Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Jan. 26th, 2016

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

I actually don't support this, Dave. This is purely for the purpose of receiving testimony. I can envision a situation in which there would be a witness testimony of some sort that is of particular interest to members of either the Bloc Québécois or to a Green MP and is for whatever reason not of interest.... Maybe it relates in some respect to the votability of their private member's bill or something like that. I actually can't think of a really convincing example. I'm just not sure that we should diminish their status here and their ability to come here.

It affects us. It doesn't affect the Liberals. In fact, let's say for the sake of argument that Elizabeth May was to hear witness testimony. If we weren't coming, she would have to prevail upon two Liberals to come in order to make the whole thing work. I just think diminishing their status and their ability to fully participate at the same level as us is something that I'm not sure we should give up.... On that basis, I think my inclination would be to vote against this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

I have no qualms with Mr. Reid's comments, other than I didn't see it as diminishing. I acknowledge that it is recognizing the status of recognized parties, but to say that it diminishes.... It's not preventing anyone from coming that otherwise could.

As I understand it, Chair, any member of Parliament can come and sit at a committee meeting, if they wish. They just can't speak unless they're given a spot from their party or somebody gives them the spot, and they're not allowed to vote. Any one of us can march into any committee meeting, sit down, start listening, and even ask questions if our caucus agrees. I don't see in any way that this diminishes their right. They would still have the right to come. In my view, the only difference is that if we were counting for a quorum, they wouldn't be part of that count. But it in no way diminishes their right to be there. Their status is no less than it ever was. Actually, this is a clarification more than anything.

I hear Mr. Reid's point. I have great respect for his thoughts on these kinds of matters. But I would disagree with the suggestion that passing the amendment takes away anything from any member of Parliament. It does not. In my view, it recognizes the importance of caucuses and recognized parties, and that if you're going to count quorum and you need at least one other opposition party there, it ought to be one of the two recognized parties.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Is there further debate, not on the motion but on the amendment?

We're ready to vote: we'd better read out an amendment....

Yes, Mr. Lamoureux.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Scott, if you don't mind, I don't quite understand. Could you perhaps focus on your concern in regard to it?

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

It's simply this. Right now the way it works is that this is just quorum for the purpose of getting testimony. In order to be able to receive testimony, you have to have either two government members and one opposition member, or two opposition members and one government member. That opposition member could be any member of the opposition.

Under the amendment, that member could only be from the New Democrats or the Conservatives. That means you could not have the committee sit to hear testimony if both the Conservatives and the NDP didn't want that. But for the sake of argument, it might be the case that the Greens or the Bloc wanted to have testimony and the government thought they were willing to go along with it. Effectively it diminishes....

To some degree, leaving it as is, not putting in the amendment, diminishes the capacity of ourselves and the New Democrats to prevent testimony from being taken. On the theory that in Parliament we should always default towards openness and more debate, I'm simply defaulting towards that direction.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Are there further comments on the amendment? We're ready to vote.

Mr. Christopherson, you're making the amendment. Do you want to read it out just so we're clear what we're voting on, for the record?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I move that where the current motion says, “including one (1) member of the opposition”, it would be amended to say, “including one (1) member of a recognized opposition party”. It would be the exchange of those words.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay.

All in favour of the amendment?

All opposed to the amendment?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

You have your work cut out for you.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

I'm going to vote following convention. I'm not always going to vote following convention, but I don't think it's worth breaking a convention of the House and committees on this particular motion.

The convention, as some of you who have been around here for a while know, is that when the Speaker or a chair breaks a tie, it stays with the convention. It stays with the status quo. It's a vote to not change.

The status quo when we came into this meeting was that there was no rule related to the subcommittee and the quorum of the subcommittee, so my vote, to maintain that status quo, is to vote no on the amendment.

(Amendment negatived)

Is that understood? Okay.

If there are no further amendments—someone could amend something on which they could get a majority—we'll go to the debate on the motion itself, as was originally presented by Ms. Vandenbeld.

Is there any further debate? Are you ready for the question?

(Motion agreed to)

Thank you, everyone, for this actually very constructive debate we're having. That was very interesting.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Chair, can I move to the next matter?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Sure.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

This deals with the time for opening remarks and questioning of witnesses.

It originally had read that witnesses be given 10 minutes to take their opening statement, and that during the questioning of witnesses the time allocated to each questioner be as follows: for the first round of questioning, seven minutes to a representative of each party in the following order....

I'm sorry, I should change that. Let me back up.

It should read that for the first round of questioning, six minutes to a representative of each party in the following order: Conservative, Liberal, NDP, and Liberal. For the second round, six minutes would be allocated for the following order: Liberal, Conservative, Liberal, Conservative. And then finally, on the last one....

Sorry, that's five minutes for a Conservative for number four; and then create a fifth slot for three minutes, allocated to the NDP.

That would total 50 minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Does anyone want that to be read again?

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

My apologies. Do you want me to read that again?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm not even looking for an amendment; an understanding would suffice that, from time to time, where we have more than one witness, we may want to massage some of the opening remark times, depending. If I may, that's the sort of work that normally the steering committee would look at and make those kinds of adjustments on.

With that understanding, my understanding is that there has been consultation with the parties. As much as it sucks being back in the third party, I accept the reality of where we are. I can live with this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Is there any further discussion?

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I'll read it out. Regarding time for opening remarks and questioning of witnesses, it says that witnesses will be given 10 minutes to make their opening statement; and that during the questioning of witnesses the time allocated to each questioner is as follows: for the first round of questioning, six minutes to a representative of each party in the following order: Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Liberal; for the second round, six minutes to be allocated in the following order: Liberal, Conservative, Liberal, then for the fourth slot, it would be a Conservative for five minutes, and then for the fifth slot, the NDP would be allocated three minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Is there discussion on the motion?

Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I appreciate the attempts being made to be reasonably fair here, although I will point out that this is certainly a bit of a change from previous practice. I think there is one amendment that needs to be made here. I'll point out why first, and then I'll explain.... Actually, no, I'll explain the amendment I'm suggesting.

In round two, I believe that the order should go Conservative, Liberal, Conservative, Liberal. That would actually bring us closer to how it was in the last Parliament, where we had fairly similar distribution amongst government, opposition, and the third party.

I don't have to tell anyone who's been around this Parliament for a while that, when we look at an hour-long panel, if you have a couple of witnesses, which is often the case, very often you're only going to get through six or seven of these slots, let's say. Therefore, what would happen is that those last couple of slots you've indicated, the last two being Conservative and NDP, those often would not actually take place. If you do a bit of analysis of that, it does weight this very heavily towards the government by allowing them that first and third slot in the second round rather than what we had done previously. If you look at the previous practice of this committee, this is a fair-sized change. If you look at the first six slots in this one, under the existing rules from the last Parliament, it would go Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Conservative, NDP, Conservative, which in the old Parliament was government.

The difference is that you've weighted the opposition speaking slots more heavily towards the end of the order, which we don't often get to. If you take those last couple of slots off.... We would often not see those happening. With those two slots it would be 42 minutes of questioning. That's often what you would see. Therefore, as the official opposition, we would actually get almost 6% less speaking time than what our seat count would indicate we should receive.

I'm not opposed to the actual times that have been allocated here. I just believe that in round two the opposition should come first, so it should go Conservative, Liberal, Conservative, and then Liberal, and then, of course, the NDP would remain as it is currently there. That would certainly provide a much fairer and more equitable speaking slot based on the number of seats that each party has in Parliament, so that every party is being treated equally and fairly, and each member of Parliament is being treated equally and fairly.

If the government is serious about trying to do that, I would suggest they would be comfortable entertaining that amendment.

I move that amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Can I make sure people understand your amendment? Read it, please.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

The amendment would be that, for round two, the first slot would go to the Conservative Party, the second slot would be Liberal, the third slot would be Conservative, the fourth slot would be Liberal, and then the fifth slot would be the NDP, with all the times remaining the same.