“The forestry industry in my area is hurting, and many people have lost their jobs. We asked the government to pay back half of the U.S. duties forestry companies pay each month to give them cash right away. It would cost the government nothing. Why did the government reject this idea?”

“Madam Speaker, I have a question about the forestry industry. This is one of the Bloc Québécois’s demands. The industry back home is being hit hard. Many people have lost their jobs and a lot of families are being impacted. We proposed a number of measures. One of them was for the government to refund 50% of the monthly antidumping and countervailing duties paid by forestry producers to the U.S. to give them immediate liquidity. This measure would be cost-neutral. I would like to know why the government did not consider it.”

“The government is rushing this 300-page bill without giving us time to do our jobs. They ignored our request for a briefing for three weeks, and then scheduled it when most critics could not go. Now they are cutting off debate.”

“Madam Speaker, I find it interesting that the member for Madawaska—Restigouche is asking the minister how this was received by the industry, because we know that Air Canada was getting ready to implement section 17 of the bill before members of Parliament had even seen the text of the bill. Today we are discussing democracy and time allocation. We are wondering, first of all, whether the privileges of parliamentarians have been respected. I am not saying that everything in the bill is bad. However, the bill under consideration is 300 pages long. We want to do our parliamentary work. We requested a briefing from Department of Finance officials on this bill. This is standard practice, as the minister will agree. How long did it take to get the briefing? Three weeks went by without a response. The briefing finally took place at the end of last week, while committees were in session and most of the party critics could not even attend. I understand that some governments have used time allocation in the past. I understand that it has happened. I understand that no one has a monopoly on this. Everyone accuses others of it when they are in the opposition. I understand that. Now we are being slapped with a time allocation motion, when we only just got a briefing after the government ignored us for three weeks. What does that say about how arrogant the Liberals have gotten since they obtained a majority?”

“I want the minister to explain why the government cut off debate on this bill right after giving us a briefing. We had to wait three weeks to ask officials questions about this 300-page bill. In the future, the government must give us information on time so we can do our jobs.”

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

“The minister said three weeks was not enough time to read this 300-page bill. Now he is cutting debate time to just a few hours. That makes no sense, and it is wrong to rush this debate.”

“Madam Speaker, with all due respect, sometimes very smart people, like the minister, say things that are far below their level of intelligence. The minister’s answer to my last question falls into that category. I will explain why. The minister is telling us that three weeks is not much time to read 300 pages and that we were short on time. He is wondering why the government would give us a technical briefing when three weeks is not much time to read 300 pages. Now, he is rising in the House to move a motion to reduce the time allotted for debate so that we cannot debate this bill. We will have just a few hours to debate it. He thinks that three weeks is not enough time for the opposition to read the bill properly, and yet he thinks we can debate it properly in just a few hours. I would like to know whether the minister realizes that he is contradicting himself. Does he realize that his government’s decision to wait three weeks to give a technical briefing and then impose time allocation is indefensible? Is he aware of how arrogant his government is, the government on whose behalf he is speaking today in the House of Commons?”

“Local French-language news is in crisis and losing staff in my region. The government's plan failed, and the latest update provides no help. I want to know what the minister will do right now to support these news outlets.”

“Madam Speaker, the media industry is going through a crisis right now. The government had introduced a levy in July but ultimately did not go forward with it. The government believed that would put it in a better position to negotiate tariffs with the Americans. That plan failed. Later on, the economic update failed to include anything to support local and regional French-language news outlets. In my region, the Lower St. Lawrence, TVA Group has seen its staff at the station shrink from 30 to eight in the space of two years. Local and regional news coverage is being eroded, yet the latest economic update contains nothing to support these news outlets. Can the minister tell us what he is planning to do right now? The crisis is only getting worse.”