Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 29th, 2013

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Maybe you should think about that.

But the reality is, let's go back to the way that Canadians want committees to be. That means transparency. That means we go in camera only for exceptional items. Mr. Lukiwski added other items. This is all part of what we've done traditionally as part of committee work.

Through you, Mr. Chair, to the Conservatives, your brand is taking a real beating. You're seeing Conservative activists being upset. This is a small step in starting to restore the credibility of what has been a pretty tattered government.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

We're going to Dave, and then Scott, and then Nathan hopefully will get the final word.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I've sat through this committee since we've come back after September, and I was actually here in September when the NDP demanded that the committee come back to Ottawa. We met on September 8, and the NDP somehow had an opinion that the Conservatives would hold the meeting in camera just to confirm what we had already confirmed we would do in June. Talk about a complete and utter waste of taxpayers' money.

Do you know what, Mr. Chair? The meeting was not held in camera. I know it was a disappointment to the NDP. They lost their nerve when they went out to the press. All of a sudden it was like a deflated balloon.

I would say to you, Mr. Chair, that because all of those nasty things we heard about the previous motion coming from the PMO, this motion must come from the OLO because it's being brought to every committee and in the House. Oh, it's got to be from the OLO.

It didn't get reported here first; it was reported through the NDP's communications department to the press. That's when most people heard about it. We can talk about all of those other things, but I come from a background where we used to do hotel fights, which displayed more respect from combatants than there is from these people when they talk across the table. When we talk about in camera meetings, I haven't heard of one they think was wrong.

[Some hon. members]

Oh?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Chair, I thought I had the floor. They talked about decorum when we came back. If there is a party that has shown no decorum in the House, it's that party. They show no decorum or respect for anybody here.

Mr. Chair, it's not hard to vote against this. In different committees there are different reasons. Mr. Lukiwski tried to explain some of them, but I can tell you a few others. The courts have tried to shelter witnesses who don't want their identity known. You know what? In this place it's not hard to deal with these necessary, few issues in camera. The vast majority are held in public with recordings, and on many occasions the NDP have wanted them televised, and they've had them televised. I don't know how you could be more open than that.

For that reason, this is a notice of motion that I think is actually not needed, and I would certainly vote against it. I don't think it's what anybody in the public has anticipated, these people holding up the committee. We could have been dealing with what they think is important two or three meetings ago, but it's their choice.

Mr. Chair, let's move on.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

We're going to go to Scott, and Nathan, and I understand that Blake would like to get a few words in, too.

Scott.

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

Thank you.

I have a fair degree of sympathy for the underlying premise of the motion. I do recall a number of occasions when I felt that the ability to go in camera simply on a motion without debate.... You know how it works. If someone were to say, “Let's go in camera right now,” we'd have to have a vote and it would be up or down and we'd go in camera. Likewise in reverse, when we are coming out of in camera.

I have a couple thoughts about abuses of this I've seen in the past. It used to frustrate me enormously that the private members' business committee met exclusively in camera. That was a holdover of an earlier era in previous parliaments, when private members' business was essentially conducted by MPs trying to explain to the committee why their item should be made votable, because items were actually not votable unless approved by the subcommittee, then by this committee, and finally by the House.

Those of us who go back to the Parliament elected in 2000 will remember what a ruthless process that was. After that Parliament was over and the rules were changed as a result of a motion that started in this committee, what happened was that private members' business items could be killed in committee for reasons that were frankly preposterous, that held no water, or simply because the majority of members in that private members' business committee would say, we just want to kill this. Since you couldn't report it publicly, that allowed some really outrageous abuses of the rules to go on, and no one was in a position to report on it without being in contempt of Parliament.

A couple of parliaments ago when I was on that subcommittee, I managed to get that changed so that we started the practice of just holding the meetings in public, something that I think has been very profitable. At the time I remember that as soon as the other members who hadn't realized they were in public realized they were in public, were horror-stricken and wanted to go in camera immediately. There are minutes of that particular meeting where this came up. But I think on the whole the process of having that committee in public has been a beneficial thing, and I think the process of trying to deal with that particular kind of business in camera was unwise.

I have another example that occurs to me from the last Parliament. Actually, it was in this committee. I can't remember if anybody here was on that committee at the time. I wish my memory were better.

Tom, you were on it. Was anybody else on it here?

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

I don't think so.

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

Okay.

What happened was that there was an attempt to produce a motion finding the government in contempt of Parliament, one that would be dealt with at an in camera meeting. The motion was distributed by mistake before we were in camera. Then there was a motion to go in camera. I took the motion and I simply went and said that I didn't care whether we were in camera. It showed a contempt of the process to ram through a motion defeating a government in camera and to make it an unamendable motion, that is to say, one to which amendments could not be added.

I'm sorry, it wasn't a motion; it was a report that was going to be adopted in camera, with no amendments permitted, no dissenting report permitted. This struck me as an outrageous abuse. I actually took the paper and left the room to go and hand it to the media. When they realized this was going to happen, the other side thought better of the whole thing and let the proceedings occur in public.

So that was a problem. I look at these kinds of problems that have existed in the past. I'm only pointing to the ones I know of. I have no doubt that one could find all parties guilty of similar abuses at some point in the past. Every party has been in the role of Sir Galahad at some point in the past. Just looking at it, I can see some value in reining in the in camera rule.

But it seems to me that the fundamental problem we have here is that we're dealing with a simple rule put in place with no caveats governing it, because of the complexities involved in designing detailed rules. The in camera rule where you simply have a vote without having a debate, in or out, is copying the model of the House of Commons itself. Our House of Commons copies the British House of Commons, in which there was a simple motion that could be requested by a new member—we're now going back to the 17th or 18th century—that all strangers be cleared from the House. That was the equivalent of an in camera meeting. The meeting would then be secret.

This was at a time when all meetings were in essence secret in one form or another. It was against the rules to take notes, to report on what happened. People actually would sneak out and publish newspaper reports. Eventually, because the House of Commons found that these reports were frequently distorted, they hired one of the more reliable reporters, a Mr. Hansard, who began to publish his reports. But prior to that time, the attempt was made to keep all meetings off the record. When that was thought to be unsatisfactory, simply clearing the House was the rule. So we have a practice that goes back several hundred years. Trying to move from something that has been regulated by what we hope was common sense—there are lots of places where common sense has failed, but it's been regulated that way—and turn it into a set of firm rules requires more than a motion that is produced without some kind of study and some kind of documentation.

So I'm left asking the same question of the New Democrats who proposed this—I think, in goodwill—when they asked me the same, when I was proposing a motion on a different subject that we finally dealt with earlier today. That is, given that we are descended from the Westminster House of Commons, there must be other examples. These may well include the Senate, the houses of the various provinces, the parliaments of other countries, the parliaments of places like Australia, and other national units that have dealt with this.

I heard Mr. Cullen mentioning the way in which the in camera rules are dealt with at the municipal level in his province. I know that in Ontario they're not terribly satisfactory. My point is to have mini-salutary examples that one could draw upon if one is seriously trying to design something that's a little more elaborate. This wasn't presented to us. I'm not suggesting that it wasn't researched, but I am suggesting that I am not at this point aware of it.

The New Democrats made the motion. They could do one of several things. Number one, they could withdraw it and come back to us when they've got pertinent information that would help us. Number two, they could approach us and work out something more suitable that involves additional study. But if they aren't willing to do anything other than to have this, I wouldn't be in a position to vote intelligently in favour of it. I say this because, though I'm not an expert in this field, I just don't know if it's not more problematic than the status quo.

But I think the initiative is a good one, and I am glad they suggested it—even though, if it stays in this format, I'm afraid I would have to vote against it.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

Nathan.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Reid.

It's interesting, because he finds himself in the place that we found ourselves with regard to the motion that he moved last week, that is, where there's now something that he doesn't feel there's enough information for him to vote confidently in favour of. When it came around to Ms. May and the independents, the initial suggestion from the government was to vote for or against this, but without any information. So perhaps the tables have turned somewhat. Note the discomfort.

What I am going to suggest, when the chair returns, is this. And I will be seeking this from the government side as well. Mr. Reid, Dave, Tom, and others have suggested some concerns about the way this is constructed. I was going to interject to offer that any committee can choose by a majority vote to move in camera to defend and protect a witness' privacy and security. That's what is done. This motion wouldn't preclude that. That's an argument that we can make.

But having heard that some municipalities and some provincial legislatures.... I've just been handed the standing orders that guide the Quebec legislature on in camera discussions. They have an interesting nuance on this, that:

Any committee may resolve to meet in camera; but no motion to that effect shall be deemed carried unless a majority of the members from each parliamentary group shall have voted in its favour.

That's an interesting adaptation. In order for a committee to go fully in camera on something that isn't guided by these types of outlines—security of the person, labour contracts and whatnot, including national security—you'd have to have a majority of the parties represented saying, yes, this is a good thing. We all understand why this has to go in these unique cases that Tom talked about. You can't foretell everything.

What I would suggest to the committee, to move a friendly amendment to Madame Turmel's motion, is that there seems to be interest around this idea of having something, because let's admit it, nothing guides us right now.

Earlier Dave asked for different examples. There was one this past summer dealing with telecommunications companies at the industry committee. The government moved the whole telcos meeting and the resolution in camera, because there was actually some embarrassment about the government's policy and the effectiveness of the policy on opening up the wireless carriers for Canadians, which hasn't been working so well.

Regardless, it was a political decision. It had nothing to do with national security, or some witness being exposed to risk on their life, or labour disputes. If he wants an example, we have that, but there are many. In the light of day we can all admit that when majority governments have a moment that's embarrassing at a committee, they would rather see the embarrassing moment, the vote or whatever happens, go away.

I am going to suggest, and I seek the favour of Madame Turmel on this, that pending the two studies that are immediately placed before us as a committee—one around MPs' expenses, the urgency of which you've all described, and the second on Mr. Bezan's question of privilege, which we hope to do simultaneously, but we'll see how the committee study works out—we immediately take witnesses after that.

Perhaps, Madame Turmel, we can even stand this motion, but I will look to have, through the clerk, a supplemental put on this, that the committee design a succinct bit of research on this, not extensive but succinct; come up with some witnesses who would satisfy the concerns of Mr. Reid and Mr. MacKenzie about what the rules might be; and seek, as a committee, to design some rules that guide us on when we go secret and when we go open.

[An hon. member]

Good idea.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

Are you suggesting we table the motion?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It has to be through Madame Turmel. It's her motion.

We can simply go through with a standing vote. Obviously the government decided before the meeting that they were going to vote against that. That's fine. The Conservatives have that tendency around these issues lately. So be it.

But if I take Mr. Reid, Mr. Lukiwski, and Mr. MacKenzie at their word, it sounds like there is some openness to this. They have questions. Well, then, let's explore those questions as a committee. Let's design something that's going to work for committees, work for parliamentarians, and work for the government, for goodness' sake.

But stop what we have right now, which is nothing. We have less than the Senate, gentlemen. I mean, come on. There's guilt by association. Let's be better than them, at least—or, oh, my goodness, even move to their standard. It will obviously not be satisfactory to Canadians when they find that out, that committees get rammed in.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

Just for clarification, Nathan, to perhaps assist you in your comments, making an amendment of that nature would change the scope of the motion, and therefore we wouldn't be able to accept the motion.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I understand.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

What we could entertain doing is the possibility of tabling the motion, with the idea that at some point you might come back with another motion to better reflect your comments.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Sure.

I think Mr. Lukiwski has a comment on this.

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

Thank you to the interim chair. I concur with Nathan that you're doing a superb job.

I was just about to say that very thing, that if the NDP is willing to table it with the proviso that the government agrees with their bringing it back, hopefully when Mr. Preston is in the chair....

No disrespect—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

No offence taken.

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

—but I think you should be involved in the discussion of this, representing the Liberal Party, so that we have a full committee.

Then, if you bring it back and we can have a discussion on whether we want to go forward on an investigatory mission to try to find out if there is a system or a process regarding in camera meetings that would work, I would have no—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

What trigger are you offering to bring it back? What mechanism would you put in it so it comes back, so that it doesn't just stay out there forever?

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

Oh, you bring it back yourself.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

The last thing you said was about openness and a willingness to look at what a motion would look like.