Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Jan. 28th, 2016

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the government House leader for being here.

First of all, I wanted to go back to some of the comments I listened to from my colleagues on the other side. I'm not sure I completely agree with the characterization.

Let me start with the issue of parliamentary secretaries and perhaps how we've been conducting ourselves here. As my friend Mr. Christopherson has noted in the past, a lot of us are relatively new parliamentarians. Obviously, we want to draw upon an experienced parliamentarian regardless of what his role happens to be before this particular committee. I think the role of parliamentary secretaries will be much more significant in other committees particularly in standing committees where not only is the parliamentary secretary bringing the expertise of a specific ministry to the table, because in many ways that individual will be the best informed individual, but also that person is here to ultimately facilitate our work before this particular committee. I simply want to say that I welcome the ongoing advice and mentorship that Mr. Lamoureux has been providing me in my new role as deputy government House leader.

With all due respect, I don't see any direction coming from my colleague. It's simply to better understand how the rules in fact actually operate. You saw how we operated in the last sitting of this particular committee. We came to a consensus on one particular issue and we split our votes across the aisle on another one. Let's see how we ultimately practise. I would simply implore my colleagues on the other side to give this a shot.

I want to address one particular issue with the government House leader rather than just making a long speech. That's with respect to the issue of decorum. I want to go back to some of the practices in the House. For example, there is one specific suggestion that came from Jason Kenney about perhaps removing clapping from the House, and I want to know whether the House leader thinks this would in fact make the House itself a more collegial place. What would be the appropriate way in which we would conduct ourselves that would be more reflective of the mother of parliaments, the United Kingdom Parliament, in terms of appropriate decorum.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Arnold I share your view on the parliamentary secretary's circumstance. Obviously, I benefit enormously from the advice of Mr. Lamoureux, his counsel, and his friendship. He has, in our view, a very easy access to some of the senior officials in the Privy Council office, including my deputy minister and others, who support me as the House leader. It can be useful to committee members as you're looking at a whole series of issues for Kevin to be able to quickly and efficiently access some of the senior advice.

Arnold, with respect to the clapping, do you know what? You're right—it uses up time. The Speaker was a bit late, I guess, getting to question period. We finished question period and it was 3:30. If that incrementally starts happening, colleagues will miss other meetings, committees will get delayed, and witnesses will wait. If it was the consensus in this committee that this kind of manifestation.... I'm not sure whether people like it on TV. If you're in the House, the validity of an answer or a point shouldn't necessarily go with the volume of clapping. It does use up time. Colleagues get cut off in questions or answers because the Speaker includes the clapping time in those transactions. That may be a very useful suggestion to improve decorum.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

That's your time, Mr. House Leader.

Now we're moving into the second round, which is a five-minute round.

We'll start with Mr. Reid.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I might do the opposite of what Mr. Christopherson did. I'll ask you individual questions and wait for your response on each one, and then we'll see where that takes us.

I want to say, however, that I very much agree with the compelling nature of your mandate letter. I read it to our children every night before bed. It puts them to sleep. I'm hoping the illustrated edition will be out soon.

I wanted to ask you a simple question to start. Regarding the changes that involve standing order changes, is it your intention that this committee do that work and then submit a report to the House or do you have another mechanism in mind?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm glad to hear that your children enjoy the mandate letter as much as I do. We're hoping to get a YouTube version of it in English and French.

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

I actually rapped it to them.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

The Prime Minister's schedule is such that he and I are trying to get to a studio together to do it. It's comforting to know that they go to sleep knowing that Canada is a better place. I thank you for that.

Again, Scott, my preference would be that this committee could, if you can arrive at a consensus or a process, quickly recommend some changes and bring those in as a report. We would be wide open to another mechanism. If you would prefer to make suggestions in some form of a more informal report, then I would turn it into a government motion, number whatever, and we would have a debate on it. I would be open to that as well.

It's really a question of what we all think is the most effective use of parliamentary time and your committee time. If you have the time to do a report that would achieve common objectives, we would be wide open to that process. If you have a better suggestion, we would certainly be open to that as well. You have a lot of experience with this stuff, more than I do, Scott. Whatever process you and your colleagues here at this table would find useful, I think would be one that I would want to start with.

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

I have just two suggestions, then.

One is that I think it would make sense for us to look at things on which we have a greater degree of consensus and put those forward. There's no need for there to be a single report. It would be helpful to take on the things that we can all agree on quickly, especially because right now we have a fairly limited number of things on our agenda. That will get worse as time goes on in this committee.

The second thought I had was that.... You know what? I've forgotten my second thought, to be honest. I started going back to your mandate letter and it just crowded that out—

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I know, you get delirious reading it, Mr. Chairman. I understand that, but—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Scott, you make a very valid point. If we can quickly arrive at that consensus—I think that's what I said in my opening comments less eloquently than you just did—on five items that we could quickly turn into standing order changes, I would urge you to consider doing that quickly and first. If other items require more study, or you need to hear from witnesses, or you can't get to a consensus or arrive at a conclusion, they could be put off for a subsequent time when the committee would judge that it wants to go back to them.

I think what I was trying to say is that if we're going to make some of these improvements, I would hope that we would make them sooner so we could all benefit from them for a longer period of time in this Parliament.

I don't want to be a cynic, and nobody here who knows me would think that I would be at all cynical about these things. There is, I think, as David said in his comments, and maybe Ginette and others, an amount of goodwill that I hope we can make last for the entire Parliament, teasing aside.

But as significant pieces of legislation land, there will be very complicated policy issues, and if we can in the short term arrive at some changes, let's take advantage of the goodwill that I think we all see. It's not perfect, and it may not be always at the same level, but let's take advantage of what goodwill there is now if we can arrive at some changes.

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

I do remember my other point, which is simply this. It may make sense with some things to put them forward as temporary standing order changes and see how they work out. We can give it a year, or whatever the committee decides, but that is one way of greasing the skids for something that not everybody is 100% sure about.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

We would be open to that as well, to have them sunset, or to find a way, not to take up parliamentary time.... If they proved to be as effective as we hope they would, then they would stay. If not, there would be a mechanism by which you would revert to the other Standing Orders. Again, that seems to me to be a perfectly appropriate suggestion.

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

I think I'm out of time, so thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You have 15 seconds.

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

All right. In that case—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

The designation of Tuesdays as two sitting days, I would assume, would have the effect of causing any current standing order that refers to the number of sitting days not to be changed in terms of how long the government has to report back, to respond to something, and that kind of thing. Is that right?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

That is my understanding, but to be honest, I am not.... This was a conversation I had with our Acting Clerk in a hallway where he said to be careful because there are these downstream consequences, so I offered that as one suggestion that I'm told other parliaments have used, but your views and the views of the committee on that exact issue would be important.

It is not intended.... There's no trick in it, but I want to be up front. I cannot be in a situation where we would agree to something that would have a very significant reduction of our ability to move government legislation forward. That's no secret here, so finding the right balance, we would be wide open to that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you, Mr. House Leader.

We have a five-minute round for Liberals.

Ms. Sahota.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Minister, thank you for being here today.

Coming back to the point about a family-friendly Parliament, I was talking with one of my NDP colleagues a couple of days ago. I had a very difficult time making the decision to run in this election because I have a young son myself, but she is trying to manage a child under one at this point. She was saying that the day care facility here doesn't take children until 18 months. I think that's a difficult issue for her.

As well, once I became aware of what the schedule here in Ottawa is, I saw that it's a very gruelling schedule. I don't usually get back to my place—I'm choosing to stay at a hotel right now—from the office until nine or 10, because I have constituency work to do when I get back to the office around seven or eight. That's why I've made the decision not to bring my son here. I figure I won't even see him when he's here.

But what do parents do who bring their children here? The day care ends at a certain time. I've seen it closed when I usually get back to my office, and for those who have children that are under 18 months, how can they serve?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thanks for those comments. You reflect—you personally, but I think all sides of the House now—a very positive trend toward having younger members of Parliament elected, including young parents. The NDP caucus in the last Parliament was, frankly, a huge step forward in making our Parliament more conscious of some of those challenges, and it continued, thankfully, in the last election as well.

Your specific question around child care hours and the rules around when children can be left in the appropriate child care facility are properly the purview of the Board of Internal Economy. I sit on the board. All parties have representatives on the board. We should and can look at that, because other colleagues have raised it. The NDP whip raised a version of that concern. I think there certainly would be a willingness to fix that. It's an administrative financial issue, I think. I'm no expert in how to operate high-quality child care facilities, but I think these issues can be resolved.

To be honest, though, it will have to be done in a way such that Canadian taxpayers are treated respectfully in terms of what is the portion that we would expect parents to pay, versus the employer. I think to be fair those issues have to reflect what's done in other jurisdictions.

Kevin, do you want to add something on the family-friendly piece? Do you have comments?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

I think the only thing I would acknowledge is the fact that we need to recognize that the issues we raise on this side are shared on all sides of the House. As the House leader made reference to, we need to work with all MPs from all political parties. I think that today, more than in the past, there seems to be a lot of goodwill there, for a number of different reasons. The official opposition, the third party, and the government all seem to have an interest.

I think it's coming up. Each caucus has their respective commission flowing ideas, so that some of them will go through BOIE, while others might come back here in terms of what sorts of rules we can change in the Standing Orders. Some of this is outside PROC's jurisdiction, but collectively I would think that the parties working together would be able to get it done in dealing with child care and other issues, if that helps.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Schmale.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the time.

I too am the father of a young son, a four-year-old, so I welcome some of these suggested changes and look forward to working with my colleagues on this committee and hopefully making this a more family-friendly place. I welcome that discussion and look forward to it.

I want to quickly reference a few things that were mentioned.

Your party ran on openness and transparency. My first meeting was not too long ago, and again the parliamentary secretary was here and there, and then slowly moved away. Now, I understand that he's not a voting member, but the involvement was supposed to be removed. What I witnessed in that first meeting is that he was basically directing traffic. I know you said that about the experience, but it still goes to the issue that Mr. Christopherson mentioned about how you remove yourself from the majority government and how you become more independent. Again, as a new MP who was just elected, I heard what was going on throughout the election, and then I watched what happened in committee. They were two totally different things. If you want to expand on this, I'd be happy for you to do that.

Again, I'm concerned about the Senate process, with the list going in secret to the Prime Minister. In secret, the Prime Minister makes that recommendation, and you really never see the names. You really never see what is going on. I think that needs to be a little more transparent. I agree that change in the Senate needs to be done, but to me that secrecy doesn't change anything, really. It's still in secret and you don't actually see what's going on.

In terms of electoral reform, you may have said something different, but before Christmas you mentioned that you have ruled out any kind of referendum on this subject. I apologize if you've changed or if something happened after that.

I was at the minister's breakfast earlier this week. Everyone sat at a table and took suggestions. Everyone at the table had something different to say on electoral reform, every single person. There were eight people at the table, and we had eight different ideas, good or bad. At the end of the day when you choose somebody, you'll choose one method out of all these suggestions, and I think it's very tempting for any government in power to take the suggestion that benefits them and say that they've consulted Canadians and, “This is what they say”.

I urge you, Minister, to reconsider, if you haven't already, your stance on that referendum. I don't think it prejudges any process. I think you can still consult and you can still come up with the ideas, but at the end of the day, I think you look at that idea and say to the people, “This is what we've consulted on and how about this?” I think we really do need to have that referendum on this. You've seen it in other jurisdictions and I would urge you to look in that direction.