Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 17th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, let's begin our meeting this morning. We do have quorum, so we'll proceed right away.

I would like to advise members that today's meeting is in public.

If members recall, at the end of our meeting on Tuesday, the committee—We will resume where we left off at the conclusion of that meeting.

I just want to point out to members that while you may have noticed there is a new number assigned to this meeting, I want to assure members that the chair is very aware that this is simply a continuation of that other meeting. The minutes of Tuesday's meeting state that the committee adjourned until 11 a.m. today, and that the discussion of the second report of the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business will continue at this time. I hope that clarifies any confusion that might exist over a new number for this meeting. The normal practice would have been to adjourn that meeting at the call of the chair.

Members will also remember that at the conclusion of that meeting Mr. Preston was next on the list of speakers and that he requested he be the first person recognized at today's meeting, and that was agreed.

While the matter before the committee for this meeting is the second report of the subcommittee, I want to also remind all members that we did dismiss our witness at that time. We excused Mr. Silva. Technically, there is no motion or witness before this committee at this time. If you recall, we excused Mr. Silva when we proceeded to debate the motion put forward by Monsieur Plamondon, which, after a lengthy debate, was withdrawn.

The question the committee ultimately has to answer today is whether the second report of the subcommittee will be concurred in. But at this time, I'm in the hands of my colleagues on the committee.

Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 92, the committee will now resume consideration of the second report of the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business, which states:

Pursuant to Standing Order 92(1)(a), the Subcommittee on Private Members’ Business agrees that the following item of Private Members’ Business should be designated nonvotable on the basis that it contravenes the criterion that bills and motions must not concern questions that are substantially the same as ones already voted on by the House of Commons in the current session of Parliament.

In other words, that is Bill C-415.

In accordance with my understanding and that of the committee of the decision at the conclusion of the discussions on Tuesday, I will now recognize Mr. Preston. Mr. Preston, you have the floor.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I think I'll spend a short period of time refreshing the committee as to where we were, what we were discussing and what end we'd like to come to.

I'll start off by summarizing the subcommittee's work. The subcommittee of this committee, the subcommittee responsible for private members' business, has met and is called to meet from time to time to review private members' business and to determine whether it is votable or non-votable in order to refresh the order of precedent from time to time. We're called to do that.

The subcommittee also had been charged by the Speaker to come up with some slight revisions to the criteria that will be used to determine non-votability on private members' business.

As you may or may not remember, of course, we had run into a situation earlier in this session where two members' bills—coincidentally, one of them is related to the subject matter today—one by Mr. Nadeau and one by Ms. Bell, had been ruled to be substantially similar. Yet the rules in those days or the criteria for non-votability at that time read that even if they were substantially similar, and those two were—and the committee noticed it even at the time of the meeting of the subcommittee—we were handcuffed at the time because it stated one could be ruled non-votable if indeed one had been voted on in the House. Well, they had both simply been put on the order of precedent, and therefore neither could be ruled non-votable by the committee because neither had been voted on.

When one was voted on in the House, Mr. Lee stood and asked the Speaker how we would then deal with that piece. We were charged by the Speaker at that time to come up with a criterion change that would ensure that if it occurred again we would be able to remove one at the subcommittee level rather than waiting until it got to the House and had to move forward in that way.

The other thing the Speaker charged the subcommittee with was to come up with a remedy for Ms. Bell at that time. There was some question—Obviously, the way the Standing Orders read, if a bill had been deemed non-votable by the Speaker, it could've simply been tossed aside and Ms. Bell would have lost her chance to speak on private members' business. Because she had chosen a bill that was substantially similar to Mr. Nadeau's, and his had come forward first, she could have been ripped off, she could have been chosen not to have a bill, even though her number was reasonably good. In the lottery, she was fairly high up.

So the Speaker asked us for at least advice on a remedy to that situation. There we were, charged with two pieces of work, along with deciding whether bills were votable or non-votable. We were also charged with how to change the criteria for making bills votable or non-votable before the fact, before they could get to the House and therefore run into the same thing, and also to come up with a series of criteria or remedies that would apply in the event that if it happened again someone could then put forward another motion or another bill, depending on what had been ruled non-votable.

As you know, the criteria that we look at for both bills and motions are substantially the same. Bills and motions must not concern questions that are outside federal jurisdiction. Bills and motions must not violate the Constitution or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Bills and motions must not concern questions that are substantially the same as ones already voted on in the House of Commons—sorry, during the current session of the Parliament—that's how that third criterion read before we put a change in, and I'll tell you in a moment what the change was—and then that bills and motions must not concern questions that are currently on the Order Paper and Notice Paper as items of government business.

We added to that third one that bills and motions must not concern questions that are substantially the same as ones already voted on in the House of Commons in the current session of Parliament. That one stood well and stood the test of time fine, until this occurred, until we ran into the case where both Monsieur Nadeau's bill and Ms. Bell's bill appeared in Parliament at the same time. Only when one was voted on, then, would the other one be able to be deemed non-votable.

So we've added the phrase afterwards, “or as ones preceding them in the order of precedence”, so that at the subcommittee in the future, when the subcommittee on private members' business, representing the committee on procedure and House affairs, meets, we now have a way of determining a bill non-votable if it matches another one that has not yet been voted on in the House.

We think we've corrected the problem, going forward. We're not certain, but we think we have, because in this place you never know until something else happens as to whether in fact you've covered all the bases, crossed all the t's and dotted all the i's. We think we're there, but we're not certain, but right now it seems well.

We have also moved forward and in the report back to this committee have also come up with what we believe are remedies should in fact bills be deemed non-votable either by the subcommittee or by appeal to this committee, or to the House, even. I guess there is another session of appeal. There are some remedies that we've come up with as to what could happen if the member—

And I will thank the members of that subcommittee. Madame Picard sits on it with us, and others. And certainly even for the work that we did, the clerk of the subcommittee business and the researchers gave us a great deal of help on this, and truly so did the Clerk of the House and the Deputy Clerk of the House. They're the ones who really came up with some of the good wording for us, so I do need to thank them before I move on.

We came up with some of the remedies here, and it truly is that if the member already had other bills, as some of the members of the House are wont to do—We may have two or three pieces of private members' business that we have tabled, and when it comes our time in the lottery, we may then pick the one we'll want to move forward on in the order of precedence. So if someone had another piece of legislation, be it a bill or a motion, already there, they would have the choice to substitute that one in, and that would be a good remedy. We would also allow them a certain amount of time if indeed they wanted to write another piece of legislation and then put that back in. If that happened, they might move down to the bottom of that group of the order of precedence, but it wouldn't be a great penalty and it would still be in there and they would still be debating their bills.

We think we've come up with some pretty good remedies, and we think, representing the procedure and House affairs committee, that the subcommittee on private members' business has diligently done its work and the researchers and the clerks have helped us to come up with, first of all, some additions to the criteria to aid us in that function, but also in discussing the relevant pieces of legislation that we were discussing at the time and matching them against those criteria.

That brings you to what the subcommittee has been attempting to do during this time. We may come back to some of that information, but that's about where we are.

We'll move forward now to the fact that the subcommittee, in the last refreshing of the order of precedence, ruled two pieces of legislation non-votable. Obviously it's an in camera piece, so I can't tell you how and why we arrived at our ideas, but I've read you the criteria, and it's under the criteria that bills and motions must not concern questions that are substantially the same as ones already voted on by the House of Commons in the current session.

That was the judgment criterion that we had used to establish both of the pieces of legislation that had come forward in this last bit of refreshing of the order of precedence. That was the one we had talked about. We looked at two different pieces of legislation, one where Mr. Silva has come to the committee of the whole to appeal the decision of the subcommittee, but others were done that way too.

I'll remind this committee that earlier in this session we also had, under I think it was the first replenishment of the private members' subcommittee, ruled another piece of legislation non-votable. It was for a different criterion, but Mr. Benoit, the member for Vegreville—Wainwright, had brought forward a piece of legislation and we, the subcommittee as a group, had again worked diligently on it, with the help of the researchers and the clerk, to determine whether it had met the four criteria of votability or non-votability. We had determined it had not and we brought it back to this committee. The committee accepted the report of the subcommittee at that time because, as you're wont to do, you'll support your subcommittees, and you think they do good work. We represented the committee as a whole, so I know you stepped up and said we had done the right work then. I don't think this committee did it for partisan reasons. I think this committee did it because they believed in the work of their subcommittee.

You'll remember Mr. Benoit came forward at that time and asked this committee to look again at the decision made by the subcommittee and, if I remember rightly, very forcefully and with all passion tried to explain he felt his bill was still a votable piece of legislation. We listened well, as we are wont to do as a committee, and we asked hard questions of Mr. Benoit. And at the end of the day we did what of course all good committees should do, and that was support the ruling of their subcommittee. We believed that bill was non-votable still, that it was not a bill that could be voted on in the House of Commons in the session.

What did Mr. Benoit do at that point? Mr. Benoit did what is another option available to Mr. Silva and another option that this committee can make available to Mr. Silva. Mr. Benoit chose at that point to take his bill forward regardless, even though it had a non-votability to it, that he felt with his passion, with his fervour, what he was looking for, and it wasn't about gophers, which Mr. Benoit wants to talk about from time to time; this was a different subject. Mr. Benoit chose to take it forward to the House of Commons for two different sessions of debate, for two different readings of debate, knowing that at the end of the day there would not be a vote on his private member's legislation. He felt he'd got it that far, he was disappointed of course in the ruling by this committee when it backed up its subcommittee on the non-votabilty of his bill, but he chose to move it forward so he could have it debated in the House and so the people of Canada and the other members of the House who don't sit on this committee, who don't have the great thrill of sitting on this committee or the subcommittee, could also hear the valuable piece of information Mr. Benoit was trying to move forward.

So, as it was, he brought it forward and it was voted on. And I still offer that to Mr. Silva, even in this case. If indeed we do move Mr. Silva's and you back up your subcommittee, as committees are wont to do from time to time, and move the bill non-votable, Mr. Silva still has the opportunity, if he's very passionate about the material. And even though we've determined the material in Mr. Silva's bill to be substantially similar to other material that's already been debated in the House, Mr. Silva could move it forward, and with the great passion that I know of Mr. Silva, debate it in the House at a couple of more readings and certainly push all the parts he wanted to push.

I recognize he'd like to also speak a little bit about essential services in there, and he might even be able to convince some more, so that at the next sitting of the House, when someone else moves forward a bill similar to this, which we do believe has come to the House on nine other occasions, we could have some more information to move forward. Mr. Silva could clearly do that if he wishes. This is another option Mr. Silva could do. He could bring it to the House as a non-votable item and still have it debated.

So we're not punishing Mr. Silva in any real way. Even though we have found his bill to be substantially similar to others that have already been voted on in this House, we're giving him a remedy. Above that remedy, I might add, the remedy where he could still take it to the House as a non-votable entity, he has other remedies, which, if we move this non-votable, he could move forward with and come back to the House with another piece of legislation. Or perhaps Mr. Silva has another piece of legislation already on the order paper he could move forward with.

These are the remedies that are there.

Again, trying not to reveal any of the in camera procedures of that subcommittee, because, of course, we're still talking about the sharing of information from in camera sessions at this committee also, and we wouldn't want to do that after having moved the motion to look for sanctions—I know that some of you would come with some dire sanctions should I do that—there was another motion at the same private members' grouping that was also moved non-votable.

Now, the mover of that motion has chosen to simply allow it to drop and not move it forward at all. Mr. Dion has chosen not to bring this bill forward, although we had ruled that the subject matter had been voted on in the House, and therefore was similar to other items that had been voted on in the House.

Regarding the subcommittee, you're absolutely right. That's already been voted on in the House. I won't move it forward. But I give you that he had the opportunity, if he wanted, to move that piece forward as a non-votable piece, just as we're offering to Mr. Silva to do.

He could have, if he was passionate enough about the piece of legislation that he had brought forward, which he has now allowed to drop. If he was passionate enough about it, if it had meant enough to him, he could very well have brought it forward and debated it at different readings in private members' business, but could not have a vote at the end of the day.

I've seen many members stand on many issues in our House of Commons, issues that may not be votable, that may never come to a conclusion in the House, but about which they are passionate, and they will bring them forward because that is what is near and dear to them.

Obviously, the private member I'm speaking of in this case chose not to be passionate about the piece of information that he could have brought forward at that time, but c'est la vie.

Let's discuss similarities. “Substantially similar” I think is a key piece in the argument here. I chose not to bring my whole Oxford Dictionary today, and I just brought the page with—

[An hon. member]

Ah.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Well, I was going to start with the As until we got to “substantial”.

[An hon. member]

I don't think we want to know what those things are.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Just so that I can maintain some decorum here, it's nice to be a little casual today, but could we direct comments to the chair, and not back and forth?

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I'm sorry, Chair. I meant to bring my dictionary today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

And if I had, I could open it at C and look up “chair”, and we could discuss what that was. But here we are—

[An hon. member]

We have a good chair, a better chair.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Yes. That would be right near “confidence”.

Here we are, in fact, on the S pages, and we're talking about “substantially”. As you'll remember, there are the four criteria for making things non-votable as a piece of private members' legislation. I won't repeat them all. I'll just repeat the one we're dealing with here, and that is:

—bills and motions must not concern questions that are substantially the same as ones already voted on by the House of Commons—

You'll remember my comments from the other day, when I was trying to compare for you the two beautiful candy-apple-red Mustangs sitting in the parking lot. We said that if I had two beautiful Mustang convertibles sitting in the parking lot, and they were sitting side by side, you would at first say, “Those two cars are substantially the same. They're red convertible Mustangs.” I said “Yes, but one had a CD player, and the other had satellite radio.”

But I know my friend here would say to me, “But they're still substantially the same, Joe. They both use gasoline and go down the hill. They're red. They're beautiful cars”—

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

They go up the hill too.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Oh, yes. So “substantially” is the piece we're looking at here.

So substantially, as defined in the Oxford Dictionary, means to a great or significant extent, for the most part, or essentially. So we're just trying to determine whether substantially similar to is for the most part. Is it “essentially” the same? Is it “to a great or significant extent” the same?

We can compare pieces of legislation in the same way, I think, and that's truly what we looked at. So we have the definition.

And here I have—Sorry.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Owen.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Could Mr. Preston please inform the committee of the edition of the Oxford English Dictionary he's reading from?

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

If you'll allow me time, Mr. Chair, I will run back to my office and check the cover, because I only brought the page. But I assume I would stay in the speaking order while I did that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'm sure the member would be kind enough to table that with you later. It's not a point of order—

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

It is a very good question.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Can we suspend for one hour?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'm sorry, you don't have the floor, Monsieur Guimond.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

That was a great question. I suppose we could suspend.

Perhaps there's a dictionary very close to this room. It might not be my Oxford English Dictionary; it might be one of the other great dictionaries of this land. Funk & Wagnalls—that's exactly it. We could get one of those.

Perhaps you'll allow that my version of “substantially” is okay for now. We'll argue the differences at a later time—maybe later on in this same dissertation. But right now we'll go back to where I was.

I also brought Ms. Bell's bill, which was ruled to be very similar to this bill by our subcommittee, and by reference then, by this committee. I just thought I'd bring it because they look the same from a distance. They're like those Mustangs, aren't they?

That brings us to Bill C-415, Mr. Silva's bill, which we as a subcommittee ruled to be also substantially similar. I'm looking at the front cover, and other than the numbers on it and the names at the bottom, it's “An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (replacement workers)”. If I read the other one, it says “An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (replacement workers)”.

I'm telling you that sounds substantially similar to me, because that sounds exact. So it doesn't even meet the criteria of “substantially”; it means the criteria of “exact”. If I'd brought the whole dictionary I could move back to “e” and look up “exact” and we would be discussing that at this point. I should have done that. I'll get better at this as I spend more time in this place.

But truly, when it comes down to it we're dealing with whether they are substantially the same, and we're not talking whether there are any differences, because under “substantially” it doesn't say they must be exactly the same. I'll read it again. It says “to a great or significant extent”. So there have to be some similarities, I guess, for the most part. If we look at “for the most part”, I think we'll find that Bill C-257 and Bill C-415 clearly have the same purpose. It says right there “An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (replacement workers)”. They have the same purpose, namely to ban the use of replacement workers. That's clearly what this is saying here—the banning of replacement workers.

They both amend the Canada Labour Code and they're identical, other than one clause and one subsection. So we have one clause and one subsection different in one from the other. I think that meets my “substantially” rule here. We're talking about them being substantially the same.

Mr. Chair, I know I'm to put all my comments through you, but I seem to be losing my audience. As an amateur actor, I'd feel bad if they'd all gotten up and walked out on me. Okay, I understand they're listening now.

They both contain an identical paragraph in their summaries, stating their purpose:

—to prohibit employers under the Canada Labour Code from hiring replacement workers to perform the duties of employees who are on strike or locked out.

Maybe I should say it twice, because it says it in each of them:

—to prohibit employers under the Canada Labour Code from hiring replacement workers to perform the duties of employees who are on strike or locked out.

So both bills say exactly the same thing in their purposes and in their final paragraphs. Other than the word “essential” added a couple of times in one and not in the other, these bills are substantially the same—thus the ruling by your subcommittee after diligent work. I have to tell you, finding the word “essential” in there a couple of times made it fairly easy. That was the only thing that was different. So that's the ruling there.

Mr. Silva also brought it to our attention that the Speaker made a ruling. I think I spoke about this the other day, and I'll speak to it again. I had the Speaker's ruling in front of me, because when you can't sleep well at night you can grab things like the Speaker's rulings and they'll certainly cure your insomnia. If you want to read a few Speaker's rulings you can get to sleep a lot better.

This is the Speaker's ruling on Bill C-415, and I've searched and searched all through it. I've looked on every page, because there are three pages. Non-votability is not mentioned once by the Speaker. That isn't what the Speaker was charged to do. The Speaker was charged with determining whether the bill was in order or not. We're not ruling this bill out of order. As I've said, Mr. Silva's bill is still very much in order. He can take it to the House and have it debated, because it is a bill that's in order and can be discussed. But it can't be voted on, because we've ruled it non-votable.

I'd like to go back to “substantially”, because we've talked a bit about it. That truly is the criteria we're dealing with here. I brought a couple of my favourite pens, because I couldn't bring the Mustangs inside. We could have parked them outside, but I would have needed the chair's permission for us all to go outside and look at them. I'm not sure I'm allowed to use props, Chair, but I will until you tell me I can't.

These are two of my favourite kinds of pens because they write on photographs and on paper.

You brought the dictionary, the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Does it say “substantially” is pretty much what I said?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Could I just interrupt you for a minute?

Okay, Mr. Preston, my apologies for the interruption. You may continue.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

That's fine. I'll just take a small break at that moment too.

I was talking about my favourite pens and how they certainly have different coloured caps, one is blue and one is red, because I use them for different purposes: sometimes I'm mad and other times I'm not, I think. If I went into a store and asked for a pen, I may be offered these, because they're substantially similar; they would fall under the category of pens. So I would say that these two pens would be substantially similar, even though we are dealing, of course, with a red cap and a blue cap, and I feel very badly for having not brought some of the other parties' colours. They would still be substantially the same.

And if I read the pens, they're both fine point and they're both Memories pens—and as I said, I do like using them a lot because they write on just about everything—but they have exactly the same words on the outside.

So I'd give to you that under the definition of “substantially” in the dictionary, I have discovered writing instruments that are substantially the same also. I use them to write on the two pieces of legislation that I found to be substantially the same.

Let's look back. I told you I would probably return to the work of the subcommittee when we're looking at this. As I said, we've talked about Mr. Nadeau's bill, and we talked about Mr. Silva's bill, and I told you I brought Ms. Bell's bill, who, in the first catch of this.... Their whole reason for some of this coming about was Mr. Nadeau and Ms. Bell had written exactly the same legislation for private members' business at the first time. They both had, luckily enough, been drawn very early in the lottery this time.

For those who don't know, the lottery here is our way of choosing private members' business. We pull all of the names out of a, I don't know, it must be a drum of some sort. So we're dealing with the fact that all members who are not ministers of the crown, and of course the Prime Minister too, can be in the group of private members' business. All those names are accumulated in some sort of vessel, I assume, and pulled out. And thus the order of precedent is established, who gets to go first, second, third, or fourth.

We've had discussions, even in this committee on other issues, that once both are on the order of precedent, there is some trading that can take place. People can actually move up and move down the order of precedence. I digressed there, and I didn't mean to.

Ms. Bell's bill, again, is “An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (replacement workers)”. Mr. Nadeau's, which actually ended up going through, Bill C-257, is “An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (replacement workers)”. Then, of course, their summaries are nearly the same. These two bills are almost exactly, word for word, the same piece of legislation.

As I had also mentioned, this legislation had, over time, over many terms of Parliament, come forward. I dare say, if I'm right, it is nine times that it has come to the House as a piece of legislation in some shape or form. They may have been substantially similar; they may not have been exact, but they may have been substantially similar. They have come in different Houses of the Parliament, and therefore they're not ruled out of order, if they come one at a time in different sittings of the House.

But these two did come at the same time. I'm sure they both are very passionate about this piece of legislation, these types of legislation, and they very passionately brought them forward and said this is what we'd like to do, this is the type of legislation we'd like to see our country have, and this is the type of legislation that—we are a democracy—I'll bring forward and put in this House of Commons, and we will debate it. We'll debate it at second reading, we'll debate it at third reading, and we'll take it to committee and we'll discuss it there, because they're passionate about these pieces of legislation.

We are a democracy, of course, and they may lose. It may be voted on and not pass. Mr. Nadeau's bill, I believe, did that. I believe we got it all the way through the House and on final reading it was defeated in the House of Commons. It was voted on, but the democracy of this House, the democracy of this place ruled.

It was chosen that it not become a law of this land the way it was written, and for many reasons. That's what happened.

So Ms. Bell, who brought forward an identical piece of legislation, did not get the chance to move it forward through the House. Certainly, I know that she got to speak on Mr. Nadeau's bill, so she had some pleasure in being able to move forward a piece of legislation that she had also wanted to bring forward. But they were substantially the same, so Ms. Bell's bill was ruled non-votable.

That brings us to the next case. I've given you the history. I've talked a bit about Mr. Nadeau and how he brought his bill forward. It went through all of the stages, and I even had the honour to sit at the human resources committee a couple of times while it was being discussed as a piece of legislation there. I've gotten to spend a lot of time with Mr. Nadeau's bill; I guess I'm fortunate that way.

But there we were. Mr. Nadeau's bill went through the House, went through committee. It was well discussed there. Geez, I remember one of the days at the human resources committee, there were maybe seven or eight witnesses—it was full at that end of the table—discussing this piece of legislation. And there were contrary views, good pieces of discussion and great pieces of information, brought forward by witnesses who talked a lot about why this piece of legislation would be good for our country and why it would be bad. That's truly what we're here for, to discuss both sides.

There was even some talk there about what changes could have been made to make it better legislation, because I think we always want to strive for perfection—if not perfection, at least excellence—in our legislation.

So Mr. Nadeau's bill moved through all of those stages in the House, yet on the final day, not enough members stood in that standing vote. It was probably heart-wrenching, because I know if you spend that much time trying to put through a piece of legislation and you have that happen to you at the end of the day.... Not enough members stood in favour of it, so the piece of legislation did not pass.

Well, that's all well and good. That's what democracy is. That's why we're here. We move good laws. I remember sitting in the House in one of my first sessions, and the member to my left here was a bit of a mentor for me in my first year in the House. Outside of his ability to absolutely imitate a combine to perfection, I remember our sitting there one day when I was a brand new member of Parliament, and we were debating something that clearly, we all agreed on. This happens to us all in the House. I know it happens often, because of how the colleagues in this House always do agree like that. We were discussing something, and speaker after speaker from different parties kept getting up and saying, “We agree with this. This is the right way to go.” I turned to Ken and I said, “You know what, Ken. I come from the business world, and if we all agree on something we just get her done and move on.” I remember asking him, “Why is it we're still debating this?”, and he said, “Because we can't afford to make bad laws in this place.”

It was a piece of advice that I keep to this day, and I certainly have shared it more than once with other new members of Parliament. And it's true. And here we are, with legislation before us, with legislation before that, with legislation that would like to be coming after that. Why can't we move this forward? Why can't we? Why should we not? Why should this committee stand behind its subcommittee and agree that this item is non-votable? Because we can't afford to move.... We can't afford...by our own regulations. We are a place...and that's the other thing.

That same day that he said, “We can't afford to make bad laws”, I said, “Well, okay, I understand that piece. But why is it we're still going to talk about this thing for three more hours?” Because those are the rules and regulations of this place. That's what we've put forward. We will speak for three hours on an item to be sure that nothing can come forward, that nothing comes forward, that absolutely nothing is forgotten in a piece of legislation, that we did not find fault, even if we all agreed with it.

Here we are, held by our own rules and regulations, in this case the rules and regulations, the criteria for private members' business votability. Here we are, the four of them. I could read them again to you, but I'll save that for later.

The criteria for private members' votability.... Here we are. We are held to them. They're like handcuffs to us, saying you can't move this forward. It says to you, in your own rules, you must not, you cannot, you shall not move this bill forward; it is non-votable. It matches something else that has already been voted on. It's substantially similar to something else that you've already voted on in this House.

And I know now. I see the gleam in the eyes of the members opposite. They are starting to hear; they are starting to get this. This is really good. I dare say that if I spend this much time again, I may have them convinced, so we'll work on doing that.

But we are a place of procedure. We are a place of rules. We are a place where the regulations that come before us were made by other members, by people who sat here years and years ago and set forward regulations for us to follow. And if we did not have those rules, if we were not bound by them, we would have a strangely different place to follow. We would have a strangely different place to go to for work every day, because it wouldn't be the rules. There wouldn't be.... When would we stand for legislation, when would we stand for question period? That's what the regulations and orders are here for.

So here we have built into private members' business.... And maybe I'll digress back to that time when some of these rules were made. It used to be a strangely different place, and I could ask my colleague here, and even Mr. Hill, who claims to have been here for years also, and some of the others—as young as they are, they came here at 12 and they've been here some few years too.

The answers here were set by the people before us. Private members' business used to be a drastically different thing. It was a rarity. It was so uncommon for a member's piece of legislation to come forward as votable, as a piece of private members' business.

Mr. Hill, in a short speech the other day, talked to us about how even the members used to have to come before a committee to discuss why it should be votable. This was the opposite of where we are: now everything is deemed votable. Everything is votable unless a subcommittee that meets and follows certain criteria asks them to be non-votable, deems them to be non-votable. So here we are in 2007 with almost every piece. As I said, in the last replenishment these 15 bills came before us. We moved two of them non-votable, and there are remedies for either of those two people to have been able to come forward with another piece of legislation.

In fact, nobody can be deemed non-votable if they really wanted to follow the remedy pieces. So here's the answer. We're at the point now where everything is votable. The committee has certain criteria to follow. It's deemed non-votable by the four criteria used, and then we are faced with the moving to the House and moving through the system and being voted on and moving off to committee and being discussed there and then coming back to the House.

I dare say, Chair, I'm not certain if I could come up with the number, but I would bet it's five or six that even so far in this session of Parliament—it's still young, this session of Parliament—have been voted on and won by the member who put them forward, that have had bills passed. I say “won” because of the thrill it would be if you put forward a piece of legislation and in fact it did come to pass that it was made legislation. You would feel it to be a real victory.

But this is happening now far more often in this, in our terms, our time, as members of Parliament, than we've ever seen before, than has ever gone before us. Private members' business was a rarity. It just was so hard to do, and we're at a time and place when it is almost a given. You come up with a piece of legislation that meets certain criteria. It's votable. You move it on to the House. You convince your colleagues that what you stand for is true and just, and it's voted on and it becomes the law of the land. Can you imagine? It's that simple. A little guy from a riding deep in southern Ontario could come forward with a piece of legislation, provided he writes it properly so it isn't substantially similar to somebody else's, and he could move it forward.

[A voice]

He was referring to himself as “a little guy”.