Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 19th, 2019

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

Right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

And votes.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

And votes, certainly. As I said, votes are never taken in the parallel chamber.

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

Okay. That gives us an idea. There are some hard limits on how far you can go, unless you're willing to go into the wee hours of the night, in which case you can go back to the main chamber, because it too shuts down at night, presumably because we are all reluctant to sit overnight—

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

Most of the time.

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

Yes, most of the time. Perhaps not this week—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

—but in other weeks.

Here's the thing. The reason I ask that question is that to me.... Others will identify different things they think are of primary concern, but to me the thing that gets squeezed out of the parliamentary calendar, the legitimate business that just doesn't get taken care of the way it should be, is private members' business. I'm not referring to S.O. 31s, although I think members' statements are important. I'm talking about actual private members' legislation. We have a lottery. I'm guessing that about 270 MPs are eligible for the lottery.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Yes, all of them except ministers, parliamentary secretaries and Deputy Speakers.

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

Yes, and Deputy Speakers, who are tragically and unfairly excluded in one of the great crimes of our modern times.

We get to about item 150 and then we run out of time.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Yes.

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

I am in this category, with an item of mine coming up soon. It's a motion. We'll likely get the first hour of debate in, but not the second. That's just the way it works. I'm not happy about that. I'm less unhappy than I'd be if I were someone whose item would have come up with the House sitting in July. The point is, we can move that over to a parallel chamber entirely, I would think. I'm just wondering, if we made that the primary focus of a second chamber—effectively a private members' business chamber—whether we would then be able to go through this.

I have a wrinkle to this question. Right now, about 170 people are included. It's reasonable to expect, at least if the supplementaries were to last a century—that's how we should think in an institution like this—that we're talking about 500 members of Parliament. That's a reasonable estimate as to how many members of Parliament there will be a century from now. If I add another 180 items on there, could we still get through a four-year Parliament and allow everybody a fair shot?

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Well, it is just as you have described. It's the straight time. We only have one hour a day in the main chamber in which we take up consideration of private members' business, be that bills or motions, so there is a limit there. One could consider adding time to the chamber, I suppose. I don't think there would be agreement to reduce time for government orders and other important parts of the rubric.

When you consider that now only a little more than 50% of eligible members ever get a chance to bring forward a private item for debate in the main chamber, it is conceivable that part of that consideration could be taken up in the parallel chamber and you could essentially move that business along much more quickly.

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

Yes.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I would want to think about the consequences of that for supporting the whole process of preparing bills and all of the functions that currently support private members in that area. You'd have to think about that, but it would certainly be doable. It might be one of those areas of current limitations that a parallel chamber could very much address.

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

I have only less than a minute here, and the next question is one that I did actually run by you beforehand.

You have a rotation of House officers, Speakers and Deputy Speakers who serve in the House during normal debates. Would it be necessary to have a separate rotation, perhaps with an expanded body of people or a separate body of people who are chairs and deputy chairs of the parallel chamber?

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Again, you could come at that differently. We currently have a panel of chairs, as does the U.K., which is appointed by the Speaker to preside over meetings not just in the House, but also, for example, in association annual general meetings.

There's a designated group of people. In some cases, it includes senators, and I wouldn't see doing that in a House-type committee, but they are eligible for doing that kind of work.

There would be an additional up to 12 hours a week, potentially, where you would need a chair occupant to manage that. The House may want to consider if they would need to add an additional chair occupant on a regular basis to manage those additional hours, but it could be quite easily done.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

We'll now move on to Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, Hamilton Centre, NDP]

Thanks, Chair.

Deputy Speaker, thanks so much for attending today.

You and I have similar experience in this place. You arrived in the 39th Parliament in 2006, and I got here in the 38th Parliament, just 18 months before you, so most of our experience is the same.

Again, to speak to my experience in coming to this, I've also been a House leader in opposition at Queen's Park, but I was also a part of the House management committee when we were in government. I served a stint as deputy leader, trying to be a referee, similar to you. I think I have a good feel, from all sides, for the concerns and the opportunities.

Let me just say that since this first came on our radar a few years ago when we started to do a review, you and Frank and Mr. Reid and a few others—Mr. Simms—have really taken this to heart. I've had an interest in it, but some of you have gone further and done the research on it.

I only say that to reflect on having been here long enough to see enough things come to life and then go away, then come to life and go away again. However, I think this has some legs. This has captured our attention. We've continued to work on it and people have taken it to heart. If I can be so bold, albeit I won't be here, my gut tells me that this is going to come to be and that it's going to be a good thing. It's a question of how we do it and the process.

If I could jump ahead in my thinking, I think a trial is going to be a definite component of this, because nobody is going to want to go too fast, too far.

I appreciate your recognizing the politics of this, because there are two sides of it. One is the most efficient way to give all members as much participation as possible, particularly in light of our being in a number of eras where more and more power is devolving to the PMO. That's not just to the executive, but concentrated in the PMO.

If I can make a shot for my motion coming up that speaks to our taking back control of hiring our own agents, I will remind people that we still allow the executive to do the hiring process for someone like our Auditor General. It's our Auditor General, but we let the executive, a subset of Parliament, do the hiring process. That's except for the night before when there's a quick little, “Hey, are you okay with Bob Smith?”, and that's it. That's the extent of consultation. To heck with that; we own it.

To me, this is another aspect of trying to reach out and grab back what the historical purpose of Parliament and individual members were.

I would emphasize that no one speaks better to this than Mr. Reid, in terms of both his longevity here, which surpasses ours, and from his interest and being a historian in his own right.

I do think that a trial is going to be a component. That's the one side of it.

The politics of it on the other hand—and I'm glad you touched on it because we have to deal with that too—is that the government wants as much time as possible to get its bills through so that it can say, “Yes, we allowed lots of debate.” Mr. Simms, I think you nailed it right on. The government gets kind of screwed both ways: If you don't allow debate then you're being undemocratic, and if you don't get bills passed, you're being ineffective. Good luck trying to work your way through that.

When we put this in place, we're going to need to be cognizant of that. That's why I'm really happy we are talking, for now, that this is looked at from the view of enhancing, and I would say returning backbench members to their rightful place as important members. We're not supposed to be here just echoing what our leaders tell us to say or to vote the way that our whips say, although that's what we do a lot of the time. We on this committee should be doing everything we can to enhance and preserve the role of individual members, which historically has been going the wrong way.

This was a really good presentation, by the way. Thank you.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you.

[David Christopherson]

I liked what you said in noting that we need to reflect on our initial raison d'être. If we stay on that point and let the government of the day, regardless of who it is, know that this is not about trying to play any games with that timing, but rather enhancing the backbench.... Whether it will eventually get into that, remains to be seen.

I will ask you a question. I'm clearing my throat, Scotty.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[David Christopherson]

I found it curious that you mentioned ministers. Could you expand on that a bit?

As you know, we separate that pretty clearly here, and yet you're bringing.... That brings back some interesting points. Ministers of the Crown—and I've sat as a minister, provincially—are still members in their own right, with constituencies and constituents and the politics of getting re-elected.

What are your thoughts on how we would sort of break with our tradition, or are we better to stay with keeping the ministers out of it because that system works best for us?

What are your thoughts, Bruce?

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

As you pointed out, Mr. Christopherson, ministers are still MPs and they rarely get an opportunity to get on the record on matters that are pertinent to the people they represent.

Australia embarked on what's called a “constituency statement”. They initially scheduled 30 minutes for those, meaning there are roughly 10 of those as part of the rubric, I think, once a week where they have the opportunity. On numerous occasions, there had to be motions made to extend the 30 minutes to 60 minutes. This has happened frequently because of the demand for these three-minute constituency statements.

As you know, ministers are not permitted to participate in S.O. 31s, so it was another avenue for them to get on the record, much like in the spirit of the backbench elements of Westminster Hall, on matters that are directly important and related to the people at home. Often this has been the case. Ministers clearly appreciate that as much as anyone.