Mr. Chair, I'm going to try to keep this as civil as possible. I made a rather long intervention on Thursday, October 5, when Madam Redman first made this motion at this committee.
I find it more than a little bit ironic that Madam Redman makes the same motion nine or ten days later--I didn't look at the calendar--and yet didn't speak to her motion. She didn't address any of the concerns I raised.
I don't know whether Madam Redman felt I was just doing some political grandstanding or was just speaking to hear myself speak, but as I pointed out at some length during that meeting, my experience after thirteen years in this place is that in order for Parliament to function at all well, there has to be mutual respect and trust, especially between the whips of the four parties--I hold one of those positions currently--and of course between our colleagues, the House leaders of the four parties.
At that time, Mr. Chairman, I went into considerable detail as to why I felt that relationship is damaged by this particular motion that Madam Redman has just read again, with no explanation, with no consideration for the comments I'd made and the questions I'd put to her at that meeting, questions to which she didn't respond during that meeting--and she has yet to respond in any way to a couple of very clear questions I posed at that time.
The first question asked how it was that we had reached an agreement at the House leaders' and whips' meeting of September 19 whereby we would deal with these provisional Standing Orders by extending the deadline to November 21, getting our senior parliamentary staff together to go through them, and seeing which ones we could come to consensus on and which ones might be a bit more contentious. The ones that we would agree on would be made permanent as quickly as possible, presumably within a day--the same as we put this motion forward, following our agreement at the House leaders' meeting.
What I said at the time is just reinforced by this motion's being brought forward again, with no explanation and no consideration for the arguments that several of my colleagues and I made at that Thursday meeting. I find it puzzling and disturbing that we are here again with this same motion, and no consideration is being given to the questions I posed.
One question was whether Madam Redman--I know she was present that day, I don't have that bad a memory--would tell me now that she was not in agreement with the strategy that was agreed to at that meeting, which was confirmed the very next day when the government House leader put forward the motion in the House of Commons that did in fact extend the provisional Standing Orders to November 21.
Mr. Chairman, as I said, I've been here thirteen years. I was first appointed whip of the old Reform Party of Canada in January 2000. It's coming up on seven years now that I have been a whip, four different times with different parties that I've been pleased to represent in Parliament. I've been the opposition House leader, so I've spent a fair part of the last seven years both at the procedure and House affairs committee and attending the weekly House leaders' and whips' meetings, at which--as I said last time and I repeat it today--there has to be a relationship built upon mutual trust and respect.
We don't write things down. Those meetings are not public meetings. They are in camera, always. We get a lot of work done, I would argue, both from a government and an opposition perspective. We get a lot of work done at those meetings to try to keep Parliament functioning in the best interests of Canadians as much as possible.
We remove the partisanship out of the debate that takes place behind those closed doors every week when we hold the whips' and the House leaders' meeting.
We would never...and I referred to the Honourable Don Boudria during my intervention on the 5th, Mr. Chairman, as an example, despite the fact that he was Liberal and I was always in opposition to him. I will say this, that when I had the privilege of working with Mr. Boudria in his role as government House leader, he prided himself on the fact that his word was his bond. Whenever he made a decision, even if he ran up against some opposition from his own party, from his own ministers—we have a former minister here, and I'm sure he would probably agree—Mr. Boudria valued his word so highly that sometimes he would get into difficulties with his own party, and sometimes I believe even with his own Prime Minister. He believe that for Parliament to function, you have to have that fundamental level of trust between the House leaders and, obviously as well, between the four whips of the recognized parties.
As I point out, Minister Nicholson would never have brought forward the motion the very next day to extend these provisional Standing Orders to November 21. I challenge anyone who has been here, even a year or two, let alone the thirteen years I've been here, to suggest that the minister would have brought forward this motion if there hadn't been an agreement or if there had been any confusion about the strategy of introducing the motion the very next day to extend them, so we would ensure that these provisional Standing Orders would continue until November 21 and in the intervening time that we would have time to deal with them.
The second issue, Mr. Chairman, that I posed as a question to my colleague, Madam Redman, at that time.... Again, I didn't take notes; I didn't have a tape recorder running. As I said, the meetings are such that they have to be based on mutual trust and respect, so I took Madam Redman at her word. I'm asking again, as I did on the 5th...my recollection of the conversation was that we had a detailed discussion at the House leaders' meeting about how to deal with these provisional Standing Orders that were going to expire if we didn't do something about them. We had a pretty good discussion, I thought.
I posed the question, and my recollection was that Madam Redman herself said it shouldn't be dealt with here. That's what she said, and I'm sure I'm not mistaken about this. She said that in her experience—and I would agree with the statement she made at that time—that oftentimes things get pretty partisan in public committee meetings. We've all seen it. I've sat on numerous standing committees over the thirteen years I've been privileged to be a member of Parliament, not just on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, but on others. I know that at certain times all of us are guilty of putting partisanship ahead of the interests of the committee, and perhaps even of the interests of Parliament itself. It happens, and I believe that all parties and all members are guilty from time to time.
She recognized this, Mr. Chairman. At that meeting, she suggested, and it was agreed by others present. In fact, I don't recall any opposition to her assertion that the place to deal with this was at the House leader and whip level, as opposed to in this committee. It was for that reason; she felt we could leave most of the partisanship at the door and work this through. It would have unanimity on all of the changes on the provisional Standing Orders, which changed some of the Standing Orders. Whether we would have unanimity on all of them or some of them, we would work through that with our senior staff. That was her suggestion at that time.
Subsequent discussion resulted in this strategy of bringing forward a motion as soon as possible. The House leader, the Hon. Rob Nicholson, left that meeting with the intention of getting his staff to draft the necessary motion, making sure that all three of the opposition parties agreed to the extension to November 21. Then he introduced it at the first opportunity, which was the very next day, and it passed unanimously.
I don't understand, Mr. Chair. I'm really puzzled by this. This is now the second time I've posed these questions to Madam Redman. Both times she has been in the room and hasn't responded. The relationship between Madam Redman as whip of the official opposition and me as chief government whip is, I believe, a very mutually respectful relationship.
As I said at the last meeting, there is almost a bit of irony, perhaps, that in the past I held her position with the official opposition and she held mine. Now we're on opposite sides of the table, but basically we hold the same positions. We have quite a long working relationship, I would argue, of working productively and respectfully with one another.
I pose these questions in all honesty. I'm puzzled by this. In the thirteen years I have been here, as I say, and in the seven years that I have been privileged on and off to be a caucus officer, I have never had this experience.
In light of that and in the interests of my commitment to what I believe was a pretty sound agreement that was agreed to unanimously by all present at the House leaders' meeting, I would move an amendment to Madam Redman's motion, Mr. Chairman. I move that the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following therefor:
the committee recommends that the provisional Standing Orders, adopted by the House on February 18, 2005, remain in effect as per the Special Order adopted unanimously by the House on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 to allow the process as agreed to by the House Leaders to take place before any further action is taken.