Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 22nd, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'll hear it all and then make one ruling.

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

Mr. Chair, how can we vote on a challenge when the mover of the motion has come to a subsequent session and said he would remove part of the motion? We're not voting on the same thing the motion was on.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Yes, we are.

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

Mr. Chair, he's removed paragraphs 8 and 12.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'm going to suggest that Mr. Proulx is correct, that at this moment we need to clear up the fact that I've ruled Mr. McKay's motion out of order, and make it either in order or out of order so we could then amend it, if that's the case. I think that's the route we have to take here. I know that in a moment we'll of course know the answer to that.

This is what we're voting on, that the decision of the chair be sustained. A recorded vote? Okay.

(Ruling of the chair overturned: nays 6; yeas 5)

I had a chance there for a moment, I thought. I saw it in your eyes.

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

If they want to brag about you, I was okay too.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I have to rule that the conversation on the motion can proceed.

Mr. Lukiwski.

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

I'd like to make an amendment.

The preamble currently reads “That the draft report contain the conclusions of the committee, namely”, and it lists the 17 points. I suggest that everything after the word “That” be replaced with the following: “the analysts draft a report that summarizes the testimony witnesses heard, and that the analysts provide the committee with a series of options for conclusions that are to be discussed at the March 24 procedure and House affairs committee meeting”.

I have this motion in both official languages. We'll have it distributed.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

I'll do that for you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I have Mr. Albrecht and then Mr. Reid, and I did see a hand over here.

Mr. Albrecht.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was originally intending to speak to the motion, but I'd be glad to speak to the amendment, because I think it gets to the heart of the mandate of our committee, and that is, to listen objectively to the input from the many witnesses that we heard over the last day, on Friday, to reflect on that, and then to ask our analysts to provide a summary of what the witnesses said. As with all the committees I've ever served on, Mr. Chair, there are a series of options that give the elected members of Parliament, who are the ones who need to come up with a conclusion.... It should not be a foregone conclusion by any one person or any one party. It's very important that we allow the analysts to come back with a summary and at least two or three options that the committee could consider and then hopefully adopt the one that will be the clearest for the way forward.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Young, you are next, I think.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

It was Mr. Reid.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Sorry, it was Mr. Reid. Yes.

Mr. Reid.

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

Thank you.

We had some experience in our two most recent meetings of the opposition attempting to introduce what amounts to a pre-written draft report by means of a motion. I gather it's not actually prohibited under the standing rules. This is part of the reason why we need to change the standing rules from time to time. It's certainly against the practices of the House of Commons.

I don't want to exaggerate my own experience here. I've been here for ten years now, and certainly up until last week I had never seen anything like this occur. So to continue down that same unprecedented road seems inadvisable, particularly given our recent history of how unsuccessful that actually was. The result was to produce a report that, quite frankly, is a farce--the last report of this committee--through a process that.... I've been trying to think of the appropriate analogy. The one that comes closest to mind, especially when we're dealing with the minister potentially being found in contempt, is the process by which bills of attainder were passed in the Parliament in England in the 16th and 17th centuries, before the practice was stopped.

You couldn't convince a court through normal procedures that someone was guilty of treason. You'd simply be attainted with treason. The person would be accused by someone who would then bring a bill forward in the House of Commons. If you could pass the bill there, pass it in the Lords, and get the King to sign it, you could then hang that person or cut their head off. It didn't matter. None of the normal rules of evidence, none of the normal protections, none of the normal procedural constraints were in place. That person was led off to their execution. Ending that practice was an important part of civilizing and modernizing the system on which ours is based. Now it seems that there's a desire to return to that barbaric system.

The things we saw with Mr. Martin's very aggressive badgering of the witness and interrupting her would never be permitted in a court, that's for sure.

There are the sorts of things we saw from Mr. Godin. I can't remember if it was in this proceeding or the previous one, but he said “I get to choose which answers I get to hear”. That is not permitted. Once you've asked the question, you get a fulsome answer. In all fairness, that doesn't happen in committees in general. That is why committees do not engage in that kind of thing.

While that salutary practice of abandoning the practice of attainting people has been forgotten, we've seen other abuses of the same type occur. The McCarthy hearings are the classic example from the United States. People were dragged into them with no procedural protections. Outrageous assertions based on Senator McCarthy's own delusions were trotted out and used to ruin their lives and careers.

Something similar is going on here. No regard is given to the evidence we've heard, or even to evidence we haven't heard, such as, in point two, an assertion that the parliamentary secretary was himself misled. That is based on what conclusion? Has the parliamentary secretary ever said this? Was he invited before this committee to express an opinion on this? No. We simply assert that this must be what he was saying.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Just a second, Mr. Reid. I have a point of order.

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

I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Reid, but he is discussing the motion. He is not speaking to his amendment. Mr. Chair, could he please speak to his amendment? Please, we must not discuss the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Since he's talking about evidence and the amendment talks about a summary of the testimony of witnesses, I think he was just getting to a point where he was suggesting that the witness wasn't even at our committee. I have to rule that he's on topic, for the moment.

Mr. Reid, please continue.

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

That is exactly where I was going with this. The point is there are things in here that I suspect--in fact I'm positive--would not make it into a report written by the analysts. The analysts would only consult the actual testimony we heard before us.

Now, if it were the decision of this committee to say we're not ready to write the report yet because we need to have additional witnesses, such as the parliamentary secretary, it would be perfectly reasonable and well within the rights of the committee to make that decision. The motion put forward by Mr. McKay today could, for example, have said we want to call the parliamentary secretary before this committee because we believe that if he were asked he would say something like that. But perhaps he wouldn't give the answers that were desired by Mr. McKay, and that would not produce the desired result.

That's just one of 17 points, but it's hardly the only one that is problematic. That's the reason for going along. The much shorter, more elegant motion that would result if this amendment were adopted would eliminate the possibility of that sort of thing occurring. It would remove the possibility that we would be pressed into a conclusion that might not reflect where the committee ought to be going, ought to be led by the evidence, because the only standard that we ought to have--I will not suggest this is the only standard we do have--is to be led by the evidence towards the finding that gathers the truth as well as we can find it, and then writes conclusions and recommendations based upon what the truth is. That is not where we are led when we advise the analysts or instruct them to come to a conclusion.

This amendment simply returns us to the normal practices that are carried on by every committee, that have been carried on by this committee ever since I have been on it. I think--although I stand to be corrected--I'm now the senior member on this committee in terms of length of service. I've never seen it do anything like this. This is the senior committee in the House of Commons. I'll add that I've served on a number of other committees. I've never seen any of them do this.

I have to leave here early today, unfortunately, because I'm chairing a subcommittee on human rights, and that's never been the way that subcommittee has behaved either. I've been a witness at committees both here and in the Ontario Legislature, and I've never seen them behave that way.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

That bell means it's a hanging offence.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

The gallows are calling.

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

Practices that are normal, that are the tradition in this House, that are precedented, that have caused Canada's Parliament to function--I wouldn't suggest perfectly, but on a scale of parliaments worldwide, pretty darned well--should be returned to. That's what Mr. Lukiwski's motion proposes to do. I think it does it well. I think it takes what has become a kind of kangaroo court--or as I suggested, essentially a body looking at what amounts to a bill of attainder--and returns it to the parliamentary practices of the 21st century rather than those of the 16th century.

That's all I have to say, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Reid. And you did reflect back on a time when many speakers and chairs lost their heads too.

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

That's true.