Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 20th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We'll call our meeting to order.

We are here tonight in our special meeting still looking at the order of reference of Monday, October 21, and the study of the review of the Board of Internal Economy. We have a very special witness for you tonight.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Speaker Milliken, it's great to see you again. It has always been fun to have you at committee, and this is a whole different circumstance this time.

We are waiting for former Speaker Fraser to join us electronically. There have been some technical difficulties, and when he jumps in, we may give him a few words to start off.

Speaker Milliken, if you have an opening statement, we'd love to hear from you. Then we're going to ask you really hard questions.

[Peter Milliken, Former Speaker of the House of Commons, As an Individual]

I'd just as soon you go on with the questions, because I don't know what you want to hear from me. It might be better if you ask the questions, to save your time, rather than have me take it up with babbling.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Wow. We like witnesses who cooperate like you.

Mr. Lukiwski, be gentle.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

Thank you.

Speaker Milliken, it really is good to see you again. We miss you. I know—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'm telling Speaker Scheer.

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

I'm not casting judgment on the efficiencies of either Speaker Milliken or Speaker Scheer, but I know that certainly on behalf of everyone in our caucus, it is very, very good to see you again. You were always, in our opinion, an excellent Speaker.

It is in that capacity, of course, that you're here. We're engaged in a study on whether or not the Board of Internal Economy should be replaced.

I have one specific question. I'd like to hear your observations on that particular question.

To clarify things, for the last couple of meetings, Mr. Julian has been trying to impress upon people that the board either has in the past or is moving towards more of a vote-centric type of decision-making process. We have heard from Clerk O'Brien and also from IPSA in the United Kingdom that they work on a consensus basis.

My understanding is that the Board of Internal Economy for many years now has worked on a consensus basis. I would like to set the record straight so that we don't have the same type of, quite frankly, misinformation coming from Mr. Julian and the NDP.

Beyond the consensus question, I would ask you an open-ended question. Do you think that Parliament would be better served by scrapping the BOIE and going to an independent, arm's-length body similar to what the U.K. has done?

So there are two questions, one on consensus and the second on observations on whether the BOIE should be replaced by some other form or body.

[Peter Milliken]

I can't tell you that I know much about the replacement of the British practice there. I've read only minimal amounts about it, and I didn't know that was the thrust of what I was coming to address tonight. So I'm not an expert on that at all and I won't make much more comment.

I have to say that, in my view, the Board of Internal Economy has done a wonderful job as the governing body of the financial side of the House of Commons. I say that having been a member, obviously, since I was Speaker. I don't think I was on the board before—to the best of my recollection, I don't think I was—so I had no familiarity directly with the way it worked. But certainly watching it function, as chair, for the 10 years or so that I was there, I thought it worked really well.

The strengths were that because the meetings were in camera, you had almost no partisan fights, public ones, in the meeting that you would have had if the meetings had been open. Members didn't bother drawing on partisan differences. They said, “We have to fix problems that arise here between parties or with members and the board”, in terms of compliance with the rules that the board issued. And the rules were in the manual, very specific bylaws and all that stuff, that the board passed, so members were expected to comply with those—not just expected, it was demanded. The board officials who did the work reviewing members' claims were very thorough, in my view, in examining those claims and making sure there was no issue or problem in terms of compliance with the rules and bylaws of the board set out in the manual.

Then the claims were paid. Members could appeal to the board if they felt they had been unfairly treated, and did, and we would listen to the arguments or review the letter, at least, the member sent, or whatever, and then look at the decision that had been made and see whether we supported it or not. Generally, there was unanimity in most cases, I think. Consensus was standard at all meetings. There were hardly ever votes while I was chair—maybe twice or three times. There were very, very few. It was almost always a consensus deal, and the decision was made on a whole host of issues.

There was lots of criticism from the media that we weren't having our meetings in public. The minutes were always tabled in the House later. They didn't like that because they were too scanty in terms of detail. But the decisions of the board were in the minutes.

Given the nature of the discussion, on mostly financial issues—the big thing the board is dealing with is money—you wouldn't expect that kind of discussion to take place in public, given the claims or sought-after allowances or exceptions to the rules or whatever that were sought by anybody on any issue that had come up. It wouldn't be something that should be advertised, in my view, in public. It wouldn't be in any corporation, that's for sure, so why would it be here?

In the end, I thought the board functioned really well as a board of directors, if I can call it that, or a governing body for the House, in part because of the rules that applied to it in terms of having its meetings in camera, in terms of the appointments to the board, the people who were working there, and the fact that it was charged with responsibility for, in effect, financial oversight of the House. It did its work, in my view, very effectively.

I don't know why there's a sudden press to change it. I'm kind of surprised at this because there hasn't been a scandal involving House expenditures on anything the way there has been in the other place. I don't mean to dump criticism on the other place, but I think our system has worked really well, and I think our rules have been very precise and quite specific. For that reason, I don't think we've had a problem with members misspending or getting away with something very often. It has hardly ever happened.

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

Let me ask you something that has come up before, and that is on the composition of the board itself.

Madam O'Brien had mentioned that the composition of the board currently is that there are equal numbers of government members and opposition members on it, with the Speaker, of course, who's charged with, as you know, representing all members as the chair.

Has that always been the case in your experience?

[Peter Milliken]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lukiwski.

Speaker Fraser, I see you're here. I'm wondering if you can hear us yet.

[John Fraser, Former Speaker of the House of Commons, As an Individual]

I can, and I'm very pleased to be here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

[John Fraser]

I've been driving all over British Columbia trying to find the place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

It's nice to get a little tourism in, too, I guess.

[John Fraser]

Well, I guess that's a good way of putting it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Speaker, we're studying the Board of Internal Economy, and we have Speaker Milliken with us too.

We've just started our rounds of questioning, and Mr. Lukiwski has already asked his round.

Do you have any opening statement or any comments you would like to make?

[John Fraser]

It's not very lengthy, but I have some comments when you're ready for them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Go ahead.

[John Fraser]

And then of course I'll take questions.

I'm in your hands.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay.

I'll let you go ahead and give us your comments, and then we'll include you in the next rounds of questions.

[John Fraser]

All right.

Is that satisfactory to everybody?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.