Evidence of meeting #55 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was opposition.
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Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
If we were to do that, could we have it so I would be the first on the list when we came back?
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
On that basis, I would seek unanimous consent of the committee, notwithstanding the normal rules and practices, to allow Mr. Simms to insert himself in the speaking list now, make a few comments, and then return to Mr. Richards for him to resume his comments.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
That's a great motion. Thank you for that.
Do we have unanimous consent on that?
Conservative
Liberal
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
It's almost good morning. Very quickly, I have a couple of points. Some things were brought up earlier, and some of this goes back to when Scott Reid was here, who certainly made points about Mr. McGrath's report from years ago. That is also what Mr. Christopherson said.
One of the important things I would stress is that we want to continue the work that committee was doing and take some of the ideas it put into its report, to incorporate them into what we're doing.
Some of the stuff, some of the ideas that were mentioned in the discussion report were just that: discussion ideas—for example, about Fridays. What spark started the conversation about what we do about Friday? It wasn't about getting Friday off, as the narrative has been spun.
Friday is a four-and-a-half-hour half day. There are so many things you cannot do on Friday. Fridays could be far more effective in two ways. Either you take those hours and apportion them into another direction or you must make Friday a full day.
I have no problem if Mr. Richards wants to have a full day on Friday. So be it. I'm all for it. The point is that Friday right now is not a very effective tool in Parliament.
They said in Parliament that the average Canadian works on Fridays. I agree.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
But the average Canadian goes to work at 8:30 in the morning. We go to work at 10. Why can't we go to work at 8:30?
The average Canadian works in January. We, too, could do that. The average Canadian works in September, and we could do that as well.
That time gets apportioned out, so that's one part of the argument. I'm glad I'm given this opportunity to talk about those elements because that's been spun, I think, in the wrong direction. Again, this is a discussion paper that we wanted to start with. We may very well end up with a report in the same spirit of the McGrath report in 1985. We just have to get to that point where we start on this report.
At this point I don't even want to talk about the past. Let's juxtapose it.... I just said I won't, but I guess I will.
On Bill C-23, Mr. Christopherson and others compared it with what we're doing here—not at all. Bill C-23 was tabled legislation, and that's it. This is not a motion that's been tabled. It's not even a study that we're predetermining as to what.... These are not recommendations written in stone.
I'll give you a good example. Scott Reid brought up the point about omnibus legislation, and one of the things we suggested was that maybe the Speaker can split omnibus bills. He may have a valid point. How does that happen? How do we get to that point? We can't get there until we have that discussion.
There are a few other details that are out there that are not entirely correct. We suggested the idea of a Prime Minister's question period; we didn't say it would be once a week. We said it would be a Prime Minister's question period. Why can't we have the Prime Minister accountable to the House for the entire period?
You see, this is the problem. We've been having a debate for the past 12 hours that I think has been a good one. Now I get a chance to rebut some of the stuff because, as I said, the Friday issue to me is about a half day. Canadians work Fridays, but they don't do half days. I don't know many Canadians who can go home at 1:30 or 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I suggest to Mr. Richards, stick around, do a full Friday, because Friday has to change. You either take that time, or you put it somewhere else. It's like one of those workers who opts for a 12-hour shift with more days off as opposed to a worker with an eight-hour shift who works more days. That option is available to many employees across this country—and rightly so. It's not an exercise in getting Friday off, as has been mischaracterized.
In the spirit of goodwill, a lot of times we've said, “I don't know what you do in your riding, but I work”, and people insinuate that they don't work when they're home. We all do. For goodness' sake, there isn't an MP out there who goes home and just sits at home and doesn't bother going out into their constituency. We all have offices. Let's not get into that game, but let's call it like it is.
This is the discussion paper that starts or is the genesis of a conversation that may well turn into the report that Mr. Christopherson characterized that was done in 1985, but we have to get there.
I'll leave it at that. I want to thank Mr. Richards, and Mr. Genuis, too, for suggesting this, and my colleagues for giving me this time. Thank you.
I won't stay late.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate Mr. Simms' intervention. It's good to hear from someone on the other side. I don't doubt his sincerity in what he was saying. I wish I could feel the same way about the motion that we have in front of us. I wish I could feel the same way about the actions we've seen from the government. When I say “the government”, I am not talking about the members of this committee; I am talking about the powers that be: the PMO, the House leader, and the others.
At the end of the day, I don't doubt anything Mr. Simms just said. I believe he really means that about Friday, that we could look at other options or full days. I think he is sincere about the idea of trying to have discussions about some of these items to see what's possible and what's not. I believe he means that.
I've worked with most of the members of this committee for an entire Parliament. Some of them are a little newer to the committee, but I think that's typical of the members of this committee on the government side. The problem is that none of this means that much when you have a motion in front of you that is pushing an artificial timeline like this. There is an attempt being made to amend the motion to make sure the opposition actually has input. It's great to say that we'll have discussion, and I believe in all sincerity that Mr. Simms means that, but we saw what happened earlier today. Mr. Chan was trying to work collaboratively with the opposition parties until the whip's office came over and whispered in his ear, and things changed. This is not to condemn Mr. Chan or anyone else. It's just what happened. It can happen again, and it seems that it will.
When you have this motion here, it seems that the government is refusing.... If I am wrong about this, I'd love to hear it from Mr. Simms or anyone else on the government side. When there is this deadline being imposed, and when there is what seems to be opposition to allowing the opposition to have a say, you can say, “We can let the opposition have all the discussion it wants, but at the end of the day we are going to do what we want”, or you can allow this amendment to pass, and therefore allow the opposition to actually be a part of that conversation and a part of forming what the final discussion, the final decision, and the final recommendations are going to be.
We worked that way with this committee in the past. The result in one of those cases was to say that we are not going to recommend getting rid of the Fridays. To speak to the point about the Fridays, it's sincere on Mr. Simms' part, but it doesn't seem like the result will be there, when that has already been the recommendation of this committee and we are now being given something else in a letter from the House leader. It doesn't seem that the unanimous input of this committee was considered. Although it is written in a way that would make one believe they might be willing to consider other things—there would seem to be an attempt at least—it doesn't really seem that way.
I am not trying to accuse any of these members of not wanting to work on Fridays. They don't want to be here on Fridays, but I'm sure they would do other work in their ridings and things like that. I don't want to be taken as trying to accuse them of that. I think what it actually boils down to is that the PMO has decided they want one fewer question period every week that we are here. That's what it really boils down to. That's what it is. And it's the same thing with the Prime Minister. Let's face it, his attendance record is pretty poor. It's terrible, in fact, in terms of attending question period.
It's funny because we often hear these allegations about Stephen Harper not having wanted to be accountable, and all these things. We even heard some of them today. Say what you want, but Stephen Harper showed up at question period and was accountable. He was very rarely not at question period. If he was in the country, he was here, attending question period.
You cannot say the same about Justin Trudeau. There's no question about that. He's just not here very often. There are people who argue he's probably only there once a week now. I've heard that. I've heard that comment by Canadians. Many Canadians have come up to me and said, “He's only there once a week, anyway. He's just going to put in what he already does.” Now, they're not happy about that, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it should be codified, but that's being recognized.
I can understand that. His office can only write so many scripts for him, and if he goes off script, man, it goes badly for this government. So I get why the Prime Minister would want to try to avoid question period, but it doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean that it should be possible. It doesn't mean that they should provide cover for him to do it, and that's what they're trying to do. And “they” is not referring to the members of this committee. I don't think that's their intention at all, but it's probably the orders they'll end up getting.
At the end of the day, I appreciate what Scott had to say. I believe he's sincere, but if this amendment isn't carried, it means nothing. It means nothing at all. It's words, and that's all it is if the amendment is not carried. It really reinforces for me why that amendment is so critically important. These are changes that change Parliament and the way it works for all Canadians. If the government thinks it can just change those things to suit the Prime Minister and his willingness, his effort, or his desire to try not to be held accountable, to really be able to dictate the way things are—that's what he's trying to do—then there really is no input from the opposition and from Canadians. It's just the Liberal Party, or probably just the PMO dictating how things are. “Dictating” is a word that describes this Prime Minister quite well.
, Mr. Chair, I'd like to take a bit of time to compare some of what is in this “discussion paper”. I use that in quote marks because I'm not so sure it's really about discussion at all, but a dictatorial letter, whatever you want to call it, from the House leader. The summary was put together by our analyst here, who does a great job, by the way, as do our stand-in analysts as well. I recognize all the hard work that he did on our electoral reform efforts, which ultimately didn't go anywhere, thanks, again, to our friend Justin Trudeau.
The analyst put together a great summary, in a chart here, of the discussion that took place during the take-note debate on the Standing Orders on October 6 of last year. He's categorized it and put it together quite nicely. I want to compare that to this “discussion paper”, again in quotes, from the government House leader.
I went through it, and from what I can see—and I may be skipping over something—there are about 14 key recommendations, I guess I'm going to call them, that have been made here. We'll compare that to what's in this document from this take-note debate. We'll see how seriously the government really took the debate and the considerations of the members of Parliament. From that we can probably conclude how seriously they are considering it and what's being brought forward by the opposition during the debates that will happen in this committee.
This is very germane to the amendment, because the government's position is, “Just take our word for it. We'll consider the opposition and what they have to say. Take our word for it. We've already had this one day of take-note debate, so we listen to people.”
Let's just see how much of that made its way into this discussion, which is supposed to be a starting point, apparently. Then we can see how seriously we can take the government at their word they they are taking the opposition's views into consideration at committee and therefore see whether there is a need to put in writing that this needs to happen.
This is something the government seems to be refusing to do, which would make one suspicious, to say the least. If they really were intending to make sure there was cooperation and some kind of agreement with the opposition on what should be put forward and what should not be, why would they be hesitant to formalize it? It seems a little odd to me that they would be hesitant to formalize it, in that scenario.
We already are starting from a place of suspicion, of course, and understandably so, but anyway....
There is, of course, the talk—actually, interestingly enough, the very first thing that's listed in the document and that I see is one of the recommendations being made—about the idea of looking at the Friday sittings.
To be fair, this document makes an argument that if those sittings aren't going to be eliminated, maybe we could reapportion them in some other way, or have a fuller day, and these kinds of things. Those are reasonable conversations to have.
I think, though, that to try to get rid of a question period every week...? No, that's not reasonable, obviously. What that is actually about is very transparent, which is to try to make sure that the Prime Minister has one less day and the government one less day on which to have to be accountable to Canadians. There is no other argument you could make for this.
That's the first thing we see in the discussion paper. The second thing is the talk about electronic voting. I see some talk about it in the document.
That could be considered. Again I want to draw the distinction I made in relation to that committee report earlier, in which it was clear that this committee felt we shouldn't move forward with getting rid of the Friday sittings. It also said it wouldn't make a recommendation at this time but might revisit the idea of electronic and proxy voting.
There's a distinction there. This is an attempt by the government to bring back for discussion something that this committee, first of all, said they weren't going to make a recommendation on but might reconsider. I can understand why it might be reasonable for it to be brought back for discussion, but for the committee to say that this is not a good idea and we're not going to recommend going forward with it, and for the government to then bring it forward is a different story.
The discussion paper goes on to talk about the House calendar; it talks about changing the months and stuff that we sit in. I'm not going to get into giving a position on these items per se but will just summarize the effect they might have, for example, without really offering a firm position on them per se.
I don't want anyone to take anything I say as a position on the thing, formed on behalf of the opposition or anything like that. It's more a general comment on them and what the effect would be, or how they compare to what's in the...because obviously there's a lot of debate for us to have yet. I'm hoping the debate will actually mean something. That's what the discussion we're having today is all about today.
There is, then, some talk about changing some of the sitting months and things such as that. There is the idea of a greater degree of flexibility built into how many sittings the House has in a given year. Then it gets into the question of motions. What they're trying to do here is to eliminate the capacity to move certain motions. They're saying that's because there's a possibility that the opposition would deprive the House of the ability to deliberate on the intended item for debate during government orders. I think that's the accusation they're trying to make.
I don't see anything in here that would make any kind of corresponding change to the ability of the government to move closure or time allocation, except where they try to do something in here that would allow for proactive closure and things like that. This is what it essentially is. I'll get to that in a minute.
Again, they are taking some powers away from what are typically used by the opposition parties, but there's no corresponding change to similar types of powers of the government. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that it happens to be the opposition ones that are being contemplated, but the government ones they want to keep. In fact, they want to add to them. That's what they're saying.
There's some talk in here about adding to private members' business each week, allowing more consideration for members to change their places, and those types of changes to private members' business. I won't comment on that at this point.
Then it talks about prorogation and some options that could be looked at there in how that might be dealt with in terms of the government giving its rationale for why it would do that.
Then we get into proactive use. Rather than having to impose closure they're going to use programming; they'll do it right up front. Why have to get messy about it? That's the impression I have of that one.
It talks about reforms to question period, about the Prime Minister's question time. Everyone has interpreted that. The only person I've heard interpret it any other way was Mr. Simms just now.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
You never know. Maybe you're right and everybody else is wrong, Mr. Simms, but the way everyone is interpreting it—well, you've got one of your colleagues sticking up for you here anyway, Scotty.
Liberal
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Fair enough.
That microphone wasn't on, was it?
Everyone whom I've heard thus far, other than Mr. Simms, has interpreted this to be the Prime Minister trying to be here once a week to be accountable to Canadians. I won't go over that. I've been over that enough times. I think I've made my thoughts on that pretty clear as well. I think I've made it pretty clear how I think Canadians are going to feel about that, if that's what the government is trying to do.
Then they're talking about increasing the amount of time that they would have to respond to detailed Order Paper questions, and I think limiting the number of words in that, if I'm not mistaken. The bottom line is that it's limiting the ability for opposition to get timely information to be able to hold them accountable. Again, that is removing accountability.
The next one I have here is on the omnibus bills and giving the speaker the power to divide those. That was mentioned as well earlier. Mr. Simms mentioned that there might be some legitimate concerns that were raised about it. We'll see if his government listens to him and others.
Then it talks about committees. There are three recommendations here. One is talking about trying to weasel a little out of the promise that was made about parliamentary secretaries on committees. One could argue whether that was an advisable promise or not. They're trying to sort of walk on both sides on that one with that promise here. They're sort of saying to let them come and participate and be a part of committees, but maybe not in a voting role. I think this is what this is trying to get at. It's sort of trying to let them back in the door a little bit. They're careful to make a point that they're trying to keep their promise there—not completely, but keep their promise a little bit.
Then there's this talk about putting a maximum time for speeches in committee—10 minutes. I've probably exceeded that by a few minutes already. I think a number of other members did today too. I'll quote Mr. Christopherson. He's fond of saying he can't even clear his throat in 10 minutes. He's probably right, actually. Again, all humour aside on that one, that's really an attempt to take away a tool the opposition has to draw the attention of Canadians to issues, to try to flesh out alternative proposals and suggestions and things like that, as I pointed out at length earlier. Ten minutes is not actually a lot of time to substantively.... For example, I don't know how much time I just spent going through a very basic bit of thought on each of these proposals. If I were to be in this situation, I couldn't have even gotten through that in 10 minutes or given them any kind of due diligence in terms of making a critique. There's no doubt about it; I couldn't have. It's an ability to eliminate the possibility for opposition to really be able to be critical and to offer alternative positions. That doesn't really seem in the spirit of democracy, to say the least.
What I wanted to do now was to go through the summary that was provided by the analyst of this take-note debate on October 6 and look at it. How much of it was really taken up in this? We'll see how seriously the debates and the conversations that were held there were actually taken, and that will give us some glimpse as to what we can expect from this without any kind of assurance in a motion, which we don't have now and which we're seeking, but which sort of seems like we're going to be denied.
It looks like there are 111 items, hopefully if my math is good, but over 100. There are 111 items that have been picked out by our analyst here.
I have the entire answer here, but I will not get into that. Maybe later, but not right now. Hopefully, we don't have to do that, but I am prepared to, if needed.
The point is that some of these things were brought up once by one member. Others were brought up numerous times. For some, it looks like there was disagreement. Some members thought things should go one way, some thought another. Some were for, some were against. The bottom line is that it's a summary of 111 items that were discussed, like suggestions, proposals, recommendations, that were made by MPs during these take-note debates.
As I go through them, I am not going to speak to each of them, at this point at least, but I will point out some of the ones that at least in some way appear in the letter. In fact, sometimes they are contradicted in the letter and other times they're partially taken up, so that we can get a sense as to how much of this actually was taken up.
It's broken up into various tables. In the first table, there are two suggestions, neither of which was taken up in this discussion paper. In the second table, there are 11 suggestions. Again, none were taken up in this paper. We are at 13, well over 10% now, and none have been taken up in this discussion paper, so they weren't considered. We won't get into good, bad, or indifferent, but 13 of 111 are not in there at all.
In table 3, there were a few of these items out of the eight in this next section. A few of these items were covered in the discussion paper, but all of them were contrary suggestions to those proposed by MPs. As an example, there was talk about longer debate periods or a longer time for speaking. All of these were things were suggested to go one way and the government went the other way, so we're still not doing too well here. We are at 21 out of 111 and there has not yet been one thing that's been taken up in the paper in a positive fashion and some have even been contradicted.
In table 4, there were five suggestions. None of them. In table 5, there is only one suggestion there, but it wasn't taken up either. In table 6, there were three suggestions. None of them were taken up.
In table 7, hold on here, we've got nine suggestions. Two of them were at least—I would actually say, now that I look at this again, that one of them was tangentially brought up in this report. It's the idea of increasing the number of hours for private members' business. I think where that comes up is the alternative idea of a Friday being longer. They were going to allow two hours of PMB rather than one, just to make the day longer—but not really make the day longer, if you get what I'm saying, Mr. Chair. I don't know, maybe we could give them one-quarter on that one. It's not really a full suggestion, but there may be a little piece there taken up on that one.
I've been through about 37 of these suggestions, so about a third of them. So far, about one-quarter out of 37% has been taken up in this discussion paper.
As for records—I don't know—it's not much better. It certainly would be nowhere near a passing grade, that's for sure. In fact, you probably could show up for five minutes in one class all semester and get that grade. That would be good for the Prime Minister, because he doesn't really like to show up that often, so maybe it would work okay.
On table 8, there are a couple of these that were taken up. I did make a note, though, that I wanted to check to see who had made the suggestion. Was it the Prime Minister's parliamentary secretary or somebody like that? It might make me wonder a little if it had been, but who knows?
I want to check that in a future intervention, because I think there's going to be more opportunity here in this debate, Mr. Chair, and I can come back to that when I've had the chance to take a look through the Hansard of that day, which I have here. That was the idea of a Prime Minister's questions day that was brought up.
They have one now. It's in here. It's one that a lot of Canadians aren't very happy about, but it's there, so they have one.
There was another one that came up, but, again, they went in the opposite direction of what was being suggested. We're kind of at about one and a quarter now out of about 51, so we're almost half-way. We have one and a quarter that have been taken up here by the government's discussion paper, the so-called listening to all members of Parliament and coming up with a discussion paper to get the discussion started based on proper and true engagement with MPs. Yes, it seems like it. I hope you detect the sarcasm in my voice there.
Table 9...oh, hold on. Here's another one: electronic voting. There were some MPs who wanted electronic voting and some who didn't, so I guess it's okay to have that discussion again.
I'm going to be really charitable and say we'll give him three-quarters on that one. We're at two out of 60 now, I think.
Next is table 10. There are seven recommendations here. One of these is kind of touched on. It talks about giving the Speaker the power to judge the quality and substance of answers to Order Paper questions. We can't give the government any points on this one, because not only is it just somewhat related to what's in the discussion paper, but it's also really contrary to the spirit. What's in here says that the Speaker should be able to judge the quality and substance of the answers to Order Paper questions. Surely, the answer must relate to the question.
I can understand why people might feel that would be a good thing. I'm not sure if that's the right way to do it or not, but I can understand why people would feel like they're not really getting a proper answer now and think someone should be able to force a proper answer. I can understand the desire for that. I've felt that desire on occasion myself, and I'm sure you've been there too, Mr. Chair. I'm sure others members in the room have been there too. But, of course, the problem is that the government's discussion paper refers to the question and it wants to increase the number of days in which the government gets to respond. I don't really think that's going to do anything to deal with the quality of the answer. It's just going to mean you're going to get the same terrible answer, or get no answer but take longer to get it, or rather, not get it. We can't really give them a point on that one.
What are we at now? I think it's at about 67 or so. I'm losing track, but anyway, we're still at two that have been taken up, and probably getting about two-thirds of the way through this thing. We're not doing so well so far.
We get a little more here, when we get to table 11. It's a little better here. This seems to be one of their big focuses. My guess is that these suggestions were probably being made by government MPs, at least the ones that were positive about it, but they were mixed.
The first one is the idea of Friday sittings. There were people who wanted to eliminate those sittings; there were people who wanted to keep them; and stuff in-between. I don't know; we'll probably give the government half a point there. At least it was discussed, and there were positives and negatives.
There was also a tangential mention of the parliamentary calendar in the government's discussion paper. That was also brought up in the October 6 take-note debate. But supposedly it was somewhat different from what was made in the government's discussion paper, so we can probably give them a half a point on this one again. So we're at three now.
Here's one that I think the government almost accidentally stumbled upon. There's a suggestion to increase the amount of time set aside for private members' business on Fridays. It's in there as a sub-alternative proposal. It's almost like a sub to the sub-alternative proposal, where they say that we could maybe add an extra hour at PMB if we did this, if that didn't happen, if this happened. They gain probably a half a point there.
Then the next one is to study the rules on the use of prorogation. I think we could probably give them a full point there because they're talking about looking at that. Well, it's more about justifying it, not the usage of it, but I'm going to be really charitable and give a full point anyway. So we're at four and a half.
Then there's some talk about a proposal to change the sitting weeks, but it's really vastly different, and it's obviously a unique, one-off proposal. It's not at all what's in the report, so I don't know if we can really do much there in giving the government any credit.
The next section is table 12; there's nothing taken up there. On table 13, there are 10 proposals there; none of them are taken up.
It gets really bad from here, Mr. Chair. On table 14, there are three proposals, with none of them taken up. On table 15, there are just a couple of proposals there, with none taken up. On table 16, there are 20 proposals here. This is almost 20% of the proposals made. Guess how many were taken up here? A big fat zero.
So, of the 111 proposals, I think probably being charitable, four and a half were taken up. That's less than 5% of them. Now, if we even have that much success in this committee—with less than 5% of the opposition's suggestions taken up here—we would consider that an utter failure and disgrace of democracy.
I don't know if there's anyone having trouble sleeping right now. It's 12:30 a.m. If they're having trouble sleeping and they're listening to this, I'm sure I've probably bored them to sleep, so it's fine. But if they did somehow manage to get through it, and they're listening, they would have, I think, no doubt left that there is a need for the opposition to have some kind of assurance that it's not just saying, “Take our word for it. Trust us, we're the government.” Who's heard that before? “Trust us, we're the government.” That never ends very well for anyone when they decide to trust. This government's made it pretty clear why.
Take a look at this motion. The amendment is really quite reasonable. It says that this government should and could do what's always been the practice and precedent to deal with these kinds of changes. This government should and could ensure that Canadians continue to have the ability to hold the government accountable through their opposition parties by ensuring that the opposition parties have actual input. But instead they're saying, “Just trust us. It's all going to be fine. We had this debate and we listened to MPs. We included less than 5% of what was suggested. We included that in this discussion paper. It's supposed to be this starting point of the discussion.”
Keep in mind, if that's the starting point, and we have only 2% or 3% of the stuff that was suggested before, this could change. Maybe some of it gets dropped. Maybe we get none of it. But let's say we get all 2% or 3% of it. The opposition has concerns about a lot of it. There is a lot of this that really concerns me and I think many of my colleagues. We just want to have an opportunity to see that we get real input into this. That's all this amendment is about: give us real input. Let us make sure that millions of Canadians who support us have a say, that they get to be heard too, and that the government does not just change the rules to suit themselves.
I can point back to the electoral reform initiative. I was intimately a part of it on the special committee, and it became clear to just about everybody pretty quickly that this was a government that made a promise.
I'll give it credit. Except for the one slip of the tongue by the Prime Minister that they then had to write into their platform, they were pretty careful on how they worded it. They wanted to fool people who were in favour of proportional representation into believing that this was what they were suggesting. I know there were even Liberal candidates who argued for it; I heard it myself. I knew all along that they were making a promise they never intended to keep—it's a typical thing that Liberals do—but people believed them. There were people who, despite the Liberals' past record, believed them. Boy, they figured out in a real hurry that this was a mistake.
They were careful, anyway, about how they worded it. What they were really trying to do was make this promise and deliver something else. They were making a promise that they would change the electoral system. People believed it was going to be to proportional representation.
The Prime Minister has made it quite clear since that time that it was a ranked ballot he was really after. When he realized no one was going to go for that and there was no way he could do it without a referendum, as was clearly being demanded by the vast majority of Canadians; when he realized that people wanted proportional representation.... He had thought they might be happy if they at least got some kind of change. He realized they were not going to be be happy, that in fact they would probably be angrier than they were with nothing. He saw he was not going to get away with that one, so he decided to just back away from it. That's what Justin Trudeau decided, obviously.
When we look at this paper, we can see the parallels. “Hey, don't worry. We have a couple of suggestions in here out of all the suggestions made by MPs, so we listened, right? We listened.” It's probably just an accident, actually, more than anything, with that few of them, but, “Don't worry; we don't need to give you any kind of assurance that your concerns are going to be taken into account, that anything you have to say is going to make its way in here. Just trust us. We never lie.”
Well, I guess I'm not supposed to say that they lie, but they do, so I'm not going to trust them. I have a lot of respect for members on the other side of the table. We've worked well as a committee, for the most part, and I'm sure they are sincere, but I don't believe for one second that the PMO and those who are directing them are sincere. I know there is no such intention here, and if there were, they would be willing to codify it to give real input to the opposition and therefore to Canadians who have concerns.
I hope that over the next several days or however long this goes on prior to there being a vote on this question about the amendment, they reconsider this; that they realize they are wrong, realize that they need to allow the opposition to have input, that they need to allow for their government to be held accountable to Canadians. If they do that, then we can try to move forward and see what can be done here to improve the Standing Orders.
At the end of the day, when I look at some of the suggestions being made in the take-note debate, there were actually some suggestions that almost seemed like no-brainers.
Where is the one I am thinking of that really jumped out at me? I guess it doesn't really matter that much, but there were some really obvious suggestions in here, just wording changes. There was one—I can't remember what it was.... I think it was where there was clearly just a typo in the Standing Orders that has been there for years. It was like saying, let's change that; it makes sense, doesn't it?
There are a few things like that—obvious no-brainers—and then there are lots of other things in these suggestions made from the take-note debate. Let's have a discussion about those and see whether we can come up with something that parties can agree to and then move forward with it. Even in the letter from the House leader there are probably some things like that about which we could have discussion to see whether all parties can agree.
There are some things here that are non-starters, I think, for opposition members, without question: the idea of the Prime Minister only having to be there once a week, of taking Fridays off, of removing some of the tools, of eliminating the amount of time that a member can speak in committee, for example. Some of these things are non-starters for the opposition, but there are some things there that could be discussed.
Until we have some kind of assurance, however, that there's actually going to be consideration of what the opposition has to say, that it actually will be taken seriously—and that means there has to be something in writing that says that.... This amendment would clearly do that, and I cannot, for the life of me, understand why they would oppose it, unless they don't intend to allow any input by the opposition.... Until that happens, we can't even begin a discussion about those things, because we're not going to get there. We'll have this debate for as long as it takes to preserve those rights for the opposition and Canadians.
Once we get to that, if we can get something from the government that would allow this amendment—if they think better and realize that this is wrong—we can have a discussion about the motion and can try to move forward. Until then it's just a really sad, pathetic commentary on this government and Justin Trudeau's desire to be a dictator. It's as simple as that, and that's pretty sad.
How did we get from the role he played in the election, the thing he pretended to be, to where we are now in this period of time? I have a feeling that if Canadians could go back and take a look, knowing what they know now and knowing the actions they've seen, they wouldn't believe what they were hearing. I certainly can't believe what I'm being told without some kind of assurance from the government, because I see no reason to believe that they can be trusted.
With that, I'll close for now. There's a good chance I'll have more to say, but I'll turn the floor over at this time, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Thank you, Mr. Richards.
Mr. Schmale was on this list, but he's not here, so we'll now go to Mr. Genuis for his virgin filibuster speech.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Mr. Chair, I can assure you that I will be limiting my comments to only those things that I think are absolutely necessary for this debate. Consistent with my usual fashion, I will be as brief as I can.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I will say that, given the importance of the discussion, it is a real pleasure to be here with, honestly, some of my favourite people in the Liberal Party. I don't just mean that as a relative compliment. I know that my great colleagues here on the Conservative side but also in other parties—all of you—are up late here with us and working hard, although we certainly disagree on the direction.
You're doing so, I should add, while I'm sure the Prime Minister is fast asleep. Perhaps he's playing video games or something, but more likely he's asleep. Likely the House leader, whose office originated this memo on reforming the Standing Orders, is also asleep, and the kids in short red pants from the PMO who have put together this plan are probably also fast asleep. But you as Liberal members of Parliament on the front lines, following through on the direction you've been given, are nonetheless awake. I salute you for that as we continue, I think, an important discussion about our democracy.
I want to thank as well, Mr. Chair, all the staff who are here with us, both the partisan staff and the non-partisan staff, who work hard all day and are now supporting us in the evening.
It's been interesting being here throughout a good deal of the day listening to my colleagues and members from other parties speak. I've been looking at some of the discussion about this issue on social media, on Twitter and Facebook. There was a time, maybe a few short years ago, when people felt that the intricacies of the proceedings of the House—what was discussed at, for example, a committee like procedure and House affairs—would not be of interest to most Canadians.
I'll just share a number with you, anyway. Michelle Rempel, one of our colleagues, did a live video. That video got more than 20,000 views on Facebook in the first hour. This is at a time when much of the country, I think, is asleep. Perhaps it's just people on the west coast who have watched that video so far and are already giving a big response.
What we know, Mr. Chair, is that Canadians care about the integrity of our parliamentary processes, they care about our parliamentary institutions, and they care about the intricacies of conversations such as this. The substance of the Standing Orders, prorogation, the way political parties interact, decorum—all these kinds of questions, I am increasingly convinced—matter to Canadians. They may not read the Standing Orders, they may not know them in as intimate detail as I try to, but they do care about knowing that our political processes are informed by fairness and integrity. I think they understand that democracy doesn't disappear overnight, but that it can be strengthened or weakened or can be eroded gradually. They are invested in the health of these institutions.
I want to say at the outset as well that this past week we were in our ridings, and I was speaking in a number of schools in my constituency. One of the questions I asked was, do you think it is the job of the opposition to always oppose the government? Most of the students I spoke to were wise enough to realize right away that, no—and I think we realize, as well—it's not our role here as the opposition to always oppose what the government is doing. Rather, it is our role to review what the government is doing, to agree on certain issues when we share a common view of the public interest, but also to strongly disagree when we think the public interest is at stake. The importance of our role is to be pulling out those issues on which we are going to most pointedly and directly challenge the government.
This government needs to hear, in the context of the discussion that we're having on this motion, that the role of opposition is important. Obviously, the role of the government is important. That's more obvious. The role of the government is to set the policies and propose legislation and, in a general sense, to run the country. Our job is to try to shape and define a concept of the public interest that is different from the government's, and to use that as a lens to measure their actions in a more independent way, to support them when it is right to do so and to challenge them when it is right to do so.
We need to recognize the legitimacy of that role. We need to recognize the role of the opposition in our discussions of what the Standing Orders say.
Do the Standing Orders that we have now provide sufficient opportunities for, yes, of course, the government to do their job, but also for the opposition to do their job? It's with that view in mind that we moved an amendment to a motion the government put forward.
I want to review the content of the amendment. This amendment deals with unanimous recommendations.
The amendment proposes:
That the motion be amended by
(a) deleting “2017; and”, at the end of paragraph (d), and substituting “2017;”;
(b) adding, immediately after paragraph (d), “(e) notwithstanding paragraph (d), but consistent with the Committee's past practices, as discussed at its December 8, 2016, meeting, the Committee shall not report any recommendation for an amended Standing Order, provisional Standing Order, new Standing Order, Sessional Order, Special Order, or to create or to revise a usual practice of the House, which is not unanimously agreed to by the Committee; and”; and
(c) relettering paragraph (e) as paragraph (f).
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Don't worry, Mr. Chair. We'll call it a point of order.
I think that might have been the first time our other official language has been used today in all the time that we've sat. I know our interpreters are working pretty hard back there. It's the first time they've had a chance to switch from French to English rather than English to French. I thought it was a good opportunity to acknowledge them and thank them for all their hard work today. It's well over time.
