Evidence of meeting #147 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 debate.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
In these parallel chambers, is there a way we can include witness testimony?
Clerk of the House of Commons
I think it becomes really like a committee of the whole.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
That's true, but do we have to stick to the confines of the committee of the whole?
Clerk of the House of Commons
I don't think you have to stick to anything.
Clerk of the House of Commons
I think this is a committee or a parallel chamber that you can design to suit your needs—21st century or 18th century; take your pick.
Clerk of the House of Commons
It can serve to be useful to the work of Parliament. If that's your objective, then however you see that being useful, that can be a model that you can build.
Let's say you want to allow for witnesses. Well, you could establish a parallel chamber and there would be a mechanism that would make it clear that on such and such a day, witnesses will be invited to participate as.... In Britain, there are lay members of committee. Well, okay, let them be lay participants in the parallel chamber.
Liberal
Clerk of the House of Commons
It's someone who can be an element of a committee composition in the United Kingdom. I think it's the one on standards. But there is such a thing as a lay member.
Clerk of the House of Commons
So, if you want to advance a perspective, with respect to the parallel chamber that is truly innovative, then allow lay members.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Is that something that is a convention, the lay membership, or is that actually written into the Standing Orders of Westminster?
Clerk of the House of Commons
I would have to know how it was designed. I think it was done basically around 2008, when they realized that for purposes of transparency and accountability, having exclusively members involved in looking after codes of conduct and issues of that sort.... Having lay members would give greater credibility to the system.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
That is interesting. Maybe we could ask our analysts to take a peek at that and get back to us on that issue.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
I just have a couple of quick comments in terms of the structure of the place. It occurred to me when we were talking that there's nothing preventing—we're open to anything—the secondary debating chamber from being a joint chamber with the Senate, making it the secondary debating chamber for both Houses together.
That would have its own agenda—
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Aren't we trying to keep parties out of this? Isn't that what you said?
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
I would see it as a place for emergency and take-note debates, PMBs, petitions and privilege debates, which could go as long as they wanted to, with the primary chamber only being government legislation, opposition days and all of the votes. That's the structure I'd see, but having a joint secondary committee.... If PMBs go there, then that whole huge delay of PMBs at the Senate may be fixable as well.
You were the Senate Clerk for a long time.
