Evidence of meeting #3 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was way.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Kevin Lamoureux
I think David's trying to express himself and he should be afforded the opportunity to do so.
12:15 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
It's hard for me to come out of my shell.
12:15 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
12:15 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
In all seriousness, this is so out of date with the way things are. It's an old tool that was given to the government of the day, which wants the other side...because it's always been that way, up until 2015, one of the two. And they go back and forth, wink wink, nudge nudge, don't worry, we won't wreck the stuff that really makes it cool here. Well, it's time. There are an awful lot of things that are changing, and transparency and accountability is the issue of the day. How can there be transparency and how can there be accountability when members, by law, are denied the right simply to talk about a motion they made in committee but which failed?
What possible, cataclysmic event is going to happen because of that? Only one, and it's only cataclysmic on the government side, and that is they would lose the right to keep opposition members muzzled. That's what it's about.
Mr. Lukiwski is saying, “Well, we're only going to give one quick little talk.” Again, like the previous issue, they're hoping this goes away with their majority. They can do that and they can force us on to other matters, but there is that day of reckoning and it is called an election. This is yet but one more piece of the puzzle that shows clearly this government has far more interest in maintaining and exercising power—raw, pure power—than they do the rather inconvenient niceties of democracy. They view winning as, “Well, we get to do whatever we want, we've got a majority.”
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Brad Butt Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
That sounds like Bob Rae in Ontario. That guy sat the least of any government in the history of Ontario. It was your government; you were a cabinet minister.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Mr. Butt, when you leave here, if you have a hundredth of the positive reputation of Bob Rae, you've done well. I strongly suspect you're not going to make it.
I will continue wherever I can, as all of us will, to fight these unfair rules. I get where some of the government members are. They've never been anywhere except in government. They don't know what opposition is. Some of my other colleagues are a little more careful about what they're saying, because they know that we write down the things they've said before and that those can come back. I would just suggest that while it's nice and easy to feel comfortable in the confines of your majority government, the fact remains that eventually these members have to leave the Hill, and eventually they have to face Canadians and have to answer as to why they felt that secrecy was more important than transparency, because that's the issue. We've provided opportunities for things that reasonable-minded Canadians understand would be dealt with behind closed doors.
Mr. Lukiwski has raised an issue, and I have responded that unanimous consent would deal with that instantly without saying anything, but you can easily—
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Actually, it's more of a point of clarification just for the benefit of my good friend David. It's Lukiwski not “Lu-kew-ski”.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
12:20 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
It's a personal one. I accept that, and I do apologize.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
12:20 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I do apologize. As somebody who has a name like mine, I understand what it's like t have it butchered, and I do apologize, sir.
Regarding Tom's suggestion, that here was this huge problem, the fact remains that we could easily put together language that talks about certain circumstances, saying that in those circumstances, with a unanimous consent, the committee agrees that the rules are that you could go in camera on that.
I mean, come along. There are very few pieces of legislation that don't have some proviso somewhere that somebody has residual authority or there's a means to deal with circumstances that aren't dealt with in the prescribed legislation.
I've been a cabinet minister, and I'm sure there are others in the room who have too. Quite frankly, you do the best you can with the legislation, then you narrow it down further with your regulations, but you're never going to capture everything. When you identify an issue, as Tom has done, then what you do is you build in a mechanism whereby reasonable people can deal with it. Will it always cover everything one hundred per cent? No, but no legislation does. The best legislation goes as far as it can, and then leaves the flexibility of the members to make common sense decisions, which remarkably, over the decades I've been in public life, are actually easier to find than you might think when people put down the partisanship. If you set that aside, it's amazing how quickly we can come to a meeting of the minds on issues that don't need to be particularly partisan.
I think it's clear, Chair, where the government is not going, and that is into the world of transparency. They talk a good game about democracy, but when we keep seeing charges and allegations and everything that's going on in the Senate, and we have a government that passes a fixed date election law only to violate it in the very first term they passed it, this is a government that doesn't respect democracy. And if you don't respect democracy, regardless of what the government may think, you can't respect Canadians, because Canadians expect that their democracy is what gives them their rights. So when you don't show that kind of respect to Canadians' democracy, you are showing them a lack of respect.
Not only that, they have a right to know. That's what transparency is about. The old paternalistic ways of doing things are gone, folks. It's over. It's about transparency and being accountable for everything you say and do, and that you don't have the ability anymore to go into committee rooms and tile the door and bar everyone from being in there, and then deny the participants in the room the ability to talk about what happened—particularly when it's none of the issues A through E. But without changing that rule, every motion made by an opposition member that's lost in committee will continue to be protected by law from being put in the light of transparency to the public.
The government does not have a leg to stand on with this issue. They do not. The only reason governments keep this in place is that it serves their needs by muzzling the opposition. We will continue to push for transparency and accountability while this undemocratic and unaccountable government remains in power, and hopefully, after 2015 we can bring a lot of changes to this place and come out at the end of that term, a first NDP-majority term, with a different Parliament, with a different way of doing politics. It won't be perfect, but it will be a lot more transparent, and we won't have the embarrassment this government has of having its members sitting there frantically trying to think how they can defend that particular argument, how they can defend the idea that muzzling the opposition in a democracy is a good and fair idea.
Good luck defending that.
Thanks, Chair.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Kevin Lamoureux
We go to Peter, followed by Nathan, followed by Dave.
Go ahead, Peter,
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'll be brief. I think the Conservatives should vote for this. Why? Because their constituents want to see this.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Is that an actual, genuine point of order?
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
A genuine point of order? Is that different from a point of order?
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
As opposed to all the random non-points of order that other people and I have made earlier....
I thought I was on the speakers list as a result of—
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Oh, I see. Okay. I'm way down.
I'm sorry, Peter.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
12:25 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Well, it was a point of privilege, yes, but anyhow....
Here's why Conservatives should actually vote for this motion. First off, the Conservative brand has taken a real beating over the last few months. There's no doubt about it. In the Ipsos Reid opinion poll that's out this morning, the Conservatives are now in third place for the first time since their party was founded. What this means is that there's a resonance among the population; they are seeing that Conservatives walk, but they won't walk the talk around transparency.
The reality is that for your own constituents, if for nothing else, you have a reason to vote for this particular motion. I know that in my own riding people who voted Conservative last time say that they didn't vote for what they see happening on Parliament Hill and what they see happening in the Senate. But as Mr. Christopherson points out, the Senate actually has a level of transparency around committees that has been destroyed since the Conservatives became a majority, because, as you'll recall, Mr. Chair, prior to 2011, this is how committees functioned.
It is simply untrue to pretend that somehow this motion that's being brought forward is in any way a different approach from what we had, certainly since I first became a member of Parliament in 2004, along with Mr. Christopherson and Mr. Cullen, and Mr. Lukiwski as well, until 2011, when the Conservatives formed a majority. This is how committees functioned. Committees worked by unanimous consent. We ensured that these types of issues were treated in a confidential way. For seven years, we lived under a regime where there was some respect for Canadian taxpayers, some respect for democracy, and respect for transparency.
What changed in 2011? Conservatives decided they were going to bring a wrecking ball to that kind of committee transparency, and ever since then they have tried to bring in camera any issue that they feel will impact them politically in a negative way. That's what this is all about. There's nothing else.
This is how we functioned for seven years. Committees were much better at doing their work under those seven years of transparency than under the last two years of darkness. What we are asking for today is simply to have the Conservatives start to walk the talk. If it will help them get out of third place in the polls, it's probably a net benefit for Conservative members.