Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Regina—Lewvan. If the motion before the House, which we are considering today, is passed unamended, it will force a major fiscal bill through committee, cut off clause-by-clause review after only 30 minutes, deem amendments moved without meaningful debate, skip real report stage consideration, limit third reading to only a handful of speeches and restrict ordinary procedural tools after 6.30 p.m., while preserving special flexibility for cabinet ministers, but not for regular members of Parliament. That would be a lot, and it would not be a minor adjustment to the parliamentary calendar. It would be a serious and unconscionable shift in power away from Parliament and toward the executive. That is why I rise today to support the amendments and ask the government to reconsider its current plans to ram this important legislation through the House. Bill C-30 is broad. It would impact taxation, excise duties, fuel taxes, alcohol duties, housing-related rules, labour mobility, worker ownership, greenhouse building, banking payments, transportation information, employment measures, food inspection, pesticides and other areas of federal law. A bill of that breadth deserves Parliament’s full attention. The government is asking the House to accept the appearance of scrutiny while bypassing proper review. If the world is in crisis and if Canada is at a crossroads where we are attempting to do big things fast, to diversify our economy and our trade relationships, then we cannot afford to get this wrong. We need the best ideas to rise to the top, and that is the role of opposition. That is the role of committee. That is the role of clause-by-clause study. There is no boardroom table in a successful company that I know of where no dissent is allowed, where shortcuts get the best results or where the fastest policies are the best policies. Clause-by-clause study matters. It is where members examine the actual words of the bill, not the press release around it. It is where we ask officials what a clause would do, how it would work, who it would affect and what would happen if were misused. It is where amendments are proposed and can be explained, tested and improved. It is where witnesses, members and sometimes the public catch drafting problems, unintended consequences and overly broad powers before they become law. That is not obstruction. That is how the best ideas rise to the top. Under the motion, the committee would meet at 9 a.m., and, if clause-by-clause were not finished by 9:30 a.m., the remaining amendments would be deemed moved and then are voted on without further debate. This motion is a stopwatch, and in a time of global crisis, Canada cannot afford stopwatch law-making. The government’s inability to manage a legislative agenda is not the opposition’s crisis, no matter how much the government tries to bully us into submission. This week, I spent some time at the public safety committee, examining witnesses about a Liberal subamendment to a Bloc amendment that related to privacy concerns that had been expressed to me by numerous people in my community. Others did the same. By the end of the interventions, we all understood and supported the clause as amended and subamended, and we had explained it in committee in a way that should reassure those watching from home that the clause would not cause undue harm to people’s privacy. That is the kind of collaboration the government claims it wants, and when it comes to Canadians’ privacy, it is what we all need, so why the government is shutting it down here in the House is beyond me. The motion would short-circuit report stage. Then, at third reading, it would allow only a very limited number of speeches. Members do not come here as ornaments, here to decorate the government’s bills with a few words. We come here to bring the lived and living experiences of Canadians into the policy choices that are before this country. When debate is reduced to a few speeches, those voices are marginalized. Canadians lose the benefit of having competing arguments tested before a vote takes place. In an unstable, volatile world, there is all the more reason for Parliament to take its time to make sure that Canada gets its policies right. The proposed amendments would let the committee continue its work and protect the stages of review that help Parliament separate strong policy from weak policy before a law is passed. Some parts of Bill C‑30 deserve much closer public scrutiny than they are going to get, because they raise serious concerns about how the government now thinks about power. One of the most troubling examples is the proposed change to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act. Buried in this spring economic update bill is a power that would allow cabinet, by order, to exempt persons, things or activities from the application of laws or regulations administered or enforced by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. In plain English, cabinet could create exemptions from food and agricultural rules for up to three years, and then extend them for another three years. That means there could be a possible six-year exemption from rules that exist to protect Canadians, our food supply, our producers, our markets and our public confidence. Canadians should not have to guess about questions like, “What is an unreasonable risk? Who makes the decisions, and on what evidence? What notice would Canadians receive and what recourse would they have if the power were used badly?” Food safety should not depend on vague language and cabinet decisions. Those are all questions that I will never get to ask because of the way the government is planning to ram through this bill. Canadians expect food safety rules to be clear, public, stable and enforced. They expect science, inspection and accountability. They do not expect broad exemption powers to be tucked into a budget-style bill and rushed through committee. That same concern appears in the proposed changes to the Pest Control Products Act. Those provisions would allow cabinet to authorize or reinstate the use of a pest control product, even after the responsible minister has determined that the environmental risks are not acceptable, if cabinet decides that the product is needed for economic or food security. That should make every member pause. The regulatory process could say an environmental risk is unacceptable, and cabinet could still step in and permit the product. There may be rare, emergency cases when flexibility is needed, and reasonable people can accept that, but emergency powers should be narrow, clearly defined, transparent, time-limited and subject to strong oversight. They should not be drafted so broadly that Parliament is asked to trust cabinet first and ask questions later. These two brief examples demonstrate why clause-by-clause matters and why committees matter. Canadians need more than abstract, procedural debates. We need safeguards. We ought to make space for members to find provisions such as these, ask what they mean, test the government’s explanations, hear from officials and affected groups and improve the law before Canadians have to live with it. A government that is confident in its agenda should be willing to explain it, defend its legislation line by line and accept amendments that add clarity, accountability and limits. Canadians should pay attention, because the kinds of motions we are debating here today are becoming a trend. Too often, the government seems to believe that if it has the power to do something, that is reason enough to do it. That is not how responsible government works. Just because a government can use a procedure to limit scrutiny, it does not mean that it should. The House of Commons is not an inconvenience in the legislative process, and it ought not be treated as such. It is the central democratic forum of this country, where public money is authorized, laws are tested, ministers are held to account and the executive must answer questions before it changes the lives of Canadians. The Prime Minister should be willing to propose and defend his vision for Canada here, in this chamber, reserved for commoners. We are everyday Canadians who deserve answers. The government has the votes and the procedural tools to force this through, but just because it can, it does not mean that it should. A serious government should not ask members to vote first and understand later. For those reasons, I urge all members of this House to support these amendments. I urge the House to reject this shortcut, protect Parliament’s role and allow Bill C‑30 to receive the scrutiny it deserves.
