Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 3rd, 2014

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

That's a good question. I presume we would make provision for that in the Standing Orders, if we ever got to this issue. We could complicate it by saying that we could preclude floor-crossing as a parliamentary reform. There you go; you just solved the problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Oh, sure, throw that in our face.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'm going to stop you all there and thank Mr. Trost. This committee will be seized with this also. I also want to remind committee members that although we're doing two private members' motions today, they are not the same ones, and they will be handled separately, and we'll get back to them all.

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I have a point of order on process. We'll finish this one now. We'll do the next one and it will be a similar kind of process. When would you expect it would come back for a substantive debate by the committee?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Trost has suggested that there may be a couple of witnesses we'd like to see or at least get some information from. I'm assuming Mr. Reid may say the same thing. We'd then have to schedule through our steering process the time to do both of those things before we report back to the House on the private members' motions.

Thank you, Mr. Trost.

We'll suspend for just two minutes when we'll have our next witness.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We're back.

We're waiting for Mr. Scott to come back, but, Mr. Reid, would you like to start, please, for about five minutes.

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

Yes indeed, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, this is not the first time I have been before this committee as a witness. I appeared in this very room as an expert witness on the Clarity Act, back when Peter Milliken was chair of this committee in 1999. Since that time, my credibility has been reduced to the point where I am forced to produce motions on my own in order to come back as a witness.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

What I am doing today is exactly that. I am presenting on Motion M-489, which I have proposed and which has been referred to this committee, dealing with an amendment to Standing Order 4 of the orders governing this House.

This motion, unlike Mr. Trost's proposal, is already laid out. There is actually a text that you can refer to, so what I am obviously hoping is that you'll look at it, decide that it is a perfectly formed jewel, and want to adopt it exactly in the form in which I wrote it. However, I am enough of a realist to recognize that you might want to amend it. If you do, the text is there to examine, but it's a somewhat different process—it's a practical matter—than what Mr. Trost is proposing.

Real estate agents tell us that we ought to sell not merely the features but also the benefits of anything we're trying to convince people to buy, so let me lay out the three substantive alterations or features of this motion.

First of all, it would introduce a preferential ballot for the election of the Speaker. “Preferential” of course refers to a ballot in which you enumerate your preference as first, second, third, and so on, exactly in the manner that Mr. Trost is proposing. It's a process with which many of us will be familiar. It's used for the leadership election in a number of parties. In many cases, it's used for nominations. I myself was nominated using such a ballot process. This tends to lead to a more consensual result. Anybody who has gone through a consensual or a preferential ballot process I think will confirm that this is indeed one of the results of doing things this way.

The proposal also includes a tiebreaking provision. Paragraph 4(8)(a) and paragraph 4(11) of the revised Standing Order 4 would allow for tiebreaking to occur. This is not currently a feature of our Standing Orders regarding the election of the Speaker, so it is conceivable you could have a tie vote. Indeed, we actually did have a tie vote on one occasion in the election of the Speaker. If memory serves, I think this was back in the nineties. Now there is a method for dealing with this.

Finally, it provides more effective discretion as to the small vote totals of people who are at the very bottom of the field, something that is not done right now. In order to avoid embarrassment, we say that vote totals will not be shown, but those who get less than 5% of the vote are automatically removed from the ballot, so you can figure out who the people are. The people who we would presumably most want to protect from this kind of embarrassment are subject to all of that embarrassment, whereas if you are the second-place finisher, there's no embarrassment in that. This provides a better bit of discretion with regard to that.

Canada's history in this regard is that we've gone through three stages. From Confederation until the early 1950s, the way Speakers were elected was by nomination by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister would propose a motion in the House. There would be a vote, typically along partisan lines, and the Speaker, who effectively was a partisan figure, would then take the chair. This led to all of the problems you might expect with lack of credibility for the Speaker.

Starting in the 1950s, under the prime ministership of Louis St. Laurent, the process began of a motion proposed by the Prime Minister and seconded by the Leader of the Opposition. This involved some level of consultation. It was an improvement. The process, which initially involved some very cursory consultation, appeared to involve more substantive consultation with time. Nonetheless, this was deemed to be inadequate. Starting in 1986, we went to the current system, which is what is known as an exhaustive ballot.

Looking across the Commonwealth, we see that a number of different options are used in different jurisdictions: the open vote on a motion, as I have mentioned; the exhaustive ballot; first past the post, which is used in some places, for example in Cyprus; and finally, the preferential ballot, what I'm proposing, also known as the alternative ballot, which is used in India's upper house and also has been used in the House of Lords.

I do have a document that I can refer to—it's in English only and I'll leave it with the clerk. It goes through all of the different systems. The clerk can make up her mind as to whether it's too much work to translate. It's not an easily translated document, but it's available to you. It was collected from various websites.

Turning to the benefits of the system I'm proposing. The most important is that it's likely to produce an obviously impartial non-partisan candidate.

One way to see this is to look at who won the Speaker's elections in the two elections that have been held so far, in 2006 and 2011, in the U.K. Unlike in Canada, the results of each round of balloting are recorded. The lower house, the House of Commons, uses our system, an exhaustive ballot, and they record who got what, not merely as here, who has been eliminated. In the House of Lords they have a preferential ballot, but they reveal who was bumped off the ballot at each level, and how many votes they had following transfers.

In 2006 it's interesting to note that a Labour candidate, Baroness Hayman, won the speakership, but an independent candidate, Lord Grenfell, was in second place and moved up rapidly with each ballot count. On the first count, Baroness Hayman had 201 votes. At the conclusion, count eight, she had 263 and was up by 62. Lord Grenfell on the other hand went from 103 to 236, so he more than doubled his vote on various counts. He's the independent candidate. People tended to move away from their original candidates and favoured the most independent individual in their second and third preferences.

In the second election in 2011 Baroness D’Souza a crossbencher, which is a way of saying an independent, was the leading candidate from the start and wound up winning. She showed persistent growth throughout the various counts. This indicates to me that the tendency to choose someone who is obviously non-partisan is favoured. Admittedly, the study is not as complete as it could be, but that's all the evidence we have available to us.

I also have a very interesting quote. If you don't mind I'll conclude on this note. This is Lord Tyler who is a member of the House of Lords. He also blogs on the blog set up by the House of Lords. You can interact with lords in the blogosphere if you so desire. He has the following comment comparing the election of the Speaker of the House of Commons to that of the House of Lords, which I thought was interesting. This is from 2009.

Lord Tyler said:

I wonder whether anybody else has examined the contrast between the two electoral systems used to produce Speakers, in the two Houses of Parliament. In the Lords, in 2007, we used an Alternative Vote (AV) system to elect our excellent Lord Speaker, Helene Hayman. In the Commons last night, they employed the “exhaustive” (and exhausting) ballot.

Although both ensure that the winner has at least 50% support – and thereby each avoids some of the crass distortion of first-past-the-post – the two systems have a different effect on the voter.

AV encourages a careful choice, in preferential terms, so that the voter adopts a positive approach, marking 1, 2, 3, and so on down the ballot paper. The least popular candidates are progressively eliminated, so you never end up with someone that most people object to. The system maximises positive support for the successful candidate.

I would argue that the Lords’ system is preferable. The procedure used by MPs over several hours yesterday means that at each stage voters are encouraged to reassess the chances of remaining candidates, and to switch their votes to block those they least like. It is quite evident from the anecdotal comments we’ve already heard that the final round turned into a contest between those who wished to avoid one candidate and those who couldn’t stand the other. In other words, the system maximized the negative.

I don't mean to suggest that has been the result in our House of Commons, but it has been my experience looking at runoff elections such as the ones that were used to determine the leadership of the Canadian Alliance, the party I belonged to before the creation of the Conservative Party of Canada, that the best strategy for a final ballot is to be harshly negative about your opponent. It does maximize your vote the best, and that is one reason I think preferential ballots are a superior way of conducting elections whenever possible.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to questions.

Mr. Lukiwski, you're first.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Reid, for being here.

I must tell you that I'm looking forward to the examination of your private member's motion and the study for a number of reasons.

The current system has its flaws. Certainly, even if we don't change the current system, I think there would still have to be—at least, I would recommend it—some changes to the Standing Orders. It doesn't make any sense to me that we would continue to have a system where if you do not want to be Speaker, you have to inform the House, rather than informing it that you do want to be Speaker.

Every time we have an election of a Speaker when a new session of Parliament starts, invariably there are one or two people who forget that they're supposed to take their names off the ballot. They get embarrassed because they have to stand up in the middle of the House and inform people that they screwed up and that they don't want to be Speaker.

I think it's going to be an enjoyable study and also a very important study. Clearly, the election of a Speaker is one of the most important functions of a working democracy. You have to ensure that the person who occupies that chair is impartial, and I know that's sometimes a difficult thing. We all are partisan creatures.

I think in some cases it takes a while before the Speaker can get his mind around the fact that he or she has to be completely, truly, and honestly impartial when making rulings and listening to arguments, from all members of the House. So the study itself is important.

I tend to agree with you, Mr. Reid, on the preferential ballot aspect. I think the most important thing that you pointed out was the consensual nature of the results. Even though it may not be perfect, I think that at the end of the day the person who is finally elected, after however many counts, would have the majority of the support from the people in the House. I think that's incredibly important.

I know there will be some discussion as to maintaining the status quo. Again, all of us being partisan creatures, there's something to be said for having an election where it takes multiple ballots. You can do your campaigning between ballots. You try to cut deals. You have the excitement of a political convention and the atmosphere. With a preferential ballot, you mark your ballot once and that's it. It may take a while to count and get the final results, but there's only one ballot. I think the study will be very interesting and enjoyable to conduct.

My question for you is simply this. This goes a little beyond what your private member's motion speaks to. You're talking only about the election of a Speaker. What about the associate speakers, or the Deputy Speaker? Do you have any comments on whether the current system should be altered, or are you satisfied that the current system of appointments, frankly, to those secondary speaker roles is sufficient?

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

I think in general the current system is pretty good. It's not entirely arbitrary. The expectation is that people from the field, people who ran for Speaker, will be appointed more or less in the hierarchy that reflects their placement in the results. There's also an emphasis, and this is actually in the rules, that if the Speaker is an anglophone, the Deputy Speaker must be a francophone, and the reverse. I've never heard anybody suggest that there's a problem with that rule.

It's something that has to be enforced by the rules. It's hard to engineer a result where that will happen every time, that your first-place finisher will be of one language group and your second-place finisher will be of the other. If that were to be done, you'd have to deal with a separate rule. This is a package that deals only with Standing Order 4.

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

Thank you for that clarification.

I'd like your opinion on something else that you said in your opening statement, which is that under the current system, the exhaustive system of electing Speakers, it can turn into a bit of a partisan exercise. I agree with that, although I also note, at least in my 10 years of being in Parliament, that's not always the case. I would point to the 2006 election. The Conservative Party was elected as government in a minority configuration, but we had Speaker Milliken re-elected as the Speaker. He was a member of the official opposition at that time.

I think that speaks well, quite frankly, to the ability of all members of Parliament to ascertain that they would like to see someone in that chair who is competent, impartial, and fair. I would just point that out for your reference.

I would like to think that all members take the election of a Speaker quite seriously. If it were ever to get to a point where we were voting strictly on partisan lines, quite frankly, democracy could suffer.

I'd like a few comments from you on whether you think the exhaustive system would ultimately lead to partisanship rearing its ugly head.

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

It's hard to tell because the votes are kept confidential, so we don't know for sure what happened at each stage of the voting.

In the U.K., we get more robust evidence because of the fact that in the exhaustive system they use in the House of Commons, they actually have a record. There is some indication of partisanship.

If I may go back to what Speaker Milliken was doing, that's a really good example. He was, at that point, a very experienced Speaker. He had six years in the chair. A number of us had been his supporters for many years. Back in 2000 when he first ran, he was shaking hands outside of caucus rooms, and I told him, “Don't waste your time on me; I'm already voting for you.” I was never in a position to doubt the wisdom of having supported him for that role.

Obviously, removing partisanship as much as you can, systematizing the removal of partisanship is a good thing, something which I think has been an evolution. I think the current system, the exhaustive ballot, is an improvement on what we had in that period from 1954 to 1986. I think that is an improvement on the first 80 years, so we're heading in the right direction. This is, if you like, the next step in the evolution.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Lukiwski.

Madam Latendresse, for seven minutes.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr. Reid. It is a bit odd seeing you on this side of the table. Who knows, I might be very tough with you and ask you very difficult questions about your motion.

I am not sure I quite understood your answer to Mr. Lukiwski. I think he asked you whether you were considering holding an election for the Deputy Speakers of the House.

Is that what he asked you?

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

I simply said that, in my view, the current system for the election of the Deputy Speakers is very good.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

Right now, there is sort of a tradition or unwritten rule saying that, in our exhaustive ballot system, the person with the highest number of votes usually becomes Deputy Speaker, and other individuals obtain the other two positions.

In a preferential ballot system like the one you are proposing, will this rule continue to apply? Will we be able to know exactly who came second and third?

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

Based on the rules that I am proposing, the votes will continue to be secret, the way they are right now. We can change the system to be able to find out who came second and third, which might be a very good reason to create a new rule.

I don't know how to say this particular technical thing in French, the preferential results at each level of count.

That is why it might be better to make those results public.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

I was thinking that might be something to consider. However, as you said when you were talking to Mr. Lukiwski, we also have something of a tradition requiring that the Speaker be bilingual and that even some of the Deputy Speakers be able to manage in both English and French just as well.

Have you considered making that requirement official in the rules governing the operations of the House or in your motion?

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

That is the practice of the House. It is not a written rule. In a collegial system like the one in the House of Commons, a system that governs itself, it is best to use unwritten rules as often as possible. Written rules are less flexible and less practical. With written rules, any exceptions that might come up could often be problematic.

I cannot imagine that, in this day and age, we would find it acceptable that a Speaker be entirely unilingual. It might be acceptable that a Speaker is not perfectly bilingual. That is perhaps the case with the current Speaker, and that was the case with Mr. Milliken. Good intentions are very important. Here, there is no test like in the federal public service to determine whether an individual has the written and verbal understanding of the other official language. If there were a strict rule on linguistic capability, marginal cases would pose a problem.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

I completely understand your position on this. I myself have introduced a bill on bilingualism. This issue is very difficult to resolve. There are always the two options of either asking for official certification or relying on people's judgment. It is not an easy debate.

In 2011, when Mr. Scheer was elected Speaker of the House, I was a new member of Parliament. One full day was devoted to the election of the Speaker of the House. There were several ballots and I personally found it very interesting. It enabled me to get to know my colleagues a bit better. In between ballots, we were able to talk to them. The Conservative candidates would come to talk to us, and they were very nice to us. We were all surprised. It was very good.

If the preferential ballot is implemented, as you are suggesting, would that not pressure new members—like myself back then—to have to decide on a preferential order, without talking to anyone else and without necessarily having the tools to do so?

What is your suggestion to address that problem?

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

Mr. Toone, who is another new member, said the same thing as you. He also had the opportunity to talk with his colleagues for the first time that day.

I suppose one way to look at this is you could adopt what they do in Britain for their elections of the Speaker, in both the House and the upper house. They have a hustings, as they call it, essentially an all-candidates debate, or at least one all-candidates debate, at which you get to hear the various candidates explain their positions. That gives you a chance to see them in action. It also gives you a chance to interact with other people.

That might serve to some degree as a substitute for the kind of interacting we had during that voting session.

On the other hand, you can get too much of a good thing. In 1986 they finally elected the Speaker after, I think, nine hours of voting; it might have been 13 hours of voting. It was 3 a.m. at any rate. I think everybody knew everybody else perhaps more intimately than they would have preferred by the end of that process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Madam Latendresse.

Mr. Lamoureux, for seven minutes, please.