Tories, NDP at odds over forcing committees to sit over summer

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OTTAWA — As the House of Commons winds down for what is scheduled as a summer break, the Conservatives have been spending the last days trying to get most parliamentary committees to sit for five meetings from July to September to shine a light on the Liberals’ failings.

Their efforts until now have been in vain, with the Liberals, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP voting down the official Opposition’s attempts to sit during the summer.

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This week, the House of Commons will rise for the summer until Sept. 16. During that time, MPs are typically busy meeting constituents and stakeholders and participating in events in their ridings — often, with busier schedules than during their time in Ottawa.

But Conservative House leader Andrew Scheer said it is “urgent” for committees to continue meeting during the summer to address pressing issues facing Canadians.

“There’s a cost-of-living crisis that Justin Trudeau has caused with his inflationary deficits and wasteful spending. As a result, interest rates are still way higher than when Canadians locked into mortgages almost five ago,” he said in an interview.

“Most Canadians are struggling just to be able to live, let alone take a lavish vacation, so that’s why we’ve proposed a reasonable work plan for the summer, so that we can tackle the issues that are facing Canadians, propose solutions to fix what Trudeau has broken,” he added.

Conservative MPs have presented the same scheduling motion, whether it be in the veterans’ affairs committee to talk about how the high cost of living has affected the men and women in the armed forces, or the human resources committee to talk about the housing crisis.

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In other cases, Conservatives insisted that committees keep sitting during the summer to continue investigating ethical concerns concerning the Liberal government.

“Part of the summer work plan will absolutely be to highlight the corruption and wasteful spending and potentially illegal spending that Justin Trudeau has engaged in over the past few years,” said Scheer.

For instance, he said, it was through committee work that MPs discovered the extent of the mess around the ArriveCAN application and the pressure put on the Liberals at committee forced the federal government to release its economic costing of the carbon tax.

But NDP MP Matthew Green has been countering the Conservatives’ efforts by proposing a motion of his own in at least two committees to “not meet during Parliament’s summer recess,” unless there is consensus among members to hold an emergency meeting.

Those motions did not pass because Conservatives made sure to run out the clock, meaning that they delivered lengthy speeches to prevent a vote on Green’s motion.

An NDP source, speaking on background, said that committees chaired by Conservatives have been unilaterally calling emergency meetings during constituency weeks, and that the party does not want to set a precedent by allowing meetings over the summer.

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The source added that MPs do important work during the summer — and are a lot busier than when they are in session in Ottawa.

“It’s very frustrating to see the NDP constantly refer to themselves as the ‘worker bees.’ But then every chance they get, they buzz off and cover for Justin Trudeau,” said Scheer.

Scheer also said it is “incredibly frustrating” to see Green try to “preemptively prevent a committee from even meeting” and said it will ultimately be up to the NDP and the Bloc to explain to their voters why they don’t believe that it is necessary to meet over the summer.

“If the other parties don’t want to do the work that they’re supposed to do as an opposition party, we’re going to keep pushing. It’s our responsibility,” he said.

At least one parliamentary committee will still exceptionally meet during the summer break despite the partisan squabbles between Conservatives and the NDP.

On Tuesday, members of the ethics committee agreed to invite two former business associates of Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault on the week of July 15 in hopes of finding out the identity of “the other Randy” who managed private business dealings in 2022.

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The motion calls for Stephen Anderson, co-founder of Global Health Imports with Boissonnault, and Kirsten Poon, a lobbyist with business ties to the minister, to appear before the committee for an hour. They both indicated they were available in July.

The Conservatives have been pounding the issue because they suspect that the mysterious “Randy” in text messages sent to Anderson about a late wire transfer payment was in fact Boissonnault, but the minister has firmly denied it was him.

The NDP agreed to hold this meeting even though it is during the summer.

“Members around the table are very well aware of my feelings about arbitrary meetings in non-sitting times. I would caveat it that this is not arbitrary,” Green told MPs.

National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com

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