Evidence of meeting #60 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 leader.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you.
We'll go to Mr. Simms. It's great to have you back again. Seven minutes for you, sir....
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
It's good to be back, and I mean that sincerely.
Just on some of the notes you mentioned, first of all I want to start with Mr. Carroll. I totally agree with your quote from the person from Yorkton, Saskatchewan, who said that they're tired of representatives with their talking notes. Obviously, I do feel that if you're being paid a minimum wage of $160,000 a year and you can't talk from your own, then you're grossly overpaid—and I mean grossly overpaid. There you go. I vented my spleen, for the most part.
Let me go to what was said by Mr. Franks. You said that the central party organizations should certify the local constituency organization. If I might understand this, then, you're saying that the local constituency association should reign supreme when it comes to the selection of the candidate.
Mr. Milliken, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this too.
There was an example that's been used a lot. It happened back in the 1970s. It may have been used here before in testimony. I won't even name the parties or names, but the leader of a party was faced with a candidate who did not believe in official bilingualism and therefore was expelled from the party. That person's nomination was thrown out despite the fact that the local constituency voted that person in. What do you do in a situation like that?
11:40 a.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
My preference would be for the local constituency to have the last say.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
So that person should have stayed as a candidate, despite—
December 2nd, 2014 / 11:40 a.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
Well, you can decertify the local constituency organization if you want, as a central party, but our representation ideally is built from the bottom up, from constituencies. I find the strength of the central parties over the constituency organizations and over the selection of members and everything else stronger than I'm comfortable with within Canada.
11:40 a.m.
Former Speaker of the House of Commons, As an Individual
I agree.
I think the local associations should have the power to choose the candidate. Yes, it may be somebody who has peculiar views on some issues—
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but this may not be that peculiar. This person was against official bilingualism.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
I believe that person came out of Moncton, if I'm not mistaken. So what do you do there?
11:40 a.m.
Former Speaker of the House of Commons, As an Individual
I find it peculiar, and I say that deliberately. I think it's peculiar, but the fact that it happens from time to time and you get somebody whose views are different from the vast majority of Canadians on some issue doesn't mean that person can't be a candidate. Yes, he may not be the best candidate they could have, but that's a matter of dispute. Obviously, the members of the constituency voted.
Now, sure, that guy may have outsold the others in terms of memberships and all that stuff. That does go on. I went through one of those battles myself in 1988. But the fact is that it does happen that way. Those people are the ones who make the choice, and they're the ones who are working in the election campaign to help the person get in. To have the leader say, “This person's off; it's going to be someone else,” makes the leader, in effect, a dictator because technically the leader could fire a whole bunch of MPs at election time and say, “You're not going to be the candidate. It's going to be somebody else, and here's the certificate to prove it.”
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Yes, that's right. I once witnessed you in a debate and you said that the key to fundamental democratic reform was eliminating that rule that was established in 1970 about requiring the leader's signature in order to stand as a candidate. I think at the time the issue was to bring in the fact that you could have a candidate affiliated with a certain party. You did say that, correct?
11:40 a.m.
Former Speaker of the House of Commons, As an Individual
I've certainly said that.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
11:40 a.m.
Former Speaker of the House of Commons, As an Individual
I didn't know it was that long ago. I thought it was in the nineties. You see, I was under a misapprehension because I didn't think I had the name of the party on the ballot in 1988 or 1993. I thought it was after that the name came on. Maybe you needed a certificate to be a candidate, but I thought the party name only went on after. I may be wrong in that respect.
But I'm not fussy about that aspect of it. As I argued in my opening statement, the presidency of the riding association can say you're the candidate because you were chosen at the meeting, and should be able to certify that.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Do I have more time? How much time do I have?
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Oh, my goodness. I'll be here all afternoon.
I guess I'll ask my other two witnesses if they want to weigh in on that as well.
Ms. Turnbull.
11:40 a.m.
Associate Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual
Hopefully, a political party is always going to have principles that it stands behind. The party is about something, probably a collection of things. So, yes, it doesn't make much sense if you have a political party, say, to go with your example, committed to official bilingualism, and then the party nominates somebody in a riding who's against official bilingualism. What does the party do with that person? Why does the person even want to run with this party?
So you have that tension. There's always going to be this tension with the leadership, who I think very understandably, to be honest, wants to have some say in who the representatives of the party are in each riding. To me that makes sense from a leadership perspective, but we also need at the same time to have something going on at the grassroots level or else people lose interest in what's going on in parties at all. I think part of the problem here is that if people in the constituencies can't select their candidate, what else do they do? There's a little bit of a disconnect in terms of how regular people, ordinary people in their ridings, attach to parties.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
11:40 a.m.
Campaigns Director, Leadnow.ca
I think this gets to one of the really interesting tensions in the bill. On the one hand, you could have just the local riding associations making the decision; on the other hand, the status quo at the moment, with the sign-off from party leaders. With the original bill I believe it was entirely one end of the spectrum, with it just going to the local riding associations. I think with moving towards a more enabling and prescriptive approach to the bill, it would be interesting to enable parties to make their own decisions.
I think there's potentially some interesting middle ground, for example, by having the local riding associations choose somebody regionally who can balance these interests, but also without it being entirely beholden to the party leaders. In that kind of situation they could say, “Actually, we don't think you're an appropriate candidate.” But also it would still leave room for local candidates, who perhaps have views that are different from the party essentially on some important substantive issues that are very relevant locally, to still be the candidate.
I personally would be interested in seeing a more prescriptive approach than just saying the party assigns one person.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
The recent changes to the legislation, meaning it's, dare I say it, more aspirational than prescriptive.... Right now the parties or caucuses have the option of choosing which system they wish to go under. You'd rather it go back to being far more prescriptive and saying to the party this would apply to the legislation or apply to caucuses from here on in.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
A very quick answer because Mr. Simms jumped in without looking at me, but go ahead.
11:45 a.m.
Campaigns Director, Leadnow.ca
I'd rather see a more prescriptive approach, yes.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal