Elizabeth May
Saanich—Gulf Islands, British Columbia · Green Party · Canada
“It is easy to roll out solar panels, except that our provincial utilities get in the way. In any case, the cheapest source of electricity, reducing the cost for everyone, would come from focusing on renewable electricity. I do think there is some promise, although it needs a lot of work.”
“We are the only party in the House that does not receive a penny of support from the parliamentary budget, being both unrecognized and unfavoured. I am glad my colleagues from the NDP received funding to make up for what they lost when they ceased to be a recognized party. I have less money, but I am here, and I am not alone.”
“When it became clear that children were dying of Reye syndrome in New Brunswick because of forest aerial spraying by the forest industry. He stated, “I don't like to see people dying. This is one of the things I really wouldn't like to see.”
“That is not the only thing I want to concentrate on, although I will take most of the time, and I am grateful for the chance to speak to this bill now, finally, in this place. Regarding the removal of the excise tax, I have asked before about this in question period.”
“There is not even a link in the language used within the spring economic statement, the budget itself or Bill C-30, but it clearly, by inference, rests on this assumption: More pesticides are going to reduce food prices and help the economy. That is a leap. Let us say that is wrong, based on the evidence, in two ways.”
“Mr. Speaker, the hon. parliamentary secretary is a friend, so when I say a friend, it is not just rhetoric, but I am disappointed. When Bill C-30 was first tabled, I asked the hon.”
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“In any case, what we have here is not just an imperfect bill but a potentially dangerous bill. We are now down to the final moments. The clock is ticking, and the words of experts from across Canada are being shut out because the government has determined it will move forward with Bill C-22 . That is why we have a programming motion, to make sure that we do not have any further debate on the amendments that have been put forward by members of the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois, the Greens and the New Democrats. We are in a hurry. (2050) Again, I have to push back and ask why. What is the hurry? What is the rush? As a reminder, the first attempt the government made to bring forward lawful access was in the very outrageously overreaching Bill C‑2 a year ago. A year has passed.”
“If it were not for the motions that were passed by committees, without thinking about them, taking away the rights of smaller parties, I would have the right to put forward amendments at report stage. I do not have that right at report stage only because I have been given this so-called opportunity to work really, really hard to bring forward amendments that give me the ability to sit in a room and not speak for days at a time, hoping for the chance to speak to the one or two amendments that I had brought forward. I want to thank my hon. colleague from Vancouver East , from the New Democratic Party, because she is in the same boat and she brought forward many more amendments to Bill C-22 than I brought forward on Bill C-22. I think I was too busy trying to write amendments on Bill C-30 .”
“colleague on the other side the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance knows well, we had a very lengthy filibuster on Bill C-30 in the finance committee. I sat through those evenings waiting for the chance to speak to my amendments. As I mentioned earlier, motions are passed by committees as if they are normal, and they are not normal at all, but the longer they are used, I guess, the more that future committees will just assume, as every committee did after this last election, that it is just normal to take away the rights of the smaller parties so that the larger parties do not have to fuss with them at report stage. That is the case.”
“His conclusion is that “the government’s disregard for facts and privacy is fast becoming Bill C-22's legacy.” Now, the criticisms come, again, from a broad sweep of legal, privacy and tech experts. They are not all the same. I practised law, and technology is not my area. I would not put myself out there as an expert in technology, though I read deeply. I am concerned about constitutional rights and privacy as a former practising lawyer, but it would seem to me that anyone with a background in the various areas that are touched by Bill C-22 would want to take the time to get it right. There have been things claimed, like that all our Five Eyes partners have legislation just like Bill C-22 . That has been debunked by numerous experts. We have been told that it was wrong to take a long time in committee. Obviously, as my hon.”
“He pointed out that what he sees being spread by the government benches could be described as misinformation, mischaracterization, overly broad definitions and a failure to be precise in areas where one really has to be precise. I am just going to quote from a blog he posted recently: “The political pressure against Bill C-22 has been steadily mounting, with the opposition parties,” as we can see, all the opposition parties in this place, “tech companies, and privacy experts, all increasingly” concerned about the need to amend this bill, increasingly concerned that all the government seems to have in response to the criticisms are, in his words, “misleading or inaccurate claims with little in the way of an actual defence” based on the facts.”
“(2045) There was an article just yesterday by Professor Cynthia Khoo, who is a professor at University of Toronto and a senior fellow at The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. She is an expert in both technology and privacy areas. Her conclusion was that “Ottawa should reject any data-sharing arrangement that allows U.S. law enforcement to access Canadians' personal information”. This is based on recent research within The Citizen Lab that the regime for surveillance being established by Bill C-22 could provide easy access for, for instance, U.S. homeland security to the private information of Canadians. I know the government benches have heard, and do not want to hear anything more, from Professor Michael Geist, who is, again, a prominent critic of Bill C-22 , starting with his opposition to Bill C-2 .”
“I will skip ahead to their conclusion, which reads: ...provisions of the bill as currently drafted raise serious constitutional concerns and fail to strike a reasonable balance between the legitimate needs of law enforcement and the privacy rights of Canadians. Again, these are not the voices of people who have been misinformed through social media. These are people of depth, knowledge and experience, and they are very concerned. One of Canada's premier policy wonk magazines is Policy Options, and I do not speak of it pejoratively here. Policy Options is not something one would pick up in the supermarket, such as “inquiring minds want to know”. Policy Options is serious.”
“A significant number of respected law professors and experts in privacy law and constitutional law wrote, as recently as last month, to most of the cabinet to express their deep concerns about Bill C-22 . I think it is important to say that people are not just partisan here. Certainly law professors are not, and they acknowledge that they see the improvement over Bill C-2 in a number of areas. I will read from the letter, which was signed by 20 or 30 law professors from across Canada, and it is dated May 4, so anyone who is looking for it can find it. It reads: We write as lawyers and law professors who teach and practice in the areas of privacy law and constitutional rights....”
“I try to be as non-partisan as possible, but I could not see any problem with getting the expertise of the Privacy Commissioner in the room as members were discussing and debating the impact of Bill C-22 and whether some amendments should work and how they should work, but the idea that the Privacy Commissioner should be in the room was rejected. I could not see, in any world, where that would not have been seen as helpful, but it was rejected. I had some amendments before the committee. We will get to them later this evening. I do not think it is anything but a foregone conclusion that the motion before us is going to pass, but I lament that we have seen the government, and it is a pattern, moving very fast and passing legislation despite significant concerns from significant quarters.”
“As we craft a lawful access regime, we are going to really listen and we are not going to assume we have it right because we are right, or because we have the majority, so we are right.” This has been very difficult to observe. Certainly, in committee, I have to say that I was surprised. I was taken aback when a reasonable request to have before the public safety committee the Privacy Commissioner, who had raised concerns, was rejected. We had a lot of witnesses there who represented government agencies and law enforcement to provide technical background.”
“In this case, it is taking its third run at it. This lawful access regime has many improvements over the lawful access regime of Bill C-2 . There is no question and no doubt. There have been significant changes, and I think every group that was in the original coalition opposing Bill C-2 has said that Bill C-22 is much better. We have fewer problems with it, but there are still very serious problems, which is why it is lamentable that we were not able to have the kind of conversation one would have with a government that was more comfortable in its skin to say that it made a mistake with Bill C-2 . Such a government would say, “We pushed too hard, too far, too fast. Now we are going to listen to people.”
“This is a phrase we will hear from the opposition members tonight, and we have it heard it often: pushed through, rushed through. (2040) This is not hyperbole from opposition members. I am an experienced member of Parliament. I have been here 15 years, and I am honoured to have been so, but to my hon. colleagues in the government party on the other benches, it has been a shock to see how often we see these things. When mistakes are identified, previous governments have been more willing to say, “Ah, we have a mistake and we are going to have to rethink this. This is a mistake, and we are going to amend the bill. We are going to say where we made the mistake and how we are going to change it.” The government is quite unusual in not admitting mistakes, but it will bring in a different bill that does some of the same things.”
“The whole time we were thinking that at least we had avoided the surveillance concerns, the privacy concerns and the overreach concerns that were evident in the original Bill C‑2 , the strong borders act, but come March 12, 2026, we had the bill that is before us tonight, Bill C‑22 . Again, it is the government's, at this point, third run at crafting a bill that deals with lawful access. I will give them this: Bill C‑12 actually avoided the lawful access sections and just focused on the portions that affected refugee rights. That one still grieves me, the fact that we had Bill C‑12 pushed through to final stages on a unanimous consent motion in this place last June. I really still regret it very much that it was pushed through.”
“It then brought in Bill C-12 , which had most of what was in the strong borders act, and left Bill C-2 on the Order Paper while continuing to force through Bill C-12. Time will tell when Bill C-12 will be challenged in the courts globally because it violates our charter commitments to the protection of refugee rights. I speak of that in terms of the global convention on refugees. It may also offend the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but I am speaking globally. It pulled that protection out from under people who had expectations. They had expectations of being in Canada but did not know their access to claiming refugee rights would be taken away so abruptly. In any case, this has been bizarre. We had Bill C-2 staying on the Order Paper, and we had Bill C-12 , which was largely language from Bill C-2, being pushed through.”
“There was so much opposition to Bill C‑2 . When we came back in the fall, I thought to myself that the bill, over the course of the summer, had been dumped and replaced as we now had Bill C‑12 . It is not a completely different bill. It is largely the same chunks of language that were in the strong borders act, Bill C‑2, taking out the parts that were an overreach into privacy, for instance, the sections originally in Bill C‑2 that said that postal workers could open the mail and such things. There were a number of examples that got dropped. The thing that is unusual about this, and I know it is complicated and I know the hour is late, but why would a government introduce a bill, which is widely panned, and then bring in a different bill, as opposed to amending the bill it already had on the Order Paper? I have not seen this before.”
“I have been very concerned, from the very beginning, which was June 2025's tabling of Bill C‑2 , the so-called strong borders act, there was an astonishing, broad, deep coalition of groups, over 300, that came together to oppose the bill on many grounds relating to human rights, as well as to privacy and overreach. Again, I just want to preface my discussion of Bill C‑22 by placing it, for citizens watching this, in the context of how we moved away from Bill C‑2, the strong borders act, which was strongly opposed, in June 2025. I do not think I have ever seen quite a diverse coalition. Certainly there are some bills that invite a lot of organizations to get involved and individual citizens to get involved. There was a breadth and a depth here that was certainly unusual. The government realized it was in trouble.”
“Madam Speaker, I am rising at this hour to speak to the programming motion on Bill C‑22 . I have heard the speeches of a number of colleagues in this place with whom I agree, particularly my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party. As I explained earlier, in an answer to an earlier discussion with the hon. member for Vancouver East , the position we were in was not as members of the committee but as members of Parliament with the right to participate in the development of amendments. As we were not full members of the committee, our participation in the public safety committee, and when I speak of “we”, I mean the member for Vancouver East and me, was more limited than that of members who are full members of the committee.”
“As a member who has been here for the last 10 years, has she ever seen anything like starting with Bill C‑2 , going to Bill C‑12 and then going to Bill C‑22 and, at every stage, ignoring the concerns about the overreach?”
“Madam Speaker, I am in the same position as the member for Vancouver East in having a deep concern about this bill. This has not come up in the debate, but just to clarify, even though we have the fiction that committees are the masters of their own process, every PMO since Stephen Harper's has insisted that members of Parliament from parties that do not have 12 members are given 24 hours' notice to come up with amendments and then their amendments are deemed to have been moved, but we are not allowed to speak to the bill much, question witnesses ever or even vote on our own amendments. We are in the same boat, but we have both observed what has been going on at the public safety committee. Rather than repeat everything the member just said, I will say that I observed the same things.”
“Madam Speaker, I thank my esteemed Bloc Québécois colleague for the hard work that she did at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. I also had the opportunity to attend the meetings of that committee, but as an observer. I watched her work, and I completely agree with what she said this evening. It is really strange to be rushing through such an important bill. Why does my colleague think that the government is forcing us to put such a rush on this bill that we could not even hear from witnesses?”
“Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville gave her farewell address. I would just get on the record how much I am going to miss her. I want to thank her for her service to our prayer breakfast group when she was chair, and just say, best of luck in everything and all my love.”
“Mr. Speaker, the second petition is an e-petition signed by nearly 2,000 Canadians calling on the government, particularly the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, to conduct a thorough review of the use of anticoagulant rodenticides, as well as neurotoxic rodenticides, the damage to the environment and the threats to pets and health.”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank a local grassroots activist for proportional representation who has asked me to present a number of these petitions on the subject of our current first-past-the-post voting system. I want to thank Shelagh Levey for collecting so many signatures. Her petition calls for an immediate adoption of a fair voting system, such as what is in place in most democracies around the world, before the next election.”
“I first heard about what gets called the “think small first” bill from friends of mine who are in the Green parties in the European Union and the European Parliament. It was adopted in the European Parliament in 2008. The basic principle is that before any law passes a Parliament, there is screening to see whether there will be unintended consequences of a piece of legislation or regulation that are negative for small businesses. It is an advanced review that looks through a lens to see whether a law is going to create more unnecessary hurdles for small businesses to succeed. It calls on the government and the Minister of Industry to protect and promote the role of small businesses within the Canadian economy. I certainly hope all of my colleagues here will see this bill passed unanimously, because small businesses matter.”
“Bill C-291. Introduction and first reading , seconded by the member for Courtenay—Alberni , moved for leave to introduce Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Department of Industry Act (small businesses) . She said: Mr. Speaker, I am very honoured today to introduce a private member's bill that seeks to amend the Department of Industry Act with regard to the promotion of small businesses. (1625) [ English ] I want to thank my dear friend, the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni , for seconding this bill. I think most members here agree that small businesses are the backbone of Canada's economy. They employ the most people. In every one of our communities and across Canada, they are responsible for more than half of the economic activity. I presented this bill before, but it failed to get past second reading. Let me give some context.”
“Mr. Speaker, very briefly, I completely agree with the member for Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon . [ English ] I would like to make it as clear as I can. [ Translation ] I agree with the Bloc Québécois member on her point of order. The things that are happening in Parliament right now really are anti-democratic. [ English ] I want to put on the record my support for the point of order by the hon. member for Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon . [ Translation ] As is so often the case, she is right. I am so very grateful to her.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise. Today is a sad day because our dear colleague, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, has made this decision, which was already well known before he gave his last speech. However, it is important for me to thank him for his friendship, for his very hard work on the important issues facing Canada—I hope he forgives me for saying so—as well as the issues facing Quebec. I wish him all the best in the future, and I hope he will continue to think about the rest of Canada, because we need the values that are embodied every day by the Bloc Québécois.”
“Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.” I am torn about the bill in many ways, but I cannot vote for it, and I wish that there were more ways through which we could find common cause against hatred.”
“Mr. Speaker, this debate is difficult because the Liberals have put forward that there is no justification for being against Bill C‑9 . I have a lot of difficulty with that, particularly from a civil liberties point of view, especially in its describing of the idea of there being certain places and certain symbols. However, we are grappling with the same problem we have been grappling with for a long time. I think the cosmic jury may still be out as to whether Homo sapiens were a good idea. We seem to be willing to take up arms against each other, hate each other and do foul things to each other. It just brings to mind what Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. said: “Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated.”
“Beyond that, we did not elect a CEO. We did not elect a dictator. We elected a Parliament. Parliament needs to do its work. I find time allocation and programming motions offensive to those principles. I wonder if the parliamentary secretary wants to comment.”
“Madam Speaker, I heard the hon. member mention frequently that there was an election in which we elected a Prime Minister . I know this may seem pedantic, but we do not elect prime ministers in this country. Under Westminster parliamentary democracy, each member in this place is equal to every other member. Every constituent has the choice to elect their member of Parliament. If their member of Parliament happens to be the leader of a party, and that party has the most seats in the House or can hold the confidence of the House, that person becomes prime minister, with no particular constitutional authority. We certainly do not directly elect them as is done in the United States. I know it may seem pedantic, but we did not elect the current Prime Minister ; we elected our own MPs. Only the people in Nepean elected the Prime Minister.”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Saskatoon—University for presenting his private member's bill. I will certainly support it. I wonder if there is unanimous consent so that I could present a private member's bill at this moment.”
“Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, but we are debating time allocation. I feel like I am being heckled and cannot express myself properly. If we are interested in having proper time to debate bills, why does the government want to use time allocation as opposed to allowing us to sit until Friday, which was the original schedule?”
“Mr. Speaker, no matter how well-intentioned the bill may be, I do not think I have ever received so many angry and concerned calls, letters and emails from constituents about a bill. I do oppose the legislation, but I would appreciate adequate time to be able to explain the reasons I agree with those from the civil liberties community who believe the bill would create more litigation and more charter violations through the provisions that are unclear about when someone happens to be on the street and does not know that around the corner there is a day care centre or a synagogue, but they are expressing their charter rights to be able to participate. I cannot support time allocation on this. I know everybody is in a hurry, but rather than push us to bulldoze things through, why not consider keeping— Some hon. members: Oh, oh!”
“Mr. Speaker, I need to preface this before I thank the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith , in case anyone has forgotten how unlikely it is that I am deeply grateful to her for her work, her diligence and her ability to analyze legislation. It still breaks my heart to hear “The hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith” and not have it be Green Party member Paul Manly. I have to pay tribute to this member. Every word she just said was excellent. We should be listening. Her words, “vote first and understand later”, should be put up in neon lights as the defining words of this session.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am glad the hon. member for Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas respects my experience in this place because I started, our very first days together, sitting in that corner, trying to acquaint him with standing orders about heckling. I do believe that when I say “move fast”, what I mean is ignoring the requirements of democracy that bills be adequately considered before they are passed. I will remind him, as the hon. former minister of the environment has reminded other Liberals, that climate change was mentioned 28 times in the platform of the hon. member and pipelines were not mentioned once.”
“Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my Bloc Québécois colleague. It is true that, over the past year, we have lost policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The government has gone in a completely different directions from what the Liberal Party's platform proposed a year ago. We now have a government whose goal is to increase greenhouse gas emissions. With these policies, it is absolutely impossible to meet the targets we are legally bound by under the Paris Agreement.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is deeply offensive. The point of Parliament is to actually have respectful debate and discussion and make sure bills are adequately studied before they are passed. The track record of programming motions on Bill C-5 and this one on Bill C-30 sets extremely dangerous precedence. Parliament is not a mere waste of time for a CEO in a hurry. Parliament is essential to Westminster parliamentary democracy, and we are here to represent our constituents. Regardless of party, views need to be heard. Again, if we all could work together better, it would be by not allowing prepared written speeches.”
“As a Canadian and someone who deeply believes in Westminster parliamentary democracy, I personally find it offensive. I may be the only one, but I think Canadians want to see this place respected and want to know that every bill has been properly studied. For one, I would be prepared to say that if properly studying bills means we cut into the summer and we are in Ottawa longer to do it, that is the right thing to do.”
“I have been, as I said, patiently waiting while admiring the artistry of the Conservative filibuster. I must say I have had more fun watching paint dry. It is always more interesting. On the other hand, it was artful. Although I do not agree with why the Conservatives were filibustering, I do sometimes, as a person who is observing glass houses more than living in them, enjoy the karma of the whole thing. I will vote against Motion No. 12 because it is offensive to democracy to have programming motions that say we must move fast, that we must not debate, that we must not consider. I find over and over again that there has been nothing like the current government for moving fast, and there has been nothing like the current government for treating Parliament with a kind of casual contempt.”
“It was very important to able to see projects come through this process, which is why we could not, as I pleaded at the time, stay longer through the summer, discuss this bill, debate this bill, to see whether this extreme sweeping accumulation of powers by the executive was in any way justified. They said we were in a hurry, except it has been a whole year now, and the bill has not been used once to name a project through Bill C-5 . Again, here we are on Motion No. 12 on Bill C-30 . I am thankful for the way the unanimous consent motion was structured. I will have a chance to speak at third reading on Bill C-30 on the specifics of the part I most decry. I still hope against hope that the finance committee tomorrow will see fit to accept the amendments I have put forward and deemed to be moved.”
“I will never forget it because I still feel like I was caught under a bulldozer going right over me. It was Monday, June 16, when the programming motion took effect, and second reading took place with limited debate to pass it to committee. By the way, on the Monday, June 16, we did not even have a committee in place yet to deal with the bill. On Tuesday, June 17 at 3:30 p.m., the committee was put in place, one committee for all these provisions. Then the committee could start hearing witnesses in the afternoon. By Wednesday at noon, all amendments were due and so on until we got through report stage and third reading, both on Friday, June 20. Then we were adjourned for the summer, and we were told it was a monstrous hurry that we have a Major Projects Office.”
“The first extremely offensive programming motion, in my experience as a member of Parliament since 2011, was what happened in June last year with the programming motion on Bill C-5 , which saw us take the most extraordinary seizure of power and expansion to the power of the executive cabinet in a bill, Bill C-5, which included provisions I never thought I would see in Canada, and say that, if in passing this law we break other laws we have already passed, that is okay. This is based on a historical and never-used-in-Canada archival bit of trivia. It was Henry VIII who came up with that. If in passing this law, we break other laws we have passed before, that is okay. This extraordinary abuse of power was in Bill C-5, building Canada strong and reducing interprovincial trade barriers in part 1, which went through this place.”
“(1715) However, again, the pattern of the House of Commons since forever has been that the parties in opposition will use whatever tools they have at their disposal. It was decades ago that the Conservatives left the bells ringing for days. It takes a while, but the government regroups and finds a new way to get around that particular effort to put a spanner in the works. This is not uncommon, but what is uncommon is the use of programming motions, and I say this to my hon. colleagues on the Liberal benches.”
“That is the nature of an omnibus bill. There are many things affecting many different bills, done all in one vote and all in one go. This time it is with the added factor that we do not have a lot of time. Who controls the timing? The government controls the timing. Who controls what bills come forward for debate, for Government Orders, for orders of the day? The government side does that. My hon. friends on the finance committee, I must say, performed the most extraordinary filibuster I have ever seen, in terms of creativity. I sat through all of it because I kept hoping against hope that we would maybe get to clause-by-clause and that my amendments could be discussed and debated.”
“Why is there no discussion about what happened between when Bill C‑30 was first tabled on April 29 and when we next got back to it? After three hours of debate, the government moved time allocation on Bill C‑30 . It is not a massive omnibus budget bill, but it is omnibus enough that I certainly had no indication that I was going to come across division 8, which has the most regressive pieces of the deregulation of pesticide legislation that I have seen. Believe it or not, as I know I look like a mere slip of a girl, someone who has just barely left law school, I have been working on pesticide issues for 51 years. This is the worst piece of deregulation I have ever seen, and it is inside an omnibus budget bill. I would be happy to support many of the provisions in the spring economic statement. There are some I would not.”
“If we followed that rule, I believe House leaders would be able to come to an agreement more quickly about how many speakers it would take to get a bill through the House. Listening to debate on the motion so far, I am reminded that, as the parliamentary secretary says to us all, we have to use time allocation or we cannot get this passed. To which I say, again, this is a glass house. It is like a child who has killed both of their parents pleading for mercy because they are an orphan. Why are we under time pressure? It is because the government of the day decided that we could shorten the amount of time we are sitting in June. Let us eliminate two days and create more pressure, meaning that it has to be passed now. Why is there no discussion about sitting longer?”
“Of course, when in opposition, the Liberals pledged that they would never bring in omnibus budget bills containing many different measures in one piece of legislation and that they certainly would not use time allocation to shorten the time we have available to do those things. Again, both of the large parties live in, I must say, very large and well-equipped glass homes, but they are still throwing rocks at the same glass houses in which they live. They have both moved to omnibus budget bills once in power. The Liberals have done it, first under former prime minister Trudeau and now under the current Prime Minister . They also have continued to use time allocation. My own plea comes from my own little perch on parliamentary procedure. I know that it is against the rules of this place to have a member stand to deliver a written speech.”
“I do vividly recall when the Harper administration started using, as a matter of course, very long omnibus budget bills, which the Liberals of the day decried as burying too much in one bill, not properly reflecting or advancing the initial version of the budget and being done routinely. We then had, of course, the Harper administration bringing in repetitive motions for time allocation. I remember the first time I had started noticing that it had become quite routine. I went back, looked it up and found out that, over a period of 40 years, which is not that far back in our history, it had happened about 10 times. I started adding them up and keeping track, and it became hundreds of times.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is often that I find myself here wondering if this place has turned into something not quite like a sports arena, in the style of the Trump White House, with its caged sport for the celebration of 250 years of independence, which is a topic that is not necessarily connected to this at all, but, for sporting spectacles, this place sometimes resembles nothing more than target practice for teams that live in glass houses. It is difficult to watch. I know that I must have a glass house somewhere, but with the Green Party never having been in power, we have less of a record to attack.”