Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 30th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay, go ahead, Scott.

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

There's no pressure now, whatsoever.

Mr. Baylis, where does the next Parliament start, with what you've presented here? What do you want to see the next Parliament do, in changing the Standing Orders?

That's a question for both of you.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I have a quick aside. I did read up on, “You're not allowed to read.” You can have notes. I decided not to put it in here. I do think we should go there, but we need to bring all of our colleagues along. They're not going to be trained to do that.

I want to challenge one other thing, before I answer your question, Scott. Our constituents care. Don't doubt that for a second. I challenge you, please: If any of you knock on doors over the next couple of weekends, ask, “Do you care about civility and the carrying on in the House of Commons? Does it matter to you?”

I had constituents talk to me about it, and I mentioned to them that I'm working on something. I name-dropped Michael Chong, because he's very well known and respected. I said to a guy, “Mr. Chong is collaborating with me,” and he was two thumbs up on that.

What do I hope comes out of it? I started, I have not deviated and as Mr. Nater asked me, I'm really hoping that you choose to bring this up to Parliament now, so that we start the next Parliament with these changes in place.

Written into the motion is a two-year trial period for the second chamber. If, after two years, you don't like it, and you want to change or get rid of it, you can unwind everything. It's very simple. I don't think we're asking for a lot. I know you say it's a big motion, but this turns around a second chamber. If you pull the second chamber out, the private member...has to go away and the citizens' rights for take-note debates have to be taken away, because there's no time in the main hall. All these things get unwound.

I will still go around and talk to any colleague who will talk to me about it. I'm asking you, as PROC, to let your colleagues pronounce themselves on it. If they say, “No, it's not good enough,” or, “We don't like it,” that's their right.

I don't think PROC should say, “We're denying the right of colleagues to speak.” I think your job is to say, “This is no good, and we're going to radically change it, or just update or tweak it.” Whatever you choose to do, that's your right, but I don't think it's your right to say, “Ah, you know what, we're just going to stop it from going up, because we don't want it.”

That's my hope, and I'm not entertaining other thoughts, honestly, Scott.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

My hope, and this is a big hope, is that we can actually discuss this in an election campaign, so that after the election, when people are back, we are able to say to whoever is running for Speaker—and I assume our current Speaker will run again—that we have public support for you to, for instance, tell the whips that you don't need their lists. You heard it in the election campaign.

I know it's a very obscure topic, but I think the notion of, “Would you like to see us work to create greater decorum, when we get back to Parliament?”.... Political parties after an election, should go away. Let the people who are elected do their work. It will never happen completely, but it used to be a lot more like that. Even in the eighties, it was a lot more like that. In the nineties, it was a lot more like that. It's the hyper-partisanship of day-to-day life in Parliament that is an obstacle to progress, on a wide range of issues.

For me, it's about a lot more than decorum, but the decorum is a part of how we have a Parliament that functions in all of our interests, instead of in the interests of inventing a fake wedge issue for use later.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Now we'll go to Mr. Reid.

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

Thank you.

I've been urging flexibility on these things, but did you want me to try to be seven or five minutes? What are we aiming for here?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You are on a five. I've been a little flexible, and all the speakers have gone over a bit.

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

Okay. I will try to honour tradition as opposed to making up for everybody else.

Some things being suggested I think are utopian. I want to spend a minute on reading speeches. I know that's not part of the proposal.

Tonight is the night of my private member's motion. I've been waiting for almost four years. It's very exciting. And I have 15 minutes to talk about why January 29 should be a national day of solidarity with victims of anti-religious violence.

I happen to have my speaking notes here, which I will be reading word for word. You will notice there's a little 9 and a little 10. That indicates it takes me a minute to get from there to there. I have it timed so it's exactly long enough. If I don't use a script, I won't get all the information I packed in there. I can't do it extemporaneously, even though I am a big fan of extemporaneous talk when available. I even have little notes here because it turns out that when I redid it I forgot to edit some material and my numbers were off and I've got to go back and... I'm not going to keep on adjusting, partly because I read more slowly in French than in English.

A mechanistic application of the no-reading rule would have some consequences that I don't think those who advocate it had in mind. That's a concern to me.

I know S.O. 31s didn't originate here; they originated with Scott, but I think we've identified a real problem.

Right now as I understand it, the theory, which has been abused, is that whoever catches the Speaker's eye will give an S.O. 31, but it has come to be divided up fairly among the parties, and the parties have used it to assign to us. I only know my own party, but I think every party has adopted a process of saying the last couple are reserved for party business, and the rest are on some kind of rotation. I just checked with my staff. I am up on our rotation for an S.O. 31 on the Tuesday after next.

I think the only way we could make sure the S.O.31s are 100% about private members' business would be to make it a formal rotation; private members' bills are a lottery. You get put in there, and then after that you go through it. It's systematized that way in the Standing Orders.

Now that I've thought it through, your instigation to try putting that in I think is not a bad idea. It would resolve the problem. I think the reason my side puts in partisan attacks, and your side puts in partisan attacks and the NDP does too in all fairness is we're in an arms race with each other. If you create a situation where we're all disarmed, I think the problem would go away and return to its original purpose.

I wanted to get that one on the record.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I want to reflect on two of your points.

I read the rules on reading, and they are quite flexible. They would allow for the first person speaking to...it does take into account situations like yours or the ministers'. They understand if the minister is giving a budget, he's not going to say he's doing this.

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

That's a good example. A Speech from the Throne would be even better.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

But those things are written in the rules. It's not as if you're not reading at all. The rules are quite clear. Let's say you have to quote someone, wondering what that quote was, or if you're presenting a bill or a motion you would have the right to read it. They understand that.

I want to make the reading part clear even though it's misunderstood. That's why I wanted to clarify.

The second thing on the S.O. 31 is the last two reserved.... As I said, there has been degradation. It was understood the Speaker does whatever. The last couple were reserved because things come up, and the parties need to have it. Over time, that got taken over. Then this concept of rotation did happen for a while, at least in the Liberal Party, where you had four.... You knew months ahead that this was the day, get ready. It's the nature of the beast that over time things get centralized, and at some point we have to hit the reset button and say we're pushing it back out.

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

I know that, with S.O. 31s, people do actually trade, to the extent that they are still on a rotation—the trend for some of them has been to go toward being on a rotation. They're also tradeable, at least in my caucus. I traded my last one with Larry Miller, who wanted to honour someone who was in the gallery on the day. I had an S.O. 31 and he didn't, and that's why I'm going in his former slot.

The question I had is this. It's for both of you, and I think you may have different answers. On the issue of consensus, how much consensus ought there be before the Standing Order change arises—not just the package we have here but any significant standing order? I'd be interested in knowing how much consensus you think is appropriate—whether it's unanimous consent being required or whether it is something equivalent to, let's say, the consent of all of the recognized parties, which are not quite the same thing, or whether we should just go on a straight majority vote.

Just tell me where you are in there. There may be other options I haven't mentioned.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Do you mean in committee?

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

No. I mean in the House.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Let me, first of all, say that your contributions to democracy in this place, Scott, are much appreciated by me personally. I love working with you. You are one of the people who have their eye on the ball and have a historical framework for understanding what we need to do to protect parliamentary democracy, and I appreciate that.

I love the fact that Scott's idea around S.O. 31s is that, as you mulled it over, there is a solution—we make it a lottery, they all come in order and then everyone gets their own S.O. 31. I just wanted to say that was great.

I did propose changes to the Standing Orders in response to those put forward by the government House leader back at the beginning of this session of Parliament. It was frustrating for me that, having put a ton of work into something....

I happened to be travelling to the U.K. for another reason. I spent some time in their Parliament, met with my colleague, the only member of the Green Party in the Parliament of Westminster, and found out how they did things there. It was fascinating, really fascinating, not just reading the book but asking what it's like.

I would have loved to have had some response from anyone to the work I put into my 26 pages of suggestions for how we could improve our Standing Orders.

How do we actually do it? I think it would be best to have real consensus, which is very hard to get to. To stop the parties from having the control to stop us from reducing the power of the parties is the problem. So where is the consensus? Where does it really lie? Is the consent with the individual member? Or is the consent with the party brass that really does not want to relinquish control over how much they're able to dictate the way bills go through the House? It's more than just when we get to speak. The ultimate thing is the control, a lack of productivity in the effort to create kabuki theatre—and that's a credit to Michael Chong for this particular phrase about what we do in Parliament.

I would love to see, maybe, an anonymous ballot, some really good workshops at the beginning of Parliament. As I said, we have newly elected people. They have no idea what these issues mean day to day. The reason we're all here is that Frank came in and said, “This isn't good. I don't like this. I'd like to see it changed.” So maybe workshopping it through with individual MPs, and then testing for consensus, which is.... The Green Party makes decisions by consensus. We wouldn't usually put it to a secret ballot, but given the role of political parties overseeing everything the other—

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

How do you determine—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You're four minutes over time already.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Sorry.

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

I just want to ask.... This is actually really important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay.

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

You say you determine things by consensus, but there is some point at which you say, “Aha, we've got consensus.” And just a tad before, you didn't have it yet. What is that point?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

The secret ballot is what I was suggesting as a way to test for consensus in this situation. What we do in the Green Party is say, “Okay, we've fought this thing out. People were in vicious and violent disagreement. Are we now at a point where we've heard each other enough that we have to compromise here?” Then we test for consensus. Do we have consensus, which is basically unanimous?

If we don't have consensus, then we ask people, “Would you stand aside to allow the consensus to be accepted?” Then generally speaking, when people realize that the hill they want to die on is occupied by only themselves, they'll generally say, “I will stand aside”, and this is accepted by consensus.

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

Thank you. That helps a lot to understand how that works.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Mr. Graham.

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

I'd like to retain the right to read, and I'll tell you why: I think a lot better in writing than I do extemporaneously. It's a quirk of my character, which I have quite a few of. The issue for me is not so much if you have notes or speeches; it's who writes them. Do you know in advance that you're going to give a speech? Do you know what you're going to say? Are you really giving your own speech? I've given some speeches that I've written myself and that people have had a good chuckle at. I've put a lot of effort into them. I've also been provided speeches where it was, “Here, can you speak in three minutes?”, and I've had to ask what I'd be talking about.

That's what's wrong with the system. That's where the breakage is. Do you agree with that?