It's very difficult. It's not like an organizational culture within an institution.
Parliament, as I say in my submission, doesn't really have a collective identity and a collective purpose. It's dominated by parties. Particularly in the last decade or two, we've almost been in a condition of a permanent election campaign. Therefore, opposition parties are looking for openings to challenge the governing party, and the government becomes defensive about its records and tries to spin the news about government activities to the best of its ability. There is no learning that goes on in those processes.
I've watched MPs sit on task forces and standing committees, special committees, and relate to the evidence, especially when we used to travel together more. They would come to a consensus in a broad, general way, and leave a lot of the narrow partisanship and more negative partisanship behind. Parties, seeing what Canadians are saying about the parliamentary process, how disappointed they are in the games that go on within Parliament, would actually reward members of Parliament who said, “I'm working on this committee alongside Liberals and New Democrats, the Conservative Party of Canada, and we're coming up with a consensus recommendation.”
Then there's a lot of pressure on ministers and on the public service to listen to that. Ministers can be held accountable by committees, and public servants who come to testify can be made to give fuller answers when the committee is working smoothly and effectively.
It has to come from the top, from the leadership of the parties. And it will take time. It's a slow process and won't happen overnight.
Then there's the other problem that the only time the media show up to witness a committee at work is when there's a scandal. That adds to the emphasis on looking for details that are negative in some way.
There's not an easy answer. It may be a matter of a turnover of MPs, with new MPs coming in. They may want to play a more meaningful role, not just standing in the House of Commons and delivering hard-hitting speeches but getting to actual work on the details of governing.