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

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

When did I become invisible? You're reversing this trend where the Speaker doesn't see you as invisible; you see the Speaker as invisible.

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

I'm sorry. It was my only question, and I--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Chong, a response, very quickly, and we'll move on to the next.

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

I don't even need a response, if you want to move on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Mr. Weston.

[Rodney Weston, Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chong, thank you for coming. Certainly I want to commend you, as all members have, for starting the debate, actually starting the discussion, if you wish.

We had the pleasure one evening, over some chicken wings, to have a discussion about this, and I was struck by your sheer genuineness to want to accomplish something to try to increase the level of decorum in the House. I also believe you want to try to increase the substance in question period. To that effect there are some factors that obviously have played against that, whether it's decorum, or substance, in a sense.

We live in a world, as we've all talked about here, of the sound bite--the clip--and a lot of us play to the camera. We look to try to be on the evening news--or, as my colleague says, a cause for celebrity, status that we can take home with us.

Having said all that, my question is more around your thoughts on lengthening the amount of time given for each question and answer, whether it is necessary to have an equal amount of time for the question and the answer. If we're looking for the substance here, is the substance in the question or in the answer? I throw that out for further discussion.

Quite often we see things in the preambles to questions that we saw here earlier today. Monsieur Paquette, in his comments earlier--he wasn't really asking a question, he was making a statement--talked about items he raised in a point of order yesterday on the floor of the House; it gave him an opportunity to reiterate those same points once again. Quite often we see that.

When we have that in question period--those same points made over and over again--the ministers are put in a position to try for the one-upmanship. I guess that's one of the things I question: do we really need the same amount of time for the question as we do for the answer?

The other question I have, quite quickly, is on requiring the minister to respond to questions that are asked of him. I believe what you're saying is that if I get up and I want to ask a question of the Minister of the Environment, let the Minister of the Environment respond.

The other thought I had is how you require that individual to stand and answer the question. How do I actually require that minister to answer the question I've asked? I've heard what you said about reciprocity with the Speaker, in that sense, but there's still difficulty in trying to get that actual question answered.

Those are a couple of thoughts I had, and I'll throw them back for your thoughts, Mr. Chong.

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

With respect to lengthening the amount of time given to ask and to answer a question, I think whatever the committee proposes in that regard, if anything, is done in a way that is fair to all four parties and ensures that the current allocation of time in the House—a quarter to each of the four parties—remains the same, and that some of the opposition concerns about the government using this opportunity to provide longer answers doesn't give the government the advantage of using more time in their answers to prevent the opposition from having its fair share of questions.

I'm not wedded to anything specific. I think giving the Speaker the power of reciprocity between the length of the question and the length of the answer is a solution. Perhaps we have a minimum 35-second rule whereby anybody has a minimum of 35 seconds to ask a question and a minimum to answer a question. If the question is shorter than 35 seconds, the government still has up to 35 seconds to answer it. If the question is longer than 35 seconds and goes to a minute, then the minister has up to a minute to answer the question. There are different ways the Speaker could be instructed to deal with that issue.

In terms of the second part of your question that had to do with ministers answering questions, again, you can interpret that in various ways, but if we are going to go to a rotational schedule or the like, there are different ways to do it. Fundamentally, though, of all the proposals I've made, the most important one is restoring the right of backbench members to ask questions of the government on behalf of their constituents. That is the most fundamental change I think we need to make. I think it would restore the balance of power between the party leadership and individual members of Parliament in those parties.

We are a democracy, and I think Canadians, our constituents, look to us to represent them in the House. Give the first half to the party leadership—and all the four parties can do whatever they want with it—and give the second half of QP to the backbench, as it used to be for decades before the 1980s.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Chong.

We have now had everybody at the table, except for Monsieur Laframboise, who came in late. We had a chance to ask some questions today. I would like to do just a few quick rounds of one-offs, and I will cut you off if you go longer than 30 seconds in asking your question and see if we can get a couple more.

We have proven the point today that we have witnesses here to look at, because the witness comes with all the goods, I would think, and yet we spend all our time asking the question and not giving him any chance to answer. Let's see if we can do some quick one-offs and get some knowledge from the witness before we let him go.

From the official opposition side, we have the Liberals. Is there anybody with a one-off question?

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

You talk about spontaneity, and I wonder how spontaneity versus the lists, the prepared lists, will bring about more discipline. Everybody could go all over the map.

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

With spontaneous questions comes the restoration of the right of the Speaker to recognize members, and the corollary of the right to recognize members is the right of the Speaker not to recognize members, if their behaviour is out of sorts.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

How do we ensure equality between parties then?

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

The Speaker could choose not to recognize a member in a particular party but choose to recognize the person next to him who has been behaving appropriately. Surely not all members of a particular caucus are misbehaving all at once in the same way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I have seen that happen too.

Mr. Reid, very quickly.

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

Just following up on the question of how to get equality from parties, I think parties have an unofficial status in the House of Commons. Equality of parties is presumably a corollary of equality of members, if we all have an equal right to be recognized.

If we have something like a lottery system, inevitably, when everything is totalled, you've had an equal number of questions per party. So you can achieve that by that means, as opposed to making a mechanistic decision that we have to have x amount of time for the Liberals, then for the Bloc, then for the New Democrats, and then back to the Liberals, as we do it now.

Would you agree with that sentiment?

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

I think whatever proposals you make must be on the basis that the existing time allocation for each of the four parties remains the same. I think it's a non-starter for the House as a whole to change the allocation of time among the four parties. I think each party needs to have the same amount of time it has today. Otherwise, you're not going to get a consensus on this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Madame DeBellefeuille.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Chong, we haven't addressed that part, and I'm curious to hear your answer.

We belong to a political system in which we run as members of a party. So there are four parties in the House of Commons, sometimes three. This isn't a proportional system or a mixed member proportional system. So if we accepted your suggestions, in the existing system, I don't believe it would be possible for a member who has been elected as a member of a party voted into power to form the government to ask questions that are really embarrassing or troublesome for his party.

If we were in a proportional system, there would be a number of parties. However, in the present system, I believe your recommendations would enable backbench members of the party forming the government to ask their government sympathetic questions. I don't think your objective will be achieved in the existing parliamentary system.

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

I'm in favour of the present system. However, I believe that, if we change the rule, we'll have another system in which backbench government members will be able to ask the government real questions. A lot of members of the government party would like to raise issues that are not priorities for the government, but that are priorities for the citizens in their constituencies. The ultimate priority for all the backbench members of all parties is the citizens in their constituencies, with a view to securing votes in the next election.

I think it will change, the tone of the questions posed by both government and backbench members.

The final thing I'd add quickly, because I think this is important, if you were to implement a change to lengthen the amount of time given to ask and to answer questions, the Bloc Québécois members could have the exact same system they have today. If you put in place the rule that says a member on both sides can ask or answer a question, and they have a minimum of 35 seconds to ask and answer and they have up to a minute to reply, and there's a rule of reciprocity, the Bloc members could ask staccato-type, 35-second questions, as they do now, and the government would be forced to give 35-second answers. You could have as many questions and styles of questions that you have today, and it would afford the other parties a different style if they wished to take advantage of that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Christopherson? No?

Mr. Lukiwski.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have one quick question, Michael, with respect to your suggestion that ministers be scheduled on specific days. Do you envision some sort of a rule of exception in extraordinary circumstances? For instance, the Minister of the Environment is scheduled to answer questions on Wednesday of a certain week, and over the weekend there's a major oil spill. Obviously, Monday and Tuesday the opposition, rightfully so, would want to ask questions about that oil spill, which is a major sort of environmental crisis in the country, but the minister is not there for two days, under your schedule.

Do you see any kind of an exception rule where the Speaker could say that under these current circumstances, he would suggest that the minister be there on Monday to answer questions about the particular issue? How would that work?

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

As I said, I'm not wedded to exact details on how this would work, but my suggestion is that we not change the schedule because of an event that happens on the weekend. Why? Because the House of Commons has tools in place currently to deal with that. It's called emergency debate. You can petition the Speaker to recall the House in the evening to have an emergency debate. That power is used not infrequently by members. So there are already tools in place.

The second thing I note is that our system already doesn't allow for that. If an oil spill happens on a Friday at five o'clock, we have to wait two days before the House can ask questions of the government anyway. So if an oil spill happens on Saturday and the Minister of the Environment is slated to come Tuesday, that's no different from an oil spill happening on a Friday and the minister coming Monday, as is currently the case.

Many other parliaments have a once-a-week or twice-a-week rotational schedule. They are no less accountable, no less timely than in our system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Anyone else on the opposition side with one question?

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

We're done, aren't we?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

One o'clock is our finish time.

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

We have committee business.