Foreign Affairs Committee on May 3rd, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you.

Colleagues, are there any questions for Ms. May?

Garnett.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

It's more a separate intervention than a question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

You're allowed to make interventions about the motion.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I won't necessarily phrase this as a question, but I'd be interested in Ms. May's response to this.

My understanding of the way the process works is that members of recognized parties cannot under the current rules propose substantive amendments at report stage because they are expected to be able to do so through the committee process. Effectively, the existing rules give members of smaller parties, unrecognized parties, or independent members of Parliament an opportunity to move amendments at a stage and in a way that members of recognized parties cannot.

Of course, you as a member of Parliament cannot be in two places at once, but neither can I. If I want to propose substantive amendments, possibly ones that other members of my party don't agree with, at two different committees, I can't do that either under the current rules. It would seem to me to make sense that either we let everybody move substantive amendments at report stage in the House or we have that process happen at committee, but we don't have one set of rules for.... Just because I am part of a party that is represented on all committees doesn't necessarily mean that I, as an individual, would agree with everything that everyone else does on every other committee and I might want to move amendments at report stage that I can't.

I'd be curious for your comments on that.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

You're quite right, Garnett, absolutely right. In parliamentary history, for the vast majority of the years since 1867, in fact, right up until the early 2000s, every member of Parliament had a right to submit substantive or deleterious amendments at report stage.

In 1999, the Reform Party objected to the Nisga'a treaty and brought forward over 700 amendments. You may actually recall this. They were in the guise of substantive, in that they weren't mere deletions, but they were essentially, mostly frivolous and vexatious, changing a semicolon here, changing a word here or there. It tied up report stage on the Nisga'a treaty in a significant way.

At the time, the Liberal majority went to change the rules. They actually changed the rules. They didn't do these motions committee by committee, which I regard as removing, by stealth, the rights of MPs. In the past, the larger party did change those rules, and said, “Look, you had a chance, Reform Party, in committee to provide any amendments you wanted to the Nisga'a treaty. This is an attempt to misuse...”, etc. I think there would have been other ways to handle this, such as by saying it isn't a substantive amendment if it isn't substantially different in a context or content sense.

Instead, what they did, the parliamentary process of the larger parties, was to say that this is how it's going to work from now on. If you, as an individual, had access to make changes as a party, which I think is also offensive.... In this place we're all equal, in theory, and the fact that we surrender identity to party status isn't required by Westminster parliamentary democracy or our Constitution. It's a problem of parties having too much power.

They decided to say that if you, as an MP, had access through your party to make amendments at committee, you can't get two kicks at the can, and come back and make them at report stage. By inference, that meant that members in smaller parties such as the Green Party, or the Bloc, or any independents, or for that matter, the NDP once, when they were down to nine members.... Those members not having access to sit on committees as permanent members had the right—and I still do under the rules—to bring forward amendments at report stage.

This motion was invented, as I mentioned, in the previous Parliament, in order to prevent members of Parliament in smaller parties from bringing forward amendments at report stage.

I would agree with you entirely. There is no reason in principle that, in the practice of passing legislation in this place, we should deprive any member of their right to present amendments at report stage. That's been done, and done in the rules themselves. Without changing our rules as they appear in our parliamentary rules of procedures, of Standing Orders, and so on, this is an attempt, committee by committee, under the fiction that committees are the masters of their own process, for the Prime Minister's Office or the government House leader to insist on a change to deprive smaller party members of Parliament of their rights.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you.

Hélène, do you have some comments before we wrap this up?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Yes, I just have a very brief comment. I do understand the problem we live through sometimes with, let's say, enormous numbers of amendments. I tend to agree with Ms. May that there's a bit of a mishmash in our rules. If we want to look at the rules, we should look at the rules themselves in a different context from, at the end of the day, in a committee meeting. I won't be able to support that motion. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Garnett, be short, because I think some of these members have another committee they are supposed to be at. Apparently, I'm supposed to be at it myself, but keep going.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I was just going to say that there would be value, maybe, in exploring other mechanisms for preventing deleterious amendments. But without the passage of this motion, it would seem that there's still very much the possibility that the same tactic could be used by an unrecognized party or an independent to use that method of hundreds of amendments to bog down the process.

It seems that the change that was made at the time under the previous Liberal government didn't entirely solve the problem, while at the same time potentially creating other ones. I just think the value of this motion is that it at least establishes some consistency for the time being with the rules that apply to members of recognized parties.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

I'm going to cut it off there.

Elizabeth, thank you very much for your presentation.

Yes, I was the minister in charge of the Nisga'a treaty when the Reform Party brought in enough amendments to keep us busy and voting for over two days, so there was a particular view by government that it was not a very good way to govern, so there were some changes made.

This is a discussion that I think we're going to continue to have.

The motion has been put, so I want to go to the vote. We can just do it by a show of hands.

(Motion agreed to)

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we will see you on Thursday, when ministers will be in front of the committee. Have a good night.

The meeting is adjourned.