Evidence of meeting #19 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 calendar.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
I'd be curious to hear your view on those matters before and after—when you're in government and when you're in opposition. I'd love to hear the ones that haven't changed.
As an Individual
Well, here's one. I'll give you an example: motions to instruct a committee giving it authority to divide a bill. They are moved by a private member, but when the debate is adjourned they become a government order. They're controlled by the government afterwards, so they just sit there.
It used to be like that for standing committees, when they would report to the House. You'd move concurrence, and once that motion was adjourned it became a government order. We changed the rules to address that, because it didn't make sense, if you had a report that was ordering documents from the government, that the government controlled when that was going to come to a vote. They used to talk about how powerful committees were, and actually they weren't.
Anyway, we made that change. We should have made that change also for other routine motions during routine proceedings, such as for a motion of instruction to a committee.
That's just one off the top of my head.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Taking it back to where we're supposed to be—family-friendly—what kind of changes do you see being needed on the simple things we've been talking about? I don't know whether you've been following our process for the last couple of months, but questions around day care, the bus system, parking, calendar sharing— all these kinds of things—have come up, which are technical questions and internal economy questions. I wonder whether you have feedback on those.
My personal pet peeve, as a former staffer—I was a staffer here for many years as well—is the fact that you can't share your calendar between an MP and a staff member on your BlackBerry in such a way that both can edit it. I'd like to take that a step further and allow, for example, my spouse to see my calendar, so that I'm not stuck using Google Calendar and going off the reservation to share it, so that they know where I am and we can actually plan things.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
I was in tech before I was in politics, and I don't see it as a technical problem. I see it as a political problem; therefore, it has to go to Internal Economy to direct ITSD—the IT service desk—to do something about it, and they won't do it without that direction.
Is that a direction you would want to see?
As an Individual
I guess I don't grasp what the politics of it is. I suppose, if you were serious—
Liberal
As an Individual
I guess I'm not familiar with the issue. I really don't know.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
What about the day care and the bus system and parking?
You have an immense amount of experience here, and I defer to that.
As an Individual
They had the day care here when I first started having a family, and I found it too expensive at that time, for one thing, and once my children were of school age it didn't make sense for them to be in downtown Ottawa; I'd rather have them close to their school and home. It didn't make sense to me, so I never really considered it. It may be different for MPs who live downtown; I don't know.
I'm not sure what you mean by the bus system. Do you mean the House of Commons buses?
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Yes, the House of Commons bus system, the House of Commons cafeterias—all these things—are geared to MPs and, quite frankly, they're useful to staffers as well. The service is considerably reduced in cafeterias and buses when we're gone, and the frequency of the buses has dropped over the last few years. When I started here, there were a lot more buses than there are now, as an example.
Do you have comments on that, or on things you'd see as improvements?
As an Individual
If the House isn't sitting, then it wouldn't bother me that there are not as many buses available, because I'm not rushing somewhere, as I would be when the House is sitting. I've never found that to be a problem with the buses.
For the cafeteria, it's the same thing. I've never found it to be a problem.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP David Christopherson
Mr. Graham, you only have a couple of seconds left. You have enough time to say goodbye and thank you.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Okay, go ahead. Everybody else gave their last 10 seconds.
Thank you, David.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP David Christopherson
Very good.
Moving now to five-minute slots, Mr. Richards, you're up first, sir.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Mr. Prest, I have a few questions for you as well.
This has been covered a little bit already, but you made mention in your remarks of the votes being after QP, and I think you made it fairly clear that you believe there still needs to be some flexibility there. I don't disagree with you on that, but the fact that we've been having more votes after question period is something that I would say, from what I've seen, has been pretty nearly unanimously, or maybe even unanimously held as a positive thing,
I want to get your perspective as a staff member. You mentioned that one of the challenges you have is for your kids in extracurricular activities—sports and arts and things like that—and that it's difficult for you to get them there on time when the House is sitting.
Does having the votes after QP help? Obviously, that can reduce the length of time the House sits somewhat, sometimes, because we're eliminating at least the bells portion of a vote. Has that been something in which you've noticed a difference? Has it been helpful? Have you been able to see your kids get a little more time on the playing field and a little less time on the bench as a result?
As an Individual
As a staffer, it really doesn't have much of an impact on me, but I noticed that it has a positive impact on members. I don't vote. Actually, sometimes in the evening when members are voting I don't really need to be there to watch them vote. When I was working for the whip, I did, but no, from a staff perspective, it doesn't matter.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
It hasn't made too much impact, then. Okay.
You also talked a little about the sitting days and about how, if they were set a little earlier in the year, that would make sense. I can understand and appreciate that people are always looking to plan holidays or other family functions and such things. The earlier someone has that calendar, the more it makes planning a little easier.
You mentioned that last year we were able to do that before the House rose, so obviously it's possible for it to be done. Having worked in a whip's office, I assume you probably have some knowledge of how it is done. I wonder whether you see any problems that would arise in trying to set the calendar a little earlier in the year, or is it something you see as entirely possible without any real unintended consequence to doing it?
As an Individual
Because we did it last year, I see it as a possibility. There might be a case in which the provinces haven't established their break weeks, but with that type of change, with unanimous consent you can rejig it when you get closer to the date, if you wish, by one week or something. But to have to block out all those months just because of waiting for more information seems to be a little excessive.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
You also talked a briefly about longer blocks of sitting weeks. You mentioned they are something you felt should be avoided.
I wonder if you might want to give us a sense of what you would see as optimal in terms of sitting weeks. I understand that one thing that is done is to try to plan a little bit around.... As the chair mentioned, the school calendars are set provincially, obviously, but I think there is an attempt made to try to make this work for as many people as possible across the country, so that our calendar is aligned with such things.
I know there needs to be some flexibility in respect to meeting those parameters, but could you maybe give us a sense of what you would see as optimal in terms of three weeks on, one week off, or whatever else it might be, and also give us a sense, from your experience over the years, of what you see as happening around here when we get longer blocks or blocks of a shorter period? Are there impacts on the way business flows from those as well?
As an Individual
I think that ideally, three weeks on, one week off works the best. When you get into the fourth or fifth week, often they are not productive at all: people are at each other, and nothing is moving forward. They are almost like a wasted week, I find, when you get into these fifth weeks, and it takes a toll on the morale of the MPs to be away from their families and in this sort of combative environment for that long a time. It's always good to have a break, to regroup, and then come back. The three-week sitting blocks are ideal.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP David Christopherson
You're good for another three minutes.
Oh, I'm sorry; I apologize. It's a five-minute round, not a seven-minute round, so you have 15 seconds.
I get you all revved up and then shut you down.