Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 21st, 2010

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

No offence to that genre, but we did get some opinions that differed from each other. That's the hardship on this.

The last category, Andre, is entitled “No Changes”.

[Andre Barnes]

It's somewhat self-explanatory.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Right.

There are two examples here, but throughout the testimony, if I can give a chair's opinion, by the end of it, many of the experts have kind of said, yes, I know I've suggested a bunch of things, but perhaps just leaving it alone and getting out of minority governments was the real action.

[A voice]

Wrong.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Well, I'm not misquoting when I say that many of them said minority governments are the cause of this issue.

Mr. Lukiwski and then Mr. Albrecht.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

I have a quick question.

I thank our analysts for putting the briefing note together. I think it's well done, except I don't know if we've captured everything here. I'm just going from memory here, and I recall one example. We talked at reasonable length about the role of the Speaker of the Senate in this whole procedure, and I see no reference to that in the briefing note.

This makes me wonder, are there other pieces of testimony we heard that should be contained in this for our consideration and that perhaps are not?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I can answer that. Andre and I have spoken about this.

Yes, this is a pretty good overview of essentially what happened in some of the questioning. Should we ever go to write a report, there'd be an awful lot of conversation about truly talking about, from the blues, what clearly was said. This is more “So and so said this, so and so said that”; it's not everything that was said. That's why we said it would be an opinion piece, not a potential of a report.

I agree with you, Mr. Lukiwski, that there's a lot that some picked up, and some asked questions about, and so on.

I have Mr. Albrecht next.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was just discussing with the analysts when we sat down here that when I go through a report or a book, I often go to the last page to see what the actual conclusion is. I was just assuming that option G was the conclusion here and that we were probably going to stick with no changes.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I'm saying that in a lighthearted way, Mr. Chair, but seriously, I agree with your summary that after all of the witnesses were heard, there was a lot of questioning. With all this potential change, maybe what we have isn't as bad as we thought it was when we started out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I was just going to say one thing with regard to your comment and Mr. Christopherson's question, and the second thing relates to Professor Heard's testimony.

With regard to that, most of the professors made written presentations, and when they came to us, they had been following previous presentations that other professors had made, and so they would say on occasion--it's all there on the written record--that, you know, I've altered somewhat from what my written presentation said, based on effectively what I've heard from previous presentations.

I don't think they necessarily said the solution is not to have minority governments. It was more that this particular kind of situation only arises in a minority government, because in a majority government, the government can prorogue at will and it's never in conflict with the will of the majority of the House of Commons, for reasons we don't have to explain.

So that is a peculiar aspect of this. We're talking about how to control minority governments, but everybody should understand that when you get a majority government, it'll go back to being an elected dictatorship. It's just the reality of the situation, unless you change something else.

With regard to Professor Heard--it's that paragraph at the end of section F--I think what he was trying to get at, although it doesn't say this here, is how you do certain things that result in the establishment of a new convention. He said that a variety of things could be put to work.

I think what he's getting at is that you can do a series of things, and at the end, all these changes cause the circumstances in which a new convention comes into being. Really, I think he's talking about that somewhat ambiguous process, as opposed to saying one of these things will lead to a legal change.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Christopherson.

Sorry; I'm in the restaurant business, and I'm used to asking people questions the minute they put something in their mouths.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Well, you're very good at it.

I just wanted to give my support to Mr. Paquette's notion of a subcommittee. That might make some sense. Regardless of how complex or whether we need to go through the complexities and arrive at something very simple or by majority conclude there is no further action, the level of work that's required is really difficult with this big a group.

At any rate, I thought that was an excellent suggestion and wanted to just give my support to it in terms of next steps, that maybe that's the way to go, to create a small group that wants to focus on this and report back to the main.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Mr. Proulx.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you. I apologize for not being here from the start, but there's a place upstairs that needs speakers.

The idea of a subcommittee is absolutely not a bad idea. On top of that, I'm not going to discuss my Alzheimer's condition at this point except to say that I tend to remember--partly--that we still had some witnesses that we wanted to be heard.

I don't know if you discussed this earlier in the meeting, but such a subcommittee could maybe try to hear these additional witnesses so that the loop would be complete. Then that subcommittee could certainly work on the preparation of a report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Let me go back a bit, because we seem to be done with that....

Mr. Albrecht.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Just on the point of a subcommittee, Mr. Chair, I think today is a perfect example of why a subcommittee would not be a good idea on a study of this nature.

I'm in agreement that many times subcommittees are helpful, but we've had examples today with new members coming in and not having heard the full discussion, wanting to be updated. I think a similar occasion could arise with the subcommittee. So you'd have a subcommittee working for four weeks, then they report to the committee and the committee wants to know all of the study that went on.

I'll go with what the committee decides, but I'm not convinced that on this issue a subcommittee is the best way to go.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

For the benefit of Mr. Proulx, who wasn't here, we did talk at the beginning that we would listen to the options that the analysts put forward today, and in far more of a way of filling in some members—as much as half of the committee was not here during the study—so they could have an idea of how it flowed and what some of the witnesses said. It's in no way comprehensive as to what was said. So we said we'd get to that point.

I also challenged the committee at the start of the meeting to not make a decision until we also hear about the Referendum Act, hear from Mr. Chong, and also start a little bit down the road of the Chief Electoral Officer's recommendations as to priorities for this committee.

Today is a piece of information that we have now in our heads that the committee is still seized with—we still have to finish this work in one way or the other—but I would like the committee to not make a decision until it has heard all three or four of those pieces. Then we can put them on the scale and balance where we need to go.

Suggestions have been made on a subcommittee and on a number of ways we could move forward.

Mr. Proulx, you are correct, there were at least a couple of witnesses. Senator Hogg has been avoiding us about coming, for some reasons--

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

It's Professor Hogg, not Senator Hogg.

[A voice]

Are you telling us something we don't know?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Did I say “Senator”?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!