Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2017

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

That explains a lot right there.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

When a former professor of mine from Western retired, he bequeathed to me, if you will, his book library. Professor Martin Westmacott was his name.

One of the books he was kind enough to give me was the Parliamentary Debates on the subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 3rd Session, provincial Parliament of Canada, Quebec, 1865. It's a fascinating read.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

I'm sure it is.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

It's a real page-turner.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You're not going to read it into the record.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I will not read its entirety into the record.

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

He's going to read only the first 380 pages.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

The first thing I would point out is that in the early days—and this is pre-Confederation, even the early days of Confederation—it was not a verbatim reflection of what was said in the House of Commons. It was third person. It referred to what they said, not word for word what they said.

There have been projects undertaken to recreate the word-for-word dialogue, which has been done through newspaper articles at the time, and which is helpful.

This isn't verbatim. The reference to the Fathers of Confederation in the debate I found interesting—

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

You thought I was kidding about the 380 pages, didn't you?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

This is from page 13, and I will not read the entire thing. It references the attorney general of the day, which was a certain John A. Macdonald. These debates can be somewhat confusing. There's John A. Macdonald and there's John S. Macdonald, as well, who were both contemporaries and were going back and forth at the time. He wasn't Sir John A. Macdonald; he was Attorney General Macdonald. He said this, and I quote:

...said the Speaker having desired that he should not go on with the Address about the union of the colonies, he proposed not to take it up till Monday next, but as the matter was one of the utmost importance, he thought it would be well now to settle the mode of conducting the discussion. He would propose that after the discussion commenced, it should continue day after day, and that for the purpose of greater regularity the Speaker should remain in the chair. At the...time he would propose that the rule which prevented members speaking more than once when the Speaker was in the chair should be suspended, in order that every member might have the same liberty of free discussion as he would have in the Committee of the Whole.

I think it was a worthwhile commentary at the time. John A. Macdonald proposed that basically the rules be suspended to allow greater discussion. I would, perhaps, liken you to Sir John A. Macdonald, allowing that flexibility in this place as well, Mr. Chair.

He goes on further in the dialogue, and says:

Atty. Gen. MACDONALD said there was nothing irregular in his proposing that discussion should go on with the Speaker in the chair. The suspension of the rules he proposed was for the protection of the minority, by allowing each member to speak and state his objections as often as he pleased.

I think that's a worthwhile commentary as we sit here today under the watchful eyes of our Father of Confederation. This is about the minority. It's about protecting the rights and privileges of individual parliamentarians as we conduct our business. Certainly Sir John A. Macdonald recognized at the time that we should allow ample debate, going so far as suspending the rules at the time to allow members to contribute multiple times to the debate. To have been a fly on the wall during the debates at that time would have been fascinating, considering that at the time, I believe, there was alcohol continually served in the Houses of Parliament of the day.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

There used to be a bar in the basement here.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Perhaps that's something the committee should consider, perhaps outside the purview of this—

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

Right around now....

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I believe it was mentioned in a previous debate that one of the cleanups in the Standing Orders was dealing with the supper hour, the dinner hour, that was still written into the Standing Orders. I believe that in times gone by, that was the usual time many members would have found themselves at the bar in Parliament here, to enjoy some of the spirits that were allowed or that were produced here in Canada.

Certainly we're very strong proponents of craft distilleries and craft brewers, as well. I'll put that on the record as well, Mr. Chair.

I think it's important. We came into Confederation, in these debates, with the acknowledgement by the then-attorney general of the importance of allowing debate, the importance of allowing discussion. I think that if we were to go along with some of the proposals that have been suggested in the discussion paper, we'd be doing a disservice to many individuals in the House by preventing them from having fullness of debate, fullness of discussion. It's not that we can't consider how to better structure discussion, but I think it would be a mistake for us to go forward and undertake a way of preventing MPs from having a full discussion on certain issues such as that.

Those are the debates on Confederation. I may come back to them again at a future reference. I have a couple of more Post-it notes in there, but I do want to....

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

That sounded like an example of mini-programming to some extent—deciding on a particular issue, allowing an expanded debate.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Yes, absolutely, and it was done with the consent of the House. If we look at Standing Order 78, I believe, which is the time allocation standing order, there are different—

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

You've got me fooled at the very least.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I should have just said it and hoped nobody would notice if I'm wrong.

I believe it's Standing Order 78, which is the rule for time allocation. There are three ways to go about time allocation. From our perspective, in a majority government, what we see most often is the government House leader rising, typically towards the end of the day, saying that agreement cannot be reached on a specific—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You're right about the standing order.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Okay, my memory didn't fail me.

There are three methods, and the method we're most familiar with is the third method, where the government House leader says agreement could not be reached and therefore he is giving notice of time allocation. The next day in the House, a minister—it doesn't have to be the government House leader, but often it is—rises and moves a motion of time allocation, allocating a certain number of days. Typically, as we've seen in this Parliament, it's a single day, but there's nothing preventing it from being two days, three days, four days, whatever the will of that House leader or government might be.

That's the one we're most familiar with, and that's the one we've been seeing in the past several months. There are also two other options for time allocation, which I think would reflect what we can call “programming”. This would be a discussion among parliamentarians and, typically, the House leaders. So far in this Parliament, we've seen an example of agreement with one other political party or, in this case, a majority of political parties. With three parties, it's two out of three to allow the second method to happen. This happened with the bill on safe injection sites, Bill C-37.

That was an example where time allocation was moved without notice. Typically, you have to give at least a day's notice that this will be moved. In that situation, notice does not need to be given if a majority of parties have come to an agreement. In that case, the New Democrats and the Liberals did come to an agreement on time allocation. The time allocation motion could be moved without giving a day's notice, and then it moves to discussion in the House.

The first one, and it's not common—we don't need to change the Standing Orders to do this—is time allocation by agreement of all the political parties. In the current case, it would be the Liberals, the Conservatives, and the New Democrats. This would be done through what the British call “the usual channels”, whether it's through the weekly House leaders' meeting or through discussions amongst the key players. In that case, however, notice doesn't have to be given at all. Time allocation could be moved and the programming for that piece of legislation would be set aside. When agreement can be reached, and often it would be the preferable way of organizing the House calendar, the House leader can move such a motion without notice, saying that agreement has been reached among the political parties that on Bill XYZ we will have three days of debate at second reading. It can be neatly done up. In that way, when debate does collapse, or when time expires—debate doesn't have to collapse, but it may collapse on its own—it is duly noted and dealt with accordingly.

It's a way that we can actually undertake a lot of what would be considered programming within the current discussion. I know in the other place they've introduced a discussion paper recommending a business committee, which would then allocate time based on the results of that committee. It wouldn't be a method I would necessarily want to use, because it would be giving power to a committee that may not be accountable to their caucuses or to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We had representatives of the Scottish Parliament here, and they have a system like that. They only meet three days a week, and bills never take more than two days. They have a business committee.

They make the decision on the program or the time allocation of every bill. They said they couldn't remember a time when they had to have a vote. In that committee, it is always consensus, unanimous, on how long each bill would take. Those were all members of Parliament representing the party, probably House leaders or something, so it's not like if you were suggesting that it's going to some bunch of bureaucrats.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Ideally, in our current system, the House leaders do meet on a weekly basis. If everything were functioning as it ought to be, it could be using the current system where an agreement could be reached that on this bill we'd like to see two days. It could be back and forth. The opposition may want five days. The government may want two days. Let's settle on three days and make one of those days a Tuesday or a Thursday, which are the longer days, and compromise in that way.

There are mechanisms that could be explored or a better use of where we stand in terms of using the tools. In Standing Order 78, there are methods that can be used. Very briefly, and I don't want to stray too far, you'd mentioned the Scottish Parliament. Westminster has a Backbench Business Committee. That was a relatively new invention. That would be an exciting dialogue to have in terms of exploring that mechanism as well.

One of the things that it looks at is the question of time. Time is limited, so there is the second chamber, and the Backbench Business Committee will often look at what's brought forward to that committee for debate where you can have a certain length of time for debate. I don't know the exact time frames. It could be one hour, two hours, or three hours of debate, or more. In fact, forcing the government to hold the referendum on leaving the European Union was actually done through that Backbench Business Committee. The vote was forced by debates that were conducted through that committee. It turned out to be an exceptionally powerful committee, which ended up ousting a prime minister in the end, so a powerful mechanism that gave a significant amount of power to individual members. Certainly, for the benefit of this committee, that would be something that would be exceptionally worthwhile to discuss as well.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

With your permission, John, I'll just jump in before we get too far from the Scottish Parliament.

One of the reasons, Mr. Chair, that I think the Scottish Parliament is able to have consensus around how to handle legislation is that they don't have first past the post. They have a system they call the additional member system, but it's essentially mixed-member proportional.

One of the points I would return to is that looking for advantage in election campaigns that are run under first past the post is one of the reasons we have so much partisanship creeping into the way Parliament functions.

Of course, the British Parliament is still first past the post. In my conversations with the only member of Parliament in the U.K. who is a Green Party member of Parliament, Caroline Lucas from the riding of Brighton Pavilion, she said to be very cautious about this programming thing.

Even though it's described in government proposals as though it's just the House leaders who discuss it, it is actually broader than that. They bring in backbenchers and representation. They don't have any such thing in the British Parliament, by the way, as recognized parties with different classes of powers, responsibilities, and rights. We essentially have evolved without any actual legislation or standing order to do it, but by custom we have created a two-tier system for MPs. That doesn't exist in the U.K.

Going back to that, she said that it's still very controversial, and once it happens, the programming is generally seen as the government with its clout bulldozing something through, but they never had the intermediate step of time allocation.

They were looking for a compromise, and all they had was informal agreement between leaders and guillotine, which in the Canadian context would be called closure. In the U.K. Parliament it was called guillotine. This was an intermediate proposal to play with the idea of programming. It was put forward by the modernization committee of the U.K. Parliament back in 1997. They tried it on trial for quite a while and decided to keep it, but it remains quite controversial within the U.K. Parliament and is a relatively new feature, which I do not think we should be following here.

I'm sorry. The reason for grabbing the mike was just to make the point that the Scottish Parliament is far more likely to be able to come to consensus around issues, because in its creation, just as Ireland has proportional representation in the form of a single transferable vote, Scotland has a version of mixed-member proportional representation, which by its very nature creates a climate where consensus is more likely between parties.

I appreciate your latitude, John, and I also appreciate borrowing your Book of Common Prayer, which is extraordinary. I'm going to return it to you.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you.

I am not an expert on the Backbench Business Committee. I am not an expert on programming, but I do think that, for the committee, there is a valuable discussion to be had around those issues. Whether we go down that road or not, that's a discussion for the committee, and I think one that's worthwhile.

I do want to move on from that topic. Ms. May mentioned the idea of a consensus. I would again highlight the importance of consensus on this committee, when we're dealing with Standing Order changes. If I could, I just want to relate, very briefly, an experience I had in my past life in municipal politics. I believe Mr. Badawey served on a municipal council. I know Mr. Waugh was on a school board. I think many of us have had municipal and school board experience, where there aren't political parties. I would point that out, but that's neither here nor there.

On my council, I served in a small, typically rural municipality. It came about as a result of amalgamation in 1998 by the Mike Harris government. My particular municipality was an amalgamation of three rural townships and one small town—the town of Mitchell and the townships of Hibbert, Fullarton, and Logan. When that municipality came into being, a compromise was struck among the former townships and the former town about the makeup of that new council. The compromise was that each rural municipality would have two councillors, and the urban one—“urban” in the broad sense of the word, a small town—would have three. That bargain, that compromise, has remained, despite changes in population and so forth. I had the benefit of serving on the council from 2010 to 2014. We had the advantage of having a mayor who had served as a township reeve pre-amalgamation. He served many years on the council post-amalgamation, as well, and provided us with strong leadership.

Where I'm going with this is that, during my time on the council, the suggestion was brought up that perhaps it was time to look at the structure of our council and how we operated. We had nine councillors in our municipality, plus a mayor and a deputy mayor, for a total of 11—a rather significant-sized council. At the time, it was the same number of councillors as in Mississauga, for a rural municipality of 9,000. The discussion was on rural-urban boundaries and structure.

We had this discussion, and it became exceptionally heated. At the time, I was the budget chair of my municipality, so I happened to be chairing the meeting. Those who've served on rural municipal councils know that sometimes topics stray from the subject at hand. While we were discussing the budget, we actually strayed very much into ward boundary changes. As we discussed that, motions and suggestions started flying a mile a minute, to change the boundaries and change the set-up of how we went about it.

Since I was in the chair, I unfortunately—or fortunately, I would say—had the presiding officer duties for the council. I took to heart the advice the mayor gave me—long-time mayor Walter McKenzie,—to be very careful about how to rule on matters. In an 11-member council, there was certainly the chance that there could be a tie vote, throwing it to the chair to make the decision.

I was, in fact, in favour of changing some of the boundaries of the wards. Over the years, small subdivisions had started springing up in the rural wards, but they affiliated themselves more with the town, so I thought it was beneficial to carve out parts of the wards and add them to the town. I compromised—as politicians do—on the fact that we should keep the rural wards represented at the number they had.

As the debate ensued, there was discussion. When it finally came to a vote, there were five in favour and five against, and it fell to the chair—in that case me—to cast the deciding vote.

Our mayor gave me sage advice well before we actually had this debate. He said that, typically, when you have something as split as that, a tie vote is a failed vote. That was the process I took that night. It was a tie vote. Even though I personally supported the changes to the boundaries, I voted no, and the motion was defeated. I did that for a couple of reasons.

There wasn't consensus. It was a very divided issue. In that case, the status quo, the discussion that had been debated at the time of amalgamation, would prevail. That did not prevent the council down the road from re-examining the issue when things changed, when there was more of a consensus on the matter. At the time, there wasn't a consensus, so even though I supported such a change, I nonetheless voted to maintain the status quo, as was advised at the time.

I want to move on and talk a little bit about different issues. One of them is an interesting commentary that I came across from 1983 in the Canadian Parliamentary Review. It was written by David Collenette, who was a long-time member of Parliament, a minister under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and a minister under Prime Minister Chrétien, as well. He was a long-serving MP.

At the time this was written, he was a member of the Lefebvre committee, the special committee on Standing Orders and procedure together with Tom Lefebvre, who was the chair, but also with Mr. Bill Blaikie. Of course we had a little bit of a discussion about that the other day when his son, Daniel Blaikie, was here. Certainly, in this article he does an exceptional job of talking about the committee's exceptional work, and the different things that came up

One of the first points he talks about is the heated debate of the committee. I think, as parliamentarians, we are familiar with heated debate. I think it's a good thing for us. We are passionate about what we do. We're passionate about our ridings. We're passionate about policy. If we're not, then perhaps we're in the wrong line of work. If we're not passionate about what we do, we should not be here.

What he talks about here is that, despite this heated debate, over time members put aside their suspicions. Members put aside the idea that they might be out to get them. I think that's an important acknowledgement. He goes on to talk about some of the changes that were proposed. He highlights it right off the top. He says:

The achievement of the unanimous report and its adoption by the House was as significant as the actual changes which were put into effect under the provisional standing orders adopted for one year in December 1982. Members have proven to the public, but more importantly to themselves, that apart from an obligation each member has to his constituents, to his party and to his conscience, an equally-important obligation must be to the institution itself. As the recently retired British Speaker, George Thomas, told the Committee during its visit to London last January, “Parliament must represent every point of view, every interest and the aspirations of every citizen in the country if it is to do its job properly and if we fail in this work then Parliament fails and if Parliament fails then the country fails”.

I think that's a pretty powerful statement in terms of our duties as members of this committee going forward as well. We owe it to more than ourselves to ensure that we improve the institution, that we improve Parliament's function. I think we can do that. I think it is possible to come to a unanimous report. I'm not going to read through some of the recommendations that came from the Lefebvre report. I think they were well discussed elsewhere. I think they will be well discussed going forward.

I will only point out that the one proposal that I am particularly interested in is the election of the Speaker, which is then re-adopted by the McGrath report in 1986. I think how that was brought about is exceptional.

The unanimity is a point here, I think, considering, again, that it was in the 1980 to 1984 time frame that this committee existed, a fairly tense time in Canadian and parliamentary history. We were dealing with the aftermath of the first referendum. We were dealing with the patriation debate. We were dealing with a Conservative leadership standoff as well. It was quite a tense time.

Nonetheless, this committee, in its time, was able to find unanimous consent on significant changes to the Standing Orders. I think that's a worthwhile testimony to our duties going forward and to the motion and the amendments that are here before us as well.