to hear the thoughts of my colleagues and to discussing them back at PROC.8510-421-79 11th Report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (Initiatives toward a family-friendly House of Commons)Absence or presence of membersAltering days and hours of sittingsBehaviour modificationBillsBriberyCanada DayCentre BlockCommittee reportsCommittee studies and activitiesConstituency officesContents of speechesCorruptionDaily ProgramDebate on the Standing Orders and ProcedureDecisions of the HouseDeferred divisionsDeputy Speaker of the HouseDisciplinary measuresDissolutionElection of the SpeakerElectronic devicesEnglishEqual opportunitiesExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentForm of billsFurniture and furniture industryHours of workHouse LeaderHouse of Commons administrationHouse of Commons calendarHouse of Commons chamberHouse of Commons Security ServicesImprisonment and prisonersInformation disseminationLegislative processManners and customsMembers of ParliamentNaming a memberOfficial languages policyOral questionsOrder and decorumOrder of precedenceOrder Paper and Notice PaperParallel debating ChamberParliamentary reformPerformance managementPlace of speakingPrerogatives of the ChairPrivate billsPrivate Members' BillsPrivate Members' BusinessProceeding to next item earlyProcess of debatePublic GalleryPublic holidaysRecorded divisionsReinstatement of bills from previous sessionRoutine ProceedingsSenate and senatorsSergeant-at-ArmsService deliverySpecial or unusual sittingsStandard timeStanding Committee on Procedure and House AffairsStanding Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of RegulationsStanding Orders of the House of CommonsTake-note debatesTerminologyThird reading and adoptionTime limits on debateUnanimous consentWest BlockWork life balanceWritten questions4512637JamieSchmaleHaliburton—Kawartha Lakes—BrockMarkWarawaLangley—Aldergrove//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/58877KirstyDuncanHon.Kirsty-DuncanEtobicoke NorthLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/DuncanKirsty_Lib.jpgRoutine ProceedingsBusiness of the HouseInterventionHon. Kirsty Duncan (Minister of Science, Lib.): (1610)[English]Mr. Speaker, pursuant to an order adopted by the House on June 9, 2016, I move: MotionThat the hour of adjournment for the current sitting day shall be midnight. Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentMotions44265374426538Ruth EllenBrosseauBerthier—MaskinongéAnthonyRotaNipissing—Timiskaming//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25452AnthonyRotaAnthony-RotaNipissing—TimiskamingLiberal CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/RotaAnthony_Lib.jpgRoutine ProceedingsBusiness of the HouseInterventionThe Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mr. Anthony Rota): (1610)[English]Pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 9, the motion is deemed adopted. Motion deemed adoptedQuestions and comments, the hon. member for Sherbrooke. Decisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentMotions4426539KirstyDuncanHon.Etobicoke NorthPierre-LucDusseaultSherbrooke//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgRoutine ProceedingsExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1005)[English]MotionMr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties, and if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move: That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, commencing on Monday, June 13, 2016, and concluding on Thursday, June 23, 2016, at any time a Minister of the Crown proposes without notice a motion “That the hour of adjournment for the current sitting day shall be midnight”, it be deemed adopted, provided that: a) the motion is neither moved after 4:30 p.m., nor on a Friday; and b) the Order of the Day called for the period of time beyond the ordinary hour of adjournment only be a motion for the consideration of Senate amendments under Government Orders.Consideration of Senate amendmentsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 7Leave to propose a motion44137144413715Anne Minh-ThuQuachSalaberry—SuroîtGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgRoutine ProceedingsExtension of Sitting HoursInterventionThe Speaker: (1005)[English]Does the hon. parliamentary secretary have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion? Some hon. members: Agreed. The Speaker: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion? Some hon. members: Agreed.(Motion agreed to)Consideration of Senate amendmentsDecisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 7Leave to propose a motion4413716441371744137184413719KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthHaroldAlbrechtKitchener—Conestoga//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25483GordonBrownGordon-BrownLeeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau LakesConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/BrownGordon_CPC.jpgStatements by MembersGovernment Business No. 6InterventionMr. Gordon Brown (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC): (1415)[English]Mr. Speaker, we went from sunny ways to a dark week in Parliament. We had altercations on the floor of the House; chaotic scheduling of business without notice; the moving of dilatory motions by the government, delaying its own legislation; and the closing of debate on Bill C-14, the first time in history that such measures were used on a moral conscience issue.Then we wake up Wednesday morning to Motion No. 6, a motion that proposes to legislate by exhaustion, offering unstructured, open-ended debate, potentially sitting 24 hours a day around the clock, all summer long, and when the government is satisfied it has forced through enough business, it can bail out without notice and without a vote. Motion No. 6 targets the opposition and hamstrings its ability to hold the government to account. It disenfranchises the 60.5% of Canadians who voted for those opposition members. Even the 39.5% of Canadians who voted Liberal will not appreciate or be well-served by the crippling of the opposition.Motion No. 6 must be withdrawn from the Order Paper and never repeated again.Some hon. members: Oh, oh!Altering days and hours of sittingsDaily ProgramDebate on the Standing Orders and ProcedureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hoursExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment accountabilityGovernment Business No. 6House of Commons calendarOrder and decorumParliamentary democracyStatements by MembersTime allocation4367303MatthewDubéBeloeil—ChamblyGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25447RonaAmbroseHon.Rona-AmbroseSturgeon River—ParklandConservative CaucusAlberta//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/AmbroseRona_CPC.jpgOral Question PeriodHouse of CommonsInterventionHon. Rona Ambrose (Leader of the Opposition, CPC): (1415)[English]Mr. Speaker, last night the Prime Minister's temper got the best of him, but his behaviour was just an extension of his government's approach to the House. Increasingly, Liberals treat the House and the voices of Canadians with arrogance and disrespect, and nowhere is that more clear than in Motion No. 6, which would strip the opposition of all of its tools to hold the government to account.Will the Prime Minister put the words of his apology this morning into action and withdraw this offensive motion?Altering days and hours of sittingsDaily ProgramDebate on the Standing Orders and ProcedureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 6House of Commons calendarOral questionsParliamentary democracyPolitical behaviourRights of ParliamentWithdrawal of a motion43673144367315RandeepSaraiSurrey CentreDominicLeBlancHon.Beauséjour//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1813DominicLeBlancHon.Dominic-LeBlancBeauséjourLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LeblancDominic_Lib.jpgOral Question PeriodHouse of CommonsInterventionHon. Dominic LeBlanc (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1415)[English]Mr. Speaker, we have listened to the comments made by all of our colleagues and I would like to inform the House that a short while ago, we withdrew Motion No. 6 from the Order Paper. Our objective remains to work with everyone to find the proper mechanism to extend the sitting hours to allow for a more respectful debate on government legislation and I look forward to working with all members of the House to achieve that objective.Altering days and hours of sittingsDaily ProgramDebate on the Standing Orders and ProcedureExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 6House of Commons calendarOral questionsParliamentary democracyPolitical behaviourRights of ParliamentWithdrawal of a motion43673164367317RonaAmbroseHon.Sturgeon River—ParklandRonaAmbroseHon.Sturgeon River—Parkland//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/16399PeterJulianPeter-JulianNew Westminster—BurnabyNew Democratic Party CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/JulianPeter_NDP.jpgRoutine ProceedingsPrivilege [Government Business Motion No. 6]InterventionMr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP): (1625)[English]Mr. Speaker, as you know from the letter I deposited with your office this morning, I am rising on a question of privilege relating to Motion No. 6, which is on today's Notice Paper in the name of the government House leader. Through my brief remarks today, and in more detail at a later date, I will ask you to eventually rule that there exists a prima facie case that the privileges of members of Parliament have been breached by this draconian motion.I think you will find others who will want to intervene in coming days as well. I include in that the parliamentary House leaders of the Conservative Party and Bloc Québécois and the leader of the Green Party. I think they will all want to speak to this question of privilege. I preface my remarks by saying that this is a sad day for our democracy. Today, the Liberal cabinet, through its leader in the House, introduced a motion that rewrites our Standing Orders in more than 17 different ways so that the executive has unilateral control over all of the procedural tools in the House.[Translation]This motion moved by the Liberal cabinet uses parliamentary procedure to put all the other members in a straitjacket and limit their rights and privileges. That includes independent members, members of the Bloc Québécois, members of the Green Party, members of the recognized opposition parties, namely the NDP and the Conservative Party, and even the Liberal backbenchers. That, Mr. Speaker, cannot and must not be allowed, and you may be the only person who can stop this unilateral and autocratic rewriting of the regulations governing our democratic institutions.[English]In this straitjacket of Parliament, cabinet, according to the motion, would not need to consult other MPs on the timing of debate, on when we return to our ridings for the summer or at all, or even when MPs can go to bed. So much for a family friendly Parliament. Liberals should be hanging their heads in shame to move this motion.Further, it would deny MPs the right to spark debates on the crucial work done at committee. It would force MPs to debate their bills in the middle of the night, ensuring absolutely no votes will interrupt the Prime Minister's beauty sleep while opposition MPs have to be available, wait for it, 24 hours a day in the possibility that a bill for which they are responsible is brought forward. The list goes on and on in 17 different areas through the course of more than a dozen clauses and subclauses to tilt the playing field in the favour of the government.(1630)[Translation]I am wondering how the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons was able to justify this type of undemocratic motion to his caucus this morning or whether he told his party's backbenchers about it at all.From what we heard in question period today, it seems that even the Prime Minister does not really understand what this motion does.[English]Motion No. 6 does not merely, as the Prime Minister claims, allow for more debate. It gives cabinet ministers unilateral control over when the House adjourns. If he or she is not happy with how a debate is unfolding, the minister can simply stand up at 8 p.m., at 9 p.m., at 10 p.m., at midnight, at 3 a.m., whenever, and adjourn the House or keep it going until the next morning. It invests the power of a dictatorship in the heart of our democracy.Erskine May's Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament defines privilege in the following way on page 75: Parliamentary privilege is the sum of the peculiar rights enjoyed by each House collectively...and by Members of each House individually, without which they could not discharge their functions.... It is clear the executive is attempting to set aside those rights and privileges for all MPs, other than for cabinet ministers, and when we have had more time to digest this draconian legislation that affects 17 important areas in our Standing Orders, I intend to return to the House with a much more fulsome intervention. I will continue another day, but I will say this. No government in history has introduced a motion that has had, or will have, such a draconian impact on Parliament. Liberals should be ashamed of themselves.Altering days and hours of sittingsDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 6House of Commons calendarParliamentary democracyParliamentary privilegeRights of Members breached435971243597134359714435971543597164359717435971843597194359720435972143597224359723435972443597254359726GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestDominicLeBlancHon.Beauséjour//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1813DominicLeBlancHon.Dominic-LeBlancBeauséjourLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LeblancDominic_Lib.jpgRoutine ProceedingsPrivilege [Government Business Motion No. 6]InterventionHon. Dominic LeBlanc (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1630)[English]Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. I have listened to my colleague's intervention across the way. I would like to ask the Chair to reserve my right to reflect on what he said and come back to the House and provide a more fulsome comment.Altering days and hours of sittingsDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 6House of Commons calendarParliamentary democracyParliamentary privilegeRights of Members breached4359727PeterJulianNew Westminster—BurnabyAndrewScheerRegina—Qu'Appelle//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25454AndrewScheerAndrew-ScheerRegina—Qu'AppelleConservative CaucusSaskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ScheerAndrew_CPC.jpgRoutine ProceedingsPrivilege [Government Business Motion No. 6]InterventionMr. Andrew Scheer (Regina—Qu'Appelle, CPC): (1630)[English]Mr. Speaker, I would like to add some of my comments here as well and perhaps provide a little bit more for the government House leader to consider as he goes and prepares his remarks.I will keep my remarks very short, because I think what most members of the House would like to do is debate Bill C-14, which is a bill that could have been called on Monday, on Tuesday morning, or earlier today before the dilatory motions. As the government House leader said during question period, in essence, the Liberals just pulled the fire alarm.Simply put, Motion No. 6 is a disgrace and not worthy of a democracy such as ours. It is an affront to the dignity of the House and its members. Motion No. 6 is a complete quashing of the opposition's ability to hold the government to account. It is the total disempowerment of certain members of Parliament, who were sent here by 60.5% of Canadian voters. Motion No. 6 is indirectly disenfranchising every one of those voters through the draconian measures set out.Beauchesne's, sixth edition, outlines some elements of the Constitution Act and our system of government, which I believe is relevant to this very point. It states: Canada thus was ensured a responsible Cabinet system with the assumption that there will always be a recognizable government with a legislative programme. If the electorate so wishes, the system also presupposes an Opposition ready and willing to attack the Government in an attempt to have its legislation altered or rejected.... More tentative are such traditional features, as respect for the rights of the minority, which precludes a Government from using to excess the extensive powers that it has to limit debate or to proceed in what the public and the Opposition might interpret as unorthodox ways. On May 2, 2000, during a discussion of the rule of time allocation at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, the former clerk of the House of Commons, Robert Marleau, responded to a question regarding the Speaker's authority to protect the minority in the manner described earlier. The former clerk said, “it exists...intrinsically in the role of the speakership”, and continued, “all the time, where there can be tyranny on either side. It could be the tyranny of the majority or the tyranny of the minority.” My interpretation of what the clerk said is that there exists a limit to what a majority government can do. In an earlier point of order, I described how Speaker Fraser ruled on the government tactic of skipping over Routine Proceedings in order to get to a point where time allocation could be moved. On one occasion in 1986, he disallowed it, whereas on other occasions he allowed it. If there was ever a point when a Speaker should intervene to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority, Motion No. 6 is it. Parliament is fundamentally about debate. It is also about the right to dissent in a civilized manner. Genuine political opposition is a necessary attribute of democracy, tolerance, and trust, and the ability of citizens to resolve differences by a peaceful means. The existence and tolerance of an opposing view is essential to the functioning of government.I have more to say on this, but I would like to reserve the right to come back at a later time when the House is not up against the clock on such an important bill as Bill C-14. However, Mr. Speaker, I do ask you to consider that Motion No. 6 is a completely unprovoked response to a situation that simply did not exist. I would invite the government to show me one example of a dilatory motion being moved by either opposition party when it came to the legislative agenda that the government is currently putting forward. The Liberals are unilaterally withdrawing every single tool that the opposition has to propose alternate subjects of debate, they are ignoring the good work of committees, they are preventing members of Parliament from debating such things as motions to instruct a committee, and they are completely changing the rules around the clock and the calendar. Therefore, I would like to come back to the House at a later time, but being cognizant of what little time left the House has to debate Bill C-14, because of the tactics of the government, I will yield the floor at this time. Altering days and hours of sittingsC-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Daily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 6House of Commons calendarParliamentary democracyParliamentary privilegeRights of Members breached435972843597294359730435973143597324359733435973443597354359736435973743597384359739435974043597414359742DominicLeBlancHon.BeauséjourLucThériaultMontcalm//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88552LucThériaultLuc-ThériaultMontcalmBloc Québécois CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ThériaultLuc_BQ.jpgRoutine ProceedingsPrivilege [Government Business Motion No. 6]InterventionMr. Luc Thériault (Montcalm, BQ): (1635)[Translation]Mr. Speaker, I would like to reserve the right to talk more about this later. I want to participate in the debate.Briefly, it would be good if we could debate this today. I wanted to say that the motion is excessive and that it is the ultimate gag order. The motion blatantly disregards parliamentary democracy. In some ways, it may be a retaliation against the opposition, which almost got the better of the government on Monday.My party thinks that it is unacceptable to impose closure like this. The government is preparing to do whatever it wants with the official opposition whenever it wants, and that is unacceptable.Altering days and hours of sittingsDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 6House of Commons calendarParliamentary democracyParliamentary privilegeRights of Members breached435974343597444359745AndrewScheerRegina—Qu'AppelleGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25488MichaelChongHon.Michael-ChongWellington—Halton HillsConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ChongMichaelD_CPC.jpgRoutine ProceedingsPrivilege [Government Business Motion No. 6]InterventionHon. Michael Chong (Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC): (1635)[English]Mr. Speaker, I just want to build on what the opposition House leader submitted, and say that I, too, have great concerns about the motion on the paper, in particular with one aspect of it.The fundamental responsibility mechanism in the House is the confidence convention. The 20 or so members of Parliament who are part of the ministry who are the government sit there because they have the confidence of the majority of members of this chamber. It is that confidence convention that is undermined by the motion that the government has put on the paper.By giving members of the ministry the unilateral right, at any time, to adjourn the House undermines that confidence convention. It undermines the ability of all members of the House to hold the government accountable.For that reason, I hope a prima facie case of privilege is found.Altering days and hours of sittingsDaily ProgramExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 6House of Commons calendarParliamentary democracyParliamentary privilegeRights of Members breached4359747435974843597494359750GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgRoutine ProceedingsPrivilege [Government Business Motion No. 6]InterventionThe Speaker: (1640)[English]I thank the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills for his intervention, as well. I will take those under advisement.Altering days and hours of sittingsDaily ProgramDecisions of the SpeakerExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentExtension of sitting hours in JuneGovernment Business No. 6House of Commons calendarParliamentary democracyParliamentary privilegeRights of Members breached4359751MichaelChongHon.Wellington—Halton HillsDominicLeBlancHon.Beauséjour//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1813DominicLeBlancHon.Dominic-LeBlancBeauséjourLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LeblancDominic_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersMotions in amendmentInterventionHon. Dominic LeBlanc: (1720)[English]Madam Speaker, I hope you will find unanimous consent for the following motion, which I will read slowly so that colleagues understand exactly what I am proposing, that notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice of the House, the House shall continue to sit beyond the hour of daily adjournment for the purpose of considering Bill C-14, an act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other acts (medical assistance in dying), at report stage, and when no member rises to speak or at midnight on that sitting day, whichever is earlier, the debate shall be deemed adjourned and the House deemed adjourned until the next sitting day.C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Caregivers and health care professionalsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentGovernment billsHealth care systemLeave to propose a motionMedical assistance in dyingMotionsReport stage4357701JohnOliverOakvilleCarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/31289CarolHughesCarol-HughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingNew Democratic Party CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/HughesCarol_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersMotions in amendmentInterventionThe Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): (1725)[English]Does the hon. House leader have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?Some hon. members: Agreed.Some hon. members: No.The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): There is no unanimous consent. Therefore, the motion is deemed rejected. The government House leader is rising on another point of order.C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Caregivers and health care professionalsDecisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentGovernment billsHealth care systemLeave to propose a motionMedical assistance in dyingReport stage4357702435770343577044357705DominicLeBlancHon.BeauséjourDominicLeBlancHon.Beauséjour//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89304DanRuimyDan-RuimyPitt Meadows—Maple RidgeLiberal CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/RuimyDan_Lib.jpgOral Question PeriodPhysician-Assisted DeathInterventionMr. Dan Ruimy (Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, Lib.): (1445)[English]Mr. Speaker, unlike the previous government, we believe in the importance of parliamentary debate, all the while keeping in mind issues such as Supreme Court deadlines.I believe we have a responsibility to ensure that all members of Parliament who want to participate in debate on legislation such as Bill C-14 should be able to do so.Could the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons inform the House as to the intention of the government in regard to the debate on Bill C-14 at report stage and third reading?C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Caregivers and health care professionalsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentGovernment billsHealth care systemMedical assistance in dyingOral questionsReport stageThird reading and adoption435450643545074354508Jean-YvesDuclosHon.QuébecDominicLeBlancHon.Beauséjour//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1813DominicLeBlancHon.Dominic-LeBlancBeauséjourLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LeblancDominic_Lib.jpgOral Question PeriodPhysician-Assisted DeathInterventionHon. Dominic LeBlanc (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1445)[English]Mr. Speaker, we recognize the importance of respecting the Supreme Court's June deadline, but this should not stop members of Parliament from participating in this important debate.On Friday, as members know, we attempted to extend the sitting hours of the House to ensure that as many MPs as possible were able to speak. Unfortunately, the opposition blocked that attempt.I hope the opposition will reconsider and allow the House to extend its hours so all members can be heard on this very important legislation.C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Caregivers and health care professionalsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentGovernment billsHealth care systemMedical assistance in dyingOral questionsReport stageThird reading and adoption435450943545104354511DanRuimyPitt Meadows—Maple RidgeMichaelCooperSt. Albert—Edmonton//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersBusiness of Supply [Opposition Motion—Freedom of conscience]InterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1005)[English]Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I would like to indicate that there have been discussions with the parties, and if you seek it, you should find unanimous consent for the following motion: That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, on Tuesday, May 17, 2016, and on Wednesday, May 18, 2016, the House continue to sit beyond the ordinary hour of daily adjournment.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentLeave to propose a motionMotions4344121ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersBusiness of Supply [Opposition Motion—Freedom of conscience]InterventionThe Speaker: (1005)[English]Does the member have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?Some hon. members: Agreed.Some hon. members: No.I see the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes rising on the same point of order.Decisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentLeave to propose a motionMotions4344122434412343441244344125KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthGordonBrownLeeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25483GordonBrownGordon-BrownLeeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau LakesConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/BrownGordon_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersBusiness of Supply [Opposition Motion—Freedom of conscience]InterventionMr. Gordon Brown: (1005)[English]Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that we would support more time to debate Bill C-14, but we ask to amend the motion that the members sit no later than midnight, at which time the House would adjourn.C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentMotions4344126GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersBusiness of Supply [Opposition Motion—Freedom of conscience]InterventionThe Speaker: (1005)[English]Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move the amendment?Some hon. members: Agreed.Some hon. members: No.The Speaker: There was neither consent at this point for the motion nor the amendment. We will go back to orders of the day, and we will hear from the hon. member for Peace River—Westlock.Decisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentMotions43441274344128434412943441304344131GordonBrownLeeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau LakesArnoldViersenPeace River—Westlock//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89494JodyWilson-RaybouldHon.Jody-Wilson-RaybouldVancouver GranvilleIndependentBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/WilsonRaybouldJody_Ind.jpgRoutine ProceedingsInterparliamentary DelegationsInterventionHon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: (1200)[English]Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions with parties and, if you seek it, I hope that you will find unanimous consent for the following motion: that notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, on Tuesday, May the 17th, 2016, and on Wednesday, May the 18th, 2016, the House continue to sit beyond the ordinary hour of daily adjournment for the purposes of considering Bill C-14, an act to amend the Criminal Code and make related amendments to other acts.C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Caregivers and health care professionalsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentGovernment billsHealth care systemLeave to propose a motionMedical assistance in dyingMotionsReport stage4344545JoëlLightboundLouis-HébertGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgRoutine ProceedingsInterparliamentary DelegationsInterventionThe Speaker: (1200)[English]Does the hon. minister have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?Some hon. members: Agreed.Some hon. members: No.C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Caregivers and health care professionalsDecisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentGovernment billsHealth care systemLeave to propose a motionMedical assistance in dyingReport stage434454643445474344548JodyWilson-RaybouldHon.Vancouver GranvilleJodyWilson-RaybouldHon.Vancouver Granville//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/89494JodyWilson-RaybouldHon.Jody-Wilson-RaybouldVancouver GranvilleIndependentBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/WilsonRaybouldJody_Ind.jpgRoutine ProceedingsInterparliamentary DelegationsInterventionHon. Jody Wilson-Raybould (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): (1205)[English]Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 56.1(1), I move:Motion That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House on Tuesday, May the 17th, 2016, and on Wednesday, May the 18th, 2016, the House continue to sit beyond the ordinary hour of daily adjournment for the purposes of considering Bill C-14, an act to amend the Criminal Code and make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying). C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Caregivers and health care professionalsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentGovernment billsHealth care systemMedical assistance in dyingReport stageRoutine motion by a minister43445494344550GeoffReganHon.Halifax WestGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgRoutine ProceedingsInterparliamentary DelegationsInterventionThe Speaker: (1205)[English]Will those members who object to the motion please rise in their places?And 25 or more members having risen:The Speaker: Twenty-five or more members having risen, the motion is deemed to have been withdrawn.(Motion withdrawn)C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Caregivers and health care professionalsDecisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentGovernment billsHealth care systemMedical assistance in dyingReport stageRoutine motion by a minister434455143445524344553JodyWilson-RaybouldHon.Vancouver GranvilleJimEglinskiYellowhead//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35904EdFastHon.Ed-FastAbbotsfordConservative CaucusBritish Columbia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/FastEd_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersBusiness of Supply [Opposition Motion—Freedom of Conscience]InterventionHon. Ed Fast: (1245)[English]Madam Speaker, I have a point of order. In follow-up to a number of motions that have bounced back and forth in the House today, I hope you will find unanimous consent for the following motion, that notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice of the House, on Tuesday, May 17, 2016, and on Wednesday, May 18, 2016, the House continue to sit beyond the ordinary hour of daily adjournment but no later than midnight, at which time the House shall adjourn to the next sitting day.Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentLeave to propose a motionMotions4344661Anne Minh-ThuQuachSalaberry—SuroîtCarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/31289CarolHughesCarol-HughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingNew Democratic Party CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/HughesCarol_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersBusiness of Supply [Opposition Motion—Freedom of Conscience]InterventionThe Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): (1245)[English]Having heard the motion, does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?Some hon. members: Agreed.Some hon. members: No.Decisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentLeave to propose a motion434466243446634344664EdFastHon.AbbotsfordIreneMathyssenLondon—Fanshawe//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/764IreneMathyssenIrene-MathyssenLondon—FanshaweNew Democratic Party CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/42/MathyssenIrene_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersBusiness of Supply [Opposition Motion—Freedom of Conscience]InterventionMs. Irene Mathyssen: (1245)[English]Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I would like to say that we are very disappointed in what is going on in the House regarding Bill C-14. It is very serious legislation. Currently, there are sensitive, ongoing negotiations being conducted in regard to it, and those negotiations should be respected.C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentPoints of order4344665CarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingCarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/31289CarolHughesCarol-HughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingNew Democratic Party CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/HughesCarol_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersBusiness of Supply [Opposition Motion—Freedom of Conscience]InterventionThe Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): (1245)[English]That is not a point of order.Decisions of the SpeakerExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentPoints of order4344666IreneMathyssenLondon—FanshaweKevinLamoureuxWinnipeg North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersBusiness of Supply [Opposition Motion—Freedom of Conscience]InterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux: (1245)[English]Madam Speaker, I was actually going to address the point of order raised, but if it is necessary to bring up a separate point of order, I will do it as a separate point of order.I just want to say that I am very much aware and sensitive to the many negotiations that are taking place surrounding Bill C-14. Having said that, the government's will has always been to try to allow members to address the bill. That is the reason we brought forward the motion earlier today—C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentPoints of order43446674344668CarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingCarolHughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/31289CarolHughesCarol-HughesAlgoma—Manitoulin—KapuskasingNew Democratic Party CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/HughesCarol_NDP.jpgGovernment OrdersBusiness of Supply [Opposition Motion—Freedom of Conscience]InterventionThe Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): (1250)[English]Again, this is more debate than it is a point of order. Resuming debate. The hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands.Decisions of the SpeakerExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentPoints of order4344669KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthDavidAndersonCypress Hills—Grasslands//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/88478GregFergusGreg-FergusHull—AylmerLiberal CaucusQuebec//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/FergusGreg_Lib.jpgPrivate Members' BusinessNational Anthem ActInterventionMr. Greg Fergus: (1425)[English]Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. members for their speeches. I would like to seek, if it is the will of this House, unanimous consent to continue the discussion on this bill at this time, beyond the ordinary hours of this House.C-210, An Act to amend the National Anthem Act (gender)Extending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentNational AnthemPrivate Members' BillsSecond readingSexual discrimination4324921HaroldAlbrechtKitchener—ConestogaBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35724BruceStantonBruce-StantonSimcoe NorthConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/StantonBruce_CPC.jpgPrivate Members' BusinessNational Anthem ActInterventionThe Deputy Speaker: (1430)[English]Is there unanimous consent to continue the debate past the ordinary hour? Some hon. members: Agreed.Some hon. members: No.The Deputy Speaker: I am not sensing that there is any consent for that.The time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired, and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.It being 2:30 p.m., this House stands adjourned until next Monday at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).(The House adjourned at 2:30 p.m.)C-210, An Act to amend the National Anthem Act (gender)Decisions of the HouseDropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order PaperExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentNational AnthemPrivate Members' BillsSecond readingSexual discrimination4324922432492343249244324925GregFergusHull—Aylmer//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1813DominicLeBlancHon.Dominic-LeBlancBeauséjourLiberal CaucusNew Brunswick//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LeblancDominic_Lib.jpgGovernment OrdersCriminal CodeInterventionHon. Dominic LeBlanc (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1725)[English]MotionMr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 26(1), I move: That the House shall continue to sit beyond the hour of daily adjournment for the purpose of considering Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying), at second reading.C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Caregivers and health care professionalsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentGovernment billsHealth care systemMedical assistance in dyingMotionsPalliative careSecond reading43195724319573CandiceBergenHon.Portage—LisgarBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/25454AndrewScheerAndrew-ScheerRegina—Qu'AppelleConservative CaucusSaskatchewan//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/ScheerAndrew_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersNotice of time allocation motionInterventionMr. Andrew Scheer (Regina—Qu'Appelle, CPC): (1730)[English]Mr. Speaker, I think I have a more reasonable approach to managing some of the debate left for Bill C-14. Therefore, I would seek the unanimous consent of the House for the following motion:MotionThat, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, on Tuesday, May 3, 2016, the House shall continue to sit beyond the hour of daily adjournment for the purpose of considering Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying), at second reading, and when no member rises to speak, or at 12:00 a.m., whichever is earlier, that debate be deemed adjourned, and the House deemed adjourned until the next sitting day.C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Caregivers and health care professionalsDilatory motionsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentGovernment billsHealth care systemLeave to propose a motionMedical assistance in dyingMotionsSecond reading43195794319580DominicLeBlancHon.BeauséjourBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/35724BruceStantonBruce-StantonSimcoe NorthConservative CaucusOntario//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/StantonBruce_CPC.jpgGovernment OrdersNotice of time allocation motionInterventionThe Deputy Speaker: (1730)[English]Does the hon. opposition House leader have the unanimous consent of the House to propose this motion?Some hon. members: Agreed.The Deputy Speaker: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?Some hon. members: Agreed.(Motion agreed to)C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Caregivers and health care professionalsDecisions of the HouseDilatory motionsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentGovernment billsHealth care systemLeave to propose a motionMedical assistance in dyingMotionsSecond reading4319581431958243195834319584AndrewScheerRegina—Qu'AppelleBruceStantonSimcoe North//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgRoutine ProceedingsBusiness of the HouseInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1505)[English]Mr. Speaker, I believe if you canvass the House you will find there have been discussions among the parties, and if you seek it, I think you will find unanimous consent to adopt the following motion:MotionThat, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, on Monday, May 2, 2016, the House shall continue to sit beyond the ordinary hour of daily adjournment for the purpose of considering Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying), at second reading and when no Member rises to speak, or at midnight on that sitting day, whichever is earlier, the debate be deemed adjourned, and the House deemed adjourned until the next sitting day.C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Caregivers and health care professionalsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentHealth care systemLeave to propose a motionMedical assistance in dyingMotions43169854316986WayneEasterHon.MalpequeGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgRoutine ProceedingsBusiness of the HouseInterventionThe Speaker: (1505)[English]Does the hon. parliamentary secretary have the unanimous consent of the House to propose the motion?Some hon. members: Agreed.The Speaker: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?Some hon. members: Agreed.(Motion agreed to)C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)Caregivers and health care professionalsDecisions of the HouseExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentHealth care systemLeave to propose a motionMedical assistance in dyingMotions4316987431698843169894316990KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthEarlDreeshenRed Deer—Mountain View//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/30552KevinLamoureuxKevin-LamoureuxWinnipeg NorthLiberal CaucusManitoba//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/44/LamoureuxKevin_Lib.jpgRoutine ProceedingsCanada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISILInterventionMr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): (1005)[English]Mr. Speaker, there has been discussion among the parties, and if you seek it I think you will find consent for the following motion:MotionThat, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, on Wednesday, February 24, 2016, Government Orders shall be extended beyond the ordinary hour of daily adjournment for the sole purpose of considering Government Business No. 2 and, at 8:00 p.m. or when no Member rises to speak, whichever is earlier, all questions necessary to dispose of the motion be deemed put, recorded divisions deemed requested and deferred until Tuesday, March 8th, 2016, at the conclusion of oral questions.Canadian ForcesDeferred divisionsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentGovernment Business No. 2IraqIslamic State of Iraq and the LevantLeave to propose a motionMilitary operations and eventsMotionsPutting the questionRules of debateTerrorism and terrorists42126954212696StevenBlaneyHon.Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—LévisGeoffReganHon.Halifax West//www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/1760GeoffReganHon.Geoff-ReganHalifax WestLiberal CaucusNova Scotia//www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Parliamentarians/Images/OfficialMPPhotos/43/ReganGeoff_Lib.jpgRoutine ProceedingsCanada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISILInterventionThe Speaker: (1010)[English]Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to propose the motion?Some hon. members: Agreed.The Speaker: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?Some hon. members: Agreed.(Motion agreed to)Canadian ForcesDecisions of the HouseDeferred divisionsExtending sitting beyond ordinary hour of adjournmentGovernment Business No. 2IraqIslamic State of Iraq and the LevantLeave to propose a motionMilitary operations and eventsMotionsPutting the questionRules of debateTerrorism and terrorists4212697421269842126994212700KevinLamoureuxWinnipeg NorthAlistairMacGregorCowichan—Malahat—LangfordINTERVENTIONParliament and SessionOrder of BusinessDiscussed TopicProcedural TermPerson SpeakingProvince / TerritoryCaucusSearchResults per pageOrder byTarget search languageSide by SideMaximum returned rowsPagePUBLICATION TYPE