Evidence of meeting #12 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was debate.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

4 p.m.

Conservative

Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I wonder whether the member is referring to the kinds of tactics that include filibustering all day to prevent a vote on a motion. Is that what he's referring to?

4 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dave MacKenzie

With all due respect, I don't think the manual existed. It certainly was talked about in some circles, but I don't think there was a factual manual. I would just ask, if Mr. Harris is going to quote from it, that he present it to the committee.

4 p.m.

NDP

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

If someone produces a copy for me, I'd be very happy to quote from it and table it. I don't have one in my possession.

But this is called a filibuster to prevent the vote.... What we're trying to do here is avoid this government's desire to shut down debate on a very important piece of legislation. When Jason Kenney was talking in March 2002 about contempt for the conventions of parliamentary democracy, he was talking about a budget implementation bill. We're here talking about something equally if not more important, because it involves the liberty of citizens, of Canadians, or as they used to say in the old days, the “liberty of the subject”. I think that was when—

4 p.m.

Conservative

Kerry-Lynne Findlay Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC

You're dating yourself with that one.

4 p.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh!

4 p.m.

NDP

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

Ms. Findlay says I'm dating myself, but I think that she as a lawyer knows that this appears in—

4 p.m.

Conservative

Kerry-Lynne Findlay Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC

But I remember it.

4 p.m.

NDP

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

—a lot of case law and legal theory. That's why I started off with “the liberty of Canadian citizens”, who used to be called the “subjects”—subjects of the king, I think. It's really olden days stuff.

But the liberty of Canadian citizens is a matter of fundamental importance and a matter of grave concern, as Mr. Kenney said in 2002.

There are a lot of other examples I could quote here; I have several pages of them. But they're all to the same point, and that is that a government.... I think there are understandings. For example, we can understand a minority government being a bit nervous and a bit shaky and always worrying about managing the press on a day-to-day basis. We saw that in the last Parliament and we've seen it in other minority Parliaments. It's understandable from a common sense point of view.

But when you go into an election and come back with a majority, I would expect this to be an interesting Parliament, because the government is there and they have their agenda. The government is ultimately going to get their way, but we expect that the traditions of Parliament will be more readily...that we won't see the same kinds of sharp tactics, we won't see the on-the-edge types of procedures or strategies that were the hallmark of the last Parliament—used, I have to say, to good effect by the government.

But you don't have to do this anymore. It's not that you had to do it then, but you don't have to do it. You have, as Mr. Cotler said earlier, a four-year mandate—not that this should take four years; it shouldn't take one year. But it shouldn't take one day either.

Mr. Cotler's not here right now. I know we're not supposed to comment on that, but Mr. Cotler had other obligations. So what are you saying, that the government doesn't think that Mr. Cotler, who is a member of this committee, should be able to be here and debate these issues and present motions that he crafted himself, and present amendments? Is that the message, that only people who happen to be available today on short notice—the no notice that was given this morning that we're going to do this all day today until midnight tonight...? Isn't there an opportunity for some reasonable discussion here about when we should or could do this? That's the kind of cooperation and respect for Parliament that we had hoped to see.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB

I want to raise a point for clarification, Mr. Chair.

I don't think there's any limit on the filibuster the NDP can run. They can run it until midnight, if they want, or they can run it until Christmastime, but I don't think there's any limit on it. We've been here for six or seven hours now; that would be three committee meetings. I'm sure we could have gotten through many clauses by now. But if there's no limit on how long the NDP can continue to filibuster this, certainly they can keep going until Christmas.

4:05 p.m.

An hon. member

Then we'll see Santa Claus, not a clause-by-clause.

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

Do I detect a challenge from Mr. Jean?

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB

No, but you can filibuster forever.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dave MacKenzie

I wouldn't give Mr. Harris.... The rest of you can sub in and out, but there's a little problem with the chair.

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

Yes, the chair can't.... Well, that's why you have the vice-chair, I suppose.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dave MacKenzie

Unless you want to.... You're the vice-chair.

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

I'm the vice-chair. I can't actively—

4:05 p.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh!

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB

We don't mind.

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

I shouldn't let you discover any new tactics here, so we'll stay away from that part.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Goguen Conservative Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB

You get their votes.

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

It could slow down the filibuster, if that's what it is.

It's not a filibuster, though; it's an opportunity, an attempt, to make room for a discussion about these clauses.

Mr. Jean's point is interesting, though. What he's saying is that the government is prepared to spend from now till Christmas talking about whether we should shut off debate on this, but not prepared to spend two days next week, two meetings or three meetings, to go through clause-by-clause.

Why is that? Do you want to bully your way through this process? Do you want to limit debate about the clauses? That's what's happening. You come in here this morning ready to do clause-by-clause, ready with your amendments all lined up as a member of this committee, and as others are—and there are some government amendments too—and instead of going into that process we have a government motion, the effect of which is to say there is no clause-by-clause discussion unless we have a motion passed that says it's all over by midnight.

Now, that's unreasonable. If you have the time to sit here between now and Christmas, as Mr. Jean suggests, then surely you have the time to sit down and agree on some orderly method of getting through clause-by-clause, instead of insisting upon this bully tactic of saying that it's only going to happen one day, and that is going to be today, and it's going to be all day all the time. We broke for question period, but other than that we're here. And if this motion passes, we're only here until midnight, but then it's all over.

Now, what is wrong with some sort of understanding that we can do so much today and we can do so much on Tuesday and finish it off on Thursday—or finish it off on Tuesday, for that matter? Why does it have to be your way or the highway—or no way? That's what we were presented with this morning: it's going to be our way or it's going to be no way; it's going to be our way or we're going to be here till Christmas.

Mr. Jean is the one who brings up being here till Christmas. It sounds to me like either a threat or a challenge. Neither one of them is particularly helpful, but this does send a signal to me that if people have the time, the only choice is how we spend it. That's the only choice: how do we spend that time? Do we spend it having this argument about whether the government is being outrageous in trying to stifle debate, or do we spend it actually having the debate, without the hammer or without the axe at the throat of Parliament, as Vic Toews put it in 2001?

Is that the condition under which this government wants to deal with legislation? Is that the condition under which we are to have public discussion about grave matters of public safety, public security, the liberty of Canadians, and whether they should go to jail or for how long, under what circumstances, and what rules should apply to them under the Corrections Act? These are important matters of state that deserve consideration, not with the guillotine hanging over our heads, but in a reasonable manner, such that professional politicians who are elected to do a job for Canadians can sit and consider these things.

But we're being stonewalled here by a group of people who want to stifle debate, who don't want Canadians to hear the detail about this, outside of a timeframe chosen by them at the last minute, without any notice to Canadians or to members of the committee—without even the courtesy of a phone call to say, “We're trying to make this work. We have a bit of a timetable here. Can you be reasonable? Are you prepared to deal with this in two or three or four or five meetings?”—or however many meetings, but “Let's talk about it.” We didn't hear any of that. What we had was a motion, a motion not based on compromise or making Parliament work or respecting the conventions of parliamentary democracy; in fact, it shows contempt for them. That's why we're here today debating this.

We're here because the government does not want to debate the clause-by-clause consideration except under conditions of its own choosing, which include having the hammer to ensure that debate does not go on beyond today—and for no reason. There is no reason that has been given, not one. Not one has been given as to why this motion has any necessity in public policy, or in time, or in anything.

There's no reason whatsoever, no justification—not even a claim of justification. It's just, here's the motion. Here is the motion, here is the way we insist this be done. And the level of arrogance is such that they don't even think they have to justify it. They haven't said one word as to why this bill must be passed today, why there is something wrong with having only two hours of one regular committee meeting and why we can't continue—and couldn't have continued today—with an orderly, responsible, professional discussion of the other aspects of the bill.

And yes, if by the end of Tuesday of next week we were on clause 10 instead of somewhere three-quarters of the way through the bill, in the absence of discussions as to how fast we would move, if someone were to say we want to wrap this up by Thursday at the end of the committee meeting and ask whether we can agree on that, assuming that progress was being made and that there was an opportunity for adequate debate, there could be a reasonable agreement on that proposal.

What's the timetable here? I've never heard any timetable, aside from the 100 days. Well, 100 days is a long time away; Parliament hasn't been open that long. We've been moving expeditiously with this legislation. Mr. Chair, you've done a very good job of keeping things on track, and we haven't had meetings going over. We haven't been sitting late or had to put extra meetings on to hear the witnesses. We've been very cooperative in agreeing on scheduling of witnesses and have had cooperation there and have made agreements, and things worked out. We didn't hear from everybody we wanted to hear from, but there are an awful lot of people out there who wanted to be heard. We managed to hear as many as we could in what was considered to be, in all the circumstances, a reasonable period of time.

I don't know why that stopped. Did somebody do something on Tuesday that they didn't like? I didn't see anything happen on Tuesday that should have caused any concern. We haven't been told that a brand-new section of the act that has never before been discussed.... We had interesting and useful discussion about possible amendments that weren't accepted. Some of them should have been, and we supported some of them. Time will tell whether the amendments that were being proposed were ones that could have solved problems before they started. We'll find out, if the bill stays the way it is now.

Considerable progress could have been made by the end of the regular meeting today, and—who knows?—if someone had proposed that we have a second meeting today, and if committee members were available for a second meeting today, or if people were given notice asking about a second meeting on Tuesday of next week, so that we'll have extra time to move forward, because the government is anxious to get this back to the House and off to the Senate....

We didn't hear anything like that. Those are the kinds of reasonable moves that would have been made.... That's how Parliament works, in my experience. I'm not the most experienced parliamentarian in the world. I was first elected in July 1987, though, so I was here for the 33rd Parliament, the majority government of Brian Mulroney. I was here then.

I may be dating myself again, Ms. Findlay.

But I was here then and I was in another parliament for five general assemblies of the Newfoundland and Labrador legislature, so I have some parliamentary experience. In addition, I've been here since October of 2008. If you add all of that up together, I'm probably closing in on 20 years of actual parliamentary work.

I've seen lots of different governments in that period of time—most of them majority governments, of those I've been around—and you do have cooperation. You have government agendas. I understand how majority governments work; I'm just surprised that this one doesn't seem to fit the mould.

I'm trying to remember another example of a majority government that thought it necessary to deal with this type of legislation in such a fashion. We can all get into hyperbole, and maybe an axe at the throat of Parliament was a bit of hyperbole on the part of Vic Toews, but I think I prefer Jason Kenney's line about arrogance and contempt for the conventions of parliamentary democracy. I think that's something your government ought to watch.

People want parliamentarians they can respect. They want to know that when they elect people to Parliament, they are here to make Parliament work; that legitimate people from all over this country—and they have a voice too.... Some of them voted for this government, some of them didn't.

When I'm getting e-mails and letters from lawyers across the country saying that there are very grave concerns about this bill and what it might do, I have an obligation to bring those concerns forward. When we get the Canadian Bar Association coming forward with a very thoughtful and extensive analysis of the bill, from prosecutors and from defence counsel—those who work every day with the criminal law, with the Criminal Code, with the drug control acts and the narcotic control act, with all of our corrections people—when we hear the corrections ombudsman, Howard Sapers, talk about his concerns; when we hear law professors who have studied corrections for many years come with their concerns about changes being proposed that are out of sync with the Supreme Court of Canada decisions on best practices and least restrictive measures as a standard to be used in corrections to ensure that the people who are incarcerated are treated properly in accordance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and with a separation between the sentencing powers of the court and the obligation of a penal institution to act in a particular manner and not be part of the sentencing process or have any role in sentencing, but to play their own role....

When these serious matters are brought forward, I think Canadians expect their parliamentarians to be prepared to contemplate and carry out sensible discussion and debate about them—not forever, but not in a marathon called on no notice to people who have busy lives and have obligations to their constituents and to their parliamentary duties and other obligations within parliamentary business; that's not reasonable. Some people think that Canadians don't pay attention to what goes on here. Perhaps some people hope that Canadians don't pay attention to what goes on here. But I think they do, and I think they know. They can see and they can sense arrogance. They can sense contempt for a parliamentary process when they are aware of things such as what is happening today.

When they say they have nine different pieces of legislation being supposedly considered clause by clause, and the only way the government is prepared to do it is if there is a motion accepted that it all be done in one day by people who weren't even advised.... On Tuesday, I didn't hear anyone say, “By the way, on Thursday bring your pyjamas, because we're going to be here all night. Bring your toothbrush. Make sure you pack a lunch, because we're starting at 8:45 and we're going to be here until midnight.” Nobody said that on Tuesday—not that I would have welcomed it on Tuesday any more than I did today.

But what kind of common sense, what kind of plain, ordinary courtesy is that? “Is that how parliamentarians treat each other?”, Canadians are asking. “Is that what you get, if you run for Parliament, if you put yourself on the line and say, 'I want to be a parliamentarian because that's a noble calling'?” It's a noble calling to represent your people in Parliament, to be able to express your voice in the Parliament of your nation. You come here and then you're not even given the common courtesy of someone saying, we'd like to have this move a little faster; would you like to discuss some ways we can do that? No, that's not what we had.

I was saying before you came in, Madame Boivin, that when you run for Parliament—I know you missed it, so I'll say it again—you expect at least.... There are a lot of idealistic people out there who say, “I might run for Parliament. I'm going to be part of the very important professional group of people who are working for the benefit of Canadians and trying to improve their lives.” If they were told that you could show up at 8:45 one morning expecting to do clause-by-clause on a bill you had prepared for and would find that nobody had even told you that, by the way, we're going to bring a motion to say that you're here until midnight now, and I hope you brought your toothbrush, because this is going to be a long day and you have had no notice of it—the common courtesies of life apparently don't even apply to parliamentarians—I think Canadians would be disgusted at that.

The complexities of the bill are one thing. We were hoping to give them an opportunity to hear about why we oppose certain pieces of legislation, or even why the government supports them. But instead, we're being told that this is not what's going to happen.

It's all very well to say that we've been here long enough now to have done some of this work. Perhaps—and I say this because we've been cooperative to date, and I don't see why we would stop—if someone had come forward and said, “Let's find a way of having an extra meeting or two”, or “We want full and fair debate and discussion about this, but we're also anxious about the calendar and we'd surely like to get this back into the House by a certain date”, we could be flexible and discuss this and negotiate and do the decent thing. My experience has been that cooperation can be found. That's something I would expect to have happen in a parliamentary democracy that respected the parliamentary traditions. I don't know why it is that we have to have this debate here today.

By the way, Mr. James Moore, another of your colleagues in the House and the heritage minister, said back in 2002:

Mr. Speaker, here we go again. This is a very important public policy question that is very complex and we have the arrogance of the government in invoking closure again. When we look at the Liberal Party on arrogance it is like looking at the Grand Canyon. It is this big fact of nature that we cannot help but stare at.

That's colourful language, but I would substitute for “Liberal Party” here “Conservative Party” and invite you to consider whether or not you yourselves have adopted the approach that you criticized while you were in opposition.

Looking at the Grand Canyon was like looking at the Liberal Party? Well, what are we looking at here? We're looking at a government that invoked closure after two hours of debate at clause-by-clause, and not only in the sense of saying that we're going to be finished this by next Thursday but that we're going to be finishing it by midnight tonight, when the meeting was only scheduled for two hours. Not only are we going to invoke closure, we're going to have an enforced sitting of the committee for 15 hours.

Is that right?

It's 15 hours and 15 minutes.

When you show up at 8:45 for a two-hour meeting, you're here for a 15-hour and 15-minute meeting, by the way, and forget these other plans that you had for the day, or go if you want, but we'll just pass the bill when you're gone.

That's the message we received here this morning at 8:45 without any notice, without any discussion, without any consultation, without any by-your-leave. We just got the hammer, or in the colourful but rather violent language of the Minister of Public Safety, the axe on the throat of Parliament. That's what we received here this morning at 8:45, and that's why we're talking about it now. It's provocative, a provocative move by a government that doesn't have to do it.

Get over yourselves. You're a majority. You know you have a majority for four years.

Reasoned debate is what Parliament is supposed to be about. If you have any confidence in your point of view, if you have any confidence in your provisions, surely you would welcome the opportunity to explain each provision one by one and defend it one by one, particularly in the face of the kind of criticism we've heard from experts who have testified before us.

If Professor Nick Bala comes and says “I think it's a bad idea do this” and explains why, surely somebody opposite could say, “We've listened to what Professor Bala has said”, with his 25 years of experience as a law professor and as an expert on child, youth, and family law, a person who's been quoted by the Supreme Court of Canada on many occasions, “We've heard what he said, but we have—”

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON

I have a point of order. The reason I object when the member opposite starts reciting evidence and putting his spin on it is that I am constrained not to reply, not to tell him what I think of the witness's evidence, because that would not be relevant to the matter at hand.

When the member opposite continues to disregard the rules of parliamentary debate and stray from the relevant issue at hand, he rather puts his opponents at a disadvantage, because they want—at least in my case—to comply with the rules.

So I would be grateful, Mr. Chair, if you would bring this member to heel and get him to comply with the rules of debate and speak in terms that are relevant to the motion, rather than review the evidence with his interpretation, which I'm not able to respond to.

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dave MacKenzie

That's fair enough.

I started this session by saying that we should speak to the motion and be relevant to it, and I think I've given you lots of long leash, Mr. Harris. I think that dealing with the motion, as opposed to the evidence we have heard in committee, is appropriate.

4:30 p.m.

NDP

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will say, though, to the point of order, that I know it is only a metaphor, but I don't like to be told that I am somehow perhaps an animal, a dog that needs to be brought to heel, given your own phrase. I know it's only a metaphor, Mr. Chair—

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON

It's an apt metaphor, if the member continues to stray.