A backroom deal to an artificial majority? Conservative MP Eric Duncan slams floor crossings

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[00:00:00]Mr. Speaker, it is always an honor and pleasure to rise on behalf of the good people of Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry, whether they be in SD&G, whether they be in the city of Cornwall or in Akwesasne, to stand up and give a summary of what their views are.

[00:00:13]Trying to take about 116,000 people and summarize it all into the next 15-20 minutes, but I feel like I try to get a pretty good pulse in the community and there's certainly been a lot of discussion about the legislation before us about the Liberals looking to give themselves a majority on committees and how they've got that majority has been what the talk of the town has been around my part of Eastern Ontario, to say the least, particularly in the last couple of weeks.

[00:00:39]I'd like to say I get my meals and miles in here around SD&G on the weekends going into different community events and I was just thinking last Saturday I was at King George Restaurant with a local resident having breakfast, talking, getting his feedback on some issues issues of the day and I had two tables, separate tables, come up to me and ask specifically, "What is going on with these floor crossings and how is this allowed to happen that the Liberals are going to give themselves a majority simply through floor crossing?" And this past weekend, whether I was in South Lancaster at a breakfast supporting the Guelph Medical Brigade or as at some business openings and celebrations in Morrisburg and in Winchester, got a lot of feedback at the North Dundas Local Business Expo.

[00:01:22]And of course was at the Glengarry Agricultural Hall of Fame in Maxville.

[00:01:26]And I say and I name drop all those places to show that there was a wide wide diversity of places I had had the chance to go this past Saturday alone and the feedback several times to me continues to raise concerns about these recent floor crossings and how the Liberals had obtained their majority.

[00:01:44]People are dismayed by this because if we go and look at my political science degree and put it to use from Carleton going back a couple of years now, never in Canadian history have we seen this happen before.

[00:01:57]And that is where just a year ago this Prime Minister was given a minority government mandate. Not a majority, a minority mandate, meaning that he had to work with other opposition parties to pass legislation and at committee they would not have a majority of the seats there, but rather a minority of seats and scrutiny of government legislation, production of documents and efforts by the opposition party to hold the government to account, they were given we were given key tools to do exactly that. And I want to be very clear with Canadians, it was not the recent three by-elections that gave the Liberals their majority.

[00:02:36]University-Rosedale, Scarborough-Southwest and Terrebonne, in Quebec. These seats were already Liberal-held seats, they remained Liberal seats. What gave what gave, whether it was one vote or 1,000 votes or 2,000 votes or 12 votes, the point was those three seats were Liberal seats and they remained Liberal seats.

[00:02:56]The only reason the Liberals are able to bring forward this piece of legislation, I should say this changes to the standing order I should say and government orders, is because of floor crossings. Not where the constituents had any say in this, not where Canadians had any say in this.

[00:03:12]Remember the say that Canadians gave this Liberal government was that they were given a minority government where they would be having to work with opposition parties and where the opposition would have key tools including a committee to hold them to account. Never before in Canadian history has a Prime Minister got a backroom deal to a majority government by getting floor crossers to take them from a minority government to a majority government. We talk about distrust in our institution. When we talk about frustration of Canadians at the ballot box, there are tens of thousands of people that voted Conservative and in one case voted NDP that had, through no say of their own, but only through after the fact crossing the floor, making their own selfish decision to do so, it is dismayed and taken away the votes the valid votes of tens of thousands of people in the election that were held that was held just a year ago. And I'll speak to the ones on the Conservative floor crossing, let me make it very clear.

[00:04:15]They ran under our Conservative leader, our Conservative platform, our Conservative plan and they knew exactly what that was and had no problem being on the ballot and they should remain in that case and maintain their word to that, but I will not say too much further on that.

[00:04:35]Now, what is important about the legislation the piece that's before us here now, the amendment to the standing order or the government standing orders and changes to it is the committee composition. The Liberals now want to go from having a minority on the committee, adding two members from their side to give themselves a majority on every single committee. It is absolutely shameful is correct. And they argue that it's to advance their agenda, they say.

[00:05:02]But here's the problem and here's the thing, if it's a budget bill that comes forward, it would go to the Finance Committee. If there is a bill on elections, we have one amendments to the Election Act, when that goes through that's going to go to the House and Procedural Affairs Committee, PROC. If it's a crime bill, it would go to the Justice and Public Safety Committee. If it was natural resources, it would go to the Natural Resources Committee and the Transport Committee would look after any bills that deal with transport and so on and so forth.

[00:05:30]But there are three things, just to show you how obsessed they are with taking complete control and squandering an opportunity for the opposition to have leverage to get documents, to get answers, to get ministers to appear at committee and to hold this government to account, they are not only taking majority stakes in those committees that I mentioned from Finance to House and Procedural Affairs and Natural Resources and Transport, they're also taking majorities in our three oversight committees. Now, let's be very clear about those oversight committees. We have an amendment on the books that we are hoping the Liberals will agree to. Doesn't sound like they're going to because they again are absolutely determined to have complete control with 50.8% of the seats, they're going to take a lot bigger sway, they're going to take about 58% as my colleague had just mentioned in the percentage of seats at the committee table, but they're going to take over these oversight committees.

[00:06:30]None of these three oversight committees, be it Public Accounts, Government Operations or the Ethics Committee, none of those three deal with government legislation. They are oversight committees that hold this government to account. They are chaired by an opposition member. But the Public Accounts Committee, they go through and scrutinize the line by line the government spending. And one of the best parts, I spent some time on that committee in the last Parliament, was that they go through and they review Auditor General's reports. A very key part of the work of parliamentarians is to look at the independent Auditor General, see what they're saying about government audits and services and programs and make suggestions and improvements to way this operate programs, but also gives the opposition an opportunity to highlight shortcomings of the government. The Government Operations Committee obviously looks after the operations and studies the operations of the government and the financing and the spending and the plans going forward for that. And of course one of the most important committees that we have here and it's a very busy committee because of this Liberal government we have in office, the Ethics Committee, that is tasked with eroding sorry eroding and eliminating corruption in government. That's a tall task and a tall order for those parliamentarians on that committee. So, what we are saying through our reasonable amendment is that we should look to keep the structure as is for the three oversight committees.

[00:07:56]They do not pass legislation, they would not be be blocking any legislation that happens and goes through goes through. They are pure oversight, they are key tools for opposition, they are key tools for accountability and they're key tools for holding this government to account and we're going to keep the government on doing that. We're going to try our best with the tools that we have, but we need as many tools and we need the tools that Canadians sent us here in this Parliament don't have full reign and trust me, why is this important? They will filibuster until no end to block themselves from having accountability on a wide variety of topics. And look back no further than the last time they had a majority, they got majority through the ballot box, not like we're seeing here now this time through floor crossings, but we are seeing you go back to the WE Charity scandal, you go back to the SNC-Lavalin was one of the ones I remember the Justice Committee, you go back and see but particularly the SNC-Lavalin one was the one from the majority government of last time was a significant issue of corruption, a major major political issue and the Liberals did all they could at the Justice Committee to dither and to delay and to filibuster Canadians getting information and get parliamentarians, particularly opposition members, getting access to testimony from relevant ministers that are involved, key documents that were involved in there and Canadians know what that end result has been.

[00:09:33]But majority or minority, it is always difficult to get answers out of this Liberal government because we look at the WE Charity scandal, that was the $912 million contract was given to Liberal friends where it was the Prime Minister Trudeau and his family that were given paid speaking engagements by that organization, a massive conflict of interest there. But the WE Charity scandal, it was blocked time and time again, filibustered endlessly, uh but we had a minority government at least to try to hold to account as best we can.

[00:10:04]We need as much accountability, we need as much scrutiny, we need as much transparency as we possibly can get when it comes to this Liberal government because again, think of the arrive scam app that was discovered through parliamentary committee in a minority setting. We're able to force through the production of documents, getting key testimony, and understanding just the massive abuse of taxpayers' money that was there under the Liberals' watch. An app and a program that was supposed to cost $80,000 we were told could have been done over the course of a weekend ended up ballooning over to $60 million.

[00:10:39]And the more we dug we dug in GC Strategies, despite the Liberals' attempts to block and swerve away and try to avoid the issue, it was in that minority setting where we're able to go and get answers and get testimony from GC Strategies. We learned they did little to no work on many of the invoices they submitted, and it was an absolute scandal. That's about the nicest thing I can say about that.

[00:11:02]The scandal of the Winnipeg lab documents during COVID, uh the dog access to those documents and the scandal that happened there, it was blocked and stonewalled. It was the House of Commons that had to take this Liberal government to court, if we recall, to get access to those documents, and they stubbornly and stubbornly delayed on that effort. And the last part of it again, those scandals didn't add up to be enough.

[00:11:27]We can't forget the green slush fund and the $300 that was given where it was Liberal insiders that got appointed to the board in an almost incestuous environment.

[00:11:37]These board members were approving their own applications to the tune of tens of millions of dollars collectively to each other and conflicts of interest galore. If it wasn't for the tools that we were given in the minority setting to uncover this uh corruption uh uh I worry that Canadians would not have gotten the answers that they needed to at all in those situations. That's why it's absolutely essential that we do what we can be try to keep these committees. We're going to fight to keep these committees as what Canadians elected them in a minority setting and don't let a few floor crossers give a majority and steal the accountability that we need.

[00:12:20]But we need to keep the committee structure as is, Mr. Speaker, because of what's going to be forthcoming in investigating Liberal scandals. Look only the last couple of weeks of where we need more answers on Liberal spending.

[00:12:36]Whether it be the $300 million PrescribeIT program which was software that was supposed to eliminate fax prescriptions across the country. The Liberals spent $300 million of taxpayers' money before quietly attempting just to throw the program away into the garbage and not to be used at all.

[00:12:59]Who made the decision to spend that $300 million?

[00:13:03]Who got that money?

[00:13:05]And how was this allowed to balloon to the cost that it was even after the Liberals were knowing it was a failed program? They still dumped tens of millions of dollars into that.

[00:13:17]There's 300 million reasons right there that we need to have the proper parliamentary and committee scrutiny to get to the bottom of this on the oversight committees and the other committees that are studying this.

[00:13:30]And of course, there's the other news if $300 million of wasted money uncovered the last couple of weeks wasn't enough, the other $200 million in this recent deal signed for the maritime launch service, $20 million a year per year over the next 10 years for a launch pad in rural Nova Scotia.

[00:13:51]And the more we learn about this the more it stinks.

[00:13:56]It's former Liberal Nova Scotia premier that's on the board. Liberal insiders leading the effort to get this contract.

[00:14:04]And whenever you go out and take a look at this, it's a gravel pit with a concrete pad and a couple sea cans getting paid $20 million per year to operate.

[00:14:15]And whenever questions get asked, it is nothing but stonewalling from this government.

[00:14:21]So just alone in the last couple weeks, $500 million, half a billion dollars of taxpayers' money where there's a lot of questions swirling around.

[00:14:32]Who got the money?

[00:14:34]Who made the decisions for these wasteful boondoggles? And what are we going to do to try to get in some cases if we can get taxpayers' money back? And how can we ensure that this over and over and over again continues to happen in our country? Mr. Speaker, that is why the Liberals do not deserve the majority on committees. It is why they deserve the utmost scrutiny and scrutiny, and that's why Conservatives are going to keep fighting day in and day out to get the accountability that Canadians deserve. To get good use of taxpayers' money, it's going to take all the resources we can get in this House of Commons, and that's why I do not support the efforts to change the standing orders the way the government is doing this. They deserve more accountability, they deserve more transparency, more scrutiny, not less when they try to take a majority of the committees. Thank you for the time, and look forward to the questions.

[00:15:20]>> Great speech. Questions and comments.

[00:15:23]Question et commentaire. The honorable parliamentary secretary to the government house leader.

[00:15:27]>> Yes, thank you. Uh Mr. Speaker, as you would know, when uh Stephen Harper had a minority government, and then he had a majority of the seats in the house. And when he got the majority of the seats in the house, he was given a majority seats in the standing committees.

[00:15:43]Um in minority situation, it's a minority number of seats in the standing committees. When you make up a majority of the House of Commons on the floor of the House of Commons, you get the majority in the standing committees.

[00:15:55]That is a long-established principle uh and tradi- part of parliamentary tradition, not only here in Canada, but the entire Commonwealth. Um now the Conservatives want to change change the rules. You know, I I posed a question to the member. If it was 172 seats on one day on an election night, and one crosses the floor, and it's 171.

[00:16:18]Are you trying to tell me the Conservatives say, "Oh, no, no, you still get to have a majority of the committee members?" I think that the Conservatives would do the exact same thing. Stephen Harper would do exactly what it is that he did when he got a majority government, when he had a majority of the members in the House of Commons, and that is to have a majority of the standing committees. Does the member not see the hypocrisy that is there?

[00:16:40]Honorable member for Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry. You know what Stephen Harper did to get a majority government? He got it from Canadians. He got directly elected by Canadians a majority government. He did not go from a minority government and have floor crossers give them an artificial majority through backroom deals. We talk about distrust, we talk about hypocrisy, we talk about Canadians being frustrated with their democratic institutions. It's actions like that that give the institution and the Liberals a bad name. Stephen Harper earned his majority through the ballot box by Canadians. This Prime Minister did not get a mandate, a majority mandate from Canadians. He got through back deals backroom deals from floor crossers, and that's why Canadians are frustrated.

[00:17:19]>> That's right. Questions and comments.

[00:17:20]Question et commentaire. L'honorable The honorable member for Drummond.

[00:17:26]I find what my Conservative colleague is saying is was interesting.

[00:17:30]He said that Stephen Harper won a majority through an election. The last time the Liberals won a majority in an election, it was 2015 with Justin Trudeau's uh sunny ways. But after that, we had Liberal minorities because Canadians were not satisfied with Liberal government governance.

[00:17:51]In 2025 and I uh point of order point of order. I have a point of order for the from the member for Joël Lightbound.

[00:17:59]We don't even have quorum in the house, and we still cannot hear my member's question because the Liberals are laughing it up about their new majority.

[00:18:09]I will now do a quorum call to verify whether we have quorum.

[00:18:32]We do have quorum.

[00:18:34]I would ask I would ask the member for Drummond uh to finish his comment or question.

[00:18:43]For those who are just arriving now uh there are some rules that must be respected here. You need to listen when people speak.

[00:18:55]I have to interrupt the member again.

[00:18:58]Point of order from the deputy government house leader. Uh merci, monsieur Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

[00:19:03]I think the member knows full well that he is not allowed to mention who is and who isn't in the House of Commons.

[00:19:09]That is a well-understood principle. So, could he please stop playing these little games?

[00:19:15]Standing order 15. Before the member continues, standing order 15 sets out the rule or tradition that you cannot refer to the presence or absence of an individual member.

[00:19:30]It does not apply to a group or category of member.

[00:19:36]I was listening with interest to what the member for Drummond had to say. He has not uh violated uh standing order 15. I would ask him to continue.

[00:19:46]We are at the end of a debate day, and what we're seeing is practically surreal. I only have a few seconds left, so I will now ask my conservative colleague to answer what did he think about what we heard in the debate today.

[00:20:00]And has today not demonstrated the very thing that the liberals are planning to do with their majority?

[00:20:08]Do the does the liberals conduct today not give him pause about the future?

[00:20:13]The honorable member for Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry.

[00:20:16]I thank my colleague from the Bloc for that and I would agree that liberal arrogance is on full display and we're going to see and I can put a marker down now that over the course of the coming weeks and months and years, however long this parliament would go on, if these changes go into effect, we are going to see a number of filibusters, a number of attempts at committee to shut down investigations, to shut down witnesses, to shut down everything. And we've seen it after an example, the $300 million prescribed IT program, the liberals at the health committee for weeks have been filibustering all of that. So we are going to look forward, I'm going to pin mark this conversation, this thought here tonight, the number of times we're going to see filibusters in an attempt to shut down debate or to vote down debate and vote down investigations into their corruption and wrongdoing. Great answer.