Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2017

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

I thank my honourable friend for his observations. He has great experience, and reflects that in his comments.

Chair, I was wondering whether through you I could ask the member a question.

Am I correct, in extrapolating the argument you're making, to include the fact if this were a give-and-take discussion, a real discussion, like the ones we've had in the past and you're alluding to, and this was really what we were engaged in here, not only would we have an opportunity to have a healthy and wholesome debate around the proposals of the government but it equally would afford the opposition an opportunity to put items on the floor too?

Right now the only thing we're focusing on is the demand list in that discussion paper from the government. Yet it would seem to me that what would be most productive, based on the history you're reflecting on—I was part of those discussions at different times throughout different Parliaments—if we had that kind of understanding where we were really going to respect one another, where nobody was reserving the right to say that if they lost the debate they were going to ram through the result they wanted. If that were removed, would it not, in that healthy environment, provide an opportunity for members of the opposition to put front and centre, and to have equal weight of consideration, changes that we think would improve the business of Parliament and the representation we're all here to give, rather than be reduced to one discussion paper, the demands of the government, and their position that we can have all the discussion we want, but if they don't like the result, they're going to use their majority vote to ram it through?

Would the honourable member agree that going to a process that allows that kind of respect, in which nobody is reserving the right to ram through a result when they're not happy with fair discussion, would actually lead to new ideas from the opposition, given that the opposition as well as the government has positive contributions to make to our Parliament?

I pose that question to my honourable friend.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

It's an excellent point, David. You're exactly right. The process I established was that each party would have the opportunity to bring forward a shopping list of proposed changes. As I mentioned earlier, all of the members of that committee, of which your current parliamentary secretary to the government House leader was a member, went back to their caucuses, held a fulsome discussion on changes they would like to recommend, and came back to the table. Some of the changes that were enacted, frankly, were recommended by members of the opposition, as you well know, David. In fact, had we not been sidetracked by other priorities at the committee, I think there would have been a number of changes that went beyond what we had already done, which was approved by all members.

Historically that's what has always happened. The process has ended with numerous changes being made over the years to the Standing Orders, but always benefiting the way in which Parliament operates. Why has it improved the method in which we operate? It is because all parliamentarians agreed to it; they all saw the benefits. They all saw the rationale behind a change being implemented and agreed that it would improve not just the efficiency of Parliament but the democratic process under which we all operate. That's why throughout history, when this issue of the Standing Orders is examined, it goes almost without saying that unanimous consent must not only be sought but received.

As an example, I listened with great interest to my colleague from the Bloc Québécois showing their perspective on what they would like to see with respect to the discussion paper brought forward by the government. That's healthy. Whether or not the government agrees with any of their perspectives, whether or not opposition members agree with any of their perspectives, the mere fact that they have the ability to express them and present an argument is healthy for democracy. Yet for some reason this government seems hell-bent on denying members of the opposition the ability to discuss in a meaningful way changes that might benefit all of us.

I just can't get my head around that. I simply don't understand it. If some member of the government wants to take the floor, perhaps I would gladly cede my time, if you can simply explain to me why seeking unanimous consent is not a laudable objective.

As I said at the outset, the position that the government continues to maintain is that they as a government want to modernize Parliament.

They do not have that right. Only Parliament has the right to modernize itself.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

The government is not Parliament. We are, as we sit around this table.

Having gone through this exercise before, I can assure members of the government, from my experience in dealing with parliamentarians from all political backgrounds over the course of the last 14 years, that when a discussion of Standing Orders comes along there is a willingness from all political perspectives to get it right and to make changes, if necessary, that strengthen, not inhibit, our ability to do our jobs.

I have spoken with many very learned procedural experts about the Standing Orders over the course of the last number of years, because that was my job. I had to know these things.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I'm sorry, but on a point of order, just before the speaker goes on to the next point, I'm wondering whether I could ask my colleague a question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Yes.

I'd like to welcome Candice Bergen, official opposition House leader, and Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, the NDP whip, to the discussion tonight.

It's great to have you in the room.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thanks very much, Chair. I appreciate that welcome.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Ms. Bergen, go ahead.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Tom, before you go on to your next point, I want to go back to your point about it not being the government's right to change the rules of Parliament just because they have the ability to do so as they have the majority.

I'm thinking about how this all started. I guess it is now about three weeks ago that I received an email from Ms. Chagger, my colleague Bardish. It was late on a Friday afternoon, and she said in her email that she was giving me a heads-up that she was going to be releasing her discussion paper around possible changes to the Standing Orders and that she wanted to let me know and let me have a copy. I thought that was great. I said thank you, and basically within 20 minutes or half an hour I had a copy, and I think immediately she released it publicly. That was the Friday before the break week, and we all went back to our ridings. I was reading it, but in my mind I thought we had some time to look at it, to digest it, and that there would then be a kind of process laid out concerning how we would work together.

To give context, there are certainly things that we do in public in the chamber, and those are more political, but usually when we have discussions behind closed doors, we really are very.... Keeping our word is really important in those backroom discussions. I'm not saying that she told me this wouldn't happen, but there was an indication that this was going to be a proper kind of process whereby we'd be able to look at the possible changes and then talk about where we would go from there.

It was only a few days later that I got word that Scott Simms had put the notice here that they would be bringing this motion to PROC. Then it became very clear that what I thought would be a process wouldn't be a process, and everybody here will know what happened.

Then we started asking questions in question period. The Conservatives, Scott Reid, put a motion forward to ask that there be a consensus before changes were made, and we started the public discussion around this, in hopes that we would be able to persuade the government that they were on the wrong path.

As we tried to have the discussions, whether it was during question period or through what was happening here in PROC, we kept hitting a brick wall. From my standpoint, I felt that I wasn't able to make Ms. Chagger understand what she was trying to do.

I wasn't wanting in any way to insult her. She has a ton of experience in various sectors, but when you're a new MP and you're immediately put into cabinet, you don't even get the benefit of sitting around a committee like this where you will learn so much. She never had the benefit of being able to do that and gain the historical benefit and experience.

I rather chalked it up to that: she just didn't quite get how things worked. It's been clear to me since then, however, and since she came forward in the last week saying that this was in the campaign platform, that they believe they have a mandate to fulfill that, and that Conservatives won't have a veto on it—which I think is sort of interesting, because she's not saying Conservatives and NDP and Bloc and Ms. May—that there's a little bit of a divide and conquer tactic going on there. But such is politics.

She said the Conservatives won't have a veto on their campaign platform. I'm trying to maintain and explain to her that the Prime Minister actually is not entitled to make a promise that is not within his purview to complete. He has the power, but he's not entitled to make that promise.

A hockey team that wins the Stanley Cup and gets to hold the cup up and travel around the country and be the Stanley Cup champions can't just say, “Because our team is really strong on defence, we're now changing the rules of hockey and making it really good for teams that have a strong defence.” That's not the way the hockey league is set up. Now, certainly if all the teams and the commissioner came together and there was agreement, the rules of hockey could change, but the winner of the Stanley Cup doesn't get to make those changes.

Tom, I wonder whether you can help explain this. I don't know, maybe many of our Liberal colleagues understand this and are in the position of not being able to persuade their leadership of this fact, but it's so vital.

This isn't just about legislation that we don't like. Often there is legislation we don't like. We have speakers, and at some point the government moves time allocation. We don't put forward frivolous motions. We recognize that we put up the best fight we can with the tools we have and that the legislation is going to pass. We've seen lots of legislation go forward, but this is different from legislation. This isn't about scoring a goal on the ice. This is about changing the rules of the theatre we're in.

This is what I'm feeling frustrated about and we can't seem to get that across to the Liberals. I don't know whether it's through some of my other colleagues or how the colleagues across the way feel about it, but this is what is challenging. As much as the Prime Minister wants to be able to fulfill some of these things—and frankly, he could fulfill them without changing the Standing Orders.... He can show up every Wednesday and answer all the questions. I'm sure this point's been made.

Tom, I think with your experience and how long you've been here you could tell me, is this stubbornness? Is this almost obstruction on the part of the government or do you think they're really just not understanding the difference?

Thank you very much for this time.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

To be honest, I believe that members opposite, particularly backbench members, understand completely what's at stake here. As I said before and firmly believe—this is not to insult any members opposite, because I have great respect and great regard for many members, particularly of the Liberal Party, whom I've come to know through committee and through other personal interactions—this is not any of their doing. This is not a desire that has been brought upon the government House leader from backbenchers clamouring for changes to the Standing Orders. This was purely and simply an initiative brought down from the PMO. They are the people orchestrating this. We all know that, and I won't belabour the point.

Goodness knows that when we were in government we had many initiatives that the PMO wanted to bring forward, and on many occasions we followed through with them. This, however, is different. This goes beyond, as Candice said, any particular piece of legislation, which the government in a majority configuration has the absolute right to bring forward. This is about changing the rules of the game.

Candice, just before you came in I said that I'm sure many speakers before me have used the sporting analogy. I used a different one. I didn't use hockey. I used football. The winning team doesn't have the right to change the rules. That's not the way the game is played. Some would equate politics to a big game, but nonetheless, it simply cannot work that way.

Let me give you another perspective that perhaps you hadn't thought of. I gave you a brief history of how closure came into effect. That was in 1913. It wasn't used again, to my knowledge—at least it wasn't used extensively, and I don't think it was used at all—until 1956 during the great pipeline debate. Then in 1969 time allocation was brought in.

One of the great ironies there was that the outcry from opposition members about the unilateral attempt by the Trudeau government of the time to bring in time allocation was so intense that they had to use closure to pass the time allocation bill.

Think of this, however. Had Parliament not enacted closure in 1913, what would be the situation today? I can certainly recall vividly from when we were in government, because we used time allocation more than 100 times to speed through legislation, the many arguments coming from both of the opposition parties. Our government wouldn't have had the ability to do this. We'd be still debating and looking for consensus somehow, but what this government is trying to do goes far beyond simple closure or time allocation. It goes far beyond that.

I would also suggest that it would be wise of members of the government party opposite who sit on this committee, if they have not already done so, to seek out some independent procedural advice from experts in parliamentary procedure.

Perhaps not all of you, but some of you I am sure are familiar with the late Jerry Yanover, who was a brilliant procedural expert. We have one of our own in our caucus by the name of John Holtby. Between them, those two knew more about procedure than probably any human beings whom I'm aware of. I can assure members opposite of one thing: if Jerry Yanover were alive today, he would be advising you to stop what you're doing.

In fact one of your more learned former colleagues, Mr. Paul Szabo, has had some extremely critical comments about your attempts to change the Standing Orders. I'm sure all of you are aware of those comments, which appeared in the The Hill Times, I believe just today.

Derek Lee, another former Liberal member of Parliament, again a very learned procedural expert—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

He wrote a book on part of our procedures.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

He most certainly did.

He opposes what you're attempting to do. It's not just the opposition members trying to prevent you from doing something because we feel it would harm us politically; we're talking about people who have studied procedure all their adult lives, who have written publications, who are acknowledged as experts in the field, and who are Liberals in some cases. They are saying, “This is wrong; what you are trying to do absolutely is wrong.”

You know that yourselves. I'm not asking you to admit it here, because you are the loyal soldiers. You're going to follow instructions, but you know in your hearts that this is wrong.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

We need to start talking about what's right.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Yes, what is right, absolutely, Mel....

Wayne Easter, another one of your long-time and learned colleagues, yesterday in a comment about the privilege motion before the House made comments to this effect as well.

Let's just get together and do things that are right for Parliament. We are willing to talk at any time. I can assure you that Candice, as our House leader, has offered on several occasions to sit down to see whether we can hammer out some sort of agreement here.

I don't particularly like filibustering for hours on end, but I will, as will all of my colleagues, because we have to. If we don't, it will allow your government to unilaterally change the Standing Orders by pumping it through a committee report. We simply can't allow that to happen, and I firmly believe that anyone who has a solid knowledge of parliamentary procedure would agree with us.

We've talked about the Paul Szabos and the Derek Lees, and there are many, many others. Consult them, if you don't believe me. Don't take my word for it—I don't expect you to—but consult some of these procedural experts and get their opinions. You will find that they do not agree with the approach you are trying to take.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

They have two weeks now. They can go and consult with their constituents. I think they'll get some interesting feedback from their constituents.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Absolutely. Have a town hall meeting and say, “Here's what we're trying to do. We're trying to change the rules, the way Parliament operates, unilaterally.” See how that goes over. It won't. Of course, I'm sure that's not how you would wordsmith it, but nonetheless....

Those Canadians who are following this debate, and there seem to be more and more of them on a daily basis, are agreeing with the position of the collective opposition. This is not a Conservative-led initiative to oppose what you're trying to do. This is not something the NDP solely is trying to do. This is not something the Bloc and the Green Party are trying to do on their own. In fact, how often can you find an issue that galvanizes the entire opposition as this has done? The answer is very rarely.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

They succeeded there.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Yes, If that's what you're looking for—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Well done.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

—good on you. You've done a very bang-up job.

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

I love the way you guys are together. It's great.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Well, David, listen. I respect you. You know that I like you, and you can laugh about this now. You were one of those elected by a very skinny margin. You don't need this. You do not need this.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

David Graham.