Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2017

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

You said that we had entered into that study.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

No, that would have been this one, I think. Let me read it and see if this is the one. If it isn't, I'll hunt for it. I'm not going anywhere. You're a smart person. I take the question.

In conducting its work, the Committee attached importance to completing its study of the first two chapters of the CEO’s report and providing the House with its assessment of the CEO’s recommendations in a timely manner. The Committee, therefore, considers this report to be an interim report. In preparing its interim report, the Committee placed a priority on striving to achieve consensus among viewpoints; the recommendations made in this interim report were agreed to unanimously by members of the Committee.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Okay, so for that report we did, we placed a priority on coming to consensus, but it wasn't mandatory, so we tried to do the low-hanging fruit, as you referred to it.

In the other interim report that we had previously done on modernizing Parliament, we also didn't return to any kind of agreement ahead of time that said it had to be with all-party consensus.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Can I read....

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

We had informally—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

No.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

We had started the study, and, informally, as a committee, we had decided that we would once again to discuss the low-hanging fruit and to try to get all those ideas and thoughts together that we could have consensus on, put those out, and then get back to the hard stuff. That's what I recall working on.

I was disappointed with that interim report, because I was very passionate on a lot of issues. I thought there were so many good ideas that had been brought up in committee by experts, but they never made it into that report because we had decided at that time that we'd just do the low-hanging stuff that we could agree on.

We had never restricted ourselves and locked ourselves into talking about only the things we had unanimous consent on. We also thought we were going to come back to that study and after putting out the low-hanging fruit, we'd come back to the hard stuff.

This study that we're being asked to undertake through Mr. Simms' motion would just be a continuation of the Standing Orders debate, of that first interim report that we had put out, because we had talked about a lot of these things with the witnesses we had before us. Of course, we'd have to strive towards having all-party consensus. Nothing would seem better than being able to present a report to the House that we had consensus on. But how are we ever going to get to the hard stuff if we're always only going to agree on the easy stuff? We already put the easy stuff out. We did it. We talked about it being great, but what were the recommendations that came out of that? It's great that in the votes after QP, the government, the House leaders I guess, have already come to an agreement. Whenever they can come to an agreement, it's great that they do so and move the votes up.

That was something like a pilot project that the House leaders just started doing. We sat back, and we thought that this was a great improvement. Everyone was able to try it out a bit. Then after trying it out, we realized that this was accepted and efficient, and we didn't have to run back to our offices, have half a meeting, open up a book, close it five minutes later, and run back to the House again for a vote. This is effective, so this is a good idea. Trying things out sometimes can cause us to have that all-party support on a lot of things. I think that's an ideal.

However, we should still talk about things that maybe we don't have all-party support on. There's no harm in getting that discussion started. We had started it before, and I was disappointed after our interim report came out, because I had hoped for so much more to be in there. There were a lot of things that we needed to come back to and iron out the wrinkles a little more on. Maybe we could have even gotten all-party support, but maybe not. Maybe we could have a majority in the committee, and then we could have dissenting ideas. It could be put to the House. Maybe there could be an opportunity to try to see if we could have more than just a majority in the House on these rules. These are things that we could talk about going forward. They're options, but right now we are really limiting ourselves by not exploring those options.

That's my recollection. I know you're very proud of the work that we did before. I am proud of what we engaged in, the conversations, the discussions, and the witnesses we had before us. I bumped into some of those witnesses recently, especially the ones from Equal Voice. They are also very excited to hear that we're going to be revisiting this topic, and that perhaps some of the recommendations that they made before this very committee might be taken into consideration this time and find their way into a recommendation. Because at that time, that low-hanging fruit was really low-hanging fruit; it was rotting fruit. We had put it out there, and it was stuff that we had already been doing. The buses are a great thing. I know that you're very passionate about the buses, David, but that's not the hard stuff. The stuff that we put out was extremely easy. It wasn't earth-shattering. It didn't move. It didn't create for a modern, new way of doing things here in the House of Commons.

I think one of the recommendations was also, “oh, well, the House of Commons has also implemented a nanny service.” They've already done so, so let's continue with that program. We can put an endorsement, our seal of approval, that members of Parliament can pay for nanny service and have them on call, which would be done through the House of Commons. Once again, that's something that was already being piloted.

A lot of what we just did in that interim report was to just put our seal of approval on things. We didn't even scratch the surface of actually modernizing and making our time more efficient and effective here and in our ridings. As many of my colleagues have said, I'd love to get back to that. It's not a final report; it's an interim report.

We never made those types of conditions before when we started studying it. I know we keep talking about when the previous House leader came. I remember the House leader sitting here and talking about his mandate letter and the things he wanted to change. At that time we never said we were not going to engage in this conversation unless we had all-party support or unanimous support. We got to work.

We started talking about it. Within the committee we agreed to do the stuff that we could agree on right away and to get that out to the House. We were going to get our ideas on paper and then come back later.

That's really all I request, that we get back to it. Let's discuss something that's not the rotted fruit on the ground.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Doherty.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

With all due respect to Ms. Sahota, she started off her intervention by saying that we never agreed to unanimous support. Mr. Chair, we're talking about changing the Standing Orders under the guise of making life better for parliamentarians and making us more efficient. The reality is that, and I'll go back to it again, the Standing Orders are the rules by which we all play the parliamentary game. When you are about to change these rules, with all due respect, you should have, if the government is truly about making things better, or making life better for parliamentarians, unanimous support in how we're moving forward.

For Ms. Sahota to say that with all due respect, Mr. Christopherson, we never promised that we needed to have unanimous support, I think it just kind of flies in the face of the conversation that we've been having tonight. Again, going back to Mr. Badawey, and to some of the discussion we've been having earlier on, including an intervention by Mr. Arnold, Ms. Mendès, and me, I think we've had a respectful conversation tonight.

I have listened to some of the discussions before in this committee. It goes to why we're standing up and speaking the voice of Canadians, the people who elected us. Can the government, whether through this motion or whether through this discussion paper, through the things mentioned in here and in other ways, make what we do here in Ottawa more efficient?

I challenge you to just ask Mr. Simms about our fisheries committee. I came in like a bull in a china shop because of the things that I'd heard about our fisheries committee previously. I think we've done some incredible work. We work collaboratively. Do we agree on everything? No, but we find a way to work collaboratively.

I think that's all this is about. It's about trying to build that trust. Again, that trust has to come from us to the government. The government has to show that it is moving forward truthfully and that it has no ulterior motives. Right now, we don't see that.

With all due respect, Ruby, the comment you made, that we never promised or we never said that there had to be unanimous support, flies in the face of everything we're talking about tonight. It flies in the face of what Mr. Badawey asked, about why we couldn't have this respectful conversation right now, with dialogue going two ways, not just one way. As Mr. Simms said, it could be a “counter-buster”.

It should be aspirational that we have unanimous support; we should try to find a way to that unanimous support and not just have it hammered down our throats. Right now the fear is that if this motion is studied, and when it's studied with this paper that is here.... I think Mr. Christopherson mentioned the timeliness of both those documents being delivered. Mr. Simms stood in the House and truthfully talked about the timing of the paper versus the timing of his motion. That just leads the opposition—and in truth, Canadians—to fear. You just have to look at the media reports on this to see that you're not to be trusted. The government is not to be trusted.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Can I respond to that?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Absolutely.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I know that Mr. Christopherson's...but he's busy.

That word you just used, Mr. Doherty, I think is an excellent word, trust, but trust goes both ways. Maybe that's why it's taking us awhile to get anywhere. I also feel a lack of trust, having gone through that first study as well. There were many comments made by opposition members online and offline about wanting some of these changes but not having the ability to actually put that comment on the record—internally wanting it, but because of the politics of it, not wanting to admit to wanting these changes. There's a lack of trust that I now have with certain people because I have heard some things offline and other things online. Trust is important to coming to any kind of resolution in negotiation, and I think that trust is lost on both sides. It doesn't go just one way.

I know the government has to be trusted, and I agree with what you're saying, but there's a lack of trust for me as well—I can speak for myself, but maybe not for my colleagues on this side—because I feel that, although you may want certain changes, if we were to get to that process of the study, you would not allow those changes. You would not go on the record stating that you want those changes, just to be obstructionist.

That's just how I feel, so I'm putting it out there.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I'll be very quick, Mr. Chair.

You have the right to your opinion and your feelings. I'm respectful of that, but I'm telling you today that the opposition House leaders have all asked, and MPs have all asked repeatedly if we can have this debate, if we can have this discussion, and if our voices would be heard. Time and again we've been told that we will not have a veto, we will not have a say. That's why we're here tonight. That's why we've been here for how long—two weeks?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

It's to make sure. Maybe it does start. Trust has to start at some point, right? That conversation, healthy debate, and healthy discussion have to start at one point.

I can tell you that, if it truly were for the betterment.... I can only speak for myself. I can't speak for others. By now, most people in the House know that, if I believe with conviction in something, I stand and talk about it. Whether I'm going to take heat or not, I just speak my mind, whether it's politically correct or not. If I believe in something, if I believe it's going to make Parliament better and more efficient, I'm going to say it. I can tell you that we're all committed to this process here. It's why you have a lineup of speakers that is I don't know how long. It's not just to keep you guys here and the government here till all hours of the night; it's to make sure you hear our voices and our constituents' voices.

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

And that they continue to be heard.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Yes, and that they continue to be heard—that's the biggest part of it right there. We are elected to be the voice of our riding, our constituents, and Canadians. The fear is that right now, with the motions that are in place and the discussion paper, that voice will be lessened somehow—

[A voice]

Or lost.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

—or lost all together.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Mr. Christopherson, your rest is over.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes, well it was unexpected, so much appreciated, and incredibly helpful. Thank you.

This is an interesting discussion. I will respond to Madam Sahota, who made some good points. That's why I listened carefully, because I knew she would.

First of all, I would take a little exception. I'm not sure how many of the changes we recommended you could call rotted fruit, but I'm probably splitting hairs here. It is true to say that they were the things that we agreed on. I think it's also fair to say that there was some of it that didn't come as easily as you make it sound. We did have to struggle with it. We did have to ask our analysts for help, and we had to work at it.

That speaks to a number of things. It also speaks to the complexity and difficulty. A lot of these rules are not straightforward. That's why we have clerks and a full table in the House to advise the Speaker, because there are so many rules, implications, and precedent settings when circumstances arise that this is complex stuff. I know you don't mean to suggest that we basically did nothing because it was only things that we agreed on, but I would go halfway to meeting you in recognizing, and I think I made some reference to it, that the really hard work was still ahead of us, the things we hadn't agreed on. I will also acknowledge that we did not make a hard and fast rule that, from beginning to end, everything we do has to be in agreement. Neither did we say it wouldn't be. We just jumped in, and I suspect, in your raising that, you were, by comparison, saying that in some ways all you asked for here was an opportunity to go through these things, to see how far we can get, and then see where that takes us.

There are a lot of different answers. The one that comes to mind goes back to the beginning of my remarks tonight, that in both these instances, it was a respectful approach to this committee from the minister directly involved. In the case of the House leader, he personally came, gave us his thoughts, his rationale, and his reasons, and we were comfortable enough that there was nothing going on other than exactly what he said. Within days we started work.

This time, it was very different. There were no phone calls between the House leaders. Normally on something like this—and there is no pro forma process—there would be some kind of contact with the other parties to say they're about to initiate something. They're going to table a discussion paper, and they'll make sure we get it in an hour. I'm just making up courtesies that are extended on a regular basis from different parties that have been in power in different parliaments and legislatures. It's not unusual there. It is a goodwill approach for the government House leader to say, “I'm going to be tabling this thing at 4:00. I'm going to be sending to your office a copy of it at 2:00. This is our intent. Shortly after, you're going to see a motion from one of the members of our committee. Here's what it's going to say. This is what we're hoping to do.”

I mean, if the government was being consistent with previous approaches, that would have been the approach. As it was, at best, we didn't know. I'm on this committee, so I paid particular attention when I found out this document that the government had was sort of dropped from on high, a discussion paper. Okay, well, there's not a lot new there. We knew that the government wanted to do things in this area. We'd had this discussion. There was nothing new. I didn't see anything particularly evil in the fact that they just dropped it, but a little alarm bell went off. Then when the motion came out a couple of hours later, all of a sudden it was, “Whoa, wait a minute. What's going on?” Why the sudden change in approach, especially with a motion that includes a timeline that is not a recommendation or a request respectfully made by a cabinet minister but a hard deadline put in by a government member?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

That's not an aspirational end date.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes, in terms of striking what the mandate was, as my colleagues are saying. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to see how Mr. Reid felt that the first thing we needed to do was to get this clarified, because this looks different from anything we've done before. Room to give the government the benefit of the doubt was evaporated by the process that the government chose, so that's why we wanted the assurance.

Through you, Chair, Madam Sahota mentioned some interesting things. She talked about sunset clauses. If we actually got into a further discussion.... The first round, around the Friday, was sort of “You wanted it; we didn't”. It was kind of a big discussion, lopping off big chunks of it that left us clearly miles—or kilometres—apart.

Maybe if we took a second run at it, maybe—and this is the beauty of this kind of give-and-take, and the sort of thing that made Mr. Badawey say “Whoa, that was a fun discussion. I enjoyed that. It was stimulating”—the key ingredient that there be a sunset clause would be enough to allow us to try something, or maybe we could do something else imaginative.

You mentioned a pilot, which is the same sort of thing as a sunset clause. I'm not saying it is. I'm not offering up any negotiation. This is just pure speculation. The next thing you know, there will be a tap on the shoulder from my House leader, going “What are you doing, Dave?” I'm not negotiating the final agreement, but I am saying that it is entirely possible that, as people of goodwill, we'd get closer and closer. It might be that a pilot—and it might not be the pilot you're thinking of—might convince you that there is one aspect you want that we can live with, and we're going to throw a couple of other aspects in and ask you to accept them as a pilot and review at the end.

I don't know. I just know that if there were any chance for that kind of a co-operative approach with no BS, no hidden partisanship, no “gotcha”, nothing other than trying to find common cause, we might be able to.... I don't know, we might not, but I know that I would have taken it a lot differently if I had gotten an email from my House leader, saying, “Dave, just a heads-up: I've been contacted by the government House leader. There is a document they're going to put in the public domain. It affects the committee you're on. Here's what they're telling me their intent is. Here's the way we're expecting it will play out at the committee, and hopefully you'll be engaging with your counterparts in the other two caucuses to come to a quick agreement as to how we're going to approach this.”

Had something like that happened, could that have gotten us to where we were on the chief electoral reform? I readily acknowledge—there's a reason why you passed the bar—that you make a good point. We did not say that explicitly.

Nor did we say explicitly that the government reserved the right. We all just sort of jumped into it based on...goodwill, the goodwill that your House leader, Mr. LeBlanc, brought to this committee by the tone he raised. We felt comfortable enough and had enough trust that we would enter into a process in which we didn't believe anybody was looking at the endgame and playing a “gotcha” trap. We didn't.

As you know, we had not resolved that. I can tell you that I have had discussions with some government members about what that might look like when the day comes, and I've had some discussion with the official opposition about what that might look like. We hadn't resolved it, but we had enough trust that we went into the process and we didn't even touch it. We just said we were going to do the low-hanging fruit. We were only going to do the things we agreed on, and when we did that, we put it in a report, and we took some pride in the fact that we did it as colleagues, working together across party lines, and that we were all onside. Then we took a deep breath and moved to the next part.

Does that mean we wouldn't have gotten into something like this at some point? It's entirely possible that we would.

I suspect, though, had we followed the same process, it would be a little more muted and a little more focused and we would have been able to keep it within the committee, and by the time it got bounced to the House leaders, they would have found some kind of resolution. But it's still possible we could have ended up exactly where we are: with the matter unresolved. I acknowledge that is fair to say, in what may be the outcome. But I think it's also fair to say that had the government taken a very different approach, Mr. Reid may not have felt the need to ask for that assurance at the beginning. All this is speculation. We are where we are, but I'm just noting. Again, you made some very good points, pointing out the consistencies of the reports, but also what was implied in the approach, and you were correct. But I do think it's fair to point some attention to the approach the government took, and how you got a very different response when you used that old adage, “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”. The honey got you two reports and the goodwill to keep working. The vinegar got you this mess.

That would be my response to that, being as fair-minded as I can be, accepting that you made some very good points. I hope you'll understand that while it may sound like details, the trust issue was there in those two previous exercises, where we closed the gap between us from the get-go, and it held long enough to get us that far. It might have got us another two reports, and then in the ditch on the last one. I don't know; it could be. But by then, to be fair, that process would have got us feeling pretty good about what we'd achieved. We would have narrowed down what we disagree on and we probably would have found a way to disagree without being disagreeable, unlike now, where we not only disagree but the process is disagreeable. To me, that matters a lot, particularly when it requires us to put down all our weapons and caution in the face of a government that does nothing but think all day about managing its business. That's quite an achievement, that we had enough trust that we didn't ask for this kind of motion in the beginning because we didn't feel threatened. It's amazing the co-operation you can get when you don't threaten.

I thank you for your...yes, please.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

May I say one more thing?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes, sure.