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Government Orders

Government Business No. 9—Changes to Standing Orders

2026-04-23 Sitting 109 Showing 61–64 of 64

A procedural debate over changes to House of Commons committee membership numbers. The Liberals, now a majority after some floor crossing, want committees to reflect that change. Despite earlier cross-party negotiations, the Conservatives and Bloc accuse the government of a power grab and undermining accountability and collaboration by seeking to control the proceedings.

Official Hansard ↗

Luc Berthold

Conservative 5:20 p.m.

“I don't like how the government changed committee composition without asking us. They might use closure to get their way. The old Liberal government used lots of gag orders and now this one might too. The Liberals don't listen to ideas from other people.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, my colleague raised an extremely important point. Committee composition is usually a collaborative decision involving the opposition parties. When a new government is elected, the parties meet and decide on the composition of committees. Now we have been told that it will no longer work that way because the government decided to add two members without consulting us to see if we were adding one, two or three or taking some away. We might have preferred to take some away rather than have the government add two. There was no collaboration. They even floated the possibility of closure. I know my colleague is fairly new here, but I remember, back when we had a Liberal government, it was one gag order after another. He should get used to this. If things go on like this, obviously the government will impose closure every time opposition members oppose its ideas. The Liberals do not like anyone's ideas but their own.

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Garnett Genuis

Conservative 5:25 p.m.

“I have to say the word 'collaboration' a lot. I sit on a committee. The committee did things. I want the committee to keep doing things. I don't want the government to change the balance of power on the committee. I am arguing that the change would reduce collaboration and centralize power in the government. That's bad. I don't like that.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the issue of collaboration. “Collaboration” is a word we have heard bandied back and forth. It seems to me a basic truth that the way power works is that when power is dispersed, co-operation and collaboration become necessary, because if power is dispersed, people have to work together in order to achieve some result. The committee I am on, the human resources committee, has adopted eight reports in the last year. It has been an extremely productive committee. I know there are many other committees that have undertaken important studies and gotten a lot of work done, and have done so through collaboration that is forced by parliamentary committees that reflect the reality that Canadians voted for, which is dispersed power through a minority government. If the government takes an undemocratic supermajority on committees, that means that collaboration is much less likely to happen, because the power would be centralized in the government and there would be no pressure on it to collaborate. There is more collaboration in the present than there would be if the motion were to go forward.

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Luc Berthold

Conservative 5:25 p.m.

“If you really care about collaboration, then listen to committees. You rejected their ideas! Is that your compromise?”

Garnett Genuis

Conservative 5:25 p.m.

“I'm saying that the government is attacking democracy by trying to get a majority it wasn't given. The government doesn't care about ideas, only about power. They're using this power to try to rule committees absolutely without having to co-operate or listen to anyone else. Canadians elected a minority government and the current government is violating that by trying to give itself a supermajority on committees.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, it grieves me to observe that we are seeing an unprecedented attack on democracy in the country by the Liberal government. Canadians in the last election chose to elect a Liberal minority government, which means that, yes, the Liberals continue in power. At the same time, power is dispersed. Opposition parties have a role in holding the government accountable and in being able to drive outcomes in terms of committees and in terms of legislation. We have clearly played that role responsibly, expediting legislation in certain cases, strongly opposing legislation in others. The Liberals have been pursuing this violation of our democracy, of our democratic institutions, by trying to take a majority that Canadians did not give them. Let me clear on the issue of floor crossing. We have had floor crossing in the country before, individual instances where individuals came to different conclusions based on shifting events or, maybe, changes in their own thinking. That is not what we are talking about in this case, very clearly. What we are seeing in the country is an effort by the government to gain an undemocratic majority government they were not given by Canadians, by recruiting any and every individual, regardless of convictions and regardless of ideology, through backroom deals. In recent weeks they have recruited someone who endorsed Avi Lewis and someone who endorsed the convoy. This clearly has nothing to do with shifting ideas or world views. This is about a naked power grab. In fact, the member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong was explicit about this. She said the Minister of Housing did not return her phone calls beforehand, and that he called her back the next day once she crossed the floor. This is not about world view. This is not about shifting ideas. This is about a naked, undisguised, backroom power grab that is now being used to subvert our democracy. Liberals are using the bare majority that they have taken in violation of the will of Canadians and they are now using it to try to get a supermajority on committees. They are proposing a supermajority of additional members, seven members in total, which would allow them to do anything they want at committee. They have claimed that this is about co-operation. No, this is about subverting democracy. In a minority, parties have to work together. They have to co-operate to get things done. We have co-operated to get things done, in this Parliament and in committee. The government does not want to have to co-operate. The Liberals do not want to have to listen to other parties and to Canadians who voted for those parties. They want to be able to rule absolutely, without consultation and in defiance of the democratic will of Canadians, which is why they are putting forward the motion today to give themselves a supermajority on committees that Canadian voters did not give them. It is wrong and it undermines the work these committees do. Up until now, committees have been working to request information and documents from the government. Multiple committees are now in the midst of Liberal filibusters. The human resources committee, the ethics committee and the health committee are all in the middle of Liberal filibusters. They do not want to hand over documents that have been asked for—

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