“I want to know if the government will respect a vote by the opposition parties. If an opposition motion passes, will the minister agree to accept it and not treat it as a vote of confidence?”

“Mr. Speaker, in the words of that great country music singer, George Strait, “I’ve got some ocean front property in Arizona” to sell. That was quite the speech. The minister mentioned that if it were the will of the opposition parties, if for some reason the majority the Liberals have cobbled together with floor crossers were to decline into a minority situation, if the opposition parties did decide to use an opposition motion and the motion did pass, would the minister respect that decision and not call it a matter of confidence if and when that scenario were to happen? That is a fair question to ask him.”

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“The Liberals want to change the rules to give themselves a majority on committees. That means they will not have to work with other parties. The opposition chairs three oversight committees that investigate government spending and scandals. I want the government to keep the opposition in charge of those three committees.”

“Mr. Speaker, I fear that my counterpart on the government bench has missed his calling to be a speech writer in the politburo, because so many of the things he said there directly contradicted what he had been saying. For example, he said that this is all being done in a spirit of collaboration. However, with the motion, the Liberals would literally be taking away the need to collaborate, by giving themselves a majority. Another falsehood the member stated was that there are not two tiers in committees, yet he referenced the fact that the three oversight committees are in fact chaired by the opposition. That is a different tier of committee. Those committees have always been treated differently by the Standing Orders and by the usual practices of the House, precisely because they are a different sort of committee. They are not committees that legislation proceeds through. They are committees that provide oversight. It is through those committees that the opposition has uncovered Liberal corruption, scandals and the inappropriate use of taxpayers’ dollars, and in which the government voted against each one of those investigations. Why not at least preserve the oversight role of the opposition on those three committees: public accounts, government operations and ethics?”

“I am asking everyone in the House to agree to let me split my speaking time with someone else.”

“Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech, I was wondering if I can get unanimous consent to share my time. It is one of those rare circumstances where I need the consent of the House to do that. I am hoping that it will accommodate that.”

“I do not want the government to change the rules for committee members. The Liberals made backroom deals to get more power, and now they want to take control of committees to shut down investigations into their own scandals. I want them to support our amendment to protect oversight on the spending, operations, and ethics committees.”

“Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the last thing the government House leader said, because I think this is the nub of the misleading nature of what the government is doing here. He said that they could not find an example where the makeup of committees did not reflect the makeup of the House. Yes, that is precisely because there has never before been a situation where a government has changed the fundamental nature of itself through floor crossings and backroom deals. Every other time, the makeup of committees reflected the makeup of the House, because that was what happened at the election. The makeup of committees reflects the democratic expression that the Canadian people provide through the ballot box. It is very telling that the very first thing this government has done with its newfound majority powers is not to make life more affordable for Canadians, not to fully lift gas taxes, not to stop inflationary money printing or repeal anti-development laws that chase away investment and block jobs from being created here in Canada. No, instead, the very first thing they did was to make life easier for the government itself. Those are not just my words. They are words that Liberals have said as to the justification for why they are doing this. This means that they will have an easier time getting their agenda through and, most importantly, they will not have to face the type of scrutiny that opposition parties are able to provide for Canadians when the opposition makes up a majority in the House. The committee makeup reflects the makeup of the House as the Canadian people elected it. No Canadian has been able to pass judgment on the floor crossings or endorse the deals that were offered those members who changed parties so soon after an election. These are all individuals who looked their voters in the eye, ran on a platform, a party and a leader, and then, for their own personal gain, again, their words not mine, made a decision to join the government. Again, Canadians have had no opportunity to examine what those negotiations or those talks were all about or what promises may have been made to entice members to cross the floor. The government has made so many false statements. The government House leader says that there is no such thing as two-tiered committees. The context of that is what my colleague from Barrie South—Innisfil, with whom I am sharing my time, is going to do in a few moments. He is going to propose an amendment that would at least preserve the oversight capabilities of three very important committees: the public accounts committee, which is tasked with poring through, line by line, every dollar that the government spends; the government operations committee, which examines all kinds of government operations, making sure that Canadians understand who is getting paid, why contracts are being given and why funding decisions are made or not made, again, a very important oversight committee; and, of course, the ethics committee. This is the committee that is tasked with investigating government corruption, and this is the true reason why the government is not going to agree with our request. Every other committee deals with legislation. If we have a bill to change the airports act, that would go to the transportation committee. If we have a bill to change the way natural resources are developed, that bill would go to the natural resources committee. Legislation does not go through those three oversight committees. All this talk about getting results for Canadians, getting things done and working in a collaborative manner does not apply to those oversight committees. We know what happens when Liberals get majority on these committees. Another falsehood that the government House leader has said is that members of Parliament still have the power to send for documents, compel departments to hand over information and compel testimony. That is false. Members of Parliament do not have that right individually. They only have that right when a committee or the House passes a motion. Should the Liberals have a majority on those committees, we already know that they would block those efforts. We know this because that is what they have done in the past. When the Liberals had a majority in the 2015‑19 Parliament, it took a whistle-blower, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to shine a light on what Justin Trudeau was doing, trying to inappropriately pressure her to intervene in a criminal court proceeding. After just two meetings, we had heard from Jody Wilson-Raybould and the then prime minister’s chief of staff, and then committee members wanted to hear from Jody Wilson-Raybould again so she could respond to what Gerry Butts had said. What was the first thing the Liberals did when they got the floor on March 13, 2019? They moved to adjourn. They had the votes, because they had a majority, and they shut down that investigation. There was the WE Charity scandal. This is where the Liberals gave a sole-sourced $912-million contract to an organization that had paid Trudeau family members through speaking events. The Liberals filibustered for dozens of hours and voted to shut down the investigation and stop documents from seeing the light of day. There was the arrive scam app. This app, initially budgeted at $80,000, ballooned to an estimated $60 million. The Liberals tried to block committee investigations and hide their connections to their favourite Liberal IT contractors, GC Strategies. Let us think of all the corruption this House has unearthed just in the last few years of the Liberal government precisely because the Liberals could not block those investigations. Because the opposition parties collectively had a majority, we could compel that kind of information. Had the Liberals had a majority on the ethics committee, the public accounts committee and the government operations committee in the last Parliament, there is no way we would have seen the head of GC Strategies in this House at the bar being admonished for the misappropriation of taxpayer money. There was the Winnipeg lab scandal. Again, the Liberals blocked document production orders and even took the Speaker to court to try to block information from being released to parliamentarians. There was the Liberal green slush fund with its widespread Liberal corruption. This is where Liberal insiders were sitting around as an entity that allocated tax dollars the government had collected. Liberal insiders were placed on that board. Do members know what they did once they were on that board? They funnelled money to their own companies. They wrote themselves cheques off the backs of taxpayers. When the Conservatives led the charge to shine a light on this kind of corruption, the Liberals blocked it. They voted against it. That is what this is all about. The Liberals do not enjoy transparency. They do not enjoy when Canadians find out the truth about how they are running the government. That is why they are pushing this motion through. All the arguments about collaboration are totally false. Our party, after the last election, said that we are facing a lot of global challenges, but we are also facing a lot of terrible Liberal policies that are driving up costs and inflation, making our country weaker when it comes to dealing with global threats. We said we would roll up our sleeves and get to work. Where we have had agreement, where there has been common ground, members have seen the opposition co-operate and ensure that things that, at the very least, do not do any further harm to the Canadian people get passed. We have also helped fix terrible Liberal legislation. Do members remember Bill C-2, the very first bill that the current government brought to the House? It was because the government did not have a majority that it was not able to ram that bill through. It was because opposition parties got together and said that there were many things in the bill that should pass, but also many things that were huge government overreaches, such as the invasion of people’s privacy, the ability to open people’s mail, the banning of cash transactions and all kinds of things that empowered the state and infringed on individual liberties. We were able to block that and force the government to abandon those aspects that were huge government overreaches while at the same time passing the common-sense parts that the Conservatives have long been calling for. This is a solution to a problem that does not exist. If the government is looking for obstruction and game playing, it need look no further than its own benches. The Liberals have filibustered for the last two weeks at the ethics committee to prevent an investigation into the finance minister’s potential conflict of interest. They filibustered their own legislation at the justice committee by insisting on debating a bill that was dividing parliamentarians and was very divisive for the Canadian public, while we were calling on the justice committee to focus on real measures to make Canada safer. At the end of the day, what the Liberals call “silly games”, Canadians call “transparency and accountability”. Every time parliamentarians tell them that there is a conflict of interest and that they have shovelled money into their own friends’ pockets and their own companies, they say that it is partisanship. Any time a light is shone on their nefarious activities, they have to project and they have to demean and insult those individuals who are trying to get to the bottom of what happened to Canadian tax dollars. We make no apologies for fighting for transparency and for respecting that taxpayer dollar. I am urging the government to rethink its rejection of our amendment. When my colleague proposes it, I hope the Liberals will get on board so they can show the Canadian people that it is not about using their power to shut down investigations.”

“The Liberals did not win a majority government in the election. Canadians voted for a minority government. The Liberals only have a majority now because members crossed the floor. They are using this motion to change committee rules and undo the election results.”

“Mr. Speaker, I certainly do miss working with the member for Burlington when she was House leader. We had lots of productive conversations. It is always spirited, and it is always a pleasure to respond. It is a little bit of a misleading question. First of all, let us address something. The Liberals did not get their majority because of by-elections. That is false. Every seat they won in the by-elections was a seat they already had. They got their majority through floor crossings. In those by-elections, not every Canadian got to vote. In the general election, when every Canadian voted, they voted for a strong opposition. They voted for a minority Liberal government. I can assure the member that had the Liberals gotten a majority through the ballot box, we would not be having this conversation. When Conservatives get our majority at the ballot box, we will not need a motion like this. They only need this motion because they are trying to overturn the results of the last election through the committee makeup.”

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“The Liberals say committee seats should match the makeup of the House, but they are giving themselves more seats than they actually have. They are contradicting themselves. I want members to support our amendment to protect the oversight role of key committees.”

“Mr. Speaker, I agree. The Liberals talk about the percentages reflecting the makeup of the House. They have given themselves a much larger percentage of committee makeup than they have in the House. Even in their own actions, they contradict themselves. They contradict themselves on the need for this at all, because there is legislation that has moved through the House. They contradict themselves when they talk about two-tier committees. There are two tiers of committees. There are the oversight committees, which are specially treated in the Standing Orders and have their own conventions and practices, and then there are the rest of the standing committees, which provide for oversight on departments and deal with legislation. The member is right. In this very motion, the Liberals are not reflecting the makeup of the House in committees. They are giving themselves about eight percentage points more. I agree with my hon. colleague, and I hope he agrees with our amendment to at least preserve the oversight role of the operations, public accounts and ethics committees.”

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“The Liberals are taking control of committees because an MP switched parties to join them. Has any government ever changed committee rules like this before?”

“Mr. Speaker, I am happy to join this debate about, basically, the Liberals taking a backdoor majority through floor crossing. I have been here for only six years, and I know that my colleague from Regina—Qu’Appelle has been here much longer. Has this happened before? Has the committee structure been altered like this by any governments in the past? Is this really precedent-setting? I believe this is the only case where a government has formed a majority through floor crossings. Once again, are the Liberals not abiding by the will of Canadians? Has this happened before in Parliament?”

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“The MPs who crossed the floor to join the Liberals only won their seats because they ran as Conservatives. A government should not gain a majority through backroom deals. The government should respect the way Canadians voted.”

“Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out that the member is right. This was done through backroom deals. Not a single one of those floor crossers would have won their own elections if they had run as Liberals. They got elected only because they were running under the Conservative banner and the Conservative leader. That is a fact. No government has ever gone from a minority to a majority at the federal level through these kinds of backroom negotiations. We believe that the makeup of Parliament and the checks and balances that Canadians voted for at the ballot box should be respected.”

“I oppose this motion. It gives the Liberals too much control over committees. That will stop the opposition from investigating government scandals and holding the government accountable.”

“Mr. Speaker, if Canadians wanted any evidence at all that what the Liberal government wants is an audience and not an effective opposition, Motion No. 9 reflects that accurately and precisely. It was just under a year ago that the Prime Minister of this country was elected by Canadians. It was a fair election, but the Prime Minister was elected in a minority situation. He received fewer votes than what he needed for a majority. Canadians sent that message, as they did in previous elections, because they were not happy with the Liberal government and what it was doing to this country. Canadians elected the government in a minority situation because we had an untested, unproven Prime Minister who had never engaged in politics before. Canadians voted for a minority government. What that meant, as is the convention around this place in relation to the Standing Orders, is that we had committees that were negotiated at that time that were structured in a way that reflected the results of the election. It meant that for Conservatives and members of the Bloc, we had the majority of members on those committees. For the committees that were not oversight committees, that meant that if the opposition members wanted to determine what a study was going to be, wanted to compel witnesses, wanted to summons or wanted to compel documents, they could do it without it having to get to the chair. That is the way committees were formed. The same can be said about the oversight committees. I am the chair of the ethics committee. The oversight committees exist because they deal with issues of importance related to government operations, government contracts, ethics, accountability and transparency. If it was not for the oversight committees in previous parliaments, as the member for Regina—Qu’Appelle said, none of the scandals that became big scandals, one which caused Parliament to be prorogued in the case of the Winnipeg lab scandal, would have come out if not for the oversight committees. The purpose the oversight committees serve is to hold the government to account, to ensure there is transparency and to ensure that the information is available to us, especially when a minority government is elected. We run a real risk. I have a grave concern that the level of accountability and transparency is not going to be there with Liberal members on these oversight committees, controlling these committees. When those committees were constituted, there were good-faith negotiations. The proportionality of what has happened now in this transactional nature of a majority government, where we have seen floor crossers give the government a majority, means they have just over 50% of the seats right now, which, again, should be reflective on those committees. What the Liberals are proposing with Motion No. 9 is to in fact give themselves 58% of representation on those committees, which would ensure that nothing the opposition wanted to do at those committees would actually happen. There would be no summoning of documents. There would be no appearances by witnesses. There would be no studies on things that happen as a result of scandals within the government that would ever see the light of day. That is what is most troubling to me. The other thing that has been troubling, and I have seen a pattern of this over the 10‑plus years I have been here, speaks to the importance of what is needed in this country. If we do not have any accountability and do not have the type of transparency that Parliament is going to be able to provide at this point, especially given the work the committees are charged with, it seems like we have turned into a country where we are the only country in liberalized democracies around the world where the opposition party is held to a greater account than the government by media. That needs to stop right now, because the power that is given to this Parliament, the power that is given to MPs, the supreme power that is given, is being taken away by the Liberal government through Motion No. 9. It is a sad indictment on where we are with respect to oversight, accountability and transparency, when there are YouTubers who are finding out more about what is happening within the Liberal government, the scandals and the connections of well-connected insiders, lobbyists and family members. When YouTubers are researching this stuff and finding this stuff out, that is a sad indictment on where we are with respect to media accountability in this country and holding the opposition to greater account than the government party. With all that is happening with Motion No. 9, I want to send a message, because it is going to become increasingly important for the media if this passes without amendment on the oversight committees: “Do your goddamn jobs.” Some hon. members: Oh, oh!”

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“The Liberals are stopping the opposition from holding the government accountable. I want the media to check government spending and contracts. I am proposing a change to this motion to set the number of MPs from each party on the Public Accounts committee.”

“Mr. Speaker, I will withdraw that. The message to the media is, “Do your jobs. Hold the government to account for everything that is going on with respect to spending, contracts and all that stuff.” Canadians are going to need to rely on the media to do this. The Liberal government is handcuffing the opposition party right now, particularly on oversight committees. With this motion and with everything else that we have seen, the sad reality is that Liberals expect Canadians to give up, get complacent and go away, so that the Prime Minister can have total power without any accountability. That will not happen. Our country and its people are worth fighting for. We will continue to fight for people to afford homes, fuel and food. We will continue to fight for safety on our streets. We will continue to fight for our resource workers and our soldiers. Conservatives will continue to lead that fight, every day and in every way, in Parliament, across the country and into the next election when Canadians will reclaim this country we know and love, and put the power back to the people and not the government. With that, I would like to close with an amendment to Government Motion No. 9. I move: That the motion be amended, in paragraph (b), (a) by adding, after the words “and Estimates”, the word “and”; and (b) by adding, after the words “Public Accounts”, the following: “which shall consist of nine members and be composed of four members from the Liberal Party, four members from the Conservative Party and one member from the Bloc Québécois.””

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“I really care about government ethics and honesty. As chair of the ethics committee, I heard troubling evidence about weak rules and conflicts of interest. For example, some companies owe billions in offshore taxes, and contracts went to Liberal family members. I will keep standing up for these ethics rules.”

“Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that the hon. member thinks that the passion I am showing for accountability and transparency, and for ensuring that the government acts in an ethical manner, is just theatrics. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am very passionate about this. As chair of the ethics committee, I am keenly aware of this topic. We just dropped a report today on the Conflict of Interest Act. Throughout the testimony on the Conflict of Interest Act, we heard some pretty disturbing things when it comes to blind trusts and ethics screens not being applied properly, like companies having $5.6 billion in unpaid taxes through offshore accounts. In the last little while, we have seen contracts, like the spaceport, handed out to Liberal family members. I will make no apologies for being passionate about defending the rights of Canadians and making sure that ethical standards are met in this country.”

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“I oppose this plan to change committee rules. It takes away proper oversight and lets the Liberals pass whatever they want without committees having a say.”

“Mr. Speaker, I already mentioned that in my speech. Following the election last April, the parties took part in negotiations regarding the number of members on each committee, but because some MPs have switched sides, we now find ourselves in this situation. We have to ensure we have accountability, oversight and transparency at our committees. This would do nothing to ensure that. In fact, I suggest that it would make it much worse, and the Liberals would run roughshod through everything. They would pass whatever they want to pass, and committees would not have a say in any of it.”

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“Holding the government accountable matters. The Liberals have broken ethics rules more than any past government. Now they want to change committee rules so the opposition cannot hold them accountable.”

“Mr. Speaker, I am quite shocked by the question coming from the member for Burlington in saying that it is theatrical to care about accountability and oversight in the House of Commons and in committee structures. The government that she is a part of, the Liberal government, has more ethics violations than any government in the history of Canada. There is corruption, there are scandals in the government, and now it is trying to change the committee structure so that the opposition parties cannot hold the government to account. How can someone say that it is not something that should matter to each and every Canadian when the government is trying to run roughshod and do whatever it wants? Is no one supposed to hold it accountable? How can we trust the government to get it right if we cannot hold it accountable?”

“We will keep pushing the government to be open and accountable, even if it gets harder. The news media also needs to do its job and hold the government to account.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is going to be increasingly difficult, but we are not going to stop. We are going to continue to ensure that we have accountability, transparency and oversight. I did mention that the role of the media is going to be that much more important now. If the media acts like it does in other western democracies and actually holds the government to account, then maybe we will get some action in holding it to account as well.”

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“I want to know if my colleague agrees that oversight committees are very important. Does he agree that opposition members should have a valued role on them?”

“Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if my colleague would agree with what we heard today in some of the other speeches, which is that there is a little more importance with the oversight committees. Does he agree that there should be some priority on how opposition members are valued on those committees?”

“The Liberals keep making backroom deals to act like a majority government. Now they want to take control of House committees too. They are playing games with democracy, and I want to hear my colleague's thoughts on it.”

“Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time the Liberals have played games to secure themselves a majority in the House. There have indeed been backroom deals in the past with certain individuals who chose to cross the floor. In fact, the by-elections had nothing to do with this outcome. Those seats were Liberal before and remain Liberal now. The Liberals bought themselves a majority and now they seem to want to buy themselves a majority on the committees. The Liberals even had an agreement in the past with the NDP that allowed them to manipulate the proceedings of the House to secure precisely that majority. It was not an official majority, and we sometimes managed to get the NDP to vote with us. However, this is the second time in two terms that the Liberals have played games with democracy. I would like to hear my colleague’s thoughts on that.”

“The government always accuses us of wasting time when we debate bills. We have a right to share our opinions. I want the government to work with us in real life, not just pretend to.”

“Mr. Speaker, I was entertained by the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader’s speech. Every time I have risen in the House before to speak to legislation, the parliamentary secretary has accused us of filibustering and not allowing legislation to go to committee quickly enough. Now that the Liberals want to assert their majority to get a majority on committees, will he undertake and commit today to stop the rhetoric about how we should stop debating legislation in the House? We have a right to stand here with our opinions. He seems to want to have co-operation until he does not. At the immigration committee, we passed substantial and reasonable amendments to legislation that were only overturned when it came back to report stage. I wonder if the parliamentary secretary would commit today to being more collaborative in reality and not just in rhetoric.”

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“Committees exist to question and check everything the government does. The government should not control them, especially when voters did not give them a majority.”

“Mr. Speaker, I listened intently, and in justifying this motion, the government House leader called this principle “undeniable”. Does the Liberal government not understand that the entire purpose of parliamentary committees is to ensure that nothing is undeniable, that every action, every claim, every program and every policy is examined and accessed on its own merits? A government that declares itself “undeniable” has told the House exactly why it must not be trusted with committee control. This control is control that Canadians did not give in a general election.”

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“The Liberals want to take total control of committees. When no party has a majority, parties must work together. Giving the government all the power will not lead to more cooperation.”

“Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is really outdoing himself today by making the claim that giving government members all of the power on committees will somehow lead to more co-operation. The nature of a committee structure in which no single party holds a majority is that parties have to negotiate, work out their differences and figure out how to collaborate in order to get things moving forward. The new reality that the Liberals are trying to impose is one in which the government does not have to co-operate with anyone but can instead impose its will through an undemocratic majority, in fact an undemocratic supermajority, on committees that they were not given. In what world is it even plausible to argue that taking away the need to negotiate and putting all the power in the hands of one party is somehow going to lead to more collaboration?”

“The Prime Minister acts like he is the boss of Parliament, but all members are equal. The Liberals gained a majority through backroom deals to get members to switch parties, not through an election. Now they want to add more Liberals to committees to block investigations into government scandals. We will only support their rule changes if they leave the oversight committees alone.”

“Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speeches by my colleagues, including my colleague from Winnipeg North. I listened to the speeches of several members. I certainly do not want to miss the speech by my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, with whom I will be sharing my time. His speech will surely be very interesting because he is a very capable man, particularly in matters of parliamentary procedure. I think he is a reference here, after the Speaker, of course. There is something wrong with the Liberals’ logic right now. It is something I have noticed since the beginning of the speeches today and since I read the first version of Motion No. 9. Something just is not right, and I think it is coming from the top. It is coming from the Liberal Prime Minister himself. For years he was a CEO, a chief executive officer. He came here and decided that, from now on, he would get his bills and rules passed, that he would decide everything that was going to happen and that he was going to dig Canada into the hole. He may not have used those words, but that is what we are seeing right now. That is what is happening. He forgot just one minor detail: Parliament is not a business. The Prime Minister is not Parliament’s boss. All members of Parliament are equal, and every member of Parliament has the right to vote. The votes of all members of Parliament are what enable us to move bills and motions forward by working together. Something else bothered me earlier. It seems that, as far as the Prime Minister is concerned, Parliament is supposed to work to ensure that the government gets its bills passed. That is nonsense. That is completely false. It is up to the government to convince Parliament to pass its bills. I have to say that, since Canadians elected the minority government, things had been going relatively well. We offered to co-operate with the government on important bills, to boost the economy and to improve our relationship with the United States, because the Prime Minister said two very important things. He said that he was the only one who could resolve the tariff crisis with Trump. He also said that Canadians should judge him by grocery prices. Now a year has passed. Opposition parties co-operated, but what happened to tariffs? People are paying more. What happened to food prices? For the fourth month in row, food inflation in Canada is the highest in the G7. We are co-operating. We have supported the government. The Prime Minister and the government decided things should get even worse. They decided to make trouble on their own. That is what we need to keep in mind because the Liberals had the reins of power. Our role was to co-operate and help them do things well, but, unfortunately, they felt that things did not go well. It is true that things did not go well, but that is not the opposition parties’ fault. It is because they do not know how to run things. Earlier, the government House leader said that the Prime Minister was clear: He expects a Parliament that produces results for Canadians. However, he was mistaken: the Prime Minister expects the government to produce results. We need to agree on the words “results for Canadians” because the Prime Minister has thus far failed to produce any results whatsoever. How did they do that? We have heard a number of times that there were by-elections, that they have a majority and that the House and the committees must reflect the majority obtained in the by-elections. That is another falsehood. The outgoing members before the by-elections were Liberal. The people who were elected in the by-elections are Liberal. The by-elections did not change the makeup of the government at all. What changed that makeup, then? The government was determined and this CEO turned Prime Minister was obsessed with the idea of recreating in Parliament the structure of a company where he can pull all the strings, so much so that he decided to set up a whole operation to attract floor crossers. Through secret backroom deals we are not privy to, he wanted to attract people who set aside their values and principles, those for which they were elected and for which they were given a mandate from their voters, in order join the government’s side. They said so themselves. They said that they were going over to the government side, the Liberal side at that. That is how the government managed to cobble together a majority. It made secret deals behind closed doors so that the Prime Minister can continue to do what he has always done. He is going to make all of the decisions himself and run things into the ground, just like he did everywhere he went and with all of the organizations that he ran. We obviously do not want to let that happen. We do not want to leave all that power in the hands of a Prime Minister who has not yet delivered any results and who has not kept any of the promises that he made to Canadians. We were talking about history. The members opposite keep repeating that, never before in the history of Parliament has a majority government not been reflected in the committees and that the committees must absolutely reflect the composition of Parliament. However, there is one small thing they are forgetting to mention. Never before in the history of Parliament has a government gained a majority by making secret deals with members. That has never happened. The membership of committees has never been changed during a parliamentary session and during a Parliament. This is the 45th Parliament. How was the government formed in the previous 44 Parliaments? A majority or minority government was formed based on the votes of Canadians. In the last election, Canadians did not trust the government to give it a majority. They elected a minority government with a very strong opposition because they had doubts. Not everyone believed in the Prime Minister’s message and pretty words. Canadians decided to give him power, but with a strong opposition to ensure he could not do whatever he wanted. Unhappy with the election results, the government worked very hard to send messages to almost every member of the other parties to try and see if it could draw people in and change the composition of the government. That is how we ended up with a majority government today: through secret negotiations and secret deals. Now that they have their majority, what do the Liberals want? They want to change the composition of committees even though, once again, that has never happened before in history. Not only is the government going to change the committees’ composition, they do not intend to do it by half measures. Instead of reflecting the composition of Parliament, where the Liberals have roughly 50% of seats, Liberal representation on committees is going to climb to about 57%. In other words two Liberals will be added to each committee to form a supermajority. What will happen to all the great inquiries we conducted on ArriveCan, all the inquiries we were able to do on the Liberal green fund, or all the corruption scandals we managed to uncover because we demanded that documents be produced and because, as a Parliament, we were able to obtain papers that the government refused to hand over to members? What sad fate will befall committees? The Liberals are going to consistently vote down these motions, adjourn debates and use every available means to avoid being held accountable to Canadians. That is what the government wants. This government does not want to be held accountable to anyone. There is a reason that we seldom see the Prime Minister rise here in the House to answer questions during question period. He does not want to be held accountable to members of Parliament. He does not want to do his job as Prime Minister. He prefers his job as CEO. When people say that we have nothing to offer, that is not true. We have put forward a motion. Today, we proposed an amendment. We are prepared to vote in favour of this government proposal if the Liberals agree to let the oversight committees, namely the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, do their work and not change their composition. No one can claim that we have not made an attempt at a compromise, but they have not made any at all. It is all about power at any cost. They have given themselves the privilege of doing whatever they want, and too bad for Canadians and what they thought during the last election.”

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