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

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

In the second round, yes. In the first round, I'm willing to allow the government to have that lead and to give more time on that fourth slot in the second round.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

Well, hope springs eternal, so I haven't completely given up on trying to get myself out of the fifth spot in the second slot, but it's another hill I'm not going to hold my breath on.

Let me just say to Mr. Lamoureux that I appreciate the fact that they're willing to discuss it, but it still leaves us with the same problem. The problem is that the government's getting a 12-minute run. That's the issue. I'm already in the spot where, if anybody gets jettisoned, we're gone. Those are the results of the election. I have to live with them.

In terms of the element of fairness in everything else—again, I wouldn't have a horse in this race—the problem is a government getting a 12-minute run at a committee. I don't mean the Liberal government, but any government. That's a huge advantage I've never seen before. I think the government has to recognize that as the problem. Quite frankly, to be fair, I thought the official opposition made a very fair suggestion.

I recognize, Mr. Lamoureux, that you're right. We have a lot of committees. Public accounts, of all the committees, is the premier oversight committee, and we had the government lead off. I don't think it's like that anywhere in the Commonwealth, so I recognize that it's to your credit that you were willing to put that the way it should be.

To be fair, I thought that for the official opposition to give up that spot to give the government some latitude to break up the 12-minute run was pretty fair-minded too. You know yourself that when this place is packed and everybody's paying attention, the first up gets the greatest attention. I thought it was something for the official opposition to give that up.

Your counter-proposal, Mr. Lamoureux, still leaves us with.... I might point out that negotiations are still happening with the parliamentary secretary, not anybody else. I would say in fairness that the 12-minute run thing is still there, and that's the real problem. That really is a problem. I'm not aware of any other committee where a government member has ever had a 12-minute run structurally built in. Man, I'd give my political right arm to have that at every meeting I started to go to.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We're still on the amendment. Let's carry on with further debate on the amendment.

Mr. Richards.

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

I thought for a minute there that it seemed as though we had some willingness to try to cooperate and make this work. In the absence of that, it seems the government is simply making an attempt to appear to be offering something to the opposition but is actually trying to benefit themselves.

It's unfortunate that they're seeking to basically have more time in the committee than their seat count would indicate. We thought we were trying to be reasonable and offer something that could work for everybody so that the committee would be fair and equitable. It appears that this is simply another example of the Trudeau government, a smoke-and-mirrors situation where what they're saying is one thing and what they're doing is another thing. It's really unfortunate if that's the route they're going to go down. I hope they'll reconsider and accept our reasonable offer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Is there any further debate on the amendment?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Am I hearing from the government side that they're going to stick with demanding 12 minutes? Is that...? Here we go again.

Here we go again on the easy stuff—the easy stuff—and I say that as somebody who benefited from this. I appreciate it, three minutes or 3%, whatever it was. Everything is relative, right?

But I have to tell you this. To demand a 12-minute run? Even Harper didn't demand that. Apologies to present company, but it's about the most anti-democratic, other than.... After I left the Harris experience in Queen's Park, it took until I ran into Harper to find anybody nearly as undemocratic, and they didn't try to do this. Twelve minutes is a big, big, deal.

The government just won't.... Here we go again. They're all looking down, talking to each other. Once again, this is the way.... The government wants to do things differently, but what I'm telling you is that you're exactly like the last government. They did exactly the same thing. They made their arguments that they thought were reasonable and shut up and wouldn't say anything more. They buried their heads in their books and played with their smartphones and their iPads and chatted with each other, but would not engage seriously because they'd made up their minds.

Again, this is the easy stuff. What evidence is there that this government is at all serious about democratic reform? Even their preferred voting method, which they're talking about now, everyone is acknowledging is skewed in their favour. We'll see how that plays out.

Here we are again at committee, the one area where the government said they were going to be more transparent, with more accountability and less partisanship, and at every turn where we've tried to get them to recognize that there's a little more fairness that can be brought to this very easily, it's “No, no, no, we've made up our minds, we've decided, that's it, we don't want to hear any more”. They go quiet, like Harper's people did. They'll sit there and say nothing, and we have two choices over here. We can filibuster, and you can't filibuster everything, or we just acquiesce.

Then this goes away as an issue, and for the next four years we live with the government getting a 12-minute run. Let me tell you, when the government is under attack because of the witnesses who are coming forward, having a 12-minute run to take the public away from where the last series of questions and answers had them to where they want to be is a gift directly from heaven. It doesn't get any better. Trust me, that's from somebody who has a measly three minutes at the end of the second round, which likely I'm going to be lucky to see.

But as much as I'd like this to be about us, it isn't. It's about fairness. Again, I say to the government that a 12-minute run, when we measure these things by the minute and when percentages are all calculated to the decimal point, is a big deal in terms of how we run our committees.

I see a lot of activity over there, but I don't know whether that's the next issue they're working on and this one is already old, or whether there's still hope that the government may decide that maybe they'd let a little fairness in.

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

[Inaudible—Editor]

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Well, it's nice to hear you speak, though. It's nice to see you jump in. We appreciate that. It gives Mr. Lamoureux, the parliamentary secretary, a chance to get a rest from being the one who's leading all the discussions, which is another reform that they've already broken, by the way. I mean, you're racking them up pretty quick around here: boom, boom, boom.

But I have to tell you this. I'm defending the opposition, but really what I'm defending is fairness. This is not fair. It is so not fair that even the Harper government didn't attempt to ram through this kind of scenario.

Now we know why they threw a few crumbs to the NDP and a couple of percentages to the official opposition. It was because they hoped that would be enough to buy them this incredibly lucrative political gift of having the floor for 12 minutes straight with a witness or a series of witnesses. It's not fair. This government said fairness would matter. When are they going to start showing it? When?

Because they're not showing it yet. It's all talk. It's talk, talk, talk, sunny ways, talk, talk, talk, sunny ways, change, democracy, transparency, non-partisanship, talk, talk, talk. When it's time to do something, it's nope, and arms crossed, no way, end of debate: “We'll just wait and use our majority to shut down the pesky opposition again”. That's where we are, and you know what? We just spent 10 years in that, and this government was elected with a mandate to be different. Where's the difference?

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Ms. Vandenbeld.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We talk about fairness. I actually find it interesting that it's Mr. Christopherson, who has two chances to speak in every round, who is talking about those of us who.... One of us will not get a chance to speak because there are five members and there are four spots.

But I would like to propose an amendment.

Mr. Richards, you mentioned to me the fact that it's possible that we may not frequently get to number four in the second round—and that's something I'm not as familiar with—but I think what we could do to meet you halfway is that if we were to reduce the number of minutes in the second round for the first three questioners to five minutes, that would save us three minutes, and we would go five, five, five, and three minutes. That makes it more likely that we would get to that fourth spot in the second round.

I think that's only fair, because I do think it's important. We on this committee are all individuals—

Sorry?

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

What order would it be in?

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

The order would stay the same, but we would be reducing, so in fact we would be losing—

[An hon. member]

Instead of 12 minutes, it's only 11.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

In fact, if you look at the percentages compared to the previous Parliament, both opposition parties have more time to speak. This would be reducing our time more, but it would make it more likely that we would get to that fourth spot.

Just to meet you halfway, I think that would be fair also to individual members of the committee who as well want to have a chance to ask questions as individuals.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Richards.

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

Thank you.

I appreciate the offer there and the feeling there. If the government is quite certain that this would then make the fourth slot come up in most meetings, then why not make the switch so they don't have two slots in a row?

If they're quite certain that this proposal would then allow the fourth spot to exist, why not make the flip so there are not two Liberal spots in a row? That's still 11 minutes. It's a slight improvement, I suppose, but not much of a one. Make the flip, then, if you're so confident that the number four would then come up. Why not make it if you're so convinced that it will change the fourth spot and give that opportunity? I don't understand why you wouldn't make that flip.

The compromise has already been made. To give the government that length of time all in one stretch is certainly not fair, as has been pointed out many times, and if you're convinced that number four would then come up, why not make the flip? I don't see any reason why you wouldn't.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Lamoureux.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to be sensitive to what Blake and David are saying.

I must admit, Blake, that I'm a little bit surprised that you're prepared to surrender that first line of questioning, so maybe what we'll do is take advantage of that. If you're prepared to say that the government should have the first round of questions, I think we'll take that back.

What about the idea of seven minutes? Remember, the way it worked was that it was seven minutes at the very beginning. Are you content with the six minutes? The governing party starts off with six or seven minutes. It used to be seven minutes. What are your thoughts? I'd like to maybe come up with a proposal, but I want to get your sense on the amount of time for questioning.

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

I'm not quite certain exactly what you're asking there, Kevin. Are you indicating that you would want to change the whole first round to seven minutes? Or are you indicating that you want just that first slot to be seven minutes? What are you indicating?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

It seems to me that your preference is to go back to the old system, and I'm open to that, but the old system led off with seven minutes by the government, seven minutes by the official opposition, and seven minutes by the third party. You would do that whole first round with seven minutes, and then you would go to five minutes. Is that also your preference?

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

Well, no, that's not what I indicated, but give us a minute to consider that.

You're suggesting that the whole first round would then go to seven minutes, and the second round would become five minutes. Is that what you're indicating?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

I'm just trying to get a sense of what your preference would be, if we come up with a proposal,. Strictly thinking of that first round, is it seven minutes, six minutes, five minutes, or do you want to stay with the six minutes in terms of what's being proposed?

I want to make sure you're confident that you want to surrender that first line of questioning. That's a big one for me.

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

Why don't you give us a moment to give some thought to this, okay?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Okay.