2008-06-20

Hon. Jay Hill (Secretary of State and Chief Government Whip, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a point of order that is extremely serious. It concerns a matter that occurred at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.
The chairman made a ruling that I submit violates the Standing Orders, violates the practices of the House and its committees, and violates the spirit of your ruling, Mr. Speaker, of March 14, 2008.
The motion that was proposed to the committee was as follows:
 That the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics investigate the actions of the Conservative Party during the 2006 election, in relation to which Elections Canada has refused to reimburse Conservative candidates for certain election campaign expenses in order to determine if these actions meet the ethical standards expected of public office holders;.... 
The government argued that this study was outside the mandate of that committee. It was argued that the proper committee for such a study was the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The mandate of the procedure and House affairs committee is outlined in Standing Order 108(3)(a)(vi). It states that the mandate includes “the review of and report on all matters relating to the election of Members to the House of Commons”.
The chairman ignored the Standing Orders and ruled the motion in order. This same chairman, supported by the same opposition majority on that committee, already had one report rejected by the Speaker because it was outside the mandate of the committee, and now they are doing it again.
As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, the position of the Conservative Party in this matter is sound. If there is to be an investigation, that investigation ought to be fair and include all parties. This is a reasonable position. Apart from the issue of the mandate of the committee, we have no qualms with an investigation. We just think that if a study is to be conducted, then that study should include all parties, and not just one. If the opposition has nothing to hide, then it ought to agree with our position.
In addition to ruling the motion in order, the chairman yesterday arbitrarily decided during debate on the motion that he had heard enough and refused to recognize members who were seeking the floor on debate.
Standing Order 116 states:
 In a standing, special or legislative committee, the Standing Orders shall apply so far as may be applicable, except the Standing Orders as to the...number of times of speaking and the length of speeches. 
The chairman of the ethics committee has no authority to cut off debate. By overriding Standing Order 116, the chairman went beyond the powers conferred upon him by the House.
 Mr. Speaker, you made the exact same argument when you ruled a report signed by this same chairman out of order because the committee went beyond the powers conferred upon it by the House.
During the debate on the motion, the chairman interrupted the debate and made the following statement:
 “Let's just take a moment here. We have had over 10 hours of debate on these motions, and it has deteriorated into procedural wrangling, points of order which are not points of order, repetition in the extreme, irrelevance on dealing with the matter before us. We could carry on like this just as the procedure and House affairs committee went for a very long time. I'm not sure that's in the best interest of this committee. I'm not sure whether I want to be part of where the members are going to continue to be, put in this position where we are spinning our wheels.
 Accordingly, I'm going to rule that we are going to put all the questions necessary to dispose of the matter before us now”.
Mr. Speaker, this decision was upheld by the committee. This must sound familiar to you. This trick has been used twice in the past, a trick that resulted in the chairmen in both cases offering their resignations. The chairman in question in this incident has not offered his resignation.
On March 21, 1990, a Liberal member raised a question of privilege concerning a similar matter that arose at the Standing Committee on Finance. At that time, the bill to implement the GST was before the committee. The chairman, like the chairman of the ethics committee, shut down debate and put the question.
Liberal members argued at that time that the chairman had no authority to disallow points of order; that the chairman had no authority to disallow debate on what was clearly a debatable motion.
 The opposition in 1990 referred to an incident in 1984 when Claude-André Lachance, as chairman of the justice committee, brought down the exact same decision as the chairman of the finance committee did in 1990 and the chairman of the ethics committee did yesterday. The circumstances were exact.
In 1984, Mr. Lachance offered his resignation. In 1990, Mr. Blenkarn, then chairman of the finance committee, did the same. I await the offer of resignation from the current chairman of the ethics committee.
On March 21, 1990, John Rodriguez, an NDP member, said the following with respect to this matter:
 --the majority, may not have liked the fact that we were waging a filibuster. They may not have liked that. But, the fact was that we were not doing anything that was outside the parameters of the law. The law of the Standing Orders of the committee provided for that. We did not violate a law. We were simply conducting ourselves within the law. 
The NDP members could have taken the same ethical position on this issue today, but they chose not to. Instead, they are supporting the tyrannical actions of the chairman of the ethics committee yesterday.
You, Mr. Speaker, were involved in that debate as well. On page 9603 of Hansard, you said that the chairman of the finance committee in 1990 “had the honour to resign”. Where is the honour today? The ethical standards of the opposition in this Parliament are well below grade.
While Speaker Fraser did not intervene in 1990, he did say that “committees are responsible for adhering to the normal procedural means and are expected not to behave in an arbitrary manner”. 
What is different in this Parliament is that you, Mr. Speaker, have determined that committees are already heading toward anarchy, and since your warning of March 14, the ethics committee has ignored your warning. It tabled an illegal report that was ruled out of order. It is heading down the same path again and has also deployed behaviour that, by 1990 and 1984 standards, resulted in the chairmen both times offering their resignations.
In your March 14 ruling, you quoted Bourinot and how he described the first principle of our parliamentary tradition as:
 To protect the minority and restrain the improvidence and tyranny of the majority, to secure the transaction of public business in a decent and orderly manner.... 
What took place at the ethics committee yesterday was a clear case of the tyranny of the majority trampling upon the rights of the minority. There are two sides to every story and the majority opposition has silenced one side.
On April 14, 1987, Speaker Fraser said:
 It is essential to our democratic system that controversial issues should be debated at reasonable length so that every reasonable opportunity shall be available to hear the arguments pro and con and that reasonable delaying tactics should be permissible to enable opponents of a measure to enlist public support for their point of view. 
If it is essential to our democracy that both sides should be heard, then it is then essential that you, Mr. Speaker, intervene in this matter and prevent the ethics committee from conducting this one-sided partisan study until you have ruled. This is the only way that some protection can be afforded to innocent people whose reputation may get damaged in this process. They cannot afford to wait for a report to come down before you intervene, because by then the damage is done.
The opposition on the ethics committee knows that its report will once again be ruled out of order, but that is not the point. Its objective is to tarnish reputations, hiding behind the immunity of parliamentary privilege. The majority opposition cannot be allowed to abuse the rules to protect themselves and at the same time override those rules that protect the minority.
Mr. Speaker, I ask for your assistance in this matter.
Hon. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, while I am not a member of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, I do know that the chair is not present today. I would hope that before the Speaker makes a ruling on the point that has been raised by the government whip, the Speaker would afford the chair an opportunity to address the point that has been raised here.
Second, in the absence of a report, the Speaker might feel it premature to issue a ruling, because one can only speculate as to what the report would deal with. It is quite possible that the Speaker would deem in fact that the report is in order and may be received and properly tabled in the House.
It is only the content of the report which would allow such a ruling, so I would ask the Speaker to allow the chair of the committee an opportunity to address this point of order. It is his ruling on the motion. The chair of that committee ruled the motion in order. It is that ruling which the government whip is contesting, so I would think it appropriate to allow the chair to address that issue here in the House.
As I said, the Speaker may feel it premature to make a ruling when there is no report before the House.
The Speaker: The hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert rising on the same point.
Mrs. Carole Lavallée (Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I am a member of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, and I am one of the few members who was there during the Conservative members' 10-hour marathon. 
We had five meetings on the issue, including one that ended at 11:30 p.m. The Conservative members constantly had to be reminded that they were repeating themselves, that their arguments were repetitive and that they had already said the same things or that the things they were saying were not relevant. 
They tried to bring up a number of things that had nothing to do with the subject at hand: the ethical practices of the Conservative Party during the last election, which resulted in Elections Canada and the RCMP carrying out a search warrant. They made endless accusations and false claims about the other parties, and each time, they were called to order. The committee chair did an excellent job; he was very patient. 
Mr. Speaker, I know that you often have rough question periods here, in this House. But what happened in the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics was nothing compared to Wednesday afternoon question periods, if I may say so. 
Conservative Party members were especially insulting and contemptuous towards the chair, to the point where the chair himself asked one of the said members to apologize, which the member refused to do. Insults and contempt are the result when arguments run out. When someone has nothing to say and has no more arguments to make, things start to go downhill.
And so, yesterday, at the beginning of committee, I felt I had to make a point. I made a list of the Conservative Party's arguments, as well as a list of my arguments and those of the other parties. And at the start of the meeting yesterday, I listed all of the points that had already been raised.
I did that because there is a rotating membership. Members are invited, and that is fine. I have nothing against members coming to replace others who are permanent members of this committee. They come, but they do not find out what has already been said.
After 10 hours of debate, 10 hours of endless rhetoric, 10 hours of hot air, 10 hours of contempt and occasional insults, we had to make a decision, and the committee chair made a very good one.
In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, this committee should be allowed to continue its work. And when we table our report in this House, I imagine that you will rule on the pertinence of the report, as that is your role. And I have no doubt that you will find this report pertinent because we are concentrating on the ethical practices of public office holders in the Conservative Party during the 2006 election.
Mr. Pierre Paquette (Joliette, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert presented arguments about what went on at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.
I would like to remind you, however, that in House of Commons Procedure and Practice, also known as Marleau and Montpetit, in chapter 13 entitled “Rules of Order and Decorum”, in the section on repetition and relevance, it states: “The rule against repetition can be invoked by the Speaker to prevent a Member from repeating arguments already made in the debate by other Members or the same Member.” That is on page 527. 
With respect to relevance, it also states on page 530 that: “The Chair can use the rule to curtail prolonged debate by limiting Members’ speeches to points which have not already been made.” 
Thus, the relevance of comments and repetition are factors that would allow a committee chair to put an end to a debate if all the arguments have been put forward one way or another by one or more committee members. 
In my opinion, the decision made by the Chair of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics was perfectly compliant. If only other committee chairs—particularly those from the governing party—used existing provisions to help committee work move forward. This applies to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, and the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development over the past few weeks and months.
That is why the Chair of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics should not be criticized for having made that decision.
I would also like to point out that the committee had quorum and that the rules for quorum were followed. This committee deals with ethics, and it is not a stretch to suggest that the so-called “in and out” file has a lot to do with ethics issues. That is why it seems to me that the committee and its members should have the opportunity, as is customary, to decide what they want to work on.
Given that all of the rules were followed, it seems to me that the Speaker will not want to allow the point of order raised by the Secretary of State and Chief Government Whip.
In closing, I just want to say that the rules of procedure that guide you, Mr. Speaker, and that ought to guide the rest of us, should be followed. The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics followed the rules.
Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised that the Conservative House leader has brought forward this pernicious motion today because it speaks to one of the fundamental dysfunctions of what has happened in this Parliament.
I sat on the procedure and House affairs committee for a period and I must say that I have never in my entire life sat in a more malignant and toxic environment than what was allowed to happen at that committee under the Conservative chair from Cambridge. He was often unilateral in cutting off microphones, cutting off debate and interfering with members whenever it suited him. However, when it came to irrelevant filibustering, obstructionism and a completely poisonous atmosphere by the Conservative members he turned it into a mockery.
 What the Conservative Party is doing here is basically shutting down all the areas of committees where we are doing necessary work because it wants to control this Parliament from the BlackBerries and the war rooms of the PMO.
We are parliamentarians and we need to protect the right of the committees and the members of Parliament to undertake investigations, regardless of whether the little pointy heads in the war room want to reduce it down to black and white, one syllable or one slogan issues.
What we saw at the procedure and House affairs committee was an absolute disgrace. It was hour after hour, day after day, month after month of interfering and shutting down the work of Parliament. This committee is a very important committee. 
The ethics committee is another committee that plays an important role in Parliament. We were attempting to examine at the procedure and House affairs committee the question of the potential illegality of the Conservatives election financing scheme. It is an ethical issue that should have been and could have been debated in the procedure and House affairs committee and yet the Conservatives took over that committee and ran it into the ground.
When the chair of the committee, the member for Cambridge, lost the confidence of the committee and the Conservatives brought in the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London, he refused to sit as the chair because he said that he did not know how. We are professionals here. We are here to do the legislative business of the country. 
What we see is an undermining of the fundamental confidence of Parliament. 
I appeal at this point on the issue of allowing the ethics committee to do its work and not be undermined by the continual filibustering and game playing by a party that is now attempting to portray itself as somehow a wounded minority. 
The member said that there was a tradition of allowing reasonable length and delay tactics. Certainly, reasonable delaying tactics is a fundamental tool. However, when we see an entire committee shut down for an entire parliamentary session, that does not meet the test of reasonableness by any standard of imagination.
Mr. Speaker, if you were to look at the record of the ethics committee, I think you would see that the chair, who is well-respected, acted properly. The record will show the poisonous and pathetic game playing that went on. The chair made a ruling, not on partisan grounds, but on the fundamental issue of parliamentarians being able to do their work.
Mr. Speaker, when you rule on this, as you most certainly will do in a very judicious manner, you will be cognizant of the fundamental issue here. Is this a pattern of obstructionism and contempt for Parliament or is the committee actually trying to do the work of Parliament? That is where the decision needs to come down.
Mr. Speaker, if you look at the record from the ethics committee, you will clearly see that reasonable delaying lengths and reasonable debate were allowed, even when it was extended into contempt and interference. It went on for a fairly long period of time. Mr. Speaker, you have always recognized that committees are the masters of their own house. The chair had to make a ruling that it was time to move on.
I think what we are seeing from the Conservatives is that they are simply trying to walk the clock down on Parliament by throwing more interference into the work of Parliament. Mr. Speaker, I appeal to you to basically throw this out.
The Speaker: I am reluctant to hear a lot more arguments on this point because I have a question of privilege arising out of the same proceedings. 
We will go to the hon. member for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington.
Mr. Scott Reid (Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the member for Timmins—James Bay made a couple of incorrect statements. He incorrectly made an assertion about the conduct of the member for Cambridge in his chairmanship of the procedure and House affairs committee. Happily, the committee evidence will reflect and demonstrate that his assertion about the arbitrary nature of the decisions made by the chair was actually incorrect.
 I would also note that his suggestion that if there are problems on one committee that justifies a suspension of the rules on another committee is clearly nonsense. It reminds me a bit of the ad where the football referee says, “I made a wrong call against team A, but don't worry, in the next half I am going to make an equally egregious call against team B and things will even themselves out”. That is now how we work here.
I do agree with something that the Liberal deputy whip said in her comments. She said that since the chair of the ethics committee is not here today to respond that it would be inappropriate for you, Mr. Speaker, to rush to a decision today. There is some wisdom in that. It seems to me that it would be appropriate to take your time and make a decision in the appropriate manner. It would be appropriate in particular to take your time and deal with this because we do not want to have a situation in which the chair of that committee makes further decisions that are abusive toward the rules by which we govern ourselves here and that put this institution into disrepute. 
Therefore, a decision as to whether the chair acted in a manner that is so egregious that he ought to resign is something that can wait until the House returns this autumn. However, I think you ought to take the pre-emptive measure of ensuring that the committee does not sit this summer and continue to engage, potentially, in abusive behaviour unchecked and uncontrolled over an entire summer.
In saying that, Mr. Speaker, I would draw your attention to something that, unless it is simply untrue, though there is committee evidence that will demonstrate it, is clearly an abuse of his position, and that is in not allowing members of Parliament on the Speakers' list to rise to speak and calling a question when other members have not yet been heard from. There is no excuse one can dream up. 
One cannot say that the members were being repetitive. One can argue that an individual member can be cut off for being repetitive, even for repeating a point made by another member, but how could someone not yet on the speaker's list know that unless he has some sort of telepathic power that the rest of us in the House are not bestowed with? It seems to me that that kind of abuse this summer would be a very dangerous thing.
Mr. Speaker, I want to draw your attention to the fact that this matter that has been before the procedure and House affairs committee, which was the proper committee for it, as long ago as last August has been the source of the acrimony, partisanship and poison, which I think was a word used by my colleague from Timmins—James Bay, is the source of the problem. It is not, as he suggests, the moral inferiority of one of the parties in the House.
To allow a highly partisan subject to be discussed over the summer under the chairmanship of a chair who we are asserting has acted in a manner that is wildly outside the allowable role of a chair, is a very dangerous thing. The fact that the member has absented himself and is not here today is no reason why he, therefore, ought to be given free rein over the summer to do what he will in his role as chair on a highly partisan matter where every vote, whether in this committee or the previous committee, was taken entirely on partisan lines. Chairs were challenged regularly and challenges were pre-emptory. 
An examination of the record for the procedure and House affairs committee shows speakers were regularly cut off, interrupted by each other and points of order were called on each other. On this kind of subject matter, it seems to me that over the summer it could do a lot of damage to the credibility of our institution.
 Mr. Speaker, I also would draw your attention to the fact that as long ago as last September, I made an argument before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs that in discussing this matter at all we were violating the sub judice convention in which matters that are before the courts ought not to be dealt with in parliamentary committees because we are simply not set up to be effective institutions for making decisions as to the guilt or lack of guilt of any party in a court proceeding and it could taint court proceedings.
Therefore, to have a parliamentary committee, under the chairmanship of someone who is clearly willing to violate the rules egregiously over an entire summer, with no recourse to shutting it down or stopping it, or limiting the damage that it can do in a matter that is before the courts, which is highly partisan and very charged, seems to me is a recipe for the kind of disaster that would seriously put this institution into disrepute.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to draw to your attention a very important rule of this place. 
Committee chairs are given powers, but they are given no more power than the Speaker has in the House of Commons. We have had a chair who has asserted, effectively, that he has powers that exceed those of the Speaker of the House of Commons and that it is okay for him to do things that are not permitted in this place.
If we allow him to continue to carry on in this manner over an entire summer, as he engages in a court of star chamber, we set the precedent that it is okay to do that, not only in other committees, but in this place. We should all ask ourselves if we really want to unilaterally rewrite the rules so the minorities can be shut down, so free speech can be cut off and so dissent can be destroyed? Is that really what we want to do in this place?
This is the reason we do not want to have this committee sit this summer. This is why we want to ensure that you have the time to make your ruling, Mr. Speaker, so the committee can conduct its business appropriately in the autumn after the House returns.
The Speaker: I have a question for the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington. Has he any precedent for the Speaker shutting down a committee? I am unaware of one. I would be interested if he has a precedent for that, which would assist the Chair in making a decision of that kind in the circumstances.
Mr. Peter Julian (Burnaby—New Westminster, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this point of order raised by the House leader from the Conservative Party.
Having lived through on the opposite side of exactly what the House leader is now complaining about today, I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the precedent you have set, given the guidelines in Marleau and Montpetit and given the guidelines in parliament precedence, are very clear. You have said that committees have the responsibility of maintaining their own decorum, that it is something that is incumbent on the chair of the committee to do.
Marleau and Montpetit and parliamentary precedence is very clear on this. When we look at page 827 of Marleau and Montpetit, it says very clearly that the chair is responsible for maintaining order in committee proceedings. It is a very clear precedent and a very clear mandate.
It refers to the right to speak. On page 857 of the English version, Marleau and Montpetit clearly states: 
 Members must be recognized by the Chair before speaking. On occasion, committees place strict limits on the amount of time during which a given item will be considered. 
It is in black and white in Marleau and Montpetit. Now, we must examine what happened.
I am a long-time member of the Standing Committee on International Trade. You are aware, Mr. Speaker, as I am of what transpired in the fall of 2006. In 2006 the chair of the Standing Committee on International Trade simply stopped allowing the interventions of the NDP to revise and take out the most egregious aspects of the softwood lumber agreement. The chair, working with members of the committee, agreed to first limit the interventions that we could make on the many amendments we brought to that most egregious agreement, something that has cost 10,000 jobs, but that is not relevant to this point of order. However, we brought forward 100 amendments and the committee chair, with the majority of the committee, then decided to limit speaking time to three minutes on any one of those amendments. 
Later on, the same committee chair, the Conservative committee chair, working with the support of other opposition parties in that committee, limited the time of debate to one minute. Further on, on these same amendments, which were designed to stop the almost certain hemorrhage of jobs that we foresaw through the softwood lumber agreement, the debate was limited to 30 seconds. Then finally the Conservative committee chair said that there would be no debate on amendments, no debate on the actual implications of each and every clause, clause by clause, of the softwood lumber agreement and the amendments to the softwood lumber agreement were adopted with no debate, not one second of debate. There were no points of order allowed and no opportunity to raise our concerns.
As you are well aware, Mr. Speaker, having gone through that process where Conservatives decided that an agreement and a bill, which had substantial and profound consequences for people in softwood communities from coast to coast to coast, from northern Quebec to northern Ontario to northern Manitoba to northern Saskatchewan to northern Alberta and throughout British Columbia, the Conservative chair decided there would be no debate whatsoever.
As you are well aware, Mr. Speaker, I brought and the NDP caucus brought forward our concerns that we were adopting legislation that had not been vetted appropriately, where there had not been discussion over the clauses of the bill, no discussion whatsoever on the amendments that would make a difference and save jobs and no witnesses called at that point to talk about the various aspects of the bill.
Therefore, the precedent was very clear. We brought this forward to you, Mr. Speaker. We raised our concerns and you, referring back to Marleau and Montpetit, and obviously I believe you have been consistent in your rulings, and in this case there is very clear consistency in this previous ruling, you ruled that the committee chair was right to do that, that the committee as a whole had the ability to not only curtail debate, but eliminate debate, that a majority of the committee could simply say no, that there would be no debate whatsoever.
We come back to this issue because in this committee case there was very clearly, and we had a comment from the member from the Bloc Québécois who participated in the ethics committee, profound, widespread, ongoing debate, debate that continued on and on. Then finally the chair of that committee faced countless points of order. We are not talking about substantial interventions like the NDP offered on the softwood lumber agreement, where there were real amendments that would have made a difference in changing the agreement and stopping the hemorrhage of jobs. We are talking about, from the transcripts, spurious points of order that were raised. 
Yet for the Conservatives now to say that the committee majority of other parties and the committee chair were doing something untoward when they had practised it themselves consistently, simply defies imagination.
I know we will move forward on Bill C-5 and debate time has been allocated to that this morning. However, it is important to point out that the House leader is one of the people who may be brought forward at the ethics committee. For him to raise it as a point of order is inappropriate.
The ethics committee is seeking to examine those individuals and riding associations that have been tied to the in and out scandal and seeking to follow up on Elections Canada's very legitimate concerns around certain ridings and certain candidates, all of whom are Conservatives. Elections Canada is not in the process of looking at other candidates, but it certainly does that on an ongoing basis. 
It seems inappropriate to me that members of the House, who may be called before the ethics committee, are now trying to essentially beseech you, Mr. Speaker, to not have the ethics committee call those members before it and testify on their involvement in the in and out scandal.
Those are the points I wanted to raise in addition to those that have been raised by my colleague from Timmins—James Bay.
Mr. James Rajotte (Edmonton—Leduc, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I feel compelled to add some comments on this point of order. I did observe some of the goings on at the ethics committee. I want to add my perspective as the chair of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, a committee which I feel functions very well.
First, committees are masters of themselves, and I certainly know that as a chair, but chairs must follow the rules of Parliament. I, as the chair of the industry committee, cannot arbitrarily determine things. I have to follow a set of rules. I have a very capable clerk who advises me as to what those rules are and procedurally, whether motions are in order. 
In my view, what has happened in this situation is the rules have not been followed. The fundamental right of members of Parliament to speak, the fundamental right of freedom of speech, was not followed in this instance. Mr. Speaker, I refer you to page 71 of Marleau and Montpetit which states:
 By far, the most important right accorded to Members of the House is the exercise of freedom of speech in parliamentary proceedings. 
As you know, Mr. Speaker, the House and committees can allocate time to the length of speeches, but that was not done in this case. There was no such motion put forward and passed at the committee, which allocated the length of time members could speak. As the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington pointed out, the fact is when we call relevance on a speaker, we have to hear the speaker before relevance is called. A chair must recognize a member to speak.
I want to refer, especially members of the Bloc Québécois, to a bill that was before our committee before prorogation, Bill C-47. Three of the parties wanted the bill passed very quickly, but the Bloc Québécois did not. I had three parties telling me quite loudly that I should cut the member off, get to the point, that they wanted to pass the bill, but I did not. Even though I did not share the same party as the member, I allowed the member to speak because it was his right to do so. It was the fundamental right of free speech to speak on that issue. He was filibustering, but that was his right and I as the chair recognized that. I checked with the impartial clerk provided by the House of Commons. He told me that I might not like it as the chair, that other members may not like it, that other parties may not like it, but the member had the right to speak. That is what members should realize, especially in a minority government situation. 
There will always be different dynamics at committee. Sometimes the Bloc will want the right to speak. Sometimes it will be the Liberals, or the Conservatives or the NDP. That is why we have rules. The rules were not followed in this case.
A chair must recognize a member. A chair cannot cut off debate unless it has been provided for by a vote, or closure vote or something in the House of Commons or at committee. That was not provided in this case.
 I thank all members who worked very well on the industry committee. Other committees are working well. The fact is there are, and it pains me to say this, a number of committees that have become dysfunctional. 
You took a very strong step in this place, Mr. Speaker, of standing in the House, as our Speaker, and admonishing us, saying that the rules at committee must be followed, that chairs could not step outside those rules. They do not have the authority to do so. You were right to stand in this place and do so.
 I implore you, Mr. Speaker, to rule on this point of order and find in favour of the chief government whip. If you do not, my fear is more committees will become dysfunctional and more committees will look at things that are not substantive.
 I hear members across laughing, Mr. Speaker. The Bloc Québécois can talk to members on the industry, science and technology committee about how we can focus on substantive issues. 
The fact is if we get away from substantive issues and if we allow chairs to unilaterally make decisions that are not in accordance with the rules of this place, we will have more dysfunctional committees and we will have a more dysfunctional Parliament, and that is not what any of us should want in this place.
The Speaker: The hon. member for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington is rising to answer a question I asked.
[Interjection]
Scott Reid: That is right, Mr. Speaker. You had asked a question at the end of my remarks. I am concerned that you may have misunderstood what I was asking you to do, or perhaps I expressed myself poorly and therefore created a situation where a misunderstanding occurred.
Mr. Speaker, I am not asking you to shut down the committee, which I think was what you understood I said. I am not asking you to make an immediate ruling, given the difficulties that are involved, including the fact that the chair of the ethics committee is not here to present his case, which does of course deserve to be presented. 
I have my own feelings on whether or not he broke the rules, but that is separate from the point I was trying to make.
Without finding on either side of the point of order, I am asking you, Mr. Speaker, to accept that the disorder that you referred to earlier in March, when you talked about committees that were approaching chaos, potentially has occurred, that effectively this committee may be operating in disorder. What is appropriate for a chair to do, when a committee is in disorder, is to cause the committee meeting to be suspended so it can be reconvened in good order.
The assertion I have been making is that, effectively, this committee, by meeting this summer, may continue to operate in disorder, engaging the tyranny of the majority in what amounts to chaos because the rules are being suspended whenever they do not suit the will of the majority. That is why I used the phrase “star chamber”.
Mr. Speaker, I would like you to simply suspend the committee for the summer and then make a ruling this autumn. If you find the committee has been operating in good order and that the chair's rulings were in fact reasonable and appropriate, then the committee could carry on.
There is far less damage to be caused by holding off on those hearings until the autumn than there is in allowing them to forward if the hypothesis that I have been presenting, that the chair is operating outside the rules and ignoring the rules, is in fact the case.
 I want to put forward this very important point. With regard to setting precedents, I should point out that if you allow the committee to continue to operate, if you do not suspend it, you are setting the following precedent: that it is acceptable for a committee, on the very last day of Parliament, to rush through a decision which is an abuse of the rules, even a grotesque and obvious abuse of the rules, and by ensuring that at least one or two of the players who were involved are not present to comment, effectively, makes it impossible for you or any future Speaker to make a ruling, thereby allowing the committee to have a whole summer, free to ignore all the rules of Parliament, and to engage in potentially grotesque abuses.
I do anticipate, Mr. Speaker, if you do not suspend the committee, that we can anticipate that the current chair will carry on in a manner that I regard as being a grotesque abuse of the rules, and will ensure that by the time we come back, the Conservative Party will have been found guilty by the committee of all the allegations being made.
That is the precedent that could be set. I therefore point out that you, Mr. Speaker, are really caught in a situation where you cannot avoid setting a precedent. This seems to be the more dangerous precedent.
The safer precedent would be to establish the precedent that when something happens at the last minute and, as is at least possible, is done in a coordinated fashion to ensure that no full ruling can be made, it thereby opens the door to whatever abuses might occur.
The only avenue I could see for governments in the future to deal with this sort of thing would be for the House to prorogue every summer as a way of ensuring that any minority government has a way of ensuring these abuses do not occur. Because, effectively, the precedent will have been set where, even if that is not what is happening here today or happened yesterday, that is what would be permitted in the future. I think that is a very dangerous precedent to set.
The Speaker: The Chair is prepared to rule on this matter. I have heard plenty of arguments, and I am quite prepared to make a ruling and deal with this issue at this moment.
Unfortunately, the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington did not come up with any precedents where Speakers had made the ruling he is asking me to make in suspending this committee from operation until a ruling is made on the point of order. However, I am having no difficulty in making a ruling on the point of order today, and I stress that the past practice in this regard is, in my view, quite clear. 
I will read from Marleau and Montpetit at page 804:
 Committees, as creations of the House of Commons, only possess the authority, structure and mandates that have been delegated to them by the House. These are found in the standing and special orders which the House has adopted concerning committees. The House has specified that, in relationship to standing, special or legislative committees, “the Standing Orders shall apply so far as may be applicable, except the Standing Orders as to the election of a Speaker, seconding of motions, limiting the number of times of speaking and length of speeches”. 
 With these exceptions, committees are bound to follow the procedures set out in the Standing Orders as well as any specific sessional or special orders that the House has issued to them. Committees are otherwise left free to organize their work. In this sense, committees are said to be “masters of their own proceedings”. 
What we have in this case is a situation where the chair of the committee made a decision, which I understand was appealed to the committee and the majority of the committee upheld the chair's ruling.
It was a decision made by the committee as a group. If I have an opinion about the committee's decision, I can do nothing about it until the decision is forwarded to the House in a report. It is only in such cases that the Speaker of the House has the authority to do something about a committee. There is no other precedent in this regard.
I do not make rulings whether committees have to meet or not meet. I have no power to direct a committee to do something until its report has come here and I make a ruling on the report. I have made a ruling on one. The chief government whip, in his argument, pointed out a report that came here. I ruled the report out of order and that a motion to concur in the report would be out of order, and I chucked it. I can do that if the committee brings in a report, but it has not. 
Members are asking me to decide that the decision of the chair of the committee or, alternatively, the decision of the committee itself, because there was a vote in the committee, is somehow improper, and that therefore, I can overrule it or stop it from proceeding. I do not believe that I have that power. 
Indeed, no Speaker previously in any precedent that has been quoted to me has exercised that kind of power. 
Accordingly, I do not believe this is a point of order. I do not believe it is well founded. I believe that it is something that has to be resolved in the committee. Committees are masters of their own procedure. They can proceed as they wish, within limits. It is when they come back to the House that they run into trouble.
I point out for the benefit of hon. members that in the old days prorogation was a standard feature at the end of a session in June and the House would start a new session in the autumn. That used to be the case all the time until the seventies when that was kind of abandoned.
Second, in the old days, committees could not sit when the House was not sitting. They were only allowed to sit when the House was sitting. Hon. members, I am sure, are familiar with the rules of the Senate, which are perhaps a little older than ours in this sense, where if the Senate has adjourned for more than a week, a committee needs the consent of the Senate in advance in order to sit during that week. A whole bunch of motions were passed in the Senate the other day permitting sittings of committees between now and next Thursday when the Senate is sitting again because it adjourned for more than a week.
Members can change the rules of the House and make impossible for the House committees to sit when we are adjourned if they want to, but we significantly expanded the powers of committees years ago. It is not for the Speaker, in my view, to sit here and decide what powers committees have.
The House itself decided to grant all kinds of powers to its committees. It may not have happened during this parliament, but the members of the House of Commons have decided in the past to act otherwise. Now we have Standing Orders adopted by the House. It is the Speaker's duty to apply these Standing Orders.
In my opinion, the Standing Orders are in place. I have nothing in front of me at this point that I can say regarding the business of this committee because there is no report upon which to base a decision.
I believe that is the end of that matter.
The hon. member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park has a question of privilege and the Chair has received notice of that. It arises out of the same committee proceedings, so I will hear his question of privilege now.
Mr. Ken Epp (Edmonton—Sherwood Park, CPC): Mr. Speaker, before I begin my question of privilege, I would like clarification based on the ruling that you just made. Is it then now going to be acceptable for a committee, within its own power, to establish its own mandate, its own terms of reference? I was of the opinion that it was done by the House of Commons and that individual committees do not have this power. It seems to me that your ruling might bring us to that, so I would like clarification on that.
The Speaker: The Standing Orders do not give the Speaker any powers to decide a committee's mandate. The Standing Orders state what they are. The Chair is able to decide something when the report comes here. If the report is beyond the scope of the committee, it is thrown out, and I have done that. But the Standing Orders do not say that the Speaker has a supervisory power over committees to decide whether rulings by chairs, in relation to the jurisdiction of the committee or any other aspect of a committee's work, are appealable to the Chair. It is not permitted. 
In my view, we are stuck. The committee can file a report. If the report is beyond the committee's scope, beyond its powers, then, as Speaker, I can refuse a motion to concur in the report and send the report back to the committee, which is exactly what I have done once already.
Now, the hon. member's question of privilege, we will hear that.
PrivilegeKen Epp: Mr. Speaker, I have been around here as long as some of the older members. In fact, of all the members of Parliament, I have some pride in stating there are only now four members of Parliament who are older than I am, although some have been here longer because they started at a much younger age.
In all my years here I have gained a bit of a reputation of being a substitute. I often go into different committees for different people and so I have observed many different committees working over the years. In fact, I am so frequently at other committees that I got a permanent nameplate made for myself so they do not have to hand write one. 
I have seen different chairs operating over the years and it has been a real privilege to observe that. But occasionally, we see things that do not seem quite up to par.
I remember, in an earlier Parliament, where a chair obviously breached a fundamental rule of democracy. That was an occasion, about 10 or 12 years ago, where the chair, when we were going through a bill clause by clause, asked, “Shall clause, whatever the number was, pass?” Nobody said anything except me. I said, “No”. He said, “Carried”.
So, I raised a question of privilege or point of order in the House, and I pointed that out because chairs of committees are not infallible. When it comes to something like that, I think that they have to be challenged. I did that and there again, you said, Mr. Speaker, that the committee was the master of its own fate. That is fine, but that is a fundamental violation of democracy.
I have another one that happened last Tuesday when I was, as usual, substituting in this committee for one of my members who had other duties. When I was in the seat as a substitute, I allowed the regular members of the committee to carry the debate because I am not one who usually intrudes into other people's work. I was there to help and to serve. I put my name on the speaker's list, but I dutifully awaited my turn.
Observing the way the committee meeting was going, I saw the chair, over and over again, cut off the mike. He turned around in his chair to signal the switcher to turn off the mike. My colleagues were busily making points with respect to the issue that was being debated and when the chair, and I will say this gently, heard things that he did not like, he cut them off. It was not that they were out of order or that they were repeating, but he cut them off.
So, Mr. Speaker, I think that it is important for you to hear my first intervention. I am going to read this into the record of the House, even though it is from the committee, because he finally gave me the floor, and then I--
The Speaker: Order. I am afraid I have to cut the hon. member off because it is 11 o'clock and we have to move on with other business. However, I will hear him after question period and he will be able to complete his question of privilege then, but at the moment, under the Standing Orders, we have to move to statements by members.
 I call upon the hon. member for South Shore—St. Margaret's.
Standing Committee on International TradeMr. Gerald Keddy (South Shore—St. Margaret's, CPC): Mr. Speaker, my Conservative Party colleagues on the Standing Committee on International Trade respectfully dissent from the report, “Human Rights, the Environment and Free Trade with Colombia”.
It is clear that this report does not accurately reflect the views of all the members of this committee, nor does it reflect the testimony of the majority of the witnesses who appeared before the committee.
It is our opinion that a Canada-Colombia free trade agreement would expand Canada-Colombia trade and investment and would help ongoing efforts by the Government of Colombia to create a prosperous, equitable and secure democracy.
Our government's commitment to deepening its engagement in the Americas seeks to promote increased prosperity, greater security, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
Furthermore, the Conservative members of the committee believe these objectives are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. That is why we cannot align ourselves with the recommendations expressed in this report.
We believe that this report lacks balance as the opposition members played partisan politics to--
The Speaker: Order. The hon. member for Thunder Bay--Rainy River.
Carbon Tax ProposalMr. Ken Boshcoff (Thunder Bay—Rainy River, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, when I was in university earning my graduate degree in environmental studies, the future of our planet seemed mighty grim. Eagles were disappearing and rivers did not freeze in the winter because they were so contaminated with mercury. 
Since that graduation, I have been working on many environmental causes, as a councillor, as a mayor and as a member of Parliament, but yesterday, it all came together. The green shift is a plan that gives us all hope for the future.
Since yesterday's announcement people have been calling. They are excited and have encouraging words. For me, it is with a dynamic sense of optimism that I can tell my constituents that we have a plan that will work; that we have a plan that will help; that we have a plan that will bring about a richer, greener and fairer Canada and will restore that sense of democracy and optimism in our country.
World Refugee DayMs. Meili Faille (Vaudreuil-Soulanges, BQ): Mr. Speaker, refugee assistance agencies, such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, are joining together today to mark World Refugee Day. This year's theme is “Protecting Refugees: Rebuilding Lives in Safety and Dignity”.
This day is an opportunity to pay tribute to the incredible strength, courage and determination of refugees throughout their ordeal. They have been uprooted and must make the journey from oppression and persecution to asylum and protection before finally finding a place they can call their own. Today is also an opportunity to recognize the people who help refugees rebuild their lives in safety and dignity.
My Bloc Québécois colleagues and I commend the agencies that help refugees rebuild their lives in safety and dignity. We must take real steps to protect refugees. Bill C-280, which was introduced by my colleague from Laval and is designed to protect refugees, will finally bring about the implementation of the refugee appeal division. 
Carbon Tax ProposalMr. Dennis Bevington (Western Arctic, NDP): Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Liberals announced their carbon tax plan, which can only be characterized as a won't get it done plan.
As the British Columbia minister of the environment said, “They really are not actually taking the bull by the horns”. As Dave Martin of Greenpeace said, “In our view, the [Liberal] plan really doesn't go far enough”
There are so many things wrong with this plan that it is hard to know where to start, but here are two. First, it has absolutely no targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; it does not even mention Kyoto. Second, there are no measures to encourage Canadians to embrace renewable energy.
All this plan would do is make Canadians, especially northerners and rural people, pay more, while large corporations continue business as usual.
This summer the NDP will be consulting with Canadians on how to best move forward with renewable energy. After listening to this, we will be putting forward a plan which would move Canada quickly toward a more renewable energy future, provide energy security, create new green collar jobs and, combined with our cap and trade plan, take real action to reduce greenhouse gases.
Mr. Rick Norlock (Northumberland—Quinte West, CPC): Mr. Speaker, after finally getting the details of the Liberals' carbon tax grab, my constituents are very concerned.
Regardless of the Liberal leader's claims that his plan is revenue neutral, it is plain to see that this is impossible. The reason for this tax shaft is that the Liberal leader needed to find a way to pay for all his unbudgeted spending promises and he is doing it on the backs of the Canadian taxpayer. He plans to spend all the money it brings in on programs, on special interests, on endless priorities.
Canadians would feel the effects of this tax grab directly and indirectly. We cannot drive up the cost of transporting gas, groceries and everything else without hurting consumers. We cannot prevent manufacturers, once taxed, from passing their losses on to their customers.
The only green shift that would occur is the shifting of money out of Canadians' wallets.
MunicipalitiesMr. Mario Silva (Davenport, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, when the previous Liberal government implemented its new deal for cities, municipal governments across Canada found a seat at the national table. Cities like Toronto, home to millions of Canadians, finally found a partner in their federal government.
In contrast, the Conservative government policy can be summed up in one statement, no deals for cities, leaving Toronto and other cities to fend for themselves.
The facts are alarming: $123 billion is needed for infrastructure work; soaring demands are being placed on municipal public transit systems; and the economic prosperity of our urban centres is being threatened.
The government must start responding to the needs of Canadian cities. Cities like Toronto deserve to be treated with respect.
Carbon Tax ProposalMr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, CPC): Mr. Speaker, my constituents will not be deceived by the Liberals' carbon tax.
We know that the Liberal leader's plan is to impose a permanent new tax that would hurt all Canadians. On farms across our country, fertilizer prices are already costly and will be more expensive if the Liberals get to launch their new tax grab. 
There are sin taxes already on alcohol and tobacco, and now the Liberals want to apply a sin tax on rural and urban Canadians who are heating their homes in the winter and driving to work year-round. They want to tax electricity even if it kills manufacturing jobs, and hits seniors and everyone else on a fixed income. The Liberals are promising to almost triple the tax on diesel. This would also hurt farmers and increase the cost of everything transported by truck or train, including food.
My constituents know that every carbon tax imposed in Europe has hit gas prices hard, very hard. The Liberal carbon tax plan would be a dirty trick and would hurt all Canadians.
New Squadron in BagotvilleMr. Robert Bouchard (Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government has still not fulfilled its promise to form an expeditionary squadron at the base in Bagotville, despite the announcement made there in July 2007 by the defence minister at the time.
In light of the delay in completing this project, I recently submitted a brief to the conference of elected officials of the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region. I recommended that the region's elected officials join together to ensure that the Conservatives fulfill their promise and do everything necessary to bring in new soldiers as soon as possible.
The Conservatives must fulfill the promise they made to the people of Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean during the last election campaign. The people of Chicoutimi—Le Fjord will not accept half-measures when it comes to the Conservatives' commitment.
I remind this government that a promise is a promise.
Carbon Tax ProposalMr. Daryl Kramp (Prince Edward—Hastings, CPC): Mr. Speaker, yesterday in The Chronicle-Herald, the Liberal member for Cape Breton—Canso suggested that he too is worried about the massive Liberal tax hike. I quote:
 When you cross the street and get hit by a car, it doesn't matter if you were in the crosswalk. You're still dead. If we don't get this right, politically, we'll pay. 
How prophetic for the Liberal Party. But while the Liberal members are worrying about their jobs and electoral prospects, Canadians are worried about paying for heating their homes, getting to work and putting food in their children's mouths.
This deceitful tax grab is supposed to be revenue neutral, but in fact it bleeds income from students, families and small business and puts it in the grips of the Liberal Party.
I am not going to be fooled. The Conservative members will not be fooled. The good people of Prince Edward--Hastings will not be fooled. All Canadians will not be fooled. They know when they are getting the shaft and not the shift.
World Refugee DayMr. Glen Pearson (London North Centre, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of World Refugee Day, held annually on June 20.
It is a day to recognize the hardships that the world's refugee population faces, especially those who live without material, social or legal protection. It is also a day to celebrate the tireless efforts of all those striving to protect and improve the lives of forcibly displaced people, from the provision of food and shelter to support for those lacking legal status, or helping those who wish to return to their home country.
This year, World Refugee Day focuses on the fundamental need for protection. For some, protection means economic security. For others, this means freedom from violence, persecution or even death.
I ask my colleagues in this House and all Canadians to help protect refugees by raising awareness at the grassroots level, in local communities, workplaces and online. By forming a global network of supporters, we help ensure that protection is extended equally around the world and that the plight of refugees is in some small way improved.
Carbon Tax ProposalMr. Jeff Watson (Essex, CPC): Mr. Speaker, a Liberal dirty tax trick by any other name, say, a green shift, is still a Liberal dirty tax trick. 
The Liberal leader gleefully announced he would permanently up the cost of gas, electricity and everything Canadians buy, killing Canadian jobs. Peel back the green veneer and this permanent new Liberal tax is not about the environment. There are 40-plus pages about the crushing tax and not a single word about how many greenhouse gases this green shaft will reduce. 
Polluting industries will not pay. They will pass on the tax to consumers. But truckers and farmers will pay. Canadians will pay on everything, including ultimately the price of gas. In fact, the only green shift that will occur with this Liberal tax is hard-earned money from Canadians' wallets to the Liberal leader's coffers. 
The Liberals once promised to kill the GST. Now they are adding a tax as large as the GST, permanently, on virtually everything we buy so the Liberal leader can spend it all on programs, on special interests and endless priorities. 
Under this punitive tax, the Liberal leader gets the green goldmine, while Canadians and the environment get the shaft.
Charlie Angus: Mr. Speaker, the people of northern Ontario will certainly take a massive hit from the Liberal carbon tax plan because the tax on home heating fuels will affect rural residents and seniors. They will be treated as if they were the Athabasca tar sands. There is nothing in this plan to deal with massive pollution. 
I dealt with families and seniors in northern Ontario who were paying crippling heating bills last year and there is nothing in this plan to help them shift to more alternative fuels. When we talk about a green shift, it is really a blame shift. It is taking the blame away from the big polluters and putting it on the people who cannot afford to pay.
What we are dealing with is no plan from the Conservatives, a bad plan from the Liberals, or the plan that was actually seen as becoming the model, which is the plan supported by the New Democratic Party, the cap and trade system. This is the way they are going in Europe. This is being supported in the U.S. Unlike my Conservative colleagues, I do not attack the Liberals and believe the Liberal leader has a nefarious motion; I think he just does not get it.
Hon. Navdeep Bains (Mississauga—Brampton South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Leader of the Opposition launched a new debate. It is a debate about building a richer, greener and fairer Canada.
The Liberal Party believes that it is time we put a price on pollution and put every single penny back into the hands of Canadians. Polluters will pay and Canadians will gain. It is called the green shift and it is a good idea. It is a bold idea and Canadians are ready for this debate.
The Conservatives have done nothing for more than two years. They have no plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and no plan for the 21st century economy. Instead of engaging Canadians honestly, all the government can do is call us names, mislead Canadians and use throwaway cute phrases.
The time has come to do what is right, not what is easy, for our environment and for our future. We will fight fear with hope. We will fight lies with facts. We will build a richer, greener and fairer Canada.
Aboriginal PeopleMrs. Carole Freeman (Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, BQ): Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, June 21, is National Aboriginal Day. The theme is the “encounter” between aboriginals and the Europeans. The Bloc Québécois favours a nation to nation approach based on mutual respect. 
The federal government recently apologized to the victims of residential schools. In Kahnawake, in my riding, young Mohawks suffered irreparable damage.
Ellen Gabriel, president of the Québec Native Women organization, is calling for more action to correct the oppressive measures that are preventing aboriginal peoples from prospering socially, culturally, politically and economically.
If the Conservatives are serious about this apology, then I urge the Prime Minister not to wait any longer to endorse the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and thus make it clear that his apology meant something.
Government AppointmentsHon. Karen Redman (Kitchener Centre, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the President of the Treasury Board is an embarrassment to his Conservative colleagues. His golden parachute eases him into a well-paying job as a judge in Manitoba but, alas, he is not finished embarrassing them yet.
In 2004 he complained about how much money judges were paid in this country, and I quote, “Despite the fact there are at least 10 qualified applicants for every position, the minister says he must boost the pay of judges...”. Where are the 10 qualified applicants for each judicial position? I wonder if the Minister of Justice will tell us the names of the 10 qualified applicants that are being passed over in favour of the President of the Treasury Board.
His soon to be honour once was quoted as saying, “I would not want to see the politicization of the process where judges run for office”. I am glad politics are being kept out of this appointment.
The President of the Treasury Board may soon go from the Conservative benches to the federal bench, but for the government and his colleagues, the embarrassment continues.
Carbon Tax ProposalMr. Joe Preston (Elgin—Middlesex—London, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I am concerned. Yesterday the leader of the Liberal Party outlined his carbon tax plan. This plan would impose financial hardship on farmers and other rural Canadians.
Farmers cannot take the bus and the last time I looked, there was no subway under the cornfields of Elgin County. The only way to heat their homes in much of rural Canada is by heating oil or electricity. Should farmers be encouraged to huddle together and think green thoughts this winter to keep warm? Farmers are asking if they will be forced to take the hard-earned green from their fields and hand it over for huge spending promises. 
I wonder if the leader of the Liberal Party would like farmers to carpool to their fields in the morning. I wonder how he would ever think that his rural green credit would make this plan okay with rural Canadians. One hundred fifty dollars a year. I know that John Deere is green, but on 41¢ a day, I am not sure they will be able to start their tractors.

Oral Questions
The EnvironmentMr. David McGuinty (Ottawa South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, since the Conservatives came to power in January 2006, energy prices have skyrocketed. A litre of gas at the pump is 45% higher. A litre of diesel is 50% higher. Home heating oil is 72% higher. 
The Liberal green shift plan will help Canadians to adjust to these new prices by offering billions of dollars in income tax cuts and other benefits. We are shifting taxes off income and innovation and onto pollution and helping Canadians.
How does the Prime Minister intend to help Canadians offset these massive increases in energy costs incurred on his watch?
Hon. Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the way we are going to help Canadians cope with avoiding massive increases in energy costs is by ensuring that the Liberal Party does not get elected with its carbon tax plan.
As the Liberal leader told his party when he was seeking the leadership, “Elect me and I won't give you a carbon tax”. He told those members that. He tricked them. Then he gave them the green shaft yesterday. There they are, saddled with a carbon tax they never wanted.
That flip-flop is so dramatic that they have not caught up on the Liberal website. Today it still says “we do not favour a carbon tax”. I wish they would make up their minds.
David McGuinty: Mr. Speaker, we have a plan to help Canadians reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and to mitigate the rising price of energy.
After his unproductive, pale green visit to Europe, the Prime Minister said that the economic models espoused by countries like Norway, Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands, with their carbon taxes, are just plain crazy.
Does the Prime Minister think that these European countries are crazy?
Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, the Liberal leader promised his party that he would not bring in a carbon tax, but that is not what we saw yesterday. He seems to have changed his mind.
I would like to quote the Liberal Party leader, who said, last fall, that “—there will be no carbon tax—” Clearly, when the Liberal Party leader says something, he is not to be believed.
David McGuinty: Mr. Speaker, the race is on to compete in the carbon constrained 21st century and, instead of leading, the Prime Minister has no interest in seeing Canada become the greenest and cleanest economy in the world.
Let me say what is truly crazy. What is crazy is a Prime Minister who will not act now to help ensure that future generations have a sustainable atmosphere.
What is crazy is a Prime Minister who is shutting Canada out of what Goldman Sachs describes as a $3 trillion environmental technologies market.
Why does the Prime Minister not understand that environmental leadership is economic leadership?
Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, in the tax plan the Liberal leader released yesterday, a tax plan he said he would never have, he does not mention one single ounce of reductions in greenhouse gases. Those members can hide behind it all they want, but a tax plan is all it is.
Do Canadians know what else they said in the plan? They said there would not be any taxes on gasoline in it, but what did the Liberal finance critic say yesterday? The member for Markham—Unionville acknowledges that a full carbon tax would be “devilishly complicated, and that a Liberal government might begin with something a great deal more straightforward, such as a tax on imported oil”. Let us guess what that means: higher gasoline prices in Ontario, in Quebec and in all the Atlantic provinces.
 Those members have already changed their minds in one day on that part of the policy.
Hon. Judy Sgro (York West, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, in reference to our green plan, University of Calgary economics professor Jack Mintz said:
 I don't think the plan will be negative on growth. 
 In fact, it will probably be quite positive. 
Given the fact that the Prime Minister has a master's in economics from Professor Mintz's own department, does the Prime Minister also think that Professor Mintz is crazy?
Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, all I know is that Jack Mintz went on television last night to say that he had nothing to do with the construction of the Liberal plan. Apparently he is embarrassed about a plan that says absolutely nothing about reducing greenhouse gases, a plan that the Liberals' leader promised he would never, ever implement, saying to elect him as leader and he would never give them a carbon tax. 
A few months later, they have a carbon tax. That is why Canadians do not trust this tax trick. It is nothing but one great big tax grab from the Liberal leader.
Judy Sgro: That was more fearmongering, Mr. Speaker, and they keep it up.
Doug Porter, deputy chief economist of BMO Capital Markets, believes that carbon taxes are “about as efficient a way as there is out there” to battle climate change
Economists know that when we cut taxes on income and investment, we get more jobs and increase productivity. That is our green plan. When we tax pollution, polluters will find cleaner ways to dispose of their waste. What is so crazy about that?
Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, I will say this much for the Liberal Party members. It is refreshing, after a year of those members debating anything else but policy ideas and issues, to see them finally raise an issue.
Unfortunately, it is an issue on which no Canadian believes them because their leader said he would never do it. He said last fall that there would never be a carbon tax. He said during the leadership campaign that it was “bad policy”. Guess what he said yesterday: I love my carbon tax policy and I love higher taxes. He did not say one word about one figure, one ounce of reduction in greenhouse gases. 
It is nothing but a carbon tax trick and Canadians know that.
EthicsPierre Paquette: Mr. Speaker, we have learned that the former foreign affairs minister will speak next week in Saint-Georges-de-Beauce. To be certain that he will not be questioned by the opposition, the hon. member for Beauce decided to wait until the House of Commons adjourned for the summer. How very brave of him.
Does the government not agree that the refusal of the hon. member for Beauce, following the example of the Prime Minister, to come and testify before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security shows a lack of ethics, transparency and respect for parliamentary institutions?
Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, the member for Beauce, in this particular circumstance when he was found to have left documents in an unsecured place, tendered his resignation and took responsibility for that act. That resignation has been accepted.
That is the kind of ministerial accountability that I think Canadians want to see and want to expect from their representatives. That is the kind of responsibility that the member for Beauce took in this regard.
 What is more, he recommended to the Prime Minister that the Department of Foreign Affairs conduct a full review of the matter. That is exactly what is happening.
Pierre Paquette: Mr. Speaker, this is simply more empty rhetoric from the  Government House leader. Furthermore, we are still waiting for answers in the Cadman affair, the Brodie affair, the Mulroney-Schreiber affair, the in and out scandal, and of course the affair concerning the former foreign affairs minister. In all those cases, there has been no end to the bad faith shown by the Conservatives and the Prime Minister, even to the point of obstructing parliamentary committees.
Does the government realize that it was elected under false pretences, promising transparency and ethics, but that those promises have been broken repeatedly? 
Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, after listening to the Bloc member's question, it is now clear that the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals have decided to join forces. The new Bloc Québécois strategy seems to be to align itself with the Liberal Party and push for centralization.
Carole Lavallée: Mr. Speaker, it is hard to understand, hard to follow. Yesterday, the members of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics voted in favour of investigating the ethics of the Conservative Party's election financing practices during the 2006 election, their famous “in and out” scheme that caused the RCMP to raid their offices. The study will begin in the fall.
Even though they stormed out yesterday, and since this morning's point of order went nowhere, will the Conservatives accept the committee's decision and testify? 
Mr. Pierre Poilievre (Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board, CPC): Mr. Speaker, in fact, it was the Conservatives who wanted a study of the election expenses of all the parties. It was the Bloc, the Liberals and the NDP who wanted to hide their own election financing practices. We already know that the Bloc leader is the father of in and out. The Conservatives followed all the rules during the election and that is why we are ready to defend our actions.
Carole Lavallée: Mr. Speaker, only the Conservatives' expenses are being questioned, and only the Conservative Party offices were raided, not the other parties' offices.
When they were in opposition, the Conservatives supported the former information commissioner's bill that modernized and strengthened the Access to Information Act. Today, those same Conservatives are thrilled with a court ruling that makes documents from ministers' offices inaccessible.
If the Conservatives are serious about transparency, will they announce right now that they will amend the current act to make documents from ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's office accessible?
Pierre Poilievre: Mr. Speaker, that is a very interesting question, because the Bloc did not want to broaden the Access to Information Act when we discussed it in committee while studying the accountability act. Would my friend like to extend the application of the Access to Information Act to members' offices? I do not think so.
It was our government that brought in the accountability act, which opened up access to information more than ever before in this country's history.
The EnvironmentMr. Thomas Mulcair (Outremont, NDP): Mr. Speaker, in four years the Liberals have come up with four different plans: in 2005, project green; in 2006, building a sustainable future; in 2007, balancing our carbon budget; and in 2008, the green shift. They have gone from “couldn't get the job done” to cannot get the job done.
This Parliament has adopted legislation to put in a firm ceiling on greenhouse gas production. When is the government going to get away from its intensity-based targets to a full carbon cap?
Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is right. This House did endorse the government's policy on addressing the greenhouse gas challenges with our plan to reduce greenhouse gases by 20% by 2020. We did that when the whole House of Commons endorsed our throne speech laying out that plan.
It is a plan that is going to work and it is going to ensure that we see real reductions. It is a plan that is very different from the Liberal plan released yesterday, which talks an awful lot about how the Liberals are going to raise $15 billion in taxes but does not have one figure, not one ounce, of greenhouse gas reduction included.
That is why we have done something that delivers real results and takes real action.
Thomas Mulcair: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons is wrong on an important point. It was not the House that endorsed the Speech from the Throne, it was the weak Liberals who endorsed it and allowed our environment to continue to be devastated.
If the government wants to reflect on our obligations to future generations, it can at least listen to Alain Lemaire, president of Cascades, who yesterday yet again decried the intensity targets, which are as bad as the Liberals' plan, because in both cases, there is an unlimited increase in greenhouse gases. What is the government going to do to respect the rights of future generations?
Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, our plan is quite clear. It would result in an absolute reduction in greenhouse gases of 20% by the year 2020. 
However, I will agree with the hon. member on one point. It is true that it was the Liberals who allowed that throne speech to pass, thereby endorsing our environmental plan. That is why they have not put forward a contrary environmental plan. 
All the Liberals put forward yesterday is a tax plan. It has one objective, which is to find a way around all those tax cuts that we brought in, such as reductions in the GST, because the Liberals need a lot of tax revenue to pay for the billions of dollars in promises they have already made. That is why they have such an ambitious tax plan.
Mr. Michael Savage (Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, before the Prime Minister makes ludicrous, angry statements on the environment, maybe he should listen to a pre-eminent Canadian environmentalist and a pre-eminent Canadian economist. 
David Suzuki has said that to oppose a carbon tax is “just nonsense”. Chief economist Don Drummond said this morning that he carbon shift idea is sensible and average Canadians will be better off.
Is the Prime Minister seriously asking Canadians to believe that both David Suzuki and Don Drummond are crazy?
Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, what is crazy is telling Canadians that the way we are going to solve the environment problem is with a plan that includes a raft of taxes that hits every single Canadian but proposes not one ounce of reduction in greenhouse gases.
 That is crazy. That is not a green plan. That is not an environmental plan. That is a tax plan. And it might be the biggest tax plan Canadians have ever seen in their lives. That is why we are not fearmongering. Canadians are afraid of the fearmongering that is being spread by the Liberals with their tax plan.
Michael Savage: Mr. Speaker, Aaron Freeman of Environmental Defence said, “--I can see this plan making a tangible difference to reduce greenhouse gases”. Dale Marshall of the Suzuki Foundation said, “This kind of a carbon tax is absolutely essential...”. Renowned economist Mark Jaccard said, “I've never met one [economist] who disagrees [with a carbon tax]”.
Could it be that the only economist who opposes this plan is the one who sits in the Prime Minister's Office, insults the experts, underestimates Canadians and refuses to address the biggest environmental challenge of our time? How crazy is that?
Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, I will tell the member the economists who object to the Liberal leader's tax plan. It is the economists who sit around the kitchen table at the end of the day trying to balance that chequebook and pay those bills. They are the ones who the Liberal leader insulted when he said, “well, if you have computers you need to change your behaviour”. When he said, “if you have two residences”, that would be a house and cottage, “you need to change your behaviour”. 
It is ordinary Canadians who are being insulted because the Liberal leader has decided that they need to change their behaviour. People cannot go to the cottage any more and they should not be on the Internet any more. They should just be gathering up their dollars and sending their taxes to him in Ottawa. 
Marlene Jennings: Mr. Speaker, Arthur Sandborn, from the Quebec chapter of Greenpeace, believes that the Liberal green shift is much better than the NDP's carbon market plan. Sydney Ribaux, general coordinator at Équiterre, said that this is the type of policy they would support.
Does the Minister of the Environment agree with his boss who said yesterday that these Quebec environmentalists are crazy?
Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, I will tell the member who says that a carbon tax plan is crazy and who that says a carbon tax is bad policy. On November 25, 2006, a quote in The Toronto Star reads, it is “simply bad policy”, he says of a carbon tax. Who said that? It was the Liberal leader who, apparently, thought it was crazy. I do not know what has happened to him after a year and a half under siege in his caucus but I guess it is getting to him.
Marlene Jennings: Mr. Speaker, that quote proves that the Liberals can learn from their mistakes; the Conservatives have never done that.
Not one environmentalist, economist or scientist—and not a single representative of the department—has been able to say that the Conservative government's plan was valid. Eleven independent groups, including C.D. Howe, the Deutsche Bank, the Pembina Institute and the Tyndall Institute, have described it as sham.
A prime minister and a government that insist on holding our country back in the fight against the worst environmental threat the world has seen, is that not crazy?
Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, if members of the Liberal Party learned from their mistakes, they would be geniuses in Mensa today, but instead they are sitting on those benches because they refuse to learn from their mistakes, and they have done it again. Once again they think the answer to solving Canadians' economic challenges is to massively increase taxes on everything: shipping goods, diesel for trucks and home heating oil. How will that help the economy? How will that help Canadians?
It may be really good with the special interest groups that like high taxes but it is not very good for the poor Canadian families and the senior citizen at home at -20° in the winter trying to stay warm with a little bit of heating oil in the furnace.
Aerospace IndustryMr. Mario Laframboise (Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have awarded the maintenance contract for the C-130J to the same company that sold the aircraft to the government, contrary to the traditional approach of separating procurement and maintenance. The result is that the company chooses its suppliers and the technology transfers do not take place.
When will the Conservatives provide the Quebec aerospace industry with better economic and technological spinoffs from this contract?
Mr. James Moore (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and for the Pacific Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics, CPC): Mr. Speaker, all contracts awarded by our government, from the very first day it took office right up until the present, have followed all the rules and been in the best interests of all Canadian industries and all of the country's regions.
Mario Laframboise: Mr. Speaker, the Quebec aerospace industry is very worried about the quality of the spinoffs from the C-130J maintenance contract: translation, container construction, storage, provision of tools, the nuts and bolts.
Are these the significant structural spinoffs promised to Quebec by the Conservatives? Will the government confirm that other tenders, of greater interest, are forthcoming? 
Mr. Colin Carrie (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry, CPC): Mr. Speaker, that is totally not true. The aerospace industry is doing very well in Quebec. To date, the following regional amounts have been announced by Boeing and Lockheed Martin: for Atlantic Canada, more than $294 million; for Ontario, more than $341 million; but for Quebec, more than $660 million; for western Canada, more than $341 million; and that is only the beginning.
Regional Economic DevelopmentMs. Pauline Picard (Drummond, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the people of Montreal are speaking out against the Conservatives' policies in Ottawa that are compromising our economic model. The Montreal metropolitan community or CMM, Montreal city council, the Montreal agglomeration council, which is an umbrella council for a hundred or so cities, as well as Quebec City, have all asked the Conservatives to reinstate funding for the economic development agencies.
What is the “scorched earth” minister waiting for to reverse his decision?
Mr. Jacques Gourde (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I can assure my colleague that all the changes made to Economic Development Canada are in the interest of the agency's mandate to encourage economic development. We will find appropriate solutions in Quebec's best interests by working in close cooperation with all the economic stakeholders.
Pauline Picard: Mr. Speaker, yesterday, Montreal municipal councillor Alan DeSousa, who is responsible for economic development, said:
 We stand behind Minister Bachand. More appropriate measures must be taken to support the economic development of the region. A number of our successes, particularly in the aerospace sector, were achieved with and thanks to these agencies. 
Does the “scorched earth” minister realize that he is dangerously compromising sectors as successful as aerospace? Will he reverse his decision?
Jacques Gourde: Mr. Speaker, the economy remains the Bloc's bête noire. Those are not my words. That came from a statement made by the hon. member for Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher in the Toronto Sun less than three years ago.
Foreign AffairsMario Silva: Mr. Speaker, it appears as though the member for Beauce will finally speak about the scandal he is involved in. Will he appear before the parliamentary committee or address the House of Commons to answer questions? No, instead, the member is organizing a press conference where he will not take any questions from journalists.
Does the government understand that a press conference does not demonstrate transparency if the member will not answer questions?
Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, earlier on in question period, after the Liberal leader said that he was happy to debate this serious issue of the carbon tax, we were finally hearing, after a year of questions and avoided policy, some questions on policy. The serious Liberal debate lasted 15 minutes.
Now we are back to where the Liberals love being, in the gutter asking silly questions about people's private lives. We will invite them to return with some serious questions, perhaps about their carbon tax policy, but I suspect they really do not want to talk about it that much.
Mario Silva: Mr. Speaker, we know that Julie Couillard had relationships with the Departments of Foreign Affairs, Transport, Human Resources, Public Works and Public Safety, not to mention the mafia and Hells Angels. So, yes, Canadians are interested in these relationships, as are the RCMP.
The problem is that the government is hiding and has been since this scandal broke. How long will it be before it realizes that its cover-up has failed and it must call a public inquiry?
Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, I know the Liberals are very interested in people's personal lives. I know the Liberal member for Markham—Unionville has said that the important question concerns who Julie Couillard has been sleeping with and that is why we must have a public inquiry and why we need to have them at the legislative inquiry.
With the greatest of respect, this government does not believe that is what Canadians are interested in. They might be interested in the big new tax plan from the Liberals. I know the Liberals do not want to talk about that but we do not think they want to have public resources spent learning about people's private lives. 
To the extent that something serious in this matter is occurring, we are conducting a review through foreign affairs and we think it will do fine work.
Canadian Wheat BoardHon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, last night, the Conservative government was found by the Federal Court to have violated the right to freedom of expression by issuing gag orders against the Canadian Wheat Board.
Judge Hughes ruled:
 It is hereby declared that the Governor in Council acted contrary to law by issuing said Direction.... 
 It is hereby declared that said Direction contravenes the provision of subsection 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Part I of the Constitution Act.... 
Is there no law the government will not break in its attack on farmers' marketing institutions?
Mr. Guy Lauzon (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the question but I am a little confused.
During our throne speech, when we reiterated support for duel marketing for the Wheat Board, the member voted for it. Now he is voting against freedom of choice for the farmers. We cannot figure it out.
At the agriculture committee the other day, he voted to do a study on the carbon tax and on the devastating damages it would do to agriculture. Now he is supporting the carbon tax.
I would like that question answered.
Wayne Easter: Mr. Speaker, avoiding the subject and confusion is all we get from the government. 
It is interesting to note that this session started with the Federal Court ruling that the government illegally attempted to use its regulatory power to undermine the board and this session ends with another Federal Court ruling that the government imposed gag orders, violating the right to free speech. 
However, no one should be surprised by the government's illegal actions. Its record is of scandal, cover-up and breaking the law.
What does the government have against honesty and the rule of law?
Guy Lauzon: Mr. Speaker, I again thank the member for his question but I will answer it with a question. This is a question from the constituents of Malpeque.
I made a couple of visits to wonderful P.E.I. and the following is the feedback I received. The constituents of Malpeque want to know why their member has asked 32 questions on the Wheat Board and only 2 questions on any issue that has anything to do with P.E.I. 
Manufacturing IndustryJames Rajotte: Mr. Speaker, one of the primary challenges facing our manufacturing sector is the increase in fuel prices. 
Yesterday, the Liberal leader sent shock waves across the country when he announced his plan to tax energy and the transportation of manufactured goods through his carbon tax grab. Increased transportation costs will ultimately result in consumers paying more for essential items like food and clothing.
Would the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry tell the House what effect the Liberals' carbon tax plan would have on those people working in the manufacturing sector?
Colin Carrie: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Edmonton—Leduc for all his hard work and his commitment to manufacturers.
Manufacturers are facing U.S. economic difficulties, a strengthening Canadian dollar and rising international energy prices. Yesterday, the Liberals had the audacity to look recently laid off workers in the eyes and say, “Shift happens”. To manufacturers who are struggling to cut input costs, the Liberal message is, “We will force you out of business”. To truckers moving manufactured goods, the Liberals say, “Pay $1,700 more per year and we don't care if you go out of business”.
Workers know the Liberal carbon tax on everything will take away their hard-earned money and we will oppose the Leader of the Opposition's tax trick every step of the way.
NAFTAPeter Julian: Mr. Speaker, the Republican presidential candidate is in town, and it just so happens that a number of Conservatives will be at the meeting.
We understand that the Prime Minister wants to keep his distance, after the help he already gave Mr. McCain with the NAFTA leak.
On the subject of the free trade agreement, the Conservatives and the Republicans agree on having deep integration and on abandoning workers to serve the interests of multinational companies.
Can the government confirm that it endorses Senator McCain's NAFTA strategy?
Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, what we endorse is NAFTA because we believe it has been very good for Canadians as well as for Americans. It has been a very beneficial trade agreement that has resulted in the increase of hundreds of thousands of jobs in our economy, increased wealth and jobs in both countries. 
It is an agreement that we will continue to advocate in favour of and we will do that with both Senator McCain and Senator Obama, both of whom, we believe, when they examine what NAFTA has meant for Canadians, will endorse it strongly.
Peter Julian: Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives simply have not done their homework. Most Americans are earning less under NAFTA and two-thirds of Canadian families are earning less as well. John McCain certainly does not have the interests of working families at heart.
Now that Senator McCain wants to open up oil exploitation on all coasts, it is time to rethink our energy sellout. Canada needs an independent energy policy and the needs of Canadians must come first. 
Senator Obama says, “Let's change NAFTA”. Is the government willing to reopen NAFTA so our energy resources serve Canadian needs?
Gerald Keddy: Mr. Speaker, the reality is that NAFTA has been a great benefit to all three NAFTA partners, to Canada, to the United States and to Mexico. It has led to a better environment and a better economy in all three countries and it will continue to bring benefits to all three countries into the future.
National DefenceMr. Rodger Cuzner (Cape Breton—Canso, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the defence minister might want to put in for some overtime pay this morning because apparently he spent most of last night in his office. 
How did the government announce the details of the $490 billion in defence spending? With no fanfare and no press conference. It just posted them on the website in the dead of night. This sounds like a government with something to hide.
When will the government start showing some respect for Canadians and actually demonstrate accountability? Why is it always trying to hide something?
Mr. Laurie Hawn (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence, CPC): Mr. Speaker, that is pretty rich. If he wants to talk about the dead of night, let us talk about the decades of darkness under the Liberal government.
The Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence announced the Canada first defence strategy about a month ago. People wanted more details on it. It has been posted on our website, www.forces.gc.ca. Some members might want to consult that. They might learn something.
What they will learn is that this government, this Prime Minister, this Minister of National Defence are finally shining a light after decades of darkness from the member for Wascana and his pals. The Canadian Forces love it. The Canadian people love it. The people who count on the Canadian Forces love it.
Rodger Cuzner: Mr. Speaker, when we asked for details about the government's defence spending plan, we were told the Prime Minister's speech was all the detail that Canadians needed. Worse, this plan started at $30 billion, went to $50 billion, then to $96 billion and is now nearing half a trillion dollars. Even Dr. Evil would be impressed with that.
How many times will the minister have to engage in the only operation he is familiar with, damage control?
Laurie Hawn: Mr. Speaker, let me help my hon. colleague with some figures.
The defence budget has been increased by $30 billion a year to the year 2027-28. If he does some simple math and adds those numbers up, he will come up to the figure of $490 billion, plus or minus a billion dollars here or there. That money, over 20 years, will allow the Canadian Forces to do the jobs that we have given them to do, the jobs the previous government gave them and never funded them to do. The Liberals should be ashamed of themselves. We finally shone a light after a decade of darkness. We are getting the job done.
Official LanguagesHon. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, speaking of what is a billion dollars, here is a question about where is a billion dollars?
Yesterday, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages announced an official languages plan, but the $1.1 billion envelope was not included in the latest budget. This is troubling, because if the money has to come from somewhere else, other programs might suffer.
Can the minister tell us where the money for her official languages action plan will come from? 
Mr. Pierre Lemieux (Parliamentary Secretary for Official Languages, CPC): Mr. Speaker, our government is proud of its $1.1 billion investment over five years through this new initiative, our road map.
I know why this member is upset. The Liberals made their announcement on the famous carbon tax yesterday morning. We announced this program in the afternoon. Therefore, they were unable to tax it. 
I think those members are going to spend the entire summer finding new ways to tax Canadians in ways that they have never been taxed before.
John Godfrey: Mr. Speaker, what is a billion dollars? Where is a billion dollars?
The heritage minister also has reintroduced a watered-down version of the court challenges program that blatantly excludes minorities that are not linguistic minorities. Women are excluded. Gays are excluded. The disabled are excluded. Visible minorities are excluded. This is nothing less than discrimination.
Why is the government refusing to allow all minorities to use the program and defend their rights?
Pierre Lemieux: Mr. Speaker, our new language rights protection program focuses on basic language rights, the rights that are protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our constitutional texts.
Nevertheless, let us keep in mind that the government is helping to promote Canadians' other constitutional rights, especially through its multiculturalism and human rights programs, through the Human Rights Commission, through the Employment Equity Act, and through other initiatives.
Mr. Richard Nadeau (Gatineau, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government's new official languages action plan is based on a faulty understanding of the relationship between French and English in Canada. English is not under threat, but French, which is spoken by a minority of people in Canada and America, is. To treat both linguistic minorities as equals is to deny reality and allow the assimilation of francophones to happen.
By choosing to defend this kind of linguistic duality, is the minister not turning her back on the French language and those who speak it?
Pierre Lemieux: Mr. Speaker, as I said before, our government is proud of its $1.1 billion investment over five years through this new initiative, our road map. This is a 45% increase, and we will continue to reiterate our support for official languages. Yesterday, we introduced our plan. That is further proof that the government keeps its promises, unlike the Bloc, which voted against our throne speech and budget 2008, and which is opposed to our new plan.
Court Challenges ProgramMs. Nicole Demers (Laval, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the new court challenges program applies only to language rights and ignores other groups that are discriminated against, such as the disabled, and gays and lesbians. In addition, women's groups are excluded despite the important role that the program has played in advancing women's rights.
Does the minister intend to give everyone access to this new program or, once again, will women, the disabled, and gays and lesbians be punished by this misogynous and homophobic government?
Pierre Lemieux: Mr. Speaker, as I said, our government is proud of its new plan to support language rights. This new plan encourages mediation and out-of-court settlements, and emphasizes fundamental language rights. It is also important to remember that the government promotes other Canadian constitutional rights through other programs.
Economic DevelopmentKen Boshcoff: Mr. Speaker, the Ontario government recently announced a budget increase for the northern Ontario heritage fund, money that supports economic development in the north. This increase makes the fund worth $100 million in 2011. In contrast, the similar federal program, FedNor, was cut by $6.4 million. 
This is another example of a provincial government doing the right thing while the federal government runs in the opposite direction.
When will the Prime Minister start doing the right thing in northern Ontario and restore FedNor's budget?
Guy Lauzon: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that this is the very first question, since I have been here on this side of the House in over two years, that has ever been posed about the situation in northern Ontario. It is very interesting that it should come now.
The Conservative government is committed to the development of northern Ontario, unlike the leader of the Liberal Party who said during the leadership campaign that people should move to where the jobs were. 
It was this government that announced $45 million in long term stable funding for FedNor and over $60 million to support projects in northern Ontario. This Conservative government also signed a historic agreement with the U.S. to settle the softwood lumber dispute that significantly helped northern Ontario.
What are they going to do after they have the carbon tax?
The EnvironmentMr. David Sweet (Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the leader of the opposition finally announced the details of his long awaited tax grab. With this shift, jet fuel prices will skyrocket, higher electricity costs will shock the average family and home heating increases will burn through the wallets of Canadians. Thankfully, for Canadian families, there is a Conservative government in town to stop the shift from hitting the fan.
 Unemployment is at a 33-year low in the country and more than three-quarters of a million jobs have been created since our government took office.
Could the Minister of Human Resources tell Canadians how the proposed Liberal tax grab would affect the Canadian job market?
Hon. Monte Solberg (Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the other day Air Canada announced that 2,000 people were being laid off due to high fuel prices. The leader of the Liberal Party took that as a sign that he should now go out and propose to raise taxes on fuel even higher and drive up fuel costs.
Not only will this hammer airlines and manufacturing, the trucking industry, the shipping industry, certainly auto manufacturers, but it will hammer everyone who uses energy.
The Liberal carbon tax is well named because everything it touches turns to shift.
JusticeMr. Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the law locks up the hapless felon who steals the goose from off the common, but lets the greater felon loose who steals the common from the goose.
It has been four years since the accounting scandal at Nortel wiped out the savings of investors and seniors, yet only yesterday charges were finally laid against three executives.
When will the Conservatives get beyond their tough on crime sloganeering and crack down on the white collar criminals that prey on seniors and middle class investors?
Mr. Rob Moore (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, CPC): Mr. Speaker, as this is before the courts, it would be highly inappropriate to comment as the member knows.
What I will comment on, as the session comes to a close, are the tremendous gains we have made as a government in protecting law-abiding, innocent Canadians, safer streets, safer communities, a safer country for all Canadians. That is what we stand for.
Pat Martin: Mr. Speaker, if some native kid in my riding of Winnipeg Centre gets busted for stealing hub caps, the government would lock him up and throw away the key. The reason it is not getting tough on white collar crime is there are no jail cells left empty because they are full of aboriginal people who were stealing a loaf of bread to feed their families. There is no regularity to this.
White collar crime is a blue collar issue and we have to be able to trust the financial statements of the companies where our pensions are invested.
When will the Conservatives get tough on crime in a realistic way, get busy, like the United States have done Sarbanes-Oxley act, and get tough on crime and clean up the corporate boardrooms? Why do they let their buddies on Bay Street regulate themselves?
Rob Moore: Mr. Speaker, it is really funny. Right now and around election time the NDP and the Liberals like to talk tough on crime, but when it comes time to actually take action, putting in place the real steps that protect Canadians, young people, seniors and law-abiding citizens, where are they? They are nowhere to be found.
Our government is a government that stands up for law-abiding citizens. It is a government that knows we have to end the revolving door justice system. It is a government that is making our streets in our country safer for all Canadians.
Citizenship and ImmigrationGlen Pearson: Mr. Speaker, Jose DePrato has just the kind of skills and work ethic that our country requires. For nine years his family has been a key contributor to London, Ontario's life and to the business community. However, he and his family are currently at risk of being deported to Brazil on July 3. While there is a humanitarian application waiting to be heard, we fear their loss in our whole community. 
This is just the kind of industrious family the government says it wants for Canada. It is now among us with a proven track record.
Will the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration or the Minister of Public Safety show compassion, fulfill their own policy and permit the DePrato family to remain while its application is reviewed?
Mr. Ed Komarnicki (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, CPC): Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt I will not comment on a particular case, but I can say we have the refugee protection system that is a model for all of the world. It has a number of processes. Many of them include applications such as humanitarian and compassionate grounds applications. Those applications need to be made. We treat them equitably and fairly and we will look at each case compassionately.
Therefore, I ask the member to allow the process to take its course.
Fisheries and OceansMr. Fabian Manning (Avalon, CPC): Mr. Speaker, Canada's coastal communities have faced many challenges and hurdles, but continue on in the proud name of tradition and livelihood. This government has introduced tools to help Canadian fishers such as the capital tax exemption when handing down their enterprise, and the buddying up systems in some fisheries, and reducing the GST by 2%.
One thing that everyone involved in the fishery is aware of is that gas prices are making it harder and harder for fish harvesters to make a living and provide for their families.
The member for Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte is telling people in Newfoundland and Labrador today of what he believes are the benefits of the Liberals' new tax grab.
Would the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans enlighten us on how the proposed Liberal tax scheme will really affect our fishing communities?
Hon. Loyola Hearn (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, CPC): Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt about the fact that fishermen are facing hard times trying to meet the cost of operations. As the member mentioned, we have cut the GST and we brought in capital gains exemptions. We help them combine their fishing efforts to save money. We are reviewing licence fees.
What have the Liberals done to help? They have added increases to the gas tax.
I suggest that if the Liberals want to make a splash with this announcement, they go out and try to sell it to fishermen on the wharves. Then they will make a splash.
Points of OrderHon. Jim Prentice (Minister of Industry, CPC): Mr. Speaker, as the session draws to a close, I rise in response to a point of order raised yesterday by the member for Timmins—James Bay.
The matter in contention was my use in question period yesterday of the initials B and S in too close proximity to one another and in too close proximity to the initials NDP.
Upon review, the initials B and S, in parliamentary tradition, have been judged as too close to the agricultural vernacular, and I therefore apologize to you, Mr. Speaker, for the farming reference.
With respect to my friend from Timmins—James Bay, while he and I will continue to have differing perspectives on the issue, we share a common birthplace in the Porcupine mining camp. In fact, our parents went to school together. I therefore wish him a marvellous northern Ontario summer.
Charlie Angus: Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to that point of order. I have great respect for the House of Parliament and also great respect for my hon. colleague. I love to get up in the morning and know that we are going to clash. As the great Tommy Douglas said, there is nothing like a good fight to make one want to get up in the morning. That being said, I think the member has always handled himself in a very classy manner and I am honoured, actually, to be able to cross swords with him.
Yes indeed, our families are from the same region. I will not say I was the worst hockey player ever born in Timmins, but in the top 10, I am definitely there. He, on the other hand, comes from a much greater lineage in terms of hockey players. However, we do certainly disagree, and I would like to wish him the best of the summer.
Ken Boshcoff: Mr. Speaker, in question period, instead of getting a response or any kind of a straight answer to my question, the hon. parliamentary secretary for FedNor was mathematically challenged regarding my interventions on behalf of my riding. He should have made mention of my numerous speeches here in the House during debates, question period, Standing Order 31 statements, and in committees regarding my riding in northwestern Ontario, so I demand an apology.
Guy Lauzon: Mr. Speaker, I can apologize for misleading the House because it has been brought to my attention that in my absence, while I was gone one weekend on a Friday, apparently the House leader did answer two questions regarding northern Ontario, so I do apologize to the House for misleading it.
The Speaker: Before question period, the member for Edmonton--Sherwood Park had the floor on a question of privilege. We will now hear the remainder of his remarks on his question of privilege.
PrivilegeKen Epp: Mr. Speaker, after the good wishes expressed by several of the members to each other and to all, I would like to reflect that and do the same for all of my colleagues. Meanwhile, I do need to continue with the grievance that I have.
Before I read into the record some of the actual words that occurred at committee, I want to make it very clear that my question of privilege this morning has to do with my freedom of speech, my ability to express myself on issues. 
As I mentioned earlier, I was a substitute member on the ethics committee last Tuesday when this particular incident happened.
I want to point out to you, Mr. Speaker, on page 71 of Marleau and Montpetit, there are these words:
 By far, the most important right accorded to Members of the House is the exercise of freedom of speech in parliamentary proceedings. It has been described as: 
 ...a fundamental right without which they would be hampered in the performance of their duties. It permits them to speak in the House without inhibition, to refer to any matter or express any opinion as they see fit, to say what they feel needs to be said in the furtherance of the national interest and the aspirations of their constituents. 
Further to this point, I would refer you to a ruling by Speaker Fraser on May 5, 1987:
 The privileges of a member are violated by any action which might impede him or her in the fulfillment of his or her duties and functions. 
My contention is that the actions of the chair impeded me from debating the motion and from convincing my colleagues on the committee why this motion should be out of order. The chair's obstructionist tactics caused the committee to descend into disorder to the point where I was not able to participate in the debate.
I believe it is important, in that context, to point out that when the chair finally gave me the floor to address the issue that was before the committee, I got to speak four words before he interrupted me, four words. What were those offensive words that caused him to interrupt me? When he said I had the floor, I said, “Thank you, Mr. Chairman”, four words, and then he interrupted me. He was on such a roll of interrupting members who were speaking that it just seemed natural for him, when I opened my mouth, to interrupt me. Admittedly, what he said was nothing to do with my debate. It was a procedural thing, but he interrupted me after that. Then he said again, “You have the floor, if you wish”. Well, I guess I wished, because I had asked to be on the speaking list and he had recognized me. Then I said again, “Thank you”.
It is important in the context of this debate to hear what I said at the committee. That is why I want this in the parliamentary record. This is a quotation from the record of the committee of what I said:
 Mr. Chair, you know that over the years you and I have worked together in many different venues, different committees and different functions. I would like to say that for the most part in those years I have had a good, healthy respect for you. Before I go into the topic of the debate today, I'd like to make a little comment here. 
Mr. Speaker, I then went on to say:
 I've observed that I've been here as long as you have and some of the other members around the table that in the House the Speaker gives wide latitude on giving individual members the freedom to make their speeches without interruption. It's really very wide. Even if someone stands up on relevance on a point of order, almost always the Speaker returns it to the member speaking and just gives him a little chastisement but lets him make his speech-- 
The reason I said that was that I observed that the chair was always interrupting members when they spoke. I wanted him to give me some kind of commitment that I would be able to make my point without being interrupted and cut off. That is why I was doing this. Interestingly, at that point he cut me off. All I was asking was that I would not be cut off and with that, he did. 
There is a switcher in committees who turns the mics on and off. The switcher usually sits just behind the chair. In this particular instance that was also the case. The chairman of the committee turned around and motioned the switcher to switch my mic off. All he had to do was interrupt me. I am used to stopping. In fact, I have this cute little saying “don't talk while I'm interrupting” and it is totally meant in fun. When I was young I was taught that when someone else is speaking, one does not interrupt. All the chair had to do was say, “order” or whatever, and I would have stopped speaking, as I did earlier today when we approached members' statements and Mr. Speaker, you said you were going to cut my mic off right when I was talking about that. It was a bit of a humorous moment. The chair interrupted me and gave me quite a long lecture, actually longer than the speech that I had made at that point. He once again returned the floor to me at which time I said two sentences before my mic was clicked off once again. This is a direct quotation of what I said:
 I have a couple of things, Mr. Chairman, that I would really like to have on the record. This means that I'm asking you, please, to not shut off my mic while I'm speaking. As an MP, who is-- 
I was going to go on to say, “I have the privilege of expressing myself”. I wanted to cut off his tendency to not allow anybody to speak. I was appealing for that and I wanted to get even just the warmest, fuzziest commitment from the chair of the committee that he would allow me to speak. He could have even gone on to say that as long as I was in order and all that, which I already know, but he did not say that. Instead, he cut me off and said “Mr. Epp, order”. I stopped talking because he was now going to speak. Then he gave another lecture about how he is the master of the committee. I want to quote a bit from that. He said:
 I encourage you, this is the second time now, and this is giving latitude just like the Speaker does. I want you now to move to your contribution to the debate on these motions and whether it will assist members in deciding whether any or all of these motions or amendments should be adopted. 
I had a very important point that I wanted to make. When we are in committee, or even in the House, what is the purpose of our words? I sometimes kid with my grandkids that grandpa works in the word factory, that every day we get a quota and we are not allowed to go home until we have met our quota. It is just a bit of humour with my grandkids. We use words in this place. I understand in my limited knowledge of the French language that “parler” means “to speak” and this is Parliament. We are here to speak. We are here to debate. We are here to persuade with our words. That is the purpose of this place. As the Standing Orders say, and as the comments which I quoted earlier say, this is a fundamental privilege. 
When we have an issue before the House on which we want to persuade someone, it is also important that votes be conducted fairly. I wanted to get this on the record. I was interrupted. Then I said, “I want to point out that when we come to take a vote on this motion then the chair, I believe, should originally be impartial”. The reason I use the word “original” is if there is a tie vote, then of course the chair of the committee has to break the tie just as the Speaker does here. I wanted an assurance that it was understood and I wanted this on the record. 
What the chair did on this particular occasion was, because there was a motion on the floor and there were not enough Liberal committee members present, the chair did not call the meeting to order on time. In fact, he delayed the meeting for seven minutes until Liberal members dragged themselves in there. He finally called the committee to order. 
The chair was not impartial at the beginning of the meeting. He should have started the meeting on time as was scheduled, but he chose not to do so. There was quorum. We had sufficient members. The obvious reason was that the chair wanted to wait until there were enough members present to win the vote the way he wanted before he was called upon to break a tie. I was going to point that out.
I also want to point out that later on one of the Liberal members left. Members of the Conservative Party are here after all to persuade Parliament and to make sure that the vote on this motion does not carry because it is clearly out of order and beyond the mandate of this committee. We have to persuade, but also when the vote is conducted, it has to be a fair vote.
 We want that vote to be defeated on high principle, that the committee is out of order in actually even addressing this issue. It is beyond its mandate. Parliament has not given it that mandate. The House of Commons has not given it that mandate. Members have taken it on themselves. 
Through the tyranny of the majority on the committee, minority parties are in majority there, it has moved a motion that is out of order and you, Mr. Speaker, have ruled that it cannot be considered by you until the committee presents its report, but that is what we find offensive. What they are trying to do with this motion, that is out of order, is trying to achieve a goal that they could not do if it were ever ruled in advance. That is the thing that is very--
Charlie Angus:  Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
The Speaker: We are on a question of privilege and it takes precedence over a point of order, so I am afraid the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay may have to wait a little while until this question of privilege argument is done.
[Interjection]
Ken Epp: Mr. Speaker, the chair at this point made a decision that, even though I was going to speak, and I do not know how he knew what I was going to say and say something that he did not like, he was going to shut me off. He said and, again, I quote:
 --for the third time, I have to tell you that you are discussing matters which are not relevant to the motion. 
All I was doing was trying to get him to give me the privilege of being able to speak and to give me an assurance that he would not do to me what he did to the others before. Mr. Speaker, you can read the record from that committee to find out what I am talking about.
The chair said I was discussing matters which were not relevant to the motion and he gave another member the floor. I was not permitted to address the issue. I was not permitted to actually say anything. I do not know how he knew that what I was going to say was not going to be relevant. He just assumed that, I presume, because I happen to be a member of the governing party, which is in a minority in numbers in this place. He decided that he would just rule. Therefore, as a result of that, I was not able to address the issues.
I also want to point out to you, Mr. Speaker, and this is very important, that the chair of the committee took it upon himself to shut down debate in the committee. He was not able to do this within the rules. He did it outside the rules because, as you have said numerous times and until the rules are changed, the rules are that committees are masters of their own proceedings.
Committees have a lot of latitude with respect to their procedures, but I submit, not with respect to their mandates. They do not have that and so the motion that we are talking about here, of course in committee, directly impedes that mandate.
Notwithstanding that in the committee there had never been a motion that limited the length of speeches, he took it upon himself, without such a motion, to limit the length of speeches. 
That is a direct violation of my rights, my ability as a member of Parliament, to speak in committee or in the House. I would like to point out that in this particular committee no routine motion has ever been put which limited the number of speakers or length of speeches on these committees.
I have observed that whenever we are debating an issue here in the House, every time somebody is finished with their intervention, the Speaker says, “Resuming debate”. If no one stands, the Speaker usually says, “Resuming debate”, and if someone stands up, and the time limit in the House has not yet been reached, then the member has the freedom to speak.
The chair of this committee does not even follow those elementary procedures of a democratic debate. He just simply says, “Time's up”. Even though it is not part of my privilege, although it leads into it, the reason that I am raising this is because now my ability to bring my thoughts to the committee have in fact been ended. 
Yesterday, without any further notice, he just said he was calling the vote and even though other members were saying, “debate”, he refused to recognize them. He does not have the right to do that.
As I said, even in this House, the Speaker says, “Resuming debate”, and if someone rises they are given the opportunity to debate. It is only when no one rises that the Speaker asks, “Is the House ready for the question?”
The chair of this committee failed to do that. He did not ask if there was any further debate. In fact, there were a number of members who still wanted to speak. They were not given the right to speak because he shut it off and conducted the vote, which he knew would go that way.
It is not an impartial chair and it is one that has substantially reduced the right and the privileges of members to conduct a free and open debate.
I would like to say that, because the motion had never been carried, the chair is totally out of order. I would like to appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, to rule that I have a prima facie case of breach of privileges. If you so rule, I would be prepared to move the appropriate motion, so that it would go to the procedure and house affairs committee where these things go.
Charlie Angus: Mr. Speaker, at the outset I want to commend you for your great years of service in the House, and how frustrating it must be to have to sit and listen to such irrelevant topics day after day that come from these members. 
I am actually astounded that time is being taken up in the House listening to someone cry such sad crocodile tears. It is like two kids in the sandbox and one saying, “He took my toy”, and the other saying, “No, I didn't”. Canadians expect better of us.
The issue that we are dealing with is the ability of a committee to deal with the government's business. The member talked about how he was shut down because the chair said it was irrelevant. Committee members sat and listened to 20 minutes of absolutely irrelevant testimony from him about how his feelings were hurt. I say it is irrelevant because he must know the basic rules of Parliament.
The Speaker is not in a position to intervene, hold his hand, and take him back to the classroom and say, “Bad chair”. That is not the role of the Speaker. The member must know that there are certain rules of Parliament that go back hundreds of years that establish fair debate, so that a government party that is still, in his mind, a rump opposition cannot undermine the rules of Parliament. It cannot block committees day after day; it cannot filibuster week after week. 
We are talking about an unprecedented situation where a governing party has tried everything it can to shut down the work of Parliament. It keeps coming back to the fact that this is also a party that has been charged, after an RCMP raid, so questions have to be raised about the ethical nature of what was done.
I do not think I need to get into the whole very dubious and dodgy past of the Conservative Party with election spending. That is not the issue.
Thomas Mulcair:  It would take far too long. We don't have enough time.
Charlie Angus:  Yes. It would take us into mid-July and I think people want to get home.
I am asking the question of why he is taking up the time of Parliament in raising an absolutely irrelevant point? You know well, Mr. Speaker, that I am a great student of the rules of Parliament. The point of order has to be taken through the committee. It is not for him to cry to the principal that the teacher did something wrong in his classroom. The rules are very clear. They say:
 Unlike the Speaker, the Chair of a committee does not have the power to censure disorder or decide questions of privilege. Should a Member wish to raise a question of privilege in committee, or should some event occur in committee which appears to be a breach of privilege or contempt, the Chair of the committee will recognize the Member and hear the question of privilege, or in the case of some incident, suggest that the committee deal with the matter. 
This is to be dealt with by the committee and if the committee rules that there was an issue, the member quite rightly can bring it to the committee. Then it is brought to the Speaker and then the Speaker rules.
We have been seeing a bizarre filibuster in Parliament since 10 o'clock this morning where very important issues of parliamentary law have not been debated. The issue of nuclear liability, which the New Democratic Party is absolutely opposed to, has been completely shunted to the side. The bizarre airline safety bill, that the government has been trying to push through, has been shoved aside by the government and it has been bringing up irrelevant issues.
The question that we are dealing with is why the member is taking up the time of Parliament to cry foul over the government's filibustering techniques in a committee? Its track record has been that it basically shuts down committee after committee with the same kinds of shenanigans and, finally, a chair has to rule that there is a question of absolute irrelevancy in what it was speaking about.
I am sorry if his feelings were hurt, but this is the big boys' chamber. We are paid to be professionals, to stand and do our job. He knows full well, Mr. Speaker, that he cannot appeal to you to intervene. This is not the way Parliament works.
Perhaps there is a need for some parliamentary lessons over the summer. Maybe, through the wonderful clerk's office, members of Parliament could be offered, especially the Conservative backbenchers, a summer course where they could learn some of the basic rules of Parliament. 
It is a very good thing for all of us to learn. As someone who is into his second term of Parliament, I found the clerks to have been excellent at being able to show us, so we do not stand in the House and embarrass ourselves or our constituents.
At the end of the day, what has happened in the House has been a bizarre and useless filibuster by the Conservatives, keeping important and very controversial bills from coming forward at the end of a session.
However, it also undermines our parliamentary role here because we are seeing attempts to create ad hoc rulings, to change the hundreds of years of tradition in terms of how things are reported through the committees and then to the Speaker, and then asking the Speaker to unilaterally override the committee tradition, especially on a point where the committee was trying to do the work of Parliament. That is what I have to keep getting back to. This committee finally said that enough was enough, that it had heard all the irrelevant banter of the party that fundamentally was an opposition party, and that it needed to get down to the work of Parliament.
Mr. Speaker, you know the rules and you respect the rules and I do not think you will be swayed by such a maudlin display as what we have just seen from the member from Edmonton.
Mr. Speaker, I encourage you and your staff to have a wonderful summer. I know my colleagues in the Bloc also want to wish you a wonderful summer because you do take the brunt of having to listen to many parliamentary debates that are--
[Intervention]
An hon. member:  That is not a question of privilege.
[Interjection]
Charlie Angus: Yes, Mr. Speaker, it is a question of privilege, the privilege of serving in this House under you, Mr. Speaker, and I am thankful for that.
Pierre Poilievre: Mr. Speaker, I have before me some information that will be very troubling to you concerning the conduct of the chair of the Standing Committee on Ethics.
Before I go into that information, I would like to read a quote. In his ruling of May 5, 1987, Speaker Fraser stated:
 The privileges of a Member are violated by any action which might impede him or her in the fulfillment of his or her duties and functions. 
Today, I rise to inform you of such an incident where my privileges were violated by a chair who took action to impede me from fulfilling my duties and functions as an associate member of that committee.
The matter relates to a motion which was moved by--
The Speaker: I hesitate to interrupt the hon. member, but we are dealing with a question of privilege raised by the hon. member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park at this moment and this is a separate question of privilege. I think the member should restrict his remarks to the first privilege.
[Interjection]
Pierre Poilievre: Mr. Speaker, the incident in question occurred at the Standing Committee on Ethics. We have heard from the member from Alberta who has indicated that his rights and privileges as a member of Parliament were impeded by the actions of a chair who was willing to ignore the rules and overturn the ability of members to speak their minds and carry out their duties.
The member from Alberta explained earlier on that the chair prohibited him from speaking, but it was much worse than just speaking. The chair refused to even entertain amendments to the motion that was before the committee.
 Amendments are not only permitted but they are a regular, run-of-the-mill component of committee and parliamentary debate. I have almost never seen a document go through this place without being amended, but the chair of the ethics committee took the position that amendments were not allowed if they changed the motion.
If you look up the definition of an amendment, Mr. Speaker, without changing a motion, an amendment is not an amendment. An amendment by its very nature is a change. To amend is to change. The two words are synonymous.
In particular, the chair indicated that the motion, which sought to investigate the electoral practices of the Conservative Party, was allowed but that any amendment that would expand the motion to investigate the financial practices of his party or any opposition party was not allowed. He said that this was because his committee, the committee on ethics, was not allowed to study the actions of parties. However, the motion in question states explicitly that it wants to study the actions of the Conservative Party. It does not say that it wants to investigate the actions of Conservative public office holders but rather of the Conservative Party of Canada.
For the ethics committee chair to suggest that only one party can be investigated by his committee, infringes on the privileges of members of all political parties in this House. The privilege to which I speak now is the right to be treated equally, regardless of party affiliation. The chair of the committee indicated that only one party could be investigated and that all the other parties would be exempt from any scrutiny whatsoever.
It would have been unfair if committee members from the opposition had amassed their votes and suppressed the right of Conservative members to investigate the financial practices of all parties. That would have been unfair and wrong. However, the committee chair went even further than that when he said that it was not only the right of committee members to vote down such an inquiry of their finances, but that it was completely out of order for such an amendment to even be considered.
In other words, he structured the entire meeting in a way that would allow a motion to survive and pass only if it focused exclusively its scrutiny on the Conservative Party. In essence this is a partisan--
The Speaker: I hesitate to interrupt the hon. member again but it sounds to me as though he is arguing a point of order, not a question of privilege.
The question of what amendments or whatever are in order in a committee is not a matter of privilege. We are dealing with a question of privilege raised by the member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park which deals with his right to speak, freedom of speech. That is not the admissibility of amendments. Therefore, I hope the hon. member will move very quickly to deal with privilege, not a point of order.
[Interjection]
Pierre Poilievre: Mr. Speaker, you are right. If we were to focus on the admissibility of amendments then that would be traditionally a point of order. However, what I am dealing with here is the privilege of the member from Alberta to speak freely by amending a motion.
I will not focus any more on this point as I believe it has been well exhausted but I think you should note that that privilege, which is afforded to all members, to amend a motion was infringed upon by a heavily partisan chair bent on advancing his own partisan interest.
On the subject of the member's point of privilege, the member from Alberta is correct to say that he was not even capable of uttering a full sentence before being aggressively interrupted by a highly partisan chair who would abruptly push any member who tried to speak off the speaking list and silence them immediately.
I know the member from Alberta who spoke earlier to be a statesman of this House. He presented himself in the committee to make intelligent arguments on behalf of his constituents and advance careful consideration of a highly partisan motion. He was interrupted again and again by a chair who did not want that member to have his voice heard.
The chair has a right to his private opinion and, as we all know, the chair in this particular committee is heavily opinionated, which is his right, but it is not his right to impose his personal opinions and his personal urges on that committee. That is exactly what he did in denying the privileges of the hon. member from Alberta to speak his mind freely in that parliamentary setting.
I was present throughout and I can corroborate exactly what the member from Alberta indicated. I can say that my privileges were equally denied. I know we are not speaking of my privileges at this point but it is important to show that there is a pattern here. There is a pattern of behaviour on the part of that chair who refuses to permit members of the committee to carry out their work and to speak freely, which is a fundamental right of members of any committee.
As we move forward in this discussion, I think it will be found that this committee cannot go on functioning like this because it will deny members of the committee the privileges with which they were vested when they were elected by their constituents.
The chair might not be pleased or happy with the fact that members on this side were elected and given the privileges of parliamentarians, and it is his right to be displeased with the choice by Canadians in the last election, but it is not his right to take away their choice by silencing the members who Canadians have elected, which was exactly what he attempted to do when he silenced the member from northern Alberta and other members of the same committee.
The intention of Conservative members on the committee was to see a fulsome investigation of the financial practices of all political parties in this House, including our own. We are more than happy to defend and have our finances investigated, which was what the member was speaking about at the moment he was interrupted. This shows that the topic on which he was intervening was completely germane and, therefore, totally permissible in the committee context. He was indicating as well that he wanted to see an investigation of the Conservative practices in concert with a similar investigation of all parties.
If I may, Mr. Speaker, I will move to my final point by reiterating the words of one of your predecessors, Speaker Fraser. On the quote I raised earlier, I would like to unpackage it a little more. It states:
 The privileges of a Member are violated by any action which might impede him or her in the fulfillment of his or her duties and functions. 
Speaking in a parliamentary committee is a duty and a function of a parliamentarian. Were the member from Alberta to refuse to speak in committee, he would be abdicating his duty to represent his constituents. Were he to be prevented from speaking in that same committee, he would be deprived of his ability to carry out the functions of a member of Parliament.
 As such, it is not only permitted for him to speak, but it is essentially obligatory that he do speak. He was denied the right to do that. He was denied the right to carry out his functions and shoulder his duties when the chair slammed that gavel again and again with the fury and wrath of a northern Ontario thunderstorm. 
[Interjection]
Richard Nadeau: That is out of order.
[Interjection]
Pierre Poilievre: I can hear that there are other members who have that same wrath right now because they do not want any of these matters to be discussed.
Therefore, it is the duty of the Speaker of the House in extraordinary circumstances like these to intervene with the chair and indicate to him that he has neither the right nor the responsibility to silence members of the committee with whom he disagrees.
I would invite you, Mr. Speaker, to read the Standing Orders. We know that you are a master of those Standing Orders already, but if you would review them and then look at the comportment of this chair, you will find that he has acted in a way that is out of line with the Standing Orders and out of line with the privileges that are vested in that member through our traditions in this House.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, in addition to wishing you a good summer and saying that I hope you have a chance over the summer to reconnect with your friends in Kingston and indeed right across Canada, I would like to point out that you have set a tone of responsibility and parliamentary privilege in the House that no one has contested. However, it is being undermined by one of the chairs of the parliamentary committees. I invite you to remind him of the spirit and tone that you have set in the House.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I wish you and yours a terrific summer.
Thomas Mulcair: Mr. Speaker, after listening to the two previous government speakers, we cannot help but note that they seem to be having difficulty grasping the very notion of a question of privilege.
I would like to share with the House a document on House procedure. The document indicates just how important questions of privilege are. Any member who wishes to raise such a question of privilege must first convince you, Mr. Speaker, that his or her concern constitutes a question of privilege on the face of it—and the Latin expression prima facie, meaning at first glance, is often used. The document goes on to say that your only duty is to decide if the question raised by the member will take precedence over all other business of Parliament.
Elmer Driedger, a Canadian author who has written a number of texts on drafting and interpreting legislative instruments, has taught us the following cardinal rule: any interpretation of an act, regulation or the rules governing this deliberative assembly must take context into account. The context of a question of privilege cannot become a pretext for reraising a question regarding a lawful decision made by a parliamentary committee chair.
Mr. Speaker, I respectfully submit that that is exactly what the Conservatives are trying to do here today. For some time now, they have been raising a series of arguments that, when reduced to the simplest terms, are intended quite simply to undo the work of parliamentary committee members.
At first glance, in my opinion, it is not a prima facie matter of privilege and you should rule accordingly, Mr. Speaker.
Let us look at what it is all about. The government, even though a minority, nevertheless has all the rights, privileges and powers attributed to a government. As we know, unlike the American system, the members of the executive branch of our government sit at the same time here, in Parliament, in the legislative branch. The only time that the fact that we are elected, that we are parliamentarians, takes on its true meaning is when all four parties work together on a parliamentary committee. By electing a minority government, Canadian voters decided the following: henceforth, the government is to respect the will of the majority of voters.
After 10 hours of debate, the Chair of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics ruled that that was enough. He did not prohibit anyone from speaking. He said to the member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park and others that that was enough and that, as elected members—not the executive branch of government, not the cabinet—gathered around the table of a parliamentary committee, we would make decisions about the public interest. We made this decision together. The members had every opportunity to speak. They had the opportunity to make known their opinions over the ten hours.
It is not right that we should allow a filibuster, a term derived from the French word flibustier. The pirates are trying to take control of our ship and we should not let them. Respect for the fundamental rules of Parliament means that there is nothing more important than allowing parliamentarians to express themselves, that much is true. But we do not honour Parliament or its parliamentary committees by allowing individuals to repeat the same thing for 10 hours. 
Therefore, I submit to you that the only way to deal with the member's request is to reject it because, on the face of it, it is not a question of privilege, but an underhanded way of calling on you to review a decision duly made by the chair of a parliamentary committee that was supported by the majority of parliamentarians present who, in turn, represent the majority of Canadians. 
Navdeep Bains: Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the comments made by the member for Nepean—Carleton. Based on his remarks, I would like to ask him if he could table the book on dirty tricks that the government whip provided. That would really tell us what a partisan chair is all about. I want to put that on the record since those members talk about it so often.
The Speaker:  I do not think that is necessary for determining this question of privilege.
The hon. member for Louis-Hébert.
Mr. Luc Harvey (Louis-Hébert, CPC): Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak, because I was unable to do so yesterday.
At the meeting of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, I had indicated to the clerk and the chair that I intended to speak on the debate, on the motion and on the various amendments that had been proposed. I was on the list of members who wanted to speak, but I was never given the opportunity to say even “Mr. Chair”. My rights as a parliamentarian were ignored. I did not have the chance to utter a single word.
I do not yet have much experience as a member of Parliament, as I have been here for only two and a half years. But I do know one thing: a chair cannot limit members' speaking time as long as the committee has not agreed on a time limitation.
The second thing I have to say concerns repetition. Given that there was no vote on a time limitation and that I did not have time to utter a single word, how can anyone say I was repeating something that had already been said?
I recently visited some African countries where individuals' right to speak had been taken away.
[Intervention]
Some hon. members:  Oh, oh!
Luc Harvey:  You see how they react when we talk about democracy, when we talk about respect for others. They have zero respect, just as they have zero achievements. They have no respect. All they do is make personal attacks on other people.
I just wanted to say that denying me the right to speak—I was not allowed to say one word, which violated my rights as a parliamentarian—showed a total lack of respect for my constituents, the people I represent here in Ottawa. That is completely unacceptable.
The Speaker: I think that the chair has heard enough. However, before ruling, I must hear from one more member—the committee chair, who is not here today. This is obviously a question of privilege that concerns his actions in committee.
However, I would draw hon. members' attention to a ruling I made on June 12, 2003, concerning privilege in committee. While I am not citing this as the final authority at the moment on this issue, I would point out that I said at that time:
 Our parliamentary system is predicated on freedom of thought and expression and indeed encourages active debate. I would remind hon. members that conflict and differences of opinion are inherent in the work we do as members of Parliament. On the other hand, members are expected to conduct themselves with decorum and to show respect for their colleagues in committee just as they are in this place. Establishing and maintaining a working environment in committee that respects both these principles is entirely within the responsibility of the committee and its members. 
 While it is regrettable that there continues to be tension between members of the standing committee, I would point out once again that there has been no report from the committee. Therefore, the matter remains one which, in the first instance, the committee itself must deal with. 
I am not saying those words apply fully to the case before us because I have not heard everything about it, but I point those out to hon. members, and it may help later.
The hon. member for Burnaby--New Westminster is rising on a point of order.
Points of OrderPeter Julian: Mr. Speaker, you will recall that this morning, now many hours ago, it seems, I rose on points of order at the same time as the House leader for the Conservative Party. You chose to hear the House leader first. He raised his point of order and subsequent to that we have had a discussion.
I want to raise a very brief point of order and go beyond the thanking of the pages that was held yesterday. A number of representatives from a number of different parties expressed their support and their thanks for the good work that the pages do in the House. 
On behalf of the NDP, I would like to broaden that thanks to all parliamentary personnel: the bus drivers who drive the green buses that take us around Parliament Hill; the individuals who do the cleaning and cooking on Parliament Hill; and the custodians. All of these individuals do a tremendous job in our community. When we are away from home, as we are in virtually all cases except for representatives from the national capital region, they ensure that we feel very much at home, and we do so because of all of their efforts and all of their work. 
On behalf of the NDP caucus, I will say that I am sure members from all four corners of the House will join us in thanking all the personnel on Parliament Hill.

Routine Proceedings
Conflict of Interest CodeThe Speaker: Pursuant to section 90(1)(a) of the Parliament of Canada Act, it is my duty to present to the House the Annual Report of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner on activities in relation to the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2008.
Government Response to PetitionsGuy Lauzon: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to seven petitions.
Special Import Measures ActNavdeep Bains:  moved for leave to introduce Bill C-574, An Act to amend the Special Import Measures Act (environmental costs).
Mr. Speaker, this bill would help to make it easier for Canadian companies to compete globally by complying with our environmental legislation and regulations. It would ensure that foreign companies that export to Canada are penalized when their home governments refuse to enforce their own environmental laws in order to subsidize their products when cases of dumping are considered.
Conversely, the bill would ensure that Canadian companies that comply with Canada's environmental laws and regulations would have those costs considered as part of their costs of production in dumping cases. My bill would provide clarity to the government and would protect Canadian companies from outsourcing carbon emissions, which do not respect national borders.
This bill would help to build a strong green economy for the 21st century.
 (Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed) 
Criminal CodeMarlene Jennings:  moved that Bill S-209, An Act to amend the Criminal code (protection of children), be read the first time. 
It is quite an honour for me to sponsor Bill S-209 in the House. The bill would repeal section 43 of the Criminal Code. Section 43 of the Criminal Code provides the justification available to school teachers, parents and persons standing in the place of parents to use force as a means of correction toward a pupil or a child under their care.
Growing numbers of countries have removed the availability of corporal punishment to children. As well, Canada signed and ratified the Convention on the Rights of Children in 1991, which calls on all state parties, which includes Canada, to take all appropriate legislative measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury, abuse and so on.
A longitudinal study in Canada on children shows that children who are subjected to corporate punishment show behavioural problems, including aggression toward other children and bullying toward other children.
I call on the members in the House to support the repeal of section 43 of the Criminal Code and protect our children.
 (Motion agreed to and bill read the first time) 
Committees of the HouseJames Rajotte: Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations with all parties and I believe if you were to seek it, you would find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:
 That, at any time the House stands adjourned during June or July, the Standing Committee on Health or the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development has ready a report, when that report is deposited with the Clerk, it shall be deemed to have been duly presented to the House. 

The Speaker: Does the hon. member for Edmonton—Leduc have the unanimous consent of the House to propose this motion?
[Intervention]
Some hon. members:  Agreed.
The Speaker:  The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
[Intervention]
Some hon. members:  Agreed.
The Speaker: (Motion agreed to)
Mr. Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I move that the third report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, presented on Monday, January 28, be concurred in.
I want to thank my colleague from British Columbia for seconding the motion.
The report was tabled in the House of Commons just after the new year. It was an interim report by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development with regard to Afghanistan.
It is important to note that the motion just adopted will allow our committee's report to be tabled when it is finalized, hopefully within a couple of weeks. This is the interim report of the final report. 
We have studied the issue of our country's involvement in Afghanistan for the better part of a year at the foreign affairs committee. My predecessor, the member for Halifax, brought forward a motion for a study on Afghanistan. Then the House was prorogued. I became the member on the committee for our party and put a motion forward to continue to work that had been done. 
We then had the opportunity to table an interim report. It was important for the committee to bring forward the evidence we had heard from witnesses at committee before the Manley report ideally, but also before we had the motion in the House to extend the war in Afghanistan.
Recent reports from Afghanistan show that we have been unable to provide a sufficient foreign policy framework to deal with the complexities of the war in Afghanistan.
The motion to extend the war in Afghanistan, which passed in the House thanks to the government and the official opposition party, missed, and continues to be an empty space, how we could get out of this military and counter-insurgency war-making approach and move toward something that would bring peace to the people of Afghanistan.
At committee, and in the report tabled, it was clear from all the witnesses, in fact there was a consensus, from the military and the people working on peace and development to the voice of every day Afghans and others, that the situation in Afghanistan could not be won militarily. Everyone agreed with that.
It is strange in many ways that while there is consensus that on the one hand everyone believes there is not a military solution to the war in Afghanistan, the motion put forward by the government, with the help of the opposition Liberal Party, focused on military solutions.
 The only concrete things in the motion are more troops, more helicopters and more drones. Everything else has been vapid and vague, nothing that will help move toward peace and development in Afghanistan. I say that more in sadness than in anger. Sadness, because Canadians and others in the global community would like to see Canada take a role in pushing peace and moving out of the counter-insurgency approach, this kind of one-size-fits-all military approach.
We heard from people who were well experienced in diplomacy. We heard from former diplomats and from advisers, and Seddiq Weera comes to mind, to the Afghan government about where we were at in the war in Afghanistan. It was absolutely clear that to continue this kind of approach from a military perspective would not make matters better. In fact, it would make matters worse, and further to that, it would matters worse in the long run.
Seddiq Weera provided an analysis that was important. Remember, he is an Afghan, presently advising the Afghan government. He said that if we were to view Afghanistan right now, we should view it through the lens of a civil war that had taken place.
If we go back to the period to when the Soviets left up until 9/11, there was still an ongoing civil war. Many of us we should understand that the way this war has been cast is it simply the Taliban versus the rest of the world. It is not the case on the ground.
Other than the Taliban, very different groupings are at play within Afghanistan such as other insurgents, warlords and regional powers. His point was that Canada had decided to lay hands on one group in the civil war over the other. He encouraged Canada to take a different role in this whole conflict, to push reconciliation and peace, to ensure that the approach we took would not be that one side was the right side and the other was not. That is very different from how the government and others see the war in Afghanistan.
 Mr. Weera went on to say that to change things on the ground in Afghanistan, instead of only making solutions that were top down, we needed start at the bottom and go up. He gave a couple of things that he thought would be helpful.
Going to the ground level was one, whether it be in the south or other regions within Afghanistan, and building what he called peace capacity, in other words, how to get some of the issues solved. Some of these issues have to do with conflicts over water, resources, boundaries of farmland, et cetera. These issues go back beyond 1992 when the civil war raged after the Soviet Union left.
He believes this approach is the art of the possible. He believes these conflicts can be solved right now. They have nothing to do with the war as we see it our TVs, the conflict between the Taliban and NATO and OEF. We do not see that kind of diplomatic peace building approach from our government.
We heard testimony at committee from people like Mr. Weera who said that we should approach these. Why? Because these can be dealt with right now. There are prospects for peace, believe it or not, right now in Afghanistan.
 I would simply also underline the importance of how we do development. As recent as last week, the government, and it was definitely a political decision, said that we would focus more of our development in the region of Kandahar, which is very troubling. We would go from 17% of our development dollars spent in Kandahar to 50%.
It is important to note that CIDA has had difficulty finding partners to do development in Kandahar because of the conflict. It is passing strange then, if we have had problems with development dollars in Kandahar, that the government would politically choose to take 50% of our development dollars and posit them in Kandahar. It underlines the point that Mr. Manley talked about in his report, and that is the issue of signature projects. Others have come before the foreign affairs committee and talked about that as well.
We are going down the path of signature projects at a time when we should be going the other way. Granted, there are important infrastructure projects to be done, but they need not be done under the guise of Canada delivering these projects to Afghans. They should be done by the Afghan people. Signature projects, as we have learned recent articles in the Globe and Mail, the Ottawa Citizen and other Canwest papers, will attract more trouble.
In fact, if we look at the issue of the pipeline, that has not been sufficiently debated in this House. I brought it up before. It is now getting some attention. That is the natural gas pipeline going from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan. It can become a security problem for all of us. It is these signature projects, the big projects, which I believe are the targets for people like the Taliban. 
They are building targets. Why? The signature projects are being used by insurgents, by the Taliban, as targets of what they would call imperialism or intervention for their own propaganda. Of course I would disagree with the concept of what we trying to do, but the outcome is what we have to look at.
Instead of these big signature projects the government wants us to engage in, which become targets for the Taliban and others, we should be employing as many Afghans as we can, at their level, with the requisite technology that they have. We should not be hiring big contractors who basically suck money right out of Afghanistan, which goes to other capitals around the world. Make no mistake, that is exactly what is happening with a lot of our aid. That is what these signature projects do.
There are some models in Afghanistan presently. The national solidarity project, which we have funded to some extent, shows how decisions can be made at the local level, employ people at the local level and benefit people at the local level.
 We heard this at committee. This evidence is in front of the committee. I was in Afghanistan recently and there was a clear message from the president right through to the regional counsellors that they did not want to see more contractors coming in to build big projects. What they wanted to see was a maximum number of Afghans being employed.
It is passing strange. We heard this from Afghans. We heard this evidence at committee. We heard from experts. The consensus is that we should be moving away from these large signature projects and moving into community based decision making, getting into development that leads to security, because when Afghans build it themselves, they own it. We have evidence that those projects are more secure. The Taliban will not go after those projects. Yet our government says, “No, we know better. We are going to move our aid, which was 17% dedicated to Kandahar, to 50%”. I cannot comprehend what the government is trying to achieve here, other than for its own purposes of trying to win the hearts and minds of Canadians as opposed to the hearts and minds of Afghans.
It was also brought forward at committee the importance of having a diplomatic part to our mission in Afghanistan. It troubles me to say this, having just returned from the region. The men and women who are charged with and responsible for the mission there, the military, are doing the best they can. They are working very hard. There are approximately 2,500 troops. However, what I did not see on the ground was a sufficient number of people who were involved in diplomacy and building the capacity for peace and reconstruction.
What I found interesting was what the government now calls the whole of government approach. It has moved from the three Ds and now we have the whole of government approach, and I am sure in a couple of weeks we will have new nomenclature to fit the needs of the political agenda. The whole of government approach was pitched as being the way to bring all partners together so that, being equal, they would have joint leadership. The power would be distributed among all and this would be a better model.
Like many things regarding theory and practice, in practice what I have found is that the team, as they call it, on the ground consists of DFAIT, of course, and yes, there is the military. There are CIDA folks there as well. Interestingly, there are also representatives from the U.S. state department. This is on the Canadian org charts that are handed out. U.S. state department officials are there. They are people from USAID who are there and people who are mentoring the police from the U.S.
 I mention this because most Canadians are not aware of the fact that when we talk about the whole of government approach at committee, and the government uses that term, it is not the whole of Canadian government working with the Afghans. It is the whole of the integration of Americans and Canadians on the ground now in Kandahar. I was more than surprised to find out this was happening. 
Further to that, the Americans have a separate parallel mission, which is their insurance that they are the ones running the show in the region of Kandahar. That is Operation Enduring Freedom. One wonders, if this is the UN sanctioned NATO mission that everyone likes to refer to, why at the same time is there a separate parallel mission going on by the United States? Why is Operation Enduring Freedom still going? Remember that Operation Enduring Freedom was supposed to be there initially, as is said in the American vernacular in a kind of cowboy rhetoric, get the bad guys and clear them out.
That was supposed to end as the UN ISAF forces moved in. It was supposed to fade away. I want to underline that this is not happening. I was surprised to see that not only is Operation Enduring Freedom still going strong as a separate American mission, separate from the United Nations ISAF, but they are actually integrated into some of the work that we are doing on the ground vis-à-vis financing the training of the police in Afghanistan to the tune of $8 billion. Again, I have no idea why our people are working with Operation Enduring Freedom programs and why Operation Enduring Freedom, which is a military mission, is responsible for training the police which has been hands down one of the biggest challenges in Afghanistan.
We see that this has morphed into something else. This is always trumpeted and underlined by the government as a UN sanctioned NATO ISAF mission, which in part it is, but the government forgets to tell us about the other part, which is the direction the American mission Operation Enduring Freedom is providing, not just on the military side, and again I find it surprising that it is not talked about, but on the training and funding of police. Why is that the case? Why are we doing that? It leads to the Americans not only funding the training of police, but also directing the mission.
The committee report showed from witnesses the need for Canada to change direction. It showed the need for Canada to abandon this military imposed solution, which is no solution at all. It showed that Canada needs to reclaim its voice. Instead of just carrying alongside Operation Enduring Freedom and saying, “Yes sir, three bags full, sir”, we need to ensure that we have an independent foreign policy that will actually provide stability. This is not about bringing democracy to Afghanistan. Any day of the week we get a different answer from the government about why we are there. Sometimes it is that we are bringing democracy to Afghanistan, or education to women and girls. Every day it is a new thing. It is about providing stability.
What we need to see from the government is an acknowledgement of what others have already said and that is to change direction, embrace the notion of peace building and for goodness' sake, get on our own feet with our own independent foreign policy.
Thomas Mulcair: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my knowledgeable colleague to further explain the fact that there are two military operations going on at the same time. The one we often talk about is run by NATO and the UN. In addition, in the aftermath of September 11, the Americans launched Operation Enduring Freedom.
Could he explain what problems this causes for a country like Canada, which has a proud history of peacekeeping throughout the world? How did we get involved in something where the Americans are carrying out what they call “search and destroy” missions? Have Canadian soldiers been sent on the same missions? We are not going to see that on our public television. The only way Canadians found out what was going on was when French television crews filmed the Canadian army doing it.
I would like my colleague to explain some of the problems this causes, not only for Canada's image, but also for any real possibility of working towards overall peace in Afghanistan.
[Interjection]
Paul Dewar: Mr. Speaker, I will tell my colleague from Outremont that what Canadians do not realize is that on the ground, beyond the spin and the flow charts the government provides us, the evidence is that we have a parallel mission of Operation Enduring Freedom in funding, training and continuing with its approach, which is to search and kill. This is important to underline.
I asked a question of President Karzai when we met with him just over a week ago. I asked him if he was concerned with the tactics of the Americans vis-à-vis their air strikes and what they are doing to villages, be it in Kandahar or throughout the country. Colleagues from the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois and the Liberal Party were present. Unequivocally, he said, absolutely, what they are doing is creating more harm. That was said by the president of Afghanistan. He was imploring us to have the Americans to change their method.
His hands are tied because in Operation Enduring Freedom the Americans are off doing their own thing without any oversight. We know they answer to the commander in chief and we know about his success in foreign affairs. He has done just a great job in Iraq and is pursuing the same kinds of procedure, process and tactics in Afghanistan.
Let us make no mistake about it. The effects of the American tactics are affecting what we are doing there. The equation is much more complicated than what the government is providing. It is important for Canadians to know that. 
I know that our men and women would prefer to pursue an independent Canadian strategy rather than have this parallel effect, this spillover or Doppler effect, that is happening in Afghanistan. I think Canadians need to know that.
 The government has to be more truthful about it. When Canadians find out, I think they will be even less supportive than they already are of this mission in Afghanistan.
Charlie Angus: Mr. Speaker, I had the great honour to be raised by my grandmother, who grew up in the Hawkhill slums in Dundee, Scotland. Again and again, my grandmother used to tell me the stories of the British army coming in and taking her cousins, her neighbours and every boy in her neighbourhood. She said they all went to the Somme and never came home again. From day one, she said, “If anybody tells you to rally around the flag and ask no questions, that is the time to start asking them”. 
I raise that story because I was in the House the night of the debate on Afghanistan. We asked simple questions, such as, “Where are the allies?” The Conservative government called us 21st century Neville Chamberlains. They chanted slogans like “boots on the ground”. They said that they did not “cut and run”. 
With the member for Central Nova coming from Nova Scotia, which has a good maritime tradition, I thought he would understand the meaning of the term “cut and run”. People cut and run when their ship is anchored and they are in a storm. They have to cut the anchor and run before the wind. Otherwise, they run onto the rocks. Therefore, a captain who says he will not cut and run is a captain who is not fit for command, because he is running his crew straight onto the rocks.
When we were asking simple questions about Operation Enduring Freedom, we were hearing “we don't cut and run”, which obviously means the government was running into a very bad situation but was too bullheaded to turn around. When we ask questions, which is part of our job as opposition members, we are denounced and shouted down as being unpatriotic and not willing to rally around the flag.
 We asked those questions. We asked where the allies were. Six months later, the government asked, “Where are the allies?” We asked questions about Operation Enduring Freedom, its search and destroy mission and how it is destabilizing the reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. The government said we were all friends of the Taliban.
Now we are seeing it. When the member spoke with the president of Afghanistan and asked him about the search and destroy mission, the president shared the same concerns we have. Why is it, does the member think, that the Conservative government continues to move in such a wrong-headed direction, one that is actually sending the ship straight toward the rocks?
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau): I hope the hon. member for Ottawa Centre can give a short reply so members from other parties can ask questions.
[Interjection]
Paul Dewar: Mr. Speaker, I will do my best, as always. 
I also thank my colleague from Timmins for clarifying for members of the Commons, particularly on the government side, the history of the term “cut and run” and what it means.
The problem here is, which was in the Manley report, that the report stated, “For whatever reason--”, which, I think, was a deliberate choice of words, “--we ended up in Kandahar”.
I think that was instructive because the previous government had no clue as to what we would do when we got there. We still have problems in understanding what we are doing there.
Therefore, what do we do? We fall back on the people who are already there. I can predict that we will see more of this influence. This will not be a NATO mission any more. This will wholeheartedly become an American-led mission. We see that and we see it in very direct ways.
Pat Martin: Mr. Speaker, I simply want to point out that I appreciated hearing my colleague from Timmins—James Bay recount the wisdom that his grandmother shared with him. 
I too would like to begin my comment and then my question by saying that my father volunteered to go to the second world war in 1939. He stayed for the whole term and ended up coming home in late 1945. 
The second world war had the country seized for what seemed like an eternity but in actual fact was six years. We have been in Afghanistan longer than my father was away in the second world war, a war that engaged the entire world and almost levelled Europe.
We need to ask ourselves the same questions that we began asking in 2001-02, which I remember well. The questions we were putting to the government about our engaged in Afghanistan were: How how long will we be there; what is the end strategy and what is the yardstick by which we will measure progress? Those seemed like reasonable and simple questions. If the government were asking us to engage in an open war, then it would seem reasonable that it could at least answer those three questions clearly. 
Could the member share with me at this point in time, seven years later, whether we any closer to answers on those three basic questions?
[Interjection]
Paul Dewar: Mr. Speaker, no, we do not have any clarity on that. All we have is the government being supported by the opposition to carry this on until 2011. 
We talk about the commitment of the second world war, in which my father served and both of my grandfathers served in the first world war. They served with honour.
The problem the government has is that it does not really know why we are there and it does not have a plan about where we are going, which is deeply disturbing because Conservatives have been in government for a couple of years and the previous government had its turn.
The questions are still the same: What is it that we are trying to achieve there, how long will we be there and what is the measure of success? That has been elusive for the government. Canadians are losing trust in the government because it cannot answer those basic questions that I think every Canadians, particularly those who serve in the military, need to know.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau): Resuming debate. The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs has the floor for 20 minutes, including 2 minutes today.
[Interjection]
Thomas Mulcair: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I was clearly standing before the parliamentary secretary. You noticed, yet you still gave him the floor.
 I would like to know under which Standing Order you made that decision.
[Interjection]
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau): The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and to the Minister of International Cooperation has the floor for two minutes.
Mr. Deepak Obhrai (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and to the Minister of International Cooperation, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the member asked what Canadians need to know and I would like to tell the House what Canadians need to know. Aside from this absolutely idiotic nonsense, I want to ask him this question. Why is he abusing the privileges of the Parliament of Canada?
I will explain what I am talking about. The report that the member is talking about is a preliminary report that was done by the foreign affairs committee and tabled in January. From January until the day before yesterday, we had a final report. That member was a part of the report, which has 37 recommendations that will be tabled here.
With regard to all this nonsense that the member is talking about, he had ample opportunity in that report which will be tabled and will be the final report. Why did he not put all those recommendations in that final report? That report will be tabled here, which is the right place and the right way to do it as a parliamentarian. He is abusing his privileges because he wants to talk about his rhetoric that he did not say when the whole committee made its recommendations.
If he has a problem, like all his colleagues, why did they not put that in the minority report that will be tabled in two weeks time in the House. Why is the member and his colleagues abusing the time we have in this Parliament where we could be debating more important issues, like the carbon tax or something like that which is relevant here.
The member had the opportunity. He had the floor but refused to do anything and now he is abusing his privileges with the absolute nonsense that he is talking about.
The second factor is that the Parliament of Canada has spoken--
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau): I would like to remind the hon. parliamentary secretary that the Speaker is standing and that is a good time for him to sit.
It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings on the motion at this moment. Accordingly, the debate on the motion will be rescheduled for another sitting at which time there will still be 18 and a half minutes left for the hon. parliamentary secretary.
In reponse to the point of order raised by the hon. member for Outremont, I recognized the parliamentary secretary instead of the hon. member because it was his turn to speak. 
It being 1:31 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

Private Members' Business
Early Learning and Child Care Act[Stage Direction]
(Bill C–303. On the Order: Private Members' Business:) 
 November 21, 2007--Third reading of Bill C-303, An Act to establish criteria and conditions in respect of funding for early learning and child care programs in order to ensure the quality, accessibility, universality and accountability of those programs, and to appoint a council to advise the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development on matters relating to early learning and child care--the member for Victoria. 

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau): The hon. member for Victoria is not present to move the order as announced in today's notice paper. Accordingly, the bill will be dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper.
[Interjection]
Rodger Cuzner: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Seeing that there will be no private members' bills going forward and that the members in the House today are so anxious to get back and serve their good constituents in their respective ridings, might the House see the clock as 2:30 p.m.?
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau): The hon. member for Cape Breton--Canso has made a good offer and he will be happy to know that he does not even need to make the offer. I would like to share with him a moment of levity from yesterday. At 5:30 p.m. the hon. chief opposition whip rose to ask us to see the clock at 6:30 p.m and I almost asked the House if I could get a better offer, but now we have it.
I would like to wish you a good summer.
 I want to convey to you an invitation that comes from the Speaker. He is waiting for you in Room 216 where he would like to wish you a happy summer personally.
It being 1:33 p.m., the House stands adjourned until Monday, September 15, 2008 at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Orders 28(2) and 24(1).
(The House adjourned at 1:33 p.m.)
The Second Session of the 39th Parliament was dissolved by Royal Proclamation on September 7, 2008.