Friday, March 5, 2010 · sitting No. 3

Commons opens budget debate after Iacobucci named to review Afghan documents

The House spent the largest share of its time on government orders debating the budget. Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said the government was improvising on the terms of reference for former justice minister Frank Iacobucci's review of Afghan detainee documents and called for terms that would restore the authority of the House. Conservative MP Richard Harris accused the Liberals of hypocrisy given their record in office.

Question period featured repeated exchanges on pensions. Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff pressed the government to adopt Liberal proposals for a Canada Pension Plan supplement and an emergency fund. Conservative MP John Baird said poverty among seniors had fallen by almost 50 per cent since the government took office and listed measures including pension splitting and changes to the age credit.

From the Hansard record of the sitting. Full Hansard

No CPAC Question Period upload is on file for this day. CPAC’s channel goes back to December 2019.

Who held the floor · 2010-03-05

28Another sitting that went nowhereThe sitting focused on extended debate over the budget and assorted topics, with more than four-fifths of words devoted to substantive business. No bills advanced, no votes were recorded, and the only formal action was a single call to order by the Speaker.AI-rated Score out of 100; the verdict and the answer ratings behind it are a model’s reading. How the AI rates this

AI-rated The sitting score and the rating of each answer come from a language model reading Hansard. How the AI rates this

Provisional score. Question Period for this sitting has not been rated yet, so the score rests only on what was decided and how much time went to the business at hand. It will change when the exchanges are read.

Other moments

Points of Order

Justice minister Rob Nicholson told the House the government would have former justice minister Frank Iacobucci review redacted Afghan documents to ensure no injury to national defence or security. Liberal MP Ralph Goodale asked for the correspondence setting out Iacobucci's mandate.

Read the exchange

Afghanistan

NDP leader Jack Layton said the appointment of Justice Iacobucci was a new stalling tactic and called on the government to release the documents directly to members. Justice minister Rob Nicholson said thousands of documents were being processed and that Iacobucci's advice would help.

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Forestry Industry

Bloc Québécois MP Daniel Paillé noted the budget gave the auto sector $9.7 billion while allocating only $170 million to forestry. Industry minister Denis Lebel said the sectors operated under different agreements and that Export Development Canada had made $20 billion in financial products available to Quebec forestry firms.

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Taxation

Liberal MP John McCallum said the budget's payroll-tax increases would kill 200,000 jobs. Human resources minister Diane Finley said premiums had been frozen for two years and that the independent EI commission would set future rates on a break-even basis.

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International Cooperation

Liberal MP Lise Zarac said the government was cutting international development funding by $4 billion over five years. Conservative MP Jim Abbott said Canada had doubled aid in a short period and would maintain it at $5 billion.

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