It's Mr. Reid's fault.
Thank you, Chair.
Your Excellency, thank you so much for being here.
I don't know if you're aware, but there are some of us who have some problems with the process and we'll be addressing that in due course.
If I may, in my view, we' have this a bit backwards. We've put the cart in front of the horse. We should be having the policy that the government was proposing first, nail that down, and get legitimacy and buy-in from at least two of the three parties—we've moved from unanimity to at least that as the bare minimum—and then proceed to who.
However, I'm quite prepared to leap ahead to the extent that if the government decides to try to legitimize this process—and I'm going to offer a suggestion in a moment as to who—I certainly would be not just comfortable, sir, with you being there but I think you would do us a great service and a great honour.
You are the gold standard of public service and I can't imagine any position for which you wouldn't be eminently qualified to represent Canadians and bring that fairness and values, and your integrity and your intelligence, your experience, to bear. I can't emphasize enough, sir, that any of my comments that are negative are addressed to the process, to the government, to everything except you.
I have the highest regard for you, as does my caucus, and if at the end of the day, you end up being the debates commissioner, we as a country would be well served.
Part of our difficulty, sir, is...and I'm mindful of what you said, Chair, so I'm going to do my very best to stay within the confines while recognizing the latitude that members have, especially on PROC.
Right from the get-go, sir, my worry...and I'm not smart enough to play hidden politics. I just put it right on the table. My concern is, number one, the whole idea that there needed to be a debates commissioner was because one of the major party leaders, who will remain nameless right now, played games and refused to commit to national debates which meant that we didn't have a fulsome, democratic process that included the kinds of debates Canadians need and should have. The idea was that we have to make sure that doesn't happen again.
It was always kind of a slapdash process, reinvented each time as to who made the call, who made the decision. It made a great deal of sense that we do this. Unfortunately, sir, the government has mismanaged every aspect of democratic reform to the point where now we're left with the government saying that they didn't have enough time to bring this in by way of legislation.
Sir, I just want you to know that's not our fault. We don't set the legislative agenda. The government does that. One of the first things that we recommended.... I'll tell you what's really annoying me, Chair. It's that the government keeps saying, “We just followed the policies. We just followed the policies of the committee.” No, they didn't.
One of the key recommendations we made was that there should be unanimity around the choice of the commissioner. Falling back on this idea that the government decides who the possibilities are and presents a final candidate and we get to say yes or a no, and the government tries to call that consultation is insulting in this day and age. That's exactly what happened.
The day before this policy was announced publicly, the minister met with Nathan Cullen and me. I won't divulge the actual discussion. That wouldn't be appropriate. However, it's fair to say the purpose of the meeting was to brief us on what it was going to be. It was an edict from on high. I will say this because I've said it before publicly. I said to the minister, “This should be a consultation not a briefing.” She said, “Once you hear who the candidate is, you'll be fine.” As I've explained, there's a complete separation between that and the legitimacy of this process.
First of all, there was supposed to be unanimous agreement on the commissioner. That was ignored. There were key aspects of questions of who got to participate in the debates. As my friend, Mr. Reid, has pointed out, it was very contentious and we couldn't come to an agreement and we didn't try to because we felt that decision ultimately should be made at arm's length from us. Right or wrong, that was our collective interpretation.
Chair, I want to emphasize, we spent a lot of time on this report. While it may not have had the unanimity of all the parties, there was a great deal of debate and discussion. Even when one of the parties said that I was offside on this, it would still participate to try to make it better. We had that collegiality—you continue to do an excellent job as the chair of this committee in bringing that out—and we did a lot of hard work. If anybody wants to say that this is some kind of a political hack job or a joke, or that it doesn't matter, speak up now. I remember how hard I worked, how hard Mr. Nater worked and how hard you worked, Chair. We put a lot of heart and soul into this.
Then the government comes along because of its own mismanagement of its files—it didn't have enough time to do it properly—and expects that somehow the debate process in Canada is decided by one party. That's effectively what's in front of us. Let me say this, because my time is going to run out soon. All the government is doing is playing into the hands of the very party that doesn't want this debate commission by not giving legitimacy to the process. The lack of thought and political thought and process into this is just mind-boggling given that the government's been in office for a number of years now.
My last point is this, Mr. Chair. I would strongly recommend to get this fixed. I don't need a headline, a quote or a clip because I'm not running again, but what I want is to fix our debates and to make our democracy as strong as possible. So, I'm going to throw a lifeline to the government. I'm going to ask it, through you, Mr. Chair, to please submit its proposal to PROC, to allow amendments, and to see if we can find the legitimacy that at least a majority vote representing two of the three recognized parties could emerge from this committee. That, Mr. Chair, would have some legitimacy. It won't be the document that we passed, and it won't be what the government had, but it would be our collective best interest in trying to make that happen. To me, that's one way to salvage what is just an abysmal embarrassment, as well as an insult, to Parliament: that the Liberal government believes that it alone, unilaterally, can decree how the debate process is going to work, how the rules are going to be set and who does it.
Sir, sorry I had to do that in front of you, but you can appreciate.... I saw you sit back. You've been around a long time, and you know how this works. I want to end, sir, by mentioning again the respect that I have for you. If you end up being our commissioner, I would be thrilled. In fact, if you end up in any role representing Canada and helping our democracy, we are better off for it.
Thank you for being here today, sir.
Thank you for the floor, Mr. Chair.
