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

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

Good morning. I call this meeting to order.

At our last meeting we ended with Mr. Cullen's concluding remarks. I think there was some thought that we might be going to Ms. Turmel.

Go ahead, Nathan.

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

Thank you, Chair. It's only to clarify with you that we're not in camera. Is that correct?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

So that everyone is aware, we're actually debating the amendment to Mr. Reid's motion.

Go ahead.

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

First of all, great job chairing so far.

[Some voices]

Oh, oh!

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

It's been flawless. I have no complaints. It has been a minute and it's been good so far.

Our concerns remain. We have the motion by Mr. Reid that was then somewhat helpfully amended by you, Mr. Lamoureux, in your former position as not chair.

What I'm hoping for over the next while from the government, and potentially from Mr. Reid because it's his motion, is on the two main questions that we posed when this was first presented to us. They were, why the panic and how does this make things better? We've had some reference back from the House, from the clerk, as to what the potential impacts might be, yet the lack of argumentation from the government as to why they're doing this should give us all concern. Certainly in the opposition it gives us concern. We know Mr. Reid as a thoughtful parliamentarian and that he usually doesn't do things without a reason. Yet we have found ourselves over the last couple of meetings, since he presented this motion and under some questioning in the House, lacking a rationale or justification or some sort of bearing from him as to where he hopes to take Parliament in the way that we change our laws.

This has not been what I would call an elegant process to this point, Mr. Chair. It certainly wasn't the plan of the NDP coming to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. We have two pressing matters that we hope to deal with today—well, three. One is the motion by Madam Turmel about the rules guiding in camera meetings. We hope to have a good conversation with the government about that because there are rules that guide other public office holders from school boards and municipalities. Even the Senate, for goodness' sake, has guidelines about when you can and can't go in camera, yet in the House of Commons we don't. We have this play-it-as-you-go scenario, which is not very good for democracy. As we've seen the government struggle over the last number of weeks with issues surrounding accountability and scandal and whatnot, certainly a little transparency would do everybody a lot of good. So let's start with some of the foundations of Parliament's work, that is, our committees, not only here but all committees. That's what Madam Turmel's motion is about and she'll eloquently speak to that later.

A second order of business is that we have a direct order from the House to deal with the affairs of Elections Canada and Mr. Bezan on a question of privilege, a prima facie case, which has been directed to this committee. I'm casting no aspersions or blame. I don't know the case intimately or nearly enough to have a strong opinion one way or the other, but for any sitting member of Parliament to have this kind of ongoing conflict about an election they were in doesn't bode well. I'm sure that Mr. Bezan's interest will be to have that cleared up as soon as possible as well. We're the ones holding that question; this committee has to deal with that question. Our suggestion as the official opposition will be to seek a two-track implementation of that, and then there's the third order of business, MPs' expenses.

There have been a number of suggestions from all sides as to how to change the way we do things. Some changes have already made through the Board of Internal Economy, but the work is certainly not done in terms of the transparency of how we use taxpayer money as members of Parliament.

There are two tracks I'm suggesting, and we'll get into this a little bit later. I think Mr. Julian may have some comments. But we need to be able to clear up and come to some resolution on the case of Mr. Bezan, because that's a question of privilege. Normally in a committee—Tom and Mr. Reid will know this well—when a question of privilege comes through the House, the Speaker finds a prima facie case and sends it to us. It normally takes precedence over everything else we have to do, because there's been some disruption in the House as to whether a particular member has done something, and the Speaker says, “I see enough evidence so I want the committee to take this up and do it quickly.”

With the loss of the month or so due to prorogation and the loss of another committee meeting this week, on Thursday, because of the change in the schedule to allow for the Conservatives to attend their convention, this committee is under some time pressure. By the way, Mr. Chair, we don't plan to occupy all our time on these points, but I wanted to lay the groundwork, particularly for my colleagues across the floor, as to what business we have in front of us. I suggest there is the need to press ahead and potentially, as Tom has indicated previously, book some extra meetings if the work requires.

We have a deadline of December 2, as we will all recall, to get back to the House with a report in hand that's been edited and approved by this committee. If one back-tasks from there, the ability to get all that done between now and then, with essentially the month of November to do the work, seems impossible from our perspective in the official opposition.

To suggest that we can do a good job of reforming, renewing, and reviewing all of the ways that we report expenses, and look at other legislatures and all the things in that motion, which we were directed unanimously by the House to do, and do that over the course of a potential seven meetings, that's not on for us. We're not going to do a good job. We'd have approximately four or five meetings to hear witnesses, one or two to write a report, and one to review it. That's not going to get the job done that Canadians expect us to get done.

Our suggestion is going to be that we'll certainly need more meetings, potentially with some evening sittings. We'll work out that calendar amongst ourselves so that we're also able to deal with the affair of Mr. Bezan as well, so there's not a competing interest, because certainly if I were in his place.... Again, I'll emphasize that I don't have a horse in this race. I don't have an opinion about the details of his case, but if I were Mr. Bezan I wouldn't want the procedure and House affairs committee coming back and saying that it would deal with me in a few months, in four or five, in the New Year, or that maybe in February to resolve this dispute between me and Elections Canada. That wouldn't make me feel very good or that I was having my issue dealt with properly.

We remain concerned—and I saw Mr. Lukiwski get himself on the list—that through all of this debate about this particular motion as amended by you, Chair, that we've yet to really hear any rationale and justification for it from the government, not once yet, and that seems passing odd. Normally when you have a very good argument to make, you make it. When you have a motion that's going to change the way we make laws in Canada and the process by which we amend bills, ideally to try to improve bills, and you feel like you have a good case, I've never known Conservative colleagues opposite to be shy of a microphone when they feel they have a good argument to make.

I hope that in the time we have available, which is not much today, because we've made some commitments in terms of voting on this resolution today, you will at least offer us something. Give the Canadian public some reason to believe your case rather than just saying, “Here's the motion, take it or leave it, vote for it or vote against it”, because as it stands right now, clearly there's no support from the NDP for something that changes law without justification, and that's what we have in front of us.

Thank you for that time, Mr. Chair. I'll jump back in if need be, but I wanted to lay out the groundwork for our committee today so that it would know what's in front of us and know that we have a lot of incredibly important work to do, both on the personal level with Mr. Bezan but also on the larger level for all MPs and the Canadian public, with regard to how we spend money and how committees deal with in camera motions. In the light of all that's swirling around these days, I would imagine that the government would be keen on this, and in fact would be grasping for any symbol they could use to show the public, and their voters in particular, that they are in fact interested in transparency and accountability.

Too often, in camera motions, as you know, Chair, have been used abusively to just shut off the public from debates that members don't want them to see, rather than having anything to do with the usual reasons why a school board or a municipality would go in camera, which is to do with legal and personnel matters. Those are all legitimate. That's what we're proposing, that the tool exist but exist only for those very specific circumstances where in camera discussion is required and we have to shut the public out.

Thank you very much for that time, Mr. Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

Peter, I had you next on the list, but I know that Tom wants to get in, maybe to respond to what Nathan said. Is it okay if we have him next or did you want to follow...?

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

If Peter wants to go first, I'll respond after Peter.

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

If Mr. Lukiwski is speaking briefly, I wouldn't mind ceding and then coming back to speak after that.

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

Hopefully I won't take longer than Nathan, but he covered a lot of ground here, so let me just try to go over some of the points that Nathan was raising.

First, with respect to the calendar, I do agree that we have a lot of work in front of us. If we did a straw poll of most committee members, I think the majority of committee members would like to get to the study on MP expenses as quickly as possible, I agree.

I also agree with what Nathan said, that because we have the prima facie case as found by the Speaker on Mr. Bezan's case, they normally take precedence. If we try to do even a parallel track, as Nathan is suggesting, to deal with both the James Bezan case and the transparency case, we will have to figure out some sort of a schedule.

However, on the Bezan matter, and I don't know if we're going to get into a debate on when we might approach that, I will be arguing, based on the sub judice convention, that we should probably postpone that until after some legal resolve has been made. I know that according to Mr. Bezan, who approached me last week, his lawyers and Elections Canada are meeting as we speak. I think they started actually last Thursday.

I assume that most of the discussion, if we have it here in committee, would at least partially be in public, but if you know the sub judice convention I think the spirit of that convention—and it is a convention rather than a hard and fast standing order by design—would prevent us, frankly, from getting too involved in that, because it may be prejudicial to the court cases ongoing. I think that sub judice convention alone requires us to delay that somewhat.

Frankly, I think if one were to approach Mr. Bezan, I don't think he'd have a problem with that. Nathan was saying that maybe it would be detrimental to James to have this hanging over his head. I don't think it would be. I think he would prefer to have the court case dealt with, because that in itself might resolve our need to go further. That's number one.

Two, on the in camera motion, certainly we can have some discussion on that, but to go back to my point, I think our priority should be on the motion to examine transparency issues and MPs' expenses. If we need to schedule additional meetings to meet the December 2 deadline, we're certainly wide open to discussing what we need to do to get that done to meet that order.

Clearly we could ask for an extension. House orders before on many occasions have been extended. I'm not saying we're going to request that; I'm saying that's an option, obviously. If we want to meet the December 2 deadline, as we do, then we're going to have to start talking about what we need to do to amend our schedule. We're open to that.

With respect to Mr. Reid's motion, which is before us now, or at least the amendment, we have to conclude that today. We did pass a motion at the last meeting, as you know, Mr. Chair, to have that resolved at the end of this meeting at the very latest. We have to have a vote on that. We can certainly vote earlier if it's the desire of all committee members to do so.

Just as a quick response, Nathan, in terms of why the government hasn't given a reason why, clearly the motion as presented gives the members.... We call them “Independents”. I know that some of the independent members, or the members not recognized as an official party, have objected to that. They feel it is some infringement upon their rights as parliamentarians.

We don't see it that way. Clearly all those members in question would have the ability to present amendments at respective committees. That gives them something they don't have now. So rather than taking rights away from parliamentarians, in fact that would give them that right.

Yes, it will preclude them from giving a bushel of amendments at report stage, but the fact is that the Speaker has already said that if there were a way to allow members to present amendments at committee, the report stage process would adapt to the new reality. Those were his words.

So this is in fact giving those members not recognized as official party members the ability to go to committee to present amendments, to discuss those amendments, and to have them dealt with at the respective committees, as opposed to the House dealing with them en masse at report stage. I think it's actually giving rights to the members that they didn't have already. That's the position of this government.

What I would suggest, though, because I keep going back to the study—which I think is paramount that we get into it right away—is that we finish the discussion on Scott's motion. We'll obviously allow the opposition members all the time they wish. We have a deadline at the end of this meeting. Knowing that we have to vote on it—and I think the opposition members know where the vote is going to end—I would like to see us deal with it as expeditiously as possible. Then we could perhaps go to Madam Turmel's motion, discuss that as long as committee members feel it's necessary, dispose of that by way of a vote, and then finally get to the study on MP transparency and expenses. I think that's where we need to get to as quickly as possible.

Also, Chair, Mr. Preston will be gone I think for the remainder of the week. I'm not sure if committee members know the reason why, but it is a personal issue that he's going to have to deal with, a family issue. He may not be back until next week, which puts you in an awkward position if you have an amendment on the floor but are acting as chair. I'm not sure how you can act—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

We'll get through that one way or another.

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

Okay.

So let's see if we can deal with the motion of Mr. Reid as quickly as possible; at least, that would be my suggestion. If you want to wait until the end of the meeting to vote, that's your choice, but the quicker we can dispense with that, the quicker we can get to Madam Turmel's motion, and the quicker we can deal with that motion, then finally I think we can get to the study on MPs' expenses. Hopefully, we can deal with that and get that all arranged before the end of this meeting today.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

Peter, I know you were supposed to be next, but your colleague Nathan just wants to provide a quick comment, if that's okay, and then we'll return to you.

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

Yes, I definitely would allow my colleague Nathan to comment.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Very briefly, just on the two-track notion, Tom, I hear what you're saying about Mr. Bezan feeling comfortable with what's.... I know we have sub judice practices, but there is certainly no guidance or rule. The difference for us is that the privilege argument was raised in the House with respect to members' privileges, and the Speaker found in favour of that argumentation by a whole bunch of people, including Mr. Scott.

Just so committee members can envision this, as an example of how a two-track process would work, one of the likely first speakers to come in with regard to MPs' expenses—and this was a suggestion by Theresa, which I think is a good one—would be the Clerk of the House of Commons. That is someone we've identified already. Wearing another hat, she can also address, at least in terms of the House function side, what the question of privilege means with respect to Mr. Bezan. We're not talking about complicating things. We would have a witness who you would actually call twice. She would just have different supporting staff in order to speak to that. That's just one thing in terms of what we imagine in the two-track process for us.

In this one, in terms of what Elections Canada and the court will be doing, it's somewhat different from what's happened in Parliament in terms of our argumentation with regard to a member standing and voting, which is the particular.... That's what the Speaker found in favour of: that there's a question about this. That's not great, and it's not great to wait for lawyers, with no offence to any who are present, because they don't always finish something off expeditiously.

The only other point I want to make is that as we get through this—and there's some urgency in getting through a debate on this particular part—I would see that the committee allow our...not the independents, but our folks who are not officially part of one of the “recognized parties”, whatever term we use.... We have to find a catchier phrase for that. It doesn't fit on Twitter.

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

The artist formerly known....

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

Yes, “the artist formerly known”....

I would say that we need to allow them at least some interjections today to make a case to committee members, because this affects them, particularly Ms. May, who has been able to apply the tactic of using amendments to bills at the final stages of their hearings. That's who we're talking about. If committee members could see it in that light, Chair...?

Those are the two things I wanted to speak to specifically. One is that I think we can have a two-track process that respects things, but the House has heard it from the Speaker. Regardless of what Mr. Bezan's lawyers think timing-wise, I think we can do something with this, certainly with the clerk as an initial witness, to hear what this means and what precedents we have and whatnot, and also allow Mr. Bezan to make his case if he feels that.... And we can also allow Ms. May to speak to this particular motion, which deals primarily with her.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

We're going to go to Peter, then David, who is on the list, and then we have a request from Elizabeth. At that point, we'll ask for the leave.

Go ahead, Peter.

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

Well, I'm just going to speak very briefly.

I'm pleased to hear, Mr. Chair, that the Conservatives are willing to make up for the mistakes they've made over the past few weeks in terms of MPs' expenses. We were mandated by the House of Commons in June, and then the Conservatives prorogued the House, and now we've come back and we have a motion that I certainly consider frivolous. It doesn't advance in any way the work of the House, and it is actually very detrimental to the rights of independent members or members who are not part of a recognized party. So after all these delays now, I'm happy to hear that the Conservatives are actually going to start repairing what they've broken and allow for additional meetings so we can finally start tackling MPs' expenses.

Mr. Chair, as you are well aware, this never needed to happen. We could have been meeting; we haven't been. We finally get together and we have this motion from Mr. Reid, which brings no benefit and simply forces independent members into a very difficult situation. I'm very pleased to hear that the Conservatives will be allowing us to double up the meetings. We have an important study to do and we have to complete it by December 2. I think the groans you heard from this side make very clear that we do not want to extend that date. Canadians expect us to meet that date, and the House of Commons has mandated us to meet that date. That will mean having additional meetings. We might have to work evenings. We're happy to do that because Canadians expect us to.

My final comments are just in regard to this motion from Mr. Reid. We heard last week from the clerk that what this does is destroy the report stage rights of independents and members who don't belong to a recognized party. The attempt of the government is to suppress those rights. I find it despicable. I will be voting against this. There is no way to justify this motion that is simply designed to eliminate the rights of some members of Parliament. Quite frankly, Mr. Chair, the reality is that every member in the House of Commons was elected by their constituents, their voters in their riding. They have the right to present amendments. This takes this ability of independent members and non-recognized party members away at the report stage. I find it deplorable that the government would move to oppress those rights.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

David.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair. I also will be brief. I've already had a fair bit to say about this motion.

[Some hon. members]

More, more.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Really? Careful. I'm from Hamilton. Be careful.

[An hon. member]

Be careful what you wish for.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I just wanted to put on the record a reminder for all of us of the way it was done, too. That can't just be skirted over, especially since this is part of the process of law-making. It may not necessarily be the formal, main runway of making laws and the things that we normally deal with a lot, but it is part of the process. It speaks to the rights of ordinary members of Parliament, in this case members who don't belong to an official party.

I do take exception to Mr. Lukiwski's point of view that, you know, they used to have this right over here, and we're just moving it over here, no big deal. Well, I've got to tell you, I think it's a big deal when a member of Parliament has certain rights they're allowed to exercise on the floor of the House of Commons versus those rights being taken away in the House and transplanted to committee. To say that you have the equal right at committee that you once had at the House level just doesn't pass common sense. It doesn't pass the smell test.

In the whole House of Commons, the most important chamber in the whole nation, you have rights. Now they're going to be gone, and they've been sent to a committee. Committees are important, but not as important as the House.

It speaks to the process. This is a big deal. If the government didn't see it as a big deal, they should have. It was brought in here sort of willy-nilly. It was laid on the table as, oh, by the way, we have a motion while we're considering routine motions and routine business; we have a little something. Boom! It's a little something that changes the way we make laws and takes away rights that members have. That's not little, not where I come from.

I think it's been disappointing, the way the government has handled this. I think it's disappointing that we all find ourselves in a situation where we did agree to limit the discussion, not because of its lack of importance but because we do have other business and it is equally important. We obviously will be voting against it. We would on principle. Even if it was a good idea, just the way the government did it deserves to be condemned and voted against.

The last thing I want to say, Chair, is that I was, however, very pleased to hear Tom talk about the willingness to do a two-track process. I want to underscore the position of our caucus chair, Mr. Julian, that changing the December 2 date is not on. It will only, it can only, be viewed by the public as this: the politicians haven't yet figured out how they're going to make it look like they're giving something without really putting anything out in the public domain. That's what it's going to look like, and that's the opposite of the intent, I believe, of all member of the House.

Beside that, the issue of Mr. Bezan—I mean, that's huge. A prima facie case of privilege on the part of the Speaker? That's a big deal. It stops everything. Everything stops when the Speaker says he has found a prima facie case of privilege. So to suggest that this has to take a back seat to anything is equally unacceptable.

I was very pleased when my House leader mentioned the idea of a two-track process, because it's the only way to really do the proper business before us in a way that respects the priority of both of them. Don't change that December 2 deadline. Even if we have to work weekends and nights, don't do that. Get a second track going. Get it in there. It's going to take a lot of work.

We've been around this kind of thing before, Tom. You know the amount of time it takes. We need to make sure there is that time. But you can't push Mr. Bezan's issue back, so the only thing that makes any sense is that there be two tracks.

My colleagues collectively will call the shot on this today, but I have to say, Tom, that at least for me, that sounded very, very reasonable, and very doable, way of dealing with this motion, as unfortunate as it is that time is being limited. But having dealt with that, moving on to Madame Turmel's equally important motion, we also need to set up a process so that when we leave here today we all have the confidence that work on both the MPs' expenses file and the reference from the Speaker will start immediately, and that the two of them will move in parallel to meet timeframes that our colleagues in the House expect from this committee.

I will conclude again by lamenting and expressing concern at the government's view of democracy. I know it's a lot different. I've been here awhile. I was here when a lot of these government members were on this side of the House and this side of the committee and viewed this sort of thing a lot differently. It's simply part of the narrative that this government is laying down by virtue of its actions and its track record that it's one of the most undemocratic governments we've ever had in Canada. The evidence is piling up, not only in the House of Commons but, lo and behold, also down the hall in that other place.

You have the majority, and the government will win this vote, but understand, Mr. Chair, this won't be forgotten. This will not be swept under the carpet. There will be a day of reckoning. It's called an election, and at that time this government and every member in it will be held to account for its approach to democracy or, more importantly, their lack of respect for democracy.

Thanks, Mr. Chair.