Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 30th, 2010

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

“Immediately after” is fine, if that's a concern.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

“Immediately after” is fine, so “immediately after” this committee completes its study on the breach of privilege motion sent here yesterday....

There is a point of order.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I understand what the Conservative Party wants to do. However, with all due respect, I would say that you shouldn't allow this amendment because its purpose is not to discuss a motion that is before you.

The Conservatives should have changed the order of precedence during scheduled discussion of committee business.

Mr. Chairman, you decided to go back to the agenda and to discuss this motion again. I don't believe we can terminate discussion on this motion. You should reject this amendment which Mr. Lukiwski has introduced because it should not have happened here. I say that with all due respect.

I repeat, Mr. Chairman, that I understand what the Conservative Party wants to do. I understand that they want to amend the orders of the day, but they had to do that during the discussion of committee business. They missed their chance.

Today, I believe we have to discuss the amendment, and the subamendment that was introduced is not admissible because its purpose is to prevent debate on the motion that the committee has decided to discuss.

I would ask the clerk for advice, but, in my view, this amendment should be ruled inadmissible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I have to rule that the amendment is in order. It's simply putting a time limit on the debate. That subamendment can be used.

Mr. Reid has a point of order.

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

I appreciate what you're saying, and what I say is meant respectfully and advisedly, but you're not really ruling on this. Rulings are made when there's a dispute about the meaning of the rules, and the rules are black and white. You're simply restating them. It's an important distinction.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We're discussing the subamendment.

Mr. Lukiwski, you still have the floor.

We'll take speakers on the subamendment to the amendment to the motion.

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

Let me try to explain. Whether people believe what I say to be the truth or not is for them to determine, but in all honesty, I'm not trying to do anything to avoid discussion of Judy's motion.

Obviously, if the opposition parties are all in favour of changing the Standing Orders with respect to supply days, and it comes to a vote, they will have their way. That's obvious.

I know there are still discussions and negotiations going on with the House leaders about this. All I'm saying is that we ought to let this subamendment pass so we can deal with the breach of privilege. Once the breach of privilege study is complete—I'm not sure how long that will take—then we can go back to Judy's motion.

I've given a commitment to David that I wouldn't filibuster on it. It would be a straight up and down vote.

We had discussions at the House leaders level that suggested this would be the course of action we wanted to take. But that's up to this committee, I suppose.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I have a number of speakers on my list, so let's go to the next one.

We'll go to Mr. Reid.

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

Given the circumstances, maybe I'll pass.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You'll defer. Okay.

Monsieur Proulx.

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

I'll give up my turn.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

He passes.

Mr. Albrecht.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I'll pass too.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You will pass also.

Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I'll pass.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

He passes.

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I shall not pass.

I hear what Tom is saying. Not that his word isn't golden, but the fact remains that we're coming off this main motion, and the government did enter into a filibuster. I haven't checked this, but I think if you just look at the blues, you will see that Tom, as the deputy House leader, made it clear that they didn't think it would necessarily be all that controversial, since it was a matter of what we had been doing in practice and were now codifying. Given the fact that the government started down the road of filibustering that motion, which is their right, I'm looking at this, and all I'm seeing is a willingness to go back, notwithstanding the words of the member, to a scenario in which we could be into a filibuster.

I like playing politics above board as much as possible. As long as I get a commitment that we're going to have a vote on this before we rise, I'm game. But left sort of bare-arsed like this, where we could just return to the mess we were in last time, I'm sorry, it's just not good enough for the NDP, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We'll go to Mr. Szabo.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The matter of the main motion and the proposal that it be recommended to the House and be reported to the House stands on the merit of all the work the committee has done so far.

I know we're debating the subamendment, but I have some concern about the amendment, in that it now questions the whole idea of whether we have had enough discussion on this matter. Obviously, there has been a lot of discussion, and it has prompted a recommendation that the committee is embracing and that I'm sure it will want to report at some point.

Mr. Chair, I guess the question is whether the amendment has in fact changed the fundamental nature of the motion before the committee, beyond the scope of what's necessary. Mr. Chairman, if you don't like what a motion is saying, you can't amend it to change the fundamentals of the motion. You just defeat it and then make a new motion. So that amendment is probably the area that's problematic.

Now, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has indicated that it's certainly his intent to deal with the other matter referred to the committee. Right now, it would appear that the nature of the motion now before the committee is very time sensitive. It would appear that should the committee proceed down this route of doing a study, it basically is saying, “Let's defeat it.” I urge the committee to reconsider the route we're on right now, because it could very well frustrate both items. And I don't think that's the intent of all honourable members. If there's not a clear consensus that the recommendation is worthy to go to the House, I would appeal to members to simply vote on it and have it defeated by those members who feel that way and vote against it.

I raise this, Mr. Chair, because you asked whether there was a technical reason. There may not be a clear technical reason for it not being admissible, but there certainly is a “best interest” matter specifically related to the time-sensitive nature of the original motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Szabo.

Mr. Reid, I have you next, and then we have Mr. Lukiwski.

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

I just wanted to come back to something I raised earlier when we were working out the exact wording. You may have noticed, in the course of this debate, Mr. Chairman, that I've tended to be a stickler for exact words. I think precision always behooves us. That's why I asked if the word “immediately” was there. It seemed to me if the word “immediately” weren't there, and we just said “after”, it could mean months after—not that it would be the intention, but it was certainly a possibility.

Once you get into these lengthy debates, similar to the one we are currently engaged in...I think I'm only stating an obvious fact when I say that suspicion of each other's motivations tends to rise, and therefore so does the need for precision in order to demonstrate goodwill. That was the purpose of putting “immediately” in, to make sure we understood that we would be moving back to this matter “immediately” after we dealt with the matter of privilege that has come before this committee.

I want to point out a couple of other things that I think are related to this. The first is that while we're dealing with the other matter, the matter of privilege, it's entirely conceivable, and in fact I think it is likely, that the matter of the actual substance of the motion will be dealt with through the original means by which it was dealt. That is to say, it will be dealt with through the normal means of dealing with such proposals, through the meetings of the House leaders of all the parties, one of which takes place this afternoon immediately following question period, as it always does on Tuesdays. That process was the one we started using initially.

This motion was brought before that group by the Liberals. The normal process of looking at, first of all, whether or not there was all-party consent.... I say this because that is a consensual body, unlike parliamentary committees, which operate ultimately as majoritarian bodies, which necessarily include, although don't require, the possibility of tyranny of the majority as a matter of practice. Consensual bodies don't allow for that. They assume the potential for, I suppose, a veto on the part of those who are in the minority on any given question. But at any rate, they certainly assume a degree of negotiation that, unfortunately, doesn't really seem to be at work here.

I think part of the reason for that is that not all of the relevant players are really present in this committee, which also tends to freeze our flexibility. If we get our marching orders from our House leaders—who perhaps get their marching orders from their party leaders, or from whatever body it is that meets collectively in each party to make those decisions—we are, at least at one remove, and possibly at two removes, from that decision-making position and simply have to defend our entrenched positions. That leads, unfortunately, to the war of attrition we've seen happen on more than one occasion since I started serving on this committee back in 2004, I guess it was.

So we really are not ideally suited to doing this. By way of demonstrating this, from recent memory of this committee—indeed, from our last meeting this Thursday past—I tried to sense out whether or not there was a willingness to look at flexibility on this. The response I got from two of the parties opposite was, “Well, let it go to a vote and you'll find out.” This reminds me a bit of how you bid when playing bridge. When playing bridge, you send very clear signals to your opponents through that process. What I got out of it was that it was going to be a situation where, “You're probably not going to like what you find out, because we would send you a clear signal that you're going to like the result, if it were our intention to follow through with that.” I suppose the members opposite could have given very encouraging and completely dishonest signals, but that isn't the way people around here actually are.

Everybody recognizes that their credibility with their own colleagues and with their opponents in future negotiations depends on actually giving signals that have some validity to them, and one thinks very carefully about being dishonest to one's opponents. I have been on a committee where a member actually--and the case I'm thinking about involves a member from my own party--has given, frankly, a very dishonest signal about what was going to happen. Doing so was not helpful to him on future occasions when he needed the goodwill of opposing parties for reasons that I think are relatively obvious.

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

I was under the impression that I heard Mr. Lukiwski saying there would be no filibustering.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

That's not a point of order, Mr. Reid.

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

No, but there is a reasonable way to respond to this. The word “filibuster” is not necessarily one that means something bad in all cases. All parties have engaged in it when they have believed that procedures were not being used correctly. Sometimes it's appropriate to do that. It's also a matter of definition as to what counts as a filibuster and what doesn't. But I think we need not, if we know the history of, for example, the free trade negotiations or the GST debate, think that it has only been the Conservatives who've engaged in this practice and who have thought it reasonable when the circumstances have warranted. That's just a general observation on filibusters.

At any rate, going back to the original process, this is a process that is very likely to happen once it becomes apparent that the process of rushing something through in this committee isn't available. That really is the point of what I'm doing here today, and I think what all of our colleagues on the Conservative side are doing, as we express our views at some length. That's hopefully a message that our esteemed opponents on the other side are picking up on.

Having said that, I wanted to come back and deal a little bit with the question that we are suggesting, through this subamendment, ought to be addressed first by this committee, and that is the question of privilege. We were all either present in the House when the ruling was made yesterday.... I certainly listened with considerable attention both to the Speaker's ruling and to the response. I have to be honest; I'm not sure if there was more than one response, but I listened to the response of Mr. Mulcair of the New Democrats.

There are two points to be made about this. The first point he made was that items of privilege are normally the primary items. They take the highest ranking in the order of precedence in this committee and automatically trump other items. So it is certainly irregular--it's not the usual practice of this committee--to set them aside in order to deal with some other matter. They automatically take precedence. Certainly another matter that might be time consuming we don't want to put in the way of these things, so it is just an unusual practice not to have said “This goes to the top of our list of priorities”. I think for that reason it would be a wise idea to adopt the subamendment and then the amendment. Then, based on that, that would mean looking at the original motion, but doing so after having dealt with this matter of privilege. That was the first point I wanted to make in regard to this.

The second point I wanted to make, and this will be the last comment I'll make before turning over the floor to others, who may have observations to make, is that the Speaker, in his ruling--and I regret that I don't have a copy of the ruling here or I would read it verbatim into the record to remind everybody about just how wise it was, and I see the clerk looking over her shoulder, and she may have a copy there that we could do that with--emphasized that this is a matter that deals not with the privileges of an individual member, and many items of privilege are in fact items that deal with the privilege of a specific individual member, as, for example, a few years ago, when I raised the point that a number of Liberal members had gone through confidential personnel records, including my own personnel records from when I was an employee of the leader of the then Reform Party--

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chairman, I hesitate to interfere with the member's presentation, but if we start talking about any details to do with the matter referred, all of a sudden the scope of the debate gets way beyond what we're talking about. So I would encourage you to suggest that the member keep his comments relevant to the matter before us, which is the subamendment.