Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 10th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Ladies and gentlemen, let's call our meeting to order, please.

Colleagues, I want to remind everybody that this meeting today is being held in public.

We have three separate items today, and I've been asked by Monsieur Guimond if we could get the unanimous consent of the committee to switch the agenda a little bit and offer Monsieur Guimond time up front versus afterwards.

Is there unanimous consent to let Mr. Guimond go first?

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

It's just to explain my motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Yes, I think there is.

Monsieur Guimond, please, you have the floor.

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

Thanks a lot, Mr. Chair.

I clearly remember the four whips having a preliminary discussion during our meeting on Monday. For that reason, my whip colleagues will not be surprised by the wording of this motion.

I want to quickly explain the reason for this proposed amendment to the Standing Orders. Currently, I disagree with the Speaker on a number of issues concerning the rights of independent members.

Currently, there are three independent members of Parliament, Mr. Arthur, Mr. Comuzzi and Ms. Thibault. The Speaker is of the opinion that if an independent member does not use his right to speak and to ask questions in the House... According to the Speaker, the independents constitute a group. Consequently, based on his calculations, instead of calculating 1 independent member out of 181 opposition members, he calculates 3 independent members out of 181, which entitles them to 2 questions per week. I unequivocally disagree on this point. I met with the Speaker, and he told me that, since the Speaker always complies with the Standing Orders of the House, if the Standing Orders were amended, the Speaker would comply, as he always does.

I talked with my whip colleagues. You will see that based on the wording before you, it is possible to consider a party recognized by Elections Canada with less than 12 members and not recognized, therefore, by the House as a group of parliamentarians. Consequently, the leader of this party could be entitled to more than one question per week. My colleague Jay Hill raised this point in order to foster democracy. An independent member who is not affiliated with a recognized party will be considered to be an entity in and of itself. It's a matter of looking at the definitions of word "independent".

This is the amendment to the Standing Orders that you now have. The first case covers statements pursuant to Standing Order 31. An independent member may be recognized to one statement per week. The second case covers question period. An independent member may ask one question per week, without impairing the Speaker's discretionary power to look at the clock to see if there is any time remaining at the end of question period. If there is more activity during question period and there is no time remaining, the independent member might not have the right to ask a question. This is the purpose of the amendment I am submitting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Monsieur Guimond, you have offered a motion discussing changing the Standing Orders for independent members to ask questions in the House.

Colleagues, I have distributed a paper discussing independent members' ability to ask questions during a committee meeting. I suspect that's just a slight error. Is that--

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

No. It's another subject. I bring up this matter about independents' speech rights in committee, and it's another matter. My notice of motion concerns another matter.

I suspect the clerk will give us information about the speech of independents in committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you for that clarification. And so we have that before us as well. Thank you very much, Mr. Guimond.

Did you want to make a comment on that, Mr. Godin? I wasn't prepared to get into a discussion on this. I just offered the floor for explanation.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

It is okay, Mr. Chairman, I agree to revisit this matter later.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Did we want further comment on this? It's just an introduction and explanation of a potential motion. We'll put it on the agenda to discuss it at a future date. Is that acceptable?

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I think my comment would be relevant, if I could ask the committee's indulgence.

Michel's quite right, we have dealt with this at a side meeting among the whips. I am certainly sympathetic to the cause. I think all whips were. I am just wondering if, rather than dealing with this and in this milieu....

I'm just suggesting something, Michel, and I wouldn't presume to ask you to withdraw this as a notice of motion, but I'm wondering if the four whips perhaps could go to the Speaker about this before we dealt with it in an effort to change the Standing Orders. I would just observe that the rotation of speakers is something that's agreed to, and I'm wondering if the four of us going and trying to work that out with the Speaker may be a way to deal with this that doesn't demand the changing of the Standing Orders.

If you look at question period, clearly the government gets, what, two or three questions?

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

Three singles.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Three. So if it were based purely on how many people elected us or what our affiliation was, from that perspective the government would get far more questions than just three out of the rotation.

There's an expression in English: if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. I'm just wondering if there's another way to deal with this besides changing the Standing Orders.

I'm just putting forward that maybe we could leave this notice of motion before procedure and House affairs and perhaps parallel to this the whips could go and speak to the Speaker to see if it could be resolved amicably, to everybody's satisfaction, that way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I have Mr. Hill up first, and then we'll come back to you, and then I'd like to make a comment.

Mr. Hill.

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

I'd certainly be open to that, although there have been discussions. I'd be interested to hear our witnesses, Mr. Chair, at some point on this, just as clarification as to how we collectively work on this issue to try to move it forward in one form or another.

As Madam Redman indicated, the four whips did have a meeting where we met on a number of issues, one of which was this, which was raised as a concern by the Bloc.

The problem I identified there, which the Bloc has tried to address, is a problem that the Speaker himself raised with me--I've had a discussion with him about this already--and it is that he views the independents as a group. This came about because of a situation a number of parliaments ago when both the New Democratic Party and the Progressive Conservative Party at the time had insufficient members to be recognized parties in the House of Commons. All of us are aware that you have to have a minimum of 12 members to be recognized as a party and have all the benefits--I'll call them that--that flow from that recognition. They were both under the 12.

In order to pool their limited questions in question period, in the sense that if you addressed those people as complete independents.... For argument's sake, let's say you had nine people and you had three questions in question period, and you wanted on a given day to have the leader of your party have all three questions. Obviously if the Speaker didn't view you as a group, even though you weren't a recognized party, you wouldn't have the ability to pool your questions and basically assign them to only one member, because as an independent member, as the motion stands and as the argument is made, you might be entitled to one question per week.

That's the issue the Speaker raised with me. We don't have that situation currently, but presumably it could repeat itself at some point in the future, maybe with the Green Party or something, where they wouldn't have 12 members. They might have three or four members and they might want to pool their limited questions and only have their leader ask the questions. So then what does the Speaker do if, for parliamentary purposes, they're viewed three or four independents? That's the issue he's grappling with.

So what he has done, through extension of that argument, is say, okay, we have currently three independents in the House of Commons and they're entitled to x number of questions, so if two of the three don't choose to ask any questions, then the other independent can get effectively get their slots, for lack of a better term.

That's my understanding of the problem, if it indeed is a problem. The Bloc believes that it is a problem. The other three whips have certainly indicated we're willing to address it.

I think what Monsieur Guimond has done is try to address that in his motion by stating: “For the purposes of Standing Order 31.1(1), members of political parties not officially recognized in the House are not considered independent members.”

What he is trying to do is address that issue, so that if that were to manifest itself in a future Parliament, even though they might not be a recognized party, if they wanted to be grouped together, a group of MPs from a party, even if it wasn't an officially recognized party in the House of Commons, could group their questions and assign them to one person.

Is that right, Michel?

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

Yes. I changed my initial wording due to what you said at our meeting. I think this wording gives this possibility.

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

It's by way of a background of our discussion and where we're going in the discussion.

I don't want to quote the Speaker. But in the off-line discussion I had with the Speaker, one of his concerns was what would happen in the future, if a similar situation arose with a party that wasn't recognized as a party in the House, with regard to the grouping or pooling of limited questions. Perhaps the clerk would want to respond to that particular concern.

It might thus be Madam Redmond's suggestion that we could solve this through the four whips' having a conversation with the Speaker, and obviously including the Clerk in that discussion, or perhaps we would need something more formal to address the issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I don't want to get into a discussion on this right now.

Monsieur Guimond, I'm going to give you the floor right now.

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

I know Karen is taking a French course. I must explain, but I will use her language to give a better understanding, if you understand my English.

I had a discussion with the Speaker and the Clerk, and they counted the number of opposition members: 100 Liberals, plus 49 Bloc, plus 29 NDP, plus 3 independents. It's a total of 181. They made a proposition: three divided by 181 gives 1.69 questions, and that is the reason the Speaker gave two questions per week.

I had a discussion with the Speaker. He said he wanted to continue this pattern, but if we change the standing order, he will respect the new standing order.

The clerk was a witness to all these discussions, at Jay's request. If you don't believe what I'm saying, she can provide confirmation. That is how I see things. I don't know how meeting with the Speaker would move things forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

May I interject? I think we're moving forward into a discussion here. It wasn't the purpose of the chair giving the floor for the introduction of the motion.

I almost sense a consensus here among the whips. Perhaps Madam O'Brien wants a little time to consider the issue.

It sounds like the whips want to get together and talk to the Speaker, and I think it's the best way to do it. However, the motion's on the floor, and it will stay on our agenda until it's removed because it's been dealt with by a separate meeting or we deal with it at the committee.

But right now I'd like to move on, if I can. I'm going to take one more comment, because Monsieur Godin hasn't had a chance to talk. But my preference is to drop this conversation and see if it can be solved, or put it on the agenda for another time.

Monsieur Godin.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

You know I don't want to give my chance away.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

You have one and a half minutes.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I don't want to interpret what the Speaker said. Perhaps he considered that political parties, the NDP and the Conservatives, had suggested that one person might ask more questions.

I don't think that in this case the independent members sat together and got one question for the three of them. They are not associated. They are independent members and by definition, being independent means working alone.

I think that the Speaker himself decided, with all due respect to him, on such an interpretation, because a political party already benefits from a certain amount of recognition, even if it is not recognized as such, as Mr. Hill said. However, by definition, an independent sits alone. So there was no need to put them together. However, that's what he did. The whips could discuss this further.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Merci beaucoup.

Ms. O'Brien has limited time today, and we certainly have been taking a lot of her time and her team's time in the last couple of weeks. I'm going to move on now

As I mentioned, for the record, the motion's on the floor. We will discuss it, unless it's removed by Monsieur Guimond because it's been dealt with, which I suspect will end up being the case.

We're going to move on now to Mr. Preston's motion. Colleagues, you have some information in front of you regarding this.

There is no introduction by the Clerk. We're going to go right into the discussion by members. After Mr. Preston refreshes our memory on this motion, the Clerk and her team are here to actually answer any questions that we may have as we go through the discussion.

First, there's no formality to the round of questions. I'll watch hands go up, and we'll try to keep the time limit down so that we can get everybody's questions in.

Mr. Preston, the floor is yours, please.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I'll start off with a bit of an introduction so we can move fairly quickly. We are talking about leaks of information from in camera sessions. We recognize that it happens, and a report generated by the researchers certainly shows cases of it.

The point isn't that it happens--we recognize that--we're trying to look for the remedy. What's the sanction against a member who chooses, knowingly, to breach a confidence of an in camera committee session?

I think we all know that there are some confidentiality requirements to the job. Committees meet in camera to discuss draft reports or information they feel shouldn't be open to the public at that time. Some members choose to then immediately leave the presence of that committee and share information that has been deemed to be confidential with the press.

We're looking for the sanctions should someone be found to have breached that confidence. But what are we looking for? I see on the list here that there's everything from the use of the guillotine to imprisonment. How do we get to that point of sanctions? Is it the job of this committee to determine how we would then prove the lack of confidentiality of a member? What sanctions would be taken by the House toward that member?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I would remind colleagues that we have dealt with a similar matter. However, it is quite different in that we were dealing with the deliberate and voluntary decision of a committee. We were struggling with that issue with respect to in camera meetings being made public.

This is a completely and entirely different situation. I just want to remind members of that.

Are there any comments? I'll open the floor for discussion. I'm sure we're not ready for the question right now.

Madam Redman, please.