Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 28th, 2019

[Sir David Natzler]

Yes.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

There must have arisen a situation in some committee of members of that committee expressing dissatisfaction at the chairmanship of their chair.

[Sir David Natzler]

Yes.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

At that point, is there any recourse, either for them or for the House of Commons as a whole, with regard to that chair?

[Sir David Natzler]

There isn't for the House of Commons as a whole.

Of course, in the Standing Orders, if they give due notice and there are members from both the two largest parties on the committee voting that way, they can express a lack of confidence in the chair. You can look in detail at the way we set it up in the Standing Orders. In other words, to prevent a party coup, you can say, “We're not happy with the chair.”

Sure, we have had difficulties. It was my fear, to be honest, that these would be chairs parachuted in, and my experience with select committees was that they like choosing their own chair and feeling comfortable with them because they had chosen them and they could at any time unchoose them just by a vote, with notice. However, by and large, this has not happened, and chairs and committees have rubbed along together. Possibly the chairs are a little more powerful than they used to be, but members know they have that in reserve.

Evidently, we've had chairs resigning or wanting to step down. I'm not sure if we've had chairs dying. We do have changes of chairs, and then you have a by-election.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Is the by-election again by the House as a whole?

[Sir David Natzler]

Yes, that is the same electoral college, the House as a whole.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Effectively, if the committee finds a want of confidence in the chair, at that point the committee can no longer meet until such time as the by-election has occurred in the House as a whole, which might take a period of time, perhaps a day or two.

[Sir David Natzler]

No, we would be very quick. We can get a by-election going very quickly, and the Standing Orders were drafted quite carefully to give some freedom to the Speaker to abbreviate intervals. However, sure, you have to have time for people to agree to stand, because to stand as chair, you need a certain number of supporters and from more than one party.

If that did happen, the committee would not be completely helpless. These are scrutiny committees. They're not holding up legislation or anything. Their program might be briefly interrupted, but they can appoint a temporary chair at any time, and they do when the chair is away. Other people can take the chair, as happened this morning in your meeting.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Right, but we have a system of deputy chairs to allow us to do that. We'd have two deputy chairs in addition to the chair.

[Sir David Natzler]

We don't appoint deputy chairs in advance, but every committee knows that it's usually, obviously, one of the senior members from the other side who will take the chair if for whatever reason the chair isn't there.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I have one last question.

You said this is not for legislative committees, but only committees that are not dealing with legislation.

[Sir David Natzler]

Right. “Scrutiny committees” is what we call them, including, for example, the procedure committee. The chair of our procedure committee is directly elected by the House as a whole.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We'll go to Mr. Graham for the last question.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you.

I have one final line of questioning. You said that Westminster Hall is very much independent, that it doesn't have much interference from the parties' structure.

Do the whips of the different parties try, or have they tried over the years, to interfere in the background with the operation of that chamber or take control of it in different ways? Have they just left it on its own all this time?

[Sir David Natzler]

As far as I'm aware, they haven't, but I don't want to be naive. It may be that they stipulate their members to put in particular subjects for debate, but I really doubt it. I think members spot that and don't like it on either side. This is their place. It is their home, more than the chamber in many ways, which is inevitably dominated by whips of both sides, by the government and by the opposition, who have 20 days a year, and by the parties. Backbenchers would resent it if the whips did do that.

It may occasionally be attempted. I detect that a smaller party may have tried to get a slot in Westminster Hall for what is really a pretty partisan debate, because they have less chance, so they raise a subject that is of interest mainly to them.

I think that is seen as fair enough, but by and large, this is backbench territory and it's respected as such.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you.

Happy retirement. Thanks very much for this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

As you'll have lots of time after retirement, if we needed you, could you appear again?

[Sir David Natzler]

I do have a successor who is taking over at one minute past midnight tomorrow and who will be at least as well qualified to answer, but when Canada calls, I will always do my best to help.

My very best to all of you, and thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We wish you the best in your last sitting in 45 years today. Thank you.

The clerk is here and can start early, but we'll suspend for a couple of minutes and start right after that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Welcome back to the 144th meeting of the committee. Our next order of business is a briefing on the implementation of changes to the petition system.

Members will recall that our 75th report, which was concurred in by the House on November 29, 2018, contains several recommendations concerning changes to the petition system. While some of these changes have already been implemented, others will take effect at the beginning of the next Parliament.

Here to brief us today from the House of Commons are André Gagnon, who is the Deputy Clerk of Procedure, and Jeremy LeBlanc, who is the Principal Clerk of Chamber Business and Parliamentary Publications.

Thank you both for being here. We look forward to hearing how our suggestions are being implemented.

[André Gagnon, Deputy Clerk, Procedure]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, everyone.

I won’t be retiring today.

This is not my last day.

[David Christopherson]

So you think. That's as far as you know.

[Voices]

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