Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Dec. 11th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you. That's the perfect summary.

We're going to go to Madame Robillard, and then Monsieur Godin and Mr. Lukiwski.

Madame Robillard, s'il vous plaît.

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Chairman, with all due respect to my colleague Mr. Guimond, I think that today we must decide whether or not we are going to reject the subcommittee's decision, because of the appeal by our two colleagues. The subcommittee has pointed out that it is unconstitutional—I forget the specific wording of the report.

Mr. Chairman, before deciding whether or not it is votable, would it be possible to get an opinion from the law clerk of the House? Would this challenge, under the Standing Orders, all of the deadlines faced by our colleagues in the Bloc Québecois? If we were to ask for the opinion of the law clerk of the House, would we be able to get it by Thursday and decide on Thursday morning? Is that feasible?

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

No, because we would not respect the deadline.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

To answer the question, to make sure, there are two ways to go, and the first one is always that the committee is the master of its own domain, if that's what you want to do.

My thinking as chair, however, is that if we vote this through to the House, that's when you would have your opinions. The vote now is on the votability of the report. So as Monsieur Guimond succinctly pointed out, we're voting that for this private member's bill, we're either accepting the report of the subcommittee that this is in violation of the Constitution and therefore is deemed not votable, or we don't vote in the report of the subcommittee, which makes the private member's bill deemed votable. That's where we're at—end of story.

If it goes back to the House because we voted it through, that's when your debates will begin; that's when the committees will study it; that's when the witnesses will happen. That's my understanding.

If it does not go through, Madame Picard has one more process of appeal, and I think Madame Picard knows full well the process of getting five members with the majority of the official opposition.

So that's where I see we're going.

I'm going to continue with my list, with Monsieur Godin, Mr. Lukiwski, and Monsieur Proulx.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Chairman, with all due respect to my colleague Michel Guimond, I think he is seeing things that are not in the Standing Orders.

I find it difficult to imagine that our committee would be subject to the five-day rule. The Standing Orders state that the person sponsoring a bill has five days in which to appear before the committee. That does not prevent us from studying the bill now, to decide whether or not it is constitutional.

We are not seeing the whole picture. If that is the conclusion we draw, that means that the committee could make decisions without been aware of the facts. I do not want to get into that discussion, with all the respect I have for Mr. Guimond. I know that he is pleading his case. When that suits him, he pleads in his own way. I respect that. He is a lawyer who knows everything. I respect that.

However, Mr. Chairman, it seems to me—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

There's a point of order.

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

A point of order.

We do not need to go down to the level of personal insults! I never said that because I am a lawyer, I know everything and I cannot be wrong! I ask Mr. Godin to withdraw his comments!

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Chairman, I apologize. Mr. Guimond does not know everything about everything. I withdraw my comments.

Mr. Chairman, if we read the Standing Orders, they allow the person who tabled the bill to come and address the committee. I would like a decision on this point. Does that prevent us from studying the decision?

I feel this is a false debate. The committee meets, and it would not even have the opportunity to know whether or not it is acceptable! Mr. Chairman, you yourself said that the committee was master of its own destiny. I believe the committee has this power.

The Standing Orders do not provide for the decision being made within five days. The Standing Orders indicate that the challenge to the decision must be presented. That is what the Standing Orders say; this does not prevent us from doing the work that must be done.

I can guarantee you, Mr. Chairman, that I have no intention of presenting a string of experts in order to delay the process. However, Mr. Paquette has quite legitimately given the names of experts and has referred to legal decisions that were handed down in Quebec. With all of this new information, it is normal that the committee should be able to question these people, or other people.

I reject Mr. Guimond's argument, with all due respect, and I say that the committee has this power. We are not here merely to say yes or no, and to do so without information. We have the power to go out and get the information ourselves, because the subcommittee sat in camera. We cannot know what it based its decision on. We have the right to do what must be done in order to make an enlightened decision, otherwise our decision will be made blindly.

It is not enough to accept that the debate should happen in the House of Commons. We have the right to have it within the committee when we make a decision. If we listen to Mr. Guimond, we will prevent the committee from having a debate and making an enlightened decision. I think that that goes against the Standing Orders.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Let me just offer a bit of guidance.

The fact remains that Madame Picard has the opportunity to present herself before this committee within five days. I don't read in the Standing Orders that the committee has to make a decision within five days. However, having said that, the committee can do whatever it pleases: we are the masters of our own destiny.

It seems to me this is a report from the subcommittee, whom we trusted to review this issue and to come back with a recommendation. Our role is actually a yes or a no; we accept the report of the subcommittee or we don't. If we pass this through to the House, then obviously the House will proceed with it in the normal fashion of any legislation, which would be to bring it forward to committee, to hear witnesses, to debate it and study it. The process is there.

I see what Mr. Godin is saying, that we need to discuss this decision. It's a matter of us either turning down the report from the subcommittee or not.

Be very quick, please. I have other speakers.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

What I want to argue, and it's with no disrespect to you, is that if you do that and we go against the report now, it means that we have agreed it's not automatically constitutional, because we're accepting the argument of the in camera subcommittee. If we don't accept the report of the subcommittee, then it means we're not accepting it as constitutional. I say that if we are to make a decision, we have the right to study it before deciding whether it's constitutional or not.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Let's have further debate on that point, because it's a good point.

Mr. Lukiwski, Mr. Proulx, and Monsieur Guimond.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

I'm going to support the position that both you and Monsieur Guimond have been taking, in the sense that our only role as a committee is to vote upon whether we accept the report or not. While I appreciate Mr. Godin's position, that he wants more information--frankly, I wouldn't mind getting more information myself--the fact is that we have established a subcommittee to deal with the votability issues of all private members' bills.

I'm not saying we automatically rubber stamp the decision by the subcommittee. However, we did give them the responsibility to fully examine all the issues concerning votability. The subcommittee came back with their report. It was an in camera session, so we're not privy to the conversations that took place. But I'm confident that the members took their jobs very seriously and came to a decision that this bill, because of constitutional concerns, was not votable.

If we start bringing forward witnesses, as Monsieur Godin is suggesting, in other words going through the same process the subcommittee went through when they made their determination, what good is a subcommittee? Why don't we have the process come to the full committee to do a full examination every time?

I appreciate Monsieur Godin's position, and I have some sympathy for it. I'm unaware of the constitutional argument. Whether it's constitutional, as Mr. Paquette would suggest, or, as the subcommittee suggests, it's not constitutional, we have a process in place. We had a subcommittee. They were charged with the responsibility of examining all those issues, and they made a report. I, for one, feel we have to respect that. Therefore, I would suggest that we only deal with whether to accept the report or not.

Monsieur Godin is quite right. If we accept the report, this bill dies; it goes no further. Perhaps that's a bit unfair, but that's the process we have to live with.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, Mr. Lukiwski.

Indeed this committee has been here before, with other private members' bills that were deemed non-votable for one of the five reasons. Although the background for picking which of the five reasons was not provided to the committee, we've been here before. We've made these decisions based on the report. That's where I'm leaning right now, but I do want to hear more.

Mr. Proulx, Monsieur Guimond, and then Mr. Godin, please.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Without wanting to insult the interpreters, I am going to express myself in English Mr. Chairman, so that we can follow each other word for word.

My understanding, Mr. Chair, of the rules and regulations is that there are criteria that must be respected for an item to be made votable. The subcommittee decides on these criteria; therefore, the subcommittee being a subcommittee of this committee, my understanding is that we are also to make our decision according to these five criteria.

As a member, Madame Picard has the option of coming in front of this committee to make her points, to explain to us why she feels her private member's bill should be made votable. On the other hand, we have a situation where members of the subcommittee, because of the in camera situation at the subcommittee, cannot tell us, aside from their report saying we have found this or we have found that.... But we do not benefit from whatever advice, whatever legal advice or whatever, they've had in regard to the respect or non-respect of these criteria.

Therefore, I have difficulty accepting, as Mr. Lukiwski is saying, that we either accept or reject, in the sense that the way Mr. Lukiwski is putting it is it's believe or not believe.

I think we have the opportunity as a committee to hear opinions. Mr. Godin was asking for the opinion of the legal clerk of the House, and I think this would be elementary in the sense that this is the minimum or maybe the maximum that we can ask. But if we are to reject or accept a report from a subcommittee without knowing, without having advice from an expert on the particular point of the criteria that the subcommittee tells us was not respected, we might as well flip a coin.

I think Mr. Godin is on the right track in asking the legal clerk of the House of Commons to tell us his opinion as far as it being acceptable or not, versus the Constitution. Then if we decide to make it votable, fine, it'll go to the House. If it's accepted in the House, it'll go through the committee proceedings, and we'll know more about it.

But the basis of all of this is for us to decide along these same five criteria if it should be votable or not. I don't feel that with the report we got from the subcommittee, and the lack of comments or the lack of advice, we can make the proper decision. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

On a point of clarification, Mr. Lukiwski.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

As I said, I have sympathy for Monsieur Godin's position and Monsieur Proulx's position. From a procedural standpoint, I'm wondering, if we were to follow what Monsieur Godin is suggesting, Monsieur Proulx is suggesting, and we want to hear from a witness or the law clerk, would we then, procedurally, have to make a motion?

Right now all we can do is vote up or down the report. To do what I think both Monsieur Proulx and Monsieur Godin are suggesting, would that, from a procedural standpoint, mean that we have to entertain a motion and vote on a motion to bring in witnesses?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

The answer is a quick yes. The committee has to have a motion to move forward with any action. I'm hearing a few things. I'd rather not make a ruling. I'd rather hear a motion.

Hang on. We are going to go by our list here.

Monsieur Guimond, a comment please, and then Mr. Godin.

Monsieur Guimond.

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

I'm going to try and explain this calmly and quietly.

First of all, I would like to inform the members of the committee that these provisions are new and date back to the spring of 2003. I was a member at that time of the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business and on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, where we passed these new provisions.

Next, the situation we are currently experiencing has occurred twice since the spring of 2003. In both cases, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs made a decision immediately.

There is another aspect that the members of the committee should consider. Did we ask ourselves why the Standing Orders indicate “Within five sitting days [...]”? Why five sitting days and not 30? Why there is no reference to time? Did we ask ourselves why those five sitting days are provided for? Did you ask yourself that?

The reason why it sets out five sitting days is in order to avoid the member losing their right to have their business in the order of precedence.

If there was not that deadline, or if the Standing Committee on Procedure accepted what Mr. Godin said, we could get bogged down in the study in order to make the member lose her right. I assure you that if we accept that, we will table a list of 30 constitutional experts, others will also have a list of 30, and this member of Parliament will lose her right, Mr. Chairman.

That is why it states “within five sitting days”, and that is why in the other two cases, the committee made a decision on the spot. If we delay the exercise of her privilege, other business will come up on the order of precedence and hers will be bumped down the list. Why should this member's business be at the bottom of the list? Five sitting days serve to define the timeline.

That is why, Mr. Chairman, I ask you and I ask my colleagues, whose good faith I do not doubt, not to begin hearing from either the law clerk of the House nor from experts, because we will be depriving the member from Drummond of her right to be heard.

Let us make a decision, let us act as was done in the two previous cases since the spring of 2003.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We'll go to Monsieur Godin.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Chairman, I was elected as an MP not to become a robot, but to make my own decisions and to vote in a well-informed way.

We are hearing about a new standing order. Mr. Guimond says that he was there from the beginning. Mr. Chairman, I was there at the beginning of this entire process, and my memory is just as good as Mr. Guimond's.

Regarding the five days, I agree with Mr. Guimond that the objective is to hear the witness immediately. However, this does not take away the committee's right to make a reasonable study. Mr. Guimond spoke right away about hearing 30 experts. I do not want that. There are some important elements in the arguments advanced by Ms. Picard and Mr. Paquette.

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to create a precedent whereby something that was done by the subcommittee in camera must be automatically accepted. If our committee did this, it would mean that there should be a standing order whereby decisions made by committees in camera must automatically be accepted. Under those conditions, we would not even have to discuss what we are discussing now.

Our committee is dealing with these issues because we are able, publicly and in accordance with the Standing Orders, which I respect and which we are enforcing, to ensure that Ms. Picard's issue does not have to wait for 30 days and that Ms. Picard can make her statements to the committee and that witnesses can appear on Thursday so that we can make a well-informed decision.

I am afraid of proceeding in the way that is being suggested. If we decide that it is enough for us to simply say yes or no, I think that we would fail to carry out our responsibilities as MPs and legislators. We must be able to make our own decisions rather than adopting those made by others. This is the reason why there are two entities. When the subcommittee deals with issues in camera, it must inform the committee of its decision. The committee, as in the case at hand, is entitled to study such a decision and to make a reasonable effort to protect Ms. Picard's rights.

Mr. Lukiwski says that if a committee has been formed, it must be respected. As far as I am concerned, I think that we are violating Ms. Picard's rights. Her arguments make sense, and we want to go further and find out whether they are supported by legislators and experts in general. In those conditions, I, as an MP, would make a well-informed decision.

Mr. Michel Guimond is saying that he wants to take this privilege away from me, because he is trying to invoke a Standing Order about a five-day limit, for Ms. Picard's appearance before the committee, so that we have no other choice than to make a decision.

The decision is not the issue. She can choose to appear within five days to appeal the decision before the committee. In the Standing Orders, nothing says that the committee must make a decision within five days; it says that the person can appeal the decision within five days.

I simply want our representatives, the clerk or the House, to tell us whether the Standing Orders prevent us from studying this case. I want to understand this Standing Order. Does the period of five days mean, in the Standing Orders, that the decision must be made within five days or that Ms. Picard can make her statements within five days?

Mr. Guimond's argument implies that a committee could make anti-constitutional decisions in camera, without leaving us any chance to... According to Mr. Lukiwski, we should support the committee that sat in camera, but as far as I am concerned, as an MP, I do not want to put myself in that kind of position, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, just out of respect for everybody's time, we did vote to extend the meeting to 1:30 p.m. I'm at the will of the committee. However, this has been a full discussion, and I think we have a couple of options before us. It doesn't sound to me like we're ready for the vote. I'm not convinced that the Standing Orders say we have to make a decision within five days. I am convinced that Madame Picard has the right to appear before the committee within five days; the committee makes a decision, and that decision is reported to the House forthwith.

I'm just looking for the indulgence of the committee as to where we should go from here. We have the option of continuing this discussion on Thursday. We can defer it, and I'll make a decision by asking the experts where we should go.

Are you going to put the question?

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

Call the question. We want to vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Order, please.

Go ahead, Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Guimond does not have the power to call a division, because there is someone, me...

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

There are more people who want to debate this issue. I can't do that.

Are there any other comments?

What I'm going to recommend for the committee, with your indulgence, is that we have two options. I'm looking for direction. I can take this upon myself and defer my decision until some point, or we can choose to put this as the first thing on the agenda on Thursday. Those are the two options that I think are reasonable. I'm not looking for a big, long debate here. I'm looking for some direction from members.

We'll have Mr. Reid and then Mr. Proulx.