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.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Charles Robert  Clerk of the House of Commons
Michael Morden  Research Director, Samara Centre for Democracy
Paul Thomas  Senior Research Associate, Samara Centre for Democracy

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

Then you have an issue with the number of rooms. Using the Sir John A. Macdonald Building resolves that issue of having a dedicated room, but you also need more time. I can see it being interrupted in a way that would throw its business off when we have the bells ringing all the time, as we sometimes do, more than it would throw off a normal committee.

11:40 a.m.

Clerk of the House of Commons

Charles Robert

Let's say that becomes the reality. You could put in place that when any vote is called in the chamber, if it coincides with a schedule of the parallel chamber, the division bells would have to ring for, let's say, an extra 10 minutes.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

Right.

11:40 a.m.

Clerk of the House of Commons

Charles Robert

There are ways that you can make adjustments that recognize the reality of creating the second chamber.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

Right. I agree.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

Scott, just to help on that question, the researchers are going to present to us the number of physical seats in the other two chambers plus the average attendance, so we'll know what they use.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

That's very helpful.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

It's quite small, actually.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON

I believe it.

Thank you.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

The quorum is three.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC

Well—

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

Scot.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

Scot Davidson Conservative York—Simcoe, ON

Through you, Mr. Chair, just because I'm the new guy, obviously, I have a couple of questions.

Based on the system they have in Australia and the U.K., and how they've set up their rules, did they have a cost structure they could present to you?

11:40 a.m.

Clerk of the House of Commons

Charles Robert

I've not seen anything relating to that.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

Scot Davidson Conservative York—Simcoe, ON

I just wondered the cost to the taxpayers.

Also, the current chamber that we're in, couldn't we change, as some members were saying, the current structure of that and have a debate session currently? If someone said, in the new chamber, we'll schedule something at eight o'clock in the morning, people say that they don't have the time for that right now.

11:40 a.m.

Clerk of the House of Commons

Charles Robert

It's possible. If you schedule the parallel chamber to meet out of times of the primary chamber, it would not be impossible. But that's what you would have to do. It would have to be quite a deliberate process.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

Scot Davidson Conservative York—Simcoe, ON

Go ahead.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

Linda.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

I think that the House leaders and the whips are important people to include in this discussion about what the possibilities and the implications are. I know they're challenged enough as it is making sure people show up to fill spots in committee, show up to a vote and be in the chamber to support people when they're speaking and so forth. It would probably be good to hear from them about what complications there might be for them or how we could take that into consideration.

I am deeply concerned about any proposal about spending more when we already have commitments, for example, to be coming up with the dollars to provide interpretation for indigenous and we're not doing that. For example, the committee I just came from agreed for the first time to translate their report into four languages. I think that these kinds of things are going to increase in cost. We need to be thinking about the commitments we've already made in the House of Commons and through committees before we start adding on and then ratcheting back.

Those kinds of factors are really important to look at. When we're looking at interpretation, we're now looking at more complications on things like that. I think costing clearly will be a big one that probably various leaders will ask for—certainly the Speaker's office and so forth.

Who is going to decide the agenda and what debates will occur? Is it going to be different from the way it is right now, which is essentially the majority of members at every committee? Different committees operate more convivially than others. Is this chamber going to be different, particularly if David is saying that it should give more opportunity to the backbenchers? There's a heck of a lot more backbenchers in the majority Liberal government right now than there was in the Conservative majority government.

Those kinds of things.... You'll have more enthusiasm in the members of Parliament if they think that is generally going to give them an opportunity to be debating.

This idea is coming, as I understand, from Samara. They did that report on the frustrations former members of Parliament had with democracy and so forth. Part of it, too, is that the public wants to hear more of what the various parties and members of Parliament think. I haven't really heard anybody talk about the role of the great unwashed public in this.

Is that room going to have to allow for substantial audiences? That is another issue because they can come and sit in on our debates in the House. They'll probably want to sit in on some of these debates, particularly if they recommend them.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

Madam Lapointe.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for joining us today, Mr. Robert.

You piqued my curiosity earlier. I agree with Ms. Duncan that we don't have two minutes to ourselves. We start here in the morning and we never know when we finish. I was fortunate to sit in the National Assembly of Quebec, and I thought I was working hard there. We sat for three days, from noon to 2 p.m., and then we would stop. We did not eat at a committee table like we are here. We would really stop. Everything was in French. We would finish at 6:30 p.m. and sit for three days.

11:45 a.m.

Clerk of the House of Commons

Charles Robert

Very civilized.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

I would say that the speeches are not always of higher quality. When I first came here, the first thing that came to mind was whether we were going to eat. I was hungry. No more jokes now. The legislative agenda was still moving forward.

We are talking about Australia and Great Britain. If I understood your comments correctly, countries that do not follow the Commonwealth or British model have not adopted a parallel chambers approach.

You also said that it is time to be innovative and that anything can be proposed.

11:45 a.m.

Clerk of the House of Commons

Charles Robert

Absolutely. It depends on the will of this committee. You may decide to establish a parallel chamber, but with certain objectives. It is really up to you to determine what sort of parallel chamber you want. You can determine the hours of work based on the availability of MPs, which, as you said, is very limited.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

At the beginning of your presentation, you mentioned the 2016 briefing note on initiatives toward a family-friendly House of Commons. That's what you mentioned. You said that the way MPs represent their constituents has changed a little.