Fundamental Flaws in Conducting Democracy in Nova Scotia - Supply Motion

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Mr. Speaker, I'd like to take this opportunity to debate into Supply about why we are going into Supply.

The government tabled a budget this week, a budget that by all accounts they are very proud of. In the intervening days there have been several positive cases of COVID-19 identified in this building and yet, here we are at 6:38 p.m. on a Wednesday night in the middle of a pandemic being asked to debate the budget line by line. We have at our disposal a cadre of well-informed, hard-working Public Service servants and like us they are away from their families working extra hours, ready with not a lot of notice, as we all know, to assist their ministers in this effort.

I have risen in this House now probably a dozen times to discuss the fundamental flaws that arise from the way that we choose to conduct democracy in Nova Scotia and against the backdrop I just described, I will take this opportunity to do it again. For a start, I will point out that we are for the first time in the memory of most people in this House moving into this debate in Supply without the agreement of the House. Both of the House Leaders have asked that this debate be postponed and have been told that is not going to happen.

In light of the fact that we are discussing how to move forward, in light of COVID-19 that this government has said that they would like to bring a motion to help us move forward, our response was, great, give us some time. Why don't we delay for one night the line-by-line debate on a budget that we know will pass? The government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the last couple of months doing what they think they need to do. There is no urgency at 6:39 p.m. on a Wednesday night on the fourth day of the sitting for us to be here in the middle of a pandemic.

So, why are we here? I can think of three answers. The first, the big question: why are we here? That I can't answer. I have my thoughts, but that would take more than 12 minutes and 28 seconds. We'll bookmark that for when I'm trying to fill an hour sometime down the road.

The second "Why are we here?" is because our democratic process here in Nova Scotia is in need of reform. I have introduced several bills that I think would accomplish that, but I'm not here to talk about those bills because they're on the Order Paper. What I will say is that here in Nova Scotia, we sit the fewest number of days of any Legislature in Canada. We have no Legislative calendar. We never know when we're going to sit. We never know how long we're going to sit.

Fun fact: there used to be sitting hours. I'll just remind the government that we have sitting hours in the House of Assembly Rules. We sit from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday. We sit from 1:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday with 30 minutes provided for late debate. We sit from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Friday.

Those were designed so that MLAs, who do a lot more than just come into this Legislature as we all know, can work in their constituencies and can do all of the other things. Ministers, certainly, have a lot of other work to do. Not all the work that MLAs do happens in this House, but the work that happens in this House is very important.

Those rules used to actually be that you needed amendment if you wanted to contravene those rules. A motion would have to be brought and it would have to be passed by two-thirds of the House. At some point that provision was removed from the House of Assembly Rules. So now those rules are meaningless.

We saw, before we even sat, the hours called for this week were to 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, and now we hear that we're here until 11:59 p.m. tomorrow. In the middle of a global pandemic when the government says they want to address it. That is ridiculous.

There may certainly be times when we need to be here late into the night. We all know this job is demanding, but the idea that in the first four days of the Legislative sitting we need to be here at 6:42 at night, going line by line through the budget with public servants who probably don't even want to be in this building with COVID-19, is absurd.

There's a third answer to this question. The third answer to this question of, "Why are we here?" The answer is this: because this government is determined to get their way at all costs. They forget that their majority status out there does not give them carte blanche in here. (Applause)

They say they want us to move to a hybrid format, but they won't engage with us to get there. So what do they do? Because we won't do things on their timeline - because we take seriously our responsibilities to our caucus, our constituents, the Speaker, and this Assembly - they keep us here longer, as cases are rising, because they can. They would rather flex this ability to control their agenda than work productively across parties to determine how to go forward in this session.

Mr. Speaker, it is a bad decision. It is the wrong decision. I am hopeful that it will be revisited. Thank you. (Applause)