Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 28th, 2010

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

But I've been in committees that have descended into chaos.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

They may have descended into chaos, but you don't see the same kind of behaviour. You don't see the Speaker of the House rising out of his chair and leaving the House.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Actually, chairs leave their meetings because they're out of control.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Do you see the Speaker adjourning the House?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

To go back to my key point, I think 90% of what we're talking about can be resolved by telling the Speaker we want the rules enhanced.

Somebody mentioned Speaker Blaikie. I didn't want to name names, but I'll tell you, it was a different House when he was in the chair. Same rules, same format, but when that Speaker was in there, you didn't mess around.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

I agree with you, and that's why the first proposal I made is for this committee to recommend ways to strengthen the authority of the Speaker and to restore the dignity of the House. So I agree with you.

I think the Speaker's role can be strengthened. If this committee, through its report back to the House, recommends that the Speaker more rigorously enforce the existing rules and the House concurs in that report, the Speaker will certainly follow the House's direction.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

All right, we've finished two rounds. We'll start a third, and again this time I'm going to try to get people in who have not had questions.

Monsieur Proulx.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, Michael, and thank you for appearing before the committee. There are a number of points in your presentation and in your bill with which I do not agree. As a whip, I'm opposed to the idea of randomly selecting the names of members who may ask questions. Unfortunately, we're required to enforce a certain discipline within the political parties. That applies to oral questions, to the period set aside for statements by members and to other privileges that must be applied in order to impose or restore a certain discipline. For example, I object to the idea of you randomly allowing a member who completely deviates from party rules to ask questions.

I have been objecting for a long time to the three questions that the government may ask. That gives it three opportunities to hold a press conference. If the government wants to hold press conferences, it can simply call them and disclose what it wants to announce.

When you say that ministers take four hours a day to prepare, you insult our intelligence, Mr. Chong. If we do a count, we realize that the same minister, your house leader, answers about 70% of the questions put to your government. In fact, some ministers in your party have never answered a single question. They have a car, driver, and staff. They act as though they have prepared for question period; they arrive in the House with documents and a computer in hand, but they know perfectly well that they will never have to answer a single question.

Furthermore—and I believe it was David who raised this question—a good minister doesn't need a four-hour briefing every day in order to know his files. He knows his files. You'll tell me that some parliamentary secretaries need a briefing before oral questions because they don't have the same opportunities. I agree. Having previously occupied that position, I know that's necessary.

You mentioned longer questions, but you say you don't want question period to be extended. In other words, you want to reduce the number of questions. I'm opposed to that. You say we have to restore to the Speaker of the House the rights he should have or to call members to order. I'm sorry, but the Speaker already has rights. A number of members, both David and I and others, have previously sat in that chair and used the existing Standing Orders to call members to order in various ways.

A number of years ago, when I occupied that chair, a member from your party constantly shouted and always offered his opinion when he didn't have the floor. At one point, I refused to give him the floor, and when your party's whip asked me why I had done so, I told him that member definitely had nothing further to say as he had spent half an hour shouting. Let me tell you that member stopped shouting and we allowed him to speak again.

In your bill, you raise a number of points that may be interesting in small doses. You present ideas with a view to restoring parts of rules and customs that should still be in effect. However, it's been a very long time since the Speaker of the House called a government member to order. I would say there are many occasions when he could do that. That's his choice. However, I don't think there's any genuine desire to change matters. On a number of occasions, it has been moved that decorum be restored to the House, but someone has always objected to that idea, or else accepted it then subsequently done the opposite.

As long as there are individuals in the government who continue to play the fool when they answer questions from the opposition parties, there will be no possible solution to the decorum issue. This situation merely encourages the opposition parties to become more talkative, indeed more violent. Many of our recommendations—

Am I done, sir?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You're at five minutes and 30 seconds.

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

I have another ten points to bring up here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I think a written submission to the witness, perhaps....

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

Maybe I should do that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chong. I believe you're beginning to understand what I think of your bill.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Chong, would you like a small amount of time?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Yes. I have a couple of points of fact.

It's not a privilege for members to ask questions in the House. Speaker Jerome has ruled; it's in O'Brien and Bosc; it was in Marleau and Montpetit. It is the right of a member of Parliament to ask questions of the government.

Second, I understand the need for discipline. Party whips and leaders have ample tools to enforce party discipline. The problem is that the autonomy of the individual member of Parliament within the party system has become so diminished that it's becoming increasingly difficult for individual members of parties to represent their constituents.

I think we need to rebalance some of the power in the House away from the parties toward individual members--within the party structure. I'm a proud Conservative and am proud of my party and its leader, but I do believe that we need a greater degree of autonomy to represent our constituents. We need to do that in order to restore Canadians' faith in their Parliament.

Quickly, on the last point, the four hours a day to prepare is a problem.

In 1970 or 1971, Mr. Trudeau, who was Prime Minister at the time, adopted the same idea as I am presenting in my motion, that is to say of a system of rotation for ministers and the Prime Minister. So this is a longstanding problem within our system of government.

It's not a recent problem of our government. It's been a longstanding problem. Even Mr. Trudeau, when he was prime minister, realized it and adopted a similar rotational system for his ministers in the early 1970s. I don't have the exact details, but it was drawn to my attention recently.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Hoback.

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, in full respect to our witness, you told me that my five minutes were over, but you assigned him another three or four minutes within my time, so he could make these comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Above your time, sir.

I've been pretty flexible today. I can certainly show you the page where we've gone two minutes over for most. I don't like to use discipline as a way of doing it. I'd rather use the fact that we can get along and get questions and answers done.

Mr. Hoback, it's your turn.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

I hope Mr. Proulx wasn't suggesting he take up my time. Of course he would never suggest that.

Mr. Chong, one comment I want to make to start is that I'm not sure if this is the right way to go or not. I haven't made that decision. I want to listen to all the facts and hear all the different ideas. But you're addressing something that a lot of constituents have asked to have addressed, and that's decorum in the House. You're addressing it in a way that is.... Maybe one of the ways to look at it is whether the process of the House, the way the House operates and functions, can improve the decorum.

It's interesting. I remember in the late 1980s, early 1990s there was this party called the Reform Party. It came to be elected in western Canada based on the fact that they wanted to improve decorum in the House. They wanted to change how Ottawa operated. They came to Ottawa. I talked to a couple of the older members who were there at the time. They talked about how they got to Ottawa and the first thing they did was a social with everybody, trying to bring everybody together. Their goal at the time was to create an environment where we could agree to disagree, but we'd still do what's best for the interests of Canadians.

I think about a year or two later they were getting picked on by their own members, who were saying they were ineffective in Ottawa because they weren't in the media, they weren't out and about, they weren't criticizing, they weren't doing X, Y, Z. Then I think we started to see things change back to the way it is today.

It's really interesting, because if there's one complaint I get consistently from people across Canada, and it's consistent with the school kids especially, it's on the decorum in the House. They want to know why it is the way it is.

I think that's a really good question that we should be trying to ask here. Is it the way we handle ourselves? Is it the fact that we feel we have to go for the throat every time we have a question or an answer? Is it the fact that we're not willing to give credit when credit is due on both sides? Is it the fact that the government may not be willing to listen to a good suggestion, or that the opposition parties aren't willing to give a good suggestion? Those are the questions I get asked in my riding quite often.

Some of the concerns I have when we look at the process are around the role of parliamentary secretaries in this type of situation. What would their role be and what would it consist of? What would the role of late shows be? How would that be affected? Would it change?

I guess I'll just leave it at that, Mr. Chong, and see how you answer those questions.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Let me start with the late shows. I don't anticipate any change to the late show. If you ask a question of the government and you don't feel you got a full response, you can always go for the late show that day. That would stay in place and as it is now.

In terms of parliamentary secretaries, it's up to the committee, but I would envision that they'd play the same role as today, which is to fill in for the minister when the minister is not able to be present.

With respect to the issue of the Reform Party, in the way it tried to improve decorum, I think the fundamental flaw was that they did it alone. I remember Mr. Manning sat in the second row, I believe, of the House and they didn't participate in some of the other behaviours taking place at the time. I think the problem with doing that is they gave the advantage to the other four parties.

That's why my motion calls for changes to the Standing Orders and other conventions that apply to all parties. We all equally share the advantages and disadvantages of the changes proposed. I think that is the critical difference between what was attempted then and what I hope we're going to try to do now.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

One of the current comments I've made with different student groups that I've had in the House, sitting in the chairs, is on the role of cameras. I know the argument there is about having the visibility and being open to Canadians to watch Parliament at work. You often have to wonder about the role of question period, the role of the camera, and how it affects question period. I often wonder if question period has become more of a theatre than an actual function of Parliament where it's actually getting a good question and a good answer.

How would you address that issue?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

I don't think we can remove cameras from the House. We're in the modern age of technology and transparency. The public wants a light shone where things once were much more private. I don't think we can remove cameras.

Secondly, I don't think cameras are fundamentally the problem. In the occidental world, whether it's in continental Europe or the United States, there are cameras in those legislatures and we don't see the same kind of dysfunction that we see in ours. I don't think cameras are necessarily the problem.

I do think, though, that cameras exacerbate the problem as they are used in our House of Commons because the technicians have been instructed to go for the narrow shot, so you only get a shot of the person speaking and everything else is filtered out. Maybe a solution is to allow the cameras to go to a wide-angle shot of the entire House from time to time.

Maybe the solution is to cut the maximum volume of these earpieces by half. One of the reasons we have problems in our question period is because the noise levels are so loud that you can't hear anybody. Why is that? It's because you can put the earpiece on, turn the volume up, and it doesn't matter what the person next to you is doing. In most other legislatures where they do not have translation, they don't have that problem. They have no earpieces to listen with, so they necessarily get a lower volume in the House because they need to be able to hear without any assistance.

Maybe the solution is to cut the volume in half, which will have an enforcing effect of getting people to quiet down to be able to hear anything through the earpiece.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Chong. Thank you, Mr. Hoback.

Mr. Lukiwski.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks very much, Michael, for coming here.

I think one thing we've discovered here today is that there's clearly a wide variance of opinion on your motion. Nonetheless, your motion is one that I think has a great deal of interest among all members here, and I think all members of Parliament. I'm glad we've got six months in which to write a report, because I can see this discussion developing among our members here, and perhaps even with other witnesses. Hopefully, at the end of the day, whatever this committee decides will result in some improved decorum, and maybe improved functioning of the House.

I want to make a few comments, and then ask one specific question.

With overall decorum, I still think, and other members have spoken before me and have said the same thing, it primarily is the responsibility of the members themselves, and particularly the parties and the House leaders. You mentioned earlier in your presentation that you have seen in the last few weeks an improvement in decorum, and so have I. That is a direct result of all the House leaders and whips getting together and agreeing to try to temper the enthusiasm, shall we say, of their members. Yes, from time to time there are still some outbursts, but generally speaking over the last three weeks I think we've seen a marked improvement in decorum. That's a result of, and credit to, all of the parties together agreeing to try to improve decorum. While I think the spirit behind your bill is laudable, I also firmly believe that the main function of decorum is the responsibility of the House itself and the parties themselves. So I hope we can continue to work together, and I've been very encouraged by what I've seen.

The second comment I would make is on the role of the Speaker. I agree that the Speaker, and I think other members have said this as well, needs to be more engaged, shall we say, in discipline. Whether it's the committee report that gives or encourages the Speaker to use the levers at his disposal more effectively, I don't know. I certainly would be in favour of that. But I think that some of the more effective ways of dealing with it you've already mentioned, and others have. Marcel just spoke about it when he was in chair. To me, the most effective way of say punishing or reprimanding a member is to make that member invisible to the chair. We all want to get on camera, right, and if you are not recognized by the chair, and this could go on for an extended period of time, that is going to smarten up that member very quickly. If that member is prevented from either asking a question, prevented from making an SO 31, prevented from doing anything in a public fashion, that's severe discipline. I think that's something the Speaker should be doing on more occasions than he has in the past.

Regarding technological changes, I hadn't thought about it, but I really like your suggestion for our consideration of lowering the volume of the microphones. I'll refer to an example, and I think everyone here knows it to be true. One of our members, Rob Bruinooge, when he was parliamentary secretary for the Minister of Indian Affairs, on many occasions would have to go up and answer questions in the House when the minister was absent. When Rob got up to speak, he's such a soft-spoken gentleman that automatically the volume in the House just went down, because they were straining to listen to what his answer was. He never did anything more or less. He always spoke in the same very soft tone. I think you're onto something there, that if we just lower the volume on our earpieces, that may be something.

I also agree with something you said--I had it down in my notes here, and you mentioned it just before I got to speak--on the use of cameras. When you've got hecklers, they're doing so I think as much as anything because they know that they're hiding behind the cloak of anonymity. If you opened up that lens, and if their constituents could see some of these people yelling and screaming, with their faces flushed, I think if they got a few calls from their constituents saying “You look like a complete jerk-off, what are you doing there?”, that would have a very positive effect on lowering the temperature.

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

We already know the names of those.

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

I get those letters without even being on the camera.

I think that widening the camera lens is something that could be very positive.

I disagree with one thing you mentioned with regard to Speaker discipline, and that's expulsion, for two reasons. One, of course, is that many people--as, quite frankly, I sometimes did as a political adviser in years past before I was elected, I'm ashamed to say--would advise a member to get that person kicked out. Why? Because then you go right to the cameras outside the House, and you become a cause célèbre. You could become a spokesperson. Why were you kicked out? I was fighting.... It's an advantage to people to get kicked out sometimes, and they do it purposely. So I don't think that should be something that we really encourage the Speaker to do.

The second thing is that if you expel somebody, in my view there would have to be some sort of right of exception. Theoretically—and I hope this would never happen, but follow it with me—let's say there's a minority Parliament and there was a very important, very close vote coming up. Our speakers are elected. All of a sudden the Speaker, in trying to gain advantage to his or her own party, expelled somebody from the government, let's say because the Speaker knew the vote was going to come down to a difference of one or two votes. He was expelled the day before a critical vote and he was not allowed to come back into the House for a week. You deny that person his right to vote and it could affect the outcome of whether a government falls or not. If you do that, you would have to do something there.

The last thing I would like to say is that there has to be an exception rule—