Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 4th, 2019

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

It's somewhat like the practice in the United States Senate as well.

[Dr. Paul Thomas]

I am less familiar with that, but perhaps.

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

You can accept an intervention without losing the floor if you apply the right formula. You have to watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; you'll learn everything you need to know.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

Sorry, I don't want to hop in, Dr. Morden. In a sense is this like what we call the Simms rule on this committee? We developed it when we had to find a way of allowing people to convey messages back and forth in the middle of a filibuster where you can't formally give up the floor. My colleague Scott Simms invented this, and it was an extraordinarily effective way to allow the interchange of ideas in a format that otherwise would not have permitted that.

[Dr. Paul Thomas]

That's very much so, and that is the idea where it is not ceding the floor, but giving way temporarily. I guess it's one's convention as to how long such interventions would be. I imagine a Speaker may need to get involved if it becomes its own filibuster.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

That's true. That would have been a breach of protocol.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

In our little system.

[Dr. Paul Thomas]

I should let my colleague speak.

[Michael Morden]

I have little to add other than the person who is speaking has some prerogative in that you'll hear them say they're going to make some progress in their speech, and then they'll turn it back to them. They have a fair amount of agency in how they distribute their time.

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

Okay.

On a different topic, because we've only got a minute or so left, you mentioned that both the Australian and U.K. parallel chambers have sittings only on days when the Commons, or representatives in the case of Australia, are in session. By contrast, ordinary standing committees of the House of Commons, let alone legislative committees, can meet when the Commons is not sitting. The reason that can be done is that only a small number of members have to be present. To have the Commons sit, let us say, through July and August, would involve every single one of the 338 of us saying we'll work instead of being in our constituencies in July and August. That is not true with a committee. In consequence, I've been on a number of committees, like the electoral reform committee that met throughout the months of August and September when the House was not sitting.

Could this not also be true for a parallel chamber, given the low quorum requirements, that it could sit on break weeks and into the summer without creating a situation in which people can't get back into their constituency weeks?

[Dr. Paul Thomas]

I think this reflects to some extent the tendency of the British Parliament to sit nearly continuously. It sits in July and then has a six-week break and then is back at the end of August. Part of the reality is that they just generally don't have that same extended period when the Commons isn't sitting.

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

We used to sit in July too. Of course, the Meighen government fell in July.

[Dr. Paul Thomas]

It has been done provincially as well, particularly following elections, as was seen in Ontario, I think, following the last two elections, but I think that's more why many things just don't happen because their breaks are so much more condensed. The breaks are truly breaks.

In the Canadian context, I don't see why that couldn't be done. The greater challenge is because it's self-selecting; the members who are interested in the subject attend, and those who are not, do not. It becomes more challenging if business was being scheduled at a different time when all members might not be as free to attend. It could potentially shape the debates, but that would be something I think for members...as the Clerk said, that's up to their own imagination. If there might be a designated week in the summer that all members might reserve if interested, then that could certainly be a consideration.

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

I was thinking of private members' business in particular. We're trying to get through a large number of bills, and this problem will only get worse as the number of MPs increases with each redistribution.

We have a very strong interest in our own bills. There would be a number of other people who would be willing to participate in that debate. The actual votes will take place in September or October when the House comes back. It just seems like a simple way. You're not sacrificing that much time out of one summer in your four-year term to come in to deal with your item of business. It would allow for more opportunity.

I've changed from questioning to advocacy, as you can see, on the parallel chamber sitting during the summer months.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Madam Duncan.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Here's my perspective, having been here for 11 years.

Rather than going back in deep dark history when we burned the place down, why would we not first of all try to make this place—what we have—more democratic? Basically we have a system where the government, with procedure rules, can simply control the agenda. It varies from committee to committee, but they have the majority and they can decide what they're going to talk about and for how long, and who the witnesses are.

I think that's where a lot of the frustration is. When you're the third party or you don't have party status, you have very little chance to speak in the House. I don't think we're dealing with the democratic actions in the House. I'm not convinced that setting up yet another chamber is going to resolve the frustrations of a lot of members, and that includes backbenchers in majority governments.

I have a couple of questions.

First, what makes you think that party influence and discipline are going to be removed from the second chamber? Are members going to be free all of sudden to express their opinion if it's against the government's position, or even the opposition party's position? How is it going to be set up? Is it going to be first-come, first-served? We have 180-plus backbench Liberals who are probably going to be keen to have a chance to finally stand up and debate something keen to their constituency. How would that be balanced out? Who's really going to decide what the topics are and who gets to speak?

Also, why couldn't petition debates be made part of the House agenda, like maybe once a month? I think that would be fascinating. Instead, they just table them and say that the responses have been issued. Other than sending out the responses to the people who signed the petition, nobody else ever knows what the government response was.

There are a whole lot of things that could be done with the current regime without increasing the amount of work. Is there then going to be pressure on the opposition members and the backbenchers—“Well, why aren't you proposing something in the other chamber”—and adding that to their agenda?

Also, the majority government has all kinds of members that they can send around. The smaller parties are pressured as it is. They have to be in the House. They have to be in committee. Some of them may be travelling with committee. It's a different kind of proposition. If you have a whole lot of members, it's, “Oh yes, we can probably do something in the additional chamber.” I think that needs to be thought through as well.

I would love to also see some good ideas coming forward on how can we make the current chamber more democratic and interesting to the public.

[Dr. Paul Thomas]

I think the reason we suggested the Westminster Hall model as the inspiration—and particularly to have a space that would be qualitatively different from what goes on in the House in order to have a different type of debate—was precisely for the reasons that you address. It is that if things are oriented along party lines, it becomes challenging to know where to stop—

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

How are you going to change that?

[Dr. Paul Thomas]

This is the element. It would be having a place where debates are chosen, ideally without the involvement of the party whips, and having a place where speakers would participate without involvement from the party whips.

The goal, ideally, would be to have this as the beginning of an experiment, to see if having a space that was free of party might spread some ideas cross-partisanship into the other place.

I believe there have been complaints about rising partisanship in debate in the Canadian House of Commons for most of the past century. If you read the great text on Parliament, The Parliament of Canada by Ned Franks, written in the late 1980s, the words sound like they could be taken from today.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I don't disagree with what your concern is, and I think that's a challenge, but I question how you are going to, all of a sudden, transform somebody into not caring what their cabinet minister, their whip, the House leader or the caucus has decided is their position. It's a nice idea, but that's the challenge. I would be interested to know if any of that changed in Australia and England.

[Dr. Paul Thomas]

What I was trying to say is, if reforming the main chamber hasn't worked, why not try something new?

[Michael Morden]

Moreover, you're right to identify cultural problems, which are pernicious. I don't know how to solve them but to seek procedural change or technical change, which can help engender new behaviour. Behavioural change is really hard in the absence of any kind of alteration to the incentive structure. A parallel chamber is not a panacea. It doesn't resolve the myriad issues you've identified, which are also a concern to us. This is one of any number of things that we're prepared to throw our support behind when it's under contemplation.

I think it's particularly true in Westminster that this is seen as one piece of a broader reform agenda over the course of about 15 years, which has undeniably produced behavioural change and independence. Does the creation of a parallel chamber resolve partisanship or fear of the whip? I don't think so, but I don't know how you would do that in the absence of institutional experimentation.