Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I didn't really hear what I wanted, but of course the government won't just come out and say “absolutely not.” They're still hoping they can get through this.
Look. I hear what you're saying and I appreciate the tone and I appreciate the respectful discussion. I'm enjoying it too. I would enjoy it more if we could bring a little more democracy to the whole thing.
You and Mr. Chan have repeated a number of times, and I'm sure your other colleagues agree, that you have every intention of reaching consensus. I don't question that. I truly honestly do not. I believe that's what you intend. I even believe it may be that way most of the time.
However, as my friend Mr. Angus has pointed out and as those of us who have been around here for a while know, you'll find that idea will quickly fall by the wayside. Let's face it: the government does have an agenda and they have to deliver on it in order to get re-elected in four years. Fair enough. Therefore, there will be times when they're going to want this committee to do certain things and go in a certain direction. Fair enough. You have that control here at the committee. However, maintaining absolute control of the steering committee tells us that the government will utilize it whenever it suits their purpose. As we move on and have more arguments and get more entrenched—and Mr. Lamoureux and to a certain extent Mr. Chan know this—things take on a life of their own, and you can't always separate the politics of what's happening in the House of Commons with what's happening here. As a result, sometimes we can really get into it here at this level.
Again I come back to the government's statement that they want things to be different. If you want things to be different, then you have to do them differently, and maintaining this power structure that allows the government to lower the boom when it suits them is the antithesis of a body that meets with a goal of consensus.
I think a reasonable person looking in from outside the Ottawa bubble would understand that if the government gets absolute control at the committee and absolutely everything from the steering committee has to go to the full committee, the government maintains 100% control. We're not arguing with that power structure, but what we are saying to anyone on the outside looking in is that the steering committee is where we're trying to agree on the rules of how we proceed, what witnesses to have in what order, and all the things that can take forever if ten of us sit there. You know the old saying about ten people writing a letter. That is in contrast to a smaller group without the political attention, without the cameras, without the games. You can't even win a vote. It's just working together. If we put that in place, at least we would have a little more democracy and a little more independence. It's only a little, but it matters. It matters when the government says that sometimes they'll have to. Well, all it takes is that one time, and the whole idea of that model is gone. It's either a consensus body or it isn't.
I wouldn't normally have made as big a deal of this with the previous government at the beginning of various Parliaments. I might reaffirm it at the individual committees, but clearly we're making this a big deal. I am making this a big deal on behalf of my caucus, because we believe in the idea of more independence for committees. We believe that independently ourselves. We believe it, so we support the government's initiative to do it, but you're not going to get a pat on the back just for a nice speech with a nice smile. It has to be more than that, and this is little. There will be a lot of people who watch what happens here who will be paying an awful lot of attention. It will not be the general public, but there are people who pay an awful lot of attention to what goes on. They understand very clearly how important these internal matters are, and given that PROC is the first committee, it really is setting the template.
I know my friend Mr. Angus will be going to his committees and arguing for the same thing. If he can use PROC as an example and say, “Look, they clearly made it understood that it is consensus only, so how could we do it any differently here”, it's going to carry a lot of weight. I would think that by then the government's message would be that they're at least going to loosen the PMO's control over the steering committee, where we get along anyway.
Most of the rules of the committees are like that. In public accounts it was always that way, until the government eliminated the steering committee. That could be your next step, but it also would be the antithesis of what you were saying, so I come back to my argument again and say to the government that this is not a big deal. I think, Mr. Lamoureux, you're making a big mistake, unless this is another example of same old same old and this committee really is under marching orders and they've all been told to do what Mr. Lamoureux tells them to do and we're going to see that applied at all the committees.
If that's not the case, I don't know why on earth, Mr. Lamoureux, you are allowing this issue to become a big political deal, because if we don't get it resolved, it's still going to be hanging over us in the new year. It's not as though we have an unreasonable position. All I've asked in order to support your motion that there be two government members is that we stay with a consensus model. If you want to say that's not where we were last time, I don't care how you word it, but that's where we go now.
I want to do this. I have been impressed so far. I don't mind telling the government members that I was impressed, Mr. Lamoureux, that you responded as quickly as you did to the concerns I raised. As you know, when we did that in the past, we'd be heard out impatiently and then ignored, and they would move on. That was not by Randy, but there were those who would do that to us, so I do appreciate that you responded. I appreciate that. I continue to have to push you, but you do continue to respond, and that's good. A lot of us were absolutely flabbergasted that we actually had a real, open vote for the chair. In the past we used to call it an open vote, but when the government benches only put forward one name, it was kind of hard to find where the democracy was versus the command and control model. It looked the same, and in reality it was.
We were no better. We knew who the official opposition lead was going to be for vice-chair and we knew the third party vice-chair, which was a given. In the past we all knew those things ahead of time. This time the government said it was going to do things differently, and it did, and it was a thrilling exercise in democracy. I know Mr. Chan didn't take it personally, because I think he already knows the respect those of us who have seen him in action have for him. It was more a matter of experience. I keep saying that and I know it rubs the wrong way and I get that, but nonetheless, I think you'll come to agree over time that having someone with a lot more experience is actually to our benefit.
That's the way we saw it. Either way it's a Liberal, and when I go home at night, it doesn't matter to me which one of you is in the chair. However, it does matter in terms of how the committee meeting proceeds, and I think experience is an advantage. It's the same with the Speaker. I voted for the current Speaker. Of course everybody would say that now, but I did. There were some good candidates, but it was based on that experience of having sat on all sides of the House. When I became a deputy speaker at Queen's Park, I had been on the government side as a cabinet minister, had been in the third party, and had been a House leader, so I felt equipped. Whether I was up to the task was for my colleagues to determine, but I felt equipped to take the chair knowing and understanding where everybody was coming from.
All of that is to say those are good improvements. They are little teeny-tiny changes but good ones, so you get an attaboy or a happy face or a gold star or whatever you want. That was great, but it's small. Now we're starting to move into the area of power, and in a democracy, power is determined by a majority, a clear majority of 50% plus one. That is a clear majority and that's how we make decisions.
You still have that control here, but now you want to maintain it even though you say you won't use it. At least the Conservatives, to their credit, would say, “No, we're the government and nothing's coming out of that committee that we don't control. Next argument.” You were left making your arguments, but they didn't go anywhere. It would drive us crazy. Some might argue that's why the configuration of the House is now the way it is: because of that kind of attitude—present company excluded, of course.
Now we have a new government that says it wants to do things differently. You've done that tinkering around the edges. We've given you the full credit. No one's trying to deny you your right to be complimented for the fact that we have an elected chair and we actually had to have a vote because we had two names on the ballot. Do you remember the old Soviet Union? They used to say they had a great democracy, except that nobody else except their choices could run, and they'd call it an election and say they won. That's what we used to do around here. You've changed that. Congratulations, but that's the easy stuff. That's the low-lying fruit.
The tougher stuff—and this is why it's easy to make the pledge but not so easy to honour it—is that we're actually talking about power. What I'm suggesting here doesn't alter the power alignment. The government still wins every vote 10 times out of 10. The only thing we're talking about is whether the PMO still has a grip on the throat of the subcommittee of PROC or it doesn't. You don't have to give up...you're not losing anything other than a command-and-control power technique that should be the antithesis of what you have said you're going to bring for change. If all you do is change and tinker around the edges but at the end of the day the power play is still the same old same old, then the wrapping may be different, but it's still the same lump of coal as a gift.
Again, the government wants to continue to receive accolades and to be patted on the back for what they're doing because they've made a good start, but it's only a start, and it is not unreasonable.... I was so glad my friend Mr. Angus talked about Britain. I wish we all had a chance to either go there or have a presentation on it. I've never been there, but I've certainly watched a lot of their committee meetings through different committees. It's amazing. It's a whole different world.
I like to think that's where the current Prime Minister is looking, that it's to that kind of independence, where a committee is a committee and you don't lose your chance to be a parliamentary secretary or a cabinet minister by opposing something the government has brought forward, or questioning it, or by supporting an opposition amendment that just, in your gut, in your experience, makes sense. It sounds like that's what should be happening all the time. In the past, you didn't have to be here too long to realize that's not necessarily how things function when the rubber hits the road.
Again, the government is not going down the road of the previous government and saying “Too bad, so sad.” They're saying, “No, we're still maintaining that we want to be different, that we want to open up the committees.” Here's the first chance where it really matters. All we're saying is to let the subcommittee act in a non-partisan way. Where it comes to agreement, which is most of the time, and when it comes forward with positive recommendations, you in the government still can change your mind and kill them if you want to. You don't lose anything other than hyper-control.
Hyper-control is saying as soon as the thing starts that you have this issue by the throat and you're not going to let go until you get the outcome you want. That's where we were. This government says they're going to take us somewhere else, and yet the first time we talk about power at committees, you're right back where the government members were, and there's no real argument for it except, “We want control, super control, maximum control—all control.” We've been there. You ran against that.
This is an easy one. It really makes me wonder about some of the other changes you want to make. Are you really that serious? All we're saying is to let the members of the steering committee come together.... In many ways it's the grunt work of committees, because you're sitting down and hammering out which witness can't make it at such a time because the clerk says they were contacted and they can only do it at that time, so how about if you need a special meeting to do that or you need to change the times.... These are the kinds of variables there are when you're working together.
You're not thinking of the agenda. You're really not. Unlike the other committees, it's not just policy where the government agrees, the opposition disagrees, and there are a few exceptions. We deal with an awful lot of things here that are not partisan. For instance, if any one of you or any one of our colleagues—my friend Mr. Angus knows more about this than I do in terms of the process—is accused of acting in an unparliamentary fashion or of denying privileges to other members, or if there is anything to do with a member, with ethics, and it goes to the Speaker, as soon as the Speaker thinks there's an issue, guess where he sends it. Here.
I don't know about the new members, but I'm pretty sure I know the former government members and my own colleagues well enough, and I have to tell you that if it's my reputation hanging by a thread, I'd like to know that at least the consideration of how I'm going to be dealt with is going to be decided in a non-partisan fashion. I'd like to know that when there is an agreement about how to proceed about my integrity, my reputation, my political life, my representative on that committee agrees that the process is fair. That's why this matters.
I don't need the attention. I don't need the headlines. Like all of you, I just got elected, and for better or worse, I'm here for four years. You'll find over time that I get far more enjoyment out of working together than fighting, although I do it. I'm kind of good at it. I'm from Hamilton and that's what we do, and when it's necessary I try to rise to the occasion, but after all these decades, it's not my favourite thing. My favourite thing is that when we have a huge problem, we all have an interest in finding a solution that's not partisan. Trust me, that's when you really feel excited, because then you are really making a difference.
As you know, on a lot of committees, especially those like public accounts, we try to come up with unanimous reports. If we get a unanimous report where it's positive for the government, it's deserved, and where it's negative, it's deserved, because everyone has supported it. If it's just a report that says the government says the Auditor General was wrong and the government is wonderful, while the opposition members say no, the Auditor General was right, they're all wrong, and it's horrible, what have we achieved? It's the process, but what have we really achieved?
When we have agreement, then we're getting somewhere. Again, Chair, the whole idea is to make this committee work. I know that members are getting tired of hearing this. They're thinking, “My God, how long can that guy go? Is this really that important?” But I'm going to tell you that what we do right now.... I thought it was interesting when Mr. Chan, I believe, said that if it doesn't work, we can bring it back in a few months. Well, It doesn't work like that. Whatever rights the opposition fails to get in the early days of setting the rules are rights they are never going to get, because what happens is that the politics of the day take over. We each get entrenched into our situations.
If you think it's hard to let go of power now when you've really just started to get control of it, wait till you see how difficult it is six or twelve months down the road when you've been exercising that power and are glad you got it because the pesky opposition is making your life difficult and you see how nice it is to be able to step in and make them go away. That's the reality.
So with the greatest of respect, Mr. Chan, the whole idea that we could bring this back for review sounds good, but in the real world, it doesn't work that way and doesn't hold.
Let me try this. In the interest of trying to find some agreement in these dying moments, Mr. Chan, rather than six months of going with the government having all the power, maybe we could set it up in such a way that it is consensus and we revisit it in six months. Do the consensus for six months and let the government experience what it's like when the oxygen of democracy comes into a steering committee. Then, if they still believe that we're stifling their electorally given right to govern, let's bring it back and hash it out in public and we'll talk about what our experience has been. I suspect that our experience will be exactly the experience that Mr. Lamoureux has talked about in the past, which I've affirmed, and which Mr. Reid has commented on, which is that usually we do get along.
If that's the case, Kevin, this is a slam dunk, man.
I can't believe you're going to let this committee go in a couple of minutes without this being resolved. You're going to report back there, and your one responsibility was to make sure that this committee got its independence, and got set-up out of the way, so that you could actually leave the stage.
You have to go back and report, “I failed. Oh, and by the way, we're now going to have a big issue about whether or not the Liberals will demand to have control at steering committees.” Really? That's really what you want the narrative to be going into the Christmas break and into the new year? Because that's where we're heading.
I've offered you a reasonable response. I've just offered you another reasonable amendment. The only way I could be more reasonable in your eyes, it would seem, would be to completely cave and collapse. That's not going to happen, because this is important.
I don't know why you're letting it become a cause célèbre. There are people out there who care about these things. Ever heard of Kady O'Malley? She knows these things better than most of us in this place. They matter to her, and she has a great ability to convey to the outside world why it matters to them.