Michael Boda.
Evidence of meeting #107 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was travel.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #107 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was travel.
A recording is available from Parliament.
1:10 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Yes, Mr. Boda, and then Mr. Perrault.
It does not speak badly of the merits of either of these two excellent individuals to say that the process itself left Canada's electoral system in limbo for a long time. Now, because everything's been left to a very late hour, we have, once again, the same kind of last-second chaos that has prevailed in the electoral reform issue where the government spun its wheels for 18 months while I got up repeatedly to point out that time was running out, and certain models are going to become inaccessible to us, let alone consulting the people via a referendum.
For 18 months they spun their wheels and then said there was a mad panic until committee produced a result the government didn't like, and then suddenly, it wasn't a priority at all, and the Prime Minister announced that he'd been opposed to proportional representation from the very start, even though he'd had his minister steering the course of the proceedings: “The Prime Minister and I have no favourite model, and we're open to all possibilities.” At one point, following a meeting in Victoria, I think, she said she was starting to drift towards one model. That was all contradicted when the Prime Minister came out and said that, since before the election, he'd only ever believed that preferential balloting was an option.
Given the fact that preferential balloting is, compared to proportional representation, a very straightforward system, it doesn't require vast changes. It's not as if he was saying there were multiple versions of preferential to look at. There's really one and one only. There are actually two: optional preferential and mandatory preferential.
1:10 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Oh yes. That which is implicit in my words will become fully evident to all in a very short period of time. My words are, I would say, pregnant with meaning and lots of meaning.
As you know, sometimes I have these thoughts that, like the fetus developing inside a pregnant whale, take months and months, even years, to develop.
1:10 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
1:10 p.m.
Conservative
1:10 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
We saw something being slowed down unnecessarily. I don't know whether it's mismanagement that led to that in that particular case or in the case of the current legislation, or in the case of.... Professionally I'm not talking about the decision, I'm talking about the appointment process for the Chief Electoral Officer or for any other appointment processes, which are also held up for an inordinate amount of time. I don't know whether it's a process issue or whether it's an execution issue.
I would like to know because this is a pattern. We have a right to know. Saying it's all private information is just a way of saying, “We're not going to show you what goes on, and you just have to trust us that there's a secret that we are obliged to keep as a government as opposed to a secret that we in practice are obliged to share but we choose not to share for reasons that have to do with the fact that we're a little embarrassed by the fact that we're kind of incompetent at this sort of thing.”
I don't ascribe nefarious motives to the government for doing what it did in this matter. I don't know who said this, but I've always thought it was profound, that one ought never to ascribe to machiavellianism that which can be explained by ineptitude. I'm fully prepared to believe that the government was just inept in this matter. I can only speculate as to what the reasons for that ineptitude might be: too many chefs? Alternatively, in the case of this government, the problem is one chef who has to decide on everything, no sous-chefs, and it is difficult to play to the entire dinner for many people. I used to work in a kitchen, by the way.
Without the assistance of people other than the head chef, I think that's the problem here. Everything's got to wait until Justin Trudeau says yes or no personally, and that does not speed up processes very much, not in my experience.
I think that explains what happened during last year's filibusters. It took a month to finally get the issue all the way to the top echelon. In the interim, we'd all come away more enlightened than we currently are. We developed an entirely new set of procedures, allowing us to have a back-and-forth conversation in the middle of the filibuster, the key principle of which was named after my esteemed colleague Mr. Simms. While that speaks well to the people on this committee and their ability to work together, it doesn't speak well to the nature of highly centralized decision-making, which I think may be the problem here. If so, we could learn that without revealing any secrets about Ms. Sahota, Mr. Parent, or any other person other than the secret of what's going on behind that curtain in the middle of the emerald city, where I think one wizard has too many levers to twiddle with and just can't keep up with all the decisions that these highly centralized decision-making structures have caused. That's my theory.
I don't know that is the problem, but it's a problem which occurs to me, and if I'm wrong, I could be disabused of my mistaken notion by having the minister come here for an hour and explain what was going on. We might very well leave impressed.
I do think I'm right in saying that the minister, on the whole, is a very intelligent person who is able to express herself eloquently, when she is given liberty to do so, to defend her government's practices and to show there is genuine goodwill to improve the practices in the future. I think that on the whole, she has been able to juggle a very difficult portfolio and certain personal challenges, of which we're all aware, with a capacity that I think very few other people could manage, so I think she could handle an hour-long meeting. I really do. I think she could do it with ease. We'd all come away more enlightened than we currently are.
That is why I say this whole secrecy argument doesn't really hold up very well. It's too broad. It's too inclusive. It is too much the use of a term that has a fungible meaning—an expandable, contractible meaning. It's the use of what is known as a motte and bailey argument. Secrecy can mean something very specific, like in the Official Secrets Act, or it can mean something very broad, some information that would make somebody feel uncomfortable, and good taste forbids us from going in that direction.
I will mention, now that I've raised the Official Secrets Act, a very strong counter-argument to what Mr. Bittle is putting forward. Let's say, for the sake of argument, it is the case there is something that actually would qualify as an official secret, a cabinet confidence that really cannot be shared with the members of this committee and the public. There is a way around this. We know this because the government has actually actively offered exactly this way of handling things.
Do you remember when our Conservative leader, Honourable Andrew Scheer, was raising the issue of Daniel Jean, the national security adviser, and his commentary relating to the actions of the Indian government and the conspiracy theory that Mr. Jean put forward? The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness stood up in the House of Commons and said, well, they were happy.
1:20 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Chair, I rise on a point of order. I apologize to my friend Mr. Reid. I always enjoy his chatter.
1:20 p.m.
Conservative
1:20 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I meant it totally, exactly, in the nicest way possible
By sequence of timing—and I never want to impinge on a member's right to speak to an issue—liaison meets this afternoon, I believe, and if things proceed as they are right now, at least, we will be making a decision as a committee not to be able to petition for travel next week.
1:20 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I don't know what the government's feeling is on this, and I'm not going to speak to anyone's intention as to why they're speaking to what or for how long, but my suggestion would be that the committee—and I don't know how this would work procedurally—suspend the conversation on this motion, which is what we're dealing with right now, Mr. Richards' motion, to be able to have the conversation as to whether the committee is still interested in proposing the travel, as we discussed last night, and at least confirming that piece of it. Otherwise, we will have made the decision not to do it. I don't know anyone's intentions around the table, but the intention of the committee, as of last night, was that we were, in fact, travelling. We were going to petition the liaison committee this afternoon, through you, Chair, on our behalf. I don't know what the Liberals' feelings on the committee are to at least deal with the travel component. If we don't make that decision within the next 40 minutes or so, the ship will have sailed.
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
On the point of order, I agree with Mr. Cullen that decisions have to be made. In attempting to provide the clerk with flexibility, I think we made his job more difficult, and some decisions have to be made essentially to set out our calendar for the next few weeks. Understanding and appreciating the rights of Mr. Reid and Mr. Richards, if these decisions aren't made, then travel won't happen, just because of the logistics of it.
1:20 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
On that, it's my motion, obviously, but I will say this. I'm comfortable with interrupting that, if it's procedurally possible, in order to deal with the travel portion. If we deal with that and then come back to the motion, I would be happy to entertain that as well.
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Is there unanimous consent to suspend debate on Mr. Richards' motion while we talk about travel?
1:20 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Before I would consent to that, what that would then mean, though, is that as soon as that decision is made about travel, we would be returning to this motion. Is that correct?
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
1:20 p.m.
Conservative
1:25 p.m.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
We can't deal with one issue in absence of the other, so let's be realistic about this.
1:25 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
I'm comfortable with discussing the travel portion. Otherwise I would say we must continue with the motion.
1:25 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
That's really up to Mr. Cullen to say, isn't it, what his motion consists of?
1:25 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
My intention was the timing piece of it. If we lose two o'clock, then we potentially lose the travel component. On the larger motion, we've had some conversations about it, but more informally. Have we had a full committee conversation about it? I don't think so. It's just been informal. The government presented a motion and we've had chats about it, but the committee itself....
My original intent was exclusively to talk about travel, but it sounds like that might be a line in the sand for both Liberals and Conservatives. Liberals want to be able to talk about the whole motion, is my guess, and Conservatives only want to talk about the travel motion. That's where we might be.