Jean-Denis Garon

Madam Speaker, Reasoning · 45 wordsI understand that members want to debate the content of Bill C‑31, but I want to remind everyone that we are in fact debating a time allocation motion on this bill and the decision to allocate a specific amount of time for debate on it. Procedure · 7 wordsI have a question for the minister.Procedure The question · 65 wordsWhy did we have to spend more than three weeks asking officials from the Department of Finance for a technical briefing on a 300-page bill of which certain divisions, like division 17 on air passengers, have nothing to do with budgetary policy?¹ Can the minister please explain why, for three weeks, we were unable to ask officials questions in order to do our parliamentary homework? Claims · 25 wordsThere was radio silence. The minister’s response was essentially that we should just read the bill ourselves, since we are a bunch of lazy bums. Positioning · 16 wordsThat level of arrogance is typical of this government. Personally, I am acting in good faith.Positioning Claims · 41 wordsI do read the budget document. We spend a ton of time on it. It is highly technical and legislative. We did receive a briefing from officials, but we only received it a few hours before the government imposed time allocation.² The question · 78 wordsI am therefore asking the minister whether he considers it acceptable that it took three weeks before we received a response to our request for a briefing and that his government imposed time allocation right after that. I am also asking him whether, for future bills, he thinks it would be appropriate to provide the opposition with a timely response so that it can perform its work constructively and properly debate all the legislative issues involved in bills.