Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 19th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Ladies and gentlemen, we'll begin the public meeting now.

I'm assuming we're handing the floor to Ms. Redman to reintroduce her motion.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

My apologies, but I wonder whether the clerk has a copy of the motion, just in case any of us didn't memorize it.

Thank you.

I will read the motion again. This is the one I tabled originally on October 5:

That this committee recommends that the Standing Orders in effect on October 5, 2006, including the provisional Standing Orders, be made permanent, and that the adoption of this motion be reported to the House forthwith.

I would reiterate that these standing orders were presented by the current government when they were in opposition. It was agreed to at that time by all parties, acknowledging in a minority government that we all have to work together, that we would accept these provisional standing orders.

It's our opinion that they have been working relatively well. Certainly we are willing to discuss.... I know there have actually been some conversations among our staff people.

We would like to pursue this motion this morning. We would also be amenable to presenting an order in the House, if one of the items was the provision that there be a five-day call of any committee to reconvene, such that, if it were during a period when the House was not sitting, we would be amenable to a House order that would extend this specific provision to ten days. I believe everybody's staff was party to that conversation.

We're more than willing to continue to discuss any other issues, but I would move the motion that is before us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Is there any further discussion?

Monsieur Guimond, and then Mr. Hill.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It is not my intention to repeat what was mentioned at the in camera meeting of the committee of House leaders and whips. However, there appears to be a misunderstanding over the consent that was given. I acknowledge that Mr. Hill suggested solving the issue through discussions, that is holding a meeting of our staff in order to determine how Standing Orders are applied.

We do not feel, for our part, that we are not keeping our word. I know that under our parliamentary rules, of British origin, several issues are dealt with through hand shakes, agreements, or by what is commonly called gentlemen agreements. I would simply like to reassure my colleague, Mr. Hill, and tell him that it is not our intention to go back on our word. Nevertheless—and I checked this with the Bloc Quebecois parliamentary leader, who also attended the meeting—we do not feel that there was agreement on how to proceed.

I would therefore suggest that we immediately proceed with adopting these Standing Orders. Of course, if the government would like us to undertake a review of all the Standing Orders...But I do not think that it is its intention. If there are some problems, if minor changes need to be made, the parties can agree on this among themselves. We can do anything in this House as long as it is not contrary to tradition. Accordingly, if minor changes are required, then the leaders or the whips can discuss this; we will find the appropriate forum.

I do, however, wish to indicate that we, the Bloc Quebecois, will vote in favour of Ms. Redman's motion so that these Standing Orders be adopted. I did not bring the notes that I had prepared on Tuesday but if my memory serves me well, I believe that these provisional Standing Orders have been in effect for 22 months. It is true , Parliament adjourned at the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006, and that we did not come back immediately, but the fact remains that these provisional Standing Orders have been in effect since 2005, that is, for several months. According to normal practice, we can therefore put these Standing Orders into effect permanently.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

Could we have Mr. Hill, please, and then Mr. Owen?

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I really don't know where to begin. I think the record clearly shows, with the motion that was adopted by the House unanimously the day following our agreement on September 19, how we were going to proceed with dealing with these provisional standing orders. I think that, as we say out west, we've plowed that ground, and I don't intend to plow all of those issues again. I don't see what we're going to gain by continuing a filibuster, because we've already made, I think, all the points that we can make on this.

If we proceed today with voting on the motion as it is, I will be voting against it on principle. As I said right from the very beginning--and my colleagues on the government side have reiterated this--we're not opposed to any of the standing orders. That was never the issue. We had had what I believe was a pretty good preliminary discussion at the House leaders and whips' meetings of some concerns we had with some of them, which the staff should meet about and perhaps work through.

We have never suggested that the changes would be anything other than very minor in nature. We also have had conversations in the past about the clerk's perhaps making some technical wording changes to these to make them more definitive in nature. Doing so would mean the standing orders would be clearer when the clerks need to interpret them from time to time. Also, hopefully it would be very clear to members of Parliament from all parties the intent of these standing order changes and how they work.

So that was always the intent, as far as I was concerned, of the discussion that we had and the agreement that we reached. As I say, Mr. Chair, I think I've plowed the ground fairly thoroughly about how upset I am about this, because it does strike to the very core of how we operate in Parliament, of how we have to operate if Parliament is going to be a functioning Parliament or a functioning people's House. We have to be able to trust one another and take someone's word when we come to these agreements.

Our staff met this morning, and I think they had a pretty good brief discussion. As Madam Redman already indicated, our main concern was this issue that was presented about the notice of motion and a meeting having to be held within five calendar days. It's been a bit problematic, more problematic than some of the other provisional standing orders. I think that even the general public--and I'll be the first to admit that they're probably not all that interested in most of our standing orders and how this place operates--would have to agree that common sense would say that's a fairly short period of time. Over the summer, for example, if something were to arise, and a committee member made a request that a standing committee meet, and it happened to be the July 1 weekend, three days would already be gone before people could even find out whether their schedules could be juggled to get to a meeting. Then you need travel for members to get to a central location in a country as large as Canada.

I think having to hold a meeting within five days is a bit unreasonable. So that's one of the changes we were thinking of. From what I hear from Madam Redman, upon reflection, she would consider that it might be reasonable to say ten calendar days when the House isn't in session, whether it is during the summer recess or the winter recess.

Those are the types of things we wanted to look at, to have the staff take a first cut at, so to speak, and then have the House leaders and whips involved in discussing that to hopefully arrive at unanimity.

So that was the first thing that happened this morning. As well, I talked to the clerk personally this morning, and she indicated, as she has in the past, that there may be--she didn't say absolutely, as she hasn't drafted them yet--some minor technical wording improvements, nothing that would change the intent of what we're trying to do with these provisional standing orders, just some improvements to the specific wording. So that was something else we had wanted to explore further before we passed these.

Mr. Chairman, the situation now is that I have yet to be presented with any logical rationale of why we have to proceed like this. We had an agreement. The House right now is bound by the agreement that was expressed through the motion that the government House leader introduced unanimously in the House on September 20, which kept these provisional standing orders in place until November 21 to give us some time to deal with them.

They're still in existence. There's no immediate danger that they're going to run out today if we don't do this. This motion says that they be adopted as is, basically, as they are today, or as they were, I guess--it actually says “as they were on October 5”, and they haven't changed, so that's still the same as they are today--and that they be reported back to the House for a vote and adopted forthwith, even without these minor changes that I think we could arrive at giving unanimous consent for.

First, it strikes at the whole issue of trust, and second, it's a very inefficient way to run this place, to say okay, with no rationale of why we have to do this today or tomorrow. Why would we put these in place when we're all agreed now--it sounds like--that we will even put something else in place that says we can further change them in a week or a day or a month, or whatever? Of course, all of these things are always up with majority support for further change and further improvement--hopefully, improvement.

I'm more than a bit puzzled and upset that we couldn't arrive at some sort of an agreement. If the opposition is.... The only thing I'm left with is that somehow they're paranoid that we're going to pull some fast one and have these die after November 21. So other than that the opposition seems to be seized with this culture of paranoia, I don't know what the rationale is for why we have to do this now, when we seem to be agreed that there are going to be a few minor technical changes that aren't going to change the intent of what the provisional standing orders do.

It would seem to me to be, even only on the issue of efficiency.... Take out all the other: whether we did or didn't have an agreement and whether we have seen a diminution in the level of trust that's necessary between us to accomplish things on behalf of Canadians. That aside, it would seem to me reasonable and common sense that we would wait a few days.

Maybe there's some room here. I presented this in private conversation with both the official opposition House leader, the Honourable Ralph Goodale, and Madam Redman prior to this meeting, and they said maybe we could come to some good old-fashioned Canadian compromise. If they're that paranoid that something's going to happen between now and November 21, we could at least amend the motion so that we could give our staff and clerk time to interact and make these few changes that we can all agree upon and introduce it next week. Would that be unreasonable to request that type of thing?

Without beating this to death or plowing the ground over and over again, I guess I would suggest.... I'm sorry, and I apologize to the committee, I haven't had a chance to have this in sort of firm writing, but I simply throw it on the table as at least a possibility of something we could agree upon, some amendment to the effect that rather than have it the way it ends with Madam Redman's motion that we're debating, that the adoption of this motion be reported to the House forthwith, we would remove “forthwith” and put something like “following minor unanimously agreed upon amendments, but no later than one week from today, October 26, 2006”. That's still almost a month prior to the November 21 deadline.

I'm just trying to be a little reasonable here. Let's make these few small changes. If we can amend the motion to do that, then we can all support it. That's better than having me and my colleagues stand on principle and vote against this motion. To me, it doesn't make any sense, notwithstanding that we thought we had an agreement. Even putting that aside, it doesn't make sense to proceed if we're all in agreement that there's going to be some changes to it.

So I would propose an amendment such as that. The wording could be cleaned up or altered. I just jotted this down—I don't have it prepared. But I think that if there is a legitimate concern we should put a deadline on it. One week from today, it has to be done, otherwise it reverts to the original motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We have an amendment on the table. I'm going to clarify that you're comfortable with the wording, that you know the wording. We're going to proceed with the debate on the main motion while I get clarification from the clerk that the amendment is legal and presentable. But we'll continue with the debate.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Yes, okay.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Could you repeat the amendment in French?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

One moment, please, Mr. Guimond.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Lucile McGregor]

I'll read it in English first, and then the interpreters will do a loose French translation.

In the second paragraph of the motion, we would be deleting the word “forthwith” and adding:

That the adoption of this motion be reported to the House following minor unanimously agreed-upon amendments, but no later than one week from today, October 26, 2006.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Are we clear on the wording of the amendment before us?

Monsieur Guimond, are you clear?

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Yes, the wording is clear.

I am certain that Mr. Hill does not want the same thing to happen to him twice. Is the amendment really in order?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

If it's okay, while we continue debate on the main motion, I'm going to ask for 30 seconds to get clarification that it's presentable.

Mr. Owen, you're up on debate.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Because of the intervening amendment, I won't say the full of what I wanted to say until we get that clarification—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Fair enough.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

—ruling from you, Mr. Chair. But let me just say a few things about the general conversation we've had over the last few weeks.

First of all, I readily admit that I don't have the long parliamentary experience that—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

May I interrupt? I'm sorry, I have the ruling and I'm comfortable with the ruling that the amendment is receivable.

Continue, please.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I'm not speaking to the amendment, I'm speaking to the main motion.

I haven't had the long parliamentary experience of Mr. Hill and Mr. Lukiwski, but I suspect I've probably had more experience as a beneficiary of corporal punishment than even Mr. Lukiwski. I won't take the time of the committee to go through those early experiences. However, I don't sense in what I've seen going on.... And I take as sincere the statements of concern from the members opposite. Looking at this situation from somewhat of an outside position, because I didn't take part in any of the conversations in September, I don't see any bad faith being practised. I don't say that this wasn't felt, but my observation of it doesn't disclose that. I just meant, in my own mind, the fact that the original idea, a motion from this committee that went for concurrence, was on September 19, and then it would extend the provisional standing orders to November 21.

Clearly, it was anticipated that there would be some discussion to resolve that. I've heard nobody say that it was expected that this time would just run out and then they would lapse. It was to give space to have discussions. Those discussions, for whatever reason, didn't take place between September 19 and October 5 when we met here and had our first discussion of the concerns when the motion was presented. We heard the government's concerns expressed, but there had been no discussions initiated by the government by that time. But because there was some feeling that the time hadn't been sufficient, or for whatever reason we needed more time, we suspended discussion of the motion until two days ago, from October 5 to October 17.

I understand the chief opposition whip's office was in touch with the chief government whip's office and spoke to the whip's EA last week to try to get discussion moving on this, but there was no reply to that. There have been some discussions this morning, finally, and they have indicated two things. One is that quite aside from the process of determining the future of these provisional standing orders, concerns about their substance are quite small, and there may be some tinkering required and there may be some assistance from the clerks in that.

I do turn over in my mind, Mr. Chair, that here we are at October 19, a full month after it was first presented, and that the existence of the orders would be extended to November 21. We do have another recess week coming up. We have lots of other things to do. It's not as if we have until November 21 to actually sit down and talk about this. There are a number of things that have to go into train before then. While I accept that this amendment was put forward--finally, if I may say so, an attempt to get down to the detail of the minor adjustment that might be made--I think we should be proceeding now with this motion.

I know that members opposite are well acquainted with the notion of reverse onus. I would suggest we simply pass this motion and that the onus be reversed to those who would seek some small changes, as Monsieur Guimond has mentioned, to bring forward those changes, which our committee can always consider and agree to unanimously before or after November 21. My understanding is, and I think I heard Monsieur Guimond say, that there's nothing to stop our making adjustments as we go to these standing orders.

I'm not persuaded that there has been bad faith on any side in this case. I am persuaded that to everyone's mind the rules seem to have worked fairly well; there might be some wise but minor adjustments to them, and in that context I understand there's nothing to stop this committee from making those adjustments as we go forward.

I think it's time for this committee to get off this issue, in terms of the amount of time we've spent on it, and get on with our other important business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Monsieur Guimond, you were up; then it is Monsieur Godin, and then Mr. Hill.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Hill worded his remarks very cautiously: he did not call us, the opposition members, paranoid. He did not call us paranoid but he did say that he did not understand our paranoia.

I simply want to tell him that my psychiatrist assured me that although I have three of four mental illnesses I am not paranoid. I used to think I was because when I used to watch Canadian football, as a good Ottawa Rough Riders supporter, I thought they were talking about me during their hurdles. So I thought I was a little paranoid, but I am not.

On the other hand, I would say to Mr. Hill—and I did not want to say this—that we, as parliamentarians and as representatives of political parties, have a responsibility to be consistent. We must be consistent with our past attitude. Let me explain.

One of the reasons why many of our fellows citizens no longer trust politics and politicians is that politicians speak out of both sides of their mouth. Obviously you are going to tell us that we, the Bloc, are in the opposition, but I have a lot more to say.

[Voices]

But on both sides.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

This applies to the Liberals as well as to the Conservatives. Politicians say one thing when in government and another thing when they are in opposition.

It is our responsibility to be consistent. Which opposition party played a leadership role 20 months ago in advocating a change to these Standing Orders? The Conservative Party. It was fine when the Conservatives were in the opposition but now they are in power, it no longer makes sense.

That is why I am repeating what I said: We will adopt Ms. Redman's motion and then we can sit down, on the suggestion of Mr. Hill or anyone else who would like us to consider the Standing Orders, and review any necessary minor changes.

Still, I would like to come back to a point Mr. Hill stated as one of the facts that was bothering him: The five-day notice required for convening a committee during the summer, or during a recess.

I would just remind Mr. Hill that I sat on the Public Accounts Standing Committee when they were dealing with the sponsorship scandal. That Standing Order was used for convening the committee, which included Conservatives members, in the middle of summer. When the Conservatives were in the opposition, the five-day rule was not an issue, but now it is. Just one minute!

I have not had time to check but I believe the same thing happened in other committees. I may have mental illnesses but I have a good memory. The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology met in order to hear oil companies. The Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs and International Development met in order to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, the JTFA-2 or another similar issue.

Therefore, I think that Mr. Hill should consider the number of times the Conservatives worked with us, the Bloc Québecois, and the NDP in order to use the rule that allows for four or five committee members convening a committee meeting while the House is not sitting. He will see that then the five-day notice was fine. Now that the Conservatives are in power, it would take 10 days!

He is going to have a hard time convincing me. Nevertheless, I am always willing to talk to Mr. Hill and any of my whip colleagues. I adore, I love my whip colleagues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Go ahead, Monsieur Godin.