Bill C-24 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act

This enactment amends the Salaries Act to authorize payment, out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, of the salaries for eight new ministerial positions. It authorizes the Governor in Council to designate departments to support the ministers who occupy those positions and authorizes those ministers to delegate their powers, duties or functions to officers or employees of the designated departments. It also makes a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act.

Criminal Code

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, what a joy it is to be back in the House and be here for the rare occurrence of hearing the member for Winnipeg North speak. It happens about as often as a full eclipse of the sun. It is amazing. I am going to tell my grandkids that I was here to hear the member speak. It is actually disappointing that the Liberals have so many new members, yet time and again it is the same chap who stands up, as much as I do understand.

I will be sharing my time today with the member for Cumberland—Colchester, who is one of the new members we are allowing to speak.

We are talking about Bill C-3 today. I am glad to get a chance to get a word in edgewise, with the member across the way, but also to speak before the Liberals perhaps prorogue Parliament, call another snap election or use any other of their usual ploys to avoid accountability.

Bill C-3 is probably a needed bill, but it is an odd bill. Half is related to justice and the other half to the Canada Labour Code. I am not sure why the Liberals have put the two of them together instead of presenting them to the House separately. I hate to think doing it this way is a typical Liberal ploy, or that they are hoping someone will object to part of it, so they can scream and yell and say we are anti-health care workers. I know I am being cynical because there is no way in the world they would ever consider doing that. They would never try to wedge folks.

We have heard repeatedly from the government, and our colleagues from the NDP and the Bloc, about how much this bill is needed. Why now? Why not a year ago? Why not six years ago with the Canada Labour Code? Why have the Liberals waited? They have had the backing and support of all the parties during the COVID crisis to put through almost everything with unanimous consent. Why would they wait so long?

The labour changes the bill mentions easily could have been brought in before. Their delay reminds me of a great Seinfeld episode in which Newman, the postal worker and Seinfeld's nemesis, helps to kidnap Elaine's neighbour's dog and eventually gets caught. When a policeman comes to arrest him, he, à la son of Sam, asks what took him so long. I have to ask the same of the government. If it was such a priority, why would it wait?

We could have had this before the House, debated it and sent it to committee long ago. The election took place on September 21 and we waited two full months to sit in the House again. In the U.K., Boris Johnson was able to re-form the House and get its Parliament back to work in six days. It took the government two months just to get us here.

We could have easily dealt with Bill C-2. In the House today during question period, we heard the Liberals tell the Conservatives to get on side and pass Bill C-2. We heard them say in debate that we should help small businesses and pass Bill C-2. Why did they not convene Parliament to get us back to work immediately so we could pass Bill C-2? It is the same with Bill C-3.

With respect to Bill C-4 on conversion therapy, people thought it was Bill C-6 or Bill C-8, because it was brought to the House several times. It was killed when the government prorogued Parliament. It was killed again when it called an early election, which no one really wanted and was not needed, as we ended up the same. If it were that important, why did the Liberals not try to pass the conversion therapy bill earlier? They had six years to bring it in.

One bill I remember they brought through in 2017 as a higher priority than the conversion therapy was Bill C-24. At the time, and I was using another Seinfeld quote, I called it “a bill about nothing”. Basically, the bill changed the bank account the old ministers of state were paid from in the estimates process. I think it also changed the official name on the cheques from Public Works to PSPC.

This was a bill we debated in the House and tied up the committee with. Somehow the government decided that was more important than a conversion therapy bill. They had been paid that way since Confederation. The ministers of state were paid out of one small bank account, and the other ministers, technically the government, were paid out of another. We could have continued doing that and brought the conversion therapy bill then.

The reality is this: The government is not serious about how it puts forward its legislation. It delays, obfuscates, throws it out and then demands that opposition parties get on board and hurry up to pass it, when it could have done that a long time ago.

Generally, everyone supports the first part of the bill, on criminalizing threats toward health care workers. We have all seen, during the election, the blocking of ambulances from getting to hospitals and the harassing of health care workers. We have heard the horrible stories from my colleague for Timmins—James Bay, where a small-town doctor, vitally needed, was chased out of his community by these threats. We just heard from him about the single mother who was horrifyingly harassed just for getting a vaccine.

Therefore, perhaps we need this legislation, but I would like to hear more details. Apparently, a lot of this is covered already under provincial or other laws. I would like to see how the bill would strengthen the protection for our doctors and nurses and, as my colleague mentioned, for people who are just going for a vaccine. There are the doctors and nurses we have to protect, but we also have to protect Canadians who are trying to access health care facilities.

During the election, we Conservatives had, as part of our election plan, the critical infrastructure protection act. This would provide additional security from those protesting vital infrastructure, such as our hospitals and our rail and pipelines. We saw what just happened in B.C., with its supply chain devastated because of the cuts to the CN and CP rails. That was obviously an act of nature as opposed to protests, but protests can be just as devastating, and we have seen it be just as devastating to our health care when we do not have consequences. I hope my colleagues in the House will eventually adopt a law that would protect other vital infrastructure besides our hospitals, and also our supply lines.

Unfortunately, from day one, we have had mixed messaging from this government regarding vaccines and the COVID crisis, and it has led to confusion, fear and anger. None of this, nothing this government or anyone else has done, excuses the violence and harassment of our health care workers, doctors and people trying to access health care. However, what the government has done has not helped. When Canadians needed certainty, leadership and consistency, we got false information from the government, like we saw with the Deputy Prime Minister being admonished for fake news on Twitter.

It is funny. We heard earlier that my colleague, the member for Winnipeg North, when he was out door-knocking, was surprised by the anger from the vax versus the anti-vax people. I felt the same thing. We had people threatening us with a shotgun if we dared come with that. We have all felt it, but he was surprised. I want to read something from the National Post for the member. It said that in January, the Prime Minister had argued against mandatory vaccines as “divisive” in our “community and country”. It said that in March, he mused about the inequality and inequity of vaccine passports. In July, he said there would be no mandatory vaccines. However, two weeks later, apparently led by internal polling that showed he could divide the country for political gain, he announced a mandatory vaccine, cynically just in time.

The article goes on to say that the Prime Minister's “flip flop on vaccine mandates” exemplifies “a governing philosophy based on political calculus”.

This is not governing based on bringing us together, or on trying to get the unvaccinated vaxxed by convincing them of how good vaccines are and how they will lead us out of the troubles we are in. There is nothing about that. It is using it based on polling to create divisiveness in Canada for political gain.

The Prime Minister, when speaking out against protesters, used the term “you people” when describing the protesters. Now, I might perhaps, against some of the people who are blocking hospitals, have used harsher language, but he used the term “you people”. Now, I note for our feminist Prime Minister that the website everydayfeminism.com says “you people” is a racially coded phrase. Again, nothing the Prime Minister has done excuses the protesters and their actions, but nothing the Prime Minister has done has gone to alleviate the divisions in Canada. He has used this to divide the country.

Apparently I am out of time, so I will let it go and perhaps leave it open to questions and comments to address the second part of the bill.

Third Reading

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about how important the bill is in relation to the 85 other important bills that the Liberals passed. I have to question him on that.

A couple of years ago, we got stuck debating, day after day, Bill C-24. The only purpose of Bill C-24 was to change the way that eight former ministers of state were paid, moving it out of the department operation fund into the consolidated fund. Therefore, I have to ask the member, why was that bill more important than the bill before us?

Indigenous Languages Act

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-91, an act respecting indigenous languages. We, of course, support the bill and support sending it to the heritage committee after it gets through the House.

I want to thank all the speakers today. There were a lot of well-thought-out comments on the bill.

We believe that the bill before us is both pragmatic and reasonable. My colleague from Bow River said that “the Government of Canada was part of the destruction of indigenous languages and we need to be part of the solution.” Hopefully, Bill C-91 will be a step toward that.

The Right Hon. Stephen Harper said in his June 11 residential school apology that:

First Nations, Inuit and Métis languages and cultural practices were prohibited in these schools....

The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian Residential Schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact.

That is very true.

The legislation before us was first promised in 2016, so I have to ask, as has been asked by previous speakers, why the delay? Why is it so late in this session that it is finally introduced? We have just 13 more sitting weeks before we break for the summer and the election. Although, I am sure that there will be hopes otherwise, there appears to be very little chance that the bill will actually become law before the House rises.

Over a year ago, the government seemed to place a higher priority on other bills instead of this one, and I will give the example of Bill C-24, which was called the Seinfeld bill about nothing. What was Bill C-24? Basically it was to codify the name change from Public Works to Public Services and Procurement, and also to change the accounting within the appropriations on how we pay the old ministers of state. That is it.

I have to ask, if no relationship is more important to the government, why was a bill codifying a name change of a ministry more important than bringing this bill forward? This issue encapsulates the lie about the government's claim of no relationship being more important.

I will talk about the issue of safe drinking water on reserves. The government has promised to eliminate the drinking advisories by 2021, which is fantastic and we support that. However, government members stand time and time again in the House and say how far they have come, and that they have take so many off, but they never mention the fact that for every two they have taken off since coming to power, one has been added.

In fact, it was even on its June website that 62 had been lifted but 33 had been added. If we go to the website today, we will see that it has actually taken off that portion of how many water advisories have been added. I have to ask, as the government members stand up again and again touting their success, why have they taken this off the website? What are they are trying to hide?

On the fiscal transparency issue, one of the first things the government did was lift the law for first nations to have fiscal transparency for their members. If we go to the government's departmental plan for Indigenous Services, which is the plan the government has to fill out, publish and table in the House and that the minister herself signs off on, one of its goals states that it is going to reduce the number of first nations complying with the First Nations Financial Transparency Act. Literally, the goal that is stated right in the departmental plan is to reduce the number of first nation bands complying with the transparency act by 23%. Now, I have to give the government points, as it actually succeeded partly on that. The departmental results plans that were just published show it reduced it by 8%.

The Auditor General Michael Ferguson who recently passed away, in his 2018 report, commented about the government splitting Indigenous Services and Northern Affairs. He stated that splitting the department into two different departments could be a step forward toward improving services for first nations, but that we won't know unless there's a way to track outcomes.

This goes back to the departmental plans. The departmental plans tabled in the House show what the government's priorities are, where it will be spending the money and what its planned outcomes and targets are going to be for the money spent and the actions for the year. In Indigenous Services, 50% of the targets set are to be determined.

In his report, the late Michael Ferguson stated that if we want to move forward in serving first nations, we need to see planned outcomes, but the government's response is to table a report where 50% of the goals for Indigenous Services for the year, their targets, their planned outcomes, are left blank. As well, 55% of the dates in their planned outcomes are left to be determined and 61% of the previous year's results are left as not applicable. Here is the government, again, with no relationship more important, stating the goals for Indigenous Services but that the government is not going to say what it did last year for comparison.

Again, I bring my colleagues back to what the late Michael Ferguson said, which was that we are not going to get better services unless we can judge the outcomes.

Remember that 50% did not have any targets at all. When they did set them, 21% of the targets show a decline or no improvement over the previous year. How are we going to move forward and help improve indigenous services when the government, for half of the Department of Indigenous Services, says it will not set a goal, and when it does set a goal, fully 21% show a decline from previous years?

For Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, one-quarter of their departmental plans show no goals for this year and 92% would not state what it was the previous year. Again, we have nothing to compare it with. I am going to give colleagues a couple of examples.

For the percentage of on-reserve, department-funded first nation drinking water systems meeting required standards, there was no improvement over three years. The government is planning to spend, I think, $1.2 billion in the budget. There was $400 million in the Liberal slush fund of vote 40, but their own plan shows it will not improve.

For the percentage of on-reserve, department-funded first nation wastewater systems being treated according to guidelines, there was about a 20% decrease from the previous government.

For the percentage of first nations living on reserves and reporting being in excellent health, there is a decline from the previous government.

Here is a great one, the percentage of DPC requests, which are predetermination requests for dental services, that are handled within the required service standards. Remember this is the government that spent $32,000 on legal bills to fight a first nations teenager from Alberta who needed dental work. The government's goal was to have 95% solved within the predetermined guidelines. Do members know what the government achieved last year? It was zero, not one. The government has time to sue people and time to fight a teenager in court but it cannot even accomplish its own goals.

The percentage of increase of indigenous businesses includes the money that is set aside for government procurements. It has dropped since the previous government.

We have heard from the NDP and others that there is a mould crisis in indigenous housing. In budget 2017, the government set aside $20 million a year for indigenous northern housing. Do members know what the government set aside for Tesla charging stations for rich millionaires, like the Minister of Finance or the Prime Minister? It set aside $30 million a year. Thus, we are putting more aside for Tesla charging stations than the money to handle the crisis in first nations housing.

Again, I support Bill C-91. It is a great step forward but we have to do what the late Michael Ferguson stated. We have to set up a system where we can actually hold the government to account for its promises to deliver services to the first nations.

National Defence Act

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to perhaps invite the parliamentary secretary to grab Doc Brown and Marty McFly, get into his DeLorean, and go back to the future, because we are not debating what went on years ago. We are debating the Liberal government's inability to prioritize victims' rights. When we ask the Liberals why it has taken them three years to bring this legislation forward, their argument is to blame Harper. The main part of Bill C-24 was to change the title of Public Works to Public Services and Procurement. Why is that a higher priority to the member opposite than victims' rights? Why is it more important to them to put all of this minutia ahead of our troops?

I think the member needs to take a serious look at the inaction of his government and realize that we need to look at this issue now and not spend time focusing on the past.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I decided to join my colleagues today in speaking to Bill C-77, an act to amend the National Defence Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other acts. Throughout the day we have heard some wonderful speeches explaining a lot of the great good that the bill would eventually do. We are very honoured to have a lot of veterans from our Armed Forces serving as MPs who have given some wonderful insight. I want to thank them for that and also for the general non-partisan discourse we have heard today.

I call the bill the “freaky Friday bill” because the government has basically swapped titles with a bill by the previous Conservative government. For those who are not followers of pop culture, Freaky Friday was a movie in which Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis played daughter-mom characters who switched bodies. It is quite interesting that the Liberal government has consistently labelled the opposition as Harper Conservatives, yet it does not hesitate to try to pass off Harper Conservative legislation as its own, as it is doing with Bill C-77. There is barely a sentence muttered by that side of the House that does not blame every problem under the sun on Harper Conservatives. It is kind of funny to be debating the Liberals' copy of the Harper Conservatives' legislation. It is too bad that the government does not copy the Harper Conservatives' commitment to victims of crime.

We are debating a bill that is almost a direct clone of a previous military justice reform bill, Bill C-71. It was introduced by the Harper government because it was simply the right thing to do. We believe that someone needed to stand up for victims of sexual misconduct and other forms of discrimination in the armed forces. It is the ultimate irony that we are debating victims' rights in this legislation on the day when question period was focused on the government giving military benefits to a murderer who never served a second in our military, but I digress.

The bill introduced today shows that the Liberals are following the good examples that our party set by keeping the items that we had in our bill, including enshrining the victims bill of rights into the National Defence Act, putting a statute of limitations of six months on summary hearing cases, and clarifying what cases should be handled by a summary hearing.

The fact that it took the Liberals three years to introduce the bill is disgraceful. It confirms the Liberals' position that victims' rights are secondary to basically everything else. It should come as no surprise, considering how long the government is taking to appoint judges to ensure that those arrested for horrific crimes are not set free due to judicial delays.

We had a gang member suspected of committing mass murder released in Calgary as a result of the government's refusal to appoint judges. This gang member, who is suspected by the Calgary police of murdering up to 20 people in Calgary, has been set free. Moreover, another accused murderer was set free in Edmonton due to the government's inability to appoint judges. A man in Nova Scotia who broke both of his infant child's legs with a baseball bat was set free due to delays because the government will not prioritize justice.

Here we have waited three years for this legislation to be brought to the House, legislation that is almost identical to Bill C-71 by the previous government. It is not as if the Liberals had to start from scratch, yet it took them three years to bring it to the floor.

I want to look at some of the legislation brought in by the Liberals that is apparently of higher priority than victims' rights. Bill C-50, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act (political financing), was brought in to address their own unethical fundraising scams. They were caught selling access to ministers, so they brought in legislation to curtail their own unethical fundraising. Of course, they probably continue to allow lobbyists to pay for direct access to the ministers. Here is a thought: Why not just act ethically and not require legislation to address their cash for access scandals, and instead prioritize this legislation for victims?

Bill C-58 would amend the Access to Information Act, but the Liberals have still have not done anything with it. Access to information is very important, but the legislation introduced by the Liberal Party watered down access and transparency. The Liberals took the time to introduce legislation that would weaken Canadians' access to information and put it as a higher priority than legislation for victims.

Earlier, the government House leader, who introduced Bill C-24, was heckling me about government priorities. Bill C-24 aimed to pay ministers of state at the same rate as ministers and changed the official title of the public works department act. That ridiculous bill basically just changed the salary of certain ministers of state to match cabinet ministers' salaries.

Legislation already existed to allow the Liberals to do that, but they had to bring in new legislation for certain unnecessary reasons. They also spent time changing the official name of Public Works to Public Services and Procurement Canada. They spent days in the House debating that bill, days in committee studying it. How is this possibly more important or a greater priority than victims' rights? It is another example of poor leadership by the Prime Minister and how he is constantly failing our troops. It is just like the used jets, taking away tax relief for troops fighting ISIS, saying that veterans are asking for too much, and doing absolutely nothing to get our troops the equipment they need in the numbers they need. The government is failing our troops.

Our previous Conservative government focused on restoring victims to their rightful place at the heart of our justice system. It is why we introduced Bill C-71, which mirrored the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights that was adopted by Parliament, to ensure that those same rights were incorporated into military law. It was the result of several years of work and took into account the hundreds of submissions and consultations held with victims and groups concerned with victims' rights.

We have seen what the Liberal government has done for our troops and veterans over the last three years, so we are not going to hold our breath that it is will actually move forward with the legislation here.

This can be seen from the Liberals' consistent commitment to progress on a variety of items. For example, they set-up studies and ignore the findings, introduce legislation and then wash their hands of the issue.

I would like to talk about the government's beloved wordplay exercise “what I say and what I mean”. The government specifically says “investment” rather than “spend”, so it can completely sidestep any responsibility for action because, technically, introducing a bill on an issue is an investment, an investment in time and news releases.

We note there are very few instances of the government actually putting spending in place for any given investment opportunity. In cases where legislation is introduced, we see few instances of achieved results. The government's “Strong, Secure, Engaged” plan for our troops is a prime example. It touts its record investments, but experts agree that the likelihood of its being executed is slim to none.

According to a report published by Dave Perry at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, there is a significant gap between spending allocations and capital spending. Perry writes:

As a percentage increase relative to 2016/2017, the capital projections in SSE would see spending increase by 98 per cent in the policy’s first year, 106 per cent in its second, 172 per cent in its sixth and by 315 per cent by 2024/2025.

These increases in spending are not comparable to any other time in Canadian history except the Korean War. We have pie in the sky ideas from the government on what it is going to do, but when it comes to actually doing it, our troops are left empty-handed. Suffice it to say, while the intentions behind this bill are sound, the likelihood of the government's actioning them is slim.

I would like to go through a couple of other things the government has on the go, things like “Strong, Secure, Engaged”, as I mentioned; Phoenix, and of course we know where that is; Trans Mountain, with billions of dollars being spend on a pipeline that is not getting built; and the veterans hiring act. We actually met in committee yesterday and discussed why the government was not moving on that. We just received a shrug from the Liberal members and witnesses. Other items include infrastructure and electoral reform. Again and again, we see the government making commitments it does not follow through on. There is also the issue of fighter jets, buying old jets from Australia so it does not have to take the political hit for buying the F-35 in an election year. It is going to take the government longer to procure sleeping bags for our troops than it takes our NATO allies to run open competitions for their new fighter jets.

While being similar in a number of ways with the Conservative government's previous bill, Bill C-77 is different in some key ways. That is why this side of the House would like to see it further discussed and debated at committee. As with any legislation, especially as it pertains to our troops, we should ensure that due diligence is done, that our concerns about certain areas are discussed, and that the bill is discussed with experts and officials at committee. Conservatives very much support enshrining victims' rights in the military justice system. It is why we introduced Bill C-71 in the previous Parliament.

Victims' rights are important. This legislation is important. Here is to hoping it does not get added to the government's long list of items on its mandate tracker as “under way with challenges”.

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise to speak to the motion before the House. Of course, the essence of this motion has to do with the government's treatment of its own business and its capacity to move legislation through the House of Commons. It has certainly been the case in the past that various governments have decided to extend sittings to try to accomplish some of the business they were not able to accomplish throughout the year.

However, I think that my hon. colleague who just spoke and moved an amendment raises an excellent and fair point. His amendment is a good one in addressing one of the issues of equity in the House. We know that it is the job of the Speaker and the House to balance the needs of the minority against the majority. The amendment recognizes the fact that some people in this place have more power by virtue of the number of MPs within the governing party, and that others do not. I think that point is very well taken in the Conservative amendment. It really is just about making sure that in the government's attempt to create more time to pass more bills in the lead-up to summer that the business and the issues that matter to the opposition are given their equal due.

Of course, some members of this House will know, and certainly you, Mr. Speaker, will know, that supply days originated for the airing of grievances before the crown, before Parliament approves funding. That is why they are kind of archaically called “supply days”. We most often refer to them as “opposition days”, but they are an acknowledgement of the importance of non-government members being able to bring forward important issues for consideration by the House as part of the process of the government's hearing those concerns before Parliament grants it the authority to spend money. Supply days are not just some sort of trivial part of the process. They are not just some sort of tangent. They are certainly not a favour that the government grants the opposition and they are not something the government gets to do what it wants with willy-nilly, as it were.

The proposed amendment simply tries to give that equal weight and value to the issues being brought forward by the opposition, as well as to the government. I think that is perfectly reasonable and it is something we will be supporting.

In the absence of having that fair treatment and the right balancing between the needs of the government and the legitimate needs and purposes of opposition members of the House, it does make it really hard to support the main motion, because in that case we would fail to find that right balance, as it would somehow be implied that simply by virtue of the fact that the government is bringing certain issues forward, those issues are more important and more deserving of time in the House when I think the Standing Orders are very clear that the opposition is entitled to a certain proportion of the time in the House to bring forward the issues that matter, not just to it as the opposition but also to many Canadians whose view the opposition brings to this House and who are not represented within the government.

It is a good amendment. It is one that we will support, and I think in the absence of that amendment's going through, it would be very hard to say this is a fair and balanced motion. It is therefore hard to support.

One of the reasons we are in this predicament, of course, is that there is a lot of government legislation that has yet to be passed. One only has to look at the Order Paper and the number of bills on it, with a little bit of an understanding of where some of those bills come from, to know that the government, remarkably, has not been very ambitious with its legislative agenda. There are bills like Bill C-76, for instance, that have just rolled in other bills. While one could point to the bill number and look at all the bills that have been before Parliament, the fact is that a number of them are simply routine appropriation bills having to do with the business of supply. There are also a number of bills on public service labour issues to repeal some of the nefarious legislation of the Harper government with respect to public servants that, for all the announcements and talk about those bills for years now, have not actually gone anywhere.

One bill gets presented, it gets talked about for awhile, and then a new bill gets that does something a little differently gets presented, and that one gets rolled under, and then there is some talk by government at various events about how there is a new bill before the House and so on. For a government that has not brought a considerable amount of legislation before the House, it is somewhat surprising that the Liberals are having to resort to extraordinary measures to try to get more legislation passed before summer.

It is particularly surprising, notwithstanding some of the comments by the government House leader during the closure debate, because the fact is that our party on an important bill with a deadline, Bill C-76, which makes a large number of modifications to the elections regime in Canada, did make a proposal to government via my colleague, the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, to move forward with that bill in an expeditious way. By that, I mean not just in a way that allows more members to speak to it, but one that would allow a whole bunch of Canadians in their home communities to speak to the bill and the changes it proposes.

My hon. colleague presented the Minister of Democratic Institutions with a proposal for how to go out across the country, and central to that proposal was ensuring that the bill gets passed by the end of the summer. For the government to say that it sure would be nice if the opposition worked with it, I note that we have been quite willing to work with the government to get legislation passed. When my hon. colleague sent that proposal to the minister, she did not even dignify it with a response. It is hard to hear from the government that it wants to work with opposition members when it does not even bother to respond to proposals by the opposition on how to work together to get a bill passed. It is a bill that has to be passed on a timeline because the government did not act and bring that legislation forward.

Apropos to my point about bills being rolled into each other, Bill C-33 was an act to make a bunch of substantive changes to the Elections Canada Act and other acts that go together in order to, according to the government, improve our elections process. That bill sat on the Order Paper for 18 months and went nowhere. Now we are being told there is a big rush and that we have to get this bill through.

The NDP would like to see that bill passed, but it is a little cheeky of the government to wait so long to bring a bill forward to make those important changes when it knew all along, as did everyone else, that Elections Canada had been very clear about when those changes needed to be introduced and passed by Parliament to be implemented in time for the next election. The Liberals did not meet that deadline and now they are crying foul, saying that opposition parties are being obstructionist despite the fact we sent them a proposal on how to do it more quickly. We wish to goodness that they had just bothered to move it forward 18 months ago when they had a bill on the Order Paper.

None of this is rocket science. There is no black magic here. There is no opposition making unreasonable demands. It is just an opposition disappointed that the Liberals had 18 months to move forward with changes to the elections act after they tabled their own proposals. We wish they had moved forward with them. However, we did not get that opportunity, as we do not say which bills get debated during government orders.

While that was going on and we were not debating Bill C-33, we were debating some bills like Bill C-24, which was a complete and utter waste of time. I will refer members to my comments on Bill C-24. All that bill did was affirm what the government was already doing and what was clearly within its legal mandate to do. If it were not, then the government should tell us, because then it would be an issue of its acting outside its legal mandate and illegally paying ministers of state more. However, it did not seem to be doing that, so presumably we did not need a change in the law.

All the while we debated that bill, the other bill, Bill C-33, was sitting on the table. It could have been taken up and we could have been working on that and meeting the Elections Canada deadline. The government did not need to be in a panic as it is now to get that legislation passed. We could have spent time scrutinizing that legislation and trying to make it better, not just here in Parliament but also by travelling across the country to make sure that Canadians had an opportunity to weigh in on it in their home communities.

However, that was an opportunity they squandered for reasons that remain unclear. I will say that part of it has to do generally with what has become a theme of the government in terms of a serious lack of respect for Parliament. I know the Liberals will say otherwise. We hear a lot about the great respect they have for the work that is done in committees, but let us consider the fact that many committee recommendations are never taken up. We have certainly had instances where committees have amended legislation, only to see the government come in with a heavy hand at report stage and wipe out the amendments that were passed by its own members at committee. That does not make one feel that the Liberals are talking in good faith when they talk about the so-called good work of committees.

Who could forget the Special Committee on Electoral Reform, where the government did not have a majority and a number of parties came together in order to propose a way forward for the government to meet its own election commitment? Who could forget how the Liberals took that work and threw it in the garbage? The day the report was tabled, I remember the minister, with great fanfare, disrespected the work of the committee, because apparently the government thought it would fail and it did not.

Earlier today, we heard the government's own House leader get up and insinuate that concurrence debates were just a waste of time and there was no way an opposition party could move concurrence in a committee report seriously because it actually cared about what the committee said and wanted the House to pronounce on the recommendations of the committee. Of course, that is the whole reason committees do reports and report them back to the House. The current government really does not understand Parliament's place in the system and does not have a lot of respect for it.

I will come back to this theme after private members' business.

Business of the House

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, we will continue the report stage debate of Bill C-24, the one-tier ministry bill. Tomorrow, we shall commence second reading debate of Bill C-66, the expungement of historically unjust convictions act.

On Monday, we will call report stage and third reading of Bill C-51, the charter cleanup legislation. Tuesday we will return to Bill C-24 at third reading.

If Bill C-66 is reported back from committee, we would debate that on Wednesday with agreement. The backup bill for Wednesday will be Bill S-5, concerning vaping, at second reading.

On Thursday, the House will debate Bill C-50, political financing. Then on Friday, we will consider Bill S-2, the strengthening motor vehicle safety for Canadians act.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, today we will continue the debate on Bill S-3, indigenous registration. Tomorrow, we will take up third reading debate on Bill C-63, the budget legislation.

On Monday, we will have the last opposition day in a supply cycle, meaning that we will also vote on supplementary estimates (B) and the respective appropriation bill at the end of the day.

Tuesday, we hope to complete third reading debate on Bill C-58, concerning access to information reforms.

Wednesday afternoon, we will call C-61, the first nations education legislation.

We will round off the week with Bill C-24, the Salaries Act, at report stage.

I would like to take a moment to sincerely thank all hon. members in this House for coming together on the apology of the LGBTQ2 Canadians this week.

Finally, discussions have taken place between the parties, and if you seek it, I think you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, when the House begins debate on the second reading motion of Bill C-61, An Act to give effect to the Anishinabek Nation Education Agreement and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, a Member of each recognized party, a Member of the Bloc Québécois and the Member for Saanich—Gulf Islands may speak to the said motion for not more than 10 minutes, followed by 5 minutes for questions and comments, after which the Bill shall be deemed to have been read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at the report stage, and deemed read a third time and passed.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, as a small footnote in history, I used to have the honour of serving as the government House leader. After an absence of 807 weeks, it is my privilege to answer this question once again on behalf of my colleague the current government House leader. Again as a historical reference, members might be interested to know that 807 weeks ago, what we were discussing in the Thursday question was reproductive technologies, public safety, competition legislation, species at risk, and pest control. In some ways, things never change. However, to get to the answer, this afternoon we will continue with the report stage debate on Bill C-45, which is the proposed cannabis legislation.

First, let me associate myself, and I am sure all members of the House, with the comments that the opposition House leader made about the respect we all have, and must have, for our veterans and members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

After we return from this constituency week, we will commence debate on Bill C-59, which deals with national security. I would inform the House that, in the interests of transparency, we will be referring this bill to committee before second reading, which will allow for a broader scope of discussion and consideration and possible amendment of the bill in the committee when that deliberation begins.

Following that, we hope to be back to the debate on Bill C-24, which would amend the Salaries Act. Our focus for the rest of the week after we return will be disposing of Bill C-45 at report stage and third reading.

Finally, Thursday of that week will be an allotted day.

Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 2

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I also have read that we have no assurance there will be any return for the people in Canada on the money we invest in Asian Infrastructure Bank. It is like a blind trust in the Chinese financial world. It is probably to get a deal on free commerce with China, which I kind of understand, but the Liberals should try to have better tactics to come to that end.

It is distraction after distraction. Two weeks ago, when we spoke about the finance minister, they came out with Bill C-24 to change the titles from ministers of state to ministers. It is complete nonsense. It has been like that for two years.

Transportation Modernization Act

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is significant because it is an amendment coming from the official opposition. That is for sure. At committee, as well as in debate at the House of Commons, if the bill had been separated, because it touches on very large, different sectors of activity in Canada, probably we would have had 30 amendments. Probably the Liberal government in opposition did not want to see us, in this great House of Commons, opposing, debating, and introducing dozens of amendments. We would have been able in committee to analyze the details of each component of this bill. It is very sad.

Members on this side have never had any issue with this kind of omnibus bill. We assume it. However, the Liberals said during the election campaign that they would never go to this kind of practice. This does not change much, actually, in hastening the process of the House or increasing the number of bills going forward.

Also, why do they give us only four or five days to debate such an important bill, when we spent the past three days overseeing Bill C-24 to change a minister of state's title to that of a minister? It is a ridiculous bill that does not give anything more to Canadians, which is what we should be doing: giving something more to Canadians. Rather, Bill C-24 gives more to ministers and the government benches. That is ridiculous. We should spend more days in debate on serious bills and stop joking around in the House, which they do.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to speak at the report stage of Bill C-49. This bill covers a range of amendments on the transportation sectors.

During my campaign, I heard loud and clear from many of my constituents that people were tired of omnibus bills from the previous government. There was an increased desire for accountability and transparency, yet here we are again discussing an omnibus bill that is moving through this House, with amendments to 13 acts, without giving parliamentarians adequate time for debate.

Because of the broad range of topics in this bill, I will keep my comments to air transportation, CATSA, and will quickly touch on marine transportation.

As many do in this House, I fly often. Over the last several months, we have seen stories of people being dragged off planes, stalled on the tarmac, and having to call emergency services. Too often, settlements are swept under the rug, and the industry continues with business as usual. I think Canadians are fed up. They are tired of waiting on the tarmac endlessly and are tired of overbooking.

The NDP introduced a bill that clearly set out the steps needed to establish a passenger bill of rights. The transport minister supported our bill and could have followed our example by introducing concrete measures to protect airline passengers. For example, when a flight is cancelled, the airline would have to offer passengers a choice between a full refund and re-routing under comparable conditions. Air carriers that failed to comply with this rule would have to pay $1,000 in compensation to every passenger, in addition to the refund. If an aircraft was held on the ground for more than one hour, the airline would have to provide passengers with adequate food, drinking water, and other refreshments. For each additional hour during which the airline failed to comply with that rule, it would have to pay each passenger $100 in compensation.

We also asked the government to implement protection measures immediately instead of delaying them until 2018. However, the minister chose not to propose concrete measures. Instead, he included provisions in the bill. The government sold it to the media and to Canadians as a passenger bill of rights, but that is simply misleading. The minister is delaying what needs to be done by handing over the responsibility for regulations to the Canadian Transportation Agency. When the CTA enacts inadequate regulations, it will give the minister a way out. That is not the political leadership Canadians expect.

What is disappointing is that the Liberals rejected our amendments without studying them, folding under pressure from the airlines.

The facts are clear that flights subject to the European regulations have a cancellation rate of 0.4%, which is four times lower than flights subject to the current Canadian regulations.

We have seen this government continuously abdicate its responsibility for airports. While the federal government does not manage them directly, it is up to the government to ensure a strategic vision, especially in a country as large as Canada. This vision must include every single size of airport, from Pearson to the local airports in my riding.

The communities of Campbell River, Comox, Port Hardy, and Powell River have expressed serious concerns about this continued pursuit of the for-profit privatization of our airports. These airports are essential elements of the social and economic infrastructure in our region. Representing many medium-sized and rural communities, air transportation provides a vital link that connects families and communities and promotes economic growth.

As a representative of the third largest riding in British Columbia, I have landed and taken off from several airports in my region, going to or returning from Ottawa. This is how I get to community events across the riding when travelling to and from this place.

These communities need these services, and as the government continues this privatization creep, they are connecting with me about their concerns. Campbell River recently shared with me that these privatization plans delay much-needed effective action on other issues, such as the burden of federal rents and fees on airlines and air travellers. These stand in the way of more competitive and economical air transportation in Canada.

There is still worse news in this bill regarding remote and rural airports. I think members can understand why I will not be supporting this bill as it stands. Bill C-49 would amend the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority Act. Instead of supporting the growth of regional airports, the government would use Bill C-49 to pass the buck for security screening to regional airports or the municipalities that own them. This policy would hurt rural economies, as the cost of security screening is so high that almost no small airport would be competitive if it had to pay the bill. The government is clearly stepping back from funding and developing regional airports.

Currently, the commissioner of competition has the power to determine whether a joint venture arrangement between airlines is anti-competitive and can subsequently apply to the Competition Tribunal to prohibit the joint venture. However, Bill C-49 would strip this power from the commissioner of competition. If Bill C-49 is adopted, the Minister of Transport would have the final word on proposed joint ventures between airlines. Once an arrangement was approved, the Competition Tribunal would no longer be able to prohibit it.

If Air Canada proposed an arrangement to merge its operations with those of an American company, even if the commissioner found that the agreement would lessen competition among airlines and increase ticket prices for passengers, the minister could approve the arrangement if the minister was satisfied that it was within the public interest. This is why the NDP proposed deleting clause 14 of Bill C-49, as it would expose consumers to unfair increases in airline ticket prices.

A decision by the minister to ignore the commissioner's advice could be influenced by political considerations to favour an airline at the expense of consumers. In addition, the bill does not spell out what is meant by the “public interest” as a basis for a decision by the minister to approve a merger of two airline operations. The concept of public interest is so broad that the minister could consider factors that are not in the interest of Canadians but rather in the interest of the shareholders of major airlines.

Bill C-49 would impact two elements in the marine industry. First, the bill would allow foreign-registered vessels to compete unfairly with Canadian shipowners. We are requesting that Canadian-registered vessels continue to have preferential access to government contracts, carriage of goods by container, and repositioning of empty containers. In addition, the government did not consult with stakeholders who would be affected by this measure.

Second, the Canada infrastructure bank would be permitted to provide loans to port authorities. Instead of assuming responsibility for directly funding the development of port facilities, the federal government would transfer that responsibility to private investors. Investors would charge high rates of interest on their loans, and once again, the consumer would foot the bill. The cost of the required return on investment could affect consumers, since many goods transit through ports.

If private investors such as Morgan Stanley acquire port facilities, Canadians would lose control of their port infrastructure. In fact, the government has asked Morgan Stanley to study a port privatization scenario, even though a subsidiary of Morgan Stanley is earning millions by buying and reselling parts of Canadian ports.

The concerns I have raised today were also brought up by our transport critic in committee and in the House. The bill is simply not good for Canadians, and for that reason, I cannot support it.

Government Operations and Estimates

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present, in both official languages, the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates in relation to Bill C-24, an act to amend the Salaries Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Financial Administration Act.

Concurrence in Vote 1—Privy Council Office

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what a surprise it is to be in the House tonight and to have more than three government members here at this time and to have them so passionate about the debate on estimates.

As usual, I am going to try not to say the same things everyone else has brought to this debate. I am going to try to add a few different perspectives.

In my past experience, I was a global leader in a multinational business. We had a budgeting process. We had a process to look at estimates. The first thing we needed to be sure of were the desired outcomes we were hoping to accomplish. That was the first question. Second, how much did we estimate the plans we needed to put in place to achieve those outcomes would cost? Third, could we afford to do them all, and if we could not afford to do them all, how would we prioritize them? What were the most important ones? Once we had that plan and the estimates associated with it, how would we track it as we went along to see how our spending was happening? Was it happening as we planned or not?

That ought to be the goal of this estimates discussion tonight. We should be looking at the estimates and we should be able to see what the desired outcomes are, what the plans are, how much each of those costs, and what the priorities are so we can then track them.

I would say that there is not a lot of disagreement about the desired outcomes of the budget. We have heard what they are, because it is the rhetoric we hear all the time. Everyone wants the middle class to do well. Everyone wants to raise people out of poverty. We want to help our seniors. We want to help our veterans. We want to defend our country. We want to help our families. Everyone in the House is on that page for those desired outcomes.

However, when I look at the estimates, it is very convoluted as far as how much we are really spending, when we are spending it, and how we will track it. There is some room for improvement.

Another thing we can look at is the gender part of budget 2017 and the estimates that come from that. As the chair of status of women, I know we certainly devoted a lot of time to coming up with a very detailed report on gender-based analysis-plus. There were recommendations that were accepted by the government that it was to implement, but so far, none of them have been implemented.

Although these estimates were apparently developed with GBA-plus in mind, there is no transparency from the government on what analysis was done, what exactly came of it, and what changes were actually made. That is not clear to me. If it is not clear to me, then it is not clear to other Canadians.

The other report we did at status of women that was critical was on taking action to eliminate violence against women and girls. One out of three or one out of four women in Canada will experience violence. This is a huge issue. If we look to the estimates, we see that the government is planning to spend $100 million over five years. That is $20 million a year to handle violence against women, which affects one in three or one in four women in Canada.

How does that relate to other priorities? The government is going to spend more than three times that amount to collect statistical data. That is how important eliminating violence against women is. It is more important to collect data than to do that. Again, when it comes to the priorities we see in the estimates, I take some exception to that.

Another subject I would like to talk about is pay equity, because of course, I was also able to serve on the pay equity committee, three times a week for about three hours a night, to make sure that we, in a hurry, came with recommendations for the government. We did come with recommendations, and again, there is nothing in these estimates to address that. There is no progress on those initiatives. While the government claims to be a feminist government that is about gender equality, I really have to question that. I do not see it reflected at all in the estimates.

We are currently studying how to improve the economic status of women in Canada. One of the things we are looking at are the barriers to women improving their economic security. One of them, of course, is child care. We saw earlier this week that the government had an announcement on that. It is talking about maybe 40,000 spots, which is about 100 or 120 per riding. It is totally inadequate for the need. The government is counting on the provinces to do the right thing and implement that in a way that will actually come with spaces.

We see in places like Quebec, which has child care that is subsidized, that there are issues with not only the quality of the care but the flexibility of the hours of the care, and there is also a huge waiting list. It is still inadequate to meet the needs. What is in the estimates certainly does not reflect what needs to happen.

The other thing I would say about the budgeting and estimates process is that in the real world, we come with our estimates and have no more money to spend after that. There seems to be a philosophy here that if we come to the end of the money, we just get a supplement. I sit on the liaison committee, and I watch continually as officials come with the estimate of what they are going to spend. They spend that, and then they come with supplementary estimates for what else they want to spend, and the Liberals approve that, and then they go again. This is not the way Canadian taxpayers want us to manage their funds. We need to be responsible with their funds. We need to put our plans in place and stick to our budget, and that is how it should work.

The government makes it worse by giving Canadians messages that it is not open and transparent. When we have asked for information on the carbon tax, it has been rejected. When people misrepresent facts here in the House of Commons and they are proven later, it erodes the credibility of the government. When there is not clarity in the estimates, people will say that the government has not been credible in some areas, so can they really believe that the money is going where they think it is? That is something that needs to be addressed.

On the subject of deficits, Canadians clearly supported a small $10-billion deficit, but then it got way out of control and was $30 billion, and it is going to be $30 billion again this year. The problem is that eventually, we are going to be paying $10 billion a year in interest payments on the deficit we have racked up, especially with interest rates that may go up. I do not see that reflected, and I am concerned about the ongoing sustainability of that.

I also need to comment on the science budget, because I am the critic for science, so I should have something to say about the estimates and what is happening there. There is an important review, the Naylor report, which looks at science and how we should change things. The report came in December 2016. It has 32 recommendations, but they are not reflected anywhere in the estimates. We know the value of what we are going to do is not zero, so there should not be zero in the estimates. There should be something, some plan, some amount of allotment the government would dedicate to that, because there are some very worthy recommendations in the Naylor report. I would be happy to give a speech another day and give a dissertation on that 300-page report.

The estimates should reflect the legislative priority as well, but I do not see that there really is a legislative priority. The government seems to be spending a lot of time discussing things that have already happened. We spent hours here talking about Bill C-24, which is a bill to address the salaries of the ministers and make the junior ones equivalent to the senior ones and to eliminate six economic ministers. Those actions have already been taken, but we spent all kinds of time in the House talking about it after it was already done. Obviously, we are not reflecting the priorities of the government.

There have only been 19 pieces of legislation passed, compared to 52 by the previous government, and of those 19, 10 were budgetary.

In terms of the estimates, we need to make sure that, once again, we come back to what they do in the real world. We know what the desired outcomes are, but we have to get clarity about the plans and how much they really cost so we can track them. We also have to give consideration to whether we can afford them all. Sometimes we cannot afford to do everything we want to do, and we have to draw the line. I would encourage the government to be more fiscally responsible and to not say yes to everything. It should have priorities and do what is important for Canadians.

Citizenship Act

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to speak in this important debate.

It has been almost a year and half since Bill C-6 was introduced in the House of Commons. The bill was sent to the Senate on June 17, 2016, and it has now finally made its way back to the House from the Senate, where it was held up for more than a year. Many people in our communities have been waiting anxiously for this legislation to be passed and to come into effect.

Members may recall that when he was on the campaign trail, the Prime Minister promised Canadians, particularly those in the ethnic community, that he would repeal the Conservatives' Bill C-24. Like so many Liberal promises, that did not happen. Instead, the government introduced Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another act.

On February 25, 2016, Bill C-6 was first introduced in the House. About a month later, on March 21, 2016, it passed second reading and was referred to committee. Bill C-6 was then sent back to the House for third reading. It passed third reading and was sent to the Senate on June 17, 2016.

I should note that no amendments were made during second reading or at committee stage at the Senate, but three amendments were made during third reading.

The first amendment included providing a pathway to citizenship for minors. This was similar to the amendment that I proposed at committee, and I am glad to hear that the Conservative member and the government members now support it. At committee, though, government members certainly did not support it.

Another amendment proposed providing judicial appeal for citizenship revocation for fraud and misrepresentation. This amendment is similar in principle to my amendment to provide due process for these cases, but differs in the procedure. I support this amendment. Due process being restored has been a long time coming for those who face citizenship revocation.

The third amendment has to do with increasing the age of individuals who must pass a language test to 60. This Senate amendment I do not support.

In reviewing the process that we have embarked on with Bill C-6 to arrive at where we are today, let me point out that at committee I tabled 24 amendments on a range of topics. Two out of those 24 amendments were passed at committee. They included changes in two areas.

First, a statelessness provision would provide the minister with the authority to intervene in cases that would cause a person to become stateless and provide him or her with status based on humanitarian and compassionate factors. I was pleased that amendment passed.

The second amendment that also passed was with respect to disability rights. My amendment would ensure that the Citizenship Act adhered to Canadian human rights laws and regulations around reasonable accommodation for those with disabilities. I am pleased that this amendment also passed.

While I am happy that these amendments were supported at committee, there were many that were not. One set of amendments that I had hoped would be adopted at committee would have ensured that there would be judicial fairness and due process again for those faced with citizenship revocation. As members may be aware, the Conservatives' Bill C-24 fundamentally altered the process for revoking citizenship.

The process in place before Bill C-24 involved three steps. The first was a report under Section 10 of the Citizenship Act that the minister was satisfied a person obtained citizenship fraudulently. Second, once notified of the report, the person could request that the matter be referred to the Federal Court for a hearing. Third, if the Federal Court made the finding requested by the minister, citizenship could be revoked by the Governor in Council, which could consider equitable factors.

The Conservatives' Bill C-24 eliminated the Federal Court hearing process. The minister now decides on revocation with no requirement for a hearing, and this is wrong.

As pointed out by the Canadian Bar Association:

Bill C-24 also eliminated consideration of equitable factors that could prevent a legal, but unjust, outcome. Before then, the Governor in Council could consider equitable factors when deciding whether to revoke citizenship. This is no longer possible.

The BC Civil Liberties Association also challenged this, and stated:

In our submission, the government should repeal the procedural changes made to the Citizenship Act by Bill C-24 and restore individuals’ right to a fair hearing before an independent judicial decision-maker who can take humanitarian and compassionate considerations into account in making their decision.

There is no question that this needs to be rectified.

Perhaps the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers put it best when it said:

A permanent resident subject to deportation for misrepresentation has a right to both a hearing and an equitable appeal. Yet a Canadian citizen whose citizenship is to be revoked has no such rights. These provisions are currently being subject to a legal challenge—

I will diverge from the quote to say that a decision has been made by the courts, and the BC Civil Liberties Association, which took this matter to court, won.

These provisions are currently being subject to a legal challenge in the Federal Court as being inconsistent with the Charter of Rights. There is no reason why the new government should support these reforms which deny citizens a fair hearing. Indeed, while in opposition Liberal Members of Parliament opposed these very provisions.

The amendments that I proposed at committee were based on a system put forward by the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, known as the CARL system, supported by experts and stakeholders that use the IRB. Prior to Bill C-24, individuals could appeal to the Federal Court. Because of the cost, duration, and lack of availability of the courts, this has been called an inefficient system by some experts.

The Immigration Appeal Division currently undertakes similar appeals and reviews of decisions for statuses such as permanent residence. For that reason, this board is adequately situated to handle citizenship cases as well, and can handle them more efficiently than the Federal Court system. My amendments would have instituted this policy as well, which is what I proposed. The aim was to restore the consideration of humanitarian and compassionate grounds as well as put forward a system of appeal that is more efficient and cheaper for taxpayers. Sadly, these amendments were not supported at committee, as they were deemed to be out of scope.

Former minister of immigration John McCallum acknowledged that this needed to be fixed. Many of us in the community were led to believe that this would be done. However, no action was taken. When the government failed to address the issue, the BC Civil Liberties Association challenged the government in court on this fundamental violation of people's right to due process and won. There is no question that this needs to be fixed, and finally, here we are.

The matter was then pushed over to the Senate. That is exactly what happened. The government did not introduce a bill in the House to fix the problem, so it was pushed over to the Senate for the Senate to deal with. I lobbied a number of different senators on the need to address this issue and I am glad to see that Senator Omidvar agreed to champion the cause. Now, after more than a year, I am happy to see that the Senate has attempted to rectify this huge gap in our Citizenship Act with its amendment, and today the government motion before us indicates that this amendment will essentially be accepted.

With this Senate amendment, individuals will have the right to a judicial hearing, and humanitarian and compassionate considerations related to the person, particularly in situations where the best interests of a child are directly affected, will be considered, although the government's motion uses different terminology. Instead of humanitarian and compassionate considerations, the government's motion uses “any consideration respecting his or her personal circumstances”. At the end, the effect, I believe, is the same. Therefore, the NDP supports this amendment.

I would like to point out that there seems to be some suggestion from my friends on the Conservative side that having an appeal process in place would incite people to somehow defraud the system and misrepresent their applications. I will take a moment to respond to that, because that is simply absurd. People do not think that because there is an appeal process, they will think about how to defraud the system or misrepresent their cases. That is absolutely not how people operate.

We need to have due process in place to ensure we do not presume people are guilty before they make a final decision. By the way, there are situations where a case could well have gone awry from the officials, that they might have received misinformation about a particular application. It is absolutely essential in a democratic society for an individual to be able to challenge the alleged misrepresentation against them. Allowing the appeal process to be restored will do exactly that.

In addition, the government motion also added the provision whereby an individual could request that his or her case be heard by the minister. That is to say that an individual would have the option of having the matter referred to Federal Court or be heard by the minister.

As the government motion allows for this to be a choice, the NDP will support this change as well. If it said that it would be up to the minister to make that decision, we would not have supported it. People should have the right to choose an independent judiciary to make that decision. However, since this is not what the government has proposed, I will support the option to allow for the individual to make that choice.

The truth is that the Harper government should never have taken away someone's rights to a judicial hearing in cases of citizenship revocation.

Tied to the process of citizenship revocation, another issue I hope the government will rectify is the notion of indefinite suspension. As it stands right now, the minister has the right to suspend the citizenship process indefinitely. Instead of putting in a system of accountable and extendable deadlines, the government is continuing the indefinite suspension provisions. This is wrong.

Under this system, a person could be under investigation indefinitely without ever knowing when it might come to an end. Imagine what that would be like. In criminal cases there is a statutory limitation, but not in immigration. Does the government not think it is wrong to indefinitely investigate someone? Do the Liberals really think it is an appropriate thing to do in the case of citizenship and immigration? While I moved an amendment on this during committee, unfortunately the committee did not accept it, and that is too bad.

Let me turn to another amendment before us today. The Senate proposed an amendment to provide unaccompanied youth or those under state care pathways to citizenship. I called for this at committee. At issue, as explained by justice for children and youth, is:

Section 5(3)(b)(i) allows for an applicant to make a request to the minister on humanitarian grounds for a waiver of the age requirement...this humanitarian exemption poses a generally insurmountable barrier for children wishing to access citizenship and is not a reasonable limitation or a satisfactory solution to issues raised by the age requirement provision.

The provision in effect restricts access to Canadian citizenship for children—solely on the basis of age—who otherwise meet all the requirements.

It restricts access to citizenship for the most marginalized children, i.e. unaccompanied minors, children without parents or lawful guardians, and children with parents who do not have the capacity to meet the citizenship requirements or do not wish to apply.

Unfortunately, my amendment was rejected by the committee. I am so glad now that the Senate, particularly Senator Oh, picked up this amendment, advanced it and has now referred it back to the House.

The NDP will wholeheartedly support this amendment. I had wanted to see this adopted at the committee stage.

Let me turn to the last amendment before us.

The Senate saw fit to bring forward an amendment to increase the upper age requirement for passing a language test from 54 to 60. This is where I diverge from the Senate. The NDP does not support this change and I am pleased to see the government also disagrees with it. The government motion has changed the upper age requirement for passing a language test from 60 back to 55.

It is my view that we should go further than this. I moved an amendment at committee to reinstate the allowance for an interpreter to be used during the knowledge test in the citizenship process. The current system amounts to a second language test, which is harder than the actual language test, due to non-standard terms and events contained in the knowledge test for those who do not speak English or French as their first language. I was saddened that my amendment did not pass at committee.

I learned English as a second language. I immigrated here when I was young, and I did not speak a word of English. I spoke Cantonese. I have my Cantonese language. I speak the Cantonese language fairly fluently. I can understand, communicate, and I can do interviews in that language without any trouble. However, when technical terms come up, it is very difficult to know what the technical term is and how to articulate it well. This is the same thing for those who are subject to this citizenship test. The issue around technical terms is that they differ in the first language, and often it is difficult for the person to pass the knowledge test if they do not have the technical language. That does not mean that they do not speak English well enough—they speak it very well—but some technical terms are very difficult to master.

There was a time, prior to Bill C-24, that the interpreters would be allowed to attend these tests so that those technical terms could be explained in the person's first language. However, that has now been done away with, and I am saddened by that.

There are other amendments that I wish were before us. At committee I called for the expansion of the definition of “statelessness”, to better capture how people can fall through the cracks. In particular, I called for the provision to prevent any official from being able to engage in a decision that would contravene any international or human rights agreements that Canada is a signatory to, especially those on statelessness. Unfortunately, those amendments were not supported, as they were deemed to be out of scope.

On a related matter, I would like to see changes made to address the issue of lost Canadians. For decades, Canadians have found themselves to be stateless due to a number of arcane laws. We heard from a number of people who lost their citizenship out of the blue one day because of these arcane laws. There are situations of second-generation Canadians who had been born abroad not being recognized as Canadians.

This year we are heading into the 150th anniversary of this country. When we celebrate this nation's 150th birthday, would it not be something to know that there are Canadians who have been Canadians all their lives, have somehow become lost in the system, and we have done nothing to fix that? That was something I wanted to advance at committee, yet once again the committee did not accept my amendments. I am concerned that the government did not bring legislation to address this issue before July 1 of this year. That should have been done.

The other issue I want to raise is with respect to cessation provisions. We talked about this issue with respect to refugees. These are people who, unbeknownst to them, find their status affected for no other reason than that they travelled back to their country of origin at a time when the cessation provisions were not in place and when the threat that had forced them to flee their country no longer existed. Even then, the status of these people had been affected by cessation provisions. In most cases, cessation proceedings are brought against them when they apply for their citizenship. That is outrageous. I hope that all members of this House would agree with me that those provisions need to be done away with. We need to bring in legislation to repeal the cessation provisions that were brought forward by the Harper government.

With that, I know my time is running out. I am glad to see that this bill is finally before us. I hope to see a speedy passage of it, so Canadians can ensure that their rights are protected. I hope that those who have been waiting for this bill to pass will finally see it go through all stages of the House and come into force and effect.