Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 29th, 2013

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Dara.

[Maxime-Olivier Thibodeau, Analyst, Library of Parliament]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Maxime-Olivier Thibodeau. I have worked with a number of you already. I have been working for this committee for many years now, and I will be pleased to continue doing so. Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you both.

We feel very well served to have two such experienced analysts on our committee. I'm sure it will help us a great deal.

Paul, you had the floor and wished to suggest something.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Yes, I have a motion. I'll briefly speak to it. This is a motion that would invite those individuals who are not part of the committee and who are not in the caucus, the independents, the opportunity to be invited by you to present amendments, to propose legislation, and to speak on these subjects. This would give more members of Parliament the opportunity to speak, including those independents who have in the past been kept out.

I'll leave it at that. We will allow the members a couple of minutes to read it over.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Mr. Calandra, you raise a very interesting subject. I think it will elicit broad interest, and it will probably trigger a fair amount of debate.

Would you like to read it into the record?

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

It will be put right into the record, but I can read it if you like.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Yes, I think it would be worthwhile if there are people viewing. This meeting is held in public and is televised.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

It's a good idea, Mr. Chair.

The motion reads:

That, in relation to the Orders of Reference from the House respecting Bills,

(a) the Clerk of the Committee shall, upon the Committee receiving such an Order of Reference, write to each Member who is not a member of a caucus represented on the Committee to invite those Members to file, in a letter to the Chair of the Committee, in both official languages, any amendments to the Bill, which is subject of the said Order, which they would suggest that Committee consider;

(b) suggested amendments filed, pursuant to paragraph (a), at least 48 hours prior to the start of clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill to which the amendments relate shall be deemed to be proposed during the said consideration, provided the Committee may, by motion, vary this deadline in respect of a given Bill; and

(c) during the clause-by-clause consideration of a Bill, the Chair shall allow a Member who filed suggested amendments, pursuant to paragraph (a), an opportunity to make brief representations in support of them.

We heard a lot, especially from some of the independents, that they felt they were being shut out of the committee process. This would give them an opportunity to be more involved.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I know we have a speakers list, but before we get going, we should make it clear to committee members that currently independent members of Parliament can make amendments to a bill at report stage in the House of Commons. We've seen that done in the past. This would give them the opportunity to make amendments at the committee stage, where amendments should, in my view, properly come as a rule. Also, you contemplate giving them an opportunity to make representations in support of the amendments.

Just for clarification so that the debate is well guided, do you contemplate any time limits associated with making representations, or will you just be following the normal rules of order of the standing committee?

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Chair, there would be some authority given to the chair. In my experience with the Canadian museum of history bill in the last session, Ms. May was invited, as were independents from the former Bloc Québécois. They were given an opportunity to present their amendments and then a minute or so to speak about each of them. The committee heard that and took it into consideration.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

For my own clarification, if you move an amendment at a committee, does that preclude you from moving it at report stage in the House of Commons, since you had your opportunity to move it already?

Perhaps I'll ask the clerk. Is that your understanding?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Chad Mariage]

Mr. Chair, obviously the committee would deal with what the committee deals with. I don't know that I am comfortable commenting on what the Speaker would decide. Ultimately it's up to the Speaker to determine whether the member has had an opportunity, as you say, to move the amendment in committee. I wouldn't substitute my judgment for his, obviously, but what you say is not.... That would go into the interpretation the Speaker would give to it at report stage. He would look at all of those elements, that included.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

My concern, and the only reason I'm not allowing debate to proceed, is that I don't know if it's in order for us to take any measures that may impact the Standing Orders of the House of Commons as they currently stand, which is that you can't submit a report stage amendment if you are able to present it at the committee stage. That would really be the jurisdiction of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, so I'm reluctant to wade into this if it's going to impact the decision-making ability of....

Let's see where it goes as a debate, and maybe we'll ask the clerk to consider if we're tromping on other jurisdictions.

The speaking list is Mr. Angus, Ms. Borg, Mr. Ravignat, and Mr. Andrews.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'm very concerned by this motion. It speaks again to the attempt to strip the House of Parliament and the Westminster tradition of the rights of members of this House to represent their constituents and to be fully voting members in the House. It shows the overall contempt this government has for the traditions of the Westminster system, in which all members have rights.

I am speaking now of the members who are independents. I am actually appealing to my colleagues in the Conservative Party, because with the level of corruption that is within their government right now, they'll be looking at a Brian Mulroney fiasco and perhaps there will be only two of them next time. We had Elsie Wayne, and the other Conservative who survived the last deluge was Jean Charest. Canadians were fed up with a corrupt, tired, and rotten old Conservative government. Now we have another one.

I'm saying to my colleagues that when Canadians have had it with the abuse of the Senate and the illegal payouts that have come potentially out of the Prime Minister's Office, we might be looking at only two members coming back. I wonder if maybe it would be Rob Anders. Mr. Carmichael, I'm sure, would be the other one. If they come back as the only two members, they will still have basic rights as parliamentarians. One of the rights they don't have is to a position at committee. Committees are based on the parties. When you have a role in committee work, you have to be able to vote at committee, whereas independents don't have that. We've had independents who have been very interested in various committee issues over the last number of years, but they actually don't have any ability, unless the committee decides to allow them to sit in. On major issues, for example, during the copyright hearings, there were independents who felt they wanted to participate.

Let's deconstruct this so that the public back home knows what is being offered here. Actually under the guise of offering a bouquet to the independent members of the House, if you look through the flowers, you'll see all the little razor blades that are sitting on the flowers that are being passed around here.

The motion as it reads is as follows:

(a) the Clerk of the Committee shall, upon the Committee receiving such an Order of Reference, write to each Member who is not a member of a caucus represented on the Committee to invite those Members to file, in a letter to the Chair of the Committee, in both official languages, any amendments to the Bill, which is the subject of the said Order, which they would suggest that the Committee consider;

(b) suggested amendments filed, pursuant to paragraph (a), at least 48 hours prior to the start of clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill to which the amendments relate shall be deemed to be proposed during the said consideration, provided that the Committee may, by motion, vary this deadline in respect of a given Bill; and

(c) during the clause-by-clause consideration of a Bill, the Chair shall allow a Member who filed suggested amendments pursuant to paragraph (a), an opportunity to make brief representations in support of them.

The fiction here is that we would invite independents to write a letter to a committee, perhaps on a budget bill. We have seen under this government how they have shut down debate time and time again. We always hear, “Why are we debating this? We have a mandate. We got elected.” Well, the fundamental democratic responsibility is debate in the House. They have shut that down.

We have massive omnibus bills that have nothing to do with finance but have all manner to do with stripping environmental protections for lakes and rivers across this country, stripping basic safety rights for workers who may put themselves in danger. All manner of ugly, nasty, ideological little booby traps are put into these supposed finance bills, and then we don't ever get to debate them or study them.

The work of committees is very important. This government seems to think that committees are some kind of rubber stamp committees in some politburo.

I was thinking of my honourable colleague John Vanthof, the excellent New Democrat MPP for Timiskaming—Cochrane. He was telling me that the other day they had the estimates committee at the provincial level dealing with the agriculture minister. They had 13 hours within the agriculture committee to look at the estimates at the provincial level.

I was thinking that here we are now at the federal level with a budget that may be 10 times that size. We're not given any chance to really study it. Our committees whip it through as fast as they can. Our independent officers, our Parliamentary Budget Officer, are attacked and undermined. They're not given the basic data.

The Canadian people are given the situation where the people who are there to represent them and to represent fiscal accountability and democratic accountability are supposed to be marionettes of the Prime Minister's Office for whatever bizarre little voodoo they want to enact ideologically at a given time. What we're dealing with are the rights that we're guaranteed under the Westminster system: the rights of members to represent their people, regardless of whatever the king decreed. The king unfortunately in this case would be the little goobers in the PMO these days. It seems that they have taken on that role.

We have a number of independents. Some have left their parties over ideological issues. That's their issue. Some have lost party status. My colleagues in the Conservative Party, who after 2015 will most certainly lose their party status as Canadians rise up against the corruption that's happened under them, but the ones who do come back, will come back with certain inalienable rights. One of those fundamental rights is the ability at report stage, as an independent, to make amendments to a bill. There's nothing facetious about this. This is their fundamental, democratic, accountable right, yet we're seeing a government that is so obsessed with control that they would even go to the length of stripping the independent members of this House of that right.

I certainly think you're absolutely correct, Mr. Chair, in that what's happening here is the attempt to use the committee process to undermine the rights of parliamentarians. I certainly think it's a breach of privilege of the independent members, who are not allowed to even be heard at this committee.

I certainly think that if I were an independent, I'd be asking the law clerk for an opinion about the use of committees, where independents are not allowed standing, to have their rights stripped from them. I think we're getting into very, very distorted and disturbing territory. I would like to say that I'm shocked and appalled, but unfortunately I'm not surprised, given the behaviour in what's happened with this government.

I also want to put it into context for the folks who are watching this. We haven't even got to the routine motions of our committee. What they're saying to us is this: “We don't care how this committee works; we don't care about a functioning committee; we're so obsessed with robbing the ability of some person on the backbench who has no party apparatus, who's there only representing their local constituency, so obsessed with taking their ability to speak away from them that we won't even bother worrying about issues like quorum or that the Chair be authorized to hold meetings to receive evidence and to have that evidence printed when a quorum is not present, provided that at least four members are present, including one member of the opposition and one member of the government.” We could have voted on that first, but they chose not to.

As for the distribution of documents, it's that only the clerk of the committee be authorized to distribute documents to members of the committee and only when such documents exist in both official languages. That's an important function. I would think that my honourable colleagues would come in and say, “Let's set up this committee to be a proper, functioning committee.” The distribution of documents in both official languages would certainly be one of the first steps they would take, but if you're only interested in running a kangaroo court, it probably doesn't matter to you whether they'll distribute any documents, because the records and the work of a committee are now just being thrown out the window. What we're creating here, once again, is my honourable colleague from Markham, Mr. Paul Calandra's, kangaroo court where the rights of independent members will be stripped, so let's get on to working meals.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Point of order, Mr. Calandra.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, clearly, the spirit of honey and making tea is no longer here. The honourable member for Timmins—James Bay is reverting to the old NDP strategy of being very, very angry when I'm trying to allow independent members their voice on this committee.

Alternately, Mr. Chair, he just said some words that I think were inappropriate of a member of Parliament, and I would hope that he would show a little bit of decorum around the table and withdraw those comments.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Mr. Angus, we ask you to be moderate in your remarks, little bit more sunshine and a little less vinegar, I suppose.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I thank you, Mr. Chair, but I think that when we're talking about an attempt to take away the democratic rights of independent members of this House, this isn't about being angry; this is about stating facts. When you are actually trying to use a committee to undermine the rights of members within the House of Parliament and you don't even bother to get to the routine motions, I think the use of the term “kangaroo court” is fair. I think that's a reasonable term. I don't think you would find that to be unparliamentary. In fact, if you compare it to many of the terms that we've seen in the Westminster tradition over the last 400 years, I would blush if I said them.

I'm actually very, very concerned about the democratic erosion that we've seen under this government and that we're seeing at this committee.

I'd like to get back to the fact that they aren't even interested in the routine motions. This is what I'm talking about. These are the routine motions that we would normally debate today to establish the ability of this committee to work together, but they've decided that they're not interested in even a working committee because they want to get at the right of the independent members of this House to be able to make amendments at report stage.

There would be another motion that we would have taken, which is working meals.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Point of order.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Mr. Calandra.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

I thought the first motion we had to deal with today was the motion from the honourable member with respect to going in camera. Am I right on that? I was a couple of minutes late, but I know we were—

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Mr. Angus did get the floor first and moved a motion on in camera rules.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Before we debated quorum and documents, Mr. Angus actually tabled a motion on in camera. He actually hadn't even passed the motion to bring the analysts back to the table, Mr. Chair, so it's kind of odd now to hear the rage that the member has. In respect of my question—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

That's a point of debate.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

My question, Mr. Chair, is outside of the fact that the committee for today ends in an hour or so, are we under some time constraints with respect to dealing with the rest of the routine proceedings?