The Kootenay-Columbia MP believes the federal government needs to be held accountable, and that a full or partial Parliament would allow the opposition to critique recent spending and decision-making.
Last week, the Liberals and NDP both voted to suspend all regular sittings in the House of Commons until September 21, 2020.
“Everybody agrees that we need to spend money in this time because of the hardships that people are going through,” Morrison told MyNelsonNow.com. “The problem that we’re going to have is its accountability, it’s all about the government of the day being accountable for the money they’re spending.”
“With both the Liberals and NDP dissolving Parliament – basically voting to shut it down till September, now we’re basically going to a committee meeting, it’s in Parliament, but it’s just a committee meeting. We really don’t have the ability to hold the government accountable and that’s the most frustrating part.”
Morrison was critical of the NDP siding with the Liberals in order to make ground on their 10-day paid leave program, blasting both the party and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh over Facebook on Monday.
Here’s Morrison’s official statement from Facebook :
“Jagmeet Singh and his NDP colleagues should be ashamed of the deal they have done with the Prime Minister to shut down Parliament. It is clear that the Liberals have no regard for our democratic institutions and we now know that Mr. Singh has the same cavalier approach to upholding our democracy.
In exchange for a Liberal pledge – which isn’t even a guarantee – to seek a 10-day paid leave program, Singh agreed to assist in the shutting down of Parliament and with that knowingly provided the Liberals an open lane to run the country without any accountability to Canadians. The NDP and Liberal’s continued attacks on our democratic institutions are completely unacceptable and I am calling on the Government to recall Parliament immediately.
I stand ready to travel to Ottawa at any time to represent the riding of Kootenay-Columbia, ensure that your voices are heard and hold this government to account.”
Speaking to MyNelsonNow.com, Morrison said they still have four days a week to ask questions of the government, but he doesn’t feel that’s adequate with a lack of debate or scrutiny in the House of Commons.
“We could have been back there last week and had a full Parliament or had a partial Parliament with physical distancing,” said Morrison. “We could have done that so that we could have had all of our committees going, sub-committees going so that we could bring in witnesses and just ensure that the government is being accountable.”
Morrison made a direct call to both the Liberals and NDP to immediately recall Parliament.
On a side note, Morrison said their main Cranbrook Office is undergoing repairs from a vehicle collision a couple of weeks ago that tore several bricks of the building. Morrison said they are open but relocated at 415C Industrial Road A in Cranbrook for the time being. Seeing as the Cranbrook Office is a designated heritage building, Morrison said it will take a couple of weeks for the brick to be repaired and for the workers to adhere to Cranbrook’s bylaws and regulations for historical buildings.