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Hon. Kevin Lamoureux

Liberal 4:00 p.m.

“The government won a majority. That means the government should control the committees. That's how our rules and tradition work. The other parties would do the same if they had the numbers.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I am going to go back to the real basic here. If there is a majority makeup on the floor of the House of Commons, our rules, tradition and heritage, not only in Canada, but in the Commonwealth, are that there is a majority on the committees. I would like to pick up on the point that the member made in regard to reducing committee membership if the government did not have a majority. Can members imagine if we had won with 172 seats and someone crossed the floor over to the opposition so it would no longer be a majority? I would be fairly confident that the unholy coalition between the Bloc and the Conservatives would get rid of the majority on the committees, and they would have a valid argument to do so. I think there is a double standard that the opposition today is trying to apply. A majority in the House means a majority on committees. Does she not agree with that principle?

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Hon. Kevin Lamoureux

Liberal 4:20 p.m.

“I want to compliment Canada. Our leader is good. The other party did bad things in the past. I don't want to talk about the past. I just want to repeat talking points and say we support tradition.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member that we have an amazing country. It is the best country in the world to call home. We have a Prime Minister and a government that work every day of the week to build Canada strong for all of us. The member talked about abuse of power. We could easily talk about the past, about “Stephen Harper, Serial Abuser of Power" and the evidence that was compiled. We could talk about the dozens of infractions. However, let us put the past behind us and talk about going forward. All that is happening in this motion is that we are recognizing that if a party has a majority of seats on the floor of the House of Commons, it gets a majority of seats in the standing committees. That is the history and the tradition of Parliament here in Canada and the Commonwealth. Does the member believe in that principle?

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Hon. Kevin Lamoureux

Liberal 4:25 p.m.

“I want my party to control the committees that are supposed to watch us. I think we should get to decide who watches us. I don't want the other parties to have a say. I think that would be ridiculous. I want my team to have all the power. I don't care what the other parties think.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I have said this a great deal already this afternoon: It is a fairly straightforward motion that says that if a party makes up a majority of the membership on the floor of the House of Commons, it gets to have a majority of the members on the standing committees. At the end of the day, the Conservatives are putting forward an argument. If a party had a 172‑seat majority and one person walked over to the opposition, the opposition is saying that it would be taking the position it is taking right now. That would be ridiculous. We know that it would not do that. Let us take a look at the tradition, heritage and history of Parliament. I think we recognize that a majority is in fact a majority that should be on the standing committees.

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Hon. Kevin Lamoureux

Liberal 4:50 p.m.

“I'm going to talk a lot about my own experience. The Green leader can still do things even if her party's small. Nothing in this motion takes anything away from her or from independents. I was an independent for years. So does she not support the basic principle that a majority in the House should mean a majority in committees?”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I am very much aware of the situation that the leader of the Green Party finds herself in. I served in the Manitoba legislature, and there were often just two people. We never really had party status, except for the first few years. My daughter is the only Liberal MLA in the Province of Manitoba. She has been able to pass legislation and resolutions and work her way onto committees. The leader of the Green Party is fairly effective in doing likewise, getting herself in a position where she can provide comments and so on. I have also been in minority governments, in opposition and in government, and majority governments, in opposition and in government, and what we need to understand is that there is nothing in this motion that would take away anything from independent members. I was an independent member for many years. I would ask the member, does she not support the principle, which is done reasonably well, that a majority in the House should mean a majority in committees?

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Hon. Kevin Lamoureux

Liberal 5:15 p.m.

“I want to defend the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister works with others. The Prime Minister does not take all the power for himself. He lets others pass bills. Some bills pass with support from all parties. The government has a majority. That means a majority in committees too. The Prime Minister is doing what every Prime Minister does. I don't think we should question his actions. We should just accept it.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, the comments that the member has put on the record are interesting. I disagree with most of those comments. As I have illustrated before, the Prime Minister has talked about working in collaboration. We saw a good example of that earlier this morning. We have a majority government, yet we passed a member of the opposition's legislation through on third reading. The collaboration is what is important. When we take a look at the standing committees, it is very simple. If we have a majority of members that make up the floor of the House of Commons, we get a majority on the standing committees. Every Prime Minister who has had a majority has had that situation. I do not think we should be trying to pass judgment on individual members. I think we should be recognizing and supporting parliamentary tradition. Does he not—

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Hon. Kevin Lamoureux

Liberal 5:20 p.m.

“I'm filling time with old scandals instead of defending our power grab in committees. The real issue is we have more seats than votes, so we should get our way in everything, including committees, because that's how it's always been. Conservatives and Bloc aren't always right. I won't let them use committees to go against us.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, if we are debating history and past scandals today, I would love to share dozens of them. I have a book of over 100 scandals from the days of Stephen Harper, when the member's current leader was involved. If the member wants to get a copy, he can come on over and I will show him some of the quotes, which include contempt of Parliament. At the end of the day, a party has a majority of the seats on the floor of the House of Commons. According to the rules, and according to our parliamentary heritage, which is not only in Canada, but also in the Commonwealth, that means that majority should be extended to the standing committees. That is what we are doing. To try to say there is a Conservative and Bloc alliance, and everything they do in committees is absolutely wonderful and delightful and in the best interest of Canadians, is balderdash. Does the member really believe that we should be going against parliamentary tradition because—

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Hon. Judy A. Sgro

Liberal 5:35 p.m.

“I want to add more of my party's people to each committee so that we have a majority on every committee. That will help our party stay in control of each committee's work.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand today to participate in this particular discussion. I will be sharing my time with the great member for Whitby, and I am pleased to be able to do that. It gives me great pleasure to rise today to speak about Government Motion No. 9, dealing with the composition of committees. Every member in this place understands the critical role that committees play in our parliamentary system. It is in committees where the hard work of legislating gets accomplished as bills are reviewed, amendments proposed and diverse perspectives are considered. This work ensures that legislation is improved upon before it makes its way back to the House. Committees are also a place where issues of importance to Canadians are studied. It is where the hard work of legislating gets accomplished as bills are reviewed, amendments proposed and diverse perspectives are considered. This work ensures that legislation is improved upon before it makes its way back to the House. Witnesses appear and offer their unique perspective. Ministers appear to defend and explain their actions and to be held to account. It is a system that is of the utmost importance to the functioning of democracy. As chair of the international trade committee, I can say that we have had numerous witnesses who have come before us to give us insightful ideas and thoughts on the challenges they are facing in this new world of tariffs. Nothing in the motion that we are debating today would change any of this. Committees would continue to carry out their important functions. Ministers would continue to appear to answer questions and defend their actions, and estimates would continue to be studied. Committees would retain all of the powers they currently have and be free to study anything that is within their mandate. This motion has one goal, and that is to maintain the long-standing tradition in our Parliament that the party that has a majority of seats in the House of Commons also holds a majority of seats on committee. I am going into my 26th year here, and that has always been the case. Whoever was in government was able to get whatever extra seats they wanted. It is not just members on this side of the House who are saying this. It is a recognized tradition within our system. House of Commons Procedure and Practice, first edition, makes it clear on page 819, where it states, “Where the governing party has a majority in the House, it will also have a majority on every House committee.” This is not something that the House leader invented over the weekend and decided he was going to do. Page 819 is very clear on what the practice is to be. Additionally, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, fourth edition, states on page 790, “Party representation on committees reflects the standings of recognized parties in the House”. Therefore, the motion we are debating today is entirely consistent with upholding the traditions of the House. It is also important to talk about how the government has proposed to make the changes to committees. It could have looked at previous majority government numbers and mirrored that approach. To do that would have required removing members of the official opposition from committees. The government chose not to do this and instead took an inclusive and collaborative approach, which is what we really have been using for this last year with the successes we have had by all working together. The Prime Minister has been clear that the government intends to work collaboratively with all members of Parliament. The Prime Minister has stated, “We are absolutely focused on working with Parliament, getting legislation through Parliament, adjusting legislation where it needs to be, where it's better informed by discussions in Parliament, where we have to make compromise in order to do it. And we've shown that. We've shown that consistently.” Removing official opposition members of Parliament from committees was an option, as I mentioned, but it was an option the government chose not to proceed with, as we are serious about wanting to work constructively with all members. The government took a different approach. The motion we are debating would simply add members from the governing party to committees to ensure that the party with the majority of seats in the House of Commons also has a majority of seats on parliamentary committees. It is that simple. The changes proposed in the motion reflect the operation of the House of Commons. Namely, the numbers in committee would ensure that the government has a majority and that the chair of the committee would not need to vote and break a tie. The motion was drafted this way to mirror the state of play in the House, as always, where the numbers are such that the Speaker also does not need to vote to break a tie. It is an undeniable fact that the makeup of the House of Commons has changed since committees were formed. The government has gone from a minority government to a majority government. The Conservatives continue to argue about how this occurred, but that does not change the fact that it has occurred. As a result, the government has a duty to ensure that the makeup of committees reflects this reality. Because the change occurred partway through the current Parliament, the government took a responsible and constructive approach to this change that would preserve all the members from the official opposition on committees. We recognize the role these members play at committees. We respect the expertise that they have gained and that they bring to the debate. Much like we want to build Canada strong, we have chosen addition rather than subtraction in our approach. I think it is also worth pointing out that if a government were to go from a majority to a minority, the opposition would demand that committees also reflect that reality, so the motion we are debating today is a reasonable and responsible response to a change in the makeup of the House of Commons. The government has gone from a minority to a majority, and the motion would simply ensure that this is also reflected in committees, as has always been the case. One of the things I really value as a member of Parliament is hearing the diversity of perspectives that all members bring to their work. Canada is such a massive, diverse and beautiful country. Policies affect people differently depending on where they live. By all of us coming together to debate the issues of the day, we all benefit from the perspective of others. This is especially true in the work we do on committees. Legislation is made better through the perspective of others. Issues are studied because members from a particular part of the country think they are important. All of this would continue after the passage of the motion. Committees would continue to do the heavy lifting of Parliament and ensure that all perspectives are heard. I look forward to continuing this important work we all do on committees, and I will continue to work collaboratively with members from all political stripes to build Canada strong. We are at a challenging time in our country right now, and I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to this motion.

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Hon. Judy A. Sgro

Liberal 5:45 p.m.

“No, that's not why we're adding people to committees at all. The committees will still do all the same work.”

Hon. Judy A. Sgro

Liberal 5:50 p.m.

“You're whining about majority numbers. We have the right number. People joined us because they want to help during hard times. They want to work on solutions with us.”

Hon. Kevin Lamoureux

Liberal 5:50 p.m.

“I appreciate my friend's point. He said it's about how many MPs a party has. History shows that if you have the most MPs, you should get the most seats on committees. That's how we've always done it. Why would we change that now? Don't you agree?”

Hon. Judy A. Sgro

Liberal 5:50 p.m.

“I want the rules to stay the same as before. The party with the most MPs should get to make the rules. That's how we've always done it.”

Hon. Judy A. Sgro

Liberal 5:50 p.m.

“I'm filling time with kind words and saying nothing anyone could pin down later.”

Ryan Turnbull

Liberal 5:50 p.m.

“I'm filling time with kind words and saying nothing anyone could pin down later. I want Canadians to think I work well with others.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Humber River—Black Creek for her 26 years of serving in the House and for her mentorship and friendship. The speech she made today was great. She is a testament to parliamentary tradition and also to a very progressive agenda for her community that I know she has pursued all throughout her career. I am very proud to call her a friend. After six and a half years of serving in the House, it is an honour to rise today to speak to government Motion No. 9. I say six and a half years because, since 2019, I only ever served in a minority Parliament. It is a great honour to be standing here today with our government's having earned a majority, whether through floor crossings or by-election results. Nonetheless, as my previous colleague mentioned, this does not change the fact that our government now has 174 seats in the House, which is clearly a majority of the seats. Before turning to the motion we are debating, I want to spend a little bit of time speaking to the important role that committees serve in our parliamentary system. Canadians obviously have the opportunity to watch us here daily in the House of Commons. They watch us fiercely debate important pieces of legislation. They can see the work that we put into both making sure that bills pass and making sure the laws get the scrutiny they deserve, by asking questions and engaging in robust back-and-forth of ideas and perspectives. I know how challenging that process can be at times, but I think we are all better off for it. However, there is one place in the system of Parliament of making laws and passing bills where Canadians can sit directly across from us, and where we benefit from hearing from people with vast amounts of expertise and experience across many different fields. That is at committees. I have served on the industry committee, the finance committee, the procedure and House affairs committee, the agriculture and agri-food standing committee, the science and research committee, and the human resources, skills and social development and the status of persons with disabilities committee, which is a great committee. I have visited OGGO, ETHI and many of the other committees to sub in for colleagues from time to time and to participate in debates. All of them have been a privilege. What I particularly appreciate about committees is that we do not just look for answers from each other as members of Parliament but we also get to hear from the Canadians who, ultimately, elect us. Their voices get to be heard, and I think that is really powerful. The studies we undertake at committee, although sometimes a little laborious, I admit, at other times can really contribute both to parliamentary debate and also to government initiatives and responses, and they can better inform the whole process of democracy. Our best work at committee is often done when we are working together. That goes without question. I have been part of many committee studies in which we did not start out agreeing, that is for sure, but eventually came to reach consensus. Committees give us the opportunity to come together in smaller groups on a regular basis. We get to know each other across party lines. We often find that we have more in common than we think or assume, even if we come from places that may be thousands of kilometres apart or from communities that have real regional differences that we all come to appreciate. Our shared understanding of and ultimate respect for our work on committees can bring out what is truly best in all of us. There are many examples where members of the House, on our own and with members from the other place, have worked together with amazing results. I will point to the MP for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, who worked on pension protection years ago in the House. She is now a member of our party on this side of the House, which is great. We welcome her on this side of the House, but previously she served in the Conservative Party. She brought forward, I would say, an imperfect bill on pension protection, an issue that my constituents and I care deeply about, which also crossed all party lines. We worked both with the member and across all parties to find a solution to that private member's bill, to eventually pass it in the House. I am very proud of that work. I am proud to have supported that member and her initiative. Even though I was not the one leading it, and I may not have gotten the credit for it, that does not matter to me. This place works better because we work together, in this case, to protect pensioners by making sure that when a company goes through insolvency, pensioners are protected, that they get paid out not last on the list of creditors. That initiative proved to me years ago that this place can really work and that the function of committees is truly powerful. Another example that is more recent is that of the MP for Simcoe North, who is a colleague I served with on the finance committee, with Bill C-230, an initiative he brought forward to increase transparency on debts owed to the Government of Canada. I found the member of the Conservative Party to be extremely reasonable and thoughtful, to participate in debates in good faith and to consider the amendments the government put forward and willing to accept some of them. In some cases, we negotiated back and forth to find a middle ground. That is what makes this place work. That is democracy in action, and it is the stuff that makes me proud to have served in the House for the last six and a half years. That sentiment is what we want to achieve with the restructuring of committees. We want to work collaboratively across party lines. We want democracy to work for Canadians. That is what this government stands for and what I stand for as a member of Parliament. I know my colleagues on this side of the House, all 174 of us now, believe in that vision, which is to work on behalf of Canadians to make this place function, to pass better laws, to do better studies and, yes, to hold the government to account. That is exactly what we can achieve when we work together. I know there are many ways to interpret this motion, but I think it is important that we all take those committee responsibilities seriously and work as a group, hearing each other's perspectives with a common goal in mind, as with previous joint efforts on those committees. For example, Bill C-225, sponsored by the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, would, if adopted, make changes to the Criminal Code to create new offences related to intimate partner violence and coercive control. That is a very important issue to many of us, and I think we can stand together and work together on that. I know there is a general desire on behalf of all of us to do right by Canadians. There are many other examples. I will point to just two more. I served with the member for Kingston and the Islands, the member for Brampton North—Caledon and the member for Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, who was here a moment ago. She is not in the chamber at the moment, but I will say that—

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Ryan Turnbull

Liberal 6:00 p.m.

“I broke a rule. I'm very proud of myself. I want you to agree with me. I want more power in committees. I want to control committees.”

Official Hansard

You are right, Mr. Speaker. I contravened the rules unintentionally there. My apologies to you and all the members. With that said, those members and I served on the procedure and House affairs committee. We looked at Centre Block revitalization. We talked about foreign interference, which we studied for nine months in committee. We studied the hybrid provisions during the pandemic to change standing orders so government could function during the middle of a global pandemic to pass legislation, put programs in place and save lives. I am really proud of that work. I know that committee functioned well, even though there was lots of rigorous debate. This is exactly what we can achieve when we work together. Committees will continue to function that way with them reflecting the majority in the House. As the member previously mentioned, committees have an important function of oversight and accountability, but what is clear is that they need to mirror the proportionality of seats in the House. That is exactly what Motion No. 9 proposes to do.

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Ryan Turnbull

Liberal 6:00 p.m.

“I don't want the opposition to have more power on committees. I want my party to keep more seats there. It's been done before so I think we should keep it that way.”

Ryan Turnbull

Liberal 6:05 p.m.

“I'm talking a lot but I'm not really saying anything. The other parties have ways to hold us accountable but I don't want to acknowledge that we're blocking them on purpose. I'm going to pretend this is normal instead of answering the real issue.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the sentiments from my colleague, wanting to hold the government to account. As an opposition MP in the House, he is well aware that is his job. It is the same with the Conservative Party. How did we hold Stephen Harper to account when he had a majority in the House? How did the opposition hold our government accountable from 2015 to 2019? There are tools that are designed right into our parliamentary system to ensure that opposition parties, even when the government has a majority of seats in the House, can hold the government to account. That is how this place has functioned since Confederation. Conservatives, in the middle of the pandemic, filibustered for many, many weeks trying to prevent the Government of Canada from functioning to help Canadians, so they had a tool to hold us to account then. It is not as if filibusters were just invented yesterday. Extended debate happens in many committees. It is a tool that the Conservatives and the Bloc have used. It is a tool that will continue to be used, I am sure, in our parliamentary system.

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Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault

Liberal 6:05 p.m.

“I'm just trying to run down the clock with nice-sounding words about tradition and principles instead of answering the real issue. I don't want to admit any problem with our government blocking accountability.”

Ryan Turnbull

Liberal 6:05 p.m.

“I'm filling time with kind words about tradition and accountability. I don't want to admit our government blocked those things. I want to make the other party look bad instead.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, certainly I believe in tradition. I believe in the Standing Orders, although I understand that they evolve over time. This is what I was trying to point to with the fact that the Conservatives, during the middle of a pandemic, filibustered in committee and made arguments that we should never change the traditions of the House. I see that there are moments within an emergency situation where we need to adapt and be able to do the work and function as a government. At the same time, I understand that in moments like these, the traditions of the House allow opposition parties to hold the government to account. It is so fundamental in terms of representing and mirroring the proportionality in the House in committee. That has to be preserved at all costs. I do not think the members opposite are saying we should change that tradition, but they only want to abide by—

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Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Liberal 6:15 p.m.

“I want to make you argue with an old quote from your own side. When politicians switch parties it helps my party more.”

Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Liberal 6:30 p.m.

“The other party would do this too if they could.”

What they said. What they meant.

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