It's very amazing, Mr. Doherty.
It again speaks to thinking it through, but make sure you go all the way, because that one was only half thought through.
At any rate, if they ultimately have to withdraw everything and just go straight to a motion in the House, that's not going to be pretty either; obviously we will make that as difficult as we can and draw attention to it. As my passed-away friend Jack Layton used to say, it circles the stain. So that motion—you still don't have all the things you want. We still have some rights, and before those changes are made, we get to use the rights we currently have vis-à-vis applying them to the process of change. It will be the last hurrah for some of those rights that we have, but we will use them.
My point is that this seems to be the only endgame available if the government doesn't find a positive, co-operative way to deal with these issues, and that is a loser. You can just imagine what the speeches are going to be. This is all fodder for that.
Speaking further to the letter and to the model that was used in 2001 by former Prime Minister Chrétien, which is where I picked up at the beginning—I believe I ended with Standing Order 108—it says:
That the committee shall not adopt any report without the unanimous agreement of all the Members of the committee;
You'd almost think it was a misprint. How could that be? How could we have Liberal Prime Minister Chrétien, known for his sometimes unorthodox ways of creating efficiencies in his life, versus Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who promised to respect committees and to listen to their work and take their work seriously? You'd almost think there was a misprint and that the name on the top of this motion in 2001 were actually to be that of this government. The kinds of things the Liberals are trying to do now would be more akin to some of the characteristics Canadians might apply to Monsieur Chrétien, given his combative style. That is not, however, the case, and ergo the dilemma for us in terms of trying frantically to understand what the government is doing.
We realize they want everything. They want everything their way. Okay, every government starts that way. But where's the thought into this? You seem to have thought real well on the substantive parts of the rules that the government wants so that they can control things—recognizing that this is already one of the most controlled Parliaments in the world—but zero thought went into the politics.
In the past, the accusation against the Liberals was that they used to be great at politics and lousy at substance. It amazes me, as well as angering and perplexing me. I almost wish I could flip to the back of the book to get a sense of how this ends, to kind of cheat, in a way. I have to know: how does this end up? Right now, I can't figure it, other than “complete white flag”, which I doubt. The only real alternative after that is to ram stuff through. It seems to me it would be worth their while, given the sensitivity around these kinds of files, to be turning themselves, not us, inside out to find the off-ramp. It's just that we actually think the work that's not being done is important to Canadians. I'm not really factoring it into the government, per se. We're listening to the government framework around the matter, but the issue at hand is the work of the Chief Electoral Officer, which is under the domain of no party. He's hired by Parliament, can only be fired by Parliament, and is answerable to Parliament through this committee.
As to how that ends well, I can't begin to say. You'd have to change so much: the national dialogue, the media coverage, and the understanding that Canadians are now having as to what you're doing. So much of that would have to change, and I don't know how you'd do it, if you were going to somehow come out of the end of ramming through the changes in the House by using your less-than-Harper's-majority to do so. How does that end well for the government? It's bloody-minded, it gives you what you want at the end of the day, but it leaves a lot of dead political processes in its wake. I can't imagine how much negative coverage there will be through that whole process.
As I say, you know that we're not going to make it easy. The government should be worried, because the official opposition Conservatives and the opposition New Democrats, believe it or not, are finding out how easy it is to work together when it comes to dealing with this government. I don't need to say beware, but beware. If you bring that motion in, it's going to make this look like the easy part. It's just going to get uglier.
Maybe one can only hope that as we speak now, they may have actually pulled together a group of grown-ups in the PMO who are going to look at this and start thinking through how they get out of it and whether there's a way they can do it without taking any more hits. That would be my starting point.
If you aren't approaching it that way and the only thing being looked at is how to get bloody-minded, what the steps are, what the research is, what the precedents are, and if that's the only thing being looked at, then there really isn't an awful lot of difference between the way this government treats Parliament and the way former prime minister Harper and his gang treated Parliament. The best-case scenario is that you look as ruthless as Harper without being nearly as efficient at it.
What a great victory. Let's see you run on that. I'd like to see you turn that one into an ad.
I don't know; for a while, when you guys first came out of the gate, it was looking like, wow, for at least the initial times, they have some magic touch over there. It was going good. Even when you had negative stuff, it didn't seem to stick, because everything else was going so well. No matter what's going on, there's always a good picture of the Prime Minister to go along with the article. You always seemed to do just fine in the early days. You always came out smelling like roses.
What happened? I realize that the realities of governing sink in, and that can be shocking, but some of you have been around for a while. One can only hope that as we read these things out and as we reiterate at least the problems the government is having, it may somehow be helpful in providing a way out of this.
I've pretty much exhausted everything I can think of, which I've shared with Mr. Simms. Mr. Simms has been kind enough to make himself available to Mr. Richards and me, as the two vice-chairs of this committee. Even during the break week, Mr. Simms reached out and talked to me on the Wednesday. One was a bit of a heads-up as to some stuff, and another was just to chat and make sure about the lines of communication. He's been great that way.
I have to tell you, though, that I'm getting a little bit exhausted being one half of the team over on the opposition benches that is coming up with ways of getting out of this mess and finding an exit strategy, when all the government does is continually put up roadblocks and refuse to budge even an inch. You can tell I'm getting old by “budge an inch”; let's say “centimetre”. I still look at centimetres and figure out what it means in inches. That's what happens. It's the same thing with kilometres and mileage.
If I may, Chair, this will take just 60 seconds. When that system came out, my mom said at the time, “I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it.” There was enough of a layover in the transition period that she hasn't had to. She has pretty much been able to stay with what she's comfortable with. My daughter, on the other hand, went through school when it was taught. I look at some of my colleagues here, and they have to give a thought to what the heck an inch is again, or a yard. What the heck is a yard? She was free and clear, because she was brought up and taught in the new world. Half the time she's looking at me, when I come up with my expressions, and asking, “And that's what, again, Dad?”, as I reinterpret English back into English.
But us, we got stuck in the middle. Some of us weren't real good at or didn't have an aptitude for making conversions. It's not that I'm looking for any sympathy. I'm sure there are many other boomers who realize that having to make that translation and formula adjustment in your head slows down talk.
Thank you, Chair. You're indicating to me that I need to talk about the subject matter, so I will.
The next point is:
That the committee may recommend to the House texts of new or amended Standing Orders;
Not only were they asked and willing to come up with some of the concepts, but also they were asked, if they wanted, to provide actual language; that's how much they were trusted. That's the kind of work they expected them to do and that they did.
The next point states:
That the committee may make recommendations for changes to relevant statutes and, if it does so, such recommendations shall be deemed to have been made pursuant to an Order adopted pursuant to Standing Order 68(4); and
Again, this speaks to the importance of the Standing Orders as a tool that we use in everything we do. The final point states:
That the committee shall present its final report no later than Friday, June 1, 2001.
Chair, I've introduced this by way of ensuring that our record of debate reflects everything that's happening on the issue in front of us. The letter, which I've read in its entirety, both sides, signed by the two opposition House leaders, outlining once again an off-ramp strategy for the government.