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Gérard Deltell

Conservative 4:05 p.m.

“I agree with almost everything my colleague said. But the government didn't consult the opposition like it should have. I want to know why the government failed to show us respect.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague. I completely agreed with everything, or almost everything, she said. In fact, I was in agreement up until the last sentence. Unfortunately, I was left unsatisfied, although I was hanging on to her every word, but still. I think our colleague described the situation very well. Indeed, there is a difference between winning a majority through votes and winning a majority through floor crossers. That is unheard of in our parliamentary history. For this reason, when we are in a new Parliament, and we should call it like it is, the government must ensure that the opposition parties are consulted in a timely manner in order to reach such an agreement. My question for my colleague is this: Why did the government fail to act respectfully in order to show respect to the opposition parties?

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Arpan Khanna

Conservative 4:10 p.m.

“I want to say nice things about farmers in my riding. The government is trying to avoid accountability. We must use committees to expose their scandals and hold them accountable. The Prime Minister avoids showing up. Canadians are losing faith in our institutions. We must keep fighting for accountability.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the great member for Montmorency—Charlevoix today. Before I begin on the issue at hand, I want to quickly recognize our great farmers in Oxford County who are preparing for the planting season. As the weather warms up, they will be back in their fields. I just want to wish them the very best. They feed our families and they deserve love and respect for all the great work they do. To all our members who will be travelling in our rural streets and rural roads, I ask them to please be careful and look out for farm equipment and tractors, to be safe and to be vigilant. Let us keep supporting our farmers, because farmers feed our families. We are all elected by tens of thousands of Canadians who put their trust in us to come take a seat in this chamber, to be a part of our parliamentary system and to be their voice on issues that matter to them. These are issues like affordability, crime, housing or any challenge they face. It is our job to speak for them in the House and in committees. The seats we sit on in this place or in committees, we are holding in trust for our constituents. These are not our seats. This seat is not my seat. It is the seat of our residents, Oxford County. This is what we represent in this chamber every single day. Last election, the people chose a minority government. They gave this government a minority mandate, but through dirty backroom deals, through floor crossers, the government brokered a majority. The Liberals can say all they want, but the member who crossed the floor herself had said that it was good for her personally. Nothing should be good for us personally the day we take the oath of office. It should be good for our community. It should be good for the country. We are not sure what backroom deals they made, but they made those deals. They brokered a manufactured majority. However, it is still our job to be His Majesty's loyal opposition. In this chamber, it is an act of loyalty to be in opposition. It is our job to hold them accountable for their actions. Any bill they put forward, it is our job to take a look at, to make sure they are not trying to pass things that will hurt Canadians, that will make life tougher for Canadians. A committee serves many purposes. Whether it is looking at the bill itself for substance or calling on witnesses to testify, to make better legislation or to expose corruption or the mishandling of taxpayer funds, a committee serves as a tool for us to hold them accountable. We all know the Prime Minister barely shows up for question period. His attendance record is horrible. I think the last time I read the stats, he had about a 27% attendance rate to answer any questions we have. An hon. member: It is worse now. Arpan Khanna: Mr. Speaker, it is probably worse. That is right. Every day that goes by and he does not show up, it gets worse. Former prime minister Harper showed up. Even Justin Trudeau showed up; he is worse than Justin Trudeau. They showed up. They had the decency to face this chamber and to face committees. The committees do great work. For example, we all remember the great arrive scam app that the government was held responsible for. It was discovered in committee. The great work of our committee members exposed the millions of taxpayer dollars that were wasted by the Liberal government. We remember the WE Charity scandal, where the Liberals were lining the pockets of their friends, their insiders. There was also the SNC-Lavalin affair, where they tried to pressure the Attorney General at the time. We remember the green slush fund, which was another massive abuse of power, of money. Do members remember the Aga Khan scandal, where they took money and they were found guilty of ethics violations? These were all things that happened and were exposed through committee. I know the Liberals are upset. They are very upset, because they want power. It is all about power for the Liberal government. That is all it cares about. We can forget the last Liberal government, which they claim is the new government now; let us talk about the so-called new government. We have asked their finance minister to show up at committee. This is because we all heard about the $90 billion the government wants to spend on the Alto train. The minister of finance's partner is an Alto executive. There is $90 billion of taxpayer money going to the finance minister's partner. The Liberals do not want to talk about the issue at committee. The minister refuses to show up. Just this morning we talked about PrescribeIT, another boondoggle by the government, hundreds of millions of dollars wasted. If it was the Liberal members' money, they would not be spending it. It is hard-earned taxpayer dollars. We have called that out at committee. They are sending billions of dollars to entities that are tied to Brookfield. The Prime Minister is a shareholder. It is his former employer. These are all things that Canadians care about. We do not want corruption in our country. If the Liberals have nothing to hide, why not let the committees do their work? Canadians voted for a minority government. The people spoke. They knew what they wanted. They wanted the opposition to hold the government accountable. Yet again, with this new motion, the Liberals are trying to hijack those institutions as well. They will be rushing through legislation. They might go in camera, hiding everything from the public's view. We need tools to do the job. Strong oppositions make for stronger government. When we shine the light on the government, the Liberals are forced to act and actually do their job. However, for some reason, and it is a growing trend, no matter at what level, they are afraid of questions. They are afraid to answer. This means they are afraid of Canadians. They are trying to silence the voices of Parliament. Members on different committees do a fantastic job. They do hard work, they research, and their team comes prepared to make things better, to make democracy better. I know Canadians are demotivated because when I go back to my riding, I speak to constituents and I get phone calls. They are losing faith in our democratic institutions. Some of the comments I have heard are saying, “My voice does not matter anymore.” “Why would I vote?” “Why am I a part of this system?” That creates this negative image of politicians and of Parliament, but it also puts Canadians in a very demoralized state. When Canadians are struggling to put food on the table, they want to know that the things happening in this chamber are actually in their best interest. With this government, again, it is control, censorship and shutting down Parliament. I can tell members that on this side of the House, with these great colleagues, we are not going to give up. We are not going to stop. We are going to hold the government to account every single day because that is what we were elected to do in this chamber. Whether it is through committees, questions here in this chamber, petitions or town halls, Canadians are going to see every single one of our members holding the Liberal government accountable for its actions. We are going to watch. We are going to raise concerns. We are going to be a loud and proud opposition, and we will hold the Liberals accountable. Our country is worth fighting for. Our people, who sacrifice so much, are worth fighting for. The potential of our amazing country is worth fighting for. That promise of Canada is worth fighting for. We are not going to stop. We are going to hold the Liberals accountable. We will keep that fight going right to the end.

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Arpan Khanna

Conservative 4:20 p.m.

“I want the other party to stop changing the rules. I think they made a secret deal and are ignoring voters like the ones who elected me.”

Steven Bonk

Conservative 4:20 p.m.

“I don't like the other party. They've done bad things. I want my friend to talk more about why we shouldn't let them have more power.”

Arpan Khanna

Conservative 4:20 p.m.

“We don't trust this government with more power. They've had 10 ethics violations and the punishment was only $200. They'd hide their scandals without us. The committees need to keep working. Our job is to shine a light on what they're doing.”

Harb Gill

Conservative 4:25 p.m.

“If this motion goes through, nothing will stop the government from doing whatever it wants. The Prime Minister's Office will have total control. I don't want that. The committees need real power to hold the Liberals accountable.”

Arpan Khanna

Conservative 4:25 p.m.

“I already said what I needed to say. But let me repeat: The government has done bad things. They just announced a big pile of money for something else. Money always leads to bad things. I won't stop fighting against the government.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I have already mentioned that in my speech. It is a great question. It does require some follow-up. We have seen the Alto scandal that is unfolding in front of us. That is a big problem. The PrescribeIT scandal that we asked the AG to investigate today is a massive scandal. There are tons of others. For example, today the Liberals announced the bankers special fund for debt, where they are going to be putting billions of dollars into some sort of debt financing, which is going to, again, open the government up for more scandals. It is a slush fund the Liberals are setting up. Where there is money, they have a history of corruption. They have been caught in the past. We are going to keep on fighting that good fight. We are not going to stop. I know they want us to stop. They are trying very hard. We are not going to stop. We are going to keep fighting, and we are going to hold them accountable.

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Dave Epp

Conservative 4:25 p.m.

“I want to talk about something everyone agrees with. The election outcome was the will of the people.”

Arpan Khanna

Conservative 4:25 p.m.

“The Prime Minister broke his promises. He wants to control Parliament. He wants to push his agenda. I want to stop him.”

Gabriel Hardy

Conservative 4:25 p.m.

“I talked to a woman who doesn't know much about politics. She thinks the government needs someone to watch them. I agree. We need to watch the government. I'm worried the Liberals want to stop us from watching them. I think they already got some people to join their team in sneaky ways. I want the opposition to be able to do its job. I don't want the Liberals to control the committees that are supposed to watch them. If we let them do that, it'll be harder to find out if they do something wrong. We need to keep an eye on them.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I have been meeting with many people in Montmorency—Charlevoix recently. I have been having a lot of meetings. People are becoming increasingly interested in politics. I had a really interesting conversation with one woman who came to see me. She said something that really stuck with me. She told me that she was not really sure what we were doing in Ottawa, but she did not think the Liberal government was there for the people. She said that if no one were keeping a close eye on things, she thought everything would go off the rails. The woman in question does not have a background in political science. She has not read the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. She does not know what an oversight committee is. Still, she instinctively understood something that is fundamental to our democracy, something the Liberals seem to forget far too often, specifically that democracy works best when the opposition is able to do its job. It makes everyone better. What we are debating today with Motion No. 9 is not really a matter of parliamentary procedure. It is not really a technical debate about committee composition. I believe it is a much simpler and more fundamental issue for democracy. The real question is this: Who is monitoring the government? I was sent here by the people of Montmorency—Charlevoix. They are workers, families, retirees and entrepreneurs. These are people who get up in the morning. They pay their taxes. They work hard. They expect the government to respect them, not just by saying that it has the right to do something because it is in the fine print. No, the government shows respect by respecting the spirit of the law. Ethics are more challenging than the law itself. Let us talk about rights. Being a member of Parliament is not a right. It is not a title. It is not a career. It is not something that is owed to us. It is a privilege granted to us by citizens. Our mission is to serve Canadians. With that privilege comes a responsibility that I take very seriously. I want to make sure that somebody is watching, that somebody is asking the tough questions and that somebody is holding the Liberals accountable. Our colleagues on the other side of the House do not seem to like that mission very much. I will give a very simple example. Last week, I was at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. A Liberal was serving as chair. During my colleague's opening remarks, she interrupted him six times in six minutes just as he was preparing to ask a question. It was because she did not like what he was saying. It was not the version she wanted to hear, so she took it upon herself to interrupt him over and over. I am not even referring to the 17 and a half hours of Liberal monologue that was used to prevent the Minister of Finance and National Revenue from testifying about a recusal he himself had made and failed to follow through on. It was a perfect demonstration of what lies ahead if this motion is passed today. In a parliamentary democracy such as ours, oversight is not optional; it is not a courtesy the government extends to the opposition. It is the foundation upon which everything else rests. Let us look at the facts. They are pretty straightforward. A year ago, Canadians gave the Liberals a minority mandate. It was not a majority. It was a clear minority, sending a message that required no interpretation: The people told us to co-operate and work together in the interest of Canadians. Committees were set up to respect the people's vote. They were composed of four Liberal members, three Conservative members and one Bloc Québécois member. The chair was either a Liberal or a Conservative, depending on the type of committee. For oversight committees, the chair came from the opposition. Why was that? It was to make sure that the government could be held accountable for its decisions. Eleven months later, after backroom deals and undemocratic negotiations that ignored Canadians' voting rights, the Liberals scraped together a slim majority. The very next morning, what did they do? They brought forward a motion to take control of the committees. That was the first thing they did with their fragile majority. The very first thing was to try to get the upper hand over the people whose job is to monitor them. Even Radio-Canada, on what I would describe as a very pro-liberal panel, characterized the Prime Minister's approach as authoritarian and described Motion No. 9 as an abuse of power. That is quite something, coming from CBC/Radio-Canada. Let us also talk about the mechanics of the Liberals' fragile majority. Let us talk about the floor crossers. Every time a member crossed the floor to join the Liberals, the timing coincided perfectly with a period of political pressure on the Liberal government. Just as the Liberals presented the largest deficit budget in Canadian history and the public was still waiting for results, one member turned his back on his constituents and crossed the floor. Just as he was facing uncomfortable scrutiny over potential conflicts of interest, the Liberals recruited him. Another example was when the government needed to change the narrative. Members will recall that it was because the Leader of the Opposition travelled all over the world, appearing on podcasts to convince the American public that Canada is still needed and that it is a strong ally. The Leader of the Opposition travelled all over the world and was highly respected. The Leader of the Opposition had been pitch perfect. The Liberals needed to change the narrative about their failures, so, lo and behold, someone crossed the floor. We were told that it was a matter of conscience and personal convictions. That was not a coincidence; it was a pattern. It is clearly a strategy. I am going to explain what Motion No. 9 does in a language that everyone will understand, especially at this time of year. Let us imagine that we are in game seven of the playoffs. The series is tied at three wins apiece. The arena is packed to the rafters. Millions of people across Quebec are watching the game. The blues are on one side, the reds are on the other. The third period starts. The referees hit the ice. What do they do? They head over to Jon Cooper, high-five the players, have fun with them. They take a little sip from the team's cup. They chat with Jon, who points at certain players. They take notes. Fans start wondering what is going on. What is worse, the commentators are already announcing the final score. Those same reporters are saying that the Habs took a beating before the third period even began. What would people say? Would they accept that outcome? Would that inspire confidence in us all? Does that sound like an honest game? No, it does not, because everyone understands a basic truth: A person cannot judge their own case. That is exactly what Motion No. 9 does, in the end. It turns the Liberals into very biased referees. We are not talking about abstract committees. We are not talking about committees that produced no results. We are talking about committees that, among other things, probed the ArriveCAN scandal, in which $59 million of taxpayers' money was spent on an app that should have cost a few million dollars, with contracts awarded without a call for tenders to a four-person firm working out of the basement of a house not far from Parliament. It took nine different investigations to start scratching the surface of that scandal, and it all started with an oversight committee. An oversight committee launched the investigation into the Liberal green fund. An oversight committee first addressed the issue of foreign election interference before the inquiry into foreign election interference was launched. It was also oversight committees that shed light on the Prime Minister's potential conflicts of interest with Brookfield. If, in the near future, Canadians stop hearing about scandals, it is not because there are no more scandals. It is simply because the government paid off the referees. I am going to say something that may surprise my colleagues on the other side of the House. I understand the theory behind what they want to do. Traditionally, a majority government holds a majority in committees. It is true that this is a parliamentary convention. If the Liberals had received a clear mandate from Canadians a year ago to ensure that their election platform was fulfilled and if everyone had gone to the polls to vote for a majority government, I would not be here debating today. However, that is not what happened. A minority government was elected, but it engineered an artificial majority through timely defections, dubious funding, promised perks, trips, and potential or actual investments in certain constituencies. The first thing this government is doing with that majority is locking down the oversight mechanisms. Men who built our democracy long before my time have explained it better than I can. John Diefenbaker, Canada's 13th prime minister, said that “freedom always dies when criticism ends”. Lester B. Pearson, our 14th prime minister, who was a Liberal, said that the health of Parliament relies on the opposition's right to oppose, attack and criticize. Mr. Pearson understood that the health of democracy depends on an opposition that can do its job. This is not a Conservative idea, but a democratic one. It is quite simple to understand. What the opposition is asking for today is simple and reasonable. It costs nothing, unless a government has something to hide. Let the Liberals have their majority on legislative committees. That is their right. However, for committees that have an exclusive mandate to monitor the government—the public accounts committee, the government operations committee, the ethics committee—we need the current composition to stand. That is the balance that Canadians have asked for, the balance that allowed a light to be shone on the Prime Minister's conflicts of interest, apparent conflicts, violations of his conflict of interest screen and phony recusals that undermine Canadians' trust in our institutions. That is the amendment we are proposing, and I urge every member here to ask themselves one question: If, in the future, a government is elected that we do not trust, would we want to have tools to monitor it? The woman I met was right when she said that if no one keeps a a close eye on things, everything will go off the rails. When the priority of a government with a new majority is to gain control over the people who monitor it, I can say that this woman was right. If Motion No. 9 is adopted as is, the next time that this woman is proven right, no one will be able to tell her so. In closing, the opposition exists for several fundamental reasons. We are here to analyze, to ask questions on behalf of those who sent us here. We are here for the workers of Montmorency—Charlevoix who pay taxes and want to know how their money is being spent. We are here to hold the government to account. I will say one last thing. We are here because Canadians from Victoria to Gaspé deserve a government that is not afraid to answer questions. We must reject Motion No. 9.

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Gabriel Hardy

Conservative 4:25 p.m.

“I think the government should do what is right, not just what is allowed. I think the government should be ethical. I think the government should serve the people, not itself. I think the government should listen to the people who voted for it. I don't like the current government.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, that is not a very good question, but I will answer it. If my colleague wants to talk about history, we can say that the past 11 years have been quite disappointing in terms of this government's decisions. As I said in my speech, I think it is very important to stop focusing on the minutiae and the right to do something. The Liberals are always telling us that they have the right to do this or that, even if it is unethical. There is a comma or a period in the law somewhere that gives them the right to act that way. However, who makes the laws? Ordinary people are fed up with this. They want a government that prioritizes ethics, a government that understands that doing what is ethical is harder than doing what is allowed. They want a government that will be there for them. Citizens created institutions to serve them, not so that those institutions could serve themselves. My response to my colleague is that perhaps the government should adapt to the citizens who voted for it.

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Gabriel Hardy

Conservative 4:40 p.m.

“I don't like how the Liberals are limiting debate. They talked for 17 hours to avoid questions. They cut off my colleague six times. The Liberals think they are always right. They don't want us to question them. I want the opposition to be strong and the government to respect our work.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question from my colleague. I think we all know the answer. We have seen it. I, for one, came face to face with it last week when I sat through an intense 17‑and‑a‑half‑hour Liberal monologue that was intended to ensure that a minister who had recused himself but did not want to come and answer questions would not be called to appear. We saw it last week when my colleague started speaking and was cut off six times by the Liberal serving as chair. The Liberals do not want us to question their decisions because they think they are right. They are here for themselves, not for the people. Let me tell members something: We need a strong opposition. We need a Parliament that respects the opposition's work. It is high time the Liberals got that through their heads.

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Andrew Lawton

Conservative 4:40 p.m.

“I want to criticize the Liberals for limiting debate. I want to repeat that voters don't like them and think they're self-interested. I want my colleague to agree with me that voters are upset the Liberals won't work with other parties.”

Gabriel Hardy

Conservative 4:40 p.m.

“I'm glad you asked in French. Let's talk about what voters want. I want to say the government isn't listening. I want to say they only care about themselves. They won't accept our ideas. I want to say that's not democratic.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased that the member asked his question in French. I thank him for that. Bilingualism is an asset, and we are seeing that here today. It is simple enough. The public is watching. They thought that Parliament would be forced to collaborate, that Canadians would finally have a Parliament that puts the public's interests first, rather than a government that only puts its own party's interests first. What we are experiencing here is the complete opposite. This is how it has been from the start. Every week, we are accused of blocking Parliament's work, even though we are suggesting ways to improve the Liberals' proposals so that everyone benefits in the end. The Liberals do not like that. What they want is simply what they want, when they want it and how they want it. Unfortunately, that is not what the public voted for. It is high time the Liberals realized that this is not an autocracy, but a democracy.

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Harb Gill

Conservative 5:00 p.m.

“This motion is bad. I think you're covering something up. Is this actually good for government? Or just good for your party's image?”

Gérard Deltell

Conservative 5:00 p.m.

“I want to talk about a Green Party MP and remind everyone of my party's strong democratic principles. It's ironic that the government wants to shut down debate on a democratic issue on the eve of an election anniversary. I want to know what the MP thinks about respecting the will of Canadians expressed at the polls without considering floor crossers.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, of course, I listened carefully to what my Green Party colleague had to say. Unlike the Bloc Québécois member, who refers to her as a member from British Columbia, I refer to her as a member of the Green Party. That is simpler and members know right away who I am talking about. It is like the good old days because the member is now sitting on the same side of the House as the official opposition like she was in 2015. Speaking of elections, I would like to remind the House that, tomorrow, it will be exactly one year since almost all members of the House, except two, were elected. It is rather odd that the government wants to shut down debate on a democratic issue on the eve of the anniversary of the 2025 election. In her case, the member was elected to the House of Commons for a fifth time. Since we are talking about elections and anniversaries, I would like to hear her thoughts on the importance of respecting the will of Canadians as expressed at the polls without taking floor crossers into account.

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Dave Epp

Conservative 5:05 p.m.

“I'm filling time with an unrelated personal story. The government is doing something that's never been done before. I blame the Prime Minister's Office.”

Andrew Lawton

Conservative 5:05 p.m.

“I respect parliament. I'm sad the Prime Minister does not. He changes rules to increase his power. He thinks the will of Canadians is beneath him. Opposition is not obstruction. The government must collaborate with other parties. Today's motion will give the government a blank cheque. I oppose this motion.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Grande Prairie. I said in my maiden speech, when I got to this august chamber, that this seat does not belong to me. Indeed, it belongs to the people of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South. I am a mere custodian of it. I say that to make the point that Parliament itself, this House of Commons, these institutions, are bigger than any of us as individuals. They are bigger than all of us even as a collective. These institutions matter more. This place matters more than the political ambitions, motivations and decisions of the people who get to come here every election. I have always venerated this institution. Indeed, I have always been fascinated by it. Even going back to when I was a university student involved in politics, I loved partaking in model parliament. I loved taking the opportunity to learn more. Perhaps it is why I have never been reprimanded for not addressing my comments through the chair or not doing some of those other conventions: I have been a student of parliamentary history. It was an honour the first day I walked into this chamber, and it remains the honour of a lifetime to be here. It has been saddening in that same vein to see how, for the Liberal government and specifically the Prime Minister, Parliament is a mere annoyance. We have seen the ignorance in this place: the fact that the Prime Minister has a question period attendance rating that is a fraction of that of his predecessors; the fact that he loves “showboating”, to use a word he is fond of, with fake executive orders that have no legal standing in our country; and the fact that he has been doing everything but governing in this place, governing in this chamber. To govern in this chamber is to be held accountable to Parliament as the collective body representing the will of the Canadian people. Parliament is a body comprising fellow custodians of this chamber, who are sent here with very similar mandates from each of their respective constituencies and constituents. However, we see in the motion before us today that the government does not believe it can win the game, so to speak, so it is changing the rules. It is changing the rules to suit its political ambitions, irrespective of the will of the Canadian people and irrespective of the norms, conventions and traditions of this place. It should be known to everyone here that Canadians do not, in fact, elect a government; they elect a Parliament. Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary since Canadians elected me, alongside all of my colleagues from all parties. Canadians elected a minority Parliament. The message Canadians sent in doing that was that they were prepared to give the Liberals a fourth term. I question why they would do that. However, while they were prepared to give the Liberals a fourth term, Canadians wanted their power to be checked by a strong, robust opposition. Now, my Conservative colleagues and I have held up our end of the bargain as His Majesty's loyal opposition. We supported and improved legislation such as Bill C-5, Bill C-14 and Bill C-16, which is before the justice committee right now. We opposed dangerous bills, such as Bill C-2 and Bill C-9, which the Liberals wanted to wave through without scrutiny and accountability. We worked collaboratively across party lines. We represented the will of Canadians, who elected MPs to champion, for those of us on the Conservative side of the aisle, the values of liberty, personal responsibility and, yes, fiscal discipline. However, what we have seen over the last year is that when the Liberals do not get their way, they scream obstruction. Opposition is not obstruction. We have seen this in a minority Parliament. I recall when Stephen Harper and the Conservatives had one just a few years ago. A minority Parliament requires the government to find dance partners, so to speak, to find collaboration and earn collaboration from opposition parties. The idea of holding opposition parties hostage to support bad legislation, which is what the Liberal government has tried to do, is not what a minority Parliament is supposed to be. We have seen under this arrangement, specifically at committees, a situation in which the Bloc has held the balance of power. I have seen votes in which Bloc and Conservative support was enough to pass a motion against the will of the Liberals. I have seen Liberal and Bloc members pass motions against the will of Conservatives. On a rare occasion, I might have even seen Liberals and Conservatives vote together, with the Bloc being the odd party out. Even when we have lost a vote, frustrating as that may be, I can take comfort in the knowledge that the Liberals were forced to co-operate with someone. They had a check, however modest, on their power. Today, the Liberals would enshrine their desire for a legislative blank cheque, stacking parliamentary committees to reflect their morally illegitimate majority. I say illegitimate majority because it was crafted not by the democratic will of Canadians but by the Prime Minister sending out his cabinet ministers to peel away the unscrupulous and the shameless opposition MPs who hold the will of the Canadian people in as little esteem as the Liberals do. This morally illegitimate majority is the consequence of that which they now seek to ratify by stacking the deck on committees. Committees are not the property of the government. They are creatures of Parliament. In many ways, they are where the real work happens, where scrutiny can happen, where amendments can happen and where real vigorous debates on the merits or lack thereof of legislation happen. If the government can manufacture a majority at will, scrutiny is merely choreography. They are seeking to not have a check on their power and to not have scrutiny of their legislation but rather to have a rubber stamp on anything they want to do. I am reminded of a quote from John Diefenbaker. In April 1957, he was speaking at Massey Hall in Toronto, and he said, “The sovereignty of the people is delegated to Parliament, not to the Executive.” The Prime Minister could learn a great many things from John Diefenbaker. One of the lessons is that government is about accountability, not control. Another lesson is that parliamentary scrutiny should be welcomed and not scorned. As evidence that these Liberals are uninterested in accountability and collaboration, one need only look at how they rejected our modest amendment to the very motion we are debating today, which would have preserved the status quo on oversight committees such as ethics, government operations and estimates, among others, committees that are not responsible for reviewing legislation but are tasked with being a watchdog on the government. Why the Liberals do not want to cede control on a committee overseeing ethics, I think, is becoming more apparent by the day. That is precisely what we are looking at here: a government that does not wish to engage in Parliament, a Prime Minister who holds this institution in contempt and a government that does not want to engage in something so seemingly beneath it as seeking and preserving the will of the Canadian people to enact its legislative agenda. The motion that we have before us today, which I will be opposing, does not strengthen Parliament. It sidelines it. That is something that every member of the House should reject. I go back to the comment I made earlier about when the Liberals try to invoke obstruction as a narrative. We have given them much of what they asked for when they sought permission to do things that will build the country up. Bill C-5 is a great example of this. They said they wanted monumental, sweeping authority to approve major projects. We said we would love to see major projects. We gave them permission to do this and the framework to do it. No major projects have materialized. Here we are a year later: The Liberal government has promised much and has delivered little. The one mechanism that could be preserved to ensure that Parliament remains in keeping with what Canadians elected was a committee structure that would force members of Parliament and would force government members to do what the Liberals claim they have wanted this whole time, which is collaboration. No, they are laying their demands bare today with the motion. They do not want collaboration. They do not want co-operation. All they want is capitulation. We say no.

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Andrew Lawton

Conservative 5:20 p.m.

“Liberals didn't help that MP's riding until she joined their party. Liberals only care about other Liberals.”

Andrew Lawton

Conservative 5:20 p.m.

“My friend is right. The Bloc asked good questions about the Liberals' formula. But let's talk about how the Liberals got their majority. The Liberals use defections to get complete control in committee. Canadians don't want the Liberals to control everything.”

What they said. What they meant.

Recent debates

Government Business No. 9—Changes to the Standing Orders

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Steven Bonk

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Harb Gill

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Dave Epp

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Gabriel Hardy

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Andrew Lawton

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Andrew Lawton

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Andrew Lawton