Evidence of meeting #1 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Noon
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you for helping me, Mr. Julian.
As much as I agree with the help, I was hoping it would be solution-making.
Mr. Christopherson, we're back to you.
Noon
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to pick up on what you just said, “solution-making”. We're all for that.
If anyone wants to reflect on the beginning of this conversation, they will clearly see that the tone and the approach of the opposition was to be constructive. We asked serious and legitimate questions about the implications of passing this. We asked the most official person we have in the room after the authority of the chair—that is, the clerk, and the advice that the chair receives from her. Mr. Julian asked the question through the chair of the clerk, what are the implications if we do this? In fact, he asked that on the amendment too. In both cases the clerk said, “I can't give you a firm answer now. I need to check and I'll gladly come back to the committee.” That makes all the sense in the world. Nobody demands that you make it firm. That's why the Speaker often says,“ I'll take a little time on this. I need to reflect on it. As you were, continue on, and I'll get back to you.”
There's very good reason for the clerk to say, “I need a little time”. The last thing the clerk wants to do, given her excellent reputation, is to give advice because she wants to look good, to give an answer off the top of her head only to find out later on that it wasn't the right answer. Then we're into a procedural nightmare and the whole thing has to be unravelled. When clerks give advice like that it has serious implications.
What did our clerk do in, most arguably—certainly in terms of the business of Parliament—the most important committee we have, and therefore the most important clerk? What did she say? “I need a little time to give the member the answer that he needs and deserves.” Those are my words.
It's all very reasonable. Any reasonable person looking at these proceedings would have to ask themselves, if the government were serious about having an intelligent, grown-up discussion about changing the way that we make laws in Canada, would they be more than willing to wait at least 72 hours to allow the caucuses to reflect on this, to allow the clerk an opportunity to give her interpretation and her answer? My House leader has pointed out that nothing is going to happen negatively. In fact, nothing is going to happen vis-à-vis this at all if we don't pass it before Thursday. Waiting until Thursday is going to cause absolutely no damage to anything, guaranteed. My House leader has made the point. I didn't hear anybody from the government challenge the fact that no harm would happen by virtue of waiting.
On the other hand, my colleague, Mr. Julian, and my whip have made the point that there could be serious implications for making this change, perhaps unintended consequences, and perhaps that's the exact intention. We don't know. Since the government won't be reasonable, Mr. Chair, and allow proper reflection and expert advice then we have to conclude that this is the tyranny of the majority and that they're going to ram this through. The government members know exactly what the implications are. They know exactly what they are doing. Therefore, as I said earlier, they are prepared to trade off the negative hit they will get for being undemocratic in ramming this through, thinking it's still better than leaving the situation they find untenable right now. That's the only thing that we can conclude.
At any time someone with great credibility, like Mr. Lukiwski, wants to take the floor and say, “That's not the case, Dave, you've got it all wrong, of course we're willing to take a little time to look at this...” I'm quite willing to yield this floor—I have to watch those expressions—to allow that to happen. But that's not happening, Mr. Chair. They're sitting there and saying nothing. They're not doing anything in terms of telling me I'm wrong. You're not telling me I'm wrong, Tom. All I need is a little nod from Tom to say, yea, Dave, we'll give you two days. It's not a problem. But that's not happening. Crickets. That's what we hear over there. Just crickets.
Noon
An hon. member
Tumbleweed.
Noon
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Tumbleweed? Well, that's in 2015.
As to why it has to happen now, there is not one credible argument, not one. There is not one response to our position that no harm will be done at all to Parliament by waiting, but great harm could possibly happen. Am I saying it will and saying the sky is going to fall? No, but I can't give you a guarantee, and neither can the government members, that it won't happen, because we don't have the expert advice from our clerk.
I see Mr. MacKenzie looking at his watch and being all upset that he's being held past the time. We're really sorry to inconvenience you, sir—
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
12:05 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Yes, of course, Chair. You're correct.
The fact remains that you can see the rest of the committee members just sort of tapping their toes. They were told this would be a quick meeting—as we all were. We were told it would be fairly routine, not a big deal, and when this came up, Chair, and when it started to become a problem—
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
12:10 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I just get louder and louder, and we really don't need that. It's not good for anybody.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
On a point of order, and I say in all sincerity that I don't want to interrupt David's speech here, and I hope this is a legitimate point of order.... I have a question as much as anything.
I just noticed something in the motions that we passed originally, which are fine except for one little thing. If you notice under the subcommittee on private members' business, the last line says “and that Harold Albrecht be appointed Chair of the Subcommittee”. Of course, Harold is no longer a member of this committee, so I'm not sure what we need to do to correct that. I just point it out.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
12:10 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I know you weren't doing any harm given my current obvious strategy. If you want to take up some more time, Tom, I'll let you speak away. That way I can have a sip of my coffee and still achieve my goal.
I can't remember where I was. I might have to repeat some of it to get back up to speed, but I'm sure the chair will assist me in making sure I don't fall back. He's paying attention. He always does. He's a very respectful chair. That's why he won unanimously. I remind my House leader sitting beside me that the chair won unanimously. There wasn't even another campaign sign on the table except his. It shows that we keep good leadership. Good leadership is what Canadians expect from this committee, and if I may, Chair, it's what Parliament expects from this committee.
This is a grown-up committee. This is the committee where people are supposed to set aside the pettiness, and if there's politics, at least it's the cutting-edge of politics. It's the hard hit of politics. It's not games, not fooling around, and yet, that's where we find ourselves right now.
We are facing a motion from a very respected member of Parliament, one of the most senior members of Parliament, and I invite anyone who has been listening to review how we approach this. We didn't come into this room and say, “We're loaded for bear, and whatever the government wants to do, we're going after them, no matter what.” That wasn't our approach. We all thought it would be a one-hour meeting to do some routine business and make sure everything is cool. We'd set up the business for the next meeting and then we'd be gone, away we go, no problem. We might have a little debate now and then on a couple of minor things, Chair, but certainly nothing that would sidetrack us or prevent us from achieving the goal of the committee which was to try to be wrapped up 10 minutes ago.
That's not the way it unfolded at all, Chair. Apparently, it's going to be the opposite kind of session to what we were hoping.
The government wanted to change the channel from talking about the Senate and some other issues that are driving them crazy. We'd like to turn the channel too and get on to doing some actual positive parliamentary business, and we'll have the fights and we'll do the political thing and all that, but at least everything is moving forward in a respectful way.
This is Canada. We respect each other. We're not getting any respect from the government on this. There's no respect shown to another parliamentarian when a motion is brought in by a majority government member at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to change the way we make laws in our country and not even allow a two-day tabling so the clerk can answer the primary questions that the official opposition and other opposition members have.
There's no respect in that. In fact, there's no respect for Parliament. There's no respect for Canadians.
The government is actually looking right now.... People need to understand that the government has brought in a motion that would change the process of making laws in a G-7 country and they won't even allow a two-day delay to allow the clerk of the committee to ask critically important questions about the ramifications, implications, and perhaps unexpected consequences of passing the motion. When the government won't even allow that, Chair, then it tells us that their interest in respecting other members' opinions, let alone good law-making, is not there.
That's not great for us. We're all busy. We had strategies too. You had strategies. We had strategies. This is not what we wanted. We had planned afternoons, too, just like everybody else, both individually and as a caucus. We had things that were in the pipe. This was not our objective. Our objective was to do exactly what we set out today. That worked for us in terms of our plans for today, but instead, everything is being derailed. All of the work of Parliament is seizing because we can't get to the business motions that Canadians, and certainly our colleagues, expected us to.
Every member of Parliament, Chair, is ready to get to work. They're ready to go to their committees, but nothing can happen until this committee does its work. We can't get to that because the government has brought in this motion and is giving no indication at all that they're prepared to be reasonable, fair-minded, or even intelligent, I would say, in passing motions. I didn't see any government members, Chair, when the clerk couldn't answer.... Given that it was the government members who brought this forward, we can only assume, given that they are lock-step when they vote and they're lock-step when they say nothing, that this is a government motion. This is as much from the PMO as it is from Mr. Reid.
Right now all of the business of Parliament is being frozen. All we're asking for is the ability to get information from the clerk. Did any of the government members jump in and say, “I can provide answers to Mr. Julian on that, Mr. Chair, if you allow me the opportunity. I've done some research. I have some documents I can give you. I can give you some of my thinking.” Even the mover of the motion isn't providing any of this information.
12:15 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Mr. Julian is saying they don't have the answers, and I think he's exactly right.
That's why every government member over there needs to be prepared to answer to the media, and therefore their constituents, as to why they're prepared to change the way we make laws in Canada without even hearing what the implications are from our parliamentary clerk. It's disgraceful.
Does the government really believe this is going to hold? They're not getting this motion today. We are not without some means here at this committee. It's just a shame we have to do that in response to a government action that's preventing the rest of Parliament from getting its work done.
The government talks about wasting money. If this meeting goes through and we don't pass those other motions, there's an awful lot of money being wasted in terms of committee work not being done. The capacity is just sitting there. The staff are there. The work is done. Goodness knows, we have enough bills and issues in front of Canada. Do we not have enough problems and issues in Canada that we should be seized with, rather than having the official opposition spend its time fighting against an undemocratic motion by the government, which they're prepared to railroad through, that changes the way we make laws in Canada?
What the heck! What's going on here? This was supposed to be a simple, straightforward meeting. We come in, we do some committee business...the media didn't even bother to come into the room because they were under the same assumption as the rest of us, that, hey, it's all pretty straightforward.
12:15 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Well, I'm sure they're listening now. That's my point.
Through you, Mr. Chair, have the six of them actually given some thought about what they're going to say to the media when the media asks them, on behalf of Canadians, why they aren't prepared to wait two days for an important piece of information as it regards a motion that changes the way we make laws? I suspect the media is going to have trouble finding all of them because they're already thinking about their escape route: how am I going to get out of here and get back to my office without being ambushed by the media? If the government wants to prove me a liar, that's great. I'll stand out there. Every one of you stand out there and wait to have your turn and explain to the media and to Canadians why you won't wait two days for vital information on changing the law and changing the way we make laws in Canada. Good luck with that one, my friends. Good luck.
As my House leader has pointed out, and it's the critical piece here, what are the implications of not passing this today? Well, let's see. There's intelligent conversation. There's an opportunity to think things through. There's a chance to make sure that we're actually making a positive change to the way we make laws to benefit all parliamentarians and all Canadians. It's hard to think of a bad reason for waiting.
In fact my House leader has challenged the government members to give one example, one good reason, why this has to be done today.
Pourquois maintenant?
12:20 p.m.
An hon. member
We certainly don't need this earpiece.
12:20 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
12:20 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Well, Mr. Butt has mentioned that he doesn't need his earpiece and he's right. Today the issue is not for his ears; it's more for his mouth in terms of what he's going to say when the government is asked why they won't wait two days to get vital information on changing the way we make laws in Canada. I mean, seriously, good luck!
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
It's also for the good of our souls.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
What you're saying is it's for the good of our souls as well. We can act morally in good conscience, and we appreciate it.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
If you would like to carry on that's great. It's good stuff. I'm serious. It's really good.
